Here we are again - time for another "Super Sunday" that great national holiday when millions of people around the world gather in front of TV to view commercials interspersed with a modicum of football.
Super Sunday usually involves a six-hour pre-game show, a game that's interesting for around a minute, an embarrassing halftime show, a dull second half, culminating in "Hangover Monday" which almost always includes several unsettling news reports of guys (presumably in trailer parks) who stabbed their best friend the day before during an argument over instant replay.
Now, if you are not planning to watch the actual Super Bowl telecast let me briefly run through what will likely happen.
1. The super-long pre-game show will have touching profiles on the insidious diseases players had to overcome to play in the Big Game. To fill time eventually they're down to players who overcame childhood worms and "embarrassing rectal itch."
2. The game itself is usually over in about five minutes when one team's quarterback becomes so unglued from the pre-game hype that began in early October he throws his first pass to the peanut vendor in row 82.
3. By the end of the second quarter the game is so boring the TV cuts to six shirtless, fat, probably inebriated guys in the stands with one team's name spelled across their chests. People watching in Asian nations suddenly became very cocky that they can soon surpass us as a superpower.
4. The three-hour Super Bowl halftime show usually features a member of the Jackson family stripping off an article of clothing while 4,000 costumed children from all over the world, dressed like Boy George circa 1982, dance in unison.
5. To begin the second half the quarterback who choked to open the game is so nervous he vomits into his helmet in the huddle. Then he throws his first pass to the line judge. But by this time nobody cares because the score is 44-0.
6. At the end of the third quarter the score is something like 54-3. John Madden spends 20 minutes reminiscing about a cheese steak he ate in Philly in 1965.
7. By the beginning of the fourth quarter of the hundreds of millions viewers who tuned in at the start of the game 40 million have now switched to the Discovery Channel's special on the mating habits of the Australian Humpbacked Wallaby.
8. The fourth quarter usually features a commercial in such poor taste people watching in Bangkok and Amsterdam are offended.
9. A few minutes later the camera zooms in on a sleeping child in the stands. Nobody at home sees this, however, because those who stayed with the game are themselves asleep.
10. The post-game show involves presenting the Most Valuable Player, who probably has a fleet of Ferraris and Lamborghinis at home, a new car, typically something like a Volkswagen Jetta.
This Super Bowl has the potential to be even duller than usual since it features the best quarterback in the game, Indy's Peyton Manning, vs. the Chicago Bears and quarterback Rex Grossman, whose passing efficiency rating produces a number similar to what you'd see if a groundhog were allowed to take the SAT.
But I'm still excited, and I'll be in front of my television. It's not every day you get to see an Australian Humpbacked Wallaby mate.
