Roasted hot dogs burned on the grill, the ice chests were full, people were decked out in their favorite team's apparel and the volume was cranked up on the big screen, as millions of people gathered together across America and went bananas this past Sunday night to watch Super Bowl XXXVIII.

The New England Patriots and Carolina Panthers fought it out in one of the most thrilling, back-and-forth instant Super Bowl classics, as the Patriots downed the Panthers 32-29 on a last-second 41-yard field goal by Adam Vinatieri.

Even though this turned out to be a super game, I must admit I was slightly apathetic about this year's Super Bowl at first.

I mainly wanted to see Louisiana's own Jake Delhomme, quarterback of the Panthers, win his first NFL ring.

Don't get me wrong, it's definitely not that I don't like football. I love football, and the Super Bowl is one of the biggest shows in America and prime time events on television.

And even though my team, the New Orleans Saints, may never reach the Super Bowl in my lifetime, I still love watching it. Especially getting caught up in the hype with an insane group of people who simply love the game and watching quality football.

This year, I joined some of my people at the Pad -- which is the name of one of my friend's house -- and we enjoyed a quality game in a quality atmosphere of a circus of colorful people. And while I had a good time this past Sunday watching the game, I couldn't help but reminisce of past Super Bowl parties.

Some of my best Super Bowl memories contained the following items: a ton of food (including hotdogs, hamburgers, chips and dip, pizza, cake, cookies, ice cream, etc.), one or more ice chests full of cold IBC's, my favorite people gathered around the TV watching the game and of course the aftermath during the all-nighter.

We normally have a huge bonfire, where the guys will toy with the fire on the verge of being severely scarred for life while the women stand back not the least bit impressed with arms folded and eyebrows raised.

But of course, I don't participate in any of those foolish games.

We always have leftover fireworks from the New Year's party, and we love to have bottle rocket wars.

For any of you who have ever done this, is it not absolutely hilarious to see an unsuspecting victim run wildly from a screeching bottle rocket?

Last year, one of my friends had the bright idea of throwing several dozen bottle rockets in the fire at once.

Bottle rockets were firing in every direction, and we were running like mad men diving behind trees to avoid being blasted in the tail by a screaming rocket.

Don't ask me why I consider this type of activity fun. Try it sometime, and you'll see.

And then we have to put the fire out. After all, you can't let it burn all night and risk a forest fire. So we gather around and all put it out at once.

I can't reveal any covert operations in retaliation of injustice performed unto myself and partner in crime, but these are just a few select Super Bowl memories for your pleasure.

Josh Milton is a junior journalism major from Ruston and serves as sports editor for The Tech Talk.