2:04 a.m. EST

This is how I know I'm back at another Super Bowl. No, not the 24-hour-a-day Super Bowl channel on my hotel TV. Not the ESPN Radio booth still going strong even this late at night. And not the $85 Super Bowl baby bib being sold in the lobby. After settling in, I get up to leave my room (I still can't believe they let me check in, since I thought my brother's bar bill from the last Super Bowl here still had not been settled) and notice the hotel layout design on the Emergency Evacuation Procedure chart on the back of the door looks just like … a football.

	There are perks to attending the Super Bowl, besides the game.

Out for a stroll around the hotel, I nearly bump into Kenny Mayne and then talk my way into the final few songs of the Sheryl Crow concert. First, however, the security guard wanted to know what I thought about a few coaches.

Jon Gruden? I'm tired of guys mouthing off and talking junk about Gruden now that he's gone from Oakland. If you didn't have the guts to say something to the guy's face when he was coaching there, then keep your mouth shut.

Bill Parcells? He's promised to restore Cowboy pride. Well, he also promised never to be part of any more coaching rumors. He promised -- even signed his name to a contract -- to coach the Bucs. He was also openly critical of Jerry Jones in his latest book and now, $18 million later, doesn't have a problem with the guy?

Marvin Lewis? How long till he sits in his office in Cincinnati, buries his head in his hands and weeps? I'll give him a month.

Brian Billick? This is what he told me last week about the Super Bowl hype. "The biggest thing that jumps out at you when you play a Super Bowl is this: Everything leading up to the kickoff and after the final gun is like nothing you have ever been a part of. But from kickoff to final gun, that time in between, it's still a game. It's like every other game you've played. The ramifications are bigger, certainly, but it's a game and your instincts still kick in once it starts."

Word of the day? GOAT. Greatest Of All Time. What the Raiders call Jerry Rice.

Overheard on my plane from a Marine recruit heading to San Diego: "Well, I don't know, would you consider this pornography?"

Super Bowl Love Letters are already rolling in:

"As I go through my to-do list, I see that I still haven't addressed you and your article about the Raiders titled The Grayders. So, much like finding a crusty pair of underwear under the bed with three weeks worth of [poop] stains [YOU] on them, I will do what is necessary. So here it is: You obviously don't have a clue about football, so I suggest you get a job that will be more in line with what talent you may [probably] have, that being licking the stains off the floor of an adult theater. F you." -- Raider fan

And, regarding my last column about the Silence in the Vet, Eagles fan J. Tout says: "I hope you get gonorrhea."

Yes indeed, I'm back at the Super Bowl.

8:05 a.m. EST

This morning I'm reminded of a fishing trip I took a few years back with Bucs uber fullback Mike Alstott. We left his Tampa home early in the morning, jumping on his fishing boat docked right behind his house. We went after tarpon, getting one bite, but no fish.

But what I remember the most about the trip -- besides the down to earth, relaxed nature of Alstott and the crystal clear blue water and sky that made the horizon seem to disappear -- was setting the anchor in the water near Tampa. We got close to a huge bridge and Alstott asked me to bring him the anchor. So I hunkered down and heaved the anchor, which felt like a concrete highway divider, a few feet closer to where Alstott was sitting. (okay, a few inches.) He said thanks, grabbed the thing with one arm and backhanded it about, oh, 20 feet or so into the water.

Alstott, by the way, may end up being the key to this game if he can bulldoze his way to a few first downs and keep a few drives alive, therefore keeping the Raiders' explosive offense off the field.

From the podium:

Warren Sapp on the difference between a Raider and a Buc: "The patch is on the other eye." Love this guy.

Read today that the Chargers have four defensive players in the Pro Bowl, even though they finished 15th overall and last in pass defense. Ya know, players and fans say the media doesn't know the game?

If you don't own Weezer's green album, go get it. It's a revolutionary synthesis of punk and pop and features the best first four songs on an album since U2's last release.

If I filed this late it's because my hotel room doesn't have a clock. Who steals a clock?

3:56 p.m. EST

So I'm enjoying a nice lunch, sitting outdoors with some colleagues at a Gaslamp Quarters restaurant, and who meanders by on a mountain bike, carrying a bag from Nordstrom's, but Cris Carter of HBO and the Miami Dolphins. This is the Super Bowl to a T. One minute you're enjoying a nice scrambled egg burrito, and the next Cris Carter's handlebars are brushing past your ear.

Of course, I immediately threw out the first good-natured salvo. "Hey, that's the most forward progress he's made all year." And while I waited -- and waited, and waited -- for my friends to jump in with their own offerings, I just kept going. "He's riding a bike? Sure beats riding the bench." Finally, this lame-o was offered up: "Hey, what's he carrying in the bag, is it careers half-off at Nordstrom's today?" Like I said, it was a good natured joke-off, and I crushed the competition.

As if the scene couldn't get any more surreal, passing Carter going the other way were members of Greenpeace followed by three TV crews from Tampa who, I think, were going to interview a fire hydrant because it was painted red and black.

After lunch we were accosted by a manic gang of perfume saleswomen on the street. I shared my credo that cologne on men is effeminate and they left me alone and squirted someone else.

Useless Super Bowl info: The game will be broadcast in 27 languages, including Dutch, English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Arabic, Cantonese, Catalan, Finnish, Hebrew, Hindi, Icelandic, Korean, Mandarin, Norwegian, Serbian, Swedish and Thai.

The postgame festivities will include a performance by Bon Jovi, who is to music what the Bengals are to the NFL.

Fun with press releases: This is from an actual release -- Who's the Loudest Snorer in the NFL? Official Snore-o-meter will measure the loudest of the finalists' snores. It's come down to two competitors: AFC backup QB Brock Huard of the Indianapolis Colts, nominated by Peyton Manning who says his snore sounds like an "extra-terrestrial animal." Or, NFC defensive tackle Dana Stubblefield from the 49ers, nominated by his wife Kim, who likens Dana's snore to a "train roaring down the hallways at training camp."

Down the block from lunch, a van is covered in post-it notes, asking people to sell their tickets for $2,000 a game. A few doors down a man shouts an offer of $2,500.

I'm off to do the ESPN Radio show Gameday -- one of my favorite gigs -- wish me luck.

David Fleming is a senior writer for ESPN The Magazine. E-mail him at dave.fleming@espn3.com.