Suprise!

A week or so ago, I wrote about the counter-clockwise/clockwise spinning dancer, which got a few comments from folks. The test presumably determined if you are a right-brained or left-brained person.

Well...not so much.

If the test sounds flawed, that’s not just because one shouldn’t use spinning dancers to characterize their brain strengths. Rather, the test is coming up inaccurate because it provides a crude view of the “lateralization of brain function,” or the concept that each side of the human brain specializes in certain mental activities.

So what does the spinning dancer tell us? The whole test is more of an optical illusion than anything else, according to Steven Novella, an academic clinical neurologist at Yale University School of Medicine who blogs on NeuroLogica. When our brains process visual images to make some order or sense of the world, they have to make assumptions. The dancer is just a two dimensional image switching back and forth, but our brains process it as a three dimensional spinning object.

Depending on the assumptions made and visual cues picked up, your brain can make the dancer spin either way. When my friend first sent the test to me, I saw it go clockwise…then switch to counterclockwise as I was staring at the screen. What this tells me about my personality and mental abilities is hardly a no-brainer – the brain test connection to our mental strengths and weaknesses is nonexistent.

And so it goes. Good while it lasted.

Off the Pod Vizi...?

Street near Pod Vizi
Originally uploaded by greebytime

Every now and again, I realize I've meant to post a photo but I think I've only done it twice before. This one I really like, and used to have framed in my apartment. I have it labeled as being near the Pod Vizi, a hotel I stayed at in Prague just off the Charles Bridge. (Great place, by the way.) But it looks MORE to me like a street in the castle in Budapest. Either way, both are worth visiting -- so if you do, let me know where this is, huh?

Bit of a Jolt

So, we just had what SFGate is calling a "moderate earthquake":

A moderate earthquake occurred at 8:04:54 PM (PDT) on Tuesday, October 30, 2007.
The magnitude 5.6 event occurred 8 km (5 miles) NNE of Alum Rock, CA.
The hypocentral depth is 9 km ( 6 miles).

Felt like it lasted a LONG time, as far as quakes go, maybe twenty-plus seconds. That's eons. Never was as strong as, of course, 1989, but probably felt really strong closer to the epicenter. Hopefully there's no damage; we appear to have suffered nothing except for a book stacked lazily on a bookshelf falling to the ground.

Update: Apparently, I experienced a Level IV intensity, described here as:

Hanging objects swing. Vibration like passing of heavy trucks; or sensation of a jolt like a heavy ball striking the walls. Standing motor cars rock. Windows, dishes, doors rattle. Glasses clink. Crockery clashes. In the upper range of IV, wooden walls and frame creak.

Felt a bit stronger than that, but probably not as much as the next level up. I believe the Loma Prieta was a IX earthquake, detailed as such:

General panic. Masonry D destroyed; masonry C heavily damaged, sometimes with complete collapse; masonry B seriously damaged. (General damage to foundations.) Frame structures, if not bolted, shifted off foundations. Frames racked. Serious damage to reservoirs. Underground pipes broken. Conspicuous cracks in ground. In alluvial areas sand and mud ejected, earthquake fountains, sand craters.

The next level up is X, and suggests a more massive levelling, like the 1906 quake.

What's unnerving about all of this is that the scale goes UP two levels from there, with XII, the top dog, being:

Damage nearly total. Large rock masses displaced. Lines of sight and level distorted. Objects thrown into the air.

Just from a writers perspective, it sounds both awful and not very well described. Objects thrown in the air? If those objects are pebbles, that's one thing. If they are CARS, that's another. Here's to hoping we never have to figure out if it's descriptive enough.

Me Lova Some Footballa

It’s Tuesday, and about time I commented on this past week’s football games.

First off, Dorf and I attended the 49ers-Saints game, and having been to a LOT of NFL games in person, and watched a probably embarrassing amount of games on television, I can honestly say (and Dorf echoed) that it was at LEAST one of the five worst NFL games I’ve ever seen. I want to call it THE worst, but I’m afraid of the claim being taken less seriously because of potential hyperbole.

Seriously, it was awful. The 49ers were obviously outclassed by the Saints on the field – one could argue that the Saints have finally regained their stride from last season, and perhaps that’s the case. But with a terrible set of wide receivers (and an injured core at that), and a banged up Frank Gore and recovering Alex Smith, it wasn’t hard to anticipate the team struggling. What was shocking was how totally uninspired the team played.

Last season, the tough running of Gore and the obviously improving Smith made the team exciting – regardless of their record, which probably was a win or two ahead of the talent level – because when you watched them, you could see the future. What’s more, the games were fun because they had a vertical offense.

On Sunday, the team did noticeably feature the passing game more than they’d done with Trent Dilfer, but Smith wasn’t up to the task. Oddly, I have to hope that Smith’s shoulder still hurts, because he floated at least ten passes way past his receivers. Vernon Davis showed some good hands finally, but the 49ers couldn’t move the ball when it mattered and certainly couldn’t stop the Saints offense. The defensive performance really stood out, as the team looked utterly uncompetitive. What's more, they barely looked like they cared.

I hated this game. I’m done talking about it.

The Patriots are perhaps the polar opposite – in EVERY aspect of the game, they are frighteningly competent, almost ruthless in their efficiency. Okay, scratch that “almost” – there’s no getting around this, Bill Belichick is playing like a dickhead. Going for it on fourth down when you are up by more than 40 points? There’s simply no way to come up with an excuse for that, even if you are a diehard Pats fan. Does it diminish their record? Not a whit. But it doesn’t feel so great – it’s worse because Belichick clearly got caught doing something illegal. There’s no grey area in whether or not he broke the rules; how egregious it was is up for discussion, but not the facts. But clearly Belichick feels like he got jobbed by the league, and is sticking it to every team he plays. He can do whatever he wants, but at some level it feels like a bully picking on the shortest kids in the class.

Is it possible to not write about Brett Favre after last night’s game? My man JKC wrote me an email today stating that Favre had to be considered for the MVP, and this from a guy not inclined to praise #4. I have to agree – the Packers defense has made them more competitive, but Favre is really playing at a crazy high level. As a Donald Driver fantasy owner, it’s sad to report that he’s doing this while ignoring the supposedly best receiver on the team, and no real running game despite Ryan Grants performance. Favre IS a Mount Rushmore quarterback (with, at the least, Joe Montana, John Elway, Dan Marino, Peyton Manning and Tom Brady, and NOT Dan Fouts), and playing as good as he ever has. Impressive stuff.

Hard-Boiled Wonderland And The End Of The World

I didn’t read a Haruki Murakami novel until a few short years ago, which was excellent in at least two ways: One, I discovered a new author whose writing was incredible – clever, witty, surreal and utterly focused. And second, he’d written maybe seven or eight other novels and a few collections of short stories. In reading his back catalog, I’ve always been impressed, and I’ve also been taking my time.

That’s both because I look forward to knowing there’s at least one Murakami novel sitting on my shelf unread…and also because his books do well after a bit of digestion. (Norwegian Wood might be the exception, being largely a straight-forward story, though a great one not without a bit of oddities tossed in.)

I just finished Hard-Boiled Wonderland And The End Of The World, and though it took me awhile to get into it, it’s one of Murakami’s best. Each chapter alternates between two seemingly separate stories, one called Hard Boiled Wonderland and the other (wait for it) The End Of The World.


The first story involves an unnamed narrator who works as a Calcutec, someone who encrypts data by mentally separating it (into right-brain and left-brain data), then recompiling it. He does some work for a professor, and immediately falls into a path that makes him learn more about who he is, and his supposed destiny.

The second story is much, much, MUCH more surreal, taking place in an unnamed town, where a Gatekeeper shepherds some unicorns (yes, unicorns), and the protagonist has his eyes severed so that he can read the dreams of the town. (Told it you it was surreal.)

One starts suspecting early on that the stories are connected, as they are thematically similar in key ways, and the way the stories converge and eventually resolve themselves. The ending is very satisfying, and feels like it’s the only possible way to complete the story.

It’s a novel that actually asks some very interesting questions, and weaves an amusing and creative story along the way. Murakami is truly one of the masters out there right now (and was justly considered for this years Nobel Prize for Literature), and it’s consistently a pleasure to read his works.

Rating: 8.5/10.0

Insanity at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue

The LA Times has one of the greatest Op/Ed's today that I've ever read. I don't know anything about the author, but her words are spot on:

George W. Bush and Dick Cheney shouldn't be treated like criminals who deserve punishment. They should be treated like psychotics who need treatment.


Because they've clearly gone mad. Exhibit A: We're in the middle of a disastrous war in Iraq, the military and political situation in Afghanistan is steadily worsening, and the administration's interrogation and detention tactics have inflamed anti-Americanism and fueled extremist movements around the globe. Sane people, confronting such a situation, do their best to tamp down tensions, rebuild shattered alliances, find common ground with hostile parties and give our military a little breathing space. But crazy people? They look around and decide it's a great time to start another war.

That would be with Iran, and you'd have to be deaf not to hear the war drums. Last week, Bush remarked that "if you're interested in avoiding World War III . . . you ought to be interested in preventing [Iran] from having the knowledge necessary to make a nuclear weapon." On Sunday, Cheney warned of "the Iranian regime's efforts to destabilize the Middle East and to gain hegemonic power . . . [we] cannot stand by as a terror-supporting state fulfills its most aggressive ambitions." On Tuesday, Bush insisted on the need "to defend Europe against the emerging Iranian threat."

Huh? Iran is now a major threat to Europe? The Iranians are going to launch a nuclear missile (that they don't yet possess) against Europe (for reasons unknown because, as far as we know, they're not mad at anyone in Europe)? This is lunacy in action.

Writing in Newsweek on Oct. 20, Fareed Zakaria, a solid centrist and former editor of Foreign Affairs, put it best. Citing Bush's invocation of "the specter of World War III if Iran gained even the knowledge needed to make a nuclear weapon," Zakaria concluded that "the American discussion about Iran has lost all connection to reality. . . . Iran has an economy the size of Finland's. . . . It has not invaded a country since the late 18th century. The United States has a GDP that is 68 times larger and defense expenditures that are 110 times greater. Israel and every Arab country (except Syria and Iraq) are . . . allied against Iran. And yet we are to believe that Tehran is about to overturn the international system and replace it with an Islamo-fascist order? What planet are we on?"

Planet Cheney.

Go read the whole thing here.

The Catalog Crunch

Here's what I'd call a "win-win" situation if I didn't hate that expression so much...

If you are at all typical, you probably get at least one catalog in your mail every day. We get at least that much, which (when factoring in the non-mail day of Sunday) is probably close to ten catalogs a week. It's annoying, and worse yet we almost NEVER order from them. When we do? It's online, and we spend more time surfing around looking for other products. In other words, the catalogs are almost useless.

When I get the mail, I stop at the recycling bin and toss about half our "junk" mail directly into the bin. That's a complete waste of dollars by those companies, and natural resources as well.

Because, all those catalogs aren't good for the environment. This isn't a shocking revelation, but one I'd never thought out as much until I saw a few sites that helped. Many of them charge a yearly fee, but now there's a way to clean up your mailbox for free.

Presenting: Catalog Choice. For free, they'll intercede and stop you from getting unwanted catalogs. It's a green choice, and one that makes your life better as well. More after the jump.
Some basic facts, courtesy of the Catalog Choice site:

* Over eight million tons of trees are consumed each year in the production of paper catalogs.
* Nearly half of the planet’s original forest cover is gone today. Forests have effectively disappeared in 25 countries, and another 29 have lost more than 90% of their forest cover.
* Deforestation contributes between 20% and 25% of all carbon pollution, causing global climate change.
* More than one billion people living in extreme poverty around the world depend on forests for their livelihoods.
* There are other significant environmental impacts from the catalog cycle. The production and disposal of direct mail alone consumes more energy than three million cars.
* The manufacturing, distribution, collection and disposal of catalogs generates global warming gases as well as air and water pollution. Reducing the number of unwanted catalogs that are mailed will help the environment.

Is this going to save the earth? Nope. But it sure won't hurt.

The Football Blues

Yes, the Niners suck right now. Many had them pegged as a suprise team for the year, and I guess it's a good thing that I didn't quite buy it, even if I wanted to. The play calling has been pathetic, almost scared, and the team has made a lot of stupid mistakes.

It hasn't helped things that Alex Smith, Vernon Davis and Manny Lawson have barely played together this year. (For a defense that's played pretty well all year, the 49ers defensive rush hasn't done much all year. Lawson could have helped.)

But what worries me the most is that I'm still not sure whether Mike Nolan can coach or not. Sometimes when he talks, his language is positively Herm-Edwardsian -- it sounds great, makes for good copy and soundbytes, but...might not mean anything. (I'm not convinced that the Chiefs are leading their division this year means anything besides the fact that the division sucks.)

This week they face the Saints, and while I wouldn't have said this in the pre-season, this is a game the 49ers not only have to win, but they really should. The Saints aren't really that good for whatever reason, and the 49ers have to right the ship after four straight losses. If they can keep Alex Smith (or, worse yet, Trent Dilfer) pass protected, the Saints aren't good defensively.

If the 49ers lose, however...they are going to struggle to win five games this year. (But never fear...even if they get yet another high draft pick, it's going to the Patriots! Even though the Pats lost their own first round pick in the lamely called SpyGate, they'll keep their much higher pick courtesy of the Niners.)

I'm holding out hope - it's not called the 49ers Faithful for nothing. And there's a lot - a LOT - about the team that I like and look forward to watching for awhile. (Frank Gore, Patrick Willis, and yes you, Alex Smith - I'm talking to all of you. Vernon Davis? You still need to show me a little more.)

Nolan - do us all a favor and get creative with the play calling - don't play scared, and don't RUN ON THIRD DOWN, EVERY SINGLE TIME. Utilize Darrell Jackson, Arnaz Battle - and yes, that WAS Ashley Lelie who caught his FIRST TWO PASSES on Sunday. A vertical passing game is not crazy, not reckless - and to think that a 49ers coach might think that is pause for at least a bit of concern.



This actually started as a post about my betting on the NFL (for fun only, of course.) A few weeks ago, I decided that I was so off in my "gut feels" that I was going to wing one set of picks - choosing randomly, I outperformed my own picks (though by only 5 to 4.) This last week, I set one set of picks to choose whatever city I liked more, and outperformed 9 to 8. So, I'm continuing the theme of one ridiculous picking structure, since that's leading 14-12.

I'm choosing -- man, it hurts to even admit this even when it's purposefully stupid -- the team whose uniforms I like more. I'd bet that wins over my own bets, sadly.

Awesome News

Thank god:

PHILADELPHIA -- The NFL on Tuesday cut from 15 minutes to 10 the time between picks in the first round of its draft after a 2007 record round of 6 hours and 8 minutes.

It also moved the starting time of the draft from noon ET to 3 p.m. and limited the first day to two rounds instead of three.

"We believe this will make for a more streamlined and efficient draft," commissioner Roger Goodell said in a statement issued during the league owners meetings.

The change also applied to the second round, which will go from 10 minutes to seven between choices for next year's draft, which will be held April 26-27 at Radio City Music Hall in New York.

In recent years, teams have often used most of the 15 minutes in the first round, entertaining trade offers or making them.

The time between picks will stay at five minutes for the last five rounds, which will take place on Sunday. That session will start at 10 a.m. instead of 11. Both draft days will be televised by ESPN and the NFL Network.

It's about time...I love the draft, but watching it is simply impossible because of how long it takes. There's only so much Mel Kiper any healthy individual can take.

Clockwise...Or Counter-Clockwise?

This is pretty cool. When I look at the image at this link, it seems extremely clear that the dancer is moving clockwise. But apparently, that's far from a universal read on things - in fact, it's designed to see if you are a right-brain or left-brain person. Clockwise is a right brainer, counter-clockwise is left-brain, and those who see it both ways (at alternate viewings) use both sides of their brain fairly eventy.

Which is crazy, because the damn thing is moving clockwise, people.


For the record, us right-brained folks are:

RIGHT BRAIN FUNCTIONS
uses feeling
"big picture" oriented
imagination rules
symbols and images
present and future
philosophy & religion
can "get it" (i.e. meaning)
believes
appreciates
spatial perception
knows object function
fantasy based
presents possibilities
impetuous
risk taking


You left-brainers out there?

LEFT BRAIN FUNCTIONS
uses logic
detail oriented
facts rule
words and language
present and past
math and science
can comprehend
knowing
acknowledges
order/pattern perception
knows object name
reality based
forms strategies
practical
safe

So, what do YOU see here? Is she moving clockwise...or counter-clockwise?

Zappos and Customer Service

I've heard of the site Zappos before, via the 37Signals blog showing how straight forward they are with shipping and disclosures, etc. But this story is pretty damn impressive -- it's from a woman who had bought some shoes for her mother, who was hospitalized and passed away -before the daughter could return them. In doing an order follow-up, Zappos asked why the items hadn't been returned yet, and this is what happened:

When I came home this last time, I had an email from Zappos asking about the shoes, since they hadn’t received them. I was just back and not ready to deal with that, so I replied that my mom had died but that I’d send the shoes as soon as I could. They emailed back that they had arranged with UPS to pick up the shoes, so I wouldn’t have to take the time to do it myself. I was so touched. That’s going against corporate policy.

Yesterday, when I came home from town, a florist delivery man was just leaving. It was a beautiful arrangement in a basket with white lilies and roses and carnations. Big and lush and fragrant. I opened the card, and it was from Zappos. I burst into tears. I’m a sucker for kindness, and if that isn’t one of the nicest things I’ve ever had happen to me, I don’t know what is.

On Seth Godin's blog, he states that he's received numerous questions about whether or not Zappos did this as a PR initiative, and he correctly answers that the answer is, and has to be, NO. This is just good customer service, and a rare example of someone being human in a time of need.

On the other hand, as Public Relations, it works pretty well. They undoubtedly have a customer for life, and frankly, I'll check the site out if I'm looking for a new pair of kicks.

The Ombudsman

It's a big word, but it's an important role for publications, and one that ESPN at least seems to be trying to maintain. Le Anne Schreiber is the current ombudsman, and her columns are generally quite insightful and well worth reading.

Her most recent one is fantastic, and I recommend the full article to everyone. One sample above the fold, then a few more afterwards. (But go read the whole thing.)

All I can say for sure is that factuality has been devalued in 24/7 sports media. If you look at the proportion of airtime and cyberspace devoted to reporting fact versus delivering opinion on ESPN, ESPN.com and ESPN Radio, it is clear that the main function of sports news is to serve as the molehill on which mountains of opinion are built. We don't have news cycles anymore. We have opinion cycles.

The rage is general all over the land of sport. Fans, not to mention coaches and athletes, are sick and tired of being subjected to a relentless media onslaught of opinion that is simultaneously overheated and half-baked. Unfortunately, in a kind of sports Stockholm syndrome, many of them have learned to imitate the rhetorical belligerence of the media masters they resent.

On "The Patriots Spy Game Cycle"

The amount of opinion was so vast, its range so wide and contradictory, that it was beyond hard for readers and viewers to get their bearings within it. It was clear Belichick had violated a league rule, but what kind of "cheating" did that amount to, what kind of unfair competitive advantage could it bestow? Reporting might have answered that crucial question, but the question was tossed to the realm of opinion. If you search the archives of ESPN.com, if you remember the scores of opinions voiced on dozens of different programs, you are free to conclude: (A) It bestowed no competitive advantage whatsoever; (B) it might have provided the winning edge for those Super Bowls, which would then warrant a Bondsian asterisk in the record books; or (C) nobody knows, but you shouldn't let that stop you from choosing option A or B because having an opinion about it is all that matters.

On Donovan McNabb and his recent 'controversy'

ESPN did not create the McNabb controversy, not directly, but it fed on it, and as the Worldwide Leader in Sports, it is the prime mover in setting the agenda for what is talked about in sports and how it is talked about. Through its emphasis on opinion programming, ESPN has contributed enormously to the tendency to frame sports issues and nonissues alike as controversies. Within the constraints of its allotted half-hour, "Outside the Lines" routinely does its best to provide context through reporting, but that's not enough.

The loss for fans is that there is progressively less reason for any athlete to speak thoughtfully, candidly or at length about anything because his or her words, like McNabb's, will only be mined for nuggets of controversy potential.

And finally...

There are a lot of prices to pay for opinion-driven sports journalism -- capriciously tarnished reputations and careers, close-mouthed athletes and coaches protecting themselves by letting only the occasional bland cliché slip past their lips, fan rage at the media and, last but not least, the diversion of resources and reward from news reporting, which gradually undermines the very practice of journalism at its best.

Well stated.

The Onion Is Smarter than Your Average Republican

I haven't been as good about reading The Onion as I used to, but this pne is a particular gem:

Reaganomics Finally Trickles Down To Area Man

The $10 began its long journey into Kellener's wallet in 1983, when a beefed-up national defense budget of $210 billion enabled the military to purchase advanced warhead-delivery systems from aerospace manufacturer Lockheed. Buoyed by a multimillion-dollar bonus, then-CEO Martin Lawler bought a house on a 5,000-acre plot in Montana. When a forest fire destroyed his home in 1986, Lawler took the federal relief check and invested it in a savings and loan run by a Virginia man named Michael Webber. After Webber's firm collapsed in 1989, and he was indicted on fraud and conspiracy charges, he retained the services of high- powered law firm Rabin & Levy for his defense. After six years and $7 million in legal fees, Webber received only a $250,000 fine, and the defense team went out to celebrate at a Washington, D.C.-area restaurant called Di Forenza. During dinner, lawyer Peter Smith overheard several investment bankers at an adjoining table discussing a hot Internet start-up that was about to go public. Smith took a portion of his earnings from the Webber case and bought several hundred shares in Gadgets.com, quadrupling his investment before selling them four months later. Gadgets.com's two founders used the sudden influx of investment capital to outfit their office with modern Danish furniture, in a sale brokered by the New York gallery Modern Now! in 1998. After the ensuing dot-com bust, Modern Now! was forced out of business, and Sotheby's auction house was put in charge of liquidating its inventory. The commission from that auction enabled auctioneer Mary Schafer to retire to the Ozark region of Missouri in 2006. Last month, while passing through Hazelwood, she took her Audi to Marlin Car Wash, where Kellener was one of the employees who tended to her car. She was so satisfied with the job that she left a $50 tip, which the manager divided among the people working that day.

"This money didn't just affect one life," Laffer said. "It affected five."

Smart and Hot: Lara Logan

I've only recently seen Lara Logan on the news, usually in the morning as i'm getting ready. She's gorgeous, and has a great South African accent to boot. But on top of that - she's smart, poised and unafraid to take a stand.

Last night, she was on Jay Leno (apparently - I never watch that show), and had some bold things to say.

We’re doing extremely badly, from my point of view. I was asked if I felt any guilt for the fact that the world has an impression of the war in Iraq as being very bad and going very wrong. And I said I really don’t because I can’t imagine the last time anyone saw a dead American soldier. We’ve hidden that from view. Nobody knows what that looks like, and I’ve seen plenty of it. It’s much worse than the picture, the image we even have of Iraq.

Check out the full video here:

Memo to Aaron Harang and Bronson Arroyo: RUN!

Yep, Dusty Baker is the new Reds manager, which means Arroyo and Harang should be counted on for about 250 innings and "unexplained arm trouble" sometime in early 2009.

In The Continuing Story of Why I Shouldn't Bet on Football

We've been down this road before - I'm terrible at picking football games. (I'd link to the previous entries I've made about this, but there are too many to count.)

So, this week, because I'm in multiple football pools, I tried an experiment out. In one pool, I'd pick the teams I thought were good bets, and in the other, I'd alternate taking every other game favored/underdog.

You can probably guess already how this played out. In the league I chose my actual picks...I got three lousy games correct. In the one I paid no attention to at all, but alternated favorite/underdog? I got five right. (As it happens, in both leagues I chose the Giants, so that two game gap will stand.)

Sure, five right is no picnic, but it's noticeably better than my own choices.

So what the hell...let's continue this debacle. This week, I'll take a cue from my mother-in-law, who has won several football pools by choosing the city she'd most like to visit. I'll do that for one league while trying to use my vast football knowledge in the other league.

This should be part of a continuing series about my ineptitude at betting on football.

Crazy Rich Neighbors.

I almost hesitate to post this, because it will possibly suggest that I am flush with cash and a little rich kid. And while I grew up very nice, the fact that this "Estate of the Day" purports to be around the corner from my folks house utterly confuses me.


I mean, holy Christ - look at that. It also states that Mt. Tiburon is a gated street, which is definitely not the case, though I think that higher up, some individual homes have gated entrances. In any event, this is NOT the kind of home I've been in - well, anywhere, but certainly not at a block party. (Do people still have those?)

I've written about "Estate of the Day" on Luxist before, but it was a bit of a shock to see a home on "Mt. Tiburon" listed this morning, and though the views there do seem similar to my folks' place, the house is another breed altogether.

More pics after the fold:






Dang.

Frankly Speaking

I plan on a football post in a little while - this is, once again, a crazy year where pre-season expectations turn out to be woefully wrong -- but before that, a more somber piece, about the horrors that Bush - and the American people who continue to support him - have waged in Iraq through turning a blind eye.

It's not just the redefinition of "torture" so that Bush can state "We do not torture," while knowing that the actions our troops (and subcontractors) undertake would be torture in anyone's mind but those in this administration. It's by turning a blind eye to so much that the situation has spun horribly out of control.
A choice quote above the fold, and a few others afterwards. But go read the whole piece, now that Times Select is a happy thing of the past:

We can continue to blame the Bush administration for the horrors of Iraq — and should. Paul Bremer, our post-invasion viceroy and the recipient of a Presidential Medal of Freedom for his efforts, issued the order that allows contractors to elude Iraqi law, a folly second only to his disbanding of the Iraqi Army. But we must also examine our own responsibility for the hideous acts committed in our name in a war where we have now fought longer than we did in the one that put Verschärfte Vernehmung on the map.

I have always maintained that the American public was the least culpable of the players during the run-up to Iraq. The war was sold by a brilliant and fear-fueled White House propaganda campaign designed to stampede a nation still shellshocked by 9/11. Both Congress and the press — the powerful institutions that should have provided the checks, balances and due diligence of the administration’s case — failed to do their job. Had they done so, more Americans might have raised more objections. This perfect storm of democratic failure began at the top.

More sad truth:

It was always the White House’s plan to coax us into a blissful ignorance about the war. Part of this was achieved with the usual Bush-Cheney secretiveness, from the torture memos to the prohibition of photos of military coffins. But the administration also invited our passive complicity by requiring no shared sacrifice. A country that knows there’s no such thing as a free lunch was all too easily persuaded there could be a free war.

Instead of taxing us for Iraq, the White House bought us off with tax cuts. Instead of mobilizing the needed troops, it kept a draft off the table by quietly purchasing its auxiliary army of contractors to finesse the overstretched military’s holes. With the war’s entire weight falling on a small voluntary force, amounting to less than 1 percent of the population, the rest of us were free to look the other way at whatever went down in Iraq.

Our humanity has been compromised by those who use Gestapo tactics in our war. The longer we stand idly by while they do so, the more we resemble those “good Germans” who professed ignorance of their own Gestapo. It’s up to us to wake up our somnambulant Congress to challenge administration policy every day. Let the war’s last supporters filibuster all night if they want to. There is nothing left to lose except whatever remains of our country’s good name.

Wow.

I Did Not Know That Yesterday

There'e so much that the internet is good for, a list of such would be both endless and silly. But one of the things that it's basic use for is, of course, information.

That's why I like sites like Ask Metafilter, and Yahoo! Answers, etc. And one of the more interesting takes on this is a site I just found (but which has been around for at least two years, it seems) is called I Did Not Know That Yesterday.

The current post there, for instance, explains why your fingers wrinkle if they are in the water for too long; another detailed why your nose runs when you eat spicy food.

This isn't rocket science, but in some ways it's sort of an explanation of science, and that's always cool.

Here's an example of a post I found particularly interesting, which sought to explain why blue jeans have that small pocket above the right hand pocket:

What's the purpose of the little pocket in the right front pocket of jeans?
The answer to this one is easy - or is it? -- coins. It has to be coins, right? I scoured dozens of online jeans listings. Pretty much every "classic five pocket design" boasted a coin pocket in the front right scoop pocket. Some of the coin pockets were exposed, some had flaps, some had insignias, but they were all described as coin pockets.

But then I stumbled onto a similar query on Ask MetaFilter and found the real answer -- watches. Back in the day before the wrist became multi-functional, folks carried pocket watches. These were fastened to the end of chains, and stored in special pockets woven into pants or vests.

Levi's 501s, originally introduced in 1890, featured watch pockets. And sure enough, after more snooping around, we found these vintage jeans from the 1970s listed as having "five pocket styling with watch pocket."

interestingly enough, in France it is referred at the "Zippo pocket" - one can only assume that could be a reason for the poor French time keeping, or a reason why they smoke so much.

For more on pockets and their uses, the BBC has a surprisingly interesting essay entitled A Very Brief History of the Pocket. And this Smithsonian piece details the evolution of pocket watches to wrist watches.

Anyhow, it's a good site worth perusing. It's going into the links on the right.

On A Friday

It's been raining this week here in San Francisco, and I have to admit I enjoy it. Not only is my car really dirty, so I get a free car wash, but there's something nice about a rainy day. Granted, this will get really tired in a few months but for now, I'm with it.

I also just added a new widget to the right hand side of the blog, called Lijit (I've oh-so-hilariously labelled the section "Too Lijit To Quit" cause I'm just that guy, apparently.) This should allow you to search around this site, and eventually, the most common searches will bubble up in tags, which, should it work, be pretty cool.

There Are No Words

Odds are pretty good someone is going to send you a link to this one way or the other - hell, my brother, who NEVER does this shit, just sent me this. It's astonishing.

To set it up, this is a video of a girl in some horrible sparkly black unitard, dancing and pantomiming laser battles to the Star Wars theme and then playing her trumpet along with the theme - completely and totally out of tune. Her name is Stacy Hedger, and I really hope she's done something in the 20-plus years since this came out to afford the therapy she'll probably soon need.



I'm not sure if that's Star Search, or a beauty pageant, or what, but...good god.

Good Times!

Pat Oliphant on Fred Thompson:

Wes Anderson and the Suckitude of Napoleon Dynamite

I've long ago stopped trying to figure out why people liked Napoleon Dynamite, but never been able to verbalize it without sounding obnoxious and condescending. I just don't think its funny, and it seems to miss the mark. I've watched it twice, and the result is the same:

It's not funny.

But this article from the Onion AV Club makes it crystal clear:

In spite of his status as one of the few directors who's often a bigger draw than the actors in his films, Wes Anderson has never really made a major commercial hit. The closest he's come is Napoleon Dynamite, a pale imitation of Anderson's most obvious mannerisms, co-written and directed by Jared Hess. While Anderson is generally sympathetic to the oddball characters inhabiting his films, Napoleon Dynamite suggests that audiences prefer filmmakers to hold eccentrics at arm's length; it's easier to mock them and feel the warm, uplifting surge of superiority that way. Also, wouldn't it just be hilarious if the hopelessly nerdy main character did a really wacky dance at the end? Let's see Anderson top that with a wistful Faces song!

The whole article is here, including more than a few stinkers that inversely show what a great director Anderson is, despite the fact I thought his last movie sucked balls.

The Egg Man.

Being a lit nerd, it's hard not to like Dave Eggers, whose debut novel, A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, was pretty well titled. His next 'novel,' You Shall Know Our Velocity, was mind-numbingly boring and self-indulgent, but along the way he founded 826 Valencia, which teaches writing to children and is something its hard ot find a shred of fault with. I love the work they do, the fun they have doing it, and I try to suport them as much as possible. I have yet to read What Is The What, but everyone tells me its brilliant...and yet, I'm almost more excited about his NEXT novel, as yet unpublished:

Publishers Weekly reports that the Frankfurt Book Fair is abuzz with talk about Dave Eggers's new novel, which apparently quietly sold to Ecco last winter. Ecco, the small, super-literary imprint at Harper, doesn't usually brag about sales potential, usually because most of its books don't have a lot of sales potential. According to PW, though, Ecco chief Dan Halpern is telling everyone at the fair that the book — an adult novel based on Where the Wild Things Are, scheduled to be published in 2008 to coincide with Spike Jonze's movie, for which Eggers co-wrote the screenplay — will be a monster hit, if you'll pardon the expression. "I think it's going to be his biggest book. I think it's going to be huge."

I'm sorry, what? That is...genius. I'm assuming its the story of Max after he grew up, and how his life was changed by all of this. That's perfect Eggers, funny and interesting at the same time.

And did I know Eggers co-wrote the screenplay for the Spike Jonze film? I did not.

I am waiting with baited breath.

National Book Awards

The National Book Award nominees were announced today, and in at least one way, the list represents everything I' love about books. That reason? I only know a handful of these titles at all. I mean, I'm a big reader, with a pretty wide variety of interest, and I've read only one of these books and heard of a single other title. The full list is below.

FICTION

Mischa Berlinski, Fieldwork (Farrar, Straus & Giroux)
Lydia Davis, Varieties of Disturbance (Farrar, Straus & Giroux)
Joshua Ferris, Then We Came to the End (Little, Brown & Company)
Denis Johnson, Tree of Smoke (Farrar, Straus & Giroux)
Jim Shepard, Like You’d Understand, Anyway (Alfred A. Knopf)

Fiction judges: Francine Prose (chair), Andrew Sean Greer,
Walter Kirn, David Means, and Joy Williams.


NONFICTION

Edwidge Danticat, Brother, I’m Dying (Alfred A. Knopf)
Christopher Hitchens, God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything
(Twelve/Hachette Book Group USA)
Woody Holton, Unruly Americans and the Origins of the Constitution
(Hill and Wang/Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
Arnold Rampersad, Ralph Ellison: A Biography (Alfred A. Knopf)
Tim Weiner, Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA (Doubleday)

Nonfiction judges: David Shields (chair), Deborah Blum,
Caroline Elkins, Annette Gordon-Reed, and James Shapiro.


POETRY

Linda Gregerson, Magnetic North (Houghton Mifflin Company)
Robert Hass, Time and Materials (Ecco/HarperCollins)
David Kirby, The House on Boulevard St. (Louisiana State University Press)
Stanley Plumly, Old Heart (W.W. Norton & Company)
Ellen Bryant Voigt, Messenger: New and Selected Poems 1976-2006
(W.W. Norton & Company)

Poetry Judges: Charles Simic (chair), Linda Bierds, David St. John,
Vijay Seshadri, and Natasha Trethewey.


YOUNG PEOPLE'S LITERATURE

Sherman Alexie, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian
(Little, Brown & Company)
Kathleen Duey, Skin Hunger: A Resurrection of Magic, Book One
(Atheneum Books for Young Readers)
M. Sindy Felin, Touching Snow (Atheneum Books for Young Readers)
Brian Selznick, The Invention of Hugo Cabret (Scholastic Press)
Sara Zarr, Story of a Girl (Little, Brown & Company)

Young People’s Literature Judges: Elizabeth Partridge (chair),
Pete Hautman, James Howe, Patricia McCormick, and Scott Westerfeld.

When Your QB Is Older Than George Burns

I'm putting this picture below the fold because I don't want to be responsible for anyone vomiting on their keyboards, but ... wow. What is wrong, what is horribly, horribly wrong with Kurt Warner's arm?



I mean, the only word here is: EEKS.

An Open Letter to Trent Green

Dear Sir,

Please retire.

Sunday, you got kneed in the head for a Grade 3 concussion, the worst type of such an injury. This is not your first rodeo, as far as this is concerned. You are also - words hurt, but its true - not such a great QB anymore.

Dolphins coach Cam Cameron said today that quarterback Trent Green on Sunday suffered a Grade 3 concussion - the most severe form - and is out for the upcoming game in Cleveland. His status beyond Sunday's game is unknown.

...

Green, 37, was hurt when he tried to block a lineman on a busted play in Houston and was kneed in the head. He was briefly hospitalized. It was Green's second severe concussion in 13 months.

Asked if Green was considering retirement, Cameron said, "We haven't gotten to that point." Green's concussion last year knocked him out for half the season.

Symptoms of a Grade 3 concussion include loss of consciousness and no memory of the blow that caused it.

It's time. Get out while you can still remember your name.

Betting on the NFL

So, a few pieces of information that have occurred in the last two days that have me wondering why I ever, EVER think I have any business betting on the NFL.

(Note: Of course, it’s illegal to bet on football, this column is purely for illustrative purposes only. Cough.)

First, out of the 13 games played yesterday, I correctly predicted the outcome of…3. THREE. Now, some of that is because I broke my cardinal rule of not changing my picks at the last minute (I did, for three games, all of which went the original way I’d thought.) But it doesn’t matter…honestly, guessing without looking at the teams would probably get a higher return. (In fact, it does. See the next point in this list.)

Second, a guy in my office pool who knows nothing about football won this week. Why is that relevant? Because on Thursday, as he handed me the sheet with everyone’s picks on it, I had to correct his entry. See, he had entered the “score” of each matchup rather than the winner. (Each game has one of two possible entries, the # of the home team or the # of the visiting team. For example, the Ravens were #1, the 49ers were #2 in that game. In the next game, the Panthers were #3, the Saints were #4.) Further showing how little he understands football, his score in each box was either 7 or 14. (I know, it doesn’t make sense.) He fixed the problem by converting his 7 or 14 into whatever number corresponded to the choices – e.g., a 7 became a 2, while a 14 became a 24 or a 15, etc.

And he won. Makes me want to shoot myself.

And last, while at the 49ers game, I had the following conversation with my main man Dorf:

ME: Hey, you doing any football pools this year?

DORF: Nope.

ME: Why the hell not?

DORF: Because I’m not good at it.

ME: Oh…I’d never thought about it that way.

Makes a man wonder…

Blogger Play

God knows Google doesn't need anyone, let alone me, promote and pimp for them. But on the Blogger home page, they list a feature called Blogger Play.

From their description:

Shortly after Blogger launched photo uploading two years ago, one of our engineers whipped up a web page that would show us the pictures that were being uploaded in real time. The result was fun, often beautiful, but above all, compelling. We couldn’t stop watching.

Over the years we’ve kept this photo scroller as part of the Blogger offices, on a monitor or projector, as an interesting (distracting?) slideshow, and a reminder of the diversity and vivaciousness of Blogger blogs. The fame of the scroller spread within Google, until one day we were asked, “so, when are you launching this?”

“Um...,” we replied. But we knew a good idea when we heard one. We got our UI people to come up with buttons and fadey effects and we got our engineers to make the whole thing fast and robust. A bit of work later, and now we can share it with all of you:

http://play.blogger.com/


Watch as photos come through - and yes, they (sadly? appropriately?) filter out stuff via Safe Search, so it's family and work friendly. It's pretty interesting, and if you see something you like, you can pause, go back, and click on that photo, which launches you to the blog featuring it.

Smart, interesting and worth a click.

What's Worth Watching?

Yes, it's that time of year, when new shows begin and I write a post that causes at least one person to comment, "Man you watch a lot of TV."

I do it because I care.

And because I'm lazy. But without further ado, below the fold are my writeups of what we're watching thus far this year.

Sunday:

Not much to see here. I know that Desperate Housewives is on, but as much as I could tolerate it at times in the past, I have zero interest in doing so this year. I caught the last five minutes of it this week which Abby watched as I made dinner, and I saw nothing to sway my opinion. (By the way, apparently the verdict is in: Me calling the show “Designing Women” is not funny.)

Which is a good thing, because football is on Sunday nights. Plus, come January, the final season of Battlestar Galatica will be back on, and that trumps all.

It’s worth also stating that Curb Your Enthusiasm is something I’ve watched the first four episodes of, and they’ve gotten progressively worse. It’s such a self-indulgent show that when it doesn’t work, it’s truly annoying. The last time this happened, I stopped watching – only to have everyone tell me that it had really started to get good (which it had). It’s earned a few more episodes for me, but not much more than that.

(Oh, for the days of The Sopranos, Six Feet Under or even a good Entourage or two.)

Monday:

If there isn’t much we want to watch on Sunday nights, Monday is chock full of …well, stuff. Of course, there’s Monday Night Football which I will always watch, but it’s not always what is on. There is Heroes, which has had two nice episodes though nothing special. I do appreciate Hiro going back in time, and the fact that Claire has started asking about the benefits of her mutation (organ donation, etc.) but it’s not great. And the shameless plugs for that ugly Nissan is pretty offensive. Still, it is truly entertaining, and Kristen Bell hasn’t even showed up yet.

We watched the first episode of Journeyman and I was completely unimpressed. Boring actors, a premise that seemed woefully underdeveloped – and, while I acknowledge this is location specific – preposterous representations of San Francisco. In one episode, really? You had to have a six bedroom looking home with a view of the bridge? Sigh.

On the other hand, Chuck has been amusing enough to keep us interested. It’s like Alias without all of the self-importance and crying. It’s not laugh out loud funny, but it is tongue-in-cheek enough to be well worth it, and the fact that the hot blonde spy has been in her underwear in each episode is not a deterrent.

How I Met Your Mother continues to be funnier than I give it credit for, although curiously the point of the last episode revolved around Ted being a complete douchebag to two hot girls from New Jersey, which seems out of character. Still, the Slap Bet and Barney alone are worth the 22 minute investment.

Aliens in Americawas also funny, though it seems poised to go either way at any moment. It’s got genuinely funny subject matter (“Who here is afraid of Rajah?” “Rajah, tell us about your Muslimism.”) but I’m just not ready for the CW to have a truly funny show yet.

Tuesday

Damages: A summer show that continues, this is a truly impressive drama, and I generally don’t much like Glenn Close. It’s both an interesting legal show, but wrapped with an ongoing murder mystery that is truly compelling. Close and Ted Danson are particularly good, but this show succeeds because everyone in it does a great job.

I am completely hooked on The Biggest Loser, and I don’t think it’s just because I have a good amount of weight to lose myself. It’s genuinely inspiring, and also a good competition. While I know it’s not normal for people to lose double-digits worth of pounds per week, the show teaches lessons we could all learn and watching people gain confidence and surprise themselves with their abilities is always good TV.

My brother has turned away from Beauty and the Geek, and I suppose I know why. The show isn’t much different than it started – the big surprise this season is that there’s a male beauty and a female geek – but it’s still, much like The Biggest Loser, always nice to see people grow, if only a little. It doesn’t hurt things that Rebecca, the beauty who’s fooling around with Sam (the mimbo), is perhaps the hottest woman on reality TV.

The most pleasant surprise of the season for me thus far is Reaper, a show based on a funny premise: A guy turning 21 finds out that his parents sold his soul to the devil before he was born, and now he has to go to work for Satan. The devil is played by the father from Twin Peaks, and the writing is sharp, funny and not too over the top. It’s actually funny, and I’m sure no one will watch it until a few sub-par episodes air, and then they’ll all think I’m crazy. Sigh.


Wednesday:

Top Chef, is of course, over, but I thought I’d chime in that this was perhaps the best season ever. Casey was everyone’s favorite, but no one could honestly argue that she deserved to win after her final performance. Hung, on the other hand, did deliver, and really earned his title. Is he my favorite chef? Nope. Would I be happy to eat food he made? Absolutely.

I had to be pressured into checking out Kid Nation, but so far, it’s pretty good. The kids are often way more mature than their adult counterparts, and some are downright hilarious. The fact that none of them get kicked off (though any can leave voluntarily) is an important thing, but while the show isn’t compelling, I am continuing to watch.

On the other hand, I’ve given up on America’s Next Top Model. Tyra Banks is just way too annoying – I glanced in on the first episode, and she was singing to a can-can dance about…herself. Seriously? I just don’t care.

The first week’s disappointment was Bionic Woman, but the second episode gave me some hope. Too many of the actors, including star Michelle Ryan and Miguel Ferrer, deliver their lines SO flatly that I have to think it’s intentionally directed that way, but it’s a bad choice. So far, Katee Sackhoff has out acted everyone else (as the first, flawed bionic woman) and also seems to have a more compelling character. Um, that’s not great.

The American version of Kitchen Nightmares was, in its first episode, pretty entertaining, though things not only wrapped up implausibly fast but were a little lamer as Ramsey had bought the entire kitchen new, top-of-the-line equipment. Oh, you say things work better with $25,000 worth of new stuff? Good to know.

I want to like Dirty Sexy Money more than I do, but it’s a black comedy so I will keep watching for awhile. The tone is awkward at times, and it has the kitsch of Ugly Betty with a subject matter I find more entertaining, so that’s good. But much like Aliens in America this show feels ripe to go off the rails.

Wow, that's a lot of TV for one night, and Lost isn't back on the air yet...

Thursday:

Thursday night is Survivor night, and this year it’s in China. It’s great thus far – the thing about the show is it manages to recruit people who are NOT huge fans, which actually works because people make dumb mistakes. It’s fun watching people do that. I’m a huge fan of James, the gravedigger (yes, that’s his profession), not just because he is admittedly shy, but also because he was stunned that he was the only person who did some research in survival, and how to live off the land, etc. James, I’m shocked too. Jeff Probst remains the best host on TV – when one contestant oddly stripped down for a challenge this week, Probst simply narrated, “We continue…Dave, still naked.”

I lost interest in Ugly Betty, but Abby absolutely loves it. I don’t mind it – it’s smart and snarky, but I just have no desire to watch.

The Office is, of course, one of the best shows on TV. The hour long format is both great – more of something I love – and not quite successful. Still, I can’t complain, and I doubt I’ll ever stop watching.

CSI should have taken a ding for the worst commercial in history for the premiere episode, but the show itself was very good. It’s a great, well put-together show. Not much more needed to say about that.

Friday:

Finally, we get the return of the best show on TV, Friday Night Lights. I’m reasonably sure – like others – that it doesn’t make it another season, and that the writing on the wall will cause the show to make more than a few bad choices. Still, even a halfway decent version of this show is better than most everything else. Do yourself a favor and watch it.

Also watching: The Wire (on DVD), Tim Gunn’s Guide to Style, Hidden Potential, The Contender, Pushing Daisies (haven’t watched yet, but taping), and a whole host of others.

Whew! Any shows I haven't mentioned (a small list, it'd seem) that you think others should be watching?

The Legend of T-Hank

I've been a Travis Henry -- who I call T-Hank, even though it's never caught on -- fan for awhile, after he fulfilled my pre-season prediction of him being a breakout player with the Bills.

This off-season, a story broke about him having nine illegitimate kids with nine different women. Now, he's at risk of being suspended for a year due to violating the NFL's substance abuse policy by smoking pot.

As usual, the Sports Guy says it best:

(Random question on the Travis Henry thing: I thought pot killed sperm cells? How many kids would this guy have sired if he wasn't a fan of the Mary Jane? Twenty? Thirty? And did you ever think the same person could potentially shatter Shawn Kemp's fertility records and Ricky Williams' drug test records? Put it this way: You are making a STRONG statement when you purchase a Henry jersey right now. You're basically saying, "I love pot, I love sex, and your dad would have a heart attack if he knew I was dating you.")

Good stuff.

Mountains and Molehills

Via Kottke, I read the actually quite old piece (May 2006 - the dark ages!) on Eclecticism stating that my neighbor Pixar doesn't feature any leading roles for women, something that hasn't changed with Ratatouille, nor the upcoming feature Wall-E either. The piece was recently updated here.

First, I have to state that this is perhaps a quibble over "leading" character, and also...really? Is this an issue worth worrying about? More after the fold.

I know, it's always dicey when a member of a majority (in this case, male) states that worrying over slights to a minority (females) isn't a big deal. So, I know I might be talking from a position of ignorance. (It's nothing new.)

But Pixar is such a good company in terms of the messages they send. And female characters, while not THE leading roles, are certainly quite present in their films. Toy Story 2 differed from the first film mainly due to Jessie, the girl doll. Dory, Ellen DeGeneres' character in Finding Nemo was perhaps the star of that movie. And as noted, in The Incredibles, Violet and Wendy were essentially as much of the main characters as the males. (Not to mention their suit designer, who stole the movie.)

So I think this is a large bit of nothing. I think it's more interesting that the characters are all white, rather than worrying about their sex. (OK, the fish and monsters are not really race-specific, but I think my point is clear enough.)

On the other hand...the point being made is pretty hard to argue with:

What’s been frustrating so far is simply that in many of Pixar’s prior films, there’s no particular reason why one or another of their characters couldn’t be female rather than male — would Ratatouille have been any less well done if he were a she? Would the rescue of the ant colony be less spectacular if Julia Louis-Dreyfus had voiced Flik against Dave Foley’s Prince Atta?

But What About Barry Bonds?

I find it amusing that this kind of story, much like F-Rod earlier this year, gets consistently swept under the carpet.

People cheat. Really competitive people, who are paid for performance, have even more of an incentive to cheat.

Deal with it.

Corpas was caught by TBS cameras on Wednesday taking a sip of a liquid out of a cup and then pouring some down the back of his neck and all over the front of his jersey. Corpas, who earned the save in Colorado's 4-2 win, patted his chest and rubbed his fingers before throwing a pitch.

The Mess of the Season

It’s a rite of the football season that sometime around the fourth or fifth week, morons like myself write about how CRAZY this season is. Because it’s always crazy and unpredictable, and whatever we think in the pre-season is usually wrong in at least one or two major ways.

But this? This is pretty damn preposterous. There have been four games, and already my pre-season predictions are obviously, woefully incorrect.

For a full-blown recap of the mess of the season, click below.


Of the NFC East, I said, “…this division looks to be Philadelphia’s to lose, and I expect Donovan McNabb to have a great season in doing so.”
Yeah…the Eagles are dead last, and Dallas – under the helm of Wade Phillips, and without Terry Glenn, two things I thought would really be factors – is 4-0. The Eagles are 1-3, and…so are the Bears, who are also last in the NFC North. The Packers are 4-0, three games ahead of the Bears. Tony Romo, whose recovery from a bad snap was one of the top plays of the year this Sunday, is now getting compared all over the place with Brett Favre, which feels particularly premature. The guy is good, and he plays with a field knowledge and enthusiasm that is impressive, but - regardless of what his detractors say, and how overhyped he is, Brett Favre is still a top-five QB of all time. Let's not hand Romo the keys to the Mount Rushmore of quarterbacks just yet, okay?

In the NFC South, my division pick the Saints are winless, and I also picked the 2-2 Panthers (who looked woeful on Sunday) as my Wild Card pick. Tampa, who I referred to only as “a mess,” leads the division at 3-1.

In my hometown NFC West, I took the Seahawks…as the Wild Card team. That’s because I picked the Rams to take the division. That’s genuinely inconceivable at this point.

So in the NFC, my four division winners were the Eagles, Bears, Rams and Saints. Those teams are collectively 2-13. With the Rams, I knew I was taking a bit of a leap, but otherwise these were not particularly bold picks. And they’re all wrong, barring virtual miracles for each squad.

Oh by the way, I picked the Eagles to make the Super Bowl.

In the AFC, things are screwy but not in as much of a shocking way. I didn’t see Pittsburgh playing this well, and I thought San Diego would not only win the West but challenge for the AFC title.

San Diego is the team (1-3) in the AFC that has underperformed the most, and Norvelle Turner has to be hearing it at full volume. What a disaster, and there’s no real clear reason unless someone is hurt but not admitting it. Turner is now 58-82-1 as a coach, and one really has to wonder when people will believe that it’s not just a trite statement that Turner is a great coordinator, but can’t be the lead guy. And speaking of coordinators, defensive coordinator Ted Cottrell is also probably to blame.

I did think the Patriots would be the clear Super Bowl winner, and right now, it looks like they should coast to it. In the NFC, the Cowboys look pretty solid, but I refuse to believe Wade Phillips can win three straight playoff games when he’s never won a single one as of yet.

It's Banned Books Week

While I still need to get to a football post or two, and I'm planning on reviewing some of the new TV shows this season (hopefully before the season is over or one of the ones I like gets cancelled), this is more important and relevant.

Yep, we still live in a world where folks try to ban books, because apparently acting like a Nazi isn't a deterrent. And yes, those who do such things in the US probably voted for George W. Bush. But I digress.

Celebrate Banned Books Week by reading one of the most banned titles of 2006 (at least, those that were the targets of bans):

"And Tango Makes Three" by Justin Richardson and Peter Parnell, for homosexuality, anti-family, and unsuited to age group;

"Gossip Girls" series by Cecily Von Ziegesar for homosexuality, sexual content, drugs, unsuited to age group, and offensive language;

"Alice" series by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor for sexual content and offensive language;

"The Earth, My Butt, and Other Big Round Things" by Carolyn Mackler for sexual content, anti-family, offensive language, and unsuited to age group;

"The Bluest Eye" by Toni Morrison for sexual content, offensive language, and unsuited to age group;

"Scary Stories" series by Alvin Schwartz for occult/Satanism, unsuited to age group, violence, and insensitivity;

"Athletic Shorts" by Chris Crutcher for homosexuality and offensive language;

"The Perks of Being a Wallflower" by Stephen Chbosky for homosexuality, sexually explicit, offensive language, and unsuited to age group;

"Beloved" by Toni Morrison for offensive language, sexual content, and unsuited to age group;

"The Chocolate War" by Robert Cormier for sexual content, offensive language, and violence.

Of note is that perennial titles on this list like Catcher in the Rye, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and Of Mice and Men were not on this years list.