We stayed home last night and watched a good part of the Super bowl, or at least I did; my wife is not a fan of American football, considering it barbaric. I tell her it's good for male gladiator instincts. Then "Downton Abbey" came on P.B.S., and we are hooked on that soap opera of upper class life in England before and during World War I (or "the Great War", as it was known). I willingly switched over during the Super Bowl halftime show, which was much ado about nothing. I also knew, if I missed part of the second half, I could turn on another TV or later switch to ESPN and catch the major highlights, which, sure enough, I was able to do.
It was obviously a good and exciting game, and Eli Manning showed that he is definitely among the elite quarterbacks in the league. Brady looked good, too, under considerable pressure, and a couple of missed passes, especially one by the always reliable Wes Welker, spelled doom. You can be sure with little time left that Eli inevitably finds a way to pull a passing miracle out of the hat and will win.
I still gasp at the cost of Super Bowl ads, which are now in the three million range. I guess it's worth their while, but sponsors have to gulp occasionally at the prohibitive cost. With a couple of exceptions and noting that I may have missed a few when I switched channels after Madonna, I did not think most of the ads were exceptional. I can't remember which company it was (I'm an adman's nightmare!) had the funny ad about the kid dying to go to the bathroom who ends up back in the pool creating Lake Urine. I believe it was some Tax service, but I'm not sure. I realize it is a huge audience, and it must be cost-justifiable for some companies like Bud, Pepsi and Coke, but my parsimonious soul shudders at the cost.
My luck as a prognosticator held up: I predicted it would be the winner of the 49ers-Giants game and said it would be the Giants. That and ten bucks will buy me a Starbucks super deluxe latte and cookie.
Good on you, good predictions. I wanted the Giants to win but wouldn't have bet on it. Eli has stepped out of the shadow of his big brother.
ReplyDeleteI didn't see any of the ads but my wife watched most of them. She thought the best was the dog who finally took off chasing the Volkswagen.