Seattle! More Seattle! Super Bowl XLVIII!

[hurleyfor3]

About time we had a sports championship between America's two best places to live. Not to mention the two cities in which I've bombed the most job interviews.

I'm not sure who will win, but it won't be me. Before people crack pot jokes, it's not legal in Washington yet.

[moonpie23]

the two states that have legalized weed are going to the Super Bowl……….

[hurleyfor3]

Lakewood! Poulsbo! Super Bowl 48!
Highlands Ranch! Bellevue! Super Bowl 48!
Leavenworth! Ouray! Super Bowl 48!
Ski bums! Grunge! Super Bowl 48!
Elbert! Rainier! Super Bowl 48!
Gerry Roach! Fred Beckey! Super Bowl 48!
Stevens Pass! Loveland Pass! Super Bowl 48!
Eisenhower Tunnel! Mount Baker Tunnel! Super Bowl 48!
Sports Authority! REI! Super Bowl 48!
300 days of sunshine! 300 days of rain! Super Bowl 48!
Chipotle! Starbucks! Super Bowl 48!
Halo Ridge! The Enchantments! Super Bowl 48!
The San Juan Mountains! The San Juan Islands! Super Bowl 48!
Mass shootings! Volcanic eruptions! Super Bowl 48!
Mork and Mindy! Frasier! Super Bowl 48!
South Park! Vampires! Super Bowl 48!
Out-of-state speeding tickets don't count! No income tax! Super Bowl 48!
Thinnest state! Fully funded pensions! Super Bowl 48!
Capitol Hill! Capitol Hill! Super Bowl 48!
Legal pot! More legal pot! Super Bowl 48!
People moving in to escape California! People moving in to escape California! Super Bowl 48!
Duke loses to UNLV! Duke loses to Seton Hall! Super Bowl 48!

I'm having waaaaaaaay too much fun with this; flame away.

[PSurprise]

Denver had the most chill locker in AFC history after winning.

"You just won the AFC championship. What are you going to do now?"

Gonna go eat some Doritos!

[CameronBornAndBred]

How bad could the Pat's defense be, when after Manning calls the same damn play over and over again, they still get the snot beat out of them! You'd think they'd pick something up after the 15th or 16th time.

Through the whole game I was wondering what was up with all the Omaha calls, now I know. I like Manning even more now.
http://espn.go.com/nfl/playoffs/2013...gland-patriots

[Jarhead]

If you didn't notice, those calls always came as the play clock was winding down. My understanding is that the Omaha call is to alert his players to that fact just before the ball is snapped.

[moonpie23]

i had to work during the game and didn't have audio……did peyton use PAPA JOHNS as an audible?

[kmspeaks]

I don't think so, but I read somewhere that the key to deciphering Peyton's audibles can be found on a Papa John's box. If it's on the internet it has to be true.

[OldPhiKap]

I don't think so, but I read somewhere that the key to deciphering Peyton's audibles can be found on a Papa John's box. If it's on the internet it has to be true.

I have heard that "Omaha" is only a live audible if the call also includes "Mutual," Wild" and "Kingdom" in the cadence.

And by "I have heard," I mean that I made it up.

[weezie]

Lakewood! Poulsbo! Super Bowl 48!
Highlands Ranch! Bellevue! Super Bowl 48!
Leavenworth! Ouray! Super Bowl 48!
Ski bums! Grunge! Super Bowl 48!
Elbert! Rainier! Super Bowl 48!
Gerry Roach! Fred Beckey! Super Bowl 48!
Stevens Pass! Loveland Pass! Super Bowl 48!
Eisenhower Tunnel! Mount Baker Tunnel! Super Bowl 48!
Sports Authority! REI! Super Bowl 48!
300 days of sunshine! 300 days of rain! Super Bowl 48!
Chipotle! Starbucks! Super Bowl 48!
Halo Ridge! The Enchantments! Super Bowl 48!
The San Juan Mountains! The San Juan Islands! Super Bowl 48!
Mass shootings! Volcanic eruptions! Super Bowl 48!
Mork and Mindy! Frasier! Super Bowl 48!
South Park! Vampires! Super Bowl 48!
Out-of-state speeding tickets don't count! No income tax! Super Bowl 48!
Thinnest state! Fully funded pensions! Super Bowl 48!
Capitol Hill! Capitol Hill! Super Bowl 48!
Legal pot! More legal pot! Super Bowl 48!
People moving in to escape California! People moving in to escape California! Super Bowl 48!
Duke loses to UNLV! Duke loses to Seton Hall! Super Bowl 48!

I'm having waaaaaaaay too much fun with this; flame away.

Ok, ok, easy now hurl...just keep your eyes on me while those fellows with the net gently circle around you...everything is going to be fine...

[DevilAlumna]

Lakewood! Poulsbo! Super Bowl 48!
Highlands Ranch! Bellevue! Super Bowl 48!
Leavenworth! Ouray! Super Bowl 48!
Ski bums! Grunge! Super Bowl 48!
Elbert! Rainier! Super Bowl 48!
Gerry Roach! Fred Beckey! Super Bowl 48!
Stevens Pass! Loveland Pass! Super Bowl 48!
Eisenhower Tunnel! Mount Baker Tunnel! Super Bowl 48!
Sports Authority! REI! Super Bowl 48!
300 days of sunshine! 300 days of rain! Super Bowl 48!
Chipotle! Starbucks! Super Bowl 48!
Halo Ridge! The Enchantments! Super Bowl 48!
The San Juan Mountains! The San Juan Islands! Super Bowl 48!
Mass shootings! Volcanic eruptions! Super Bowl 48!
Mork and Mindy! Frasier! Super Bowl 48!
South Park! Vampires! Super Bowl 48!
Out-of-state speeding tickets don't count! No income tax! Super Bowl 48!
Thinnest state! Fully funded pensions! Super Bowl 48!
Capitol Hill! Capitol Hill! Super Bowl 48!
Legal pot! More legal pot! Super Bowl 48!
People moving in to escape California! People moving in to escape California! Super Bowl 48!
Duke loses to UNLV! Duke loses to Seton Hall! Super Bowl 48!

I'm having waaaaaaaay too much fun with this; flame away.

Flame? This is brilliant. For the record, I'm for the second option in nearly all cases.

[Duvall]

Attn: throatybeard

She's probably not among your first, or second, or tenth, or twentieth-round guesses, but the NFL just announced that American soprano Renée Fleming will sing the national anthem at Super Bowl XLVIII.

Fleming is the first-ever opera singer to be given the honor.

[snowdenscold]

Attn: throatybeard

Can we bring back the trumpet player who did the Panthers-49ers game last weekend? Or perhaps Arturo Sandoval from the '09 Orange Bowl?

Love me that Maynard Ferguson style high register on the last part of the anthem...

[Indoor66]

Go Broncos!

[OldPhiKap]

Go blizzard! I'm rooting for the Fightin' Polar Vortices!

[Dev11]

Flame? This is brilliant. For the record, I'm for the second option in nearly all cases.

I'm fairly sure the first column is superior in nearly every way, although I'll grant you REI over Sports Authority.

I've only ever experienced one local championship celebration, and that was on campus for Duke in 2010. I hope I get my second such experience next weekend.

[brevity]

I've only ever experienced one local championship celebration, and that was on campus for Duke in 2010. I hope I get my second such experience next weekend.

Why, are you visiting Seattle?

Intentionally or not, Richard Sherman is a genius. He's put the focus on him, and not Russell Wilson. Super Bowl 48 points of conversation:

1. Richard Sherman
2. Maybe we shouldn't have planned an outdoor winter event in the NYC area.
3. Will Papa John get drunk again?
4. Let's watch sad Hallmark movies to prepare for the next Clydesdale commercial.
5. If they get rid of the extra point, when will I go to the bathroom?
6. Enrico Palazzo > Renée Fleming
7. Dannon must have spent a lot of money to make that "Full House" reunion happen.
8. Why is Eli in the standby ticket line?

...

48. What? Russell Wilson? But I wanted to talk about Manning vs. Kaepernick.

I'm sure the conversation will steer itself to quarterbacks eventually. Sports media can't think of football as anything other than quarterbacks facing each other (which never actually happens), but it's nice to be reminded that there are other players on the field.

[throatybeard]

Renée Fleming is one of the people I most admire in the world. In [yet another] field in which men control almost all the power, she has sidled into a management role at Lyric Opera of Chicago. She was the first woman to have a Metropolitan Opera opening night gala consisting of single acts starring her (in 2008). She's turning 55 on Valentine's Day, in a field in which women start to get phased out at a certain age. (Classical Music isn't quite Hollywood, so it isn't 38, but the Met fired Swenson for being 47 and having breast cancer). She's crazy beautiful, on which women are judged, but she's finally starting to age.

She is incredibly gracious, if her public persona is to be trusted. I've met her twice, once in 1998 backstage at the Met (yeah, so pre 9/11 is the way that worked) and once in 2000 backstage at Page Auditorium at Duke. She wasted more time than she needed to on my 22-year old corpse, asking me all sorts of things about what I was studying. Singers always ask young people "are you a singer," or something like it because they're so pessimistic that anyone young actually values the arts unless they perform. I said "no ma'am, I'm just a grad student." She said "What's the 'just?'" and proceeded to ask me follow-up questions about my crappy MA thesis or whatever I was involved I was involved in or something.

I suppose they will amplify her, which is the one thing that doesn't happen in decent live performances of Classical music. But it's a football stadium and the SSB. I think that what makes me sad is that you'd think this would be a great opportunity for some crossover between everybody who doesn't follow the fine arts and the people who follow fine arts. But it won't. I know how this goes. I've seen it on Letterman, Conan, et cetera. The media essentializes the performer, reinforces some crap elitist narrative about Classical music, and no football fans go out and buy a Met HDcast ticket in the movie theaters for Fleming in Rusalka next month.

Then again, if anyone, ever, can swim against that tide, it's Fleming. Past Domingo/Pavarotti/Carreras even.

[throatybeard]

She's probably not among your first, or second, or tenth, or twentieth-round guesses, but the NFL just announced that American soprano Renée Fleming will sing the national anthem at Super Bowl XLVIII.

Fleming is the first-ever opera singer to be given the honor.

Let me come at this from the opposite direction, and mention one other related fact.

If you asked Classical Music people "say the Super Bowl decided to have someone in Classical Music sing the anthem at the game, who would it be?"

Fleming would win the poll 80%-20% over the field. Netrebko is Russian and Domingo is near retirement. Joshua Bell and Hilary Hahn and Yo Yo Ma are instrumentalists, so they aren't singing. Nor Lang Lang, nor Itzhak. So basically, if this ever happened, and it just did, Fleming would be the one it happened with. Susan Graham is from Texas, but not as well known outside Classical music as Fleming is.

Denyce Graves has sung at some big state events in DC, but she's sorta half from there, and her voice isn't what it was ten years ago. Domingo turned 73 yesterday, and he's not American.

The one other related fact is that cherished American baritone Robert Merrill, a New Yorker, sang the anthem at the World Series. I forget what year, but he died in 2004, and I think it was the NYY against the Braves in 1996 but I'm not sure. Probably older than Domingo is now.

[Blue in the Face]

The one other related fact is that cherished American baritone Robert Merrill, a New Yorker, sang the anthem at the World Series. I forget what year, but he died in 2004, and I think it was the NYY against the Braves in 1996 but I'm not sure. Probably older than Domingo is now.

More than once. He sang at Yankee games a handful of times a year going back to to the 70's, including the playoffs. [Wikipedia claims he sang at one WS game every time the Yanks were in it beginning in 1976. I certainly don't recall that much specificity, but he definitely did it several years]. They still use his recorded version a lot for regular season games when they don't have a live singer.