Who wins and why?

[zhenya]

Make your vote and post reason why you think your team will win in this Super Bowl.

New Orleans Saints or Indianapolis Colts?

[Ninong]

The Saints will win because of Katrina. Haven't you been paying attention to the teevee machine?

And Dree Brees has to play against Indianapolis even though he went to Purdue and Peyton Manning has to play against New Orleans even though he's a New Orleanian. That's important to know, according to the teevee machine. That will somehow affect the outcome of the game.

And Archie Manning is a Saints hero who will be pulling for Indy because his son plays for Indy. But that's okay. You have to remember that.

And Drew Brees and his wife are best friends with Cooper Manning and his wife. After all, they all live in New Orleans. That's something else that will affect the game.

In another 20 minutes or so, we will be treated to 8 or 9 hours of non-stop trivia courtesy of CBS. That includes trivia during the game. I can hardly wait.

What can they possibly talk about for that long before the game even starts? Will they interview Newman High School students to see if they're pulling for Peyton and the Colts or Dree and the Saints? (They're pulling for the Saints even though they love Peyton to death.)

Will they interview Purdue students? Will they interview Tennessee students? Gotta fill all those hours with something.

And during the game, will they cut away to Kim Kardashian every time Reggie Bush does something good? You betcha! Drinking game: take a shot every time they give us a shot of Kim Kardashian. Or Archie Manning. Here's my over/under on total number of shots of both: 5. We will see a total of at least five head shots of those two during the game. Could run as high as 7 if it's a high-scoring game or if Peyton gets sacked a lot and is slow getting up.

[Ninong]

Okay, we already had the New Orleans deserves to win because of Katrina meme. That's one. Let's see how many times they repeat the same message. (P.S. -- Katie Couric did an extensive interview with Drew Brees along the lines of the Saints deserve to win because of Katrina, so that's twice.)

And, in the last two minutes, Bill Cowher referred to Drew Brees as "Dwight" Brees. Twice! So "Dwight" Brees is the new Saints QB.

[Ninong]

Who Dat dog.

[Ninong]

The Who are still around? Who knew.

[Ninong]

31-17

Laissez les bons temps rouler!

Boy, is it noisy around here right now. Fireworks are going off all over the neighborhood!

[zhenya]

31-17

Laissez les bons temps rouler!

Boy, is it noisy around here right now. Fireworks are going off all over the neighborhood!

Ha, I never expected Peyton to throw a pick in a final quarter, that was the killer...

I actually picked Colts to win this time, although I must agree with you that the nation was "primed" for Saints to march in...
I feel sorry for you that you have to endure all this noise...

PS. It's a shame that it was one member that voted, I expected some type of discussion going on after I posted the poll. Too bad I had to leave almost instantly after that, otherwise you and I would have some sort of discussion about the game. It is over now, so too late...

[Ninong]

The Colts won the first quarter 10-0. The Saints won the rest of the game 31-7. That about sums it up.

BTW, I don't remember seeing any cutaway head shots during the game but just after the game, and before the Lombardi trophy presentation, one of the local TV sports anchors was interviewing Reggie Bush on the field while one of his co-workers found Kim Kardashian and her mother and escorted them to where Bush was being interviewed. Then the anchor doing the interview told Bush, "Hey, Reggie, look who's behind you." So then Kim placed a big kiss on Reggie on-camera and then Reggie hugged Kim's mother. Then the sports anchor told Reggie, "Okay, that's enough of that, I have to finish interviewing you now."

[Ninong]

It's quiet around here now. The fireworks lasted only about half an hour. They must have had all of that stuff set up before the game even started. Don't forget, I'm a good 55 miles northwest of downtown New Orleans. It's still very noisy all over New Orleans right now.

[almostdiva]

Hey Ninong,

Not to totally change the subject (Go Saints!) but..

What do you think of Landrieu being elected the next mayor of NO? The whole dynasty thing? Can he get anything done?

Rebecca

[Ninong]

Hi Rebecca,

I was sort of surprised that he won on the first ballot with two-thirds of the vote. He beat out ten other candidates, five of whom were considered major candidates. Two of his wealthy opponents spent their own money on their campaigns. One guy, John Georges, spent another $3.4 million of his own money and that's on top of the millions he has spent in the past on his losing political campaigns. It was more than enough to fund lots of negative ads against Mitch.

I really don't know how Mitch will do as mayor. Being mayor of New Orleans is not a job most people would want to tackle. The city does not have the tax base to fund needed infrastructure repairs and maintenance, and crime is always a major problem and there is really not much money to do anything about it. In my opinion, the best he can do is look good by doing better than the guy before him.

[Ninong]

500,000 Turn Out for Saints Victory Parade

The Saints paraded through downtown New Orleans last night and an estimated half a million people from all over the region turned out to welcome them home.

This is a report from a Pensacola, Florida TV station and I want you to pay attention to the fact that they are claiming the Saints as their team, saying the Saints "brought an NFL championship to the Gulf Coast." I knew most of Mississippi and Alabama claim the Saints but I didn't know any of Florida's residents did. Well, the Panhandle is also known as Lower Alabama, so maybe they consider themselves more attached to New Orleans than Jacksonville.

This Oregon news site puts the parade crowd at 800,000. The official NOPD estimate was 500,000. People drove in from all over the area. Traffic on highways leading into New Orleans was bumper-to-bumper at times. The parade started on time at exactly 5 p.m. but it took more than four hours to cover 3.8 miles.

Local New Orleans TV report. They're reporting the crowd as "at least 500,000."

Dat's All, Folks!