Super Bowl XLVII, Stupid People in Surveys, Aliens: Colonial Marines, Soundgarden at the Riviera

Ray Lewis, to me, is sports culture’s most prominent reminder that sometimes, simply by virtue of being the most shameless about their misdeeds, the really hideous people in the world can still be rewarded with a life of luxury, fame and adulation that you and I will never experience. Karma mostly comes around for the great bulk of us, but every now and then, someone slips through the cracks into the good life they don’t deserve.

I can’t even talk about Ray Lewis without getting angry – I’m pissed just writing this. The whole country looks down on Ben Roethlisberger as a disgusting sleaze, and rightly so. Yet looking at Ray Lewis’s example, it seems Roethlisberger’s biggest perception problem is not being loud, brash or televangelistic enough. This strategy has worked so well for Ray that he’s shoved at us by the NFL and the media as someone we should not just appreciate for his play on the field, but actually admire as a human being. This is unacceptable to me.

There’s plenty written about why Ray Lewis is worthy of scorn. I cannot abide this dude going out with another Super Bowl. Please, 49ers: I don’t care about Jim Harbaugh’s tantrums, or Colin Kaepernick looking like a five-year-old in his oversized press-conference hat, or even (holding my nose here) the fact that a sixth SB win would tie your team with the Steelers for most Super Bowl wins by a franchise: you cannot let Ray Lewis win this game. I even picked you against my better judgment just so it’d be one more thing in your favor, although I can’t break .500 for the season even if you do win:

Two weeks ago: 0-1 (push pick for Atlanta); Overall: 129-131
At San Francisco -3.5 Baltimore

Just win. Do it for me and for my ill-defined sense of pro-athlete karma. You must.

• Also, this survey result hews pretty close to my belief that 20% of respondents in any survey are total idiots who should immediately be discarded:
  

  Perhaps the most shocking is that 27 percent of those polled—more than a quarter—believe that “God plays a role in determining which team wins a sporting event.” Watch a game with three of your buddies. Odds are that one of you wholeheartedly believes that God has a vested interest in the outcome of the game, and will influence it to get His way. This could really throw off Vegas’s lines.

  It doesn’t matter if the question is whether the sun rotates around the Earth or whether we should bring back leaded gasoline, you will always find that at least 20% of people answer affirmatively. You’re really surveying 80% of your respondents to get a true feel for how thinking humans think about whatever it is you’re asking.

• Aliens: Colonial Marines will be out in February and looks pretty sweet. One story gripe: this is supposed to be set on the colony planet from Aliens, yet the settlement and surrounding area seems intact in all the trailers. Does this mean the reactor explosion never happened? I’m guessing the game designers haven’t missed this glaring question, but I mean shit, it’s kinda glaring. I’m cool with it thought if it means more aliens to blow up.
• I went to the Soundgarden show here last night, and it was amazing. I forgot how much those guys were the best thing ever to happen to grunge/metal/weird time signatures:

  Awesome show and I want to go again. Space-time displacement plz.