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December 30, 2003

   In an amendment of my previous update, the number two thing we learn from the process of cleaning my room is that I will hang on to anything I find even remotely interesting. The number one thing we learn is that, as a kid, I was completely batshit insane. Among other things that I found in the room today:
    * Various sheets of paper featuring the counties of Ireland arranged into four divisions for a "football league," which I then "played" fifteen weeks of, dutifully recording the entire schedule and standings. (If I remember correctly, this involved taking the pieces out of my "Counties of Ireland" puzzle and having them run into each other.) In the "Super Bowl," Galway defeated Kilkenny, 30-29! What the fuck? Didn't I have schoolwork?
    * "Board games" that I had made up, including at least two versions of "South Orange-opoly," featuring real businesses and/or streets as properties. Then I would draw up actual deed cards like in the real game - like these for "Restaurant-opoly." The first is for Toro Loco, a Mexican place in South Orange that has my favorite salsa in history. Charlie Brown's was evidently the most expensive property in the game, as evidenced by my commentary on the back of it. (Incidentally, if you think my handwriting sucks now, and it does, these are from, like, fifth grade.)
    * Books full of "maps." The one thing I did more than anything else was just draw fake maps, which usually involved making a circle or some other shape, then drawing lines inside it and labeling them, either with the names of streets I knew or just random made-up shit. Take, for example, this map of "Wilmette," which has some real streets (like Washington Street - though it is mislabeled here as Washington Avenue - on which people we knew actually lived, hence the house marked "1741") but also random fake streets like "Burma Trail" and "Cardamom Avenue" and the puzzling inclusion of the building marked "Ye Olde Gumdrop Factory." You can sort of see how I first drew in real Wilmette streets in red and then added whatever the hell came to mind later. (This was drawn in first grade.)

Kinda relatedly, if you remember the Jolt Cola costume from the pop can thingy, here's another one that, even though I wore the costume in, like, third grade, was taken just now - it's my Nestle Crunch Bar costume. It probably bears pointing out that when I first wore that costume, it went lower than just to my waist as it does now.

December 30, 2003

The number one thing we learn from the process of cleaning my room is that I will hang on to anything I find even remotely interesting. Put a series of numbers on your product and I will try to collect them all. (This is far less, if ever, true these days, it should be noted. I'm speaking specifically here of the me of about eight years ago.) For example, I found a series of Bazooka comic strips I was attempting to collect all of, because they were numbered to 50. (I didn't quite make it.) I had 23 of the 24 Pepsi cans with Star Wars Episode One characters on them (and nineteen of them leaked onto the rug, so it's a good thing I kept them, isn't it?). And then I had even more random stuff, such as this newspaper (the Star-Ledger from what was actually August 31) - funny, I guess, but worth hanging onto for more than eight years? And I held onto the whole thing, too. Did you know that The Usual Suspects opened on September 1, 1995? Also, the comics page was a wasteland back then, with the notable exception of Calvin and Hobbes.

December 28, 2003

This is the only Bowl Challenge off day between now and the end, so quick update: I'm still leading with seven correct (of nine total games). There is a five-way tie at six, then two people each with five and four correct. Still anyone's ball game, in other words. (At least, I assume it is - I haven't checked to see if any picks are so similar that someone's already been eliminated. Somehow I doubt it, but one never knows. I was done after just seven games in 2001.)

Fair warning: I'm down to about 12 free megabytes of space on this site. This means that old stuff will start disappearing. Things that I can promise you now will vanish when I get back to school: the Australia trip journal; the My Name is Frank Mullin video; the golf course time lapse; and probably the bowl graphics from the 2000 and 2001 bowl picks (especially the former, which are huge). Some of you may not even know what some of these things are. My point exactly. If you're like Drew, who complains every time I threaten to pull Australia, better get this stuff while you can.

December 25, 2003

   Merry blah blah blah. It's not technically even the 25th anymore, but you know how I date these. Anyway, time for the annual tradition of "Examining the Haul."
    Considering that I got literally nothing I asked for, this was an astoundingly good Christmas. How so, you ask? Well, as nice as it is to get what you ask for, there's something to be said for that beautiful combination of the element of surprise mixed with something that you like. So, that said:
    * Led Zeppelin Concert DVD (2-disc set). Combined with How the West was Won - which is already known to be massively, massively rocking - I am now up to my eyeballs in live Zep. And if there's a band to be up to your eyeballs in live performances of, this is the one.
    * Concert for George DVD (2-disc set). After George Harrison - not my favorite Beatle (that's Paul), but #1 on the "ratio of putting songs in my Top 40 to output" meter - died, Eric Clapton got a bunch of musicians together and played a bunch of Harrison songs. Neat.
    * AC/DC: Live at Donington DVD. Another pretty kick-ass live band. And all your favorite hits are on here (although I actually think "Back in Black" is not, and like, what the hell).
    * New York subway map shirt. Another on my list of "these are things you can collect?" are rail map t-shirts. I had London, Paris, Chicago and Washington... now I have New York. I had been trying to find one for a while but was unable to. My sister found this in the city the other day. It's not the whole map - ye gods, after all - but it's a sizeable portion of Mid-to-downtown. This might win "Best Gift" of the year; at the very least it tops the "Points for Listening" list.
    * Mystery Science Theater 3000 DVDs (4-disc set). Big-time. None of the all-time classics are on here (Mitchell, Manos: The Hands of Fate), but all MST3K is good that I've ever seen.
    * Simpsons Jeopardy! I'll take "Games No One Besides Alma is Ever Going to Want to Play With Me" for three hundred...
    * $85 in Borders gift cards. Well, I have to get what I wanted somehow.

So, that's that. Quality over quantity defined (like I'd want to carry oodles of stuff back to Evanston anyway), and besides, I got a bitchin' new computer already. So who's complaining? Certainly not I.

December 20, 2003

Ohh, winter break boredom. Today I finally took action on my soda can collection, pouring them all out. Time for a retrospective!

December 18, 2003

2-0 through two bowl games. Yahoo.

Does this whole A-Rod to Red Sox thing seem stupid in several ways? First of all, who is Gene Orza to tell A-Rod what he can and can't do to his contract? I know there's some shit in the Collective Bargaining Agreement about it, but let's be realistic: A-Rod's contract is not determining market value. It never has. And the only justification for preventing him from restructuring it is to pretend that's what it's doing. But it isn't. No one's getting A-Rod money. They weren't before, and they aren't now. Really, the only guy who's being paid even close to the same amount is involved in this deal, as he'd pretty much have to be (you're not swapping A-Rod for prospects, that's for sure).
And then there's the "If this doesn't pan out" thing. The Sox have just spent the offseason saying two things: 1) We don't want Manny Ramirez so much, we're willing to put him on irrevocable waivers; and 2) "Hey Nomar, we'd rather have any of the other big-name shortstops, and we don't want to pay you that much." So Man-Ram and Nomah are going to feel supremely unloved come next season, which means it behooves the Red Sox to see that they're playing elsewhere - but that will only happen if the Rodriguez deal goes through, which it seems not to be doing right now. This winter just went from "Best signing period ever" to "We're opening next year with disgruntled superstars" for Boston. Great, if you're a Yankee fan. Who'da thought there could be another circus that could even begin to rival New York's?

December 16, 2003

I went 14-2 in NFL Picks this week. Probably my best week ever; my best in the past two years, anyway. And how much ground do I gain? One freakin' game. Great.
The Bowl Challenge stuff is up, by which I mean picks. The first game is today already? Sha.

December 15, 2003

In New Jersey, if you hadn't guessed. Remember that tonight at midnight (in your time zone, but no one doing this is west of Central), the bowl picks are due. After that, tough.

Made the fantasy football playoffs as the #2 team in the league, and then decided to have no one but Tony Gonzalez show up to play on Sunday. I'm down 85.00-77.50 right now. If I'd played Jimmy Smith instead of Keenan McCardell, it would be 85.00-79.50. If I'd then played the Browns D and not the Giants, which was worth negative points, I'd be up 85.50-85.00. If I'd then played Charles Grant and not Julian Peterson, I'd be up 88.50-85.00. However, even in that situation, my opponent would only need Ricky Williams to rush for 40 yards tonight to win. So if he doesn't I think I'm going to jump off a building. Hindsight is 20/20 of course, but it really pisses me off. At least I can still get as high as fifth place, not bad in a 20-team league where players are spread so thin that basically everyone is forced to start a #2 guy somewhere or other.
Meanwhile, my Full Squad team won by one point despite my opponent having Peyton Manning and his 51 freaking fantasy points in that league. This means I finish the season 5-10, but considering I was 1-9 before winning four of the last five, that's okay. This team decided only to show up at the end of the season. Kinda like the Bears.

December 10, 2003

Think you can take the money of me, Rudnik, Nemo, Torms, Drew, and NJ Dave? Then perhaps you would also like to get in on the College Bowl Challenge. There's still time. Come on, people, we had 20 entries last year.

December 9, 2003

Like a phoenix from the ashes, the IMs page is reborn.

December 9, 2003

Apparently people like being mentioned on this page. Never mind that about ten people read it. I guess it makes them feel famous somehow. "Look, I'm on the internet! And because there's a .com involved, it's not just like I'm in some blog!" Or something. Don't listen to me. I should start renting out spots, though. For a dollar, I'll describe a fun activity in which you and I both took part. For five dollars, I'll talk you up as the coolest person in the history of the world.

    There's a lot of to-do about the BCS, and rightfully so. In 2001 there was a big deal because Nebraska made the title game while Oregon was clearly a better team (which they proved by beating the Colorado team that had hung 62 points on Nebraska rather handily), but the BCS avoided embarrassment because Miami thumped Nebraska (rather enjoyably so, even if it proved to be the least interesting BCS title game ever, because one team clearly didn't belong there) and so the polls gave a unified #1.
    No such luck this year. There are three one-loss teams (in the BCS conferences - and Rudnik's protests notwithstanding, Miami-Ohio's 12-1 just isn't as impressive), and which one is the best of the three will not, repeat not, be determined on the field.
    Now, the BCS could quite conceivably luck out again, as any scenario where Michigan wins the Rose Bowl will probably result in a unified champion (unless LSU wins 3-0 or something, and Michigan wins by 50, but I feel pretty good in ruling both of those out as likely alternatives). However, a non-messy result does not seem to me to make up for having so spectacularly botched things in the first place.
    There are currently two schools of thought on the issue, and I'll explain to you why they both suck after I've finished recapping them:
    1. Oklahoma doesn't belong there. Why not? They lost to by far the best team of the three who delivered losses to the top 3, and in a game they knew they didn't have to win. It was the most visible game of the season, of course, which makes them look a lot worse, and of course 35-7 didn't help, but that shouldn't wipe out averaging 50 points a game all season just by virtue of coming later in the year.
    2. USC sucks anyway. Well, no, no they don't. They lost to Cal. Okay. On the road, in triple OT. And Cal is a bowl team, after all. I mean, it's not like they lost to Rutgers or something.
    So why are both of these dumb? Because while one rips the BCS and one suggests it's fine, they both accept the BCS' general system of trying to nail things down to two teams, no matter how many have a valid claim at being the best in the nation.
    Rudnik's problem with a playoff is that a 16-team grid will end up leaving out legit contenders. To which I say, hogwash. First of all, Rud, your precious RedHawks are easily in the BCS top 16 right now. Second of all, is the #17 team in the country going to win the national championship under the current system? No. Now, yes, neither is the #16 team, and yet under a playoff they would get a shot and #17 wouldn't... but you have to draw a line somewhere (and besides, Washington State, your current #16 team in the BCS, is not going all the way anytime soon). There's really no spot in a ranking of 117 teams where you can say "this team is clearly going to beat the team one spot behind it 99 times out of 100, so we can feel safe cutting them off." A simple way to avoid being left out would be to, like, win games during the season. I have a feeling that might work. But the fact is that for all the love you're giving Miami, they're going to the GMAC Bowl. That's right, the team that Jeff Sagarin thinks is #3 in the country is playing on December 18. Against a team that went just 5-3 in powerhouse Conference USA, including a 37-7 loss to perennial contender Memphis. Under a 16-team playoff, they'd at least be in the hunt (rather than left out, as you alleged in yesterday's update) with a chance to prove themselves. How can you complain about that?
    Really, though, I think a good reason to drop the BCS is this alone: One of the computer it uses is the New York Times', which apparently thinks that Texas is the #4 team in the country, while Oklahoma is #5. Oklahoma having fewer losses, a better strength of schedule, and having defeated Texas in a 63-15 nailbiter this season. Yeah, that seems right to me. I'm not saying human ratings are perfect, but it's not like computers are a satisfactory resolution to "which of these three one-loss teams is better?" Clearly, the only solution is some form of playoff. Would a playoff always work out perfectly? Maybe not, but it can't be any worse than what we've got now.

December 5, 2003

As it happens, I was smart enough to bring the Front Page CD with me this year. So we're back up and running with - ooh, ahh - this spiffy new computer. Would you like specs? Of course you wouldn't! So here they are: 40 GB hard drive (nothing new there at least); Pentium 4 processor - that's 2.6 gigahertz; one gig of RAM. Sweet action. It also has CD burning and DVD capabilities as the old one did. It's also much quieter than the old one. It also fucking works. And Windows XP is pretty cool, although heading a little too much toward the hands-off world of Mac for my liking. I'm not in fucking kindergarten over here.
Alma got all faux-snippy tonight about not being talked up as the prime factor behind many of my recent sleep-deprivation episodes, so here's your token mention of that. Of course, now she's going to get all faux-snippy (or perhaps the dreaded real-snippy) about me mentioning it in such a way. I just can't win. C'est la vie.

December 1, 2003

A couple of things today. First, new movie review up. I actually saw 21 Grams with Rich last Wednesday, but I didn't have time to organize my thoughts on it until now. There's also a new Netflix review, if you care.
Also, here's your official announcement: The BigFlax.com College Bowl Challenge will return for a fourth consecutive year. Here are the rules, which are pretty much identical to last year's.

There's more! View last month's updates.

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This page last updated: Wednesday, December 31, 2003 06:01:44 AM