Is It Safe to Come Out Again?

The Super Bowl was last night - won of course by the New York Giants, 21-17 over the New England Patriots.  Not to rub salt in it, but it seems that one Boston team is taking cues from another in how to lose, painfully, and in the final minutes, to a rival from New York.

Didn't watch much of the game.  I don't much care for football, and never have.  Never been to an actual professional game, and I think have seen exactly one of the Super Bowls since the Chicago Bears' embarrassing "Super Bowl Shuffle" song and music video made a sort of star from an enormously fat man who shares a name with a large, kitchen appliance.

A couple of thoughts on the "action" last night, such as it was.

1. The NY owner described the game, in a post-game interview as "one of the greatest games ever."  I wonder, though.  Is a game with a close final score necessarily "great?"  I know the Giants won on a score with roughly a minute to go, but the game seemed to feature many dropped passes, a 'safety' that resulted from a pretty dumb play by the New England quarterback, and a bunch of field goals.  The scoring pattern included nine points for New York (9-0), seventeen unanswered points by New England (17-9), and then twelve straight by the Giants, putting the final margin at 21-17.
   
   Not sure that that's a "great" game.
   
   
   
2. Is it just me, or is it silly and pretentious for Dan Patrick to refer, repeatedly, to the Super Bowl trophy as "the hardware?"
   
   
   
3. The New England coach (Bill Belichick) really looked like a guy who was on his way to coach a bunch of Pop Warner players.  Unwashed hair.  Ill-fitting, and frankly somewhat dirty-looking "Champion" brand logo sweat shirt.  He looked sort of like a bum, actually.  I guess the days of Tom Landry are really over.
   
   
   
4. The ads (one of the main draw-cards for the game, some alleged to cost $15 million for one minute) were pretty boring, and not at all innovative.  The Jerry Seinfeld Acura NSX commercial notwithstanding, to call them vanilla would be an insult to the most popular ice cream flavour.
   
   Most of the buzz today is about the politics of an ad by Chrysler, about how we are at "halftime in America," whatever that metaphor means.
   
   
   
5. Speaking of ads, what was Honda thinking, using Matthew Broderick (convicted of vehicular manslaughter some years ago) in a car commercial?
   
   
   
6. Best line I heard for the whole night came from my younger brother James, who (upon seeing pop music's Portrait of Dorian Gray doing the half-time show), "Bea Arthur looked pretty good for a 90-year old woman.  Wait.. What?  That was Madonna?"
   
   
   
7. Now that the foolishness of football is over, we can start our focus on something a lot more important.
   
   Pitchers and catchers report to Spring camps in about three weeks.
   

Woo hoo!