If you don't like purple, then you won't want to have been in Baltimore this week. The Ravens(NFL team) got into the Superbowl, which is played tomorrow night. The hype has been building all week. Buildings around the city have changed white lights to purple, signs saying "Go Ravens" are everywhere, every other car is flying Ravens flags, tshirts everywhere, party stores sold out of purple plates/cups/streamers/etc. Tonight the news was full of nothing but parties, people painting their dogs purple, hospitals dressing newborns in purple outfits, stores selling purple-iced cakes and donuts, senior citizens in their wheelchairs waving purple pom-poms screaming "Who let the dogs out", people in the streets making raven noises tonight. If the Ravens win tomorrow this town is really going to lose it.

Sound familiar? ;-))

-- Anonymous, January 27, 2001

Answers

Cue, A Hitchcock.

-- Anonymous, January 28, 2001

Howay the Lads - the NY Giants, of course!!

-- Anonymous, January 28, 2001

Ha ha. I was leaning more towards supporting them due to the 11yrs I lived there. The passion in this city has far outdone anything NYC ever came up with for the Giants(not a peep when they won the SB 15 or so years ago!), so I've got no choice but to hope the Ravens win. Respect to the mayors of both cities, though, for making complete fools of themselves in a series of trash-talking television adverts where they try to one-up each other. Hysterical!

-- Anonymous, January 28, 2001

It's the Toon v mackemville thing ciara - we, and the Giants, expect to win; the mackems, and Ravens, are happy to celebrate getting close.

-- Anonymous, January 28, 2001

The Ravens Won - Big time. Not really an exciting game except for a period of 5 minutes where 3 touch downs were scored. Two of them for punt returns. Quite amazing those two runs.

-- Anonymous, January 29, 2001

Bugger! Bad omen.

-- Anonymous, January 29, 2001

This is why I prefer not to think of the Ravens in the Mackem(ptuh!) sense. Though you could be right about the Giants/NUFC thing at least when it comes to a final (ca. 1999 and 2000). Giants bottled it.

On the other hand the Ravens were more like NUFC of last year's semi. They far outplayed the other team, but at least had luck on their side.

Personally, the commercials won the night(as usual with the Stupor Bowl). 2 new version of Bud's Wassaaap ads. A subtle send up of young Georgie Bush by IBM, and two priceless takeoffs of past well-known US public service and pharmaceutical ad campaigns.

And yes, Baltimore is a complete madhouse. The firecrackers, screaming and horn honking started as soon as the final whistle was blown. My boss was an hour late this morning cause he was out cruising around downtown til 1am. Said the streets were absolutely packed. The cleaning woman who usually lets me into the building in the morning still hasn't shown up. It's madness! ;-)

-- Anonymous, January 29, 2001

I did contemplate watching it to cheer on the Giants. However, after watching the painfully broken up CBS coverage of the Pheonix Open golf in the afternoon, I decided I just couldn't face 3 hours of commercials in 4 hour of game coverage.

-- Anonymous, January 29, 2001

LOL! That is one advantage to watching it in the States. Lots of people only watch specifically for the commercials. Ad agencies premier their best ones on that night, and pay a fortune for the privilege. 2 or 3mils for 30sec, I think? I'd have absolutely no patience for it otherwise. There was one very Spinal Tap moment, when one of the players went off injured. For about 10min they kept cutting to a camera following the guy as he wandered around the bowels of the stadium. All it needed was for him to start shouting "'ello Cleveland!".

-- Anonymous, January 29, 2001