Tickets to the game, and the wheels to get you there

Why give scalpers thousands of dollars for Super Bowl tickets when David Vierling will give you two for free?

Answer: He wants you to buy a car first.

It seems Vierling, a 42-year-old postal employee, had a little difficulty selling his 1997 silver Mitsubishi Eclipse. "I'm asking $15,000 but I would go as low as $14,000," he explained.

So Vierling had a brainstorm. He put a sign up in front of the Clock Restaurant on Fourth Street in St. Petersburg, where his mother is the manager. The sign said anyone who bought the car would receive two free Super Bowl tickets.

Why give up his tickets?

"I'm going to go anyway," Vierling said.

He has another two tickets for him and his brother. Vierling says he is something of an expert at getting into Super Bowls. He said he has tried everything from paying $900 to a ticket broker to sneaking in during the fourth quarter. He says he and his brother have attended more than a dozen.

THE RAYJAY RAP: The hottest song about the Tampa Bay Bucs has to be Welcome to Raymond James, performed by the artist Krazy.

The people at WLLD (WILD) 98.7-FM came up with the idea for the song, which is set to the tune of Welcome to Atlanta by Jermaine Dupri. It was designed to welcome Jon Gruden to his new place of work:

Welcome to Tampa, home of the Raymond James,

where the Bucs put it down and they bring the pain.

Can you hear the cannons shootin' and the fans rootin'?

You rookies are child's play now that we got Jon Gruden. ...

The station has been playing the song relentlessly and its popularity is evident. When the station played it during the late-night rally at Raymond James Stadium on Sunday, many sang along.

Small wonder. The station played the song continuously last Friday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., and plans to do so again this Friday.

To hear the song, go to www.wild987.com.

CLICK AND CHANGE: You can find another Tampa Bay Buccaneers song on the Internet at www.richgary.com.

This doesn't exactly have the same homegrown flavor.

Move your mouse around, and you can get the same song in either a pop-rock or country format.

Nothing wrong with that. But click again, and you've selected the same song, only this time it celebrates the Oakland Raiders.

KISSING AND ROOTING: In case you were wondering, the wedding of Jerry and Heather Robinson came off perfectly Sunday. They're the Largo couple who scheduled their ceremony for 4 p.m. Sunday, only to discover later they would be exchanging vows an hour into the NFC Championship Game.

When the minister said, "You may kiss the bride," one guest yelled out: "Go Bucs!"

At the reception, the Robinsons decided to wait until after the game to cut the cake.

DID YOU SEE?: The sign in front of Lenny's Restaurant in Clearwater this week that read: "Employee of the Month Jon Gruden."

The sign on the Tahitian Inn on Dale Mabry Highway in Tampa that read: "Gruden for President."

IT'S NOT THE ORANGE BOWL, EITHER: We like to be nice to our fellow journalists. So we reprint these excerpts from a piece by columnist Skip Bayless, printed in the San Jose Mercury News, without additional comment. We did highlight a few words:

"The oddsmakers make the Raiders 31/2-point favorites. But watch the betting public shrink that number as it loads up Tampa Bay's California-bound bandwagon. Shiver me timbers: Here comes a crew of orange-clad pirates, sabers in teeth, who think they can shut down silver and black pirates who have plundered just about every defense they've faced."

And:

"The most amazing performance in either championship game was by Bucs cornerback Ronde Barber. ... His identical twin, Giants running back Tiki, was on the Veterans Stadium sideline. You wondered if Tiki occasionally slipped into an orange jersey and knocked away a (Donovan) McNabb pass."

-- Times staff writers Jean Heller, Sue Carlton, David Karp, Tim Grant and Richard Danielson contributed to this report.