Monday, January 30, 2006
Best headline/intro ever.
Just saw this on Yahoo as I opened up my browser to post the SBC relativity item, and couldn't resist blogging about the best headline/intro paragraph I may ever have seen:
Dominatrix Acquitted in Bondage Death
DEDHAM, Mass. - A dominatrix was acquitted of manslaughter Monday in the death of a man who prosecutors say suffered a heart attack while strapped to a replica of a medieval rack.
The rest of the news item isn't as good (how could it be?) but it does add some fascinating details.
Asher had her boyfriend chop up the body of the 275-pound retired telephone company worker, and they dumped it behind a restaurant in Maine, prosecutors said. His remains have never been found.
Prosecutors said Asher confessed to police, but the alleged confession was not taped, and investigators testified they did not save their notes.
Asher's lawyer, Stephanie Page, said there was nothing to prove Lord was even dead -- no body, no blood, no DNA.
The absurdity of the whole thing aside, I'm impressed by the boyfriend's technique; where and how did he dismember a double-sized American male without leaving any evidence? Did her torture room include a dissection table and plastic-sealed power tools, or what? I'm sure we'll see this story on an episode of
CSI in the immediate future, though I somehow suspect their near-supernatural skill at finding every drop of blood in an entire apartment complex will yield more clues than real life cops found.
Time is relative.
The SBC repair guy just arrived to (hopefully) fix our malfunctioning land line, and since they told us he would be here between 1 and 5 this afternoon, and it's now 3:20, I'm curious: is he 2.5 hours late, or 1.5 hours early?
My vote, given the usual punctuality of repair people, is that he's actually about a week early, but then again, I've occasionally been noted for my pessimism.
Sunday, January 29, 2006
Wine and naps.
Scary how real life activities destroy blogging time. I dread the day I have children and writing deadlines and such. Here's a quick recap:
Dad arrived on Wednesday afternoon, as planned. We went out to an enjoyable dinner that night, and then I accompanied him north for wine sampling and site-seeing. We stayed overnight Thursday in Ukiah, drove up to Mendocino on Friday, and got back here Friday night, just in time for pizza. He went back to his hotel in Concord that night, and then Malaya and I went with him down south to Livermore for more wine-related festivies on Saturday. We had fun and he flew out of Oakland on Saturday evening. Sunday Malaya and I were again up early and off to visit her mom for the day. We had a big buffet meal, toured around a mall for a bit, elbowed our way through Hayward's horrendously-disorganized Burlington Coat Factory, did some grocery shopping, and got back here a couple of hours after dark. Since then we vegged out in bed for a bit, surfed mindlessly, and are only now trying to get to work, with 9pm nearly upon us. Imagine if we had kids to deal with and jobs that required us to get up early on Monday morning? No wonder normal people don't blog or write or whatever... who has the time?
At least we're awake tonight; Saturday we both took ample advantage of the numerous opportunities for free wine an ounce at a time in various tasting rooms, and though neither of us were actually drunk at any point, we were glad my dad was driving, and after he dropped us off and took his leave around 4:30pm, we stumbled inside, and then before even showering off, laid down for a few minutes to relax. Next stop, 7pm, and Malaya mumble-voicing complaints about my snoring in her ear. I figure if she didn't want snoring she should have known better than to sleep with her head on my chest after I'd been drinking. But that's well beside the point, since I don't think either of us anticipated a 2 hour nap in the early evening, with work to do, the lights still on, etc. I have no idea how people drink all evening and keep going; even moderate amounts of wine just make me so sleepy.
I can see how inhibitions are dropped and sexual harassment lawsuits are raised, though. While in the last two
bars tasting rooms we were fighting our way through Saturday crowds, and both times I found myself noticing the far-from-prime, denim-clad female buttocks passing me in both directions, and thinking about how it wouldn't be any harm to give this one, or that one, a pinch. I didn't, and I was aware of how stupid the wine was making me think, but as someone who seldom drinks, it's funny to observe that sort of thing first hand. So to speak.
In a normal state of mind I wouldn't even have been noticing the women at all; none were very attractive, certainly not compared to Malaya, and they weren't being sexy or flirting or anything; at least not with me. I just had a buzz on and in my addled mind any visible vaguely-sexual female region of anatomy = must pay attention to it. Given my thoughts on Saturday, I can hardly imagine the state of mind of those college guys on Spring Break when they are drunk all the time and there are hundreds of
equally-drunk girls running around in bikinis or less, looking for hookups. "Willing and eager to fuck anything that moves." probably about sums it up, though.
Other than the booze, the weekend was quite enjoyable, even if it caused Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and most of Sunday to shoot past like a punted
prickly pear. It seems like I was at Kali class just yesterday, and yet it was actually Tuesday evening, five days ago. I've gotta get some work done tonight, to make up for my recent sloth and all the damned early to bed/early to rise lack of productivity. Daylight hours really aren't for me.
Finally, no photos of the weekend yet; I took a lot of HQ shots while up north with dad, but the sky was very cloudy and misty, so they're fuzzy looking and dark, and will need to be cleaned up and brightened to make them
worth looking at.
Thursday, January 26, 2006
Vacation time!
Well, a short one anyway. Dad's up for a visit, and he and me's driving north up the 101, heading to Mendocino County, California. An area famous for nothing at all. It's about 170 miles to Ukiah, near where we're staying, and we'll be there overnight, before returning to the Bay Area Friday night. Dad's staying until Saturday evening, so he, I, and Malaya will be off to do something on Saturday. She likes dad and he likes her, but she's too busy with a work project to take a day off and come north with us.
Check the map. California is an odd state, since people think of San Jose and the Bay Area as Northern California, while San Diego and LA are Southern California. And they are, except that there's like 400 more miles CA north of the Bay Area. People mostly think of that area as "Southern Oregon," since there's not much there but redwood forests and small towns, but it's pretty and it's there, so why not visit it sometime? That's what I keep saying to myself, anyway. I am curious to see the coast up there, which we'll visit on Saturday. Word is it's rocky and windswept and rugged, and that's a landscape I've never personally beheld.
I shall post something about the trip, likely including photos, perhaps as soon as this weekend. I'm sure you can barely wait.
Tuesday, January 24, 2006
Smartest Lottery Winner Ever
We've all seen countless stories about people winning the lottery and promptly ruining their lives. They quit their jobs, they lose all their friends, they spend madly and wind up bankrupt in five years, etc. So how to add the big winnings to your life, without going out of control? Well, one way is to
not tell anyone you've won 1.5 million pounds. Not even your husband and children.
The woman said she had a policy of rationing her extra spending power in the form of "family treats", each one attributed to a pay rise, bonus or a bit of prudent saving. She had kept her previous job but cut back on her hours, telling her husband her company was happy for her to spend the time "working from home".
Using the pseudonym Jane, she said her decision to keep mum was initially guided by a minor drug problem that had affected her husband 15 years ago. She avoided the error of many of the 1800 British lottery millionaires who, in the first burst of excitement on checking their numbers, blurted out that they had won.
...
The mother of two said she had kept the bonanza quiet as far as her family was concerned, in case they started insisting on luxury holidays or were tempted to give up work.
This isn't really possible in the US, since the lotteries are legally required to make public disclosures of the names of people who win more than $1,000,000 (AFAIK), but I wonder how many would keep quiet, if it were allowed? Most people want the immediate attention and adulation, and don't think about the parasites their sudden fortune will bring running.
I've got to wonder what that UK woman is going to do long term, though. At some point she'll have to tell her husband, won't she? College tuition needs, new house needs, etc? Or perhaps she handles all the family finances, and can hide it indefinitely, or at least until the kids are grown and she's ready to retire at 45 and travel the world. How would that disclosure discussion go anyway? "Honey, I've got bad news, and good news..."
Also, what if they get divorced or something? Would she be legally required to disclose it then, since it's half his money, or something? There are always complications...
Monday, January 23, 2006
Hackers for hire.
Interesting article about a 20 y/o US hacker who is about to be sentenced to up to 6 years in prison for his Internet crimes. I could care about him personally, but I found the info about his hacking activities pretty informative:
November's 52-page indictment, along with papers filed last week, offer an unusually detailed glimpse into a shadowy world where hackers, often not old enough to vote, brag in online chat groups about their prowess in taking over vast numbers of computers and herding them into large armies of junk mail robots and arsenals that flood Web sites with data until they crash.
Ancheta one-upped his hacking peers by advertising his network of "bots," short for robots, on Internet chat channels.
A Web site Ancheta maintained included a schedule of prices he charged people who wanted to rent out the machines, along with guidelines on how many bots were required to bring down a particular type of Web site.
In July 2004, he told one chat partner he had more than 40,000 machines available, "more than I can handle," according to the indictment. A month later, Ancheta told another person he controlled at least 100,000 bots, and that his network had added another 10,000 machines in a week and a half.
In a three-month span starting in June 2004, Ancheta rented out or sold bots to at least 10 "different nefarious computer users," according to the plea agreement. He pocketed $3,000 in the process by accepting payments through the online PayPal service, prosecutors said.
Starting in August 2004, Ancheta turned to a new, more lucrative method to profit from his botnets, prosecutors said. Working with a juvenile in Boca Raton, Fla., whom prosecutors identified by his Internet nickname "SoBe," Ancheta infected more than 400,000 computers.
Ancheta and SoBe signed up as affiliates in programs maintained by online advertising companies that pay people each time they get a computer user to install software that displays ads and collects information about the sites a user visits.
Prosecutors say Ancheta and SoBe then installed the ad software from the two companies — Gamma Entertainment of Montreal, Quebec, and Loudcash, whose parent company was acquired last year by 180Solutions of Bellevue, Wash. — on the bots they controlled, pocketing more than $58,000 in 13 months.
So basically they find hundreds of thousands of idiots who don't use firewalls or security patches, sneak trojans onto their PCs, and harness then into DOS attacks for the highest bidder. They also install adware on those same machines, and make money for signing up their hapless owners for nonstop malware spam. Good work, considering that you never have to leave the house or do any actual labor to make it happen. I doubt they even have any programming skill; they just get scripts online, tweak them slightly, and send them out. And it's all made possible by your Aunt Rita and grandfather and the loud guy three cubicles down who don't know or care enough to take 5 seconds a day to maintain proper computer security.
This illustrates that, as always, the greatest challenge for computer security experts and tech support people to overcome is... the end user. This sort of thing is why it takes 5 emails to get actual help from your ISP or IT person; they assume you're as dumb as everyone else and that you've broken your computer yourself, or that you simply can't operate it properly, or that you installed an email attachment that had "kournikova" and "exe" in its title. And judging by this sort of article, they're usually correct.
Vampires on Film.
Much to most everyone's surprise, Underworld: Evolution, the sequel to the rather lame 2003 film (which I
exhaustively reviewed, giving it an overall 4 and a 10 on missed opportunities), had a
huge opening weekend. The film made $27m, miles ahead of the $10m second place Hoodwinked took in. This despite horrible reviews, and not very many of them, since the studio wisely hid it from critics by not offering any advance screenings.
The film is not any good, as evidenced by the
21% on Rotten Tomatoes, a figure based on just 33 reviews. (Compare that to another film that opened this weekend,
The New World, which has 115 reviews,
54% of which are positive. It's dismal $5m, 8th place opening also provides further evidence that no one gives a shit about Christopher Columbus movies, a lesson Hollywood simply refuses to learn.) Underworld is at
38% approval on Metacritic, a score derived by averaging the 15 major critic reviews available online.
So what did Underworld 2 do that Bloodrayne didn't? Bloodrayne is another recent video game-style film about a hot female vampire, but it's earned
a wretched $2.5m in the 3 weeks since it opened, a figure bolstered by the impressive $18k it took in this weekend. Yes, I mean K, not M. Eighteen thousand dollars. The film makers could probably have done better picking up spare change and soda cans from 7/11 parking lots.
Aeon Flux is another one to consider/compare, since it's sci fi and stars a hot female in
small tight black clothing. In six weeks it's
earned back $29m of the $62m+ it cost to make, and will have to scratch for profitability overseas, since it's done in the US, finishing in 38th place this weekend.
All 3 movies sucked, all 3 have female leads, all are scifi/fantasy type settings, and yet only Underworld 2 made money. Aeon Flux had a bigger budget and plenty of promotion too. It's easy to see Bloodrayne's problems. They begin with Uwe Boll and extend to the script. Whoever got the bright idea to take the video game vampire vixen and stick her in big skirts in a faux-midevial story clearly made a pretty horrible choice, when you see how relatively well the two Underworld films have done with contemporary settings and gun violence. Given that the the first Bloodrayne game was set in WW2, with her killing Nazis, and the sequel was set in the modern day (I think) the movie's medieval choice is all the more puzzling. And clearly, Aeon Flux should have spent more time in sewers, and been able to fly and suck blood.
As you've probably guessed by now, Malaya and me didn't get out to see Underworld 2, and I don't think we're likely to do so this week either. We've never had any desire to see the first one again, even when it was on free TV last week, as part of the promotion for the sequel, so we're unlikely to pay $9.25 and 2 hours we'll never get back to sit through more of the same.
Cats are dumb.
As a sort of follow up to my weekend blog comments about silly cats, consider this. Jinxie's collar was snagged on some fur or something, and she kept kicking at it. So I took it off for a minute, and she at first recoiled in horror, then sneaked up and batted at it, before biting it and knocking it around the floor for 10 minutes. She's now carrying it around in her mouth and leaping onto furniture while Dusty pursues her, trying to see what she's got. True, her thick fur pretty well swallows up the collar, and it's not like cats are checking themselves out in the mirror, but come on... she's been wearing this thing for 2 years; shouldn't she have some idea what it is once it's not around her throat?
I just took off Dusty's for the sake of comparison, and while Jinx is too enthralled with the red strip of fabric to notice, Dusty is hunching over his own blue collar and sniffing it with endless fascination. "Why it smells just like me? Whatever could it be?"
The saddest cat collar story ever though, is my mom's. Her two cats were super hyper one night, racing around the bedroom and generally refusing to settle down. The bell and tag each sported on their collars were making so much noise that mom couldn't sleep, so half-asleep she took off the collars, stuck them somewhere, and has never seen them since. I'd previously figured mom lost them, but watching Jinxie attack and throw around her collar, I suspect mom's cats got their own collars and carried them off to the back of a closet or something.
Sunday, January 22, 2006
Random Weekend Blogging
A variety of topics I've been meaning to write about, stuffed into one not-so-handy post, for your reading convenience.
These are always around, but Malaya's been ranting about the kid who thought up that damn Million Dollar Homepage, and earned over one million dollars in four months. She/we don't begrudge the kid his fortune and clever idea, we're just jealous that we didn't think of it first. We want a simple, non-time consuming idea that will earn us easy riches. Is that too much to ask?
On that topic, I saw this site last night and seriously, this girl should be rich. Shockingly, she seems to be offering the service for free, so far, but damn, someone get that girl's boobs monetized. The site URL isn't that great, but check out the NSFW ReadMyBoobs.com. It's just a simple page run by a cute Asian girl who says she's attending film school in New York, and she'll write any short website slogan on her naked chest and display a photo of it on her page. Cute gimmick, but why the hell isn't she charging for it? This sort of thing becomes an internet phenomena in no time, especially with the caliber of boobs she's willing to display, and it would immediately become a trendy thing to get your own button featuring her boobs. She'd have to archive them and campaign against cheap forgeries and imitation boobs, but how hard would that be? IMHO, if you're going to be naked on the Internet, you might as well make money in the process. And if you're an even-borderline attractive female, it's not hard to do. There must be 10,000 young-looking 23 y/o's now making a good living as a hot next door teen, and most of them don't even get naked! (Though they'll have to start once they can't pass for 18 any longer.)
On that (naked women online)topic, I enjoyed this article on Slate about websites that are basically consumer's guides to whores. Really. A quote: Many men make a lifestyle out of patronizing escorts. They call it "the hobby," not prostitution, and they are "hobbyists," not johns. They consider themselves connoisseurs of fine women, and they are eager to learn from their fellow hobbyists who will provide exactly what they want.
What they want is generally very clear: They want a centerfold model who will hang adoringly on their every word in public, then perform any sex act in any position with professional skill in private. The combination — a romantic dinner date followed by uninhibited sex -- is called the "girlfriend experience," or GFE. Of Angelica, a reviewer wrote, "The term GFE should be based on what she is."
Before review sites came along, hobbyists had no way to protect themselves, said David R. Elms, president of The Erotic Review, which began in 1999 and claims that it gets 350,000 unique visitors a day.
As the article discusses, men are willing to pay top dollar for an hook up with a good "escort," but they want to know what they're going to get. At the same time, since the men have accounts on the online rating sites, and can get feedback from the whores as well, whores who use the service can prescreen their clients. It's all legal in a disclaimer-y sort of way, since of course the money paid is for the time together, dinner, etc. Anything sexual that happens during the course of the evening is just a favor and entirely off the clock. Cops are viewing the sites and trying to run stings to entrap the whores and their clients from time to time, but for the most part the male and female users of the service think it's great.
As the article all but comes out and says, why the hell is this illegal? How can it be legal to give sex away, but not to sell it? What possible purpose does it serve to keep arresting horny men and desperate women, when everyone would benefit greatly by legalizing or at least decriminalizing it, and regulating it medically and making it safer for everyone involved? Ancient, morality-based laws are pretty confusing, when you look at them objectively in the modern world.
Cats stay scared for too long. Jinx got spooked yesterday by a cane. She likes our Kali sticks and sniffs at them and bats at them if we poke her, but Malaya had a cane (for use in Kali) yesterday, and was poking at the cats with it, and they were both freaking out. The straight end didn't bother them, but for some unknown reason, the hooked end had them backpedaling, diving under furniture, flattening their ears, and so on. After a few minutes of that the joke got old, especially when we could never hook one and drag them forward, so Malaya propped the cane up in the hallway and the cats went down to sniff it.
A few minutes later, we heard a slight thud, and Jinx came basically levitating into the living room and went to ground behind the sofa. The cane had apparently fallen over when she was sniffing at it, and for whatever reason Jinx was freaked out by that for like, six hours. She hid in the bedroom, she slunk around the living room, she crouched under the bed and sat motionless, and there was no comforting her.
Dusty hadn't been right at the scene when the cane fell, so he got over it sooner, but from like 6-11:30 last night Jinx was like an alley cat we'd trapped in our house. After I tucked Malaya in and came back out to work, I almost couldn't get Jinx out of the bedroom. She often lies under the bed while I'm in there saying goodnight, and she needs to be removed so I can shut the door. Usually this is no problem, since Jinx will race out if I shake and throw a toy mousie, or open the back patio door, or make any sort of interesting noise. The last resort is to open up a can of cat treats, which always brings both felines charging. It worked on the black one, but the silver one remained hiding in the bedroom, and I actually had to walk to the bedroom door and shake it to get her to come out, and even then she remained wary and ready to bolt back to cover. Only by tossing a couple in front of her and letting her follow them along, Hansel and Gretel style, did I get her out of the bedroom, and it was a near thing at that.
Note that she was not scare of the cane all night; it remained lying in the hallway and she didn't seem to notice it. She was just generally scared, and unable to get over it. I'm left to wonder what evolutionary purpose this serves. The cats have no heightened sense of danger about anything actually dangerous; just vacuums and strange beeping noises and doorbells. And sticks with hooks on the end, apparently.
Does anyone ever actually purchase CDs or DVDs are book stores? I never have, except when trying to burn up gift certs or when desperate for a present I couldn't find elsewhere, but I always hate myself when I do, since the prices are just outrageous. I've blogged in the past about DVD prices and where to buy them affordably, and I don't even include Borders or Barnes & Noble on that list, since it would be like including Wal-Mart on a society wedding registry.
Last night we were in Borders, trying to score some discount 2006 calendars (without success, since we weren't willing to stoop to ones with an Oakland Raiders, Lindsey Lohan, Full Metal Alchemist, or Poodles in Costumes theme) and since the calendars were sold down to almost nothing, they'd plumped the display out with various other close out items or specials. Some of them were DVDs, and even VHS tapes, and my god at the prices. I honestly thought it might be some sort of candid camera type thing, where they wanted to see how people reacted to the extra digits in the prices. Like when every gas station around is $2.29, $2.35 etc for unleaded, and then suddenly a Chevron station on the next corner is $5.89 and hidden cameras film the whiplash drivers get staring and rubbing their eyes at the astonishing price.
Borders had new DVDs for $30.99. Yes, $31 dollars for new and semi-new titles like Mr/Mrs. Smith, Transporter 2, Red Eye, etc. And they are apparently serious about that, like they expect someone will actually pay it. They know there are other stores out there, right? I consider $20 an outrageous price for a DVD, when CostCo has every new one for $18.69 or so, and stores like Target, Fry's, Circuit City, etc, sell them for $15-20. Hell, you can go to overpriced Blockbuster or Hollywood videos, stores that make their profit renting movies, and buy new DVDs for $20-25, or just wait 3 weeks and get them used for $13 each, or 3/$25, like we always do.
Better yet, and this one actually made the laugh aloud and sputter incredulously until Malaya led me away. Borders had the Indiana Jones 3 movie box set for $70! It's not a new release, it was $40 at CostCo when it was new, like 18 months ago, and I've recently seen them at Fry's and Target for $45. And Borders wants $70? Who in the hell pays that? Really, some kid making $1m selling pixels on a website makes perfect sense when you compare it to this. Right now you can order the Indy box set from Amazon.com for $49.96, or humorously, pay six bucks more for the crappy full screen, "pan and scan" version. I guess they figure if you're dumb enough to buy it with the sides of the movie chopped off, you're dumb enough to overpay for it?
The funniest thing I saw in Borders though, was a yoga video for $30. Not a DVD, an actual video tape. I didn't think they still made those, the discount rack in front of every Ross and TJ Maxx has 50 of them for $4 each, and Borders wanted $30 for a VHS tape? You could take actual yoga classes for less than that! And it wasn't one of those package deals with a mat and dumbbells and a pilates ball or anything; it was just one tape. In all fairness, it was marked down to $20, but still, that's like 5x what it's worth on the open market. And yet someone must pay those prices, or they wouldn't keep trying to sell them for that much. I guess.
It puzzles me so since we're in the Bay Area, with hundreds of stores within easy driving distance. I could see if there was just one store in some Hicksville in the middle of nowhere, but there are probably 10 other stores selling those DVDs located within 5 miles of the Borders we were in last night, and probably 9 of them would have the same stuff for cheaper. And the 10th is a Barnes & Noble, the only other retailer that tries to sell DVDs for those prices.
Malaya's explanation is that people want the convenience of the DVDs right where they already are for books, and that serious DVD buyers never go there, since they know better. People who plan ahead get stuff online or look for sales. People making hurried gift buys, or impulse purchases just ignore the high price, or want to use up their Xmas gift certs, or whatever. It still makes my head hurt, though.
On a similar topic, have you ever seen the prices in one of those Harry and David catalogues? We get them in the mail all the time, probably because we actually use them for gift-giving, and I guess there goes my argument, but what in the hell are they charging such high prices for? I can sort of believe it with the fresh fruit, since it's often bought out of season, it's hard to get good produce that time of year, etc. True, it's a lot easier now than in the past, with good pears, apples, pineapples, etc in stores year round, thanks to NAFTA and pesticide-riddled produce from Chile and Venezuela and such, but the Harry and David ones come in pretty boxes and seem very gift-y.
How about their non-fresh stuff, though? Nuts, dates, popcorn, etc. It's just insane what they charge. For example. A pound of cashews... for $25! Peanut butter filled pretzels... just over 1kg for $22!
I doubt you would find it possible to pay more than $10 for a pound of cashews anywhere in America, in an actual store. Even those little two ounce packets they sell in 7/11's and airport gift shoppes wouldn't add up to more than $12 or $14, tops, and you'd have to buy like 10 packets to make a pound of them. I regularly buy 2 pounds of large cashews at CostCo for about $8.50. P/B filled pretzels are maybe $3.50 a pound at any grocery store with bulk food bins. You might go up to $5 at a bougie store. They're about $2.50 at Trader Joes.
And needless to say, none of those stores will charge you $6 or $8 more to mail you your purchase.
It was while perusing and gasping at the latest H&D catalogue that I remembered something I've been meaning to blog about forever. Florida's Natural Orange Juice. I'm sure it's a fine product, as fresh from the grove as you can get and all that, but their commercials never fail to crack us up, since they seem to be filmed in South Africa, circa 1983. There are white people, and white people, and more white people. All of the oblivious house wives in the stores, all of the men picking oranges, and everyone in the background. White, white, white.
Now maybe their market research tells them that black, brown, yellow, etc people do not buy orange juice, (I have no idea, my parents always had it when I was a kid, but then again, we're white.) but it's simply laughable to pretend that a bunch of middle aged white guys, like the one you see on their website, are out there picking oranges in Florida, California, Texas, or any other state where fruit orchards are found. That sort of labor is 99% performed by migrant workers, primarily Mexican, almost entirely Hispanic, and there can't be anyone unaware of that. Except perhaps those white gun nuts who operate under the delusion that America's service economy wouldn't shut down in a week if "illegal" immigration were actually cut off.
Yet there they are, every evening. Apartheid-style commercials for orange juice, where clean, immaculately-groomed, sweat-free, portly white men in pristine work gloves and crisp work shirts hustle around orange orchards, handing refrigerated cartons of orange juice to the grasping, manicured hands of white suburban house wives who get all dressed up to go shopping. I can't find any online to view, but here's an article about them, with a picture of the "co-op members" (white guys who own the farms and count the money while hiring thousands of illegal aliens to harvest their crops). It's not exactly news when a US TV program/commercial presents and unrealistically-white view of their producers/consumers, but these are so perfectly cut and pasted from the 1950s that they always amuse me.
...and the winner goes to Detroit!
Pity I didn't go with my second instinct, eh? I picked Denver to win despite looking bad, and Carolina to win in chaotic fashion. Wrong and wrong. In comments though, I considered reversing myself, and really considered it last night, after reading some previews on Football Outsiders and such. I didn't care enough to actually do so, but if I had it would have gone much like this one, from my
post-post comment.
Pittsburgh could come out and score early and quickly, forcing Denver into pass-heavy catch up mode, and their pass rush could get Jake rattled, and he could turn into his old interception-happy gunslinging self by halftime. I can also see Seattle getting their offense in gear, smothering Steve Smith, and quickly taking a 28-3 type of lead.
Which is pretty much what happened in both games. Denver wasn't horrible, they just coughed the ball up too much, and as NE should have taught them last week, you'll lose and shit, doing that in the playoffs. Denver's main problem though is that they play exactly the same style of football as Pittsburgh, and Pittsburgh's better at it and has better players for it. Especially when Jake is snaking around in a flashback to his Arizona INT-happy style.
As for the late game... bleh. I woke up at noon, had a quick bite, and headed out to run some errands. Costco and other food stuff, before going to the gym, taking a bath to soak my gym-sore legs, and then working on the computer while the games taped. And thank Dog I had the Car@Sea game on tape, since damn that was a stinker. I suppose Washington was even worse (both games) and NYG when they hosted Carolina did less, but damn that was about the least-prepared offense I've ever seen in a playoff game. It looked like Carolina thought they could come out and do the exact same thing they did the last two weeks, and while NYG and Chi's defensive coaching was poor enough to allow that, Seattle's was not. They smothered Steve Smith, and Carolina's offense didn't appear to do anything Seattle did not expect.
Carolina was consistent at least, since their defense was equally-awful. They couldn't cover anyone, they couldn't stop the run, and they weren't much good at tackling either. I guess that's the downside to playing Manning Jr. and then the Bears' offenses back to back weeks, while sustaining injuries to key defenders. It's nice to win two games, but when you run up against a real offense in the championship game, you're helpless. Just a really unentertaining, mismatch of a game.
It does set up an interesting Super Bowl though, with Pittsburgh and Seattle both looking very strong going in. I question whether Seattle's got the defense to stop Pittsburgh, but they've certainly muzzled Washington and Carolina quite well thus far, so maybe we should give them the benefit of the doubt. Quietly competent defense (Seattle) can be as or more effective than a blitz-happy, terrorizing, flamboyant attack (Pittsburgh). Right? Seattle has a better offense, in theory, since they can run and pass, unlike Pittsburgh (who can only pass in the post season, reputation as a run-happy attack not withstanding). I don't see a line for the SB XL yet, but I'd guess it'll be very close, with Seattle maybe a 1 or 2 point fave, and the line perhaps swaying the other way over the next two weeks, as the huge Steelers' fan base puts their money where their collective hopes and dreams are.
Saturday, January 21, 2006
NFL Championship Picks
I pretty much threw darts with my eyes shut last weekend, and came out 2-2 on winners and 1-3 on over/under. Which is, as always, why I don't bet actual money on this sort of thing. I enjoy making the predictions though, even though I'm far too lazy to write up any interesting/funny previews, as approximately 5000 sports sites do. I have not much better of an idea this week than I had last week, but what the hell, I'm going to watch the games, and there are only three more this season, so I might as well make some predictions in advance.
Both road teams, Pittsburgh and Carolina, have played two good road games and won them both, while both home teams had a bye, before eeking out unimpressive home wins against offensively self-destructing visiting teams last week. Can either road team play three good games in a row? They've certainly got the talent, and both games are expected to be quite close, where a single big play or mistake could decide them. Neither home team has lost a home game all season either, though I heard somewhere that both home teams have not won on championship weekend since like 1996. Odds are that one of the underdogs will win this week, or at least cover the spread. But which one, if not both?
Pittsburgh @ Denver: Denver is favored by 3.5 points, with a 41 point over/under. This one opened up as a 3.5 point spread, and has stayed right there, or dropped to 3 points at some casinos. It's an interesting match up too, since Pittsburgh appears to be peaking at the right time, while Denver is still playing largely thanks to New England's self destruct last week. Then again, Denver avoided making mistakes and let NE give them the game, which is a talent in of itself. You can win a surprising/depressing number of football games just by not shooting off your own damn feet.
I've yet to see Denver play a really good game all season, but like I said last week in picking them over New England, "they're not 13-3 by accident." And now they're 14-3, and on Monday they'll be 15-3 and headed to the SuperBowl... in Detroit. Think the lucky teams will wish they could wait and fly in on like the Saturday before the game, rather than spending more than week of media madness on location?
Denver 24, Pittsburgh 20, though the scoring might well go higher with yet more unseasonably-nice weather forecast for the mile high city this weekend.
Carolina @ Seattle: Seattle is favored by 3.5 points, with a 43.5 point over/under. This one opened with Seattle up by 6, a spread that instantly dropped to 4. Not a real sign of confidence in Seattle there. I have to pick one underdog to win, and logically, I should go with Pittsburgh. Carolina's running back is out with a broken ankle, and that should, in theory, make their offense even more one-dimensional than usual. Last week Chicago was amazingly-dumb in their coverage schemes, leaving Steve Smith one on one numerous times, and paying for it repeatedly. I can't believe Seattle will be that dumb, and I'm not confident of Delhomme's ability to beat them with other receivers, and I wasn't impressed that Carolina allowed the moribund Chicago offense to put up over 20 points last week.
All that said, I think Seattle will lose a close one, or win in a blowout. And since I think Denver is going to win another game no one quite believes they can win, and I want to pick one of the underdogs, Carolina it is. Carolina 21, Seattle 20, with Steve Smith catching 14 for 178 yards and 2 TDs, while the Seattle defensive backs look stunned and point at each other.
Friday, January 20, 2006
Hellgate hellagood?
After my last
losing hope post about the potential Flagship Studios job, a couple of readers mailed in with questions/comments about
Hellgate:London, the game Flagship is making. I'm quoting Caaroid, since he went into a bit more detail, and he's got seniority around here.
I was sorry to hear about the not-fortunate (not quite unfortunate, but...) turn about your job application. Thing is... since you posted about it, I checked out what they had to say about the game... and frankly, you'd have a hell of a job there. Honestly, I found absolutelly ZERO incentive to even read about it, let alone try that game. It seems totally unimaginative, borderline boring.
Ah well. I hope YOU get to change my mind.
I wasn't really following Hellgate:London until I got interested in this job opening and researched it, but I was interested in it even before I knew much more than I'd read last year, when they made the initial announcement. Honestly though, much/most of my interest them was spurred by knowing who was designing the game. Diablo and Diablo II are probably my two favorite computer games of all time (And D2X would make it the top 3, if I wanted to break it down to that extent.) and I liked the idea of HG:L, but I also had faith that the Blizzard North crew would make a fun game. If HG:L was coming from oh, EA, or Microsoft, or whoever, I'd be interested in the RPG/FPS concept, but I wouldn't be following it very closely, and I certainly wouldn't have applied for the webmaster/community manager job if some other studio had offered it. Nor would I have done so if the game they were making at Flagship looked like suck.
As for HG:L, the fiction of it doesn't really thrill me, but then again, I don't know much about it at this point. You can read the
basic plot set up on any of the fansites (and hopefully in more detail on the official site, once they hire someone to get that content online), but in a nutshell it's the year 2032, "hellgates" have appeared and let demons in and they have overrun the world, or at least London, where the game is set. The Knights Templar protected the world from the demons in the past, using magic to force them back, but in this modern, rational age that magic was neglected, and the demons broke through and conquered immediately, since conventional weapons do not touch them. Mankind is resisting their invasion now though, with magical weapons and spells and such, and in the game you'll take the role of a character and battle against the demon hordes.
It's not bad, I mean I sort of like the future concept and demons in our world and such, but no one is buying or not buying the game based on the concept. It's a step up from "demons break loose in a secret lab somewhere" concept that Doom and Resident Evil and every other FPS has worn out, but the plot in these sorts of games is pretty much like the plot in a porno; it's just a way to move you along to the action.
What I like about HG:L though is the gameplay concept, which can be most-easily described as an FPS crossed with Diablo II. It plays like a first person shooter, with a gun in your hands and a target sight and all of that, but it's not about shooting accuracy, like Halo or Quake or Doom or all the rest. Accuracy matters a little, I mean if you shoot at the ground or up into the sky you're never going to hit the target in front of you, but combat works like Diablo II; whether your hit and how much damage you do is primarily based on your weapon, your character's stats, the skills/spells you are using, etc.
I hadn't really been sitting here wishing someone would make a game like this, but now that someone is, I'm interested in it. I've never really enjoyed any FPS games that much since I find the POV so confined and claustrophobic (like looking through the end of a shoebox), but mostly because I don't feel any attachment to the character. Your guy is just another anonymous, unchanging drone, exactly like everyone else, without any persistent traits or attributes. You can't make him/her any different, any weapons you pick up are gone when you die or the next round starts, you can't customize anything, etc. It's fun for death matches with friends, but I don't get any long term play fun or desire to do the single player, since I feel no attachment to my character, and I don't love the FPS style of gaming enough to do it just for itself.
I've played D2 a few times at demos (at E3 and at Blizzard North) and when the character is equipped with items you didn't pick up, and skills you didn't set, it's just not very involving. You end up rushing around madly, not bothering to pick up any equipment, never gambling or selling anything, etc, since you know you're not going to play for that long, and you know your character isn't going to be saved for you to play again. That's how FPS usually feel to me, and that's why I'm eagerly-awaiting Hellgate, since it should be very different, in that regard.
And no, I'm not saying this because I'm trying to get a job there. Though I probably would if I thought it would help.
Also, as I told Caaroid, we hardly know anything about the game yet. We've seen only one of the classes, in one small section of the game world. At this point we're basically back in 1999, when all we knew of D2 was an Amazon running around Act One, usually with a sword in her hand. We have little inkling of the weapons other than that there will be more than 100 base types of guns, we know little about the monsters, nothing of the quests, next to nothing about weapon/armor stats, nothing about PVP options, nothing about char classes other than the Templar, etc. In short, I wouldn't worry if I didn't feel excited about the game yet, since I remember the early days of D2, and know how little they've yet revealed of the whole package.
As I've blogged in the past, there are a lot of video cam movies out there, and they are the best way to get a feel for what the gameplay will be like, albeit in a rushed, demo-style of play. I wish Flagship would release a real movie, with high quality video. Even if it were just 30 seconds long and had a lame frame rate, it would be nice to see the image quality in a good size, and not just what a video camera pointed at the monitor captures. At any rate, here's
a nice selection, and I recommend the gigantic file size
E3 2005 nVidia Presentation most highly for the information. Sadly, it's got the worst image quality, so I'd recommend pretty much every other movie for the eye candy; try any of the three "4Players GSTAR" movies, for the best visuals yet.
And as for HG:L's FPS/RPG concept, Caaroid mailed me back and said he'd heard of it before.
"About HG:L... There was that one FPS that had the same concept... with character development, skills, stats, shatnot. I don't recall the name (it was a two-parter, playing in space...), and it was sorta amusing, but nothing too loveable."
Well, news to me. Anyone know what game he's talking about? I might actually check it out in the bargain bin, or at least read some reviews online to see how the concept went over at the time. I know lots of FPS have done story and inventory and such, rather than just mindless action, but I didn't think any had gone the full RPG style.
Thursday, January 19, 2006
Just like mom warned you.
This sounds like an old wives' (mother's?) tale, and it's in a cheesy UK tabloid, but let's just pretend it's true for the sake of the argument. And because it's funny.
Junk food kills!
A LAD who only ate chips, toast and baked beans was killed by his junk diet — aged just 20.
...
His devastated family told yesterday how they had tried to get Scott to eat proper food since childhood. His sister Gail Fairweather said: "Scott would never eat any fruit or vegetables. There were only a few things he would eat — McDonald’s chips were his favourite. He would eat toast — but only if it was made from sliced white Danish bread, with a thin spreading of Lurpak butter. He would eat baked beans, but only Morrisons’ own brand and only now and then. He was always like that, from being little. Finding stuff he would eat was such a struggle."
Scott, of Sunderland, fell ill last year and at first his family thought he had flu. Mum-of-six Gail said: "He was tired all the time and could not walk far. He got out of breath very quickly and could barely get across the room."
Medics discovered liver problems — although he rarely drank. Scott was sent to a dietician after refusing the transplant -- but didn’t like nutritional supplements on offer. Doctors insisted on the teeth op, fearing Scott would be killed by blood poisoning -- but afterwards his gums would not stop bleeding.
The article says he weighed 16 stone, or around 240 pounds, so he wasn't grotesquely huge or anything. And he died from some sort of blood poisoning/hemophilia, brought on by eating nothing but French fries (chips) and bread? Weird.
I tend to doubt the veracity of this story, but just going with it for a minute. Assume he really did eat nothing, literally nothing but fried potatoes and toast and sugary baked beans. It's no surprise he wouldn't brush his teeth either, given that track record, but could there be a medical reason? It's easy to say he was stupid and an incredibly-picky eater, but maybe something haywire in his body made other foods taste horrible, or upset his stomach? Like people who can't handle gluten, or peanut butter, or whatever seemingly-innocuous food the rest of us enjoy. I doubt we'll see a follow up with autopsy results, at least not from the UK Daily Sun, anyway.
In any event, I can see moms all over the UK clipping this article and sticking it on the fridge to try and control their little, "I won't eat that rabbit food!" monster of a child. Malaya and I discuss this sort of thing all the time, and dread it. When our future hypothetical children suddenly, one day, decide they won't eat _______ or _______ anymore. And it's never hamburgers, or cheese sandwiches, or french fries, or other unhealthy stuff you'd be fine with your kid not eating in the first place. My parents tell me I'd eat everything as a baby, and then suddenly when I was like 5 I suddenly refused to even consider eating Chinese food anymore, despite the fact that I'd always liked it until then. I have no memory of eating it as a baby and refusing it as a child, but I do recall sort of rediscovering it in my teens, without any idea why I hadn't been eating it all along. It makes no sense, but it's part of how kids become willful and form their own (frequently stupid) opinions and preferences. And I'm sure it will vex us, no matter how food-liberal we try to raise our kid(s), and how we try to set a good example for them by our varied and vegetable/fruit-intensive diets.
Perhaps I should save this article for the future then, just in case?
Wednesday, January 18, 2006
Back to reality...
Checking the
Flagship Studios page this morning, as I've done every morning for the past month, and I notice that they've got a new job listed for a "DX10/Vista Graphics Programmer." Neat-o and stuff, but I also notice that
their jobs page no longer has a listing for the Community Manager position that
I spent the past month
mooning about.
They've made no announcement about hiring someone for that position, and this is the first update to their webpage since Xmas, but the fact that it's no longer listed, while numerous other jobs are, seems a pretty clear indication that someone's been hired, or that they are at least deciding between a few finalists for the position. And that I'm not one of them. *sigh*
I never heard anything back from them re: my application, so they were obviously a lot less enthused about me than I was about them. That is their perogative, and while I'm not bitter, I'm pretty disappointed. I do wish them good luck and hope that whoever they hire(d) is a great choice, but if their websites don't become truly awesome, I'll forever think they chose very poorly, because I know what I would/could have done with them, and it was content-fricking-billionaire.
Oh well. Like all dreams, this one was it was fun while it lasted, and now that it's over I've got to get back to reality and buckle down on my novel-writing. That's supposed to be my real job anyway, and I'd rather be a successful author than community manager/web guy for the most interesting PC game under development today... though I really wouldn't have minded being both, for a few years at least.
Sunday, January 15, 2006
NFL Playoff Weekend
I typed up a quick reaction/analysis after I watched each game this weekend, and here they are. All games were viewed on tape, and really, that's the only way to go. At this point I can't imagine sitting through an entire 3.5 hour game with 2.5 hours of commericals and dead time. It's such a better expenditure of time to run errands or work on the computer or sleep late, and then watch the game in an hour once it ends. There are risks, of course; the Carolina@Chicago game went very long with all of the offense, and my tape ended with about 3 minutes left and Chicago driving for a tying touchdown, and I would have missed the end of the Pitts@Indy game if it had gone to overtime. But hey, it's still worth it to save 8 or 10 hours of weekend for other things, and to miss all of those commercials and the interminable delays while plays are "reviewed."
Anyway, here are the game recaps, in chronological order.
Washington 10 @ Seattle 20. Wow, what a dreadful game. Thank god I taped it or I'd have clawed my eyes out at some point during that 7-3 first half. Things picked up a bit in the second half, but the 20-10 final was still far from thrilling. Seattle hadn't won a playoff game in like 25 years, and they certainly played like they didn't want this one. MVP running back fumbles twice, gains no yards, gets an early concussion, and never returns. They also fumbled a punt
and a kickoff return, their defense dropped at least two easy interceptions, let the other team's only receiver get open against triple coverage on 4th and 20, and if not for the Washington kicker shanking a gimme in the 4th quarter, the Redskins would
still have been driving for the tying TD in the last minute. Seattle had such a huge talent advantage that they won, even with the turnovers and constant nervous play.
I was amazed at how bad the Redskins were. How the hell did they ever win 5 straight to close out the season? They were wretched last week and beat Tampa thanks to a deflected pass and two lucky bounces on a fumble recovery, and this week they weren't much better. Who calls their offense? Are they aware that all running plays don't need to travel 10-15 yards sideways before turning up field? Was their defensive line playing some sort of playground "one one thousand, two one thousand, three one thousand..." rush strategy? I have never seen a QB with as long to stand around and look for receivers as Hassleback had. Credit to Washington's defensive backs and their zone coverage for keeping it close, but they've got to send a LB every now and then, or get some better linemen, with that complete lack of a pass rush.
Seattle won, but did nothing to impress anyone, which should make next weeks' game more interesting, if either Chicago or Carolina can play adequately tomorrow. Maybe Seattle will get over their playoff jitters after this win and show something next week to keep the Super Bowl spread under 10, but if they were going to the big game right now, I'd imagine that all 4 remaining AFC teams would be heavy favorites.
I picked Seattle 27-13, and was right on the winner, and the under.
New England 13 @ Denver 27. Well, NE seemed to be taking lessons from Seattle, but unfortunately for them, they didn't have enough of a skill advantage to win despite numerous stupid turnovers. I don't think I've ever seen two games in the same day where a team fumbled both a kickoff and a punt return, much less in the playoffs. The killer was the interception return, of course, since it was basically a 14 point swing, but NE's double turnovers for 10 free points just before halftime were painful, as was their missed field goal.
NE outplayed Denver, and substantially out-gained them, and Brady is clearly a far better QB than Plummer, but as is so often the case in playoff football, the team that made more mistakes of a turnover-based nature lost. Now if NE can just draft/sign some decent defensive backs, a fast running back, and avoid injuries, they'll be right back in Super Bowl contention next season.
I picked Denver to win 31-21, and was right on the winner and the cover, but said it would go over when it did not.
Pittsburgh 21 @ Indy 18. A mediocre game with a fantastically-entertaining last few minutes. It's fortunate that Pittsburgh won, or this one would have replaced the infamous "tuck rule" game, and have been forever be remembered for the single worst call in the history of the NFL, when the referee overruled an obvious interception by Polamalu that would have iced the game for Pittsburgh. At least the "tuck rule" when Brady clearly fumbled against the Raiders but had it ruled an incomplete pass, was by the rules; just a stupid, illogical rule. This one was laugh out loud insane; a Pittsburgh defender dives, catches the ball, takes a step, rolls over, gets up, drops it, and falls on his own fumble. And the ref reviews it, takes a thick envelope of cash from the Indy owner on the sidelines, and whips up some insane "never had possession" argument. Truly a travesty of justice.
I'd be quite willing to accept conspiracy theories about this game's officiating being slanted towards league favorites Indy, especially when you add in the incredibly blatant pass interference Indy was not called for an a long Pittsburgh pass in the 2nd quarter, when the Steelers were up 14-0 and driving for more. Except for the fact that Pittsburgh converted line plunges on 2 straight 4th downs in the 4th quarter, and made them both by about 1 inch each, and each mark appeared to be pretty accurate. If the refs were really out to get them, instead of just situationally-incompetent, they would have scooted the ball back half a foot one or both times and given the ball right back to Indy.
It's now clear, when you consider his college career as well, that Payton Manning is simply
not a big game QB. He's the best in the world against a bad team in the early season, and against mediocre competition, but every year his last game is his worst game, as another team figures out a way to get pressure on him and slow his receivers, and he goes out with a whimper. His stats weren't that horrible in this one, and he didn't molt his usual 3 or 4 INTs, but he was much worse than his season average, when it was most important that he step up and lead his team to victory. And this year I think Indy runs out of excuses. They had home field advantage, they had the best record in the league, they had no injury problems on offense, and they even had an easy match up, going against the 6th seed, largely thanks to Carson Palmer's knee being destroyed on the first pass of the game in last week's action.
You'd think that Payton will have to win it some year; he's good enough and there's enough offensive talent around him that the Colts can count on winning 11-13 games every season, and sooner or later they'll get lucky, or other teams will have injury problems, or whatever. Then again, everyone thought Dan Marino was sure to rack up Super Bowl titles too, and look
how that turned out.
I picked Indy to win 35-17, and was wrong on every aspect of that pick, with the wrong team and the over. I wasn't that shocked that Pittsburgh won, but how they won was surprising. I could see Pittsburgh losing a close one, say 20-28, or winning a high-scoring game, say 38-34, but holding Indy to 18 and winning? Color me amazed. Perhaps if the Chargers @ Indy game had been on TV here I might have had an inkling, since I'd have been reminded just how mediocre Payton is when he gets pressured by a tough defense, but I'd only seen him playing his masterful pitch and catch a few times against mediocre defenses during the regular season, and expected more of the same against Blitzburgh. So did he, apparently.
Carolina 29 @ Chicago 21. Well, who knew? Everyone had this figured as the worst game of the weekend, it had by far the lowest over/under, and I expected it to be like 12-9. I also expected colder temperatures and a muddy muck of a field though, and that would certainly have held scoring down quite a bit. Instead it was dry and the turn looked good, and as a result the game went back and forth with plenty of offense, great defensive plays, and thanks to Carolina blowing an extra point, it even had a dramatic finish, with Chicago within one touchdown of tying the game in the last minutes. They did not, but Grossman was certainly an adequate QB, at least in comparison to Orton. Chicago's problem was their defense, and their inexcusable inability to cover the only decent receiver on the other team.
Steve Smith caught half of Carolina's passes for 2/3 of their yards and 2/3 of their touchdowns. And yet he was still streaking, basically uncovered, through Chicago's defensive secondary late in the 4th quarter. It puzzles me; these teams played on November 20th, and Smith did much the same thing, catching 14 passes for 167 yards, both more than 80% of Carolina's total. I guess since Chicago won
that game 13-3, they figured they'd let Smith have his fun and just shut everything else down and be able to win again? This time Smith caught touchdowns too, Carolina's running game worked pretty well too, and if Chicago hadn't had one of their best offensive games of the year, they would have been blown out.
Also, what does this say about the NY Giants' effort last week, when they lost 23-0 to Carolina? How wretched was their offense, when the Bears were 21 points and 200 yards better? Eli got an early start on living under the Manning family curse, or what?
I picked Chicago to win 20-16, a pick I revised from my initial 20-17 prediction when I realized the spread was 3, and that I was picking a push. Lowering Carolina's score just made me more wrong on the under, and the winner, though.
For the weekend I was 2-2 on winners/spread, but only 1-3 on the over/under. Which is, as always, why I don't bet on sports.
The best news is that next week's games are damn interesting. Denver and Seattle won in unimpressive fashion, and while they're both hosting wild card teams, Carolina and Pittsburgh have both won two road games already in the playoffs and they've looked very good doing it. The home teams will be favored, but not by very much, and the prognosticators should be in high gear this week, with good arguments to be made for all four teams.
The early line has Denver by 3.5 and Seattle by 4.5, both very low spreads for home teams in the playoffs. And I wouldn't be surprised if those came down over the week; Seattle opened at 6 point favorites and that one's already down a point and a half.
Indulgence
Good night's sleep (first time in weeks), lazy Sunday morning, NFL football on TV, and whip up a hefty nachos supreme for breakfast. Why not make the first meal of the day the best meal of the day?
Saturday, January 14, 2006
Painful D2 Emails: Part #06
This one came in to my D2 email tonight, and while it's not written on a 2nd grade level, and it doesn't confuse us (the staff of diabloii.net) with Blizzard, as so many emails do, it still completely perplexed me. Here's the full text, minus his name:
Hi guys I am not sure if you guys notice this already, but FLAGSHIP, a gaming company is created by former Blizzard North high members. I found that to be very interesting as they probably provided the muscles for the Diablo franchises.
Okay, he's completely correct in content, and it's nice that he took the time to tip us off about this, but um... what? We've posted about Flagship Studios at least a dozen times on the D2 site, starting more than 2 years ago when they first left Blizzard North to form the company. I can overlook that though; maybe the emailer forgot, or hasn't been reading the news until recently. Whatever. Look at the
Diabloii.net main page now though! The second news item is about a new Bill Roper interview, and the fifth item is about a David Brevik interview. Both news items say the guys are ex-Blizzard and are now with Flagship, both have links to Flagship, both mention that they talk about D2 in the Flagship interviews (which is why I linked to them from the D2 site), etc.
So how does this guy email us, using the "submit news" link right on the D2 site main page, without seeing that there are two news items about Flagship right on top of the page? Is it a joke? Does his browser have a cache problem that's kept it from refreshing the news page since November? I am so confused right now.
Labels: painful d2 email
Friday, January 13, 2006
On A Horse
I saw a link to this somewhere, and thought I might as well share,
pointless though it is. It needs music, but also consider this; how does the horse always run uphill, while never getting any higher?
NFL Playoff Predictions
Just to get this mandatory post out of the way:
Wash@Seattle. 42 over/under, Seattle favored by 9. I'm not sure they'll cover, but I'm quite confident they'll win. Washington's offense has been shit lately, they're beat up from winning 7 straight games to make it here, and Seattle is better, and much better rested. 27-13, Seattle, and it may well be over by halftime.
NE@Denver. 44 over/under, Denver favored by 3. A 3 point home favorite is essentially a pick 'em game, and while I'd love to see NE win and set up the rematch next weekend in Indy, I don't think it's going to happen. They're playing well, far better than earlier in the season when Denver jumped all over them, and Denver has never impressed me this season, but they're not 13-3 by accident, and Belicheck's ability to camouflage his awful secondary with tricky coverages and clever schemes can't last forever. 31-21, Denver,
unseasonable forecast permitting. If they get a sudden blizzard, anything goes, but I would guarantee far fewer points than I'm predicting.
Pitts@Indy. 47 over/under, Indy favored by 9.5. Seattle vs. Washington part 2, except that Pitts' a well-rounded team and they didn't win last week by luck. Outdoors on a muddy field I'd go with them, but they can't stop Indy's offense on the turf (assuming Payton's left knee remains intact), and Indy's defense isn't as young, dumb, and gutless as Cincinnati's. 35-17, Indy, though I can see Pitt staying closer and turning it into a shootout, if they get some turnovers.
Carolina@Chicago. 30 over/under, Chicago favored by 3. I'm not sure I'll even bother to tape this one, since a muddy, punt-filled 12-10 slog isn't exactly a fun viewing experience. I really don't know or care who wins here, but I guess I'm rooting for Carolina just so Seattle has some sort of challenge to prepare for next week. How improved the Bears will be with a real QB remains to be seen, and yes, Carolina played 3 brilliant playoff games to get to the Super Bowl a couple of years ago, but I don't see them being great two weeks in a row. Of course they don't need to be, since 17 will usually beat Chicago. I'm going to pick against my instincts though, and assume that Chi's defense comes back to life after taking the last week of the season off, and that Grossman does a few things better than Eli did last week. 20-16, Chicago.
As always I'm betting not a penny, I've done no research for these picks, I haven't glanced at an injury report, and I've never even seen 3 or 4 of these teams play all season. Gamble at your own risk, in other words.
Walt is thawing.
I'm not sure when Disney's once legendary animation studio hit rock bottom, or if they've even reached it yet, but consider: The company that gave the world classics like Pinochio, Bambi, Fantasia, and Snow White drove its 2D animation division into the ground with unimaginative crap like
Treasure Planet and Hercules, while simultaneously churning out barrel-scraping, reputation-raping, straight-to-DVD sequels like Cinderella 2, The Jungle Book 2, The Lion King 1.5, and
101 Dalmations 2 (Yes, they also made a live action movie called
101 Dalmations, and then its sequel,
102 Dalmations, oddly enough.)
Quite a pedigree, but you ain't seen nothing yet. Check out
the trailer, or even just the synopsis for their upcoming and entirely-unnecessary non-Pixar 3D cartoon,
The Wild.
After dark, the animals at the New York City Zoo tend to get a little crazy. When one of these wild nights goes wrong, a lion cub named Ryan is accidently shipped to Africa and released into the wilderness. Ryan's father, Samson, and his friends to go on a risky rescue mission to find Ryan and bring him home to New York.
So it's Madagascar crossed with Finding Nemo. Couldn't they have worked in a glass slipper or poisoned apple or something, while they were brainstorming that wildly-original plot?
Now to be fair, given the production time for animated films, they were certainly working on this one long before Madagascar was released. Which isn't to say they didn't hear about its plot in advance, and I don't see any defense for their ripping off Finding Nemo, a film distributed by their own studio.
In a larger sense, I've been wondering when the CGI family animation crash was going to come, and honestly, I'm surprised it hasn't arrived already. The public just can't keep supporting every crappy CGI movie with bright colors and a band of anthropomorphized, mismatched animals thrown together on a wacky adventure. Can they? When do diminishing returns set in, especially given how lame most of these films are? Shark Tale and Madagascar were profitable, but can
The Wild,
Over the Hedge,
Open Season,
The Ant Bully,
Ice Age 2,
Barnyard>, and
Happy Feet, and even postmodern
Hoodwinked, all possibly make money off of the exact same demographic? True, 5 year olds are very easily entertained by bright colors and textured objects moving around on a screen while making silly noises, but at some point these crappy and redundant films have got to stop making money. Right?
I feel worst for the kids coming out of art and computer schools now. They all enrolled years ago, wanting to change the face of popular film and inspired by Pixar's early masterpieces, and now they're graduating just in time to put their cutting edge education to work texture mapping a farting, wise-cracking, B-actor-voiced cow in a film even their studio can't tell apart from the eleven other CGI animal movies coming in 2006.
I do not like Japanese food.
I have reached this conclusion with regret, and only after semi-extensive product testing. It's not that I don't like Japanese food overall; I enjoy miso soup and rice and fish and all the rest, and I'm not talking about that those confusing, fifty-ingredient culinary masterpieces they whip up on Iron Chef. What I don't like about Japanese dishes is the presentation style.
I don't dislike the ingredients, for the most part. What I don't like is how they serve them to you, usually in huge chunks. You'll get a cauldron of broth with meat and vegetables, and floating in the soup will be a huge shrimp, with legs and antenna and everything. And like half a carrot, and a whole head of bok choi, and half a fillet of cod, and two full leaves of Chinese mustard, etc. This presentation style is necessitated by the handicap of having to make things edible with chopsticks, and over time the Japanese eater has come to expect huge bites of a single ingredient. It's only logical; you can easily snatch up a finger-length piece of carrot and chomp it down in one bite, while you would get very bored chopstick fishing for two dozen slices of carrot in the same bowl. The same goes for huge hunks of chicken or fish or beef or various other vegetables. I'm not knocking their presentation or preparation style; I'm sure many people enjoy it.
Unfortunately, I am not one of them. I like to taste a bit of all the ingredients in every bite. I make sandwiches with lots of thinly-sliced meats and cheeses and vegetables, I like soup with tons of things cut small enough to fit easily into my spoon, I regularly prepare stir fry with upwards of a dozen components, etc. So in theory, I could take any Japanese dish with ingredients I liked, chop it up into 1/8th sized pieces, and be pretty happy. Perhaps I'll try that next time, rather than taking nibbles of numerous things in rapid succession, and dropping each of them back into the bowl for later consumption. Of course I'd need a knife and a fork and a cutting surface, rather than just two blunt pieces of wood, but no one said it would be easy.
Update: I do like tempura, but that hardly counts; as we all know, anything is good battered and deep fried. As for sushi, I like a few types, usually involving shrimp and rice, but sushi is grossly overpriced everywhere other than at a buffet like Todai, and there's no rice or fish dish I like better cold than hot. So I can basically tolerate sushi for free, but would never go out of my way to order it. (Which is a shame, since Malaya likes lots of sushi and absolutely loves saba.)
Honestly, in the case of tempura and sushi, I just order them to have an excuse to eat wasabi. I love that stuff, especially mixed up in a dipping dish with some soy sauce, though I quite enjoy it alone. A healthy dab of that stuff all by itself makes me very happy, especially if I do it the freebase style and take a bite, use my tongue to rub it into the top of my mouth, then smile while tears run down my face and my sinuses explode.
Wednesday, January 11, 2006
Nice work if you can get it.
This bit of
unimportant celebrity news confused me enough to catch my eye: Jessica Simpson and Nick Lachey are moving on. And that leaves the door open for a Malcolm in the Middle star to move in.
Just days after the soon-to-be-divorced couple listed their Calabasas, California, home, the setting for much of their Newlyweds hijinks, it was snapped up by Justin Berfield, who plays Malcolm's bullying older brother Reese on the Fox sitcom.
The sale was confirmed Tuesday by Berfield's publicist.
Simpson and Lachey were asking $3.75 million for the Mediterranean-style house, which includes a screening room and a music studio, but Berfield's rep declined to say how much the actor spent for the digs.
Berfield, 19, did have an in, though, so he might have gotten a discount. He and Jessica's father, Joe Simpson, partnered to produce the E! reality show Filthy Rich: Cattle Drive last year. Berfield has been friends with the Simpson brood for several years.
To help finance the move, the Malcolm star is putting his pedigreed 1930s Hollywood home (formerly owned by both George Clooney and Jaime Pressley) up for sale for $2 million.
Damn, no wonder people want to work in television! Some kid no one has ever heard of, on a sitcom no one watches, who's not even the famous one on his show, can buy a $3.75m house at the age of 19? And okay, maybe he got some discount from crazy Papa Joe Simpson, but he's selling his current house for $2m, and he must have lived in it for at least a couple of years. So he bought it when he was 17? Or 16? Burn, Hollywood, burn.
Tuesday, January 10, 2006
Movie Review: Munich
Munich, directed by Steven Spielberg, fictionalizes the real life terrorist situation that occurred during the 1972 Munich Olympics, when a number of Palestinians infiltrated the Olympic Village and took a bunch of Israeli athletes hostage. Since it was the 1970s, before police had their shit together, the hostage-takers were able to secure bus transport to the airport, to a waiting jet liner. There were no pilots on board though, and in the ensuing and incredibly-inept ambush by the German authorities, most of the terrorists were killed and three were taken prisoner, but not before they machine gunned down all of the hostages.
These events are related very early in the film, the meat of which is about a hit squad formed by the Israeli government and sent to kill the 11 men who allegedly planned the terrorist strike. They're not at all what you expect a super-trained killing team to be, and they're in fact pretty damn incompetent. The movie takes place over a couple of years, as the team slowly hunts down the terrorists, while growing increasingly-weary and losing confidence in the use of what they're doing.
To the scores:
Munich, 2005
Script/Story: 6
Acting/Casting: 7
Action: 7
Combat Realism: 8
Humor: 4
Horror: 5
Eye Candy: 6
Fun Factor: 3
Must See on the Big Screen: 1
Replayability: 5
Overall: 7
Munich is a quality film, but it's not a very fun one. It's well-written, well-acted, well-directed, and I wasn't bored, but I was never really excited or thrilled or involved in the plot, which made it a somewhat cold viewing experience. Spielberg worked hard to make the story balanced; and while it's not (it's very pro-Israel, or at least anti-Palestinian), it's not a complete screed or rant either. It might have been better if it had been; at least then I'd have rooted for one side or the other, and been emotionally involved, instead of just watching well-photographed events unfold on the screen without much caring how they turned out.
The film has been criticized by many on the right wing for not being sufficiently pro-Israeli. Going in, I was pretty agnostic about the root of the problems in the Middle East, and in my opinion any complaints about bias or balance in
Munich are 90% about the complainer's personal biases. I'm a bit stumped how anyone could think the film pro-Arab. It shows them cold-bloodedly massacring hostages and reveling in the deaths of Jews. True, there is one scene were a young Palestinian gets to speak about the suffering of his people at the hands of Israel, but he's soon revealed to be a scheming terrorist who deserves death, just like every other Arab male in the film.
Far from anti-Israel bias, I thought it was the other way. We see lots of Israelis, and they're a mixed batch; some are gung-ho for murder/revenge, some are just regular people living their lives, others are conflicted, and so on. They're presented as a balanced, realistic group. On the other hand, every Arab in the film is happy that Jews are dying, either outright cheering the TV news of the massacre in Munich, or working to bring about more massacres, or carrying a machine gun and looking swarthy. They bad Arab men have some depth; they don't spit hatred when they're cornered, and they're civil to everyone they meet, but they never defend their actions, or talk about what motivated them to plan terrorist attacks.
In the whole film, the only thing even remotely pro-Arab is the scene where a young Palestinian talks about how Israel has trampled on his people and forced them into concentration camps. I didn't think much of it, since it's inarguably true, to the best of my knowledge. Apparently it's enough to make some viewers to say the movie is anti-Israel, though.
I've also seen complaints that the hit squad was shown to be weak and inept and that that's an insult towards Jews. Come on. I thought that was actually very pro-Israel too; "Look, see, even though they're killing these horrible terrorists, they feel bad about it! And they go out of their way to avoid killing the children or wives of the terrorists, even if it means jeopardizing their entire mission!" Unlike the murderous savages they were killing, of course.
To the more specific scores, with comments by category:
Script/Story: 6All of the dialogue and characters are pretty good, but the overall plot is less so. The film lacks narrative pull; it's not building towards a climax, and there's no central conflict. It's very episodic, as we see the Israeli assassins work to find and eliminate their targets, and each of the individual scenes is pretty entertaining. But they all tend to blend together; there's one bomb in a hotel room after another, numerous scenes of the hit squad talking over huge meals, lots of scenes of anguish over what their lives have become, and so on. Spielberg could have chopped an hour out of the middle of the film without making any difference in the overall feel.
It's more or less accurate to the real history of events, and he wanted to be faithful to real life terrorism, with dozens of individual cells doing their own thing and no central puppet master. But that's why James Bond films have a Dr. Evil type guy to target against. It gives the story a beginning and an end and an overall purpose and goal. All things that were missing from this film.
I also disliked the fact that so little background info was given. Nothing is put into context, and if you entered this film ignorant of the history of the Middle East since WWII, you would have been confused quite a bit of the time. There are mentions of the formation of Israel, how the Jews had to fight to claim it, how Egypt and Jordan were going to attack again and win this time, and so on. All things unexplained by any of the characters in the film, and probably confusing to a lot of viewers, given the level of historical illiteracy in the US these days.
Acting/Casting: 7All the performances were very good. Malaya was debating whether Eric Bana could actually act, or if he's just cast in a roll where he can do his silent, brooding, sulking thing and fit the part perfectly. Personally, I think there are about 3 actual actors in Hollywood; everyone else just plays a version of themselves and it works in movies where the script supports that, and it fails in movies where the script doesn't.
The only complaint I had was the casting, which was too perfect, in retrospect. All of the characters are complete stereotypes; the hot headed murderous guy is all blonde and angry and Aryan, the nerdy bomb-maker is nerdy and small and bespectacled, the calm voice of reason is 60 and impeccably-groomed and buttoned down, the leader is strong and silent and brooding and brave, and so on. Everyone looks exactly like their character type, and while this gets you into the movie easily enough, it seems a bit ridiculous in retrospect. Why couldn't the hot head have been short and ugly? Or the bomb maker reckless and a drunk? Or the terrorists bookish and calm and clean-shaven? Just so that someone wouldn't look exactly like we expected them to look...
Action: 7Lots of action, and it's all well done and believable. See the next score. Lots of bombs go off, there are shoot outs galore, chases, some fight scenes, and so on. None are overtly action scene-y either; it's not that type of film. It's not
War of the Worlds. I thought it was overdone a few times; hardly anyone seems to consider ducking down or taking cover during the shootouts, and if the actual German rescue attempt of the hostages at the Munich airport really went down the way it's portrayed in the film, it had to be the single least-competent military action since the troop rushes at machine gun positions in WWI.
Combat Realism: 8This was an interesting aspect of the film, and not one I had expected. Spielberg intentionally made the action, the shooting, the assassinations, etc very sloppy and amateurish. The Israeli hit squad is an odd bunch, they've never killed before, their bomb-maker isn't very good, and since the story takes place in the 70s, they don't have very much technology, and since they aren't working with the resources of the Israeli government (just money), they've got to do things on their own.
So they end up in seedy hotels and ugly cars, they get faulty explosives, their hits are spur of the moment and poorly-planned, and so on. It could not be farther from the suave, secret agent world of James Bond, and that adds some excitement. I'm sure real life assassinations and criminal stuff is usually like this, with people running around madly, totally lacking in discipline or planning. Shootouts are full of more misses than hits, people struggle to get their guns out, grenade pins are difficult to pull, people are full of fear and terror, etc. Life lacks surgical precision, and this movie is often true to life.
The blood and gore was very well done too. There's not constant violence or action, but when it happens it's very hard-hitting. The blood is incredibly red, almost black it's so dark, and it's chunky and gruesome. When people get shot it looks like it hurts horribly; and the blood splashed around by explosives is really disgusting. People wounded by bombs are in agony, screaming how they can't see, running around naked and horrified, etc. It's definitely not a film for the squeamish, or for those who like their killings to be clean and neat.
Humor: 4The film isn't trying to be a comedy, but the few scenes that try get a good laugh.
Horror: 5This is a debatable score. I could easily have given it an N/A, since it's not really meant to be scary. There aren't any "nervous person creeping along while we wait for someone to leap out behind them" scenes, and no real "Gotcha!" moments either. The scary stuff is man's inhumanity and callousness, and the horrible things people will do for their beliefs. It does a pretty good job getting into the heads of people on both sides of the intractable Israel vs. Palestine conflict, and makes clear why it's been going on since the creation of Israel, and why it will probably continue on forever.
Eye Candy: 6The movie isn't really meant to be pretty, and a great many of the sets are grungy, dirty, bloody, etc. It's just so cleanly-photographed that it looks nice anyway. The use of color is very stylized, sometimes to the point of distraction. Some scenes everything is harshly desaturated,
Fun Factor: 3Not so much.
Replayability: 5I don't see why, but then again, I don't see why not. I've complained that there wasn't any overall suspense or story, so it's not like that aspect is ruined by having seen it already. I didn't especially enjoy it the first time, and I've got no desire to see it again at this point, but it's not one of those films that's going to be radically different/worse the second time around.
Must See on the Big Screen: 1This doesn't mean you should wait for the DVD, but it means you won't miss out on anything if you do. There aren't any gorgeous special effects, or huge action sequences, or anything that will suffer for eventual home viewing.
Overall: 7This one is far more on quality than enjoy-ability. Neither Malaya or I disliked it, and we weren't bored, but we didn't leave the theater debating anything we'd seen, or rerunning great scenes through our heads. We just gave each other an, "It wasn't bad." shrug and walked down the street to Barnes & Noble.
Male vs. Female Internet Use.
This article has a catchy title and an interesting premise, and I was all set to endorse it until I realized it was just stereotype/cliche-filled bleh, with two massive holes. Behold:
Men are from Google, Women are from Yahoo!
According to a recent report from Pew Internet and American Life, women view the Internet as a place to extend, support, and nurture relationships and communities.
Men tend to see it as an office, a library, or a playground--screw the community, this is about function not family.
The report found that women are more enthusiastic communicators, using email in a more robust way. Not only sending and receiving more email than men, women are more likely to write to family and friends about a variety of topics, sharing news, joys and worries, planning events, and forwarding jokes and stories.
While both sexes equally appreciate the efficiency and convenience of email, women are more likely than men to value the medium for its positive effects on improving relationships, expanding networks, and encouraging teamwork at the office.- 67% of the adult American population goes online, including 68% of men and 66% of women.
- 86% of women ages 18-29 are online, compared with 80% of men that age.
- 34% of men 65 and older use the Internet, compared with 21% of women that age.
- 62% of unmarried men compared with 56% of unmarried women go online
- 75% of married women and 72% of married men go online
- 61% of childless men compared with 57% of childless women go online
- 81% of men with children and 80% of women with children go online.
- 52% of men and 48% of women have high-speed connections at home
- 94% of online women and 88% of online men use email
Okay, we've all heard this 5000 times in our lives. Women are social creatures and like to communicate, men like to be amused and find information, etc, etc. Never before has a survey done so much to validate conventional wisdom and reinforce gender stereotypes. Where was the mention of women searching out recipes and fabric patterns while men looked at sports and auto parts sites?
Sarcasm aside, what really soured me on this one were two things they didn't even mention. Gaming, which is a huge online activity for many people of both genders, and, PORN which is said to be responsible for between 10-50% of all bandwidth consumption in the world. How can any Internet use survey, especially one comparing men and women, not mention porn and expect anyone to take it seriously? Don't men view porn like 50x more than women? Shouldn't that be a huge factor in the useage time stats?
Monday, January 09, 2006
Firsts of the New Year.
I never made a New Year's Resolutions post this year since I didn't make any. Okay, um... I want to finish my novel and get it published and write another one after that, so I'll have some money and can get married and buy a house.
There, with that out of the way, here's something I started writing on New Year's Eve, just remembered and updated, and must post now, before it's even more behind the times.
Firsts of 2006First drink: Spinetti White Zinfandel.
First food: Chunky peanut butter and raspberry preserves on a Ritz cracker.
First restaurant: None yet.
First TV (other than New Year's Eve countdown shows): NFL Football:
Carolina @ Atlanta.
First movie: Munich.
First game:
Funky Truck 3First deadly sin: Lust
Now, wasn't that exciting? I'd list this as "First Disappointing BC Blog Post of the Year," but I suspect it's about a week late for that honor.
Sunday, January 08, 2006
NFL Playoff Weekend
I didn't pay much attention to this weekend's games in advance, since there aren't any real good matchups. I don't care much about any of the NFC teams this year, since I don't think any of them but Seattle are really any good. I'd have taken all five quality AFC teams (Jacksonville excluded, for obvious reasons), and probably the Chiefs too, over anyone in the NFC on a neutral field. Anyone but Seattle, and I'd put them about 4th or 5th best, overall.
Anyway, I didn't make any predictions for Saturday's games, at least not recently, and I likely would have picked Tampa to win at home yesterday, rather than just deserve to win but lose thanks to 14 points on long turnover returns. As for Jacksonville @ New England, I'll regurtigate the pick I made back on
December 18th, with 3 games yet to play in the regular season and Jacksonville's destiny already determined.
As previously discussed, Jacksonville has a 1 game lead for the two wildcard spots, and with the easiest last 3 games in the history of professional football, they're in for sure. They'll probably go to NE in the first round though, step in the snow, and draw an immediate Go Direction To Jail card, heading home to the tune of oh... 27-10, perhaps.
I was wrong about the snow, I actually gave Jax too much credit, since they actually curled up and lost 28-3, but anyway. And no, this wasn't exactly a bold prediction; Jax was clearly the softest team in the playoffs, with a completely undeserving 12-4 record built on several close and ugly wins early on, and then an historically bad run of opponents over the last 9 games of the regular season.
For today's games, we've got Panthers@NY Giants, with NYG 3 point favorites. That's a pick 'em spread; Carolina would likely be 2 or 3 point faves if they were at home. It's a hard one to predict, though. Both teams have glaring weaknesses all over the field, and frankly it's hard to know how they both made the playoffs at all. Carolina is more up and down, and they don't have a virtual rookie QB who struggles to maintain a 50% completion percentage. On the other hand, they've got a horrible running game against anyone but Atlanta, and they only throw the ball to one receiver. I really have no preference for which team I'd like to win, but I don't have any lucky hunches either. So I'll take the NYGiants, 27-20, and guess that most of Eli's 10 or 15 inaccurate passes find the turf, rather than the hands of Carolina defenders. Despite picking a close score, I would not be surprised to see either team blow out the other.
Elsewhere, the Steelers are an outrageous 3 point favorite in Cincinnati, largely thanks to Cin's big slide the last two weeks, and Pitts' strong finish. Cin already had their playoff spot wrapped up though, and maybe those two beatings and the lack of respect they're getting will make them mad. Probably not, though. I was going to pick Pitt in a laugher (Cowher's annual playoff stinker exit doesn't usually come in the 1st round) but then I checked the
weather for Cincinnati and saw that it was going to be in the high 40s, and cloudy. It's 10 degrees colder and windy and maybe raining
in Pittsburgh, and if the game were there I'd pick the home team by 20.
The game's in Cincinnati though, and while the Bengals have a dome team offense that's singularly unsuited for their non-dome home field, as long as it's dry and not too cold they've got a chance. I don't think they will, and I'm taking Pittsburgh 27-17, but if Cin can stop the run and get their offensive speed going they could expose Pitts' mediocre defense and run away with this one. I'd pick them for sure if they were playing indoors.
I'm up early today, but I'll be taping both games while I work on the novel and hit the gym, with hopefully a movie and a meal out with Malaya in the early evening. I watched both of yesterday's games on tape well after midnight, and really, that's the only way to do it. The dead time and commercials that stretch a 60 minute game with 20 minutes of action up over 3 hours on TV is just intolerable. I refuse to sit through live football action, not while I've got so many other interesting things to do. Hell, if I had that kind of time to stand around doing nothing, I'd still play golf.
Update: As if I needed a reminder, this is why I don't bet on sports. I was wrong about the winner and the point spread for 3 out of 4 games this weekend, and being right about the only one I felt strongly about hardly makes up for the other 3, now does it? I'd like to blame Cincinnati's horrible luck with Carson Palmer's injury for their loss, but his left knee wasn't out there playing defense. And unfortunately for the Bengals, neither was anything else, after the 1st quarter.
As for the panther/giants game, I wasn't real surprised, but I didn't predict it either. I knew Carolina at their best was better than the NYG at their best, but who thought Carolina would play so well, and that the Giants would play so poorly? As I fretted in my prediction, more of Eli's errant throws found defenders than frozen tundra, and so few found his own receivers that the Giants' offense was just non-existent. In theory anyone could have told you that stacking the line to stop the Giants' run game, and double covering #1 receiver Plaxico would completely neuter their barely-two dimensional offense... but who knew Carolina could do it so easily?
Also, you know Patriot hearts are beating furiously now, with the very real possibility of NE winning at Denver, Pitt winning at Indy, and another AFC championship game in New England. Though I imagine the network hearts are beating more fiercely at the thought of the ratings bonanza a NE@Indy AFC championship game would be.
Lastly, how about those NFC East offensive juggernauts? 132 yards for NYG, 120 for Washington, and it would be a lot of fun to joke about them if not for the fact that Washington somehow won their game, thanks to 14 points directly from turnovers, and a stout defense. You know the Eagles are all sitting home cursing at the TV and wishing T.O. had kept his mind for just 6 months longer. Is there any way last years Eagles team would be challenged by anyone in the NFC playoffs time time around?
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