How about them ads?

Before and after every Superbowl there is some type of discussion of commercials and how good of a job advertisers do. In my opinion, the last two Superbowls have been busts in terms of advertising in that I felt there was a dearth of good and humorous commercials. This year, there were several excellent advertisements. My favorite ad is one of the Doritos commercials that has got to be one of the best commercials I have seen in my life.

Here it is:

No Longer the Ain'ts...Who Dat?

The New Orleans Saints beat the the Indianapolis Colts in Superbowl XLIV. The Colts were favored by 3 with the odds from InLine, however, few could refute that the Saints and the Colts were the two top teams going into the playoffs. This Superbowl was sure to be interesting and the Saints certainly delivered New Orleans a night to remember. The New Orleans Saints franchise had been one of the worst franchises over the years such that they used to be referred to as the Aints in the 80s and 90s. Prior to today the Saints had never gone to the Superbowl. Tonight the Saints could rightfully call themselves the best team in the NFL after beating the Indianapolis Colts by a score of 31 to 17.

Bumper Stickers

A bumper sticker never written: "Better to walk a blind dog than have it walk you."

Something Magical about A Capella

It seems as if just recently I have been exposed to the world of a capella. Almost randomly I came across a video from the Voca People, a professional a capella group. Needless to say, I was more than impressed. This triggered me to look more into a capella and realizing that there are hundreds of brilliant professional and non-professional a capella groups all around the world making music and rhythms without any instruments. Good a capella seems to take beat boxing to a whole new level. There are several a capella clips that are quite impressive that can be found on video sharing sites such as YouTube. Here is a clipe from a group performing the theme song from The Simpsons.

Avatar for the Experience

Rating 8/10



There has been a lot of deserved hype about the movie Avatar. While I am by no means a fanatic of fantasy or sci-fi movies, I was definitely impressed with Avatar. Avatar is a movie that is more of an experience than a motion-picture. The visual effects used in Avatar seem to be unreal for the 21st (or even the 22nd) Century. Avatar is the first blockbuster to use non-animated three-dimensional effects. I would recommend this movie to anyone if nothing else but its visual effects. Nonetheless, I enjoyed more than just the effects, the plot was good albeit a bit cliche. Avatar has some striking similarities to the movie FernGully: The Last Rainforest. I know this seems like an odd comparison, but it really shouldn't be. Like Avatar, FernGully involves a human who comes into contact with an outside land of creatures. Not only that, but the land of FernGully is about to be destroyed by humans. I would be shocked if the movie FernGully never crossed the minds of the makers of Avatar...but do not get me wrong, I much preferred Avatar. My only two criticisms of the movie are: Avatar is overwhelmingly cliche and (while limited) the foul language seems gratuitous. Overall Avatar deserves a 8 out of 10 and is worth seeing before it is no longer in theaters.

19 Seconds of Happiness

Photo Courtesy of AP Photo/Dave Martin

Today the Cardinals played the Saints in what would unfortunately be the last game of the Cardinals post season. This game was expected to be tough for the Cardinals, but I bet few if any could have expected the game to go as it did. Cardinals fans around the nation had a burst of excitement during the first 19 seconds of the game as Cardinal's runningback Tim Hightower had a long rushing touchdown on the first play of the game; however, the excitement would quickly end as the Saints quickly answered back with a scoring drive. Shortly after the Cardinals would be down for the rest of the game...quite depressing considering the Cardinals' offense was virtually unstoppable against Green Bay. Ultimately the Arizona Cardinals lost to the New Orleans Saints 45-14. While there is not much more to say, one thing that should be mentioned is that the Cardinals were disadvantaged with injury. Few players were 100% particularly in the backfield with Rolle and Rogers-Cromartie having to come out early. Additionally, Anquan Boldin and Hayes were unable to play throughout the game. The Saints on the other hand were able to have plenty of rest and were far less banged-up through injury.

AZ Cardinals Come Up Big in Offense-Heavy Game

The Arizona Cardinals beat the red-hot Green Bay Packers tonight in an offensive battle. The Cardinals won 51-45 in overtime a score that set the record for the highest point total in playoff history. Both quarterbacks Kurt Warner and Aaron Rodgers had outstanding games; however, Kurt Warner won the battle as the Cardinals defense were able to force a fumble from Aaron Rodgers which was returned for a touchdown. The Cardinals now must face the New Orleans Saints on Saturday.

College Football Wrapping Up

The big BCS championship game between #1 Alabama and #2 Texas is tonight which will conclude this postseason for college football. So far some bowl games have been a blast and other have been a bit of a disappointment.

The Alabama-Texas championship game is sure to be interesting, but the TCU-Boise State matchup in the Fiesta Bowl set the bar extremely high for exciting bowl games. After successfully pulling off a very unexpected fake punt on 4th and nine Boise State can be considered the best team at executing trick plays in college football (let's not forget the hook and lateral and statue of liberty from the 2007 Fiesta Bowl win over Oklahoma).

Here is Boise State's fake punt a few days ago in the Fiesta Bowl:

Cannot Blame that One on the Fans

Boston College has a tradition of a pretty strong football program. One criticism of Boston College is that they play extremely well at home and very poor on the road. This year Boston College went 8-4 during the regular season with only one home loss and three road losses. People point to Boston College's inability to travel well as a cause for Boston College's disappointing road record. A few days ago Boston College played in the Emerald Bowl against the powerhouse University of Southern California. I flew to the game from Arizona to watch this match-up. I am a die-hard Boston College football fan who was unfortunately surrounded by USC fans (go figure, USC didn't even have to cross state boundaries whereas BC is 2700 miles away). It was an enjoyable game in that Boston College kept it close through halftime; however, it seemed as if Boston College athletics gave up a little in terms of team support. For whatever reason, Boston College decided not to send the band to the game. One of the things that makes home games so much fun is chanting the fight song after touchdowns and shouting other cheers such as the awesome first down cheer which looks particularly awesome in the student section at home games. While it is always hard to top home football games, a lot of the excitement definitely lacks when a team decides not to travel with their band.

A Day of Upsets

Yesterday in the NFL there were two very large upsets. The two top teams in the NFL, the Indianapolis Colts and the New Orleans Saints lost yesterday. The Indianapolis Colts were undefeated going into Sunday’s matchup against the New York Jets, but the Jets managed to pull-off the upset spoiling the Colts’ undefeated season. Probably even more surprisingly, the 2-12 Tampa Bay Buccaneers beat the one-loss Saints in overtime yesterday handing the Saints there second loss of the season. Not to mention, the Bucs beat the Saints on the Saints home field.

Fortunately, upset city did not hit Arizona as the Cardinals demolished the St. Louis Rams yesterday 31 to 10 giving the more wins then they had during the regular season last year. In fact, this is the first time the Cardinals have had a 10-win season in the last 33 years.

A Breath of Fresh Air

This afternoon, the Arizona Cardinals played the 2-11 Detroit Lions. While the first half did not go over extremely well, the Cardinals still managed to grab a hold of a 17-0 lead at halftime. Unfortunately, for the Cardinals they would lose that lead in the third quarter where the Lions managed to score seventeen unanswered points to tie the game up. However, the Arizona Cardinals were able to answer back in the fourth quarter thanks to the impressive running game of Beanie Wells. In the end the Cardinals were able to win 31-24 which gives them a 9-5 record. The player of the game in my book is definitely Beanie Wells who averaged 6.5 yards per carry with a total of 110 yards and one touchdown run.



Image By: AP Photo-Carlos Osorio

The Sports Rundown

I know I have typically done sports rundowns on Fridays but there is so much that has happened in sports and it has been a while since I have done a rundown so here it is.

*After an auto accident information on Tiger Woods' personal life leaks out revealing that he has cheated on his wife with multiple women. This has caused strong reactions against many of his sponsors including Nike. Public perception has also shifted while he is not a felon or anything, Woods has become one of the guys who is an outstanding athlete but cannot be looked to as a role-model.
*Bobby Bowden forced to retire after another unsuccessful season at Florida State. It is really unfortunate Bowden had to retire a year early considering how much he had done for the football program at FSU. Bowden was the second-most winningest coach in college division-1 football behind Joe Paterno.
*The five Heisman Trophy candidates have been announced and among the the candidates is defensive tackle Ndamukong Suh of Nebraska. He is one of the few defensive players to ever be nominated and will be among an even smaller handful if he wins the Heisman.
*Alabama will be playing Texas in the college football Citi BCS National Championship Bowl.