Nobody around here cares. I got invited to two parties on Sunday. Neither gathering has anything to do with the game.

The halftime attraction, Bruce Springsteen, has gotten a lot more attention than any game-related story line.

At his press conference yesterday in Tampa, Springsteen admitted he knows nothing about football.

He's never written a great sports tune---"Glory Days" is Springsteen's jockiest song, about an aging baseball player who once had a good "speedball"; before the tune's 1984 release, "speedball" was what killed John Belushi, not a synonym for fastball.

But Springsteen's bandmate, Nils Lofgren, wrote the greatest sports tune in the history of sports tunes: "Bullets Fever," which soundtracked the Washington Bullets glorious run to an NBA championship in 1978. You couldn't turn on a radio around here during the playoffs that year without hearing it. And singing along.

No set list for the halftime show has yet been announced. Alas, we know "Bullets Fever" won't be on it.

So listen to Lofgren's final version. And, if you're of a certain age and from these parts, sing along.

If I'm watching during intermission of Super Bowl ZZZ, it'll only be to find out if Springsteen brought that foreign guitar to America's Big Game.

The name of the movie is Tommy Gunn's Cummin' at You!, and you can sample its "hot adult action" at cummingatyou.com.

I tried watching the teaser trailer using the RealD glasses I kept from Coraline and My Bloody Valentine, but alas, I never felt as if I were about to get a nipple in the eye.

Regardless, I imagine the novelty lasting about as long as most people actually spend watching a porno. Isn't the genre usually pretty, um, interactive as it is?

When Joe Biden came by, he gave a shout-out from the stage to the governor of Pennsylvania, and the guy standing beside me started waving his arms and yelling nice things at the new Vice President.

I was next to Ed Rendell!

Rendell's my favorite governor, even though the only things I know about him are that he's a huge Philly sports fan and that he's appeared on the Eagles post-game shows for years.

So I took the opportunity to tell him sorry about what happened in Arizona. I figured the Eagles' NFC Championship loss would still be on his mind no matter how great a day this was for Rendell's political party.

I figured right.

"That last play was pass interference," Rendell said in that dog-bark of a voice he uses when he's excited.

Then, as any good Philly sports fan would, after starting out blaming the refs for the loss, Rendell recounted the Eagles miscues that he also felt cost them a trip to the Super Bowl.

"We shoulda had their guy at the 50 on that 4th down," he huffed. "But...."

Rendell told me he's going to the Super Bowl anyway, to root for his state's other team.

Now I wanna move to Pennsylvania just so I can have a governor like that.

Turns out that since Dan Snyder started calling the shots around here, letting the Redskins beat you has become a surer way to get your hands on a Lombardi Trophy than having Tom Brady as your quarterback.

Snyder took control of the team in the summer of 1999, too late to have any influence until the millennium.

The Redskins have had only two winning seasons in this century.

Yet five times since 2000, a team the Skins beat went on to win the Big Game® that season. (Brady, who came into the league the same year, only has brought Bill Belichick three Lombardis.)

Before winning Super Bowl XXXV in 2000, for example, the Baltimore Ravens were shamed by the Skins, 10-3.

The Redskins then beat future Super Bowl XVII champs Tampa Bay, 40-10, in the 2002 preseason. A year later, Brady and the New England Patriots fell to the Redskins, 20-17, at FedEx before going on to win Super Bowl XXXVIII. The Redskins topped the Pittsburgh Steelers, 17-10, in a 2005 preseason game at home; Pittsburgh used the humiliation to whup the Seattle Seahawks in Super Bowl XL. And a year ago, the Skins beat the Giants, 22-10, late in the season at the Meadowlands. The Giants used their self-disgust to shock the world by beating the undefeated Patriots in Super Bowl XLII.

Over the weekend, the Anti-Curse™ proved itself scary strong.

The Philadelphia Eagles, embarrassed twice by the Redskins this year, beat the favored and rested Giants, who had whupped the Skins twice in the 2008 regular season. And, the Arizona Cardinals, beaten by the Skins early in the season in Raljon, crushed the NFC's #2 seed, the Carolina Panthers, a team that beat Washington, 47-3, in the preseason.

The Philly and Cards wins guarantee a huge test for the Anti-Curse™ in the Big Game® : Both Baltimore and Pittsburgh destroyed the Redskins in regular season contests.

So the Big Game® is now sure to feature a matchup of Skins Vanquishers vs. Vanquished.

Anybody who followed last week's tout to put a paycheck on Florida and lay the points, and then followed City Desk's orders to put the mortgage on the Eagles and Cardinals straight up, now has two paychecks and four mortgages (parlay implied!) to play with.

This week's giveaway: No sense bothering with a bet on the Cards/Eagles matchup, since they both have Redskins defeats going for them. No, instead let it all ride on a futures bet on the NFC in the Big Game®.

You can't afford not to.

Both these squads got beat by the Redskins this year --- the Cardinals in Week 3 and the Eagles in Weeks 5 & 16.

In recent seasons, there aren't many harbingers of Super Bowl success as trusty as taking a whupping from the lowly Skins.

You can look it up.

In 2000, the Redskins beat the Baltimore Ravens, 10-3 during the regular season. The Ravens went on to beat the Giants in Super Bowl XXXV.

In 2002, the beginning of the Spurrier Era, the Redskins beat Tampa Bay, 40-10, in preseason. The Bucs went on to crush the Oakland Raiders in Super Bowl XVII.

In 2003, the Skins whupped the New England Patriots, 20-17, at FedEx. The Pats went on to win Super Bowl XXXVIII.

In 2005, the Redskins beat the Pittsburgh Steelers, 17-10, in preseason at home. The Steelers crushed the Seattle Seahawks in Super Bowl XL.

And last season, the Skins beat the Giants, 22-10, on the road in Week 15. The Giants upset the undefeated Patriots in Super Bowl XLII.

Luckily for Eagles fans, the Giants whupped the Skins in both regular season encounters this year.

And, Phoenix could be on Easy Street, since the Carolina Panthers absolutely destroyed Washington, 47-3, in August in a preseason game.

Vegas, are you listening?