Bil Keane 1922-2011

The funnies lost another grand old man today with the passing of Bil Keane, creator of The Family Circus. Family Circus, along with Peanuts, was one of the very first comic strips I remember ever reading...but though my fondness for Schulz's masterpiece grew and grew over time, I really soured on Keane's work as the years went by, as it seemed to lose every bit of its edge and descended into endlessly repetitive jokes and treacly, Extreme Home Makeover-esque forced sentimentality. Still, the first 20 years or so, as good a run as anyone could ever hope for, were often brilliant, helped by the fact that the kids came across as real kids (ie. sociopathic little bastards) rather than the type of children you'd find on greeting cards.

I even managed to work one of Keane's tropes into one of my odder Savage Love illos a few years ago, in response to a letter from a reader who surmised her boyfriend must be cheating on her, as the supply of condoms in the house always seemed to be running low. Not Me, indeed!

Rest in Peace, Mr. Keane!

2011 AFC Midseason Recap

Week 9 of the 2011 NFL season has come and gone, but most of the league has played 8 games, so I thought that I would do a little midseason AFC recap post for you this morning.  There is a lot of parity in the AFC, with the top 3 teams in 3 of the 4 divisions being either tied or separated by a half-game.

I am going to begin with the AFC South, the one division that has a true leader.  The Houston Texans are in the lead with a 6-3 record, and their only likely competition will be from the 4-4 Tennessee Titans.  The Jacksonville Jaguars have a 2-6 record, and the Indianapolis Colts are sitting at 0-9.  As I've mentioned here before, I took the Texans to make the playoffs for the first time ever this year, picking them to win this division before the season began.  At that time, Peyton Manning had yet to practice with the Colts, and after Week 9 he still hasn't.  Houston has not been as dominant as I expected due to injuries to Arian Foster, Andre Johnson, and a season-ending injury to Mario Williams, but they beat the Titans handily in their first meeting, and if they can avoid further injuries, they look to be in the clear.  Speaking of the Titans, isn't it amazing what a holdout will do after a lockout.  Chris Johnson still hasn't looked anything like he did his first few years in the league.  The two-win Jaguars have played commendably on defense, but have generated next to nothing on offense, having scored a league-low 98 points through 8 games this year.  

The 3 teams leading the AFC East with 5-3 records are the New England Patriots, the New York Jets, and the Buffalo Bills (yes, the BUFFALO BILLS).  The Miami Dolphins are 1-7, and will at best play the role of spoiler in this division.  The Patriots and Bills are very similar teams, having explosive offenses and porous defenses.  The difference between these two teams is experience.  The Jets have a solid defense, but have sputtered on offense.  I really have no feel for who will win this division, because the Patriots have been stumbling of late, barely beating the Cowboys before suffering consecutive losses to the Steelers and the Giants.  I would normally lean toward the team wearing the Super Bowl rings, but this is going to be a great race to watch.

The AFC North is led by the Baltimore Ravens and the Cincinnati Bengals at 6-2, and the Pittsburgh Steelers are a half-game back at 6-3.  The Ravens have swept the season series with the Steelers, after scoring a game-winning touchdown with eight seconds left on Sunday night, but they have also suffered losses to the four-win Titans and the Jaguars.  The Bengals have the longest current winning streak in the AFC at five games, but they still have to play twice against both the Ravens and the Steelers, and they also get the Texans down the road.  Welcome to the NFL Andy Dalton...  :)  The Steelers third loss was to the Texans, but Pittsburgh looked solid in beating the Patriots, and has performed admirably after being depleted at the O-Line position in the first few weeks.  The Cleveland Browns have a 3-5 record, and will likely be no more than a spoiler in this race.  The San Francisco 49ers will get to play a role in this race, and to find out how good they really are at 7-1, as they face the Ravens on Thanksgiving, and the Steelers in a Monday night game on December 19th.  On paper I would pick the Ravens, followed by the Steelers (due to the tiebreaker that the Ravens own), and then the Bengals, but injuries and the Bengals 4 games involving these 3 teams will be huge.

The AFC West also has 3 leaders, and they are all sitting at 4-4, with the 4th place team just 1 game behind.  The Kansas City Chiefs, San Diego Chargers, and Oakland Raiders are tied for first, while the Denver Broncos are nipping at their heels.  Before the season started, I predicted that the Chiefs would not return to the playoffs this year, and I am sticking with that pick.  Two of Kansas City's best players went down for the season very early, as the team lost RB Jamaal Charles and S Eric Berry.  Despite losing their first 3 games, the Chiefs roared back by winning their next 4.  San Diego would be in first right now if Philip Rivers could have handled a snap before what would have been a Chargers game-winning field-goal attempt two weeks back, but let me tell you why I think the Chiefs are doomed.  The Chiefs Week 11-15 schedule is as follows:  @ New England, vs. Pittsburgh, @ Chicago, @ NY Jets, vs. Green Bay.  Should Kansas City make the playoffs after that stretch, more power to them...  The Raiders actually have the most appealing schedule of these three teams, but I think that it is imperative that Darren McFadden and Carson Palmer stay healthy.  Say what you want about Tim Tebow (and I used to loathe hearing about him myself), but the Broncos have won 3 of 8 games this year, 2 of the last 3 when Tebow was the starter...

My next post for you will be an NFC midseason recap on Thursday, which will precede the Raiders/Chargers game on Thursday night.  That's right fantasy football players, you will have to account for the Thursday night games which will be taking place for the next eight weeks.  Enjoy the World Series of Poker tonight as a new champion is crowned at the Main Event, and I will see you in two days.
   

  

      

 

Everything And Nothing At All

As I begin this post, I'm thinking to myself that I'm about to type the biggest run-on sentence in the history of mankind, well, except for the fact that it is going to have periods, and actually be more than one sentence.  I have no intention of starting a new paragraph every time that I change the subject, and there isn't really one subject that is on my mind this morning, so make sure that your seatbelts are fastened (or more appropriately maybe, that you have some aspirin nearby)...  :)  We went through the time-change this weekend, where we gained an hour, and I adjusted to it by sleeping for an extra four hours at least, instead of just taking my extra hour.  For some reason I was just extremely tired yesterday.  I had the opportunity to pick up an extra shift at work, with the chance to sleep for five more hours after I received the phone call, but I turned it down because I felt sluggish.  At that moment I was wondering how I ever worked seventeen days in a row...  Most of my waking hours yesterday were spent watching NFL games, mixed in with doing some chores, reading more of '1984', and watching the taped broadcast of this year's final table at the 2011 World Series of Poker Main Event.  I was flipping through the channels not too long after the Ravens scored with eight seconds remaining in the game to beat my Steelers for the 2nd time this season (which accounts for 2 of our 3 losses), and that's when I found the poker coverage.  For any of you who like watching poker, or just like piles of money in general, the play from the final table will continue on Tuesday night at 8:00 CST, with the final 3 players trying to win the first prize of almost 9 million dollars during the LIVE telecast.  During the fourth quarter of the Steelers/Ravens game, I saw one of the most gutless plays that I can ever recall seeing on a football field.  The Steelers were rushing the Ravens quarterback Joe Flacco, when a hard-charging James Harrison leapt into the air in an attempt to jump over running back Ray Rice of the Ravens, who was back in "pass protection."  I use the two words 'pass protection' very loosely, because Rice DUCKED OUT OF THE WAY when he saw Harrison catapult himself into the air, just leaving his teammate Flacco completely free to be blindsided.  Flacco, as it turned out, got rid of the ball, throwing an incomplete pass.  Rice is one of the faces of the Ravens franchise, arguably the most known player that they have on the offensive side of the ball, which is appropriate, because I thought that jumping out of the path of an oncoming rusher and hanging his quarterback out to dry was totally offensive...  It just made me happy that I'm not a Ravens fan...  I saw another brilliant commercial yesterday.  Usually I take out my disbelief with all of the stupid commercials shown on t.v. on my facebook account, but let me share this one with you.  Ziplock Bags:  the lady is at the meat-counter, and she asks the butcher for 4 pounds of meat, but requests that he just wrap half of it, because she'll just end up throwing the other half away (referencing the lack of quality of her food storage bags).  Putting the poor-quality storage bags aside, I'm just talking to my t.v., saying, "why don't you just order TWO pounds of meat then?!"...  Ridiculous...  I am about 3/5 of the way through the book '1984', and am really glad that I made the choice to re-read it.  It is a book that really makes you think, and Orwell (the author) really seems to have a great grasp of how certain governments operate.  I'm sitting here typing this with the trusted Law & Order on beside me, and a test of the emergency broadcasting system just came on the screen.  It says that it's a required weekly test, and I'm thinking that it's funny that I don't see it every week...  LSU ending up beating Alabama in a very low-scoring 9-6 overtime game on Saturday, and the latest BCS rankings came out yesterday.  In the new rankings, the top-three teams are LSU, Oklahoma State, and Alabama.  It seems that the combination of voters and computers finally realize that Boise State doesn't play anybody, as the Broncos stayed behind a one-loss Bama squad.  Now the emergency alert system is showing a required monthly test...  :P  Can anyone else believe that we are only SEVENTEEN days away from Thanksgiving?!  The weather is starting to turn that way, getting cooler, although San Marcos, America could still use a lot more rain...  Very late last night, when I was watching the World Series of Poker coverage, I checked the weather on my cellphone, and found out that it was 70 degrees outside.  The good part of this story is that the little weather icon shown consisted of a black cloud with a lightning-bolt and rain falling from it, BUT the icon had a big question mark imposed on top of the image...  "There might be a thunderstorm and there might not..., but we're not really sure, so..."  Well, I have to do some errands on this beautiful Monday morning (it's completely overcast, but I want rain, so yes, it is beautiful), so have a great day, and I'll see ya tomorrow...
                        

Outstanding Football Weekend

Good morning everybody - it's just after 9:00 a.m. in San Marcos, America as I go out on a limb for the sixth straight week.  The NFL limb broke under the weight of my bad predictions last week as I had a losing record on my professional props for the first time this year.  I'm not all that upset about it though, since I was rooting against one of my picks anyway...  ;)  To do a quick recap, I was 3-1 on my college selections and 1-2 on my NFL attempts last week.  Let's start with my college loss, where I was doomed to lose my Kansas State pick if you've been following this blog regularly.  I came through with flying colors, jinxing the 8th-ranked Wildcats, who got crushed by the 9th-ranked Sooners in Manhattan (my most sincere apologies Kathryn...).  Two of my three victories were decisive, as #14 Nebraska turned in an impressive 24-3 victory over #11 Michigan State at home, while Notre Dame had a resounding 56-14 win over Navy in South Bend.  For the record, I don't think that I've been wrong on a Nebraska game this season (hopefully that helps make up for missing every single K-State game...).  My third victory in the college arena last week came in the game that I most regret missing so far this year, as Stanford downed USC 56-48 in triple-overtime.  My college record currently stands at 15-8 this season, my NFL record at 10-5.  The NFL pick that I managed to get right was the Dallas/Philly game under 51, as the Eagles won 34-7.  The game that I was happy to lose was the Patriots - 2 1/2 against the Steelers, as Pittsburgh won the game 25-17 (YES!!!).  The game that I got slaughtered in was the Cardinals and Ravens staying under 43 1/2 points, as Baltimore had a 30-27 comeback victory. 

When I titled this post 'Outstanding Football Weekend', I was referring to the potentially great games that we have ahead of us this weekend, and not my picks last weekend.  I am going to start with my NFL selections this week, teasing you until the very end so that you have to read through my whole post to get to the LSU/Alabama prediction.  We both know that you have the ability to thwart this strategy by simply scrolling down the screen, but you're on the honor system here...  ;)  Perusing the lines, I have to say that my strongest play would be the under in the Bears/Eagles game at 47 1/2.  The Bears have looked horrible at times on offense this season, but their defense is decent.  The Eagles defense looked good after the bye week, and a little nasty weather in Philly on Monday night wouldn't hurt here either...  I would also take the under 51 in the Giants/Patriots game.  Nicks is supposed to be out for New York, and while Bradshaw is expected to play, he has a broken bone in his foot.  The Giants themselves have a pretty good defense, enough with a potentially anemic offense to keep this under I'm thinking.  This pick is going to be against a preseason prediction that I made this year, but I am going to take the Chiefs to cover the -4 at home against the Dolphins.  I predicted that Kansas City wouldn't make the playoffs before the season started (which I'm still sticking with, by the way, as their Week 11-15 schedule is brutal), and now they're in a 3-way tie atop their division with San Diego and Oakland.  Way to handle the snap Rivers.....  Anyway, hapless Miami coming into Arrowhead... Chiefs! 

And now a menu of enticing college games this weekend.  I'll start with my friend's Notre Dame pick, and I will take the Irish at Wake Forest.  Very decisive victory against the Naval Academy last Saturday, which I didn't see a single snap of, but the 42-point win seems to indicate that they are over the loss to the Trojans...  #14 Kansas State @ #3 Oklahoma State:  To get back in the good graces of Wildcats fans everywhere, I will pick against the Purple.  I think that the Cowboys simply have too much firepower for K-State, but if I do miss this Wildcats pick as I've been prone to, it will be major news and there will be much celebration in Idaho from the Boise fans...  #9 South Carolina @ #7 Arkansas:  Let me say right here that I think the Razorbacks are very lucky to be in the Top 10 still.  They were very fortunate to come from behind in both the Texas A&M game earlier this year and in the Vanderbilt game last week.  There is no way that they should just barely be winning against Vandy.  With that being said, the Gamecocks team that is coming to town is without the starting quarterback and the superstar tailback that they began the season with.  The Razorbacks are at home against a short-handed Gamecocks squad, so I'm picking Arkansas.  #1 LSU @ #2 Alabama:  Not much at stake here, eh?...  :)  Both teams are 8-0 and each program has been dominant in recent memory.  I was truly impressed by the Tigers victory against Oregon earlier in the season, and I was practically stunned that Tennessee went to halftime tied 6-6 with Bama a few weeks ago.  I know that the game is in Tuscaloosa, but if LSU is able to slow down Trent Richardson, I don't know what else Bama can bring on offense against the Tigers defense.  In Las Vegas I could get 5 points with the Tigers, but even straight-up, I'm still going to go with LSU...

I hope that all of you enjoy what should be a great football weekend - see ya again on Monday!

                                     

Girls n' Guns

It's great to have clients with a complete understanding of your wheelhouse.

'1984'

The temperature is down to 48 degrees here on Bikini Hill as the latest cold front makes its way into San Marcos, America (not that I'm complaining one bit after this brutal summer).  I only mention it because the winds that have been intermittently rattling my window tonight prompted me to look up the temperature.  Isn't the advent of technology, computers specifically (for the purpose of this example), amazing?  I just opened another window on my desktop and started typing 'intermit....' into a search engine so I could make sure that I spelled intermittenly correctly.  Earlier today I typed the name of one of the local cleaners into a search engine so that I could find their phone number and ask them how long they were open.  Does anyone even have a phonebook anymore?  The cleaners who were stitching my blue jeans happened to be open until 6:00 yesterday, so I decided to take a nice little walk through town.  I was going to get some exercise while picking up the jeans, renewing my public library card, and getting what's called a 'Tex Share' card, which allows a non-student holder of a public library card to check out books from the local university.  The book which I have been telling my friends that I needed to make a point of reading for a few months now is George Orwell's '1984'.  By the way, for someone who is pretty close to writing his 20th blog entry in five weeks, you'd probably be surprised by how little I actually do read, in terms of other blogs and books anyway...  '1984' was one of the books that I read in high school.  I can't remember what year it was assigned to me, but I am sure that '1984' was a reading assignment, because in high school the only books that I do remember reading were ones that we were required to.  I do remember reading a bunch of the 'Hardy Boys' mystery series when I was in elementary school, but in high school the only reading that I did on my own usually involved flipping through the pages of Sports Illustrated.  I have been wanting to re-read '1984' for a while now, because I have heard about how eerie it is that many of the things that Orwell wrote about in his book have actually happened.  For those of you unfamiliar with the book, it was actually published in 1949, and has been called prophetic (at the very least by the person who wrote the little preview on the back cover of the copy that I have)...  I have read about the first twenty pages of the book, and so far the biggest parallel that I can see between his book and our society is the power of the media.  In '1984', the media is government-controlled, acting as a propaganda machine for its own purposes.  What I am talking about by the power of our media is the ability to put a story out there, and make it a topic of mainstream conversation, regardless of how trivial it is (or at least how unimportant I believe it is)...  ;)  Yesterday one of my facebook friends passed along this great quote:  "Kim Kardashian is filing for divorce.  During this difficult time, the Kardashian family requests as much attention as possible."  I reposted it for laughs, because divorces are not usually handled in such a manner, with the mother of the grieving bride showing up on 'The View' for example (and I only know that because it came up on my homepage, by the way)...  :)  My point is, do that many people really care this much about Kim Kardashian?  Is this the best use of our media's time?  Okay, back on topic, I am sure that I will get much more from reading '1984' now than I did as a high school student, because there are words and references in it that I cannot imagine I understood when I was younger.  For those of you who have never read it, pick up a copy and keep in mind that it was written in 1949 when reading it.

Tomorrow I will be back with my usual Friday football-driven blog, which promises to be an interesting one since last week was the first time since the blog began that I actually would have lost more of my NFL bets than I would have won.  If you ask me to predict a Nebraska or Kansas State game though, I will be completely, 100% dead-on (or completely, 100% on the wrong side of it, respectively)...  Yes, that is me that you hear whistling as I roll my eyes aimlessly...  Seriously, there are lots of great college and NFL games coming up this weekend, so I hope to see ya tomorrow.  Have a good one!
    

    

Halloween Ends & The NBA Lockout Continues...

Welcome to November everyone.  Almost a full week of Halloween celebration has ended in San Marcos, America, but not without its share of amusing stories here and through my facebook friends.  My twin niece and nephew went trick-or-treating last night, and on a posted photo of their successful outing, I commented that I was going to start going out again if people are giving out money and popcorn...  Does anyone remember when people used to give out candy corn?  Yuck...  The mother of the twins happens to be a teacher, and she received her formal teaching evalulation yesterday while dressed as a whoopie cushion...  I have another friend who told her little one that Reese's Cups are made with black beans, since the girl does not like beans and my friend likes the peanut butter filled treats...  :)  The military was well-represented throughout the week in San Marcos by the guys taking part in the Halloween festivities, while I saw more girls wearing princess and butterfly and angel and other costumes with obtrusive wings than I care to see again for at least another year...  ;)

SPORTS ALERT:  Well, we have reached the month of November, and the NBA has yet to have a single tipoff.  Since they would normally be playing real games by now, I decided that it's time for this post.  I want to make it clear that I am not making this post because I am concerned for the welfare of the players and owners who cannot come to an agreement on how to divide a huge pile of money.  The last time that I was concerned about a strike in one of the major sports was during the 1981 strike in Major League Baseball.  I was playing Little League Baseball during the year that strike took place, completely destined in my own mind to become a future professional baseball player myself.  It feels like the world is going to come to an end when you're younger.  "They're not playing baseball!!!"  Ever since that strike occurred, when a stoppage in play has taken place in a major sport, I have had the attitude that I'll find something else to do while you're gone, and when you come back, I'll watch.  During the NFL Lockout this summer, I made a post on my facebook account (the closest thing that I had done to a blog entry before Bikini Hill opened for business here at the end of September).  In that entry, I expressed my belief that the fanbase was not going to be very concerned about a group of players and owners who could not agree on how to divide 9 BILLION dollars (I also e-mailed the same sentiments to the NFL at www.nfl.com, to which I received a form-letter response, giving me another e-mail address to which I could send my views ...).  I think that the NBA is in the same bind that the NFL was this summer.  The economy has been HORRIBLE over the past few years, resulting in many people losing their jobs, and these geniuses cannot agree on how to disperse their stack of money.  I have a friend at work who is a big basketball fan (he is not a football fan at all), and a few weeks ago HE SAID that he now hopes that this issue isn't resolved so that the players and owners will be punished by not receiving ANY money this year.  One of the issues that the two sides are at odds about is what percentage of profits each side should receive.  I have a quick math lesson for those involved:  47%, 50%, or 53% of something is greater than 100% of nothing...  I believe that the lockout will be resolved sooner than later, just as I believed that the NFL Lockout would be, because it's very hard to fathom that people can be THAT STUPID.  But don't worry guys, while you're bickering over money, we will continue watching the NFL, and college football, and the NHL, and the rapidly approaching college basketball season.  I hope that all of you have a great start to the month of November, and I will see you again on Thursday.