One sport I no longer pay attention to is American football.

Except the Super Bowl.

Named not after a flower (Rose Bowl), a dance (Hula Bowl), a sweetener (Sugar Bowl) but an adjective (short for “superlative”?), the Super Bowl is one of the world’s most watched events, where anything can happen, and rarely does.

So watching is waiting, enduring Christina Aguilera’s melismatic national anthem, new television commercials (my heart is not strong enough for McDonald’s latest fat and salt concoction, the Buttermilk Biscuit Sandwich), and that most militaristic of operations -- the half-time show.

This year’s halftime show will be the first to feature a woman since Janet Jackson's 2004 prime time celebration of the human form. Fortunately Fergie, who will be singing with her band the Black-Eyed Peas, has been known for “live” celebrations of her own, such as peeing her pants on stage. So I will be watching, waiting, hoping that whatever she attempts will be taken further, not backwards. A celebration as opposed to a “malfunction.”