For me the big question when preparing for the Super Bowl party was simply: who to root for? It was hard to decide. At first I was thinking of picking the team with the cooler-looking uniforms. The Steelers are yellow and black, but they were wearing their away uniforms so it was more like yellow and white. Not as fun. And since they were playing in Texas for some reason, shouldn't both teams have been wearing their away uniforms? I guess Texas is a bit closer to Wisconsin, right?
So then I decided to look up all the numbers on the players' jerseys--those represent their power level, right?--add them up, and pick the team with the highest total power level. This was quickly defeated when my American football-savvy friends asked if I was counting all the players on the teams, or just the ones in for the season, or just the ones eligible to play in this game... I had no idea how confusing it was. How many players does an American football team need?
Quite a few, I learned. As the game began, the Steelers pursued a "war of attrition" strategy, taking out most of the Packers' defensive line. Were they going to run the Packers out of players? Would the Packers be forced to defend their lead with five guys by the last quarter?
So anyway, I apparently got invited to one of two Superbowl parties. The Packers one. That pretty much settled, if not which team I would root for, which team I wanted to win. Don't blame me, Minnesotans, it was the peer pressure!
But jumping back to before the game, that pre-game show was pretty exhaustive. I wasn't sure if they'd cut all the ribbons and sang all the songs they needed to to make the game officially on. Luckily we were enjoying fantastic food and each others' company. Which made it almost tolerable when the teams both ripped off two fantastic Guitar Hero/Rock Band songs for their self-promoting videos! And who was that cowboy they had narrate both of them? What a turncoat.
Apparently Christina Aguilera messed up the national anthem. I didn't notice during it, or when watching it on Youtube afterward, and eventually I had to listen while following along with the actual lyrics. Nice save. I doubt too many people noticed, right?
Anyway, back to the game. I don't really understand the rules of American football too well. Basically the teams run back and forth chasing the ball and trying to get it to their end, while beating the crap out of each other. And the Steelers were doing an especially good job of it. I kept hearing everyone groan and seeing another player getting hauled down the medical corridor. I don't think I'd enjoy American football, considering most of the players are twice my size.
How did that Ben whatever get to be a quarterback, anyway? His name is impossible to spell, and he has the lowest power level of anyone on his team! I guess it must only apply to attacking people and not to throwing, and he just left the clobbering to that guy with the bushier beard and 99 power level.
And the commercials! Excellent. For a while we rated them out of ten. I decided I liked the commercials more than either team and started rooting for them. The game was just the "commercial break", as in the break from the real show: the commercials. It was pretty funny when a completely ordinary Menards commercial aired in the middle of the high-budget ads. You'd think they'd try to do more with it.
I knew I was skipping the halftime show as soon as I heard it was the Black-Eyed Peas performing. Groan. Luckily I'd just picked up my old Sennheiser HD-201s from a friend I'd been lending them to, so I drowned the whole thing out in glorious metal. See my imminent music blog post on the mainstream. I saw a total of maybe 5 seconds of the show (all from checking if it was over) and heard about as much, so don't ask me how bad it was.
So anyway the Packers got off to a pretty early lead. Why did their endzone get painted green!? It was the right shade of green before it was painted! But of course the American Football committee or whoever controls the game--they're all fake, right?--couldn't have them washing out the Steelers, which was about when the beatdowns and injuries started. Things were looking pretty grim for the Packers going into the second half with their defensive players--especially some important Woodson guy--out of the game. The Steelers were starting to catch up. But the Packers managed to hold onto their lead until the last few minutes...
I've always wondered why, if the timer repeatedly fails to stop when the players are just walking around doing nothing, a team doesn't just stall it out. Well, today I learned why: it's lame and boring. That was a disappointing last minute. And so, through ingenuity, running around, and holding the line at all costs, the Packers won and got to touch a not-so-shiny trophy. See you next year!
Anyway, I think we can all agree who the real winners today were: those guys in the yellow pants. Also Brett Favre and all those commercials.
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