Unfocused Writing That Is Impossible to Title

The Super Bowl really should be an American holiday. Obviously, the basic criteria to be a holiday is that you get the day off from school or work (so the Monday after the Super Bowl should be a holiday), but there's important factors after that. Random and arbitrary traditions help solidify the strength of the holiday. That's why Labor Day isn't such a big deal. You get the day off, which is always nice, but there's pretty much nothing else after that. No gifts, no turkey, no ceremonies. (In fact, let's start up some Labor Day traditions, spice up this holiday a bit, and please don't suggest "stop wearing white"). I'd say even July 4th has some issues - sure, you barbecue and watch fireworks, but it's the middle of summer - it's the perfect time for barbecue anyways. If there were no July 4th, I bet I'd still eat barbecue 3 or 4 times in the month of July. It's not like without the holiday, suddenly no one would want to barbecue.

But the Super Bowl has all kinds of great arbitrary tradition. Fighter jets. Elaborate, expensive commercials. Seven layer dip (more on this in a minute). The elite TV time slot after the game (which really did great things for shows like "The Practice"). Something of this magnitude for our country should really result in a work/school holiday. The current system feels unpatriotic somehow.

Anyways, I had a very solid Super Bowl experience this year.

The Game: Not a well played game by any means, but all the random fumbling was exciting in a way, plus it's always good to be right. I had been saying the Colts would win by 14, and that essentially happened, save for the field goal the Colts could have easily kicked at the end of the game, but opted to just turn the ball over on downs. So it's always good to be right. Plus I vaguely dislike the Bears - I've mildly rooted against them my whole life for no particular reason, and I'll probably continue to do so. It's amazing how into the game I got considering I didn't care much about either team. Also, is it sad that I can name 50-some players in the game and where they went to college? Don't answer that.

The Food: Here's the HUGE upside to going to a Super Bowl party with a lot of girls, as I did. Homemade chili (which was delicious), fresh baked cookies right from the oven (also delicious), and my favorite, seven-layer dip. I don't think I've ever had a bad one in my life. Steve pointed out that anything with guacamole is guaranteed be fantastic, and I'd have to concur. I didn't really know for sure that anyone would be making dip, so I even went to the grocery store to buy the ingredients and make it myself. But I got lazy, and wound up just going home and risking it. Thankfully, someone did make dip, and my gratitude is difficult to convey in words. (Oh also, several of the girls knew a lot about football, so I don't want this to sound like I just used a bunch of people to get food - I didn't know people were going to cook, other than the chili).

The Commercials: Sigh. What happened to the good old days? The Nissan birds and the "Top Gun" theme song? Or Terry Tate, Office Linebacker? Or EDS and cat herding? Okay, maybe not EDS. I thought the Kevin Federline ad was solid, and a couple others were alright for regular commercials, but overall the ads were very disappointing. And you know who needs to stop making Super Bowl commercials? GoDaddy.com, that's who. I'm all for the "the premise of our commercial is 100% about showing you hot chicks" thing, but you've got to execute better. First, they need hotter girls. And secondly, if you're going to make your ad about hot girls, show them for more than 3 seconds. To top it all off, I don't think most people even know what that company does.

I guess I could rate other things, but that's enough. I've been rambling.