First, I’m here and alive in Seattle. I arrived last night after a long-ass flight, but I made it. I didn’t even take Xanax, since I’m trying to use these pills less for psychological and more for recreational purposes. I probably should have though; over the Rockies, we hit some serious turbulence that left everyone in the plane gasping. Fortunately, the flight was very empty, so I had an entire row to myself. When the turbulence started, I gripped my chair like prisoner being put to death by electrocution and held on for dear life, whimpering occasionally. So I’m glad no one was next to me to see that.

It’s a lovely city, but I didn’t go out last night, though. My old roommate Ben (who I’m staying with out here) and I split a case of Sierra Nevada’s and watched “Wedding Crashers”, which is quickly becoming one of my favorite movies, leaving much more hungover than I expected to be today. I have a feeling that all weekend we’re going to be screaming “Erroneous!” or “Play a little game called �just the tip’ � just to see how it feels” or “Mom! MEATLOAF! Fuck!” I also predict that in doing this we will be simultaneously awesome and also drive every woman in a thirty-foot radius away from us. I’m totally ok with this.

But now, onto the Super Bowl pick-

Looking at it across the board, Pittsburgh has it (bear with me). There’s the three road wins against the 1-2-3 teams; Big Ben looking like Joe Montana; the Jerome Bettis coming home/possible last game factor; the shit-talking factor (good job, Jerramy); the fact that there is going to be about 12 Steelers fan for every 1 Seahawk fan at the stadium (and that’s conservative); the whole destiny thing (they barely made thee playoffs but have dismantled each opponent); and the most important factor of all: The AFC has been much better than the NFC all season long. To get to the Super Bowl, Seattle beat an OK Washington team and dismantled a Carolina team who was using their third and fourth string running backs, allowing them to triple team Steve Smith and completely befuddle Jake Delhomme. Meanwhile, Pittsburgh goes on the road and beats Cincy (without Carson Palmer, I’ll give you that), destroys Indy (remember when they were 13-0?), and easily handles Denver at Mile High, where they were undefeated all season and had previously dispatched of the defending champs the week before.

But still�.

Maybe it’s the East Coast media bias, but the Seahawks are a good fucking team. I know that their defense was ranked something like 17 in the regular season, but they have a knack for not only making big plays but also for controlling the tempo of games. And when you have the league MVP, you can’t be too bad on the other side of the ball.

There are a lot of different angles you can take, but I think the game comes down to the quarterbacks. I know this may seem like a “Well, duh” moment, but I’m working on a hunch here: one of these quarterbacks is going to have a very bad day. We’re talking a Jim Kelly/John Elway vintage 80′s/early 90′s game: 13/28, 140 yards, 1 TD, 3 INT day.

I have no idea which QB will do this. None. And not only that, I’m afraid to even guess. Since I am a mush, if I say it’s Ben, he will be the Super Bowl MVP. If I say it’s Hasselbeck, all the Seattle people I’m hanging out with will ostracize me for the weekend. But I’m just going to say one of them will be bad. And now on with the pick.

Seattle (+4) over Pittsburgh

I don’t know if this means that Seattle will win, but to me, Pittsburgh seems like a sucker’s bet. EVERYONE is picking the Steelers, and the majority of them are wondering why the line isn’t higher. One of the fundamental rules of gambling is to go against the majority. If the majority won all the time, Vegas wouldn’t be able to afford such talents as Wayne Newton and Sigfried and Roy (are they performing again yet?). Everyone knows a lot about Pittsburgh, but few know a lot about Seattle. If I’m making a bet, I’m going to go with that unknown and against the majority. It might be viewed as a big chance, but I wouldn’t be where I am now if I didn’t take big risks (“where I am now” meaning sitting in my boxers writing a post on Ben’s Mac � by the way Ben, I clogged your toilet).

So happy Super Bowl everyone. Let’s hope for a good game and please, don’t drink and drive. Be back next week.