NEW ORLEANS, LOUISIANA- If anyone still doubts that all professional sports are fixed, read the following statement out loud without laughing: Just months after the tragedies of September 11th, the New England Patriots surprised nearly every spots analyst on the planet by winning Superbowl XXXVI.

Hundreds of sports pundits issued their lead pipe synch predictions last week, only a very few picking New England to even cover the generous Las Vegas point spread. New England's chances to even keep the game close were officially calculated between a snowball's in Hell and an Altoid at the bottom of Delta Burke's purse. But somehow the scrappy underdogs won the day.

St. Louis fans who expected their season-long champions to run roughshod over their opponent can look to a single group of individuals for answers: The Masons. And this year, the Powers That Be[tm] included an extra instruction: "Make things interesting." Following these orders to the letter, the Rams staged a comeback of sorts in the last four minutes of the game, making overtime [a first for a Superbowl] look imminent. But just as the game appeared to be heading into unsold airtime, the Patriots landed a fieldgoal to seal the game in the final seconds.

Slander laws and warnings about certain listening devices in my home prevent me from divulging too many details. After several months of research, a few conversations in darkened parking garages, and an initiation into La Cosa Nostra, all I can say is this: I highly recommend betting your entire life savings on the Atlanta Falcons winning Superbowl XXXVII [and take the points].

As with most Superdeduperbowls, the outcome of the game is of very little consequence. If, like most Americans, you suffer through the game in order to keep up with the Monday morning water cooler talk, the commercials and halftime entertainment matter much more.

Paul McCartney and Bono sang songs about how much they loved Freedom[tm] and the good ol' US of A. This, in spite of the fact that Bono has on several occasions called America the biggest polluter and violator of human rights on the planet. They are also, we understand, the largest and most lucrative market for music consumption.

But these are different times. In spite of continued violence in the Norhern portions of the country, the Ireland public perception has changed drastically over the past decade. The Irish have wisely chosen to transform the bottle-throwing, bus-bombing members of the IRA into a crack squad of Irish line dancers. [Tickets are available through Ticketmaster.]

The point is this: even an angry young Amnesty International spokesperson can become a middle-aged mortgaged has-been. Even the man who lives on a street with no name and has himself only one name can find himself singing a re-purposed protest song in front of a roll call of 9/11 victims to millions of teary Americans.

By the end of his performance, Bono succumbed completely to the shrink-wrapped patriotic mayhem, revealing the Stars & Stripes lining on his jacket- showing that he, too, was literally wrapping himself in the flag in an effort to remain relevant.

Mrs. Kurt Warner, an inspiration to nascent lesbians everywhere. OMFG!!1! HOT GYM TEACHER ACTION! "Ooh! Make me run laps, Mrs. Warner!"

Some may have noted that the extravagant parade of Superbowl advertising seemed a bit out of place in today's more sober climate. E-Trade, the same dot-com that spent a reported $50 million on a spot featuring a dancing monkey and the text: "we just wasted $50 million," came back this year to announce that 1) they still existed and 2) they were a now changed company.

After the market for sucking the life fluids from day-traders dried up a year ago, eTrade changed its corporate direction. When companies once added "dot-com" to their names to add IPO sex appeal, once-hot commodities like eTrade change their names to seem more like the marrying type. eTrade.com is now eTrade Financial. Now they are looking to charge you $300-$500 for the privilege of talking with us about sucking your blood.

This is how eTrade chose to announce its new image: A monkey in a green sequined suit doing a Bugsby Burkley number for half of a $20M 120 second slice of air time is then told by E-Trade's CEO that his sort of foolishness does not fit with the company's new image. Sources inside a large New York advertising firm have confirmed that the new broadcast campaign for Enron will include footage of former CEO Ken Lay scratching out entries in the company ledger with White Out after which the new chief reminds him that "we don't do that anymore."

Perhaps the most notable series of commercials during the big game were those advertising a thing called "mLife." These spots, sure to be advertising award magnets, were so incredibly clever that they never defined what it was or even why someone should be interested enough to check out their web site, which at 9pm was completely out of service.

The mLife executives responsible for this are reportedly going to be looking for new mJobs next week.

Moments after the final kick, as the teams and camera crews poured onto the field, the two starting quarterbacks perfectly summarized Superbowl XXXVI:

Tom Brady: "I'm going to Disneyland!"

Kurt Warner: "I'm going to shoot myself in the head!"