Metametametametameta-analysis

So, if you're going to answer phones about buying tickets to a concert, and then tell the person on the other end of the phone that it's probably just better to stop on by because you never sell out, it'd be nice if you were right. I was turned away from a Toasters concert recently, and, while I don't really blame the person who answers the phones or the bar in question (what with fire codes and all), I was still kind of put off by the whole deal, after the day went less than ideally anyway. But whatever. I'm over it, at least tried to go to the show, and was able to console myself by wasting my money on this crap, which rules in an interesting way

But now to the reason I'm posting.

I read ESPN probably more often when teams like, say, the Steelers are a few days away from playing in their second Superbowl since I was born (or, if you're one of those schmucks that doesn't define everything by the date of my birth, their sixth in the Super Bowl era, which is really the era in which you're going to want to play your Super Bowls.) But I've been noticing something. Noticed it on a few messageboards.

The tendency to either laud a team because they're underdogs and it makes you a certain kind of clove-smoking rebel against the "mainstream" who's "hyping up another East Coast team" or write volumes about how little they care about this particular Super Bowl.

Some clarifications.

1) It's hard to take people seriously when they're going on about the Seahawks being underdogs when, two months ago, they were lauded as the only NFC team that could beat the then-invincible Colts. Now, the Seahawks having failed to stumble (the chic prediction when they were more "1st seed in the NFC" than "poor ignored underdog going up against those big bad Steelers"), they've become the awkward target of an organization continually accusing itself of being biased.

2) Fine. You don't care about the Super Bowl because neither the Colts, who were supposed to win it all, then the NBA Finals and the Stanley Cup without Peyton Manning (as he was off inventing faster-than-light travel and winning the Grammy for Best Album of the Year for his grunge rock take on The Transformed Man) or the Patriots (who would later star in their own Saturday Morning Cartoon chronicling their efforts to save the world from a comet controlled by Cobra Commander) are playing the Seahawks. After the Steelers loss in the AFC Championship last year, I didn't care about the Super Bowl last year. But that I had diminished interest last year didn't mean that I'd go around predicting the worst viewership ever, or that the Super Bowl somehow didn't actually count. The funny thing is that one of the posts on the subject was written by a White Sox fan, whose organization went through the same criticism last year (mostly from bitter Red Sox, Yankees, Angels, Cubs and Diamondbacks fans. Not that the Diamondbacks have anything to do with the situation.)

3) The fact that Vegas has the Steelers as 4 point favorites has completely negated the fact that they're the first sixth seed to make it to the Superbowl since there's been sixth seeds and that the first week of the playoffs was the only week they didn't play the "odds-on favorites to win the Super Bowl". Evidently.

4) Kind of unrelated; The media is hilarious. Story of the moment: the Sports Guy starts criticizing the media for criticizing itself. It's very interesting, this whole meta-criticism thing.

No, the Penny Arcade comic doesn't have anything to do with anything.

Note: Mary Kutchko, of Kutchko's Country Garden Center (advertisement!) is incredibly awesome. Hooray for Kutchko. If any of you loyal readers are in the Pittsburgh area any time soon, and it's like... time for gardening to start happening, you'd do well to go there. Or I'll end you.

:D