Haven't scored tickets for Super Bowl XLV yet? Still trying to figure out how to get into the big game on February 6th?

Dying to get your hands on some "official" NFL swag that will forever prove to your friends and family that you really were there at Jerryland to watch the Steelers and the Packers duke it out for the last NFL championship game before the apocalypse, heretofore known as the last game before the looming lockout?

Well, two out of three ain't bad.

The NFL, clearly in touch with the commoners that make up the diehard fan-base that feeds the country's largest, toughest, hairiest juggernaut, announced last week that it will make a still-unannounced number of tickets available for this year's Super Bowl for the bargain-basement price of $200. Each.

And you can buy up to four (4!!) tickets at a time!!

Honestly.

And the league, in a show of inexplicable largesse, is even going to throw in a free, officially licensed Super Bowl program (gasp!) and a free, officially licensed Super Bowl scarf (gasp GASP!!) with each ticket purchased. Really.

How could you NOT pop for four tickets (four SUPER BOWL tickets!!) for only $800? I mean, come on! Call in sick ahead of time, get three buddies lined up and gas up the family truckster for a road trip. Heck, throw the family in the family truckster and head for the open road if you absolutely must. This is a once in a lifetime opportunity…. And, just to prove how in touch with the common man they really are, Roger Goodell and his pals at the NFL aren't even going to make you set foot in the stadium once you get all the way to Jerry World! That's right, they're going to let you watch the big game on big screens! (Not the 160-foot by 72-foot, $40 million, 600-ton behemoth that hangs from the rafters of Jerrytopia. Sorry. That one's INSIDE the stadium.)

The screens you and your friends (or family, if you absolutely must) will get to watch are being specially erected for Super Bowl XLV (wait for it….) OUTSIDE THE STADIUM!

At no small cost to the NFL, I'm quite sure. So, you know, be grateful.

If you wanted to actually get INTO the game and, you know, see it live, well, you'd have to shell out somewhere between twenty-six hundred and twenty-two THOUSAND dollars for the privilege. True dat.

Those are the prices being quoted as of 6:30 pm, Monday night, at NFL Ticket Exchange on the information-super-tubes. The ticket price doesn't include seats (but since they don't really include, you know, a live sporting event, you can't really complain); purchasers will instead be invited to sit on the grass on the east side of Jerryville instead. And given that the game is in early February, I'm guessing that the "grass" is gonna look a lot like "dirt" with a healthy coat of green spray paint on it.

And, call me crazy, but I'm betting the NFL won't even make you schlep your own game day snacks all the way down to Jerryboro. I'm betting they'll set up a lovely and lively concession stand or three to pry the last few dollars from your cold, paint-stained fingers.

You can't make this stuff up. Sadly.

In other news, or not, if you want to get technical, Diana Taurasi, face of the WNBA and international basketball star, saw her contract with her Turkish team, Fenerbahce, terminated earlier this month after two blood samples tested positive for performance enhancing drugs, namely the banned stimulant modafinil.

That announcement was made on January 7, over two weeks ago. Since then? Silence. Her lawyer indicated Taurasi would appeal any suspension that came down from the Turkish basketball federation. But that's it.

Since then there's been remarkably little comment from Taurasi, the Phoenix Mercury (her WNBA team), or even the WNBA itself.

She's not been subpoenaed by Congress. She's really not been called out by much of anyone. So what does that mean? That nobody cares? That the PED debate is limited to male athletes? Obviously not, given the relish with which people finally ran down Marion Jones.

Or is it that the WNBA is happy to hold its breath, hiding under the cover afforded by NFL playoffs, the Super Bowl and (GASP!!) $200 game-tickets? I honestly don't know.

But it smells a bit to me of double standards and slippery slopes. If Taurasi and the WNBA can avoid the kind of persecution and public humiliation other alleged athletic cheaters have been forced to go through based on far less evidence, well, we're no better off than when we madly cheered on Sammy and Big Mac all those years ago. If closing our eyes and pulling the blankets over our heads is still all it takes, well, we haven't come an iota as far as I thought.

Alex can be reached at cuda24@yahoo.com