I came. I saw. I ate XLVIII pounds of nachos.

The year? 2014. The place? The Bischer Estate in picturesque Kenmore, NY. The event? I just finished the Lego Star Wars video game on XBox 360. The consequence? My fiancée is shooting daggers at me with her eyes and may or may not be brandishing a knife. Time for a change in plan? Yes. Welcome to the XLVIII edition of my annual Super Bowl running diary.

I am legally obligated to credit the format to Bill Simmons, Esq. of Grantland.com, a site you should all frequent daily.

sb48
We start, as always, with this year’s official Super Bowl logo. The generification (I’m maintaining that’s a word) of the logo several years back has my nostalgic side yearning for the colorful, in-your-face logos of Super Bowls past. Woe.

Continue reading “I came. I saw. I ate XLVIII pounds of nachos.”

Not Super so much as "Lacking Wattage" (LOLZ)

I am an old man and can’t stay up past midnight anymore writing; whether that be Lost recaps, diatribes on the lack of monkeys in government, or the annual Super Bowl diary. Rest assured, I will have it up here at some point tomorrow. In the meantime, gather ’round your water coolers and talk about the lack of any standout commercials and the refreshing vanishing act Ray Lewis pulled in the 2nd half. Until tomorrow…

Welcome back, one and all, to the annual tradition that’s going to be heavy on Tweets, bullet points and my patented shorthand and light on insightful commentary, witty repartee and actual football analysis. Expect lots of links to YouTube videos as well. Let’s get started!

sb47
Again, who made the decision to go with these “every year a generic p.o.s.” logos? Like many of football’s current ills, let’s blame commissioner Roger Goodell.

Continue reading “Not Super so much as "Lacking Wattage" (LOLZ)”

SupercalifragilisticBradyisatrocious

Welcome to The Wayward Cynic’s annual running diary of the great American pasttime’s holiest of holy days: Super Bowl Sunday the 46th! I will cover the game, the commercials, the chips, the dips and the beers, all from the comfort of the Internet.

super bowl xlvi
I miss the old, every-year-a-new-logo format these new logos woefully lack. Woe.

Continue reading “SupercalifragilisticBradyisatrocious”

Super Timez

Welcome to The Wayward Cynic’s annual running diary of America’s favorite pasttime: eating mass quantities of dip. Also, I’ll talk about some football as the valiant Packers take on the morally questionable Steelers in Super bowl XLV!

super bowl xlv
The always-imaginative Super Bowl logo is excited about something

Continue reading “Super Timez”

Gueax-ing to the Super Bowl

In what’s become an annual tradition right up there with Christmas and the Bills firing a coach, herewith is contained my latest Super Bowl running diary. The site is Joe Robbie Stadium in Miami, FL (I’ll be damned if I’m going to call it “Sun Life Stadium” adorned on the vinyl banners all over the place when the company just bought the naming rights a few weeks ago) and it’s the offensive juggernaut that is the Indianapolis Colts versus the team that’s captured the imagination of an America ready to root for an underdog from a city decimated by a natural disaster just a few short years ago, the New Orleans Saints. That was a hell of a run-on sentence, folks; let’s get started.

super bowl xliv

Continue reading “Gueax-ing to the Super Bowl”

Super; thanks for asking.

Welcome to another Super Bowl Sunday, America. Despite my presence being required at a Super Bowl party with some friends, I vow nonetheless to bring you my trademark coverage featuring pithy commentary and scathing criticism of everything NBC puts on the air. There may be some good football as well; let’s hope.

Super Bowl XLIII

Continue reading “Super; thanks for asking.”

WOW

Ignore the title and pretend the game hasn’t happened yet, so you can enjoy my Super Bowl Running Diary; a post idea blatantly stolen from ESPN.com writer Bill Simmons (who thought the Pats would blow the Giants out in this game)! All times are Eastern, as this site fully endorses the East Coast Bias™ inherent in all professional sports coverage.

Super Bowl

Continue reading “WOW”

More chimps in suits, please.

INDCHIPeyton Manning, he of the famous “Peyton Manning face,” finally found the validation he so desperately wanted by winning a Super Bowl. His Hall of Fame legacy now cemented, he can ride off into the sunset to do 68 more commercials about cutting meat and cheering on his accountant while wearing fake porn mustaches and drinking Gatorade.

Manning

Continue reading “More chimps in suits, please.”

Xtra Lame

Super Bowl XL

Well, Super Bowl XL turned out to be a real bomb. Thinking back to last night, and I’d be hard-pressed to come up with more than one or two postives about the whole broadcast. The pizza I ate was pretty good, though.

I didn’t catch too much of the pregame, but what I saw of the ceremony honoring all of the past Super Bowl MVP’s was pretty cool. Conspicuously absent were Terry Bradshaw and Joe Montana, the MVP quarterbacks of the Steelers and 49ers, respectively. I come to find out, today, that they both declined to be part of the ceremony because they wouldn’t be paid enough. Montana wanted at least $100,000. What a joke. I don’t think I’ve ever heard a bad thing about Montana, so this is stunning to me. It’s further evidence of the old adage that all athletes care about is money. It doesn’t matter who you are, or what status you hold in the sporting landscape, money is the primary motivator.

Regardless of that, the ceremony was nice. That was then followed by a Dr. Seuss introduction, featuring Harrison Ford, clearly in the middle of an acid trip. Who thinks of this stuff? How did the meeting where this was formulated go? Was everyone actually on drugs, and thought it was a good idea to have a commercial with Harrison Ford on drugs, introducing the Super Bowl? Come to think of it, maybe that guy with the goatee, wild eyes, and earring wasn’t Ford at all; maybe it was Timothy Leary.

The National Anthem was a little iffy as well. All I could think of while Aaron Neville was moaning was Horatio Sanz’ portrayal of him during Saturday Night Live, and his obsession with cocoa butter. Aretha Franklin is fat.

SeahawksSteelers

On to the game itself, then. Finally, something to cut through all the endless hype and interminable build-up and rampant commercialism (I like adjectives). And the game sucked. Both teams were basically begging for the other to go ahead and take charge, and neither did until Pittsburgh pulled out a trick play in which their quarterback-turned-wide receiver Antwaan Randle El threw a bomb to WR Hines Ward for the touchdown. It’s probably a bad sign when a wide receiver has a better night at QB than your starting QB (Ben Roethlisberger), who had a 22.9 QB rating. But despite his horrid performance, he got plenty of help from the refs and a bumbling Seahawks team (see the end of the first half for the height of time-management incompetency), and now has a Super Bowl ring.

Big Ben
Big Ben shares his underarm odor in an effort
to describe his Super Bowl performance

The other highlight of any Super Bowl broadcast is usually the commercials, though I think they’ve been pretty lame the past several years. This year was no exception. How do these ad execs have jobs? These companies spend over $2 million dollars so we can watch a bunch of idiots dressed up like lettuce and tomatoes jump on each other? Other high/lowlights:

  • The Magic Fridge: probably the best commercial of the night.
  • FedEx Caveman: another good one; violence and irrational behavior are always good for some yuks. Yuks…ha.
  • Pepsi Can: Jay Mohr as an agent for a Pepsi can: this was the worst of the night; seriously, Ad Execs, even after you guys filmed this–you watched it and thought it was worth putting on the air? “Brown and bubbly?” Really?
  • Careerbuilder.com: if I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a thousand times: chimps=comedy gold.

    Chimp

  • Movie Trailers: There are usually a few good movie trailers during the Super Bowl, but not this year. The only one worth mentioning is V for Vendetta, which looks like it has the potential to be a really unique and interesting hit later this year. Other than that, nothing worth mentioning.
  • Gillette Fusion: we need FIVE blades now? I can feel my jugular quivering in fear already.
  • Pretentious Car Ads: has a $2 million Super Bowl car ad ever made someone actually want to buy a car? Nothing says “buy me” like a bunch of supermodels being lifted out of a mercury-filled vat, followed by an Escalade. Hunh? Who’s watching these that can afford a brand new Escalade anyway? The only people who can afford them are actually at the Super Bowl, so they can’t see the damn commercials!

The rest of my night was spent playing some darts and watching some TV doctors talk very seriously about a “code black” on Grey’s Anatomy. I’m still not sure what a “code black” is, but I think it had something to do with bad, melodramatic overacting, as that seemed to be prevalent in the situation.

All in all, a Super night.

Okay, that last line was really lame, but I was attempting to tie it into the whole Super Bowl theme. Wait a minute, I just called the last line “lame.” The title of this post is “Xtra LAME!” YEAH! I’M AWESOME!!