Next!

OK.... exhale

The Patriots made it to the Super Bowl, Elle came out ahead for the weekend/season, and we head into the Big Kahuna ready to bathe in the blood of our enemies.

How sweet-sweet-sweet it is that our foes this year are the New York Football Giants! With (c)Indy and Sandy out of the way, it's hard to generate a good deal of hatred for anyone else in the NFL. Only one thing could save that..... Noo Yawk.

First off... Boston and New York both know the deal. If the British come... if Europe is being slaughtered.... if the South rebels.... if the Sioux get uppity.... we'll work together, and do so well. History proves this. The Afghanistan and Iraq Wars are sort of what happens when you steal planes from Boston and crash them into New York. You bring us together, and we kick a lot of ass.

Otherwise, we're the two big dogs that sort of run the Northeast. They're bigger...but we have the better views. We fight all the time. We only stop fighting each other to fight someone crazy enough to interrupt our fight... kind of like two really mean brothers in a small town.

It's not War. Maybe not even pure Hatred, although maybe so in some cases. We do business together. We cut canals through Capes to do business together. We've all been to the Apple... the Carnegie Deli, Rockefeller Square, 42nd St., Times Square, Madison Square Garden, the Museum, etc.... and it seems like every single one of them has rented a house on Cape Cod and cluttered our highways.

The best part? We like it that way. They hate us, we hate them... it all sort of balances out, and the center holds.

Now... New England vs. New York in the Super Bowl. Couldn't'a' worked out betta!

There are plenty of old folks left in Massachusetts who rooted for the Giants back in the day, before we had our own NFL team. Many of us cheered the Namath-era Jets when they repped our upstart AFL. Plenty of our neighbors are New Yorkers who retired here, and still love their old team.

We'll forget about the punk Manning brother for a minute. We'll ignore the fact that the Boston teams are usually the underdog, and the NY team is generally the juggernaut. We won't mention that we already whooped that ass once this year. We'll even resist the urge to brag about that ndefeateduay easonsay. No need to mention or even yet begin to ponder that nice, fat 2 touchdown spread.

No.. today we'll just thank the Sports Gods. They gave us a doozy.

We have two weeks to get into the other stuff. For now... a nice New England/New York throwdown. Get those misleading directions ready, Cape Cod.