THOUGHTS I HAD WHILE RE-WATCHING SUPER BOWL XLIII ON DVR

...and other thoughts I had while actually watching it live at a party but was too busy partying to jot down.

Actually one of my favorite moments of the day was during the pre-game Obama interview when Lauer asks about the Blackberry. I loved the Prez's deadpan, matter-of-fact "It turns into a car." How freakin' cool is this guy?

6:15--Faith Hill LIP-SYNCHING "America The Beautiful". Isn't the actual national anthem bad enough? Do we really need a 2nd?

6:16--One of the added bonuses of wireless microphones: No need to run all those wires out there to fake like they're not Milli Vanilli-ing it. You can just set up a mic stand and a dead mic now and nobody's the wiser. The mic could be made of chocolate for all we know!

6:17--Sully and the crew of Flight 1549 get a well-deserved round of applause. WTG folks!

6:19--Jennifer Hudson's turn to LIP-SYNC. Bleah. She's gotten way too skinny. Where's the badonkadonk? Egad. Not only is she over-singing it on the tape, but she's actually over-lip-synching too! My lack of god I fucking HATE HATE HATE American Idol! The *ONLY* good thing to ever come out of that travesty is that retarded Chinese dude ("She bangs! She bangs!").

6:21--Sheesh, I can see her back teeth. Oh, and then she ends by fake-panting like she's just SOOOOO out of breath after that. COME THE FUCK *ON*!!! Too bad she wasn't in that house when the bullets were flying. (What, is that too harsh? Fuck you, it's what I do.)

6:27--Gen. Petra-e-i-e-i-o-us does the weakest coin toss I've ever seen. John McCain could've tossed it higher with his bad arm! (Best coin toss of the year: the one that bounced off Brian Urlacher's helmet. Doink!)

6:33--Long completion from Big Ben to Hines Ward. Injuries, bah! My Steelers shake off injuries like a bad case of fleas!

6:38--Apparent Big Ben TD is challenged by Ken Whisen-Cunt. Whis is just being a dick because Ben didn't want him as head coach.

6:39--First commercial break. The Ad Bowl begins! Bud Light. Guy gets thrown out of a window. They're kind of ripping off their own gag, remember the satin sheets? Then a movie ad (yawn) and a car ad (yawn). Movie and car ads during the SB always suck.

6:42--TD overturned. This is just revenge for 3 years ago.

6:43--FG Steelers, 3-0.

6:44--Pepsi "Forever Young". Rather hokey and at times outright stupid. Shrek is the new Gumby? Maybe. But Will.I.Am (ugh, what a lame stage name) is the new Dylan and Jack Black is the new Belushi? PUH-LEEEEEEEEZE! Give me a large personal break with pepperoni.

6:45--Doritos "Crystal Ball". The guy grabbing the bags out of the vending machine has no acting skill. Otherwise a good job guys. I was pleasantly surprised when this ad beat Budweiser in Ad Meter XXI. And to think this ad cost only 2 grand. (For slightly less than that I could have gone to the game. And I guess I should have. Pardon me while I kick myself yet again.)

7:01--That was a quick first quarter.

7:02--Bridgestone ad with the Potato Heads. Cute. Funny.

7:03--Castrol "Grease Monkeys". Hot monkey love. Eeww. Castrol: The #1 bestiality lube?

7:06--Doritos 2nd ad. This was my pick for best commercial. Crunch gives man superpowers, until he runs out of chips and gets hit by a bus. I'm glad Doritos won, but they should have won for THIS one!

7:07--GoDaddy "Danica In Shower". Oy. I really wish she'd stop acting like a whore and just drive. How are we supposed to take her seriously? And let's be honest, she lucked out in the Japan race. Win or no win, looks like she's still the Anna Kournikova of auto racing.

7:08--TD Steelers! 10-0.

7:09--Pepsi Max "I'm Good". After the last Doritos ad, this pales in comparison.

7:10--Pedigree "Exotic Pets". Good tag line. "Maybe you should get a dog" to promote their adoption drive. For their next ad, how about some Obama family lookalikes?

7:11--Budweiser "Fetch". I was shocked by this. Usually when Bud has the first spot of the game, they run this sort of pandering cutey-cutey Clydesdale crap and easily win the Ad Meter with it. Instead they went with the standard slapstick. And got out-slapsticked!

7:12--Budweiser "Clydesdale Love". Again, they were too late with the pandering crap. I still expected one of these to win. Glad I was wrong.

7:18--TD Arizona. 10-7. Ruh roh. I was hoping for a good old-fashioned SB blowout.

7:23--Cars.com "Overachiever". Bad idea using the MasterCard voiceover guy. Kept waiting for the "Priceless" tag line. (I recently learned that's Billy Crudup from "Almost Famous". He had a better tag line in that: "I'm on drugs!")

7:34--Hyundai "Angry Competitors". "Win one little award and suddenly everyone gets your name right. It's Hyundai, like 'Sunday'. Say what? Who the fuck still doesn't know how to pronounce it? Don't call me a gourd-head!

7:35--E-Trade "More Talking Babies". Ugh. Okay, we get it, talking baby/animal visual effects are really cool now. It's been about 5 years now, we fucking get it already!!! What you guys don't seem to get is that talking babies are still creepy!

7:41--Tip drill! Big Ben's pass is tipped and picked. Tipped passes are almost always picked. I hate when that happens.

7:42--Teleflora "Boxed Flowers". Talking flowers, on the other hand, especially when hurling insults, are damn funny as it turns out. "Go home to your romance novels and your fat, smelly cat!" This ad should have finished much higher in the standings.

7:43--Leno at 10 promo. NBC: The first ENTIRE network to jump the shark! The long, gradual Melmackian curse ALF put on them when they cancelled him is now entering its final stages.

7:49--The momentum shift in the game at this point, from Pitt to 'Zona, is palpable. Not good.

7:50--After I've had a few Smirnoff Ices, my niece Melissa asks me if I'm buzzing yet. She thinks my eyes are red enough that I am, but it takes a lot more than Smirnoff Ice to get me even the slightest buzz.

7:51--James Harrison's epic 100-yard INT return! WOOOHOOOOOOOO!!!!! I leap up to celebrate and get a bit of a head rush. Okay Missy, NOW I'm buzzing!!! And the mo instantly shifts back. 17-7.

7:55--And like every great (and indisputable) play in this game, it takes 4-5 minutes to review it and make it official. Bit of a buzzkill, zebras.

8:06--Here comes Bruce...his addressing the home viewers is a good, funny start. No lip-synching here. Go Bruce!

8:10--"10th Avenue Freeze Out" and "Born To Run" bring my buzz back.

8:18--Having the ref come out and throw the 'delay of game' flag is another nice touch.

8:19--Ol' Bruce is still one of the best in the biz. Great performance. Sure as hell beats Up With People.

8:47--Big Ben has done some fantastic scrambling tonight. At times he puts Fran Tarkenton to shame. (Though not as much as "That's Incredible".)

8:57--FG Steelers. 20-7. Largest deficit overcome to win SB: 10 points. I'm feeling good about this.

8:58--Careerbuilder.com with the most annoying ad of the night. Can you say 'too much repetition'? "And a partridge in a pear tree". Make it stop! BEEP!!!

9:06--Usama Young's "Snow Cone Story". These NFL story ads are not a good idea. If you're at a loud SB party, you can't hear the story.

9:16--Hyundai (How is that pronounced again? I'm stoopid). Ah yes, the Hyundai "Assurance" Program. If you lose your job, you have Hyundai's "Assurance" that they will REPOSSESS YOUR CAR! Gee thanks, Hyundai, I feel so...assured. Yeesh.

9:17--Coke Zero "Polamalu Parody". Coming into the game, this was my favorite to win. And it was very good, very funny, but I felt it could have been better and funnier somehow. Doritos set the bar pretty high.

9:18--Cash4gold "McMahon and Hammer". Sad and pathetic. Hammer's an idiot, I expect this from him. But Ed? Oh, Eddie Mac, how could you? I may have to put him on my death team after this.

9:23--Vizio. The lowest-scorer in Ad Meter this year, and for good reason. Nothing but prick-waving. Please don't spooge all over my TV, thank you.

9:25--TD Arizona. 20-14. Eep. Bad mo shift.

9:26--Hulu "Alec Baldwin". Ick. Ever since that voicemail, he creeps me out. Ick. Even malevolent aliens bent on world domination and turning people's brains to mush don't call their daughters pigs. Ick. Go away now. Ick. You and your greasy hair. Ick.

9:33--Pepsi "McGruber". Painfully unfunny parody. Why was I not surprised to learn it's from SNL?

9:43--Almost a safety. Yikes.

9:44--Great throw and catch, but...holding. Safety. 20-16. More mo shift. I have a bad feeling about this.

9:48--TD Arizona. 20-23. Their first lead. Now I'm PISSED.

9:49--Fitzgerald watched himself on the jumbo vision while he ran. Seems a tad narcissistic.

9:51--Well, here we go. 2:30 left and 78 yards to go. Now or never. C'mon guys, do it for Myron Cope...

9:52--Ben scrambles again, dumps off to "Waltzing" Mewelde Moore. Holding penalty. Now 2:24 left and 88 yards to go. Oy. Ben scrambles again, completes to former Buckeye Santonio Holmes for 14 yards. Quick snap before the warning, incomplete. 1:56 left, 74 yards to go.

9:55--3rd and 6. Complete to Holmes. Move the chains. Tick tick tick. Complete to Toledo Scott's own Nate Washington. Move the chains. Tick tick tick.

9:56--Ben scrambles to the 'Zona 46. Timeout, 1:02 to go.

9:57--Andrea Kremer sideline report. The realization strikes me that she and Suzy Kolber are the female equivalent of Dave Despain and Gary Lee. I cannot tell them apart.

9:58--2nd and 6. Complete, Santonio runs it to the 5! O-H! I-O! Timeout, :49 left.

9:59--1st and goal. Pass to Holmes in the left corner, incomplete.

10:00--2nd and goal. Pass to Holmes in the right corner, behind 3 defenders...

There was only one way to top the Manning-to-Tyree play from last year...and the Steelers found it! Talk about extension! Greatest catch in SB history.

And like the "Levitating Leap" and the "Circus Catch", this one needs a good, catchy (pun intended) nickname for all eternity, and I think I have it, because the winning catch by the first Buckeye SB MVP gives it a whole new meaning:

"HANG ON SLOOPY!"

10:02--Review confirms it. 27-23. :35 left.

10:09--After a few anti-climactic plays, game over. Six-burgh!

10:11--Everyone who worked on the NBC sound crew during this game should be FIRED IMMEDIATELY. I lost count of how many times the sound cut out completely or Michaels and Madden sounded like they were using tin cans and string.

10:20--Namath brings out the trophy. He seems sober tonight. If I'm wrong, Andrea Kremer better run and hide. Or is it Suzy Kolber? Whichever.

10:26--Roethlisberger is the shiznit. You gotta love that kid. I remember watching the '04 draft, hoping that as that year's 'plummeting pick' he would fall into the Steelers' lap. (And it was deja vu for me, because the same thing had happened a few years before with Rod Woodson, who just got inducted into the HOF. Now I know I'm getting old.)

10:30--Andrea with James Harrison. Her first question should have been "Have you gotten your breath back yet?"

10:34--Matt Millen's postgame comments. I must give a big shout-out and huge kudos to WDIV, Ch. 4 in Detroit, for running the following crawl every time Millen appeared on screen Sunday:

"Matt Millen was president of the Lions for the worst eight-year run in the history of the NFL. Knowing his history with the team, is there a credibility issue as he now serves as an analyst for NBC Sports? Will Detroit fans ever forgive him for turning the Lions into the worst team in football?"

Way to go WDIV! You guys are awesome!

10:38--Interview with loser QB Kurt Warner. Already in a suit and tie. WTF? Is he on his way to a board meeting? (And I notice he makes no mention of his imaginary boyfriend God when he loses.)

10:40--Costas is right with this closing comment about the 6-time champs, "who now rank perhaps as the model franchise in all of American sports." And good night from Tampa!

And let's not forget...the last one was for my late brother Louie. This one was for the late great Myron Cope! Til next season, keep your Terrible Towels waving! Sextuple YOI!