Month: January 2009

Fresh off my 1-3 outing, I’m back again with more bad predictions.

Home teams win everywhere except the Chargers, just because I like them.

Titans over Ravens
Chargers over Steelers
Panthers over Cardinals
Giants over Eagles

People who Deserve It

Decline

Buy our seats

Of course Tintin is gay.

E-bayers are not so bright

How do I get out of this one?

I’d be a little nervous also.

The Seed (pleasant video)

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly (Sweatshirt)

Funny bumper stickers

Lies of omission

Best bet loser

New Media Douchebags explained

The Recently Deflowered Girl

Uncle Sam’s Credit Score

Map of Springfield

An open letter from The Watchmen movie producer

Heck of a job Bushie.

2008: The Year in Pictures (New York Times) and The Boston Globe (Parts 1, 2, and 3), the 12 most embarrassing photos (Cracked).

Best financial jokes of 2008

The top 25 songs of 2008, all at once
Modern Nomad

Contractors do not understand revision clouds

I must train my next dog to do this

Enter Sandman on kazoo

On Deep Throat’s death and a different perspective on Watergate

The first game of 2009 started off rather poorly. No cards. Nothing to play. So I didn’t. I called the blinds once or twice, went 2 for 4 on bluffs, but basically did nothing. My stack got whittled down.

With rebuy time running out, I chose to commit stack suicide with K-6. I knew the other guy had me beat but I wanted to rebuy and start the next hour with a full stack. Things changed a little. I limped in the big blind with 8-10. The flop was 8-10-Q, I doubled up. Suddenly I had some money. I still couldn’t get many cards, but I got just enough, because I was making great reads. My first pair of the night was 8-8, on a flop with two overcards I called an all-in bet. I was right, he had nothing.

With A-x, the flop came A-J-x. Another person went all-in with a short stack. I figured him for the J and called it. I was right, but another jack came out. Oh well.

Eh, I can’t remember many more hands. I went up, I went down, I went up again, I went down again. I ended up being the bubbly boy at 3rd place.

I was pleased with my play. My only bad tendency was not bluffing more in the late stages. Terrible cards the whole night, but I think I played them just right. Every time I went to a showdown I had the best hand, every time I had good cards I was able to get money out of them, etc. I can’t be disapointed with that. Getting reads right will pay off big in the long run.

Tonight: -$40
Running Total: $475

How can anyone get upset at a plothole in a stupid comedy? I don’t know how I do it, but I do it.

Old School:

• The first big party is a Thursday, but in the great scene where we see Frank the Tank coming back, Frank says that he has a busy Saturday ahead of him.
• Oh, that lousy Dean! Their frat got an average score of 84% on their test. But the Dean brings in the score of dead Blue (the old guy), of course it’s a 0%, and the new average score is now 58%! Uh-oh! That math doesn’t work though. It comes close if the frat only had two people, but we can see there are twelve or so. Averaging in another person score of 0% would bring it to 77% or so. Perhaps this was a sophisticated meta-test — if they could figure out how impossible the Dean’s claim is, they would have demonstrated the math skills they needed to pass the test.

Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story (This one really bugged me.)

• Before the big match, the bad guys make Vince an offer. For $100,000, sign over his gym to the bad guys. Vince believes his team has no hope of winning. He seems like he’s going to sign it. Flash forward to the next day. Vince is getting drunk. In a bar. His team has been abandoned. They have no strategy, no plan, no hope. They consider forfeiting. Vince watches the pre-game on TV, where the announcers wonder if there will be a match at all. In a candid encounter with Lance Armstrong he says he’s not going to play. Lance shames him into changing his mind.

  Meanwhile, as Vince is on his way over, his team has forfeited. They don’t have enough players. It’s too late, it’s all over. Except one of his players finds a loophole – they can appeal to the judges. Fortunately for them Chuck Norris casts the tiebreaking vote and they are allowed to play. Yay! Vince arrives in time. He plays. He is knocked out instantly.

  Of course his team goes on to win. The bad guys bring out the contract to show how Vince gave up his gym. And now, finally, the part that gets me.

  Vince reveals that yes, he did sign the contract. But, he took the $100,000 and placed on his team to win at 50-1 odds. He now has $5,000,000 and can buy the bad guys chain of gyms, ha!

  When did he place this bet!? Before he got wasted? While his team waited for him to develop a strategy? Before it took an intervention by Lance Armstrong to make him decide to play? Could it have been after that, while his team was busy forfeiting due to his absence and only got to play due to a freak knowledge of the rules and the deux machina cameo of Chuck Norris? Before he played horribly and got knocked out within 10 seconds!? When did he make this bet, and how do any of his other actions correspond to this bet! (And, by the way, how would the odds be 50-1? Even Buster Douglas was only 45-1, and Vince’s team had convincingly beaten a wide variety of opponents.) Just an infuriating lack of consistency, a ridiculous plot hole that didn’t even add anything to the plot.

Cleary I am terrible at NFL predictions. One out of four, yeesh.

Falcons/Cardinals: Turnovers. And poor defense by Atlanta in the second half. With the game on the line, you have them at 3rd and 16, how do you let someone catch a pass with no one even around them? Ridiculous.

Colts/Chargers: I predicted this one wrong and I’m glad I did. I hate the Colts. I hate everything about them, from their holier-than-thou coach to their shill-anything-for-a-buck-buck-buck chicken-dancing quarterback to their marginally retarded waterboy. (Okay, I made that last one up.) And Phillip Rivers has been a stalwart on my fantasy team, so even though I don’t like Norv Turner and LT is a huge whiner, I’m still glad they won.

Which they shouldn’t have. again, stupid interceptions. And the Colts touchdown in the 3rd quarter? For those who didn’t see it, let me set the stage. All game, the Chargers and Colts are messing with each other at the line. The Chargers shift players around trying to confuse the chicken, the chicken sqwuaks at his team to counter it until the play clock gets to 1. The Colts run a lot of no-huddle to mess with the Chargers.

In the second half, the Colts continue to no-huddle. But now they don’t always go to 1, they snap it earlier. One one play, the Chargers are in the middle of trying to substitute as the Colts are getting ready to snap. The Chargers safety, Cromate, is looking at his sideline figuring out what he’s supposed to be doing. He has no idea that the Colts have lined up, he never sees the play start, and only wakes up when his man is ten yards beyond him and every other Charger and catching the ball for the easy touchdown. C’mon!

John Madden said of LT: “He’s just sitting on the sidelines, spectating!” I have already incorporated the word spectate into my everyday vocabulary.

Ravens/Dolphins: Holy cow, that’s a lot of turnovers. You can wildcat until the cows come home, but it won’t matter when you keep giving the ball away.

Eagles/Vikings: Eh, who cares.

None of these four winners looked very good — I suppose the Chargers played the best of them.

I’ve spent the last year and a half in exile. I speak of work. With our company bursting at the seams, many people have had to move locations away from their normal groups. My group was the right size to get the short straw. In the summer of 2007 we were moved to a space that was… not so great. We call it the extension trailer.

What was the worst part about it? The lack of sound insulation. The bathrooms were right across from the cubicles of a couple of girls. They could hear most everything that went on, even with the fan on. We found ourselves with a dilemma. On the one hand, people have to able to go the bathroom. The next one is in another building, a fair sized walk and two security swipes. On the other hand, c’mon, it’s kinda gross to listen to, no one should need to put up with that. With the wisdom of Solomon, the compromise was made. Doing Number One locally is allright. For Number Two you gotta walk to another building.

After 18 months we were just moved back to the same floor as the rest of my department. There are lots of good things about rejoining the gang, but the best thing is finally being able to do my business without a five-minute walk to the proper facilities. 2009’s gonna be a good year!

Indianapolis Colts vs San Diego Chargers:
The Colts started weak this year. Somewhere around Week 5 they have become the old Colts, the ones who are virtually unstoppable. They are 12-4 vs. San Diego’s 8-8, they are clearly the better team. The Chargers have a bad habit of poor coaching and playing in the playoffs also.
Winner: Indianapolis Colts

Baltimore Ravens vs. Miami Dolphins:
Can the gimmick offense of the Dolphins beat the solid unspectacular Ravens? I don’t think so. With two weeks to rest and scout them, the Ravens defense will be ready. Miami has played a good season, but I think it ends now.
Winner: Baltimore Ravens

Atlanta Falcons vs. Arizona Cardinals:
The Cardinals have improved a lot since last year. And they’ve been able to beat their own division. But let’s get real. They aren’t a good team. Atlanta is. End of story.
Winner: Atlanta Falcons

Philadelphia Eagles vs. Minnesota Vikings:
I haven’t the vaguest. I’ll go with the home team.
Winner: Minnesota Vikings

Overall prediction (aka, how good do I feel about my picks): I think I’ll get Colts and Falcons right, and one of the other two randomly. I see a 3-1.

1. New Links in the blogroll. They’re all by people I know, arranged in order of how long I’ve known them.
• Katherine in Japan. My cousins blog. She is spending a couple years teaching in Japan. You may have to register to see it.
• My Zen Arcade. More like mine – just an old pal babbling about whatever is on his mind. Frequently updated.
• Montyland. Monty is another high school pal of mine. He doesn’t post much, but I like what he does.
• Brand Ng. A not-so-old and not-so-new friend. He writes about the power of branding and other smart-type things.
• The Dad Show. The author is a newer friend who hardly ever posts, but I like his writing. Maybe if we add in some comments he’ll be motivated to add more…
2. I updated the theme slightly, mostly adding another 200 pixels in the content area. That puts it over 800 pixels total, which was the old standard. I am assuming all my readers are okay with this. If it isn’t displaying properly, let me know.

   This is how it begins. Add a few pixels, modify the credits in the footer, change the way followed links display (to be done, can’t distinguish normal bold from link bold)… this is how I got in trouble with the last theme. It got to a point where I had hacked it so much I couldn’t edit it. Also, I can change out the background image… any nominations?

3. During the upgrade, quotes and apostrophes from old posts and comments got translated into weird special character triplets. I’m gradually cleaning them up. If you notice any, feel free to drop me a line.
4. Some images from old posts don’t appear correctly all the time — if old posts don’t have images, please let me know.