Alexis and Zora check out Super Bowl Hoopla

Downtown Phoenix is frantic with preparation for Super Bowl-related activities. Alexis and Zora, being big football fans, had to check it out. (Alexis is the one with hair today; she was in the second wave of early settlers and is studying for her realtor's license. Zora is her cousin, who arrived with the Polar Bear Club and who is an artist and community activist.)

We are big football fans and this... is a big football.

The football, located at Central and Washington, is twenty feet tall and made out of 7,000 pounds of steel and other building supplies. Our mayor touts it as an excellent place to take selfies.

We feel dwarfed by the magnificence of the mighty football.

The crowds for the Pro Bowl last week were insane -- density like rush hour in Manhattan, but with 90% of the people utterly confused about our rail system -- but I wanted a record of the festivities, so I went downtown to take pictures at sunrise, when the revelers might not be awake yet. There were very limited places where I could pose the gals, as security was everywhere, presumably guided by the principle that when you have thousands of drunken revelers descending on your downtown, it's best they don't touch anything.

Like Stonehenge. Or maybe Planet of the Apes.

The giant Roman numerals are part of an entertainment district that sprawls across vacant lots at the bottom of downtown, from CityScape to U.S. Airways Center. None of these places is home to the actual football game -- it's out in the wilds of farthest Glendale.

So why isn't Glendale, which has spent billions, trillions, nay quintillions of dollars on becoming a sports-entertainment center, hosting the big party?

Well, that city's staggering under such an enormous weight of debt from all these projects that it couldn't afford to provide the last bits of necessary infrastructure, says the New York Times. That's pretty much how we do business in Arizona: if it's not a scandalous, over-leveraged, shoddily constructed boondoggle, it just doesn't feel like home.

Meanwhile, home feels remarkably unlike home. Vistas are transformed by barriers, lights, and football-themed decor, knocking our wide, open spaces down to a more intimate European scale.

Beer garden in waiting.

We seem to be building a baby stadium next to Collier Center, amid the themed sports bars in their quaint brick buildings. The lights are in baggies because it's been raining.

Have no fear, CNN is here.

At the light rail stop by Chase Field, Alexis appreciates the advertising potential of applying hype directly to the pavement in high-traffic areas, while Zora is appalled at how everything has to be commercialized.  

Think of it this way, Zora -- at least it's a change from all the beer ads.

What with Stub Hub offering tickets for $3,500 (no, I did not check to see if these were "good" seats), the gals have decided it would be most sensible to watch the game from the comfort of their homes. 

Next commercial, you're totally making popcorn, girl.

Me, I'm going to Tucson. That should be far enough away to be quiet.