- The Bobcats are to the Celtics what the Giants were to the Patriots: confident, strong, capable of making a game of it (although we'd like to think that we won't see Jason Richardson celebrating a championship for at least another couple of years). The Celts barely beat the 'Cats in November, lost (embarrassingly) in January, and were challenged up until the end on Friday night, when Boston won, 108-100, at TD Banknorth Garden. Not......

From satire by the Upright Citizens Brigade (see video above) to Bob Ryan to editorials in the Boston Globe magazine, the media appears to be wailing on Patriots coach Bill Belichick after Spygate and the Super Bowl loss. So he lost, and so he might be a cheater, but would people be as angry if the Patriots won the Super Bowl? Maybe not. Doug Most writes in the Boston Globe Magazine, "But now it's......

...Bon Jovi: "Wanted Dead or Alive" (or cash or check...) In a Billboard interview this week, '80s hair-metal holdover Jon Bon Jovi says in regards to his summer tour plans, I've got two choices. We've got the Giants, Soldiers, Fenways [sic] (stadiums) on hold or we stay in Europe because of the state of the economy. All these (arena) shows are sold out, but the July dates, I'm not sure where the economy's going......

Photograph of Michael Strahan, coach Tom Coughin (holding the Vince Lombardi trophy) and quarterback and Super Bowl MVP Eli Manning by Tien Mao Gothamist was amazed after the Giants won the Super Bowl, the city went wild, and it witnessed a ticker-tape parade.Barack Obama drew 20,000+ ahead of Seattle’s Saturday caucus.Londonist had Super Tuesday too.Elusive guerrilla street artist Banksy revisits Los Angeles.After the Patriots lost the Super Bowl and came this close to making......

Is it even an argument at this point? Boston's Mayor Menino caused the Patriots' loss by planning the city's victory party a little too early and much too transparently. Last Wednesday, well before the unthinkable happened, the Herald was already proclaiming, "Tommy, you might as well have suited up for the hated Giants." While the mourning (and the blame game) continues, political life must also go on. With the Massachusetts primary being held tomorrow, the......

Update: At least someone found humor in the hoodie. Let the finger-pointing begin. Whose fault was it that the New England Patriots lost to the New York Giants in the Super Bowl? Tom Brady? Bill Belichick? Or was it ... Bill Belichick's new hoodie? Bostonist blames the hoodie. Belichick came out in a hoodie with the sleeves cut off at three quarters, but the hoodie was in a hot-red shade that no one could miss.......

After he got hammered in the 1996 election, Bob Dole told everyone who would sit still and listen that he didn't take things as hard as he'd feared. "I slept like a baby...woke up crying every two hours," he'd say. If last night had just been a game, it would have been OK. Even if it meant the end of the dream of a perfect season, we probably could have handled it. If we'd lost......

5:38 PM. Let the live blog begin! We're back at Bostonist Auxiliary HQ in Central Mass, where we've been for 15 out of the previous 18 games this season (2 of the 3 we missed were the way-too-close Baltimore and Jets II games, so no way we're taking any chances). We're joined for a little while by a 2 1/2 year old who has never seen a Patriot Super Bowl win in his entire life.......

Super Bowl --Looking for a good Super Bowl party? Bring your favorite beer mug to the Milky Way, where the big game will screen, and then you can celebrate with some candlepin bowling. Sponsored by the Mug Project, which wants people to use a mug instead of guzzling their way through disposable cups, and Neighbors for Neighbors. 6:00 pm. --MenuPages also provides listings of restaurants with promising Super Bowl parties, including 75 Chestnut, Big......

A very brief Redux today, since we're saving our best stuff for the YouKnowWhat XLII Live-Blog, which will start around 5:30 (not 7:30 as we earlier reported). The Bruins played well, but you have to play a perfect game to beat Detroit, and they didn't. Milan Lucic made a sweet steal that set up a Chuck Kobasew goal to take a 1-0 lead, but the Red Wings battered and battered and finally got to Tim......

So, the first anniversary of Aqua Teen Hunger Force's attack on Boston falls close to the Super Bowl. The creative minds behind Aqua Teen merge both ATHF and the Super Bowl in one clip, which Bostonist stumbled across on the Best Week Ever blog. However, they're rooting for the wrong team: div#main{overflow:visible;} The mayor, the governor, the city council, and everyone else embarrassed by the Mooninite Menace won't like this. Not only did the Mooninites......

"Bye-weeks. Bronco Nagurski didn't get no bye-weeks! And now he's dead! Well, maybe they're a good thing." - Moe, The Simpsons These are the times that try fan's souls. The cavalcade of ridiculousness that is Media Day is long over, but the actual game is still three looooooong days away. But with 564,000 media members stomping around Greater Phoenix, stories will be filed even if there's no story there. And we have to talk about......

Our two local papers enjoyed a Super Bowl-scale brawl yesterday when the Track Girls chided the Globe for selling a book on the Patriots' undefeated season. As if it's a crime. Bostonist loves the Track Girls, but how do they think teams get their championship T-shirts and caps so quickly? A wizard waving a wand? People print them beforehand, just like they print books beforehand, and the Globe had the foresight to get ready for......

Here's something we never thought of: the Patriots' (hopeful) victory parade would have to be on Tuesday, thus conflicting with the Massachusetts primary. The team won't be back on Monday, and most of them have to go to the Pro Bowl in Hawaii on Wednesday. So Tuesday (and not AFTER the Pro Bowl, which would just be crazy talk) it is. "We have to have a plan," saidMayor Menino. "I'm just thinking about it; I......

Politicians will squeeze the juice out of pretty much anything, including the World Series and the Super Bowl. Only recently, former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani made a legendary blunder when he said on a Boston trip that he was rooting for the Red Sox. Yankees fans were appalled, and Sox fans felt a little scuzzy. But former president and First Campaigner Bill Clinton was smooth 'n' silky when asked about his favorite for the......

Bostonist hearts the Herald's habit of mashing up anything sports-related with other subjects, such as online romance. Today, as the Super Bowl approaches, Joe Dwinnell contacted a shrink to help fans find meaning in Bill Belichick's hoodie and cope with various neuroses. The good doctor warns that fans might want draw clear mental boundaries between themselves and the Patriots coach: Q: Bill Belichick is so dry, but that’s good. Should we all go through life......

This morning, the Patriots are headed to Phoenix. Most of America is uncomfortably embracing a New York team as "good"'s only hope against "evil", while we're just waiting and anticipating that Tom Brady will eventually show up and rejoin the team. (We think he will; it's not Manny we're talking about here.) Luckily for the Pats, another opponent has decided to open his big mouth and give them something other than Brady's foot to talk......

--Last night, a woman suffering from multiple sclerosis was unable to get out of her home and died in a fire in Wellesley. Wellesley's fire chief said a space heater was the cause. [WCVB] --A fire broke out on the third floor of the Boston Marriott Cambridge last night. No one was hurt, but those who were evacuated were probably freezing. [Boston Globe] --A reporter checks in on the father of Alex Jimenez, the......

As Boston and New York brace for another symbolic sports showdown in the form of the Super Bowl, New York media outlets are busy painting Tom Brady as a "girlie man." Radar threw down the gauntlet, sneering that Boston was "New York's partial-birth kid brother" (klassy) and reminding us that Brady is hanging out in New York City before the game, hardy har. Might they be hiding some inferiority complexes of their own? The New......

--The city of Boston is lawyering up big-time for an expected suit from Shawn Drumgold, a man wrongly convicted of the 1989 murder of a 12-year-old. Drumgold spent 15 years behind bars. [Boston Globe] --An elderly woman died of cardiac arrest in an overnight house fire in Newton that also sent three residents and two firefighters to the hospital. [WCVB] --It's official. Mike Huckabee is in the Boston Marathon, and he'll run as part......

From Red Sox Monster, Bostonist hears that New York Giants fans have descended to pathetic levels in an attempt to boost their team's self-confidence. A radio station is distributing masks of Brady's ex and babymomma, Bridget Moynahan, in the hopes of distracting the quarterback to the Super Bowl. Obviously, the station cooked up this idea before word got out that Brady was walking around with a cast on his foot. And, besides, if they wanted......

Bostonist was at a bar last night. Hey, it happens. Everything was good and fun, until the TV (sans sound) flashed a news report: "Brady Seen In Cast". We weren't around for the JFK assassination, but now we have a pretty good idea what the terrified hush that fell over the nation felt like. A couple panicked phone calls later, we weren't any closer to an explanation. The video on TMZ shows a small cast......

We guess we have to face the facts that the Steamroller Pats of this past autumn were the aberration, not the norm. The M.O. for the first three championship teams was: keep it close, make the big plays and make the other guy NOT make them, then walk out with a win, and make sure the other guy walks out shaking his head and wondering if one or two plays would have made the difference.......

In a way, it doesn't feel right; the Colts should perhaps be in town today. They are(were) the defending champs, after all. They gave the Patriots the first in a long stretch of runs for their money that the Pats survived. The Dungy-Belichick and Manning-Brady rivalries are about the biggest stories in sports in this young century. But who cares, really. The Colts are on the golf course and it's San Diego who's in town......

The losing streak is over! The Celtics got back on track yesterday, though it was no sure thing. They survived a valiant effort from a spirited Portland team; even sans Rondo, their offense finally clicked in the second half thanks mostly to Ray Allen and 26 of his season-high 35 points. Good thing Ray was on target, because Pierce wasn't, and neither were Tony or Perk. Garnett had a quiet 26 (still waiting for that......

A New England Patriots fan told Joe Fitzgerald at the Herald that some overzealous Pats fans beat up him, his friend, and his cousins, who happened to be Jaguars fans and who were wearing Jaguar gear, after the Pats-Jaguars game. Brian Wormstead recounts the appalling pummeling he received in the parking lot after a brief exchange with the Pats fans: "I just know I’ve got a punctured eardrum and lumps all over me; Chris has......

Thanks to the Freedom Of Information laws and the PATRIOT Act, we were able to petition the federal government to listen in on last night's weekly Manning Family phone call. Here's a sample: E: Hey, Peyton, it's me. P: Oh, hi, Eli. What's up? E: Well, I don't know if you saw it, but we beat the Cowboys last night. It was pretty awesome. P: Yeah, I saw. Congratulations. E: Thanks, big brother! You know,......

Update: Mike Reiss posted at 3:10 that Wilfork--and his finger--got fined $15,000 for unsportsmanlike conduct. (Thanks, AnneAllsonMA!) After all the celebration over the Patriots' perfect season, Bostonist conveniently forgot that some outrage might arise after the actions of one particular New England Patriot. During the game against the New York Giants, Vince Wilfork got into a heated altercation with the Giants' Brandon Jacobs. In the midst of the fracas, Wilfork aimed his finger squarely at......

Kind of a slow week on Series of Tubes (why it's a bit late) for the end of year, but we've got the goods. --Finally, someone else articulates why Celtic Woman is so weird. [Margalit] --Dan Kennedy had to talk about the whole Jamie Lynn Spears pregnancy to his own teenage daughter. Awkward. He writes, "I wish her to be gone from Zoey 101." [Media Nation/Guardian UK] --When the Patriots beat the Giants and got......

--Headline on WBZ: "Storm Fails to Break December Storm Record." While we don't want to be too hard on our local weatherheads, shouldn't that really read "Weatherheads Fail to Predict Size of Storm"? [WBZ] --Civil unions will be legal in New Hampshire as of midnight tonight. Yes! Ceremonies will be "subdued" because New Hampshire isn't exactly the Ramrod crowd. [Boston Globe] --Even though the NFL eventually let their rivals air the Patriots-Giants game Saturday,......