Super Bowls of Dip

I decided to go fairly low key for the Super Bowl yesterday, just myself and a husband-wife combo … a fairly standard third party affair for yours truly. We happened to feature a variety of dips as the main course(s), which I think I’m now going to make the main staple for future viewing parties. The ability to graze at your leisure is of utmost importance at such events. Chips and dips are the ultimate grazing combos. By the way, if you’d like to read about the game itself, you are allowed to go elsewhere. Only vague references here in The Fun Car today.

Let me just start by saying that I’m glad I no longer drink Budweiser products after that display of not just one, but a series of utterly painful and uncomfortable horse commercials. You all saw them, and I know (hope) you were cringing at the same thing. The thick skulls at Anheuser-Busch decided to get cute and take their “iconic” horses and make them talk. Horses talking. Not funny talking … trying to follow 30-second plots and storylines. Who thought of this? One of them was even trying to make reference to the hardships of our ancestors’ immigration. With a narrator and a horse. The thoughts of the horse. Gosh that was just awful.

Which brings me to the good stuff. Best of the commercials was easily the one-second Miller High Life spot. If you didn’t laugh, you have other issues. If you didn’t see it, well, you blew it. You almost had to see it in the context of the entire commercial break, but here it is on YouTube.

Last note about the ads – are we back in the ‘80s with this 3-D stuff?

Onto a couple side notes that came up during the game. Did anyone else notice that huge patch on the left arm of Edgerrin James? I never saw a good, clean shot of it by the camera guy, which essentially allow me to really believe what I first thought: It was an oversized nicotine patch. Come on, you know Edge rolls with a soft pack of Newport’s. It just makes sense. He’d be taking pulls on the sideline if he could.

Moving on with a few other things I remember … noticing the rather pubic-hair-looking face of Troy Polamalu; wondering what barbells LaMarr Woodley uses for curls in the weight room because his arms are abnormally girth-y; dreaming that a combination of Anquan Boldin and Byron Leftwich would make me interested in the Bears next season; and wondering why I don’t have much material on John Madden after a four-hour broadcast.

Butler Road Trip

Have you ever been more bored during a game that was tied with under five minutes to play than Friday’s win over Valpo? Gosh that was difficult to watch. It wasn’t even a situation where I was sitting there worrying about whether or not Butler was going to pull it out. It was more just thinking if this was finally going to be the day were they laid an egg, similar to the game against Detroit a few weeks ago.

I personally don’t think Butler will stumble during the three-game, six-night road trip this week. But, if they do drop a game in conference play, I also think that this will be the time it will happen. Best chance of that will be tonight at Green Bay, a team that from what I’ve seen is the only group in the conference that can remotely compete on talent alone. And don’t get too big for your britches when the Dogs crack the top 10. How would you like to be going through the Big East right now? Ask Notre Dame and Georgetown.

Predicting the future is not really my thing, but sometimes it’s easy to see the biggest weaknesses. Weaknesses that will ultimately be the downfall if something doesn’t get fixed. I have two right now with this Butler team. One, Ron Nored and Co. driving somewhere near the free-throw line and not being able to see closed passing lanes (AKA dumb turnovers). And two, extremely poor shot selection – the wrong people taking shots too often and too early in the shot clock. I hope I’m wrong, I really do.

Tune in on Thursday and feel free to comment or e-mail me at thefuncarblog@yahoo.com. Another mailbag would be good. Cheers.