BY DAVE BARRY, Miami Herald.
Welcome to Miami, Super Bowl visitors! You are going to have a wonderful time, from the moment you arrive in our magical city, until the moment you discover that your wallet is missing.

I'm kidding! You'll be fine, probably! Because the truth is that Miami is a terrific place, despite the criticisms you may have heard from ignorant yokel blowhards who shall remain nameless, such as U.S. Rep. Tom Tancredo.

Back in November, Rep. Tancredo, who represents suburban Denver, ruffled some feathers down here when he called Miami ``a third-world country.''

For the record, that charge is unfair: Miami is WAY better armed than any third-world country. Miami is also a world-class party city, which is why the Super Bowl is being held here for a record-tying ninth time. Compare that with -- to pick a city at random -- Denver, which has been selected to host the Super Bowl a total of, let's see, the '60s, nope, the '70s, nope, the '80s, nope, the '90s, nope, the 2000s, nope . . .

Gosh, it seems that Denver has NEVER, not one single time in over four decades, been selected to host the Super Bowl. I'm sure there's a good reason for this, such as that the Denver area has too few hotel rooms, or too many xenophobic dimwits representing it in Congress.

But enough about Tom. Let's get back to Miami, and how you, the Super Bowl visitor, can get the maximum possible enjoyment from your stay here, with the fewest possible sucking chest wounds. We'll start with:

ARRIVING IN MIAMI

Chances are you'll arrive -- Lucky you! -- at Miami International Airport. Here you will find a spacious, modern, convenient, well-designed, passenger-friendly, state-of-the-art facility depicted on murals showing what the airport allegedly will look like if they ever finish it. This is unlikely to happen in the current century because the airport is under the control of Miami-Dade politicians, who traditionally fall into one of three categories: (1) incompetents; (2) criminals; and (3) incompetent criminals.

I have lived here for more than 20 years, and for that entire time the airport has been under construction, with almost all of the visible progress taking the form of larger and better murals.

At the airport, you will notice that many people are speaking Spanish; this is often true in Miami. It is not a big deal.

Most Spanish-speakers speak some English; in fact, many of them speak it far better than -- to pick a xenophobic dimwit at random -- Rep. Tom Tancredo.

Nevertheless, you may find it helpful to learn a few basic Spanish phrases, such as:

``Disculpe, dama o caballero.'' (``Excuse me, lady or horseman.'')

``He estado esperando mi equipaje dos días.'' (``I have been waiting two days for my luggage.'')

``Sí, es un mural atractivo.'' (``Yes, it is an attractive mural.'')

``¿Usted piensa que conseguiré mi equipaje a tiempo para el tazón estupendo?'' (``Do you think I will get my luggage in time for the Super Bowl?'')

``¿Dónde está el Rep. Tancredo?'' (``Where is the toilet?'')

GETTING AROUND MIAMI

Miami boasts a modern light rail and ''people mover'' system that cost hundreds of millions of dollars and serves an average daily ridership of nearly eight people. This system was conceived of and built by basically the same political leadership responsible for the airport, so needless to say it does not go to the airport.

It also does not go to many other places that many Miami residents would like to go, which is why most of them do not use it. To them, the Metrorail train is a mysterious object that occasionally whizzes past over their heads, unrelated to their lives, kind of like a comet.

The point is, you need to rent a car. Do NOT be afraid to do this. You may have heard scary stories about driving in Miami, but the truth is that you will be perfectly safe, as long as you remain within the rental-car lot. Beyond that, you are on your own.

If you do venture out on the roads of Miami, here are some rules to bear in mind:

• Never stop for a yellow light unless you want to be rear-ended.

• Ditto for a red light.

• In fact, as a general rule, never stop.

• In Miami, signaling a turn is viewed as a sign of weakness.

• If you find yourself stuck behind a slow-moving car that does not appear to have a driver, that car is in fact being operated by a senior citizen approximately the height of a Pepsi can, but with worse eyesight. DO NOT ATTEMPT TO PASS THIS CAR. At any moment the operator could suddenly decide to change lanes without warning. Just be patient, and within a mile the car will drive off the road, often into a canal or building, and you can pass safely.

• Whatever else you do, do NOT get on Interstate 95. If, by mistake, you DO get on Interstate 95, whatever you do, do NOT get off.

About parking: In Miami, it is acceptable to park pretty much anywhere, including on sidewalks, lawns, and slow-moving pedestrians. There are also some legal parking spaces; if you find one, you're supposed to pay for it at one of the electronic machines located around the downtown area, which you can identify by the clot of people cursing at them, because they never work.

Parking is trickier in Miami Beach, where the last available space was taken in 1997. If you go over there, you will have to leave your car with a valet, who will park it somewhere else. Haiti, for example.

Here are some useful Spanish expressions for getting around Miami:

``Salga de mi camino, usted Rep. Tancredo.'' (``Get out of my way, you stupid idiot.'')

``No dispare, por favor.'' (``Please do not shoot.'')

``¿Está el Océano Atlántico por aquí?'' (``Is the Atlantic Ocean around here?'')

``¿Dónde está la playa con la gente desnuda?'' (``Where is the beach with the naked people?'')

``Discúlpeme, pero usted ha parqueado en mi pie.'' (``Excuse me, but you have parked on my foot.'')

ATTRACTIONS

Here are some of the ''must-see'' attractions in the Miami area:

• The Everglades: If you like vast featureless expanses of grass growing in rotting muck, you will love the Everglades.

• Hot Women: They are everywhere down here. I'm not saying there are no attractive women elsewhere; I'm just saying that, compared to Miami women, they are Labrador retrievers. When male friends of mine come to Miami from other cities, they constantly must drop to their knees and feel around with their hands to locate their eyeballs, which have ejected themselves from their sockets in an effort to get a better gander. I myself do not have this problem because my wife (Hi, honey!) is a total babe.

• The Forest of Cranes: Miami boasts the world's largest outdoor collection of free-range construction cranes. Some of them are being used to construct unsold condominiums -- a major industry here -- but many of them have no apparent purpose other than to screw up traffic. There seem to be more of them every day. We suspect they are having wild crane sex at night.

• The performing arts center: If you want to see arts being performed, this is the place for you to go. Maybe you could do this the same day you visit the Everglades.

• The Two Comically Close-Together Arenas: In 1988 Miami built a new arena for $52 million. Then in 1999 Miami spent $175 million to build ANOTHER new arena just four blocks away. Then we sold the first arena for a tidy profit of minus $24 million. That is the kind of savvy financial-mastermind political leadership we have. It's only a matter of time before we build a second light-rail system.

• South Beach: This is the heart of the action, a happening scene where supertrendy people gather to valet-park their cars and go to clubs with names like ''Moisture'' where they join other supertrendy valet-parkers to listen to music loud enough to liquefy brain tissue while drinking watery cocktails at upwards of $18 a pop. Sound like fun? Then head on over to SoBe, where friendly club bouncers will welcome you inside, provided that you are a woman with a hotness quotient of Scarlett Johansson or higher. If you are a normal human female, or God forbid a male, you may have to wait outside in the Ugly Person Line until (a) the bouncer decides you have been sufficiently humiliated, or (b) Easter, whichever comes later. Maybe you should pencil in a second visit to the Everglades.

• Fort Lauderdale: Don't miss it! There is plenty of parking.

• Joe's Stone Crab: Miami has many great restaurants, but Joe's is the king of them all, and for a very good reason: You can't get a table. This makes it highly desirable. People have been known to spend their entire Miami vacation waiting for a table at Joe's, and yet they always come out happy, because the stone crabs are that good, plus they contain (Don't tell anybody!) heroin.

In fact, you can avoid the long wait for a table at Joe's, provided that you know the correct procedure for dealing with the maitre d'.

A TIP ON TIPPING

First off, you do NOT simply walk up and hand him money like some clueless tourist dork (or, as we call them down here, ``Tancredo'').

Instead, you let the maitre d' know, subtly, that you will grease his palm on the way out. It also helps if you can convince him that you are either a regular customer, or an important celebrity such as Cher or the pope.

To help you visualize this procedure, here's a sample dialogue between you and the Joe's maitre d':

YOU: I'd like a table for four, please.

MAITRE D': Name?

YOU: Either a regular customer, or an important celebrity such as Cher or the pope.

MAITRE D':

YOU: Don't worry about money, because on the way out I will be greasing your palm with some.

That's all there is to it! While you're waiting for your table, you can enjoy a drink, or perhaps another visit to the Everglades.

But in any event, I hope you enjoy your meal at Joe's, as well as the rest of your stay here in the Miami area. And we look forward to seeing you back here in 2010, when we will be hosting the Super Bowl for a record 10th time.

In between, it will go to two other cities. Neither of them, for the record, is Denver.

Agents, sellers pray for profits in sluggish market !!!

To combat a sluggish cooling market, growing numbers of Florida real estate agents are calling on a Catholic saint who's known as the 'underground real estate agent.' Kathleen Mitchell, a Coldwell Banker real estate agent, couldn't sell a bayfront Miami condo that was about to lose its water view to a high-rise luxury apartment building. So she turned to a Catholic saint who's known as ``the underground real estate agent.''

At the advice of a co-worker, Mitchell asked her client to bury a four-inch plastic statue of St. Joseph upside down in a planter on his balcony. He followed her instructions, and his condo in the Charter Club on 36th street sold 10 days later for around $315,000, she said.

''Every time I've put a statue in a property, it's sold,'' said Mitchell, a Methodist, who said she has buried statues of St. Joseph on 15 properties. ``I've used it for the majority of my listings, whether they know it or not.''

The folk tradition of burying a statue of St. Joseph -- patron saint of carpentry, home ownership and real estate -- has grown increasingly popular among Florida real estate brokers struggling to sell properties in a cooling market, real estate agents and vendors who sell the statues said.

Joseph, a carpenter and husband of the Virgin Mary, has long been regarded as a saintly intercessor for laborers and home buyers. Some believe the ritual of burying St. Joseph's statue originated with St. Teresa of Avila, a 16th century Catholic nun who prayed to St. Joseph and buried his medals in the earth to find land for convents.

The practice has grown so widespread that Realtors and home sellers can now choose from basic and ''deluxe'' St. Joseph real estate kits that include a statue, prayer book and tips on the proper way to petition the saint. The instructions usually go like this: Bury a statue of St. Joseph head first, six inches deep near the property's for sale sign. After the property sells, unearth the statue and keep it in a prominent place in your new home (failure to do so, legend holds, could reverse your good fortune).

Since the real estate market started to fizzle in the past year, stores and websites that stock the statues have been selling out.

''Sales have just gone crazy,'' said Phil Cates, owner of the website stjoseph

statue.com. ``We have really devout Catholics who call on St. Joseph for most things in their lives, and on the other side we have people who think St. Joseph is nothing more than a piece of plastic, but hey, what have I got to lose?''

Cates said the website has sold thousands of kits to Realtors and brokers who purchase the statues in bulk. Florida is his biggest market, with about 5,000 to 6,000 customers, he said.

Some homeowners are still waiting for results.

Claudine Sivilla, 29, recently ordered a St. Joseph statue to help sell her house in Homestead for about $440,000. Sivilla, a Coptic Orthodox Christian, said she regarded the tradition as an old wives' tale but buried a statue of St. Joseph after a friend recommended the practice. She's yet to see any miraculous results, she said.

The Catholic Church does not endorse or condemn the ritual, which arose as a form of popular worship in the Middle Ages and has no roots in Catholic theology or liturgy, said the Rev. Juan J. Sosa, chairman of the Committee on Popular Piety for the Archdiocese of Miami.

Some theologians, however, say there's a substantial difference between praying for land to build a convent and petitioning St. Joseph to make a profit.

''The saints are heroic figures; are they there to help us sell a house at a good price?'' said Edward Sunshine, associate professor of theology at Barry University. ``You're reducing the whole spiritual realm to commerce.''

Whether the practice of burying St. Joseph is an act of devotion or a commercialized form of superstition, its rise seems tied to the dip in the housing market.

Nationwide, home prices in August fell for the first time in more than a decade, according to a recent industry report comparing August sales nationwide to the previous year. In Florida, single-family home sales fell 34 percent in August compared with the previous year, while condo sales dropped by 41 percent, a report released this week by the Florida Association of Realtors said.

Ron Weissman, who sells St. Joseph statues on the website goodfortuneonline.net, said he's been stunned by the rise in sales.

''I figured we'd sell a few hundred of these, but we're selling 10 times what we thought,'' said Weissman, who lives in Delray Beach. ``My wife and I both think it has to have something to do with the fact that the real estate market is in the tank.''

By Noelle Knox, USA TODAY

Wanted: a 2,200-square-foot home with four bedrooms, 2½ baths, a family room and a two-car garage.
The big question is: Where?

Buying a home like that would cost you $1.8 million in Beverly Hills or in Milan, Italy — but just $132,333 in Minot, N.D., and a scant $56,522 in Bogota, Colombia, according to Coldwell Banker's annual Home Price Comparison Index, which is being released Wednesday.
The survey aims to make an apples-to-apples comparison of the price of the same-size home, with the same basic amenities, in 384 markets in the USA and overseas where Coldwell Banker has offices.
Though somewhat unscientific, as the survey is based solely on Coldwell Banker data, the index offers a voyeuristic peek at how much money it takes to live in the same hypothetical house among the Wall Street executives in Greenwich, Conn., ($1.4 million), the skiers in Boulder, Colo., ($536,000) or the jet-setters in Christiansted, St. Croix, the Virgin Islands ($872,500).
This is the first year that Coldwell Banker has looked at markets outside North America.
"The big surprise was our most expensive home in our market, Beverly Hills, was within a few dollars of the most expensive in Milan, Italy," says Jim Gillespie, the real estate firm's CEO.
If that's beyond your price range, you could consider buying a house in Amsterdam ($483,513), where the price is about the same as in Bend, Ore. ($482,750). And a home in Sydney ($683,109) costs about the same as a comparable one in Bellevue, Wash. ($658,000).
Other key findings:
• California again has nine of the top 10 most expensive cities, but this year, Beverly Hills bumped La Jolla out of the No. 1 spot.
• Texas has three of the 10 most affordable cities.
• Nationally, the median-priced home that fit Coldwell's criteria cost $423,950, a 6% rise over last year.
"The other thing that was a little surprising was just under one-third of the markets we surveyed were at or below the national median home price (of $225,700)," Gillespie said.
"And 47% were under $300,000," he said, a sign that homes in "a lot of this country are very affordable."

UNIQUE REAL ESTATE OPPORTUNITY
BUYERS AND SELLERS
Dear Key West Neighbors,
My name is Norman Wood. I am a Key West real estate associate with Resort Realty & Appraisals, Inc., in Key West . I want to bring a unique Key West real estate opportunity to your attention.
As I am sure you know, the Key West Key West real estate market is experiencing the first significant buyer’s market in over 30 years. This is foremost due to an extraordinary level of residential units on the market and augmented by post-Hurricane Wilma concerns, rising interest rates and the U.S. economy in general. Of course, we all believe that in time all will heal and property values will resume the course of healthy annual appreciation. But, in the time being, some of us want or need to sell their Key West real estate; thus the reason for this letter.
We have been interviewing with an auction company that is willing to hold a Key West real estate auction for the Lower Keys anticipated in the later half of October. The company would provide significant national advertising that a local realtor could not feasibly provide. If you are at all interested in selling and your property is already listed, please have your realtor call me. If your property is not listed and you’re interested in the auction, call me directly at 305-296-6501 or email me at contact@keysresortrealty.com The cutoff date for sellers who wish to participate in the auction will be August 21, 2006.
Also, if you are interested as a buyer, please call me for more information. Buyer broker representation is welcome.
This is not a solicitation for listings.

Sincerely,
Norman Wood

The Key West High School baseball program has a long and glorious tradition, including players and coaches. Now comes a crucial time to choose a new head coach. There are candidates on the staff who have the qualifications and ability to take over the program. But now there is talk of going outside the program to bring in a new coach.