Merry Christmas...
...to you and yours.

An Update on My Life
So, I'm taking Kirsten to Charleston this afternoon, as soon as she gets off of work and gets changed out of her CPK stuff. I know she's been out east before, but she's never been through Charleston, since her drive to Boston took her through Wheeling.

I'm thinking about taking her to some abandoned coal mine or something and telling her it was my high school...you know, just to stick with the hillbilly miner stereotypes that are so prevalent. Maybe I'll show her a burned-out silo and tell her it was where I was born. Or something.

Anyway, time to post this week's NFL picks (BTW: Congrats to Georgia Tech. I root for anyone who's playing Syracuse).

Green Bay at Minnesota - MIN

Saturday
Oakland at Kansas City - KC
Denver at Tennessee - TEN

Sunday
Atlanta at New Orleans - ATL
Baltimore at Pittsburgh - PIT
Chicago at Detroit - DET
Houston at Jacksonville - JAX
Giants at Cincinnati - CIN
San Diego at Indianapolis - SD
Buffalo at San Francisco - BUF
New England at N.Y. Jets - NE
Arizona at Seattle - SEA
Carolina at Tampa Bay - CAR
Washington at Dallas - WAS
Cleveland at Miami - MIA

Monday
Philadelphia at St. Louis - PHI

NFL Picks, week 15
Has anyone else noticed that Chris, Lucas, and I all have correct pick percentages above 60%, whereas an NFL "expert" like Chris Berman is 41-40 this year on games he's picked? How is that possible? Can he really be that bad?

I guess so.

My pick for Berman's final record (presuming he picks three games a week for the rest of the year) will be:
47 Right, 43 wrong.

Come on, Boomer...2 out of three each week. You can do it.

Now, on to my OWN picks. Since Lucas and Chris apparently have understudies, I'm asking an Edgar Renteria bobblehead. Problem is, all he ever says is "Yes..."

Saturday:
Pittsburgh at N.Y. Giants - Why? Eli. That's why. PIT
Washington at San Francisco - Go Gibby! WAS
Carolina at Atlanta - No TJ and no Warrick make Mike a dull boy. CAR

Sunday:
Buffalo at Cincinnati - One team is on a hot streak, and another just came off of it. BUF
Dallas at Philadelphia - Weeks 16 and 17 are Henson time. PHI
Denver at Kansas City - I have a hard time with this game - does either team really want to win? I think Jake Plummer does, but it's hard to tell with him always saying that the fans are number one... KC
Houston at Chicago - Houston can't be counted on to win in the cold. CHI
Minnesota at Detroit - This is what we in the business call a "bounceback game." MIN
San Diego at Cleveland - It's an upset special this week! That's right, the cold will get to Drew Brees (never mind that he played at Purdue, where I hear it's snowed before). That, and now that Garcia's out, the Browns won't be held back by his horrible hair. CLE
Seattle at N.Y. Jets - Do you hear that crashing sound? That's Mike Holmgren's stuff getting tossed out the window at Seahawks Stadium. NYJ
New Orleans at Tampa Bay - Brian Griese? Saving a team? What? TB
St. Louis at Arizona - Dennis Green, in his 8 playoff seasons in Minnesota, had something like 7 different starting quarterbacks. This year, he's had 45. STL
Jacksonville at Green Bay - Another cold-weather game for a warm-clime team. GB
Tennessee at Oakland - Enh. TEN
Baltimore at Indianapolis - Could this be the week that Manning breaks the record? Sez here it won't be. IND

Monday
New England at Miami - So, really, WTF is Jim Bates, and how did he wind up as an NFL HC on MNF? NE

Higher Physics in the 16th Century
The phrase "You can't have your cake and eat it too" was originally printed in a book of proverbs by John Heywood (1584).

This, of course, means that cake could not be in two places at once; cake, obviously, is not an acceptable way to study quantum dualities.

NFL Picks, week 14
The NFL is becoming an easier beast to predict, so I'm not going to try to justify my picks this week, with the exception of the NYG game. And that's pretty self-explanatory.

By the way, I'm a Bengals fan, but I remain convinced that the Pats will wipe them out.

Chicago at Jacksonville - JAX
Cincinnati at New England - NE
Cleveland at Buffalo - BUF
Indianapolis at Houston - IND
New Orleans at Dallas - DAL
N.Y. Giants at Baltimore - BAL (I refuse to pick the Giants again this season)
Oakland at Atlanta - ATL
Seattle at Minnesota - MIN
Miami at Denver - DEN
N.Y. Jets at Pittsburgh - PIT
Detroit at Green Bay - GB
San Francisco at Arizona - ARI
St. Louis at Carolina - CAR
Tampa Bay at San Diego - SD
Philadelphia at Washington - PHI

Monday
Kansas City at Tennessee - TEN

Poor Quality = Better Value (Redux)
Some of my loyal reader(s) will remember this post in which I noted that despite three recalls in three days, GM managed to actual increase its stock price over that same period.

Word comes out today that the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, or NHTSA (pronounced "nitsa", for those who want to sound like civil engineers), has ordered DaimlerChrysler's Dodge unit to recall 600,000 of its Durango SUVs and Dakota light trucks, because of an engineernig fault that can cause the front wheels to fall off.

Does this sound normal to you? Isn't this the sort of thing that designers should take note of?

"Dr. Thomas, we've been running some tests, and apparently the front wheels keep coming off. It seems pretty random."
"How often does this happen?"
"Well, sir, it seems that it happens in about a third of the vehicles - it's a ball joint problem. All of these vehicles' ball joints were made at the same plant."
"So, this plant puts out crappy products?"
"Yes sir."
"Well, this happened to GM, and they gained two bucks a share. Promote the plant manager, and do nothing about the problem!"

Or something like that.

Thankfully, investors didn't see it the same way they did with GM (probably just because Dodge has better ads, and so obviously they don't need the money), and Dodge shares were off more than 50 cents per by this morning.

But seriously....the wheels fall off? And nobody noticed until now?

We'd All be Better Coaches Than Tom Coughlin
Just to recap, Eli Manning is now 0-3 as a starter since taking over for Kurt Warner.

In his three starts, these are the statistics for the Giants offense:
Points: 16 (5.333 per game)
First Downs: 39 (13 per game)
Rush Attempts: 67 (22.33 per game)
Rush yards: 318 (106 per game)
YPC: 4.75
Pass comp/att: 35/83, 42.16% (11.667/27.667 per game)
Pass yards: 376 (125.333 per game)
Total yards: 694 (231.333 per game)


By comparison, if this were translated to an entire season, and compared against the current statistics for the NFL, it would come out looking like this:

Points: Last
First Downs: Last
Rush attempts: 30th
Rush Yards: 22nd
YPC: 3rd
Pass comp/att: Last in completions/game, last in percentage
Pass Yards: Last
Total yards: Last

If I recall correctly, Coughlin benched Kurt Warner because "The offense wasn't clicking." The above statistics, however, suggest that Warner wasn't really the problem after all. I suppose that's small comfort to Kurt, but any GM given the chance will probably want to take a long hard look at Kurt Warner next season - I can even think of a few teams he might be able to start for. He'd probably hate playing there, but New Orleans is a team that could use some leadership, and Aaron Brooks won't be around next season, given his play this year.

Nice work, Tommy. If the Giants don't post a .500 record with Manning next season, I think it's fair to say he may never get a head coaching job again. At least the rushing game is carrying the load, so to speak. And the defense is decent...but the offense?

Still not clicking.

A side note: Chris and I each gained a game on Lucas this week. It's getting closer...

NFL Picks, week 13
Arizona at Detroit - ARI
Atlanta at Tampa Bay - ATL
Buffalo at Miami - BUF
Carolina at New Orleans - CAR
Cincinnati at Baltimore - CIN (upset special!)
Houston at N.Y. Jets - NYJ
Minnesota at Chicago - MIN
New England at Cleveland - NE
San Francisco at St. Louis - STL
Tennessee at Indianapolis - IND
Denver at San Diego - SD
Kansas City at Oakland - KC
Green Bay at Philadelphia - PHI
N.Y. Giants at Washington - WAS
Pittsburgh at Jacksonville - PIT

Monday
Dallas at Seattle - SEA

This is What a Heisman Trophy Candidate Thinks About?
Advice from USC quarterback Matt Leinart:
"No, crusts are good. Don't fear the crust."

Taken out of context, it's pretty funny. In context, it's even better.

The story from whence came the quote.

ARGH
Well, I tried to post to my other blog today, but unfortunately blogger is being moronic. I'm pretty sure it lost my post, and tells me that it lost the others as well (a fact which I know not to be true, since I can still read the thing). Still, it's irritating.