Super Bowl XLV: fun facts about food, football, and ads

You may notice the streets will be exceptionally quiet this superb 'ol Sunday afternoon, with perhaps only a few pizza delivery vehicles passing by, as Americans gather en masse around the big screen to watch our annual football, food and advertising spectacular: Super Bowl XLV. Two storied teams from the heartland - the Pittsburgh Steelers and Green Bay Packers - will take the field to conclude an exciting and, at times, controversial NFL season. We can only hope the quality of the game will live up to the stage and hype.



A few fun facts to keep in mind for this Sunday's big game (6:30pm ET on FOX, btw):

• The Steelers have played in seven Super Bowls, winning six of them, while the Packers have been four times, winning three. (It should be noted that the Packers have won 12 total "World Championships" of professional football, eight coming before the modern NFL's playoff system)


• The Super Bowl attracts a ginormous television audience that, according to Nielsen Co. peaked last year at 106.5 million viewers, topping the 1983 finale of "M-A-S-H" to become the most-watched show in U.S. television history


• Nine out of 10 of the most-watched television shows of all-time were Super Bowls, but according to The Wall Street Journal, of the several hours of Super Bowl programming including the game itself, only about 11 minutes will have game action, when the ball is actually in-play


• According to the Hass Avocado Board, an estimated 69.6 million pounds of avocados are expected to be consumed during the Super Bowl, and in general, Americans will eat more on Super Bowl Sunday than on any other day besides Thanksgiving, spending over $55 million dollars on food


• Sunday will be among the top five pizza-ordering days of the year, with some chains accepting pre-orders for pies. Papa John's is estimating they'll travel 300,000 miles in total for deliveries.


• This will also be the first Super Bowl with no cheerleaders (!), as neither the Packers nor Steelers have squads

And of course, the Super Bowl is an advertising bonanza, with many people tuning in to see the celebrity-laden ads with absurdly high production values as much as to see the game. Besides paying to produce the ads themselves, advertisers are buying airtime from FOX at a rate of around a whopping $3 million for every 30 seconds, according to MSNBC.



Is it worth it? This is a question that you can help settle, by going to our Ad Blitz channel on Super Bowl Sunday to watch and vote on Super Bowl commercials. We'll be adding commercials from participating in-game advertisers to the channel as-close-as-possible after they air, so you can watch, compare, and vote on ads to your heart's content. Your voting will help determine the champion ad, which will be rewarded with a placement in our homepage masthead ad unit, along with the four runners-up, on February 19.



If you're looking for last-minute, Super Bowl party planning tips or recipes, you can check out the channel now for a variety of Super Bowl coverage, including this awesome recipe for Clams Casino Dip, from Foodwishes:

You can also access the channel and commercials from your web-enabled mobile device: go to m.youtube.com/adblitz from your mobile browser (or enter "youtube.com/adblitz" and you should be redirected).



Enjoy the game!





Andrew Bangs, Sports Manager, recently watched “Queensryche - Silent Lucidity.”

Hot Painted Ferrari Art Car by Ton Pret

Dutch modern painter and fashion artist Ton Pret reveals Ferrari Art-Car on Open Art Fair

The Ton Pret Ferrari project is an unique art-car project where Dutch modern artist Ton Pret transformed a high-powered Ferrari 355 into 'The Fastest Artwork of Holland'. The project was executed in the summer of 2010.

Ton Pret Artist

Ton Pret started as a painter in 2005. His success emerged fast and work was exposed in the Amsterdam “Beurs van Berlage, the Fortezza da Basso in Florence, in Ascona Italy and the Amsterdam Rijksmuseum. Not only his paintings and sculptures are popular amongst art-lovers and collectors, also his shoes, jeans and watches are in growing demand worldwide. His colorful high-heeled shoes caused a stir in the latest Paris fashion shows.

Ton Pret Ferrari

With this art-car project Ton transformed a high-powered Ferrari 355 into 'The Fastest Artwork of Holland'. Ton comments: ‘’This project was done in assignment of a lover of Dutch modern art, whom I met in the end of 2009. When he proposed to paint his Ferrari in my style I immediately said yes. I never had second thoughts.” The combination of this well-designed car, the speed and the joy of colors can be characterized as explosive. The Ton Pret Ferrari is already causing lots of controversies, especially amongst car lovers. The Ton Pret Ferrari is not meant to be sold but will be on display at selected events.

The Project

The planning for this project started in January 2010. In the beginning of May the car was prepared by Ferrari bodywork specialists. The actual painting of the car took Ton seven weeks. The complete car was hand painted, using a small size brush. To reach the desired depth of the colors all painting had to be done at least three times over. Because of these high working standards, the project demanded far more time than initially planned.

The work was also physically demanding. Because the car is painted top-to-bottom, Ton had to perform most of his creative work from difficult angles. To protect the delicate technology of the car the entire project was executed under the expert supervision of the Ferrari Bodyshop in 's-Graveland, The Netherlands.

Art-car tradition

Ton is not the first Dutch artist creating an exclusive hand painted art-car. With this project Ton follows the footsteps of Cobra artist Karel Appel and rock star and painter Herman Brood. Internationally the BMW-art-car series are well-known, featuring Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein and recently Jeff Koons.

Recently more and more cars are being decorated with a special car foil. This process is cost-effective and quick, the foil can be applied within a day. Because the original artwork is copied on foil the result can be easily reproduced. This technique was not an option for this project. The goal of Ton and the owner of the Ferrari was to create a real object of art that is and will always remain a unique piece.

The Ferrari

The Ferrari 355 GTS Competizione is in perfect condition. The car runs over 185 miles per hour. It has a 8 cylinder / 3.5 liter engine and weighs 1350 kilo. The original color was Giallo Modena (Ferrari yellow).

article via open art fair