One man’s Super Bowl play-by-play, beer by beer

3:02 p.m. Beer No. 1 opened. I’m picking Pittsburgh to take it all the way. Damn you, Super Bowl, for making John Madden—my most hated of football personalities—your announcer. Listening to Madden ramble throughout a game is like being poked in the arm by an 8-year-old for three hours. It doesn’t hurt, but you sure could do without it.

3:10 p.m. Aretha Franklin and Aaron Neville compete for worst butchering of our national anthem ever broadcast. OK, maybe it’s just the lack of beer talking.

3:19 p.m. Why is Harrison Ford turning Oh, the Places You’ll Go! into a football story? Why is anyone doing that?

3:47 p.m. Three commercial breaks, three Bud Light commercials. I’ll contemplate the deeper meaning of that as I polish off my second beer.

3:54 p.m. The lady friend and I spend quality time during this as-yet-scoreless game debating the presence, or lack thereof, of Madden’s neck. Excitement flows like beer. So does beer.

3:55 p.m. Spoke too soon. It’s a touchdown! Oh, wait. Penalty. No touchdown. Beer me.

4:24 p.m. A punt on fourth and inches?! Who performed the pre-game castrations around here? Sissy pants!

4:40 p.m. TOUCHDOWN, STEELERS! I actually have reason to get out of my seat from an excitement not involving urination!

4:41 p.m. That Overstock.com lady creeps me out. That is all.

4:55 p.m. Halftime. Steelers, 7; Seahawks, 3. Coming up: highlights. Wait, there were highlights?

4:58 p.m. I think every commercial during the Super Bowl should be a new one. Call me spoiled, but when I see the same damn ad I saw last Sunday afternoon during the Iron Chef marathon, I feel cheated.

5:06 p.m. Beer No. 4 appears just in time for the Rolling Stones’ halftime performance. Something tells me I’m gonna need it.

5:11 p.m. I don’t even know what song the Stones are playing right now. Unfortunately, it isn’t the beer.

5:13 p.m. “What kind of halftime show is this?” demands the lady friend. “I wanna see some titties!”

5:19 p.m. Post-halftime analysis? Most. Boring. Halftime. Show. Ever. But maybe it fits what is shaping up to be the most uneventful Super Bowl ever.

5:53 p.m. Touchdown: Seahawks. Suck on that, boring game!

6:10 p.m. Just so everyone knows, five beers is officially the line. I’m not to be held responsible for whatever I write after this.

6:16 p.m. How did a crappy low-budget Folsom Lake Toyota commercial get on during the Super Bowl?

6:13 p.m. Oooooh, look how fizzy my beer is. (You were warned.)

6:58 p.m. Like the game, beer five is finished not with a bang, but with a whimper. With 52 seconds left to play, I ain’t starting another one. I got nothing to prove.

7:02 p.m. It’s over! Steelers did it; I called it. VICTORY BEER!