Sunday 5 February 2012

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5 Superbowl Questions

So this is it. It's Super Bowl Sunday, or as my wife calls it, "The best three hours of the year to shop". My daughters refer to it as "Puppy Bowl Day!", and my son calls it "The day the internet lags like crazy because everybody is trying to stream that stupid football game". Needless to say, I'm the only one who really gets excited about the Super Bowl, so guess which one of us isn't going to be home today? It's one of those promises I made to myself that if the Dolphins aren't in the Super Bowl, I'd work on Super Bowl Sunday. That way, when the Dolphins do make it to the Super Bowl, I can take all the extra money that I earned and use it to go to the game. Of course, it's been a while since the Dolphins went to the Super Bowl, and I probably already have enough money to go to the game. I'm now working on having enough money to rent a suite. Be nice to me, and maybe I'll invite you to the game when the Dolphins finally make it. Or maybe my grandkids will invite your grandkids. It could be a while.

What's your favorite food to eat while watching the game?
Photo credit: stef yau (Flickr account)
Americans are going to eat 1.2 billion chicken wings on Super Bowl Sunday. That's the stat that kind of blows my mind this week. Sure Tom Brady is going for his fourth Super Bowl ring, but he's probably not going to contribute anything towards the national wing count. I have to admit that I'm not the hugest chicken wing fan, although if you can make them hot enough I've been known to partake of a few, but I look at the 1.2 billion number and I think "Somebody is eating more than their share". It's not like wings are the only food available to eat on game day either. Pizza, subs, chips, dips, and 1.2 billion wings? Kind of makes the Diet Coke ads seem redundant doesn't it?

How many of the 1.2 billion wings can I put you down for?

What if I don't want to watch the Super Bowl?
I'm a die hard NFL fan. It's my absolute favorite sport, and you can believe that wherever I am today, I'll be checking in on the score of the Patriots/Giants game. My PVR, however, will be set on the Puppy Bowl. It is the absolute cutest thing ever, and sitting down to watch it with my daughters is one of the biggest joys of my year. Seriously, how can you not love a game that includes penalties for "unnecessary ruff-ness" or "illegal retriever downfield"? Sure it can lag a little at times, and the piggy pep squad is pretty lame, but every time they cut to the camera in the bottom of the water bowl I crack up. New this year is having an actual bird doing the tweeting for the live Twitter feed. It's television brilliance!

You're not going to miss out on the Puppy Bowl are you?

Do you plan on watching the Madonna half time show?
I long ago gave up on the half time entertainment at Super Bowls. It's not that I don't like the artists they choose. Some of them have been great, but they're just so restricted in what they're allowed to do that it makes the performances about on par with my kids first few years of piano recitals. I know Justin and Janet ruined it for everybody, but there's really nothing more annoying than watching classic singers going through the motions. Oh wait...there is something more annoying. That stupid ring of a hundred people or so that they get to stand in front of the stage and jump up and down. What the heck is that for? I understand the camera shot can make it look like a normal concert setting, but everybody can see the other 95 yards of football field that are completely empty. It looks really dumb, so either get rid of the crowd, or ramp it up to a couple of thousand people. And tell them to stop jumping. They all look like they have to go to the bathroom.

Is there an act that would actually get you to watch the half time show?

Has your team ever won the Super Bowl?
It's been a while. I've always been a Dolphins fan, but the Super Bowl wins were way before my time, and even the Super Bowl losses were too early for me to truly appreciate the pain. Since then there's been 28 years of missing the big game, and to be honest, that number is probably going to be increasing for the next little while. That's OK though, as there's plenty of teams with deeper despair than mine. So here's to all the Browns, Buccaneers, and Jaguars fans. Don't give up hope - There's always next year. On a side note: Buffalo Bills fans - There's not much I can say. You can go ahead and give up hope.

Who's your team, and should I feel sorry for you or should you feel sorry for me?

Which is better, the game or the commercials?
The infamous Super Bowl commercials. Some are certainly better than others (I'm partial to the Budweiser Clydesdale ones), but even the worst Super Bowl ad ever made (which by the way was the Holiday Inn sex change ad) is better than the junk they air up here in Canada. It seems that we get about a quarter of the same ads as our American friends, but after that we fill up our air time with ads for used car lots and government mandated Canadian television programs. I know that it's not really important since all the ads are available online already, but it detracts from the experience of watching the big game, and if I've got nothing else to do during the breaks, you can count on that 1.2 billion wing count going up.

Do you watch the commercials or is that just an opportunity to reload on snacks and pop?