Tomorrow evening, the football franchise I grew up with, the franchise I lived and died with and rushed home from Hebrew school every Sunday to watch play, will be competing - after decades punctuated almost entirely by failure and futility - for its first world championship. And I really don't give a damn.

In fact, under normal circumstances, I'd probably be rooting against the Cardinals, sipping on some of that sweet schadenfreude soup, just like I've done in the 20-plus years since the franchise bolted from my hometown of St. Louis.

So in honor of Super Bowl Sunday, I've compiled a list of my Top Ten Mega-Sporting Events. The first five I wrote about in part one, which to recap were:

10. Triple Crown 9. The Grand Slams of Golf and Tennis 8. NBA Championships 7. Bowl Championship Series and 6. World Cup Soccer

And now I present to you my top 5 Mega-Sporting Events:

The Super Bowl is upon us. It's a remarkable event, able to bring together the vast majority of Americans, calling them to a rather inert form of action in living rooms and bars all across this great land. In this Age of Entertainment Plenitude, with the hundreds of TV channels and thousands of other diversionary options we now enjoy, it's a remarkable feat.

Can there be any question as to what My One Favorite Thing this week was? Could it be any more obvious?? I mean, clearly, it was Rick Warren's Invocation Speech. Duh. What a beautiful testimonial to the goodness of god, the power of prayer and the righteousness of Scripture!

So, A-Man, Genghis, Orlando are all painting D.C. blue tonight, making it tough for them to discuss in detail the incredible experiences they must have had today. In the meantime, I figured I'd give my take on Obama's inaugural address.

OK, so I didnt find a way to scrounge up an Inauguration ticket. I'm certainly not going to spend one of the most beautiful and meaningful weeks in recent memory being bitter. At least A-man and the Big O are making me feel like I'm there with their insanely comprehensive coverage (although how about a little more multimedia please!). In the meantime, as my own little contribution to the week's festivities, I hereby offer up a special Inauguration version of my Questions column. Now these are no fun without reader participation, so you need to contribute by answering!

So I was watching next-day coverage of the Hudson River airplane crash on CNN today and at some point one of the anchors brings up God and says something to the effect, "And if you're not already religious, something like this may make you believe."

And it made me wonder,

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It doesn't take much for a bank to make me happy. Give me online access, a good interest rate, a bunch of branches, and I'm all good. Heck, lately I'm just thrilled when my chosen banking institutions don't implode and go boom.

So earlier this week, we discovered that several daggers - perhaps even a majority - do not believe Curb Your Enthusiasm is funny. One of my co-bloggers was perhaps the most strident of the Curb-haters, calling the show 'an atrocity' and Larry David the 'least funny on-screen performer ever given a screen on which to perform.' This made Mortimus mad, and trust me, you won't like Mortimus when he's angry (I've put the big green guy on tilt at poker several times and barely survived to tell the tale).

OK, I'm about to reveal - at no charge to you - the secret of success, in all aspects of life.

Pay close attention ... No, that's not the secret, I'm just letting you know you should pay attention because I'm about to reveal the secret.

You ready??? You sure?? Are you sitting down?? Notebook in hand???

Ok, ok, alright already, here it is (commence drum roll)....

------------->>>>>> REJECT REJECTION <<<<<<-------------

I don't think 2008 was a very good year for pop culture.

The Hollywood writers' strike seemed to have lingering effects, delaying the return of some of my favorite TV shows past the point of anticipation all the way to indifference. Probably can't blame the strike, but most of the year for movies was also generally a disaster, with the summer slate being a particular disappointment (I was even let down by The Dark Knight).

A few weeks ago, I wrote about how insufficient the typical yearly doctor physical seems for adequately diagnosing diseases, and how modern technology could be used so much more effectively. Interestingly enough, the latest Wired magazine cover story addresses this very issue with a specific focus on the battle against cancer. It's a fascinating read.

Just got done watching The Happening, written, directed and produced by M. Night Shyamalan, and felt the need to do a question column on it. Yes, they are mostly rhetorical.

1) The

2) Absolute

3) Worst

4) Major

5) Motion

6) Picture

7) In the

8) History of

9) American

10) Filmmaking

Ok, so 2008 won't go down as one of the best years in recent memory. We've had a financial collapse of historic proportions, a housing meltdown, a credit crunch, a $50 billion investment scam, a failing U.S.

In my most recent question column earlier this week, I asked for readers' predictions for the upcoming year ... aside from Genghis bravely predicting that Obama would become POTUS, I didn't get too many responses.

So I'm going to ask for your predictions again, while repeating some of the predictions I made and adding a couple of more, before I revisit some calls I made this year.

Questions: The Happy Holidays Edition

1) Christmas Songs

2) Christmas Lights

3) Best gift

4) Come, Sit on My Lap

5) No, really, come sit on my lap

6) The Ball or The Parade

7) New Year's Resolution

8) Prediction Time

And because I'm out of holiday questions, a couple lingering non-thematic questions

9) Tipping

10) Pigeons

I'm keeping this one short but My One Favorite Thing this week is Weather.com's short-term forecasting, offered in hourly and even fifteen-minute intervals. (Here's an example for New York, NY)

Earlier this week, I went to my doctor to get a physical.

What a joke.

I believe in balance. In yin and yang. I believe in cycles. In symmetry. I believe big wild parties end with big, nasty hangovers. I believe that what goes up, must come down.

Unfortunately, our government does not agree.

Partly inspired by Prophet and his ongoing top 10 albums of 2008 series, and partly because I'm otherwise uninspired, I've decided to take a different tact for this week's questions: I am going to press shuffle on my IPod Nano and create a question somehow related to each of the first 10 songs that come up. I will also be giving some very quick commentary on the songs.

I am uncertain how well this process will lend itself to thought-provoking questions, and I will certainly be risking great personal embarrassment by exposing my music collection to the dagworld at large.