Super Bowl Commercials

So I was finally really impressed with the Super Bowl Ads and that's good because it makes it a show you never need to stop watching. You're equally excited for the game as you are for the ads. But there were several good ones this year.

I think the funniest one was one for NBC shows and it was about people who were losing their butt's and had to go to the hospital. They were suffering from "LMAO" or laughing my ass off. It was really funny and I laughed for a good time after that.

There were also several movie commercials and really good ones at that. One was a Transformers 2 preview that had every one in the room hushed as soon as it began. Excitment flowed through the room as it played. Also there was a preview for a GI Joe movie starring Dennis Quaid, and it looked really good. The action looked really good for a story like that. And finally there was a preview for Monsters vs. Aliens that was really only good for the 3D.

Along with that preview there were two other 3D commercials. one was a preview for Chuck tomorrow which is going to all 3D. But the real good one was a Sobe one which was really noticeably 3D through the whole ad and it had several instances where it looked as if something was flying towards you.

The most common ads were either Dorito's ads, Coke ads, or Budweiser ads. The Dorito's and Coke ones were all extremely funny, but not very memorable. I only remember that they were funny. The Budweiser ones on the other hand, were all very memorable. There were all the Clydesdale horse ones, which were funny, but I just don't really like those commercials cause I don't like those horses. But the Bud Light ones are hilarious. There was one with an office guy suggesting they don't have bud light at their meetings, then proceeded to get thrown out the building. There was also another with Conan O Brien that I don't want to even try to describe. Lets just say he decided to do an ad, in the ad, that was a little risky.

There were several others that you can find here and you will enjoy pretty much every single one. http://video.yahoo.com/network/100076996

Pittsburgh

Superbowl 43 was won by Pittsburgh. yay... Bear with me because this post my be a little angry since i HATE pittsburgh. I didn't really realize i hated them so much until this game when i started despising them more and more. Watching it as I type, I think the only player I truly like on the team is Hines Ward. That's it. But that's not to say it wasn't a good game. It was a great game. An amazing game. Maybe one of the best in Superbowl history. There were hard hits, long plays, a great comeback, and a few broken records.

The only score in the first quarter was a field goal by Pittsburgh. In the second quarter is when they started to pull away. They scored on a one yard run to bring it to 10-0. Then the Cardinals scored on a short pass play to bring it to 10-7. It was looking for bright for the Cards when they were in the redzone with a few seconds left in the half. That's when Pittsburgh's Harrison intercepted Warner and ran it back 100 yards for a touchdown. That was the longest play in superbowl history. It was not a good ending to the half and the score at the end was 17-7.

The third quarter made it only worse with Pittsburgh kicking a field goal to widen the lead to 20-7. Then in the fourth quarter, the Cardinals got another touchdown from a pass from Warner to Fitzgerald. Then after a penalty on the goal line, Pittsburgh was given a safety to bring the score 20-16. Then with two minutes left, Fitzgerald caught a long ball for a touchdown, 20-23. If they won, it would be the biggest comeback in superbowl history. Too bad that then the Steelers drove down the ball in a minute and a half to score again with a pass to Santonio Holmes in triple coverage. When Cardinals tried to pull off one more drive, the ball was hit from Warner's hand for a fumble and the end of the game

Super Ad

The Superbowl is one of the most if not the most watched program in the United States annually. But most Americans don't tune in for the game. Most watch for the little breaks from the game : the commercials. Over the years they have gotten better and better and they have also gotten that much more expensive.

This year some companies have taken that to their advantage. Miller is doing a one second add. Yup that's right. One second. They're hoping this generates publicity and becomes an extremely efficient ad while only spending a little bit of money. It consists of a worker in Miller talking about how expensive the commercials are, then saying he's going to make a one second commercial. Do you know what, i'll just post it.



Now the beer commercial won't necessarily be funny, but I do think it will be effective. The dog adoption one was pretty funny. It was the actors and actresses that made it though. It wasn't a funny commercial in itself, but their performances made it funny. I didn't think the career one was that funny until the end with the small animals bit. The Koala Bears "oh my" did make me laugh.

Last year I was really disappointed with the commercials and didn't find hardly any of them funny. But this intro does give me some hope and I'm thinking I may be laughing a little more this year.

Hawkeye update

So this weekend was a great weekend for the Hawks. They picked up four more recruits, all two stars. Included are two tight ends, a quarterback, and an offensive lineman. There isn't much information about them, but this brings the total of Iowa commits up to 16 which is a good start. We should hopefully add about three or four more to get a real good class. We have two four stars: RB Brandon Wengher, and WR Keenan Davis. Both are great athletes and should fit into the team very nicely.

Basketball isn't going that good though. We're 12-8 and 10th in Big Ten play. That's out of 11. It's not like they're getting blown out every game though. They've come close to beating a few really good teams, but then blown it in the end to lose. They lost to 24th ranked Ohio State by three. They lost to 22nd ranked Minnesota by three. I'm starting to see a pattern. They have good players, and a good team, but they are just way too inconsistent. But it's still a turn around from last year when they had a losing record.

Wrestling on the other hand has continued it's dominance from last year. From what I know they have won every meet and are undefeated. They are ranked number one in the country and they have two wrestlers that are nunber one in the country for their weight class-Brent Metcalf and Ales Tsirtsis. Their are also five others in the top five. That's good.

So all of my teams are good and are where i want them to be. Todd Lickliter is in the process of rebuilding the basketball program, so I'm not to worried about that. The football team should be great next year, and Stanzi is even projected as a sleeper Heisman candidate. I don't know what that means but it sounds good. Also the wrestling team is dominating.

Vikings are going to be okay I think. Once they figure out the quarterback situation I think they are going to be a big Superbowl candidate. The defense is set, the RB is awesome, and the line is descent if not better than that.

Kennedy teams are doing pretty good. At least the ones i follow which is Basketball and Football. The basketball team is ranked 2nd in the state and is undefeated. The football team has the sophomores coming up, which their team has dominated everyone in the league for the past two years.

And finally Show Choir. If you read the last post you know how our season is going. Great, and rankings come out February second so i'll post about that and give the results

Super Bowl XLIII

So Super Bowl forty three is going to be hosted in Tampa Bay and will be played between the Cardinals and Steelers in a very unlikely matchup. The Cardinals took their Cinderella season all the way led by veteran quarterback, and Cedar Rapids native Kurt Warner. He has had several off years since he won the Super Bowl with the Rams and got MVP in the game. Now he earned the starting position for the Cadinals over former Heisman winner Matt Leinart and led them to a 9-7 season. He was also a possible candidate for the league's MVP award.

Because of Kurt, I'm pulling for the Cardinals this year. I've never been a huge Pittsburg fan and my team, the Vikings, beat the Cardinals earlier this year so it would look better for them. Also they have a lot of players I like: Kurt Warner, Kenny Iwebema (a former Iowa defensive end), Anquan Boldin, Edgerrin James, and Larry Fitzgerald. On the Steelers I like Mike Humpal and Mewelde Moore and I pretty much despise everyone else. Especially Ben Roethlisberger. But even on top of all that, I've always been an NFC fan and always will be.

As for the game it could go either way. It's going to be the league's best defense, Pittsburg, against one of the league's best offenses, The Cardinals. On the other side it's one of that it's one of the league's worst defenses, Cardinals, against one of the worst offenses, Steelers. So it should turn out to be a good interesting game.

Rankage!

So as any Iowa fan now knows, we are ranked. 19th to be exact. This happened after the blowout win against South Carolina. But more than that, its the players we go into the 2009 season with.

That includes one of the nations top defenses, a very experienced O-line, good recievers and backs, and Ricki Stanzi who has proved himself in the end of the season. This is the first time they've been ranked in two years, and are ranked above great teams such as Notre Dame and Oregon State.

They managed to get this preseason rank despite losing Shonn Greene to the NFL draft. Jewel Hampton is there to step in for him and he has done a great job stepping in for Shonn in past games. We also have four star recruit Brandon Wengher coming in who is supposed to be a stud.

We're also losing Andy Brodell but DJK has stepped up and there are also some great backup receivers. But more than that, we get Keenan Davis, the four star recruit from Washington High School, so we will be set there.

The O-line took some hits losing Rob Bruggeman and Seth Olsen. But they also have three returning starters and the players replacing them should do a nice job. The o-line is actually projected to be the second best line in the big ten next year.

The defense lost great players such as Bradley Fletcher, Harold Dalton, Mitch King, and Matt Kroul. But the entire linebacker crew is back and will be better than ever. Also the d-line has both ends returning, Adrian Clayborn and Christian Ballard. THe people replacing King and Kroul are pretty good too, but I can't think of their names right now. Amari Spievey is coming back and will lead the cornerbacks, and Brent Greenwood will lead the deep backs.

I feel like next year will a truly great season for the Hawks. All the cards are right for them. They didn't lose many players and though some they did lose can't be replaced (King, Greene) I think the replacements will still do a good job. Also the returning players have that much more experience now and are starting to really play good ball. Especially Stanzi. He has always had the talent, and now he has the experience to go along with it. They're starting out ranked which is also good and will let them advance in the league that much faster.

NFL

Well if you're reading this, you probably know that Shonn Greene decided to go pro minutes after the Outback Bowl. He said that he had done his damage in the NCAA and there wasn't much more to do. Although i wish he would have decided differently, he made the right decision. He's already 24 and if he stayed, he would be 25 going into the NFL which is really old for a rookie. Also there's the issue of injury. If he stayed, he could get injured and never play football again. Sure he could also get next year, but at least he would have made money and could say that he was in the NFL. He's doing what's best for his life, and is making sure he gets his shot at pro football.

Also there was recent talk of Ferentz going to the Browns as head coach but the speculation was shut down as they just picked a coach. It was really a no brainer to me and it was obvious he wasn't going to leave. I know that he started out on the Browns and that's his team, but he still wouldn't have left for a couple of reasons. The first reason is that his son will be a freshman next season on the team and he's going to want to coach his son. He also just signed a contract lasting to 2012 and I think he's going to honor that. Also more than anything, he gets played plenty (getting paid three million dollars this year alone) and he has a sure job. NFL jobs are not a sure thing and they're always switching up coaches. But there's pretty much no chance to him getting fired at Iowa.

Greene is a loss we can deal with since he would be leaving next year anyway and Running Backs are always being replaced by new players coming up. But Kirk Ferentz is one loss we can't deal with. He's one of the greatest coaches in Iowa history and is one of the greatest College Football coaches coaching right now.

Outback Bowl

So, the Hawks did it but it was a little dissapointing. It wasn't the game everybody was hoping for. Yes they did win/kill them. But it wasn't really a game. It was too bad that they couldn't have a decent opponent and not one that turned it over five times. This was said to be one of the least interesting Bowl games of the year, and it turned out to be true.

Also for as bad of an opponent as they were, Shonn Greene didn't do great. He had 121yards and three touchdowns. Those numbers are very good, and were good enough to give him the Outback Bowl MVP award. But compared to the rest of the season and his season highs, those numbers aren't all that amazing. Three touchdowns is good but 2 were one yard gains and the other was 11 yards. Oh and that 11 yards was his longest run of the day. He had an average of 4.2 yards a carry. That is not good for Shonn Greene against an opponent like this.

The defense on the other hand demolished the Gamecocks only allowing them 43 rushing yards and giving them five turnovers.

Maybe I'm just getting spoiled because of their past bowl games. In 2002 they played in the orange bowl and lost to USC. In 2003 they killed FLORIDA. In 2004 they beat LSU with the miracle catch and one of the greatest plays in Hawkeye history. In 2005 they lost to FLORIDA by one touchdown because of some of the worst officiating college football has ever seen. And I'm not just being biased. They were fired after the game. But then in 2006 we lost to TEXAS in a very close game. And then this year, we kill south carolina. The gamecocks. In the past few years, almost every game was close, and even the ones that weren't, we were either killing, or being killed by an extremely good team. I guess this year was just sort of a letdown.

The final score was 31-10 but bigger news followed the game. I'll get back to that later.

Inside Laughter

This week, ISU coach Gene Chizik left ISU for Auburn. Apparently he also lied about going before he did. He denied that he would be leaving, but the moment they offered him the job, he left. Now I know that this is a very bad situation for ISU,and i'm a little upset about it. On the outside at least. On the inside, I can't help laughing hysterically at them and their misfortune. I hate ISU, i just try not to show it out of respect to other fans and Iowans. But every time ISU's program gets a little worse, my smile gets a little bigger. Sure i do hope they get a coach, I just hope he's not a very good one.

Shonn Greene highlights

highlights for the season

part 1



part 2

Confirmation!

The Hawks were selected to go to the Outback Bowl. After USC defeated UCLA, Ohio State's spot in a BCS bowl were secured which allowed Iowa to go to a January 1st bowl. That bowl just happened to be the Outback Bowl in Tampa Bay, Florida, where they will be facing South Carolina.

Postseason Hopes

Iowa succeeded in winning their last two games to bring them to have an 8-4 record. They beat Purdue 22-17 in a game that was way too close. Then they crushed Minnesota 55-0. And Shonn Greene continued is incredible performance rushing 211 yards against purdue an for 144 yards in the first 3 quarters against Minnesota. After that he was taken out and the backups came in. Now Greene is 5th on the Heisman watch list and could be heading to New York for the Heisman ceremony. Now the Iowa football team is either going to the Alamo Bowl or Champs Bowl, or depending how other teams do, could go to the Outback or Capital One Bowl. Oregon State lost to Oregon this past weekend so now Ohio State has a much better chance of getting into a bcs bowl. As long as that happens Iowa will go to either the Capital One Bowl or the Outback Bowl.

Future

This victory was a major victory for the Hawks. Shonn Greene got the National Player of the Week Award and Norm Parker got the Defensive Coordinator Award. It generated buzz everywhere and Iowa was even declared the National Team of the Week. It completely turned their season around and somewhat made up for their other losses. Now they can look to go 8-4 and have a very good season. If they do finish strong and win the next two games, they will look for a good bowl bid and set themselves up for next season when they should be very good. I was looking at bowl projections and one expert had them in the very good Outback Bowl against South Carolina, and the other had them in the Champs Sports Bowl against Virgina Tech. I don't know if they predicted different records or what but that's a huge difference. If they win the bowl game, depending on what bowl game it is, they could start next season out in the top 25 rankings and become the team they were a few years ago. And if Shonn Greene does decide to return next year, though doubtful, they would be a team to reckon with and would possibly be one of the strongest Hawkeye teams we've seen in a long time. And it all started with this win. This win showed it was possible to do and that this was a great team with missed oppurtunities. It gave the confidence and hope all across the state to be able to do great things and now has high hopes for what's to come.

Miracle

It couldn't be done. That's what everyone thought about Iowa beating Penn State. If you look at my last post even i said it. Penn State was ranked number 3 in the nation and Iowa was unranked. Penn State was dominating everyone and was undefeated while Iowa had lost 4 games. But on that cold afternoon, everything felt different. The Iowa players were pissed and you could tell. They had lost 4 games this season by a combined 12 points and they were sick of it. A good family friend had talked to defensive tackle Matt Kroule on the phone earlier in the week and he had told him that all the players were pissed off and were ready to play and win against Penn State. And that's exactly what they did. In the first minute you could tell the mood they were in after they burst through the line to crush the quarterback, Daryll Clark, two plays in a row. On the second hit they managed to knock the ball loose and though it looked like Iowa got it in the endzone for a touchdown, Clark had somehow managed to get it back. They punted but Iowa got it on the 35 yard line with great field position. And two plays and two great runs later, Shonn Greene ran it in. The game was looking great. Then Penn State finally started playing. They drove on Iowa over and over again but Iowa wasn't giving up anything only allowing field goals. Then Iowa had two turnovers, a fumble and an interception, that gave Penn State great field position both times and led to 10 easy points for them. It wasn't looking good at 16-7 when in the 3rd quarter, Ricky Stanzi found DJK in the endzone on a long pass. Penn State scored again on the next drive to make it 23-14. Then Iowa struck again in the fourth quarter to make it 23-21. With about 6 minutes left in the game, Penn State started driving again until Iowa managed to stop them on their own 35 yard line. They went to punt but an Iowa defensive player somehow brushed by the punter drawing a bogus roughing the punter flag giving Penn State the first down. All of a sudden, a game that Iowa had a sure shot at, just got harder to win and everyone thought it was over. Penn State continued to drive and got in field goal range. Iowa's only hope was for a turnover, or hold them to 3 points so they only needed a touchdown to win. That's when Tyler Sash picked off Clark and it was a whole new ball game. This time Iowa began driving. On 3rd and 14, Stanzi through an incomplete pass that drew a pass interference flag and gave them a first down. Then they got in field goal range and made the field goal a lot easier after Stanzi completed a pass to DJK on the 15 yard line. After two more runs by Greene to get in premium position for the kick, Daniel Murray came out. There was six seconds on the clock and he was ready. After a timeout by Penn State to ice him, he kicked a perfect kick right throught the uprights. 24-23. Penn State was stunned. Iowa fans started to rush the field but there was still a second left so they had to be forced back off the field so Iowa could kickoff. Iowa kicked a squib kick that was perfectly covered and they ended the game. Iowa fans and players rushed the field once again and the celebratin began. They had done it. They had done the impossible

Hawkeye Penn St. Preview

Well i'm about to leave for the Iowa game and thought i would give a preview before i left. Penn State is 9-0, and iowa is 5-4. But like i've already said, 12 more points and this is a different season with a 9-0 Hawkeye team. Both defenses are very good with Penn State's a little better if you look at the stats. Penn State's defense had given up an average of 11.1 points a game and Iowa has given up 13. Offense is a little different though. Penn State has a very dominant offense averaging more than 225 yards rushing and 230 yards passing a game. That is very diverse and also a lot of yardage. The Iowa offense on the other hand is a little banged up with star Shonn Greene having some problems with his ankle and also a few problems with the O-line. Seth Olsen might return from a sprained ankle and his backup, Andy Kuempel, is probably not going to play because of a shoulder injury. This is not the game to be banged up. But even with that, a few experts who pick who's going to win have picked Iowa as the victor since they are two very close teams, and Iowa needs the win.

Illinois

Well don't really want to talk to much about this game. It sucked. That pretty much wraps it up. We lossed if you couldn't tell or didn't already know that. It was a key game for both teams but Illinois won, propelling them ahead and holding Iowa back. This was a much needed game since it is probably one of the easiest games they have left. Now they have to play undefeated Penn State next week. They also have to play Purdue, Minnesota. Minnesota is also a very good team and will be a very hard win, but they should win easily against purue. Now if they do what's expected, which is to lose to Penn State and Minnesota but win against Purdue, they will be 6-6. That's as good as last year which wasn't good. If they had just won the illinois game they would have at least been 7-5 and possibly better. But the hardest part about this loss (minus the fact that i hate illinois) is that it was by 3 points. 3 POINTS. They had missed a field goal ealier in the game and failed to score a touchdown twice in the redzone and had to settle for fieldgoals. It was an easy win, a sure win. Yet somehow they managed to let it slip through their fingers and they lost it. Sure their errors for a "young" team and its just helping them learn. But we won't have a lot of our good players for long and fans are wanting results now. Iowa's last 9 losses have been by 3 points or less. That means we gain a few more points every game and we're contending for the national championship. That's the hard part of accepting this loss.

Loss

Loss is never something that's easy to deal with. Whether you lost someone you care about or it's a team of yours. The latter is obviously much less important but it still sucks none the less. It's even worse when you're school's team is the one thats losing. That's exactly what happened last night at Cedar Rapids Xavier played my school, Cedar Rapids Kennedy. It would have been a great game to any spectator not heavily supporting a certain team, but for any dedicated student with high hopes for the season, it was not a fun night. It started out ok with both teams doing ok. Kennedy definitely looked better and had some steady drives going but had two turnovers that really set them back. But they were in the lead 10-7 heading into halftime and it was looking alright for us except one of our top recievers, Max Martino, was taken out of the game with a concussion. That's when the second string runningback and kick returner, Josh Simmons, hopped off the field after falling awkwardly on his leg. It was broken. Now we had two big time players out with injuries and it was starting to feel much similair to the Kennedy-Xavier game held earlier in the year. We had our starting quarterback, Derek Thomas, and again Max Martino knocked out of the game from big hits. We went into halftime leading but when we came back out, things started looking even more downhill. On one of our first possesions in the 3rd quarter Derek Thomas was sacked for a safety. 10-9. They then managed to score again to put it to 10-16. But the game wasn't over yet and Kennedy managed to get the ball back with 49 seconds left after they stopped Xavier with a 4 and out that only took 20 seconds. But it had also taken all of our timeouts and we were now on our own 8. The following plays included a couple of very long throws that were somehow miracuously caught. Derek Thomas managed to get one more completion to get the ball to the 12 before he had to spike the ball with 3 seconds on the clock. This was the game. They hiked the ball and Derek dropped back to...... lob it to the corner to a reciever who is double covered and the ball is almost intercepted. Game over. End of season.

Being a fan

Well, with the Hawks having a bye week this week, there hasn't been much to talk about. So I'm going to drift away from the regular Hawk Talk and talk about something different: what it means to me to be a fan. I'm a fan of many sports teams. They include the Kennedy Cougars (obviously), the Iowa Hawkeye's, the Minnesota Vikings, the Chicago Cubs, and occasionally the LA Lakers. But I've been coming across a problem lately. I'm seeing that I'm sort of a fairweather fan. Now when it comes to Iowa basketball and football i will always be a good fan, but with the other teams my expectations are a little high. As i was growing up and i really started to watch sports, my teams were doing very well. Much above their previous standards. The cubs almost went to the world series in 2003 and that gave me the image that they were a very good team. I expected that from them almost every year but when it didn't happen, i lost interest in them. That is until this year when they were candidates for the world series champion's. But once they lost, i found that I again lost interest in them and don't have much hope for them as a team. The same happened with the Viking's when they were the favorites for the super bowl in 2000 and they collapsed in the NFC championship game. I am still a fan, but a very undedicated one and when they lose, i just sigh and look the other way. The only team i still truly root for is the Hawkeye football team. I have grown up honoring them and being proud of them as a symbol for the state. They've never been a total powerhouse, but in the last 6 years have had a very good campaign and this keeps me hopeful for them: maybe one of the only reasons i'm still a fan of them.