Baby, it's cold outside.
Not talking Green Bay cold, but way too cold for everyone's favorite Super Bowl extravaganza.
Temperatures are dipping into the high 30s at night, and struggling to reach 60 during the day.
The NFL prefers to have these shingdings in warmer climates, but it's on a bad run.
Last year it was at Miami, and a weird cold front came in early in the week. Then it rained the entire game.
The previous year it was in Detroit. Nuff said. And the year before that, a surprisingly cold and drizzling Jacksonville.
The weather's not doing anything here for the Super Bowl night life. And the game has a local start of 4:15 p.m. Ah, to watch from the warmth of the family room on a big HDTV screen.

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Some guys get all the juicy Super Bowl assignments.
Some poor dude told Patriots linebacker Junior Seau he was working on a story on the improvement of the football helmet. Yeah, I'll find you the link later.
He asked Junior, 39, if when he first started playing football if the helmets were lined with foam.
``Nah,'' said Junior. ``It was leather, then we'd fold it up when we were done and put it in our pockets.''

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Encino Man Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers held a press conference Thursday to promote their Super Bowl halftime show.
It wasn't exactly Prince's performance effort of last season. Just some sometimes curious Q&A. One questioner (?) __ a female TV type __ began by telling Petty, ``You're still smoking hot.''
No doubt Petty, 57, was relieved.
Said Peter Schmuck of the Baltimore Sun: ``These days he's more likely to break a hip than a heart.''

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It's a ghost town.
OK, maybe not completely a ghost town, but you'd be hard pressed in downtown Phoenix to tell that the world's biggest single sporting event is about to take place.
Tumbleweeds haven't been spotted, but then neither have many fans. Downtown Phoenix doesn't offer much. Precious few restaurants and they tend to roll up the sidewalks at 9 p.m.
If you're looking for a congregation of Super Bowl fans or something resembling nightlife, Phoenix is not your place. Better to head out to Scottsdale and Old Town, or Tempe and its college crowd.
Downtown Phoenix at night is just next to deserted. Think there are more iguanas than people.

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Not that anyone is getting carried away by the Patriots' pursuit of a first 19-0 season, but tickets are reportedly going for as much as $19,000 for a club seat. Two tickets on eBay are up for $77,000.
New England linebacker Mike Vrabel, asked if he would pay that kind of money to watch the Patriots play said:
``I wouldn't pay that to watch Tom and Gisele play.''

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Super Bowl week can be tedious stuff for your favorite media horde. Rise at 5:30 a.m. to catch a bus, to catch another bus to a team press conference, then another bus to the other team's hotel and still another back to the media center.
All to cover one team in its fourth Super Bowl in seven years, and the other from the media capital of the world. We kinda know these people.
So you'll have to forgive those a little eager for anything resembling a fresh story, or controversy. Super Bowls is the kings of overblown stories, and this year's offering is Giants receiver Plaxico Burress.
Burress was swarmed by the media again Wednesday, still hammering him for his prediction that the Giants would win 23-17 Sunday.
``We're only going to score 17 points?'' said Pats quarterback Tom Brady. ``Is Plax playing defense?''
Mostly the Giants seemed to shrug off what the media was eager to interpret as a guarantee. Like there'll ever be another Namath.
``You ask the question, `Do you think you are going to win the game?' '' Giants defensive end Michael Strahan said. ``What am I supposed to say? No, we're going to lose?''
Said the unrepentant Plaxico: ``What I said is what I said.''

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Somehow the Super Bowl has become the place to be for bands that used to be huge.
Cheap Trick is playing at the Taste of the NFL party on Saturday. Counting Crows will hit another. And sorry, halftime act Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers have been out of the charts awhile.
But the band you really have to feel sorry for is the Gin Blossoms, the brief mega band whose hits included ``Hey, Jealousy'' and ``Till I Hear It From You.''
The Arizona band played at the annual media party on Tuesday. The press corps is not exactly the ideal audience, clapping considered a disease and cynicism an art form.
It didn't help that the concert was outside on a cold night while food was offered. The crowd by the stage was so small anyone could walk right up to the stage.
``I'd like to thank the William Morris Agency for booking this gig,'' said front man Robin Wilson.
On the plus side, they still sounded great, in a '90s kinda way.

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It's the most famous imperfect smile in sports.
Giants defensive end Michael Straha's smile is renown for that spacious gap between his two front teeth.
``We could sell advertising in that sucker,'' he said.
Strahan said there was a time he seriously considered eliminating the gap, going so far to have charts and pictures drawn of what his new greeting would look like.
``I decided if I did it, it would not be me,'' he said. ``People look and go, `OK, here is a guy who is not perfect.' But to me it is because it fits me. It makes people feel comfortable and I feel comfortable when I look in the mirror.''
Strahan said teammates still give him grief over the empty expanse, but he has a quick rejoinder.
``When we go somewhere you're standing in the back of the line because they don't know you, I walk up, smile and automatically get in.''

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