Giving Up on Gophers

A lot of Minnesota Gopher fans checked out after the blowout loss to Ohio State. Can't blame 'em either. It's been a miserable season of missed opportunities and poor execution.

However, I was surprised to see Yahoo missing scores for the last three games. As proof that I captured the image recently, look at the dates on the other schedules.



In case you are wondering, Minnesota fired Tim Brewster October 17 after a loss to Purdue. Interim coach Jeff Horton finished the season 2-3. After Ohio State, the Golden Gophers lost 8-31 to Michigan, but they wrapped up the season with consecutive wins--38-34 over Illinois and 27-24 over Iowa.

A current team report on Yahoo! Sports begins, "Here’s some advice for Minnesota’s video department: Save all video from Games 1, 11 and 12 for the archives. Then burn everything in between." Maybe Yahoo was also too embarrassed by the OSU results to continue posting scores.

2009 Superbowl Commercials, Part 2

A little later than planned, here are the five commercials left out of my commercial post.

Taco Bell made me laugh in January 2009. When they aired the commercial a week before the 2010 Super Bowl, I realized I better get typing. What was the ad? A man meets a woman at a party. She gives him her phone number, "You should call me sometime." "Absolutely," he responds. Before she can cross the room, her phone rings. The voice says, "Hi, it's Mike...from the party." She turns to see him wave. "How about dinner?" "Uh, okay." She still has her phone at her ear when he appears with two Spicy Chicken Enchilada Platters. As they are eating, his parents arrive to be introduced. "Oh, is this her?" Mom asks. Ha, ha, I laugh.

Careerbuilder.com knows it can be hard to know when you need a new job. This ad fit perfectly into the failing economy that bottomed out in October 2008 and March 2009. Read the following rules like the 12 Days of Christmas (start with one and layer on the others one at a time):

• If you hate going to work every day (women screams and pounds her steering wheel in the company parking lot)
• If your coworkers don't respect you ("Hey, dummy.")
• If you wish you were somewhere else (riding a walrus in the ocean)
• If you cry constantly (guy standing alone at the bus stop)
• If you daydream of punching small animals (a koala wearing glasses and drinking coffee)
• If you sit next to this guy (wearing just a speedo in the office and clipping his toenails)

...it may be time. If you make loads of money, it may not be time. But if you make loads of money, hate going to work every day, etc...it's probably time...as a rule.

GoDaddy.Com used baseball's steroid controversy as the basis for their commercial. "Reporting live for G-Spin, hearings on enhancement are about to begin, and the answers we want--who does, who doesn't, and who's telling lies. Let's go into the courtroom." Three women demand that they have not enhanced. R. Calmeros pointedly held her ground. R. Lemons claimed her accuser, admitted enhancer J. Cornflako, "mis-remembered." English was not the primary language of S. Knowso, but she giggled when a member of the panel asked her, "Que es tu papi?" ("Who's your daddy?") Danica Patrick happily admits that she enhanced. "Yes, it's true. I've enhanced my image with a domain name and a website from GoDaddy.com. GoDaddy is the worlds #1 domain registar. They offer websites, hosting, email, and more all for less than $1 a month." Cornflako stands up, "Enhanced? I'll show you enhanced." Then the TV version ends. The online version shows all of these women opening their blouses to expose their GoDaddy.com logo tank tops (because they enhanced). The courtroom erupts in applause, and one panel member is seen breathing oxygen. "There you have it. The truth is out. Danica Patrick and millions more are using domain names and websites from GoDaddy.com to enhance their images and businesses." Even the reporter enhanced.

WeAllPayThePrice.Com. I think this was a local ad. "How much does smoking really cost? Last year, smoking cost Minnesota nearly $2 billion in health care. It also cost Emily her mom." These are dollars from the tobacco settlement at work.

Another local ad, Twins Baseball shared a little humor at the construction site of Target Field. The security guard allows vehicles to enter as they bring the lumber, bring the heat, provide electricity, and paint the corners. The trucks are labeled M & M Lumber, Joe & Frankie's Heating and Gas, T.C. Electric, and Staff Painting. The guard asks the people in a fifth truck, "Let me guess. Air conditioning?" "No," they say. "We're just fans."

While I previously referred to these commercials as my favorites, #1 actually goes to Hulu. Hey, the site works. I reviewed most of the national commercials again through their video service.

2009 Superbowl Commercials, Part 1

With a new round of $2.5 million advertisements just around the corner, let's see how many you remember from last year's Super Bowl. Some of them lasted longer than just the first week. Many were forgettable.

Mr. and Mrs. Potato Head promoted Bridgestone tires. As she nagged him on the winding mountain road, a herd of mountain goats required a sudden stop. Her mouth fell out and down the cliff, and he drove away in silence with a smile while she switched to her angry eyes.

Bridgestone later used astronauts. After a little fun on the moon, they return to their rover to find it on concrete blocks and the tires removed.

Budweiser had three spots. In one, a dalmatian fetches sticks; jealous of the attention, the Clydesdale horse fetches a log. In another, a white circus horse falls in love with a Clydesdale, and the Bud horse chases the train through city and country to find her. The final Bud ad showed a horse immigrating to the U.S. in 1933 and trying several jobs before finding his calling in the Budweiser hitch.

Bud Light aims for humor instead of sentiment. One showed Conan O'Brien doing an outrageous and embarrassing ad for Bud Light in Sweden that is shown on the big screen in Times Square. Another was so uninteresting, my only note was "skiers." Add a little lime, though, and you get a bubble of summer in the middle of winter.

Speaking of Conan, NBC promoted his transition to the "Tonight Show" with celebrity endorsements. NBC also previewed their Thursday night schedule as a cause of LMAO Syndrome. And since Super Bowl Monday's episode of "Chuck" was in 3-D, a three minute block during halftime featured 3-D ads for Sobe Life Water, "Monsters Vs. Aliens," and "Chuck."

Pepsi used some video clips from then and now to show how generations are similar (especially in their love for Pepsi). On the other side of the spectrum, SNL's McGruber took a break to drink Pepsi, which he called "Pepsuber." The commercial for Pepsi Max said that men can take anything except the taste of diet cola (until now).

Coke Zero played on the classic "Mean" Joe Greene ad from 1979 with Troy Polamalu limping down the hallway when a kid hands him a Coke Zero. Executives stop him. Polamalu tackles the executives and throws a white button-up shirt to the kid. During other spots, Coke presented their "Open Happiness" campaign and showed insects stealing a bottle of their product while a man sleeps at a picnic.

Doritos put on a contest to get their commercials. #1 - A man's snow globe is his crystal ball. He throws it at a vending machine to get free chips. Asking it, "Will I finally get that big promotion?" he throws the crystal ball and hits his boss in the crotch. "Promotion? Not in your future." #2 - The power of the crunch causes a girl's clothes to fall off, an ATM to spew cash, and a cop to become a monkey, but the guy is hit by a bus when he runs out of chips.

Some quick hits:
+Pedigree showed odd pets--an ostrich, a cow, a boar--and suggests, "Why not get a dog?"
+H&R Block showed Death going through a second review on his tax return.
+Teleflora hand delivers flowers because you don't know what flowers in a box might say, including "Go home to your romance novels and your fat, smelly cat."
+For Priceline.com, William Shatner fed lines to a husband as he convinces his wife on a vacation idea.
+Hulu.com (where you can find videos of the ads) kicked off their campaign "An evil plot to rule the world...Enjoy!" with Alec Baldwin.
+E-Trade kicked off their series of commercials featuring a baby getting rich from online stock trades.
+Nextel showed how their walkie technology would help roadies or delivery people run the world.

There were trailers for the following movies: "G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra," "Year One," "Land of the Lost," "Star Trek," Pixar's "Up," Race to Witch Mountain," and "Transformers 2: Rise of the Fallen." The other common advertised products were automobiles with seven ads from Hyundai, Audi, Toyota, and Nissan (without counting Bridgestone, Castrol Oil, and Cars.com).

Five other commercials deserve more space for full descriptions. While the Doritos and Bud/Bud Light commercials received high ratings from me, but these last five were my favorites.

After I get these last ones written, I hope not to take a full year to discuss the 2010 commercials.

RunOnSpeech

Minnesota Timberwolves president of basketball operations David Kahn held a press conference to introduce his newest player. Read the following excerpt from a Jim Souhan column in the Minneapolis Star Tribune (9/16/09).

Kahn went after [Ramon] Session to replace [Ricky] Rubio, at least temporarily. How does Kahn feel about that draft choice now?

"Right now, I feel like we did the right thing," he said.

He was just warming up.

Get comfortable, this is going to take awhile.

The following actually escaped from Kahn's mouth in one long sentence: "And I feel like, the way this played out this summer, it became even more apparent to me that his value, because of what he has already accomplished as a professional, and the way he plays and the buzz around him, will mean that the value that he has will hold, and that however we choose to exploit the value--meaning whether he's in our uniform or somebody else's uniform, and I really hope he's in our uniform, by the way, but I also have to acknowledge that I don't know what will happen over the next couple of years--but clearly at that position, there wasn't anybody else we could have taken that could have helped us for the future of this franchise like he could have whether he's here or elsewhere, and so I think you can make an argument down the road--I'm the first to say that five, seven years from now, we may be able to go back and look at the draft and clearly point out that it was the wrong thing to do."

And breath...

I think that last section could qualify as an entry in the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest, where writers compose a single wretched sentence to open the worst of all possible novels. Compared to the expectations for his NBA team in 2009-2010, he might even rank higher in the writing contest.

In case you are unfamiliar with the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest, it is based on the following selection:

"It was a dark and stormy night; the rain fell in torrents--except at occasional intervals, when it was checked by a violent gust of wind which swept up the streets (for it is in London that our scene lies), rattling along the housetops, and fiercely agitating the scanty flame of the lamps that struggled against the darkness."
--Edward George Bulwer-Lytton, Paul Clifford (1830)

AL Pitcher Hits Grand Slam

It's a good thing the Twins traded away two-time Cy Young Award winner Johan Santana. Don't look at what the Twins received. Look at the sorry state of the Mets. Although players acknowledged their own inability to win, manager Willie Randolph was fired after the team posted a 34-35 record.

I do not want to write about the Mets in general. My focus is Johan Santana. Although he leads the Mets with 7 wins, 2.93 ERA, and 95 strikeouts through June 23, there is one major blemish on his stat sheet--14 home runs given up. The long ball had been an issue during his years in Minnesota (24 in 2004, 22 in 2005, 24 in 2006, and 33 in 2007). When you throw the ball hard, the ball flies farther with good contact. The most notable home run of 2008 came in his most recent outing against Seattle. Playing an interleague game at a National League park meant the American League pitcher was in the batting order. Mariner pitching phenom Felix Hernandez came to the plate with the bases loaded and hit his first home run since Little League. See the recap and box score. Hernandez just closed his eyes and hoped to make contact, yet he hit the first grand slam by an American League pitcher since 1971. That is why the Twins are better off without Santana.

2008 Super Bowl Commercial

Finally, two months after the big game, I compiled my review of those expensive advertisements. I was surprised by the number of spots filled with commercials I had seen before February 3. I am also surprised that some commercials have not airs again since February 3.

Favorites (in order of appearance):
Apple: MacBook Air. The laptop computer so thin it fits in a letter-sized manila envelope. I sing along every time I see this commercial.

Bud Light: Wine and Cheese Party. Men show up at a high-class party with beer concealed under a fake block of cheese and hollowed-out baguette. Cheese run, anybody?

Tide: Outspoken Stain. I honestly tried to understand what the interviewee was saying, but that stain continues to steal my attention.

Budweiser: Training Hard. After one Clydesdale fails to make the wagon team, a Dalmation trains with the big horse. See, it doesn't take 30 seconds of idiocy to sell beer.

Bud Light: Pick-Up Artist. Foreign accents and broken English get women as long as the vocabulary includes "Bud Light."

T-Mobile: Hang Up, Chuck! Dwayne Wade badly wanted to be in Charles Barkley's Fave Five. Now Wade can't get a moment of free time.

Pepsi: Justin Timberlake. Call be what you want, but I didn't know that was the man who brought sexy back until the final voiceover. However, it was funny to see him hit that mailbox.

Doritos: Mousetrap. Who expected a man in a mouse costume to break through the wall to get the Dorito placed on a mousetrap?

E-Trade: Infant Investing Parts I & II. Stock trading is so easy a baby can do it? Then he spits up! With his money, the baby rents a clown although he "underestimates the creepiness factor."

Coke: Charlie Brown Wins. The Macy's parade balloons get loose. Stewie from "Family Guy" and Underdog fight for the Coke bottle. After an intense competition, the final frames show the winner--Charlie Brown.

I missed a few commercials during/after halftime because I was busy playing Wii. Those possibly funny ones include Vitamin Water: Shaq the Jockey and Bridgestone: Running over Richard [Simmons].

Looking through the list of commercials, I realize why some of them haven't been shown again. They also make you wonder why a company would spend $2.5 million for a 30 second advertisement. Some companies such as Budweiser (Training Hard) and Coke (Charlie Brown Wins) have cash to spare and other commercials they can show later. Other companies are unheard of except at the Superbowl (Sales Genie, GoDaddy.com, Cars.com). The other commercials are unspectacular or just plain stupid--Audi: The Godfather Redux (A guy follows a trail of oil to find a greasy bumper in his bed.), Planters: Unibrow (A women with a unibrow wears cashew residue as a perfume to attract the men.), and Amp: Power Up (Jumper cables attached to a man's nipples. Disturbing.).

One final "commercial". While it could be deemed an advertisement for the National Football League, this spot was as heartfelt as Budweiser: Training Hard. Chester Pitts shared his story of a grocery bagger becoming an NFL star.

2008 Super Bowl Ads

The 10 best Super Bowl ads here.

The 10 Worst Super Bowl ads here.

Or start at the beginning of the game and walk through the ads in order of appearance here.

All links are courtesy of Fox Sports on MSN.