Super Bowl

Very tired today as I stayed up until three last night to watch the not-quite-exciting Super Bowl XL. Fortunately for me, the game was being broadcast on the Yorkshire television station, which meant I did not have to go to some remote location to watch it. It was funny to watch it on a British network because we got less than half of the commercials that people in the States did. Instead of cutting to commercials with every break, we got commentary from a team on the sidelines (an ex-player and a British sports analyst) or from a BBC studio (a knowledgeable ex-rugby player, an attractive British newswoman and, of all people, the Eagles’ very colourful linebacker Dhani Jones - guess he wanted the paid vacation to London). Although Super Bowl commercials are generally pretty interesting and/or funny, it was nice to not have to deal with so many of them. Also, for our play-by-play we got the team of Daryl Johnston and Dick Stockton who I generally find more of a hindrance than a help. Johnston is the master of completely general and irrelevant commentary, while Stockton is always getting his facts wrong. Guess they pawn off the B-team commentators on the rest of the world...The half-time special with the Rolling Stones was quite tame compared to Janet last year, though Mick Jagger still gets around quite well for an old chap. And the game itself? I thought Big Ben Roethlisberger played a pretty crappy game, but he made some bold decisions which turned out for the best. The Seahawks dominated in almost every statistical category but they simply couldn’t turn out the big plays that Pittsburgh managed to. I’m rather impressed with Pittsburgh’s run up to the Super Bowl (defeating the top 3 AFC seeds on the road) and it was nice to see Bill Cowher finally win one. Hopefully Seattle will suffer the annual post-Super Bowl hangover, leaving room for the Eagles to dominate the NFC again.

And with that, I say goodbye to football for another six months, which means I have to start writing about music again. Too bad...