“Come and get me, Benson!”

Oct 312005
 

This is great. Tom Benson had a confrontation with a Saints fan with a camera in the fourth quarter of the Miami game. Benson hit the camera and said something nasty. His bodyguard kept his hand over the camera, while the fan kept saying “Come and get me, Benson! Come and get me!”

Here’s a quick summary:
Benson hits the camera
Fan: Way to go Benson, you’ll look real good on national TV now! Come get me I dare ya!
Benson: You’re just a prick, that’s what you are!
Fan: Then what are you?
Benson lunges again with fists clenched and his guards hold him back.

That’s priceless. Is Tom Benson a little stressed out? I guess it’s real hard on the soul to take advantage of a natural disaster and screw Saints fans who have been loyal for almost 30 years despite shoddy management, bad personnel decisions, and little (if any) success.

Here’s the link to the WWL-TV footage:
http://www.wwltv.com/perl/common/video/wmPlayer.pl?title=www.wwltv.com/1031benson.wmv

Easy Money

Oct 312005
 

GonzoWriters, a established team of copy writers, is hiring sports writers to compose articles on various professional and college teams and sporting events for use on on-line ticket sites. Anyone interested in sports and looking to make quick money should contact David Purdum or Eric Drouant at davidpurdumsports@yahoo.com or edrouant@charter.net.

Picking a new team…

Oct 302005
 

It seems that the NFL has pretty much decided that the Saints will not be in New Orleans next year.

Neither Dave nor I will root for the San Antonio Saints or the Los Angeles Saints, so it’s time to pick a new favorite team. I’ve put up a poll to get some feedback. Let your voice be heard.

Just know that if you vote for some team deemed “impossible to root for” by Dave or me, then your vote will just be discounted. “Impossible to root for” teams include, but are not limited to, the Ravens, the Dolphins, the Texans, the Bucs, the Chiefs, and the Rams.

Gambling for Stupids

Oct 302005
 

Point spreads are determined in an effort to attract an equal amount of action (money wagered) on each team. For example, if the Colts are playing the Texans, odds makers will make Indy a 17-point favorite, or Colts -17, or Colts 17. This means if you bet on the Colts, they must win by more than 17 (42-3, 45-20, etc.) Then, of course, if you take Houston +17, the Texans must not lose by more than 17 (21-17, etc.). If the game ends with a 17-point margin of victory (24-7), the game is considered a push or tie. No money is lost by either party.

Most wagers also require a 10% house fee, juice or vig. To win $50 on the Colts, you would need to bet $55. Ofen, the juice will increase or decrease instead of the line moving. Again, this is all designed to maintain an equal amount of action on each side or team.

From a former bookie, the best piece of advice I can give you is to remember there’s a lot more people that know a lot more than you do whose job it is to make these point spreads. Casinos will never lose. The public is a Meatnormous Loser when it comes to betting on sports. Use that to your advantage. Don’t be afraid go against what appears to be the obvious bet. Look for lines that look strange or too good to be true. Bet on small underdogs (Redskins +2 at the Giants) and take the big favorites (Steelers -10 at Baltimore). And always bet the same amount on a very limited number of games.

Sunday morning picks

Oct 302005
 

Please note that my picks are who’s going to win, not who is going to cover the spread. The lines are just there to help us get a feel for how the teams match up. My picks are in bold.

  • Arizona at Dallas (-9.5) – Nine and a half? Sounds about right to me. Julius is out again this week, but does Arizona even have a running back? I’m still pissed that my fantasy sleeper pick JJ Arrington was a total bust. Go Boys.
  • Chicago at Detroit (-3) - Battle of the bads. There’s so much wasted talent on the Lions, and only a little wasted talent on the Bears, since they actually use Thomas Jones. I’d like to say that Jeff Garcia will lead the team to 8-8 but not get them into the playoffs, but 8-8 is dominant in the NFC North. I’m taking the Lions.
  • Cleveland at Houston (-1.5) – This will be the best game of the week. You have to be real bad to only get 1.5 at home over Cleveland. Houston goes 0-8 this week.
  • Green Bay at Cincinnati (-10) – Carson Palmer is good. The Packers are not. I picked the Bengals to win last week at Pittsburgh, and they let me down. Maybe I should become a Bengals fan when the Saints move out of New Orleans. They have a history of of hey-we’re-almost-not-crappy-this-year too.
  • Jacksonville (-4.5) at St. Louis – I still think Dave overrates the Jags, but they can beat St. Louis. Heck, the Rams needed help from the referees to beat the Saints.
  • Minnesota at Carolina (-7.5) – The Vikes will do better than they have done now that Burleson is back, but it won’t be enough. They don’t have enough defense to stop Steve Smith. Also, the over/under in this game is 45. The over is my lock of the week.
  • Oakland (-1) at Tennessee – Lamont finally had his big game last week. He will have another this week.
  • Washington at N.Y. Giants (-1.5) – Big game for the NFC East. Eli is good, but Washington, as a team, is better. Plaxico is a wuss.
  • Kansas City at San Diego (-6) – Think the Chiefs can stop LaDainian like the Eagles did last week? Me either.

I have to do two picks for the next game.

  • Heart pick: Miami at New Orleans (-2.5) – Nick Saban returns to Tiger Stadium and gets booed. The Saints are determined to beat the refs and play solid, penalty-free, turnover-free football and blow the Dolphins out.
  • Head pick: Miami at New Orleans (-2.5) – see the my comments above on the line in the Cleveland/Houston game.

Stupid Saints.

  • Philadelphia at Denver (-3.5) - Denver is good. With no running game in Philly, the Denver defense will shutdown TO. This will be the best game of the week (besides the Browns/Texans game, of course).
  • Tampa Bay (-11) at San Francisco – Here’s my upset pick of the week. Tampa Bay is overrated. I don’t think the football genes run in the Simms family like they do in the Manning family. Will the 49ers beat the line? No. Will they win? Yes.
  • Buffalo at New England (-9) – The Bills are getting better since Holcomb came in, but this is New England they are playing.

NASA (especially for Koster)

Oct 292005
 

NASA's money well spent This post is dedicated to Mr. Koster, with whom I had a long conversation not too long ago about NASA’s use of its resources. He felt that federal money spent by NASA was being wasted. I disagreed. NASA’s exploration is necessary for the advancement of science and knowledge in America, I argued.

And now I have proof. NASA has developed a skin for robots that will “enable robots to sense their environment and react to it,” just like humans do. That’s pretty neat. They built a robot to demonstrate how the skin works. That’s pretty neat, too.

But the proof that NASA is spending its money wisely lies in the fact that they chose to make this video of a ballerina dancing with the space robot:
NASA’s dancing space ballerina

Here’s the link to the actual story on NASA’s website:
Goddard Technologist Proposes Sensitive Skin Covering for Robots

While the skin is really cool, the person who came up with the shape of the demonstration robot is brilliant.

NASA is necessary, Koster. Quod erat demonstrandum.

We’re all going to the zoo tomorrow

Oct 282005
 

Assuming the Great British Weather doesn’t decide to throw down the rain all day, we’ve decided to all go to the zoo tomorrow. We’ve recently bought a new car, one of these (not brand new, I’m not made of money! It’s 4 years old) and haven’t had an opportunity to load up for a family day out yet. Anyhow, I thought I’d do a little scouting around and see which zoo we might go to, and how much it’s gonna be to get in.

Looks like it’s going to be around 40 quid for all of us (2 adults, 2 kids) to get in. Throw in some food, drinks, couple of toys for the kids at the gift shop and it’ll probably be around 60 quid all told. That’s not counting petrol (gas for you American speakers) – nearest zoo is about 40 miles away, which is probably about another tenner. Reckon on about 70-80 quid for a day out at the zoo.

This country sucks. Sooooo damned expensive.

World of Warcraft

Oct 282005
 

Warning: Dork alert. Be advised.

I’ve been secretly following the development of the new expansion to World of Warcraft. While it’s true that I haven’t really missed the game since I quit several months ago (about 1 week after reaching level 60), I was afraid that the expansion would be neat enough to suck me back in. I’ve always enjoyed the cartoony style of WoW as well as levels 1-20, and thought that maybe the expansion would be more of that, with two new races and all.

But one of the new races is called the Blood Elf. It looks like the regular old Night Elf that has been in the game already. Except its red. Oooh boy. Since the other race hasn’t been released yet, I’m holding on to hope that its the Pandaren.

And then, I read this on the expansion website:

An increase in the level cap to 70

And I totally lost all interest in WoW. Not even drunk panda samarai could get me to go back. I wish game designers would learn to add more to the lower levels, rather than make the highest level harder to get too. I quit one week after my character hit the level cap. There was nothing to do. Why would I have any interest in leveling ten more times to be left with nothing to do?

NFL Notes

Oct 282005
 

So you don’t believe in the Jags? Jacksonville (4-2) owns Quality wins over of the Bengals, Seahawks and at Pittsburgh, with their losses coming to Denver and Indy. They boast a top-five defense, which held mighty Peyton Manning to only 175 yards. Also, go ahead and count on the them being in the playoffs: They don’t play another team that currently has a winning record.

I do belive in the Panthers and Bucs. Both were accidentally left off my top 10 and both are better than the Bengals and Chargers. Dallas’s division is too tough, though. Bledsoe is destined to get hurt. That said, how many good running backs did Parcells acquire?

New Top 10 NFL Teams
1. Colts
2. Steelers
3. Falcons
4. Broncos
5. Patriots
6. Eagles
7. Panthers
8. Jaguars
9. Giants
10. Bucs
Knocking on the door: Chargers, Bengals, Chiefs and Bears

AFC Playoff Teams
North: Pittsburgh
South: Indianapolis
West: Denver
East: Patriots
Wild Cards: Jacksonville, Cincinnatti

NFC Playoffs
North: Bears
South: Falcons
West: Seattle
East: Philly
Wild Cards: Panthers, Giants

Sony h.earâ„¢ Stereo Headphones MDR-J10/BLUE

Oct 282005
 

Sony MDRJ10 EarbudsWhat a piece of junk. This is the second pair of these Sony earbuds that has broken on me, and I am forced to use those branding white iPod earbuds. I hate wearing those, its like wearing a badge that says, “Look at me, I’m hip! I’m on the bandwagon, hooray!” They also say, in large letters, “Hi, if you want to rob me, it will be worth your time.”

So I replaced the white earbuds with normal black earbuds. Well, blue earbuds to be exact.

And this morning they broke. The wire to the left bud snapped. It didn’t come out at a soldered joint, it just snapped right in the middle of the wire. There was no bend or crease, or point of wear where it broke. It just broke – right in the middle – just like the last pair I of these Sony earbuds I owned. I guess you get what you pay for, and these were only $10.

On a superstitious note, the last time my earbuds busted was just before Leslie got a job. Maybe this is some kind of omen.

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