Wendy has fallen asleep in front of the Super Bowl. Wendy---the woman who took me to my first football game, taught me the difference between a false start and offside, and made me a Broncos fan---has fallen asleep in front of Super Bowl XLI. Unbelievable

But we've had a busy weekend (brief adventure yesterday). And there's a couple of things which make the Super Bowl actually less interesting than your average football game and make you more likely to skip the game in favor of the commercials rather than the other way around.

Firstly, chances are you don't really have much invested in either team. You've not followed them week in and week out over the previous few months: not spent hours delighting in their wins and despairing with their losses. You may have a vague preference but hell, in all probability neither's your team.

But in this situation the crowd usually makes all the difference: the home team gets the cheers and the away team the jeers (much more so than in English football, for instance, where away crowds actually... exist). And you can decide to go with or against the crowd: cheering with them or joining in their mockery of the "other side". The sound of the crowd is a polarizing factor, and they make the game interesting.

Super Bowl, though, both sides are "away", and the crowd's reaction is pretty much a wash. Which is why, I suppose, after a long weekend, even the Super Bowl commercials can't keep Wendy awake.