Another Superbowl has come and gone, and while I am $40 lighter in the wallet thanks to bets to Stefan Adams and Laurie Renner on a San Francisco 49ers win prediction by myself, the pain was soothed by an epic Superbowl party hosted by Jason and Deonie Jensen.
A first-time guest of the party where I had heard many a story about the party from Jason, it was a great time and I hope to be invited back in the future even if my game observations got a little louder as the libations continued to flow. Much like a sportscaster does in giving highlights of the Superbowl, here are some of my highlights of the party that was on Sunday which indeed made it super.
HITTING THE ROULETTE TABLE: The Jensens supply all the food and beer for the party, but your beer consumption comes with a catch. You have to play a game called Beer Roulette which involves two tubs of beer  with towels over them so you do not know which beer you are getting. Beers range from your rot-gut cheap domestics to your high-end imports with tons of interesting kinds in-between.
You swish your hand around the tub and pull out a beer blindly. You have to drink what you take or you have the option to trade. This year’s version of Beer Roulette had 38 different varieties with 122 beers in total. My first foray into Beer Roulette was quite successful as I pulled a Tetley’s Smooth Flow and Guinness right off the bat followed later by a Cobblestone Stout, and a Kilkenny Cream Ale.
To tell you the truth, my chance at losing at Beer Roulette is quite low as I’m not that much of a beer snob. Short of a beer being way too hoppy or like I’m tasting bread yeast, I’ll drink pretty much anything. And anyone complaining about a free beer shouldn’t be looking a gift horse in the mouth.
FOOD FOR THOUGHT: I made the mistake of eating something the day of the Jensen’s Superbowl party. Deonie Jensen spent the day and during the Superbowl slaving away in the kitchen with a cavalcade of delectables. It’s was a man’s man feast of meatballs, chili, biscuits, cocktail wieners wrapped in bacon, cheeseballs, biscuits, and four pounds of different wings. Menu items included recipes from the two cities that were featured in the Superbowl. There was symmetry to the evening, while Baltimore ended up winning the Superbowl, so to did the Baltimore crab cakes prove more popular over the San Francisco crab cakes in the Flavour Bowl among guests. Perhaps my bowl of cereal in the morning saved me as if I would have continued to dig into the food like I already did with increased hunger, I probably would have been passed out in my chair in a food coma by the early part of the third quarter. I’ll make sure I bring my loose pants next time as a tip of the hat to the chef needs to be made.
SEINFELD EPISODE: There was a George Costanza sighting at the Jensen Superbowl party. OK, not the lovable loser from the former hit sitcom Seinfeld, but a nice person I met in Russ Zaluski who had some Seinfeld-esque qualities when it came to him for Superbowl predictions.
Remember the Seinfeld episode when George started doing the exact opposite of every instinct he had and started being successful at life? Zaluski did just that, breaking a streak of long-time losing $5 bets on the coin flip with his friend Jason by first thinking the flip was going to be tails as his first instinct, but calling heads. Perhaps he should have followed his gut feeling by placing a bet in Vegas doing the opposite of his thoughts of the San Francisco 49ers. Compounding the mojo of doing the opposite of what Zaluski was thinking or saying was the moment he said the game was over  when the Ravens’ Jacoby Jones returned the opening kickoff in the second half 108 yards to give his team what seemed like an insurmountable 28-6 lead at the time. The moment he made that remark, the 49ers scored 17 unanswered points in the blink of an eye and were actually five yards away and three chances to make those yards to orchestrating the biggest Superbowl comeback in history, rallying from a 22-point deficit. Zaluski may have something here if we wants to gamble in Vegas by going against every sports instinct he has where it would indeed be .......The Summer of Russ.
HIGHER POWER: I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, I do the eye roll whenever I see an athlete speak about God as if he has a vested interest in the outcome of the game. No Ray Lewis, God was not up in heaven in the clouds, turning on his big-screen TV wearing his Ed Reed Ravens jersey, eating  His pork rinds.
If you are going to bring religion into the post-game conference, simply state you are thankful for the athletic gifts God has given you to compete and move on. Much like war, God doesn’t pick sides when it comes to sports, worrying if the Ravens are going to cover the 3.5-point spread. He has more important things on his mind........like making His favourite win American Idol.
ARM-CHAIR QUARTERBACK: People say hindsight is 20-20, but my sight was perfect right during the last two minutes of the Superbowl. To anyone who was within earshot of my whining (I call it deep football insight), I couldn’t believe why the 49ers after making a furious comeback would call four straight pass plays on first-and-goal on the seven-yard line in which a touchdown likely wins them the game. You have a quarterback in Colin Kaepernick who had already set a quarterback record for most rushing yards in a playoff season and already had scampered for a 15-yard major in the game, another record. You also had a power running back in Frank Gore who had already rushed for over 100 yards. You have four chances to make nine yards against a tired defence, and also burn some time off the clock to lessen the chances of a Denver-Baltimore comeback if you run the ball.  And you still do four straight passes where cornerbacks and safeties are already playing tight with the shortened field?
I thought my observations perhaps were off base until I heard or read people say the same thing the next morning on 960 Sports Radio, cbssportline and nfl.com.
Sometimes I think people make football way more complicated than it needs to be by being too cutesy.
Three yards and a cloud of dust in that situation wins the Superbowl for the 49ers......and me $40.