Pardon the BloggEruption

Super Post-Mortem

As I stated many times (though not on this blog ... damn worm), Tampa Bay's defense totally shut down Oakland's elderly offense. Supposedly the core of the Raider team will return for the 2003 season, though I'm given to believe that Gannon, Brown, Rice, Romo, and the Woodsons are too physically worn out to be a major contender again. In my preseason predictions, I thought that age would catch up to them this year, but I'd be really surprised if it didn't next year.

Speaking of preseason projections, let's score it! (Correct predictions in underlining, semi-correct predictions in italics.)

*	North	South	East	West	Wild Cards
NFC	Green Bay	Tampa Bay	Philadelphia	St. Louis	San Francisco	Washington
AFC	Pittsburgh	Indianapolis	New England	Kansas City	Miami	Tennessee
NFC Championship		Philadelphia over St. Louis
AFC Championship		Pittsburgh over Tennessee
Super Bowl XXXVII		Pittsburgh over Philadelphia, 23-14

Hmm ... 4 exact division winners, 7 playoff teams out of a possible 10, and 2 of four conference finalists. I'll give myself a B, compared to the A for Pitt's season.

Going back to the Super Bowl, the best commercial was, by far, "Terry Tate: Office Linebacker." Though it was quite humorous on its own, what elevated it to the level of classic commercial was the Office Space reference: "You know you need a cover sheet on your TPS reports, Richard! That ain't new, baby!" Coming in second place was the Budweiser "Instant Replay / Zebra" commercial, proving that you can get great entertainment out of recycling and mixing old material and cliches. This was not a banner year for commercials, lacking any signature ad or series of ads ... this could be because we have already had two objectively great commercials this year, in the Miller Lite "Girlfight" ad (the late night cable version is even more classic) and the Nike "Streaker" spot.

I'm going to give special recognition to Gatorade's "Mike vs. Mike" commercial, largely for effort. Perhaps I don't remember the young Jordan as well as I should, but there were times I couldn't buy the effects. The idea of the commercial is great, and the tag is even better, but I think the technology wasn't all the way there.

As for the halftime show, I caught about five seconds of Shania Twain before switching over to the SNL halftime doohickey. The Hardball sketch was funny, but then again, almost anything involving either Tracy Morgan or Al Sharpton is. Combine the two, and you are guaranteed laughs.

(Pardon the Blog-Eruption, but ... Darrell Hammond is a great impressionist, perhaps even on the level of Phil Hartman. What made Hartman great, though, and what is keeping Hammond from reaching that level, is the level of nuance and exaggeration. Hartman was less nuanced in his impressions -- he would merely grab a trait or two and exploit it. Hammond seems dead set on fully impersonating his targets, and though he does a great job of inhabiting whomever he is playing, he doesn't make the role his own. When you think of some of the characters Hartman did on SNL, it is impressions like Frank Sinatra and Bill Clinton that immediately come to mind. He made those real people his own characters ... those of you who have done more than a smidge of acting, and particularly sketch type comedy know what I'm referring to. I just don't see that kind of ownership in Darrell Hammond's impressions, with the sole exception of Chris Matthews and "Hardball." Unfortunately for Darrell, not enough people know all about Chris Matthews to be able to appreciate it.)

The absolute best part of the SNL halftime show, however, was the fake commercial mocking the NFL Playoff commercials by Don Cheadle (aka, "The Poor Man's Denzel Washington"). Remember, "they made lasagna ... into the playoffs."

After the game, I had zero interest in watching either any of the postgame festivities (whoop-di-doo), or "Alias." Perhaps it's just that ABC seems to deliberately target my demographic and all the things I watch/browse, but I've never seen a network consistently try to hype a show for as long a period a time as I've seen ABC promote "Alias." Sorry, folks, it just looks plain boring. And who on earth decided Jennifer Garner was either "hot" or the new "it girl"?

I was, however, highly interested in watching "Jimmy Kimmel Live," largely thanks to some ABC hype and through reading The Sports Guy's columns on ESPN.com, and I was not disappointed. Jimmy Kimmel. Live. With Snoop Dog as the week's co-host. What more do you need to know?

Actually, it was quite refreshing to see a new talk show not in the tired style of the "Tonight Show." Kimmel mentioned in certain interviews that he wanted it to be a combination of things, including Letterman's early years and the old "Mike Douglas Show." The latter reference was truly appropriate, I think, what with the rotating co-host job and the fact that, since it's live, guests are likely to remain on the couch throughout the entire show, as opposed to invariably leaving on the other, taped shows. Perhaps it was just the atmosphere of being post-Super Bowl, or perhaps it was just George Clooney's vodka, but there seemed to be some real interaction between all of Snoop, Clooney, Sapp, and Kimmel last night. No, you're not likely to get anything earth-shattering or incredibly revealing, but it looked like they were having fun. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the key to a good late night show -- fun. Guests and hosts should have more of it, much more often.

That's it for now, tomorrow or Wednesday I really need to update Chez Steiny, considering I've cooked upwards of a dozen new dishes since the last update. Suffice it to say, however, that my original Texas AnChiPo Chili and Houston-style fajitas will be there. I'll save the lamb and stuff for later, when I make it again. Unfortunately, my grad school schedule is such that I don't have nearly the time or opportunity to cook as much as I'd like to. Very sad, indeed.