Bon Super appetit!

	Stacy Innerst, Post-Gazette Click illustration for larger image.

Perhaps you've heard that Sunday is Super Sunday, a national day of excess with a football game thrown in. On this day, the average American eats more than most countries do in a year. To put you in a festive mood, we present the exercise you would have to do to counteract the caloric damage you're likely to sustain during the big game. You can thank Charles Stuart Platkin, author of "The Diet Detective's Count Down."

Italian sub = 138 minutes in a marching band

A few nachos = 97 minutes as team mascot

Two pieces fried chicken = doing "the wave" 3,220 times

Half order baby back ribs = 73 minutes cheerleading

Five chicken wings = 102 minutes refereeing

Baked ziti = 39 minutes playing pro football

Four beers = 64 minutes climbing stadium stairs

A bowl of chili = running 100 football fields

A handful of Doritos = 43 touchdown dances in the end zone

Eight potato chips with dip = biking 18 miles

Bear belly

Of course, another prominent area of Super excess is advertising. According to The Christian Science Monitor, a survey found that 58 percent of people standing around the water cooler on Super Bowl Monday talk about the commercials. Only 47 percent discuss the game. Which way the discussion will go in the Gordon household is another question. Those of you who wonder whether there is any space left in America not used for advertising now have an answer thanks to Jennifer Gordon, and the answer is no.

Jennifer and her husband, Chicago Bears fans, couldn't get Super Bowl tickets. So she took the next logical step: auctioning off advertising rights to her pregnant belly. The lucky winner: U-Bid.com, an internet auction site. UBid will get the Gordons two 50-yard-line seats. She has to wear a mid-top Bears jersey with the company's logo hand-painted on her belly. Priceless.

An issue we can all embrace

If you're in despair over the average American's lack of civic involvement, take heart. Four men in North Carolina are collecting signatures to make the Super Bowl an official holiday. Since Super Sunday happens to be a Sunday, that wouldn't do us any good. So our guys propose that the official day off be observed on Monday, in the grand tradition of the three-day weekend -- and, as Newsday put it, "in recognition of the debilitating Sunday excess of unhealthy food, strong beverage, televised sporting violence, relentless commercialism and not a small amount of gambling."

By late yesterday, 11,000 "yes" votes had been cast at SuperBowlMonday.com. (Surprisingly, there were as many as 357 "no" votes.) Steelers fans led the by-team balloting by far, with 886 voting for a day off. Crusade leader Robert Chute, 40, wants to present 50,000 signatures to Congress.

A proposition you probably should refuse

Members of the gambling community know what a proposition bet is. No, it has nothing to do with sexual harassment or street walkers. It's a goofy side bet that often has nothing to do with the game. For example, how many seconds will it take Billy Joel to get through the National Anthem? Will Prince have a half-time wardrobe malfunction? The history of the Super Bowl as a dud has led to the rise of the side bet because people are often trapped before the TV set in a blowout. The Los Angeles Times says about $100 million is expected to be bet in Nevada Sunday. The Las Vegas Hilton, the capital of the proposition bet, expects more money will be put down on "props" than on the game itself.

This year, Las Vegas sports books are offering as many as 300 props. Which team will win the coin toss? Will the game go into overtime. Will a safety be scored. (The Super Bowl has never gone into overtime, and none of the last 15 has produced a safety.) Our favorite: Which will be greater, the number of passing yards racked up by Colts quarterback Peyton Manning or the number of combined points scored that day by four minor college basketball teams -- Canisius, St. Peter's, Niagara and Siena?

Why we love the Super Bowl

Chris Erskine of the Los Angeles Times:

"As the world gets a little crazier every day, the Super Bowl remains our great collective release, our Mardi Gras down Main Street. I can't yell at Bill Gates for his clunky stupid software or at the current crop of politicians who don't have a populist bone in their bodies. I can't go one-on-one with those rich young stockbrokers who are raking in bonuses at the expense of the rank and file. Or pop Simon Cowell in the schnozzle for being snappish with some defenseless kid. But this Sunday, I can yell like hell at a game that warms us like chowder -- the last thing we Americans seem to all have in common anymore."

Last word

Dave Barry says the Super Bowl is "the biggest sporting event in the world, unless you include other parts of the world."