Before we get to the commercials, we have to give credit to Madonna for putting on a well-executed half-time show -- much to our surprise. She's got quite a bit of energy for her age (or, our age) and manages to lip-sync successfully. Bonus kudos to the tech guys who made the Vogue covers dance on the ground. And the performance was filled with an eclectic group of guests from Nicki Minaj (in a somewhat toned down cheerleader outfit), Cee Lo (dressed like a giant sparkly monk) and LMFAO (as their normal dirty selves). If only MIA hadn't been so... MIA, what with flipping the bird at a cameraman and all, it would have been a smoothly run eight minutes that was memorable for the right reasons. Wish we could say the same about all of the commercials.

I don't usually attack TV ads (even the freaky Burger King ones), but ask.com started it with their whole "nagging questions" campaign. They've got random people going about their day staring vacantly into space with other people (who look nothing at all like them) hanging off of their shoulder asking random questions. It is supposed to be their inner monologue... or something like that, and then the gimmick is that they can find out all their answers at ask.com. Or not. When I was trying to find video footage of these spots... I had to go to Google to get it quickly. It might have been on ask.com somewhere, but it was probably buried. Or perhaps I didn't put in my terms in the form of the question. But since I'm not on Jeopardy!, I don't feel the need.

So I was just watching a day-long marathon of The Janice Dickinson Modeling Agency (shut up, you're not better than me), and holy crap, you guys: they are still running ads for Elizabeth Taylor's White Diamonds fragrance. In 2007. That very same ad you remember, too, with Liz in the dyed-black hair helmet, dropping in on that weird last-outpost-of-society poker match, dropping her diamond earrings onto the table and purring, "These have always brought me luck." Like...what is she doing there, on this remote airstrip in outer Off-the-grid-istan? And why is she giving this obvious ripoff of Frisco Jones from General Hospital diamonds to gamble with? Isn't she worried she'll end up accidentally funding the Sandinistas or something?  

Digressions aside, I cannot believe...well, I cannot believe anyone's still buying White Diamonds, but I also cannot believe that this is still the ad they use to sell it. Wendy's isn't still running Clara Peller hollering "Where's the beef?" are they? 

Also: Who are they kidding, really? We've seen Elizabeth Taylor this decade: doddering around on the Golden Globes stage with an envelope shrieking "GLADIATOR!"; showing up to public events on the arm of Michael Jackson looking even freakier than he does; whatever the hell that "Maaaarried? AAOOOOO!" soundbite was all about. Nobody wants to smell like Crazy Great-Grandma, White Diamonds people. Pack it in, or name a successor.