Stupor Bowl

Thoughts while watching the Super Bowl:

Did I just dream that prior to the game Roger Goodell and Odin held a joint press conference to announce that the waiting period for admittance to the Hall of Fame and Valhalla has been waived for Ray Lewis?

Is the pre-game show over yet?

The hole in the ozone now alarmingly larger after all the hot air expended during Super Bowl week.

What a charming ballad, I thought as I listened to Alicia Keys. For a moment it reminded me of “The Star-Spangled Banner.” I think it was the easy-listening version Francis Scott Key composed while chillaxin’ at Fort McHenry.

Now I can’t wait for half-time to hear Beyonce’s hip-hop rendition of Mozart’s “Ave Verum Corpus.”

For a funnier take on the NFL and Beyonce, read “Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk.”

There should be commercials after every play. Don’t laugh. We’re almost there.

The tedium is the message when it comes to Super Bowl commercials. Never has so much money and rapt attention been spent on such witless drivel.

Is this the final chapter in the Ray Lewis hagiography?

Those promos are designed to show the network sitcoms in their cleverest light, right? Why would anyone watch one minute of these shows after seeing the previews?

“No one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence [or taste] of the American public,” wrote H. L. Mencken. And he never sat through a televised Super Bowl.

Can any reporter who gushes over Super Bowl production, commercials, and so-called entertainment be considered a serious journalist?

There should be trash talking and taunting after every play. Wait, never mind.

My DVR’s out of sync: Carson just flagged Ray Lewis for unsportsmanlike conduct toward the dowager countess.

Power outage: A plot to sell more insipid beer and programming?

James Brown and his CBS co-hosts bantering to kill time during the blackout, and it’s not pretty.

Good thing FEMA wasn't in charge of restoring the power.

Hoping for a Don Giovanni-like finale, with the ground opening up at midfield and the game’s commendatore being dragged kicking and screaming to hell.

Clearly the Ravens outprayed the 49ers and God awarded them the victory.

And now the inevitable log-rolling: media coverage of the media coverage, or the bland leading the bland.