Wow! What a game. Being the St. Louis Rams hater that I am, not many without the last name Belichick and Kraft can be happier than I am about the result of Super Bowl XXXVI (that's 36 for the roman-numeral impaired).

So here are my general thoughts on the game, pregame, postgame and halftime (warning: I refuse to be one of those guys who rates and talks about the commercials. No matter what, they are still advertisements, which I choose to ignore and tune out because the evil advertising empire continues to grow on what used to be a sweet and innocent planet. Of course, I never tune out newspaper ads; that's why you should go buy a full page ad for the next Spinnaker).

Going into the game, I thought the Rams and evil head coach Mike Martz would win, but not without some troubles from the pesky Patriots (gee, can you tell I hate the Rams?). I thought that as long as the Patriots stuck to the K.I.S.S. (keep it simple stupid!) game plan on offense, they would have a chance at victory, not to mention a great chance to cover the 14-point spread. Not that I ever bet illegally on NFL games or anything. As the game hit the half, I started to channel-surf and landed on NBC's Fear Factor, with playboy bunnies (wouldn't every show be better like this? I think I could stomach episodes of CBS's Everybody Loves Raymond this way).

Fear Factor hit a commercial, so I flipped back to the halftime show and see U2 performing. Not that I am a music critic for the Spinnaker (I'm not cool enough to work for the entertainment section), but it's nice to see the Super Bowl finally have a good halftime act. Last year, I was fortunate enough to be at the game, but unfortunate enough to have to sit through the disturbing combination of 'NSync, Aerosmith, Britney Spears and Nelly (among other TRL mainstays).

Then I started to see a Sept. 11 tribu... hey wait, Fear Factor is back on. Woohoo! After a few more minutes of Fear Factor and a growing desire to kill host Joe Rogan (he was the idiot handyman guy from the sitcom NewsRadio, and he's less funny than I am), I flipped back to FOX for the rest of the halftime show, where I saw lead-singer Bono pull open his jacket to reveal an American flag, which has become the ultimate cheap way to get applause. I'm starting to think I could go out on a public street and murder seven infants, then whip out a small American flag, and I'd get an ovation.

Back to the game, and I saw Rams defensive tackle Damione Lewis wearing what appears to be a thirty-pound necklace with all kinds of platinum, diamonds, gold and silver. He wasn't playing, he was just in street clothes and his jersey, but I still cringe and hope for a play to come his way and have it get ripped off. After the Patriots went up 17-3 in the fourth quarter, I really started to buy into the fact that they could win (I'm giddy!).

Oh God, I promised I wouldn't do this, but I saw a video store commercial with dancing gerbils. I can't imagine how that meeting went. CEO: "We're going to spend $10 million on a commercial. Any ideas guys?" [silence] Mailroom attendant: "How about dancing gerbils?" CEO: "I love dancing gerbils!"

Back to the game, and Mike Martz just used his last timeout with 10 minutes left in the game. Martz manages a game about as well as 10-year-olds in a game of Madden Football on Playstation (fourth and 57? Of course, go for it). The Rams were driving, and Kurt Warner fumbled, and it appeared to be a Patriots touchdown At this point, I started mocking Warner while jumping up and down ("What's the matter, no chunky soup today loser?"). And then I saw the dreaded yellow penalty flag. And I knew it's on the Patriots, and I saw all the momentum shift in about a millisecond. I also saw Tebucky Jones, the defensive back who just ran the ball about 90 yards for no score scream, and hoped no one could read lips.

The rally came, the Pats still won and Tom Brady was named "Cadillac MVP." Not only was I angry about Adam Vinatieri and Ty Law getting snubbed, but the NFL sold the Most Valuable Player award? Are you kidding me? I can't imagine how many remotes I would have broken if the Rams had won and Kurt Warner was named "Cadillac MVP." Bottom line in the game, Martz was outcoached worse than I have ever seen someone outcoached in the Super Bowl. For the longest time I've seen Martz overcoach, and underutilize Marshall Faulk, and it finally caught up to him.

And now that the Patriots are champions, it shows that any team, no matter how bad they are projected to play in a season, can will it all, even after losing its best player. So allow me to be passenger No. 1 on the Jacksonville Jaguars Super Bowl bandwagon for next season. Hey, it's no more ludicrous than someone picking the Patriots at the end of last season.