Un-Live Blogging the Super Bowl

5:42 p.m. - Indy just scored 3-0.

We're getting a late start today. I'm watching the Super Bowl on mute, and Betty White just got wiped out in the middle of a Snickers ad. And now OH NO! I just missed the Tim Tebow ad! "You didn't really want to see that," says Robyn. She's right. Probably best to see that one with the sound off.

5:45 p.m. - "There is something pretty splendid about the first sip of a bottle of beer," says Robyn. I don't think I could agree more.

We've been spending our Sunday both with a case of the sniffles. But other than that, things have been quite nice. We went out to breakfast at Hometown Buffet with some friends, went to the grocery store to buy beer for tonight, and did some laundry. Pretty average Sunday, actually. Now we're eating potatoes and watching Season 1 of Lost on Robyn's laptop while the Super Bowl plays on mute in the background.

I'm going to drink some beer and eat some potatoes. (Dropped the ball, Colston. That's not how you get the job done.)

5:58 p.m. - Manning is driving the Colts down the field. The Saints have been able to knock him down a couple of times, but they've given up three big, long runs.

First useless CBS factoid of the night: "Teams who score first in the Super Bowl are 28-15." (Touchdown Colts. Uh oh.... ) At some point, these statistics become utterly meaningless. "The team who leads at halftime wins so many times," or "The team who gains more yards wins so often." You know what? The team that outscores the other team is 43-0 in the Super Bowl.

6:10 p.m. - Start of the 2nd Quarter, Colts up 10-0. So far, we've seen two animals commercials, one starring beavers, the other starring a killer whale. (Why would anyone ever want to call them Orcas? Killer Whale is so much cooler. And if you want to see something awesome about Killer Whale culture, click here.) My money is on one of these animal ads winning the coveted Super Bowl Ad award. Whatever that is.

6:16 p.m. - Big sack by Freeney. He must be feeling OK.

6:17 p.m. - Colts 10, Saints 3.

6:19 p.m. - Marc Sanchez just gave us a PSA about women's heart health. And that's why the Trojans could beat the Gators any day of the week.

6:21 p.m. - Huh. Back-to-back "pantslessness" ads by careerbuilder.com and Docker's. I agree. Pants are fascist.

6:30 p.m. - One thing that I absolutely do not understand is the hype over the NFL Draft. Already, ESPN and the NFL are starting to promote this year's draft. But everybody knows that Tom Brady was a 6th round draft - you just have no idea which picks will pan out and which ones will be busts. (I'm even more miffed by the media attention for college football's "signing day.") If it were up to me, Mel Kiper and his helmet hair would be where they belong: doing the sports for WJZ Baltimore.

6:37 p.m. - "All I'm getting from this is that Real Men hate recycling." says Robyn. Both Dodge and Dove (WTF) have produced odd, "all men hate their jobs, wives, and families" ads. And Dockers, even, has their scary "Second Dawn of Man" campaign.

6:39 p.m. - 4th and Goal Saints. Watcha gonna do?

6:42 p.m. - Stopped! Props to the Colts defense on that one.

6:46 p.m. - Check it out. Another anti-woman ad, this one from FloTV.

6:51 p.m. - Colts 10, Saints 6, halftime. That was huge. The Saints are good - they can still win this game.

6:53 p.m. - Somewhere out there - maybe it's online, maybe it was in an old New Yorker, I forget - is an amazing essay about the philosophical differences between football and baseball. I've probably told most of you about it at some point. Football, for example, is a game governed by space and time. Each game is 60 minutes long, divided into four equal quarters. Every field is exactly 100 yards long, divided into ten, 10-yard segments. Baseball, on the other hand, is free from the constraints of space and time. A game will last as long as it has to (unless it rains) and every inning can last 90 seconds or 90 minutes. Every baseball field is also unique, with differing lengths from home plate to out field from city to city.

I also think that, somehow, football is a game of inevitability, whereas baseball is a game of possibility. I also think that The Who are old.

7:01 p.m. - Why was Pete Townshend playing an acoustic guitar? Is Roger Daltrey wearing a wig?

7:05 p.m. - For some reason I have more of a problem with The Who playing the Super Bowl then I did with Bruce Springsteen playing last year. Maybe it's because I think that Springsteen actually likes and pays attention to football, or at least that his public image. I don't believe that The Who give a damn about American Football. (Not that I'm saying that they should.) Also, I still have this image of Daltrey and Townshend running around west London circa 1964, dragging hooligans out of pubs and into alleyways, where they put a little bit of the ultra-violence on them.

I guess my main point is: Don't trust The Who.

7:22 p.m. - ONSIDE KICK! ... Wouldn't want to be at the bottom of that dogpile.... AND THE SAINT HAVE IT! That was awesome!

7:23 p.m. - A useful statistic: The Saints have played 26 of the last 32 offensive plays. But they only have 6 points to show for it. Will the Colts defense wear down? Or does it even matter with Peyton Manning directing the other team.

7:27 p.m. - TOUCHDOWN SAINTS!!! 12-10 New Orleans.

7:32 p.m. - Robyn: "Oh, yes. Let's strap on 50 lbs. of protective equipment. To play rugby."

7:37 p.m. - Wow. Peyton Manning is really good. Touchdown Colts.

7:39 p.m. - Is that Chevy Chase? He's old. Or in a wig.

7:47 p.m. - Puppy penalty! Illegal napping on the field! Wait, Robyn, go back. I want to see if the Saints score...

7:50 p.m. - Ew. Google wants to run my life. And now they're being open and honest about it.

7:51 p.m. - Colts 17, Saints 16. Close game.

7:55 p.m. - Either Jezebel.com agrees with us about this year's Super Bowl ads, or we agree with them. You say tomato, we say vodka.

8:05 p.m. - He missed! This game is getting pretty damn good. Here is Jezebel's take on the latest slew of ads:

Yet as the night went on, it became clear that White's spot was the first of many ads centered around emasculated males who needed to "man up" via various products. In this case, it was a Snickers bar, which turned White back into a male football player.

On the other hand, Emerald Nuts showed a refreshing blast of gender equality by having both men and women pretending to be dolphin slaves for a fiendish, possibly Satanic Sea World-style director. I love Emerald Nuts ads. (Have you seen the marine mammals videos yet? Do it!)



8:12 p.m. - 1st and goal, Saints.

8:13 p.m. - TOUCHDOWN SAINTS! New Orleans leads, 22-17! GOING FOR TWO! NO GOOD! THE BALL IS TURNING INTO A FAT, BALD GUY! IT'S NO GOOD! AND YOU KNOW WHAT WE SAY WHENEVER SOMETHING STRANGE HAPPENS! IT'S GOOD THAT BART DID THAT. IT'S VERY, VERY GOOD!

8:16 p.m. - Nice, Budweiser. Classy. Like I said, can't go wrong with animal commercials. (What's happening on Puppy Bowl, BTW?)

8:20 p.m. - Oh, snap! Call overturned, Saints lead, 24-17!

8:25 p.m. - On my new Facebook home page, Facebook has hidden my logout button. Because they can collect more data on me for their stupid sidebar ads if I never ever log off. Jerks.

8:28 p.m. - INTERCEPTION! TOUCHDOWWWWWNNNNNNN!!!!!! WAY TO GO SAINTS!

8:34 p.m. - OK, Manning. Three minutes, two touchdowns. Comeback of the century?

I must say, this is another in a long line of exciting, well-played Super Bowls. I remember growing up in the late 80's and 90's, during the days of Jim Kelly and the Buffalo Bills. Every year, the NFC would just wallop the AFC, to the point where you really had no reason to watch the game during the second half. Just for the record, here are the Super Bowl final scores from 1985-1995 (all NFC wins):

38-16, 46-10, 39-20, 42-10, 20-16, 55-10, 20-19, 37-24, 52-17, 30-13, 49-26.

In six of these games, the winning team scored more than twice as many points as the losing team.

And here are the scores from 2000-2009 (AFC leading, 7-3):

23-16, 34-7, 20-17, 48-21, 32-29, 24-21, 21-10, 29-17, 17-14, 27-23

In six of these games, the final score was equal to closer than seven points.

8:40 p.m. - Another interception? In the end zone? Offensive interference! Crazy!

8:43 p.m. - 4th and Goal. INCOMPLETE!!!! Through his hands, too.

8:49 p.m. - That's game! Final score: Saints 31, Colts 17. Congratulations, New Orleans. And, other than a few creepy commercials, I say that this was a great game! And to celebrate, please remember:

You can always depend on the kindness of strangers
To brighten your spirits and keep you from danger!

Now here's a tip from Blanche you won't regret:
A stranger's just a friend you haven't met!