It's Alive!!

After a short (technology-induced) hiatus, ITC is pleased to be back in service. Greetings from the Miami Beach Convention Center, which has been overrun by several thousand media members this week in search of anything even remotely resembling an original story about either the Colts or Bears.

Along those lines, witness the fascination that Bears RB Thomas Jones' hot car inspired at a media session this morning at the Chicago team hotel. This picture doesn't even do the scene justice; reporters were literally pushing each other to get the smallest of nuggets from Jones about his orange Ferrari (which, by the way, has an orange dashboard and interior paneling, too).

So far, my virgin Super Bowl voyage has been pretty low-key; my biggest complaint is that I'm perpetually cold. At first, I thought maybe it was just me - then I called the front desk of my hotel and was told that there actually is no heat in the hotel at all. "You can push the thermostat all the way up and nothing will happen," the attendant said cheerfully, prompting me to politely tell him that I knew that already, hence my phone call.

Still, I'm not complaining. Last night I stopped by an outdoor party on South Beach which featured several bikini-clad girls playing volleyball in the sand. There didn't seem to be any sort of tournament or anything going - the girls were simply there to look at while we sampled food from several stations.

Who says the NFL isn't a full-service entertainment operation?