I’m sort of glad we’ve got football out of the way for the year. Don’t get me wrong, I really enjoy it, but I’m always glad when it’s over. I’m pretty sure most of the players who have had their asses knocked around for the past five months agree with me. I’m mostly glad, though, because we’ve got some NCAA basketball to look forward to, and then before you know it, baseball is here. First things first, though, because I still feel obligated to review this past Super Bowl. Oh, the game was just fine — great, in fact. All of the other crap surrounding it was once again just sort of bizarre.

First of all, let me just say that the multi-hour pregame coverage was all I could have expected and far more than I desired. Sure, it’s a big game, but trust me, few things in the world are important enough to talk about for that long. I’m sure many of the players have a very interesting personal story, and that’s great for them. It does, however, have nothing to do with football. I’m surprised they managed to stop short of showing us each player’s colonoscopy just to kill some extra time.

The other thing, besides the game, that I was mildly interested in was the halftime show. I really sort of like Bruce Springsteen. I like some of his music far more than most of it, and he somehow managed to play several songs that didn’t do all that much for me. I mean, I didn’t expect him to play half of my favorite album, Nebraska, or anything, but it seemed a little silly just the same. Fortunately, he didn’t “accidentally” expose Clarence Clemens’ tittie or sing the crowd-pleasing but misunderstood “Born in the USA,” so it could have been far worse. Regardless, it’s like my friend Matt once pointed out: “The halftime show is a flawed concept to begin with.” It’s amazing how much the producers of the halftime show go out of their way each year to prove him absolutely correct.

Strangely, many people tune in just for the commercials, proving my theory that we really just can’t wait for someone to try to sell us something. When I logged onto the Internet Monday morning, there was even a Web site set up where you could view all the commercials over and over again. Geez Louise, they even broke it down quarter by quarter. As usual, most of them tried to be funny, and most of them succeeded with stunning irregularity. I thought the Castrol commercial with the grease monkeys working on the guy’s car was amazing, but in all fairness, I truly enjoy watching a monkey do anything.

Conan O’Brien’s Bud Light spot was also really funny, mostly because he was making fun of the whole process to begin with. Another Bud Light commercial showed a guy being thrown out a window because he suggested they save money by not having Bud Light at their office meetings. I found this unbelievable. It wasn’t that they threw the guy out the window so much, which I could believe. I just can’t imagine a company that serves beer during staff meetings. If there is such a place, I would like an application.

Pepsi took us on a little ride through pop culture history and managed to show us that legendary Bob Dylan isn’t really opposed to being sort of a whore if the right offer comes along. He did that Victoria’s Secret thing a few years ago, and that had me shaking my head, but at least I suppose it softened the blow for this one. It doesn’t really bother me when some people do commercials, but Bob Dylan just seems like he should be above all that. I mean, it’s a soda pop; he can’t possibly have any convictions about it, right?

I’m guessing the most talked about commercials were the ones from GoDaddy.com. I’m still not sure exactly what the company does, but as far as I could tell from their entry, it has something to do with women being naked. The first one was three boys watching fairly hot racecar driver Danica Patrick on an Internet camera taking a shower. They only showed her naked from the neck up, so it didn’t do all that much for me. They also didn’t show any of the adolescents self-gratifying to this image, which I found completely unbelievable. Overall, I don’t have any trouble with the nudity, but I have a huge problem when I think I’m going to see some and then I don’t. Shame on them.

All in all, I have to say it was a satisfying kind of day, but that’s really only because it was a great game. All the rest of it really didn’t matter. Maybe I’m just crabby. OK, I definitely know I’m crabby, but either way, it should really come down to the game itself. I like watching football, but I must confess that I enjoy it a little less when it goes on for five hours at a stretch. These days, there has to be many different events wrapped around the main event, and it’s just all a little too much for the purist in me. Forget the commercials and the halftime show; I’d go to a Web site just to watch the game again. Sadly, I couldn’t manage to find any place that offered such a thing.