Notes I took on the 1st half commercials for the Superbowl  

Posted

I'm not going to actually go back and write anything up though. Just a text dump. It was so much work. Reoccurring themes that are "funny": violence, men being miserable (both at work, and with their controlling wives), animals acting like people, and old people (especially if there is violence involved). Friend noted: "omg, that's absurd" is the overwhelming theme.

1. Company/Premise: Bud light – A man builds a house made out of budlight cans.
a. “Comedy” – People take the house apart house, to drink the beer. Final can exposes a woman in the shower.
b. Cliches – accidental nakedness is funny.
c. Notes: There’s a joke about the man being an environmentalist for recycling cans, but the guy refutes that (cans are full).
2. Snickers – Friendly game of football where two of the players are visually replaced with Betty White and Abe Vagoda, because they lack energy.
a. Comedy: Violence against old people is funny (Betty and Abe are tackled hard).
3. Tebow(?) – Timbow’s mom worries about her son.
a. Comedy: Violence against women is funny as the punchline is Tim tackling his mother
b. Notes: Was this the anti abortion commercial we read about?
4. CBS/Survivor – Standard commercial for their upcoming Heroes vs. Villains season.
5. Mercedes car – Their car is classy.
6. Boost mobile - superbowl shuffle – 1985 Bears come out to re-do their shuffle. The players are “old”, including Jim McMahon who comes out in an electric wheelchair.
7. Doritos – dog collar
a. Comedy: Man wants to torture dog by trying to make him bark for a Doritito (which would trigger an electric dog collar). Dog acts like a human, by undoing the collar and putting it on the man. Dog then barks, and man twitches like he’s been tazed. Dog eats Doritos.
8. Robinhood Trailer
9. Doritos – Man goes to pick up his date. Woman has a kid, who hits the guy and says “keep your hands off my mom and my doritos”.
a. Violence is funny, thinking of women as property is funny, and the single mom happens to be black..
10. bud light – Stuck up scientists think the world is ending when they see a meteor heading for Earth. They drink beer instead of worrying. Meteor is the size of a nut and the scientists laugh about being wrong. (Is Budweiser trying to discredit global warming?)
11. NCIS/CBS – NCIS must be known for headslaps, b/c all their fans slap each other in the head in various scenes. Violence = funny.
12. Coke – Billionaire Mr. Burns goes broke. But, after being given a coke, he’s happy again.
a. Multi billionaire corporation Coke makes light of the recession.
13. Godaddy.com – half naked woman gets a massage. Massuse gets half naked to be on go daddy.
14. Undercoverboss/CBS – New TV show where CEOS go undercover in their own companies.
a. Making CEOs sympathetic?
15. Doritos – Man fakes his death to eat a lot of Doritos. Casket falls over.
a. At first I thought the man was a little person, but he looked normal size when the casket fell.
16. Budlight – people talk in synthesized voices, like horrible pop/dance music. Some musician is at the end of the commercial.
17. Monster.com – Another animal (this time a badger) acts like a human by playing a fiddle. His skill is unique, but Monster found him a career.
18. Wolfman - trailer
19. NFL Halftime Show.
20. Bridgetown tires – whale in a truck.
21. shape-ups shoes – normal
22. cars.com – same as the old one, but with hot women
23. cbs – overall commercial. Shows headslap, and then shows two and a half men. Charlie Sheen beats women and gets away with it!
24. Budweiser – bridge is out, town rallies to save truck. Old man in wheelchair. Dog helps
25. Sanchez(?) Women’s heart attacks.
26. Letterman / oprha, jay.
27. amazing race.
28. casual Fridays – ugly people naked. Carreer builder
29. I wear no pants – dockers
30. brett farve – retiring honday insurance.
31. Budlight – people stuck on an island (Lost) prefer to party with beer instead of getting off the island.
32. Dove – fast song where a man’s entire life is shown.
33. NFL draft (arcade fire song)
34. NFL halftime commercial.
35. Men – voiceover about all the stuff men have to do. – dodge “Man’s last stand”. “I will drive the car I want to”
36. flowers in a box. Hot man gets bad flowers, but ugly woman gets nice flowers.
37. papajohns –
38. CSI in space (star wars and startrek reference)
39. Alice in wonderland
40. Kiss – Dr. Pepper – little kiss (?) little people.
41. Grounghog day, paulumolu sees his shadow – trutv 6 more weeks of football.
42. CBS tv commercial – how I met your mother? Maybe? Falling behind.
43. Harry potter at universal studios.
44. man has no spine – can’t watch the game. Live portable tv would mean he doesn’t have to wear a skirt.
45. intel core processor – robot’s feelings are hurt when guy says that the new processor is the best thing they’ve ever made.
46. FIRST HALF OVER
47. Who commercial
48. ncis
49. pacific

2nd half
movie
megan fox (violence – guys slapping)
motorolla – punchbuggy (old man punched in the crotch)
denny’s – chickens worried about having to lay a lot of eggs.

MLB 09: The Show might be the best sports game ever made  

Posted

I'm going to use bullet points instead of real sentences b/c I'm dying to get back to the game. 11 hours last Saturday, and a couple hours last sunday (and yesterday) just aint going to cut it. Superbowl is being skipped b/c quite frankly, it can't live up to this game.

Yankee specific awesomeness:

- They have both the new and old stadiums.

- They do the roll call for home games. Including the camera cutting away between batters to show a player (like Damon or Cano) waving to the crowd after their name is called.

- Red Sox fans HATE the Yankees, with a particular passion against Jeter, Arod, and Damon

- When Mariano comes out to close, the camera follows him from the bulpen, just like they do on ESPN. They even play a generic song that sounds like Enter Sandman

- Lots of yankee fans make it to road games in Baltimore, Tampa, etc.

- Everyone looks exactly as they do in real life. Both in terms of actual appearance (faces, body types), but also in stances, pitching motions, etc. Everyone. Andy stares from the tip of his glove, Ian Kennedy does his Moose impression when coming out of the stretch, etc etc.


General awesomeness:

- Say a pitcher has a B+ fastball and an B- slider. On any given game, there's variation, so that the fastball might start at a B, but the slider at a B+. Then, within the game, if you develop the fastball and throw it for strikes, it will get better. But if it gets hit, it will drop. So there's game strategy as to what to throw, and when.

- the computer learns your tendencies, both with hitting and pitching.

- you need to have plate discipline, or you are doomed.

- you can guess pitch location (nine choices, upper left, upper, upper right, etc etc) and pitch type (a typical starter will have 4-5 pitches and a reliever will have 3ish). So each pitch gives you a 1 in 36 chances of being perfect. The strike zone will glow in unique ways depending on which (if any) element you get right. Sooooo much strategy involved in that. With a power hitter, i'm looking high and tight for a 4-seem fastball. Behind in the count, i might look down in the strikezone. etc etc.

- The video presentation is just amazing. Animations are fluid and natural. Turning a double play is beautiful. Sometimes, if you really crush a homer, the camera lingers on the hitter instead of following the ball. I can't explain it, but this game has NAILED what it's like to watch a game on TV.

- You set ticket prices, tv contracts, building facilities like saunas, pay for scouts, decide who to scout, take out loans if need be, etc etc etc. Overwhelming number of choices.

- hitting a walk off home run is one of the most fun things i've ever experienced. There were no pies to the face, but the celebration at home plate was great none the less.

- YOU CAN UPLOAD SONGS INTO THE GAME. So, as soon as I'm done typing, I'm going to put in the real Enter Sandman and set it as Mariano's entrance music. Jeter's going to get Empire State of Mind, and then i'm going to spend a few hours to think of something good for Arod.

- You can fastfoward the game in seconds. Pushing up on the cross pad pauses the game AND gives you the most used options at that moment. So if you are pitching, you can go instantly to the bulpen to warm someone up or you can "skip to the next half inning"

- different umpires have different tendencies. And they mess up from time to time!

- When pitching, you can't be perfect. Aiming for the corner might result in being way off the plate. Some of that is random, but it's also based on the skill. Pitching is like old school tiger woods games. First tap starts the meter, second tap decides the power, and third tap decides accuracy.

- pitching from the stretch is much more difficult, as it should be!

- Bah, I'm boring myself, i must go back and play!