Super Bowl Sunday 2008 has come to a close, and football fans everywhere are feeling the comedown of having no reason to live for the next six months. Seriously, though, who cares about the game? To bloggers, the important thing wasn’t the major upset for the winningest team in 36 years (I still don’t know why the entire New England region gets its own team), but the suckiness of the commercials and Tom Petty. Patriots fans must really be feeling like shit right now—even the commercials let them down.

I am struck by this. We’re talking about a) Commercials and b) Tom Petty. Our society has truly come to a strange crossroads when we expect anything other than passive, low-level enjoyment from either of these enterprises.

In fairness to Tom Petty, there was nothing wrong with his 12-minute performance. I thought it was funny how the halftime organizers still managed to incorporate a penetrating guitar-shaped phallus into the presentation. It was extra awkward because no band member even played a Flying V guitar. I do want to make fun of the Heartbreakers’ lead guitarist, though. Is that guy serious? Were those solos really so complicated that he needed a guitar with two necks? There may be a few guitarists in the world who could call a double-necked guitar practical, but I’m sure this guy isn’t one of them. I’d never have thought that Tom Petty’s band would be so…Aerosmithy.

About the commercials—anyone who watches a commercial for enjoyment has long since lost an integral element of what it means to be a human being. There are better things to live for than commercials. To anyone beginning to feel insulted, I say: Even if you sense their shallow attempts at humor, most commercials as a rule should make you want to punch the TV. To express surprise and disappointment that commercials sucked is like saying “I moved to Phoenix thinking that the August heat would feel good.”

Are people seriously going to complain that commercials sucked? Maybe they should write to the cynical marketers and the businessmen who paid millions for their 30-second spots. “During next year’s Super Bowl, could you please do more to help me forget what you’re trying to do to me, perhaps by broadcasting something that I want to watch instead of a commercial?”