Baltimore Ravens victory parade delayed by traffic gridlock as fans throng to downtown Baltimore and M&T Stadium, but is now proceeding; watch the parade LIVE!; @ravens, #BaltimorePride, #ravens, #nfl, #superbowl47

Maryland National Guard Humvee outside Baltimore City Hall waiting for the Ravens police-escorted buses to navigate the traffic gridlock from training camp and arrive for Head Coach John Harbaugh to stand in the turret for parade.

Baltimore Ravens victory parade delayed by traffic gridlock as fans throng to downtown Baltimore and M&T Bank Stadium; watch the parade LIVE; 

http://baltimore.cbslocal.com/live-video/

12:02 p.m. Floats now leaving Baltimore City Hall 
12:07 p.m. Ed Reed carrying Lombardi Trophy and letting fans along parade route touch it...

Skychopper 13's view looking southwest towards Oriole Park at Camden Yards in foreground and purple-colored M&T Bank Stadium across the expressway as crowds begin to fill the stadium.

By 11:20 a.m., the entire top deck of the stadium was full and fans, allowed on the field for the first time, was nearing the safety capacity.

At 11:30 a.m., Coach John Harbaugh along with team owner Steve Bisciotti, arrived at the stadium, where Harbaugh addressed the crowd and apologized for being late but told them that he and the entire team and organization would be back in an hour after a tour of the downtown area, and for them NOT to leave.

The last point is important as Baltimore Police are concerned that throngs of fans will try to follow team buses back from City Hall to M&T and put it over capacity.

Rumors are also circulating that there may be some 'surprise' entertainers arriving for the ceremony at the stadium.

Above, the Baltimore Ravens t-shirt I wore during Sunday's Super Bowl win over the 49ers, and back on January 12th for the Ravens at Texans playoff game that I watched in Stockholm.

I had to watch that game and the other divisional playoff games online via nfl.com from the B&B I was staying at in Stockholm, after paying the bargain price of $40 to watch all the playoff games and the Super Bowl outside of the U.S., because the Stockholm sports bars wouldn't be staying open late enough for me and other fans to see all of the the games.
One place that I was told was among the best sports bars was going to close at Midnight, roughly the start of the fourth quarter of the Ravens at Texans game, and because the Packers at 49ers Saturday night game started at 2:30 am Stockholm time, well, you can imagine.
I didn't go to sleep until about 6:30 a.m.

More on that watching football on a computer from thousands of miles away in the coming days, which I'd originally hoped to LIVE blog but couldn't due to technical reasons.

Naturally, since the Ravens won, I couldn't wash it during the intervening weeks, so I kept it in a zip-lock bag during the intervening weeks to keep the magic "fresh."
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http://www.baltimoresun.com/

Forbes.com
Value Of Super Bowl Champ Ravens Soars Under Owner Steve Bisciotti
Kurt Badenhausen
2/04/2013 @ 12:21PM 
http://www.forbes.com/sites/kurtbadenhausen/2013/02/04/value-of-the-ravens-soars-under-owner-steve-bisciotti/

As Super Bowl 47 draws near, I recall "Cool American" chips in Stockholm and the only sign I've seen in two weeks back in Hallandale Beach that someone else here pays attention to detail; #superbowl47

Saw this attention to detail at the joint Pepsi and Tostitos display almost immediately after taking a few steps into the Publix grocery store in Hallandale Beach earlier this week.
So, do you see it?
The Roman numerals?
Correct, XLVII.
As in Super Bowl 47.

When I saw it, it was almost like it was a message that intended just for me, given how much I appreciate attention to detail and context.

If you think most kids at Hallandale High and other area high schools would recognize it, you obviously aren't paying attention. Kids in this area are woefully ignorant, which explains a lot, but that's a subject for another time.


http://youtu.be/OrYTsVw53iA
For about the 15th year in a row, I will skip the Super Bowl halftime show tomorrow and either take a short walk outside, or check online for any interesting Super Bowl-related news stories, especially anecdotal ones that will either later prove to be untrue, or be so asinine that I'll wonder why they're even being mentioned. 

While I was in Sweden for about 8 days in January, I noticed many interesting things that I'll be dropping on you readers of the blog in the weeks and months to come as they seem particularly germane.
Today, though, as it concerns Tostitos, I noticed one amusing thing worth mentioning here while twice stopping at the Subway restaurant at Kungsgatan 61, next to the always-busy 7/11 at the corner of Vasagatan in downtown Stockholm -a few blocks from my hotel- where I was waited upon by the very friendly owner/general manager.
(It's opposite the Kebab House; tell the manager at Subway that the guy from South Florida with the Dolphins cap he spoke to sent you.)


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Instead of calling their Cool Ranch chips just that, in Scandinavia and Northern Europe, Tostitos markets them as "Cool American," as the photos below makes clear. 

See also http://metrobloggen.se/americaninsweden/i_miss_doritos_but_olw_chips_will_do/

By the way, for whatever it's worth, Google Maps and Pepsi in South Florida might want to get on the same page because as I found out today, their entry seem to be run by the same folks that gave me such bad directions in Stockholm a few times last month, as the following makes clear.


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Once again, Jimmy Kimmel Live Show adroitly skewers puffery, smugness and pomposity, this time, average people talking about having watched the Ravens-49ers Super Bowl Game that's still days from being played; #nfl, #superbowl47, @nfl, @superbowl47

The Jimmy Kimmel Show, Lie Witness News - Did You Watch the Super Bowl, JimmyKimmelLive. Uploaded January 30, 2013. http://youtu.be/zR9NV7D4FVY

Once again, Jimmy Kimmel Live Show adroitly skewers puffery, smugness and pomposity, this time, average people talking about having watched the Ravens-49ers Super Bowl Game that's still days from being played; #nfl, #superbowl47

This humorous effort of Jimmy and his writers to really skewer average people's pomposity, with humorous results, actually reminds me most of the uninformed comments I've heard stated the past nine years on Miami-area TV newscasts as elected officials pontificated about things after-the-fact that they were clearly only dimly familiar with after having actually voted.

Or, just like attending and carefully watching a Hallandale Beach City Commission.

Everyone's afraid to say that they didn't know, don't know or are unfamiliar with a topic, so they try to "wing it."

Hallandale Beach looks the way that it does and is run as poorly as it is because too many highly-paid people in responsible positions have been "winging it" for years.

But Hallandale Beach is not alone on that score in South Florida, just where I happen to live and a place that I'm most highly observant of.

In the new year, you will hear more on this blog about other cities and agencies that have been run similarly, with little concern for actually delivering a dollar's worth of service for a dollar's worth of taxes, and a refusal to face reality when presented with the true facts by citizens and activists.