The Latest Super Bowl Preview You'll Ever See

The Super Bowl is coming up tomorrow.  We've been through the usual progression of non-football hype:

• talking about the ads without actually telling us anything about the ads
• how much the ads cost
• the effect on the host city
• the effect on bars in your city
• how much media hype there is
• how much food you're going to eat
• what it means to the two cities whose teams will meet in the game
• even more about how much hype there is

I've never really understood the amount of interest there is outside the sports world.  For instance, every newspaper food section has recipes for snacks you can serve while watching the game.  Even though anyone whose main interest is anything other than sports will likely be sick of the football talk and ready to hear about anything else.  Even here in Canada, where the Grey Cup always gets better ratings than the Super Bowl, the wider culture recognizes the Super Bowl far more readily.  The local supermarket doesn't break out the football-field-decorated cupcakes for the Grey Cup, but they had them this week.

Like most people, I don't have any rooting interest in either team, so I have to make an arbitrary decision on the team I'm going to rest my emotions on.  I've decided to go with the Ravens.  Why?  Well...

• As a Rams fan who came of age in the 80's, I still find it hard to cheer for the 49'ers.
• I've always felt sorry for any player who gets blamed for not personally carrying his team to a championship, such as quarterback Joe Flacco
• Their team colours of black, purple, gold and white are a combination my high school and university's colours
• I like the idea of a football team named after a poem.

So that's good enough for me.  The team I have arbitrarily chosen to be associated with for the next twenty-four hours will kick ass against the team I narrowly chose them over!