Grab Bag: Winter Olympics, Super Bowl, Benito Bowl, My fave Super Bowl ads! And one crazy AF TV show review!
- Colby Michaels
- Feb 12
- 6 min read
Hello readers! What a week that was! Two of sports biggest events happening at the same time, as we had the Winter Olympics in Milano/Cortina in Italy kicking off its opening weekend at the same time my San Francisco Bay Area was dealing with Super Bowl week madness that led up to the big game on Sunday. Lets dive in to both! Super Bowl 60-the game: As Super Bowls go, this match-up between The Seattle Seahawks and the New England Patriots was a bit of a snoozer, mostly because the Seahawks "Dark Side" defense had their way with QB Drake Maye and the Patriots offense! Drake Maye was sacked 6-7 times ( i lost track), and is the second Drake to take a beating at the Super Bowl (music fans will get that shade)! In the end, it was the Seattle Seahawks winning the 60th Super Bowl, 29-13; as a 49er fan, I will say good for them and leave it at that! :) Bad Bunny Halftime Show: Benito was not messing around! An absolute fantastic staging of his home town in Puerto Rico, complete with humans dressed as super cane trees, bushes, etc. As Benito literally weaved his way thru this green jungle (people dressed as a tree or bush), hitting cultural themes along the way, I was mesmerized by the scene; didn't matter to me that I don't know Spanish so didn't understand the lyrics, it was the VIBE that swept me away to a very happy place! Benito had some surprises for us, as he was joined on this stage set by Lady Gaga and fellow Puerto Rican Ricky Martin! One of the jokes I've been seeing is that Benito ran for more yards holding a football than the Patriots running game! Overall, one of my favorite half-time shows ever! A love letter to Puerto Rico and that Love is stronger than hate! Oh, Shoutout to Brandi Carille for a beautiful rendition of America the Beautiful, and to local band superstars Green Day for the pregame concert!
While I am not allowed to post the video of Benito's show, I CAN provide the link to it, should you want to revisit it! :) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G6FuWd4wNd8
Super Bowl commercials: OY! Basically all the AI ads were a FAIL, either boring, comfusing , or both! Below, I've chosen my personal faves, in no particular order, with one that didn't make it on air -so a bonus ad, and its hysterical!
Emma Stone. Black and White. Drama. And an ad that I KNEW exactly what they were selling to the viewer!
The Feelz! The sun was in my eyes on this one! Gary V, this was the one I was talking about!
"If you rely on sight, you're already blind.". Kurt Russell is great here as the Yoda-like trainer to a not so good skier. This ad can also easily run during the Winter Olympics as well!
This next one will have an Eww factor for some of you, but I absolutely loved the creativity and audaciousness of this ad. Let me frame it another way: You more likely to recall this ad (for better or eww) or ANY of the AI ads? I thought so! :)
In the "alternate universe" dept, Xfiinity saves the day, but robs us of a movie franchise! Very clever and fun! ("That's a big pile of.....shrimp").
BONUS AD! Lastly...my friend found this unaired ad for a lip gloss company featuring Melissa McCarthy...doing her best telenovela overacting! Enjoy the drama! a special appearance will be VERY familiar to telenovela and meme fans!
2026 Winter Olympics: The opening ceremonies were very cool and whimsical, Mariah Carey sang in Italian and I loved how they conveyed the three ink colors coming out of huge tubes that were hanging in the air! The arts, from singing to fashion, were well represented! And now to answer the question of why are there two cities in the title- because for the first time on Olympic history, there are TWO Olympic cauldrons, one in Milan, and one in Cortina, which is in the mountains, so all that skiing stuff will be happening there! Was really cool to see FOUR locations for the parade of athletes, besides Milan and Cortina, two other locations in the mountains were used, where those athletes will be competing , like the luge course!
As for the games themselves, going by a sleep-deprived memory and an achy body, The US won their first medal in Curling, (the one with the big rock and the two players with brooms skating towards a target), snagging the Silver in mixed (male/female) competition! In figure skating, in the Rhythm Dance competition, the French duo upset the heavily favoring USA duo, to take the Gold, while the Canadien duo took home the bronze. The Canadien male partner, Paul Poirier with this medal, becomes the first openly gay figure skater to medal at the Winter Games! I'm dropping a pic of him and his partner, who just recently got engaged, below:
To balance out the boring Super Bowl game on Sunday, we had a very dramatic ending in the figure skating TEAM competition earlier in the day with Team USA in a virtual tie with Team Japan, and it came down to the two best male skaters, for USA, Illya Mallikin, the "Quad god" (a quad is how many times a skater can rotate in the air before landing cleanly back on ice...Illya is the only skater in the world who can do it as many times as he does!). Illya aced his program, so it was up to Japan's Shun Soto to beat Illya's top score. Soto put on a flawless, graceful performance, but Illya had more elements in his program, and won the men's round, thereby securing Team USA's second gold in team competition! Definitely was a preview of whats to come in the men's single figure skate competition coming up! Oh, I almost forgot to mention that Team Italy won the Bronze, their first ever in figure skating...the crowd went wild!
Speed skating is another Olympics sport that I've come to enjoy eve since the Apollo Ohno years, and now team USA appears to have another young phenom in the making, as Wisconsin native 21 year old Jordan Stolz not only won the Gold in the 1000M speed skating event, but smashed the Olympic record by over a second!! He has three more events to go to try for the sweep! Lastly, in skiing, US skier Lindsay Vonn, trying to make a comeback at age 41, who had ACL surgery on one knee a couple years ago, then about 10 days before the start of the Olympics, had a skiing accident that resulted in her having ACL surgery on her OTHER knee, did make it through her first practice, but in her first competition, almost right out of the gate, took a nasty fall in the snow, and had to be air-lifted by helicopter and taken to a nearby hospital. As of this writing, she has had multiple surgeries on her left leg. As Tatiana from RU's Drag Race might say: Choices.
I'm slipping one TV series in here cuz it was the main culprit of my sleep depravation!
The Penthouse: On Netflix, released a few years ago, this three season Korean series is absolutely addictive!!!!! First off, some of the BEST rage lip quivers I've ever seen- I've been LIVING for those! Plus it seems no table or desk is safe from rage clearing! Characters flip allegiances more often than pancakes during lunch rush at an IHOP! Almost every episode has a plot twist at the end, which makes reading the subtitles important (Koreans list their LAST NAME first, so pay attention to what we are used to as the last name). So much DRAAAAAMA and some overacting, but it works in this set up (I lost track of how many times characters said to each other I will KILL you!)! The main villain and villainess are truly wickedly evil characters, while our protagonists have some issues themselves. The supporting cast, mainly the tenants of the very exclusive Hera Palace, are like magpies with their gossiping and judgy tendencies. I would rate Season One an 8, Season 2 a hard 10, and the final season a 7.5. Season 3 got lower marks for its first two episodes, and a questionable closing episode to close out the series. I've added a teaser video below as the other trailers for this show gave too much away! Definitely binge-worthy, though S1, with its 21 episodes, should have been split in two. If you tell me you're at the Cottage, I know you're okay, but if you tell me you're at the Penthouse, I'm gonna worry! :)
That's all for now! Will have more Winter Olympics stuff next week, and a preview of a couple of shows I'm indulging now! Have a safe, fun weekend!
EXTRA! Just before I was to post, I came across this link, and my gaydar clocked most of them here with the figure skaters! Conor in Speed Skating was the surprise for me, and has Jordan Stolz as his fellow teammate! Also the French figure skater is the one who won the gold in Rhythmic dance with his partner over the US team, so more history made!
Oy! You made my day!! So many hottie boys!
And LOVE those commercials! Melisa…caliente!! Queso fuego! And Unavailable…oh, the drama!!