Random thoughts for a Super Bowl Sunday:

Remember that fire in Thunderbolt this week that seemed routine?

It wasn't.

It was minutes away from a tragedy.

Here's the rest of the story as told by a Thunderbolt fire official.

First, the scene. Apparently, eight or nine young people had crashed overnight at a condo on Whatley Avenue. It had two refrigerators. One had food. The other had beer.

An upstairs room was designated as a "smoking room" (use your imagination). The window was open, even though outdoor temperatures were in the 40s.

Downstairs, one of the occupants had placed a mattress on the floor just a foot or so from an unscreened fireplace. During the wee hours, a spark apparently triggered a fire.

Luckily, someone smelled smoke and roused everyone from their slumber. But while pulling the burning mattress outside, the person created a draft. The flames spread.

This fire had many of the same ingredients as the 2007 blaze at a house in Ocean Isle Beach, N.C., in which seven college students died.

"You don't know how close we came to being the lead story on CNN," the fire official said.

Working as a judge in Savannah can be like having a job on an assembly line. Or the fun house. You never know what might pop up.

Case 1: On Friday, a man who carries a ventriloquist's dummy around town stood before the bench on a minor beef. The judge, knowing that the overcrowded jail had met its quota of Edgar Bergens, sentenced the man to time served.

Fine. But he had a request.

"He wanted police to give him back his dummy," the judge said.

Agreed. There's one more blockhead - a real one - on the street.

Case 2: Two officers went to a judge last week to determine whether a husband should be arrested for violating a restraining order obtained by his wife.

The couple had separated, but they had been living in the same residence while going through a divorce. But the smooth split-up turned rocky. He got his own lawyer. The wife got a judge to get her husband out of the home. She changed the locks, too.

One day, the husband returned with a locksmith to remove some items he needed for work. They had been locked in a shed.

The wife was livid and ran to the cops. But they scratched their heads. The restraining order apparently applied to the residence. A higher-ranking officer sent the cops to the judge. Among the questions asked in chambers was this one: How did the couple's amicable train to Splitsville get sidetracked?

"The husband was on the computer one day and found photos of his wife having sex with two men," the judge said. "She apparently saved it as a slide show."

Arrest warrant dismissed.

Today is Super Bowl Sunday. As usual, none of my favorite teams are playing. When this happens, I pull for teams with players I like.

That's why I'm pulling for the Arizona Cardinals. I like quarterback Kurt Warner. I like him because he's old (37, which is 67 in football years), he's generous (unlike most millionaire sports slobs) and his rags-to-riches story mirrors my own (I worked as a stock boy in a grocery store, too, but without the going-to-the-NFL part).

Besides, you know what they say about old age and treachery. It beats youth and exuberance every time.
