Qotipot - September 28

For those of you unfamiliar with the title, a Qotipot is a Question of the Indeterminate Period of Time. On the old Pluckytown website, I used to run a Question of the Week. Well, that was wildly unpopular, and also sapped my creativity. But, from time to time, I still come up with these burning questions or conversation starters, and I just need to get them off my chest. So, I came up with the Question of the Inderterminate Period of Time, or Qotipot for short.

I got the idea for this question while watching the movie Poseidon a few weeks ago. It struck me as a movie that was exceedingly average. I wanted to wait for a bit, so that the impact of the movie could settle in, and I could be assured of my own opinion on the flick. Well, I'm now convinced that I am correct in my assessment. And while "exceedingly average" may sound like an oxymoron, I believe it is very apt. Let me explain...no...it is too long...let me sum up.

By exceedingly average, I mean that every aspect of this movie was precisely that...average. Not just many or most, but EVERY aspect.

The story line was average. Not gripping, not terrible. Just average.

The special effects were average. Not Lord of the Rings great, but not original Star Trek corny, either.

The acting was average.

The cast was average.

So, this brings us to the Qotipot:

What are some other things that you have encountered in life that could be labeled as exceedingly average?

There are bound to be some out there. Average musicians. Average songs. Average TV shows. Average sports franchises. Average people. Average cars.

There is nothing spectacular about these things, and there is nothing horrible.

That's your criteria. Now get to it.

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Where I Stand: NFL vs College Football, Pt. 2

Allow me to re-cap for you what has gone on before: My friends, Meldy and Ike have an on-going discussion with me about my preference for the professional football game versus the college game. In the previous part, I covered my first two problems with the college game and in this part, I shall cover the other two. All caught up? Great. Here we go.

Bowl Games. First of all, there's way too many of them (31). This means that there are 62 teams involved in some form of bowl game and it was just a few years ago where there was almost a crisis of one team declaring itself ineligible after being assigned to a bowl game so that there would not have been enough bowl eligible teams for all of the games. Why are there so many? It has nothing to do with any sort of final ranking of the teams. It's an insane way of making a team feel good about itself for what really amounts to mediocrity ("Congratulations! You're the 51st best team in the nation! Here's a ring from our sponsor!"). It comes back to the money. It's a way for the sponsors of the game to imagine that they're getting a bunch of publicity when really, for the most part, they're only getting a bunch of publicity in two limited areas (wherever the two schools are located). It's also a way for the schools to make even more money off of these athletes. The athletes get a trip to somewhere other than where they live (unless you have a case like Miami going to the Orange Bowl - then they get another home game).


National Championship. I know, I know. This has been hashed and re-hashed so many times it's become a cliché. However, it still bears mentioning. It was only in 2004 that LSU and USC shared a split national championship. LSU won the championship BCS bowl game, but USC was voted as the best team in the nation by the sportswriters. If a sport wants me to take it seriously, this sort of thing can't happen. It's exactly the same reason that I don't respect boxing as a sport; multiple championships held by multiple individuals (not talking about different weight classes). Through some sort of complicated formula, they come up with the two highest-ranked teams and they play in a bowl game to determine one half of a national championship. However, there almost always seems to be doubt as to what teams should be in the game. For instance, in 2005, three major teams were undefeated: USC, Oklahoma and Auburn. The computers spit out that Oklahoma and USC should play with Auburn being left out in the cold. Would Auburn have been able to show up at least a bit better than Oklahoma, who was stomped 55-19? The world will never know, and that's the issue. We have no chance of saying that Auburn was the national champion because they were never given the opportunity. The love of money from the bowl game sponsors has made it so that college football has controversy almost every year as it goes to try and crown its pseudo-champion. Again, let's contrast this with the NFL. Each division winner goes to the playoffs and the two teams with the best records who are not division winners also go. The teams are seeded and play until only one is left standing. Sure, there will always be debates about "if the ref didn't call this" or "if the idiot kicker didn't go wide right", but no one can doubt that the results were decided on the field, not by a computer or by a bunch of sportswriters, many of whom have their own agendas because they cover the local teams. College basketball can have a tournament and no one cries out about the kids missing time from class. It would add two or three weeks to a season that already has a gigantic gap between the end of the regular season and before the bowl season to the point that when the bowl games do come around, we're often "treated" to some sloppy football while the teams knock off some of their rust. Let the players decide on the field who the best team in the nation is. Division II and Division III football have playoff systems and no one complains about that. In fact, it gives us an un-ambiguous champion. How cool is that?

Allow me to re-iterate: There are many things that I appreciate about college football. I like the fan support. I like the tailgating. However, that doesn't change the fact that there are gigantic, glaring problems with the sport. The NFL has problems too, but they, at least, are up-front about admitting there is a problem. I don't see that with Division IA college football, and until I do, my choice will be the professional game.

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Fantasy Hockey Preview

The sports junkie has returned from his one week hiatus.

I am here to impart on you my unequaled fantasy hockey genius.

The following paragraph contains everything that I know about fantasy hockey:







There you have it. I know absolutely nothing about hockey. If I could name ten players, I would surprise myself. I think I can get close to naming all the teams, but I wouldn't know, because I don't know how many teams there are in the NHL. I think it's somewhere around eleventy-seven. In contrast, I can probably tell you the starting lineup for every Major League baseball team, and the depth chart at the skill positions for every team in the NFL.

But hockey eludes me. Always has, always will. I grew up in a hockey town (Grand Forks, ND. Greatest Canadian hockey players on the planet. If you don't get the joke, then never mind). I live in a hockey state (Minnesota, where for awhile the college team could beat the pro team). I never played hockey, though. I can barely skate (just forward...no stopping or reverse for me, thank you).

So why do I play fantasy hockey you ask (what? you don't ask? well, pardon me)? Two reasons...One, it's a sport. Two, it involves controllable, manipulatable statistics.

I enjoy all things sports. The competition and statistics just fascinate me. I love underdog stories. I love to hate big market clubs that ruin the sport. I have opinions on everything. Fantasy sports make it even more interesting to me. Now I can manipulate the statistics! I am in control. When the Twins lose, I can second guess Ron Gardenhire or Terry Ryan's decision making. But when I lose in a fantasy league, it's my fault. Especially since I'm the commissioner in most leagues, so I could probably rig it so that I win.

I play fantasy baseball (two different leagues), fantasy football (four player leagues and two pick'em leagues), fantasy hockey (two leagues), fantasy basketball (two leagues), fantasy golf, and fantasy English Premier soccer. I will probably add to that next year. Only one of the aforementioned leagues involves money. The rest are just for fun. And perhaps the satisfaction that if I succeed, I may have a claim to knowing more about a particular sport than someone else who may or may not get paid to do basically the same thing, on a much more difficult and complex scale.

So basically what I'm saying is I'm a freak. Wow...that sure took a long time to say all of that.

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Lasting Joy from Love--Part 2

Well, gentle reader, here we are again. Finally, I just know you're thinking, finally I will learn what the answer to that age-old question "Who in the world does Don King's hair?" I hate to disappoint, but this week we are not going to be discussing this most pressing of questions. Instead, we are going to finish the gripping conversation begun last week. At long last, I will reveal what it is my own love for my children has revealed to me about the magnitude of the truth contained in Romans 5:6-11. I suppose that I should once again provide you, gentle reader, with a final caveat: these brief paragraphs in no way claim (not even in the land of Make Believe) to be a comprehensive examination of these verses. Clearly, there is a wealth of information contained here. My goal is only to highlight certain aspects of that wealth.

This passage in Romans has long been particularly interesting to me, in large part because of several aspects of the grace of God that it reveals. In the first place, as explicitly stated in verse 10 and implied in verse 8, God came to us (not we to Him, as is so often stated) and effected our reconciliation to Himself "while we were enemies." (NASB) That is to say, God Himself, the almighty and most holy Creator of the entire cosmos, "demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." (Rom. 5:8 [NASB]) Simply astonishing, is it not? Think about that for just a moment, if you would. God did not effect our reconciliation only after we had worked to improve ourselves. God did not effect our reconciliation only after we came to HIm begging and pleading, having worked in ourselves a full measure of repentance and contrition. Rather, God effected our reconciliation to Himself when we were still actively hostile to Him. What is it that an enemy does? In the most basic sense of the word, an enemy is one who is actively trying to destroy either his nemesis or the work of his nemesis or both. While we were sinners, while we were actively and fundamentally opposed to the Creator of the universe in the very depths of our nature, at that time God saw fit to work for us reconciliation with Himself.

What, then, did this reconciliation do? That is, from what have we been saved? I don't know about you, but the most common answers I hear tend to be along the lines of the devil or hell or sin or death or other such thing. While victory over these is most certainly a part of the whole process, none of them is the fundamental thing from which we have been saved. At its core--indeed, the reason we have the victory over death, the devil, and so on--at its core, we have been saved from God. Let me repeat that: we have finally and ultimately been saved by God from God. (See, in particular, Rom. 5:9.) God in His pure holiness and justice cannot tolerate sin in His presence. It must be punished, and it must be removed from His presence. The beauty of the Gospel is that He has punished our sin, and so He has satisfied His holy wrath. When the righteousness of Christ is imparted to us, even as He has borne our sins and the punishment necessitated by those sins, when that righteousness is imparted to us, we are effectively removed from the shadow of the wrath of God against sin and are thus completely reconciled to God. The beauty of the grace of God given us in Christ is that God has effected this reconciliation without in any way compromising His holiness or undermining His justice. Amazing.

And now we get to the point of the stories I shared last week. Those moments when my own love for my children rises to the surface with such intensity that I find it difficult to breathe, those moments have been used by God to reveal to me one of the most amazing aspects of this whole process: God sacrificed His own Son in order to effect our reconciliation. What is more, God did this "while we were yet enemies." While we rejected, while we despised, while we forsook His Son, God nevertheless at that time sent His Son to bring about our reconciliation. (Rom. 5:10) I'll tell you right now that there are many people for whom I like to think I would be willing to die in order to save their lives. Barring my wife, there is no one, not one single person, for whom I would be willing to sacrifice my children. I'm sorry, but you'd be on your own if it came down to a choice between rescuing you from a burning building or rescuing my children. You'd be on your own if the only way to save your life was to sacrifice the life of one of my children. Tough luck for you, I'd think. But my love for my children is such that they take precedence. That's my approach. Furthermore, I would kill to defend their honor. Nothing enrages me to quite the extent that people taking advantage of my children does. Now think about what God has done. While we were actively hostile to Him, while we were such that we would (and did) despise and reject His Son, at that point, God sent His Son to His death in order that we might avoid our own deserved deaths. What is more, God did it knowing that Christ would be brought to the point where God Himself would turn His back on His own Son. God did it, knowing that it would require that He forsake Himself in order to effect our reconciliation. (Note the poignant words of Christ on the cross, as recorded in Matt. 27:46 (NASB) when He cried out in agony, "Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?" [that is, "My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?"].) My words are weak and as such are incapable of expressing the sheer magnitude, the sheer wonder of this truth. God gave up His Son, He gave up Himself, in order to effect my salvation, your salvation. Absolutely amazing. Awesome (in the profound sense of the word, not in the sense of the flippant expression thrown around by so many in today's society). This work of God, this profound demonstration of His love for me, is why I can have joy--indeed, is why I do have joy. How beautiful indeed the hands that bled.

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Where I Stand: NFL vs College Football, Pt. 1

I have a couple of friends that we'll refer to, in great Ann Landers style, as Meldy and Ike. Meldy and Ike are gigantic football fans. They get really excited every time it's getting close to fall and practices start. They start dreaming about tailgating and sitting in front of the TV to catch the game for the week. I'm like that as well. The only difference being on which day we're most excited about football. They prefer their football to be on a Saturday. I prefer the variety that arrives in my TV after church is over. The three of us (Meldy, Ike, and I) recently had a fairly lengthy email debate about why we prefer the one that we prefer. What I decided to do is to use the forum that I have here to share with every one of my readers (we're up to five now! Hi, Mom!) my reasoning as well. You're free to disagree. Feel free to comment whether you agree or disagree. This will cover two of my points with a subsequent post to cover the other two (or more if the mood strikes me).

Padding the schedule with pansies. It bothers me that a major-conference school goes and schedules at least two or three pansies in their schedule to ensure a couple of easy wins to make sure that they're bowl eligible. One of the examples that comes to mind (because of proximity more than anything else) is the Minnesota Gophers. Every year, they're playing people who are there strictly to be beaten down so that Gophers fans can get themselves overly excited about the possibility of going to a more "high profile" bowl game. Then they usually come crashing back to reality when they blow big leads or just plain get demolished by the more legitimate teams in the Big Ten. Look at the Gophers' schedule this year: Their first game was against Kent State (44-0 win). They play Cal this year, which is one of the very few respectable non-conference games in recent memory. However, that's balanced by the fact that they're playing the North Dakota State University Bison. That's right, they're playing a team that has been D1-AA for less than five years. Way to go out on a limb there, guys. In the NFL, a team plays against each of its divisional opponents twice during the season. Each division also faces two other divisions (each team in each division plays each team in the other division). This is not picked randomly or by throwing a huge wad of cash at a school to come in to your stadium to get beat up. There's also a very new and innovative concept called a playoff system. More on that later.

"It's all about the student-athlete." The fact that these kids are supposed to be armatures is brought out whenever one of these kids has broken some NCAA rule (like getting a ride home from a member of the coaching staff in twenty below weather). They're expected to maintain the purity of the game. They're out there strictly for the love of football and the love of their school. This is one of the biggest lines of bull that exists in modern sports. It's not all about the student athlete. It's not all about school pride. With very few exceptions, it's all about the money. For some of the kids playing, it's about getting an education so that they can have a career after sports (very admirable, but still about lessening their schooling costs). For some it's about being on a national stage so they they have a shot at going up to the next level for, you guessed it, big-money contracts. Many of the coaches have gigantic, million-dollar contracts for it, but the students see not a penny of any of it except in the form of, for many, token scholarships with the full-rides reserved for a select few. The love of money is also the reason that we don't have an implementation of the afore-mentioned playoff system (new and revolutionary though it may be). "What about the million-dollar spoiled athletes in the NFL, though? You prefer watching someone like Terrell Owens instead of a student athlete?" Here's the thing: I hate the pretense that the NCAA tries to force down our throat about their greatest concern being about the students. The NFL freely admits they're a business and that money is the major driving-force behind the majority of the decisions that are made. Do you prefer having a pastor that says he's perfect and you need to be just like him, or the pastor who says that he's a sinner, too, and we all need to help each other out? Which one is more likely to have a scandal that completely tarnishes people and their organizations? Meldy at this point, of course, brought up the Love Boat scandal of the Vikings last year. I countered with Gary Barnett, whose program while he was the coach at Colorado University was accused of using very inappropriate parties as recruiting tools. Let me point out that I find what some of the Vikings players did on Lake Minnetonka to be morally reprehensible. However, they are adults. If the party had taken place in a private home, there would have been no criminal charges. They did something dumb by taking it onto a boat. Again, morally reprehensible. In the case of Colorado, they're using alcohol (among other things that I really don't want to mention on this site) to be recruiting kids who are legally under age. Getting back to T.O. for a moment, I don't like how he goes about things. The largest problem I have with how things went down in Philidelphia is that he was seeking more money when he was already under contract. If he was a free agent, I would have no problem with him trying to get the most value that he can. It's a business, and it's all about the money. Just like college football. The NFL is just able to admit it.

My other two points will follow next week.

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Lasting Joy from Love

For several years now, gentle reader, one of my favorite Biblical passages has been Romans 5:6-11. There are a number of reasons for this. But first, let me tell you a couple of stories.

Several months ago, I instituted a weekly policy of taking a different child out for breakfast each week. It worked well for about 33 minutes, at which point I started having cops show up at my door at inconvenient hours investigating complaints that some weirdo was forcing cheap restaurant breakfasts down the throats of various neighborhood children every Wednesday. It was then that I began contemplating in typically deep fashion the legal expedience of limiting this weekly activity to my own children. This was a marvelous plan, I thought. Now I could finally feel as though I was fulfilling my role as father in the lives of my children while still doing everything pretty much the same as before; conscience appeasement is a sad, sad phenomenon. Anyway, this enabled me to see my kids once a week (o.k., o.k.--one of my kids once a week), while the remainder of the week was still spent in a galaxy far, far away--well, school and work anyway, though Odin knows it takes about as long to get to and from school on a typical day as it would take me to get to and from a galaxy far, far away. Still, at least once a week would I be able to keep contact with a member of my family.

In keeping with this plan, then, I one Wednesday took my daughter to Country Kitchen for the weekly ritual. An egg allergy prevented her from being able to get anything other than oatmeal for her morning repast. Still, she seemed to enjoy it, so whatever. Well, on this particular Wednesday, after a waiting session of coloring and playing games ("Let's see how many people we can hit with these little paper wads before they realize it's us!" "Yeah! That'll be fun!" "Sir, if you don't stop this immediately, we'll have to ask you to leave." "It wasn't me...really. It was my daughter! I can't do anything with her!" "Sir, I personally saw you launch that last wad..."), our food arrived, and we commenced to eating. Now, normally my daughter is quite a talkative little girl, interjecting comments at the most inopportune times ("Daddy, it wasn't either me!"), but this particular Wednesday the gentle ministrations of starvation prevented our speaking more than absolutely necessary for the first couple of minutes after receiving our food. By "absolutely necessary," of course, I mean that the only thing I heard in that first couple of minutes was a "Daddy, that's my food; stop stealing it."

Anyway, after a couple of minutes, my daughter looked up at me and said, with that completely serious intellectualism attainable only by a four-year-old, "Sometimes I call my brain a tire." Now, this is a completely normal observation to make, right? Of course! Naturally, my reaction was a half-choked "What?!?" To this, my ever contemplative four-year-old daughter explained: "Yes. Like 'My oatmeal is going to make my tire fall out of my head.'" In typical fashion, she then re-attacked her oatmeal with a gusto I have seldom seen rivaled. I don't know where she gets this stuff...

The second incident happened about two days later and involved my third child, who was not quite two at the time. He had just recently taken to going everywhere with a large doll, whom he had named "Joe" and on whose poor, bald head had been scribbled many a line (in permanent ink, of course). Well, my wife was walking down our hallway past the open bathroom door, when some movement from the corner of her eye caused her to turn back to the bathroom. Sure enough, there was my son, holding Joe by the ankle and systematically dunking his head in the toilet. I mean, how else are you going to clean off permanent ink stains? Well? How? He looked up when my wife came in, and then proceeded to dunk Joe yet again. (Thankfully, the toilet was not in that state between using and flushing. At least, I hope not.) My wife grabbed Joe from his little fist and asked, "Do babies go in the toilet?" He looked up at her in wide-eyed wonderment (probably wondering how she could possibly not know the obvious answer to that question) and responded in one of those voices that goes up and then down, "Ye-e-e-e-e-e-s." Of course. How could we have ever thought otherwise?

What is the point of all this, you ask? In particular, what could this possibly have to do with Romans 5:6-11? I'm glad you asked...even if you didn't ask and couldn't care less. Ah, once again the joys of one-sided conversation. The point is simply this: incidents such as those above are among those things that make you realize just how much you love your children. Nothing can ever take the place of one of these precious gifts. No other gift of God is quite so adept at showing you just how undeserving and woefully inadequate you are, either. But for our discussion today, suffice it to say that laughter shook my belly like a bowl full of jelly that day. (And it does shake like a bowl full of jelly, let me tell you. Santa? Santa's got nothing on me...) In addition to making me a wee bit healthier (or so I've been told), these were two particular moments in which just how much I have been blessed in my four children was impressed upon me. It's really quite impossible to put into words the overwhelming nature of the love I have for my children, but these experiences drove that home--you know, to the point that you find it hard to swallow or even to breathe. God then utilized these moments to impress upon me the magnitude of the truth contained in Romans 5:6-11. (I told you we'd get back to this eventually.) In what way? Well, I just realized how long this thing has gotten, so the answer to that will have to wait until next week. Man, my readership is going to hate me before too much longer...Why, oh why can't I be less full of hot air? And, perhaps more importantly, how many licks does it take to get to the Tootsie Roll center of a Tootsie Pop? The world may never know.

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Throwing Pluckytown a Changeup

I realized something today: we, as a site, have been very football-heavy lately. I want to apologize for this. I realize that a large portion of our readership (three out of the five of you) aren't exactly what would be classified as sports fans, and we've been going willy-nilly all over the football season. We've talked about predictions for the NFL season and even fantasy football while completely neglecting other things that might be interesting our readership. Therefore, I've decided to throw Pluckytown a change up and try to hit one out of the park with this outing and hope I don't make an error and completely balk. That's right, folks: I'm talking about baseball!

Baseball has constantly been billed as "America's pastime." Somehow the fact that it's a really, really old game gets the pundits to want to make us believe that it should be given some extra-special place in our hearts. Don't get me wrong; I enjoy baseball every so often. However, I have a hard time with the current state of baseball. Currently, the Phillies have a player, Ryan Howard, who has the potential to hit 60+ homers, and there are some people (or at least, there are people who say that there are people) who are saying that he'd be the "true" home run hitter since he's the first one who would have done it clean while those who have hit more than Roger Maris (Bonds, McGwire, and Sosa) have a gigantic cloud of suspicion hanging around them when it comes to their potential body chemistry and the modification thereof. The obvious problem with that thinking is that we can't guarantee that Howard is clean. After all, human growth hormone is still not being tested for since we don't have a reliable test for it. Therefore, we can't assume that Howard isn't using HGH all of a sudden. This bothers me. Not that we don't know if he's using something, but that we need to ask these questions at all. Whenever someone is starting to show some very good power numbers, the whispers begin. Is he using? What is he using? Do any of his former teammates say anything about him possibly using? Does he look any bigger than last year? We can't be sure that some of the most-hallowed numbers in the sport are valid. This will especially be the case if Bonds breaks Henry Aaron's career home run record. How can I respect a sport if I can't respect some of their records?

One of the arguments that people make when talking about the steroids/performance enhancers in baseball is that many of these drugs weren't outlawed by Major League Baseball until this year. Here's the problem with that argument: They were outlawed by the US government prior to this year. I think that US law should supersede MLB, don't you? Another argument is that they don't help you hit the ball anyway, so where is the problem? It's very true that there is no empirical evidence that steroids help a person's hand-eye coordination. They help strength. We do know, however, that at the AAA and Major League level of play, the athletes already know how to hit the ball; it's just a matter of hitting it where people can't catch it. Therefore, added strength would give enough velocity to grounders to get more of them through the defense. They would give routine fly balls that extra ten, fifteen feet that they need to get over the wall. Strength is part of hitting home runs.

There was an old episode of Saturday Night Live where they did a skit entitled the "All Drug Olympics." The premise was that there were no drugs outlawed and when a competitor was about to perform, they announced what drugs he or she was on. I'm thinking that baseball should adopt a similar policy. "Coming up to the plate, we have Foo Bar and he's hitting .385 this season while on uppers at game-time, downers at bed-time and steroids all the time. He also takes a shot of bourbon before games on Sunday." That way, at least, we'll know how chemically advanced our favorite players are.

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NFL Predictions Special - Playoffs & Postseason Awards

It's time to do the dirty work, and let these playoffs shake themselves out. From the previous two columns (AFC & NFC) we can deduce a few things:

1. I am an idiot. Seriously. Read the two columns.

2. I already have four playoff spots taken up in each conference by the division winners. They are as follows:

AFC: Miami, Baltimore, Indianapolis, & San Diego
NFC: New York, Detroit, Tampa Bay, & Seattle

3. I mentioned at least one other playoff team during the individual write-ups. Observe:

"Pittsburgh Steelers: Last years champs bring a little less to the table this year, although not by much. You pretty much know what you're getting on both sides of the field, although I am a little concerned about Willie Parker holding up for a second season. I expect them to be a playoff team, but not to go past round 1 or 2."

Well, that leaves me with three remaining playoff spots to award. Here's how I see the seeding going down in each conference.

AFC NFC

(1) Indianapolis (1) Seattle
(2) Miami (2) Tampa Bay
(3) Baltimore (3) New York
(4) San Diego (4) Detroit
(5) Jacksonville (5) Carolina
(6) Pittsburgh (6) Dallas

Because the top two seeds receive byes in the first round of the playoffs, we are left with Pittsburgh at Baltimore, Jacksonville at San Diego, Dallas at New York, and Carolina at Detroit.

Round 1

Pittsburgh at Baltimore: Steve McNair takes over the game early, and Pittsburgh is unable to do anything against the Ravens' D. Baltimore successfully runs down the clock in the second half with the Jamal Lewis/Mike Anderson tandem. Final Score: Ravens 17, Steelers 3

Jacksonville at San Diego: Jacksonville strolls into San Diego with a favorable match-up due to the weather, and Philip Rivers looks like a deer in the headlights in his first playoff game. LaDanian Tomlinson is easy to control due to the fact that he wears out prematurely from overuse during the regular season. Final Score: Jaguars 24, Chargers 10

Dallas at New York: Terrell Owens does not play due to a lingering hamstring problem, Drew Bledsoe is knocked out in the first half, but Tony Romo fills in admirably and engineers a late fourth quarter drive within field goal range, where Mike Vanderjagt promptly chokes. The Giants ride Tiki Barber into the next round. Final Score: Giants 21, Cowboys 20

Carolina at Detroit: Let's face it...the Lions are just happy to be here. Carolina wins going away. Final Score: Panters 31, Lions 7

Round 2

Jacksonville at Indianapolis: The Colts don't scare the Jaguars. But the Colts have a better offense, and a decent defense, and Leftwich will probably be a little dinged up for this one. Adam Vinatieri wins it with a field goal. Final Score: Colts 24, Jaguars 21

Baltimore at Miami: Ronnie Brown plays admirably in this match-up, but once again, Lewis/Anderson are too tough to tackle. Final Score: Ravens 27, Dolphins 16

Carolina at Seattle: The Panthers' D effectively shuts down Shaun Alexander, forcing Matt Hasselbeck to throw to a banged up and non-existent receiving corps. This is DeAngelo Williams' coming out party. Final Score: Panthers 21, Seahawks 18

New York at Tampa Bay: Tiki Barber has a HUGE game, with 150+ yards rushing, and 100+ yards receiving. The Bucs really have no answer. Final Score: Giants 28, Buccaneers 6

Round 3

Ravens at Colts: Do the Colts have enough left in the take to make it to the Super Bowl? Yes. Final Score: Colts 34, Ravens 10

Carolina at New York: The cold weather gets to the Panters, and Eli Manning sets up an all Manning Super Bowl. Final Score: Giants 23, Panthers 17

Super Bowl

Well, if I'm going to be in the business of making outlandish predictions, why not go way overboard? The media will be all over Manning vs. Manning. This is finally Peyton's year, though. He absolutely destroys baby brother on the biggest stage possible. Final Score: Colts 38, Giants 23

Postseason Awards:

MVP - Peyton Manning

Offensive Player of the Year - Peyton Manning

Defensive Player of the Year - Troy Polamalu

Offensive Rookie of the Year - Laurence Maroney

Defensive Rookie of the Year - Haloti Ngata

Coach of the Year - Tony Dungy

And that, my friends, is all I have to say about that. Since this is being recorded for posterity's sake, I shall try to revisit these predictions at various times during the regular season and postseason to find out just how wrong I am. Or right. Or whatever.

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Fantasy Football Firsts

Well, gentle reader, I return to regale you with the finest insights my vast intellect is capable of producing. Today, you will discover the wonders to be experienced by the neophyte in that great American pasttime of "Fantasy Football." (Make sure you read the previous two words in a booming, echoing voice; only then will you experience the full wonder of this moment.) Let us begin, shall we?

My experience with fantasy football prior to this year is, well, nonexistant. In other words, this is the first year that I've ever had any inclination to actually partake of this delectable dish. Well, after years of never doing...well, much of anything of any sort, this year I was asked to join two (count them: two) fantasy football leagues in the space of about three hours. "Finally," I thought to myself, "people are beginning to recognize that I am the greatest man alive." Needless to say, I decided to join, if only to bestow the blessing of my participation upon the others in the leagues.

Having made this great decision, I needed to begin the so-called "pre-draft process." Since I knew exactly what I was doing, I needed neither to research anything nor to accept advice from those who have done this in the past. Of course, by this I mean that I was completely lost, having not the slightest clue where to even begin, much less what to do. (Football? What's a football? Is that where people cut off their own feet and replace them with balls? Sounds kind of stupid to me...) So, I began at the place to which I was directed--namely, setting up an account on Yahoo so I could actually join the leagues.

Next came the most difficult task of selecting names for my teams. What name should I use to strike fear into the hearts of my enemies? Gophers? I mean, everyone is scared of little furry rodents with big buck teeth that are frequently shot by annoyed ranchers, right? Much more so than some ridiculous name like "Wolverines" or "Fighting Sioux" or "Vikings" (not that the Vikings have been anything to fear lately). "Gophers" or "Wild" is much more appropriate. So, after much consideration and finally coming to the realization that I am a being to be feared myself, I chose those classic figures of myth and terror "Wendigo" and "Chuthulu." If you really don't know what they are, I would suggest looking into some Native American mythology and reading a little H.P. Lovecraft. Or you could do it the lazy man's way (my way) and just look it up on Wikipedia. Of course, with my penchant for the macabre, in this instance I've actually read the materials in question...

Probably the easiest (by which I mean most difficult) part of the whole process was actually figuring out whom to place on my teams. I found that Yahoo allows you to export picks to all your Yahoo leagues. Being the lazy bum that I am, I of course took immediate advantage of this little tool, despite the fact that the two leagues are completely different in their scoring structures (which brings me to something else I didn't know about fantasy football--each league can almost limitlessly customize its structure, from the number of players and positions allowed to how the scoring occurs; one of my leagues is quite complicated [at least from my perspective], while the other is extremely streamlined). I mean, if picks are good in one system, they're good in all systems, right? Of course they are. Well, anyway, I actually did research to see whom I should consider picking--even to the point of figuring substatial depth for each position (from my perspective at the time--more on that later). Thirty-five pre-ranked players was enough to effectively fill 16 slots, I thought. Wrong. (Think Ray Stevens' "Haircut Song" for the appropriate voice here.) Of course, it didn't help that I wasn't able to be present at the live draft (although I got in on the last pick--hardly enough to even count). Yahoo automatically picked my players, drawing first from my pre-ranked selections and then from their own rankings. If I have taken nothing else away from this experience, it is that presence at the live draft is critical if you're going to have any chance of getting a really decent team. My team in the league that has already drafted is projected to fall somewhere near the bottom of the league...o.k., o.k. At the bottom. I think as things stand right now there is one team that I might have a chance to beat...assuming my injury prone key players can stay healthy...

Well, time will tell how the season goes. Regardless, it's been a hoot. I'm positive my sex-appeal will guarantee an invite again next year. Or maybe it'll be the fact that I field teams that a bunch of geriatric hobblers could crush. Either way, this'll be an experience.

As a side note, for those who care, the draft resulted in the following team (given in no particular order):

1) QB - Peyton Manning (Ind)

2) WR - Marvin Harrison (Ind)

3) WR - Santana Moss (Was)

4) WR - Nate Burleson (Sea)

5) RB - Laurence Maroney (NE)

6) RB - DeShaun Foster (Car)

7) TE - Jermaine Wiggins (Min)

8) BN/RB - Tatum Bell (Den)

9) BN/QB - Steve McNair (Bal)

10) BN/WR - Keyshawn Johnson (Car)

11) BN/WR - Marcus Robinson (Min)

12) BN/RB - Jamal Lewis (Bal)

13) BN/TE - Ben Troupe (Ten)

14) K - Josh Brown (Sea)

15) BN/K - Jason Elam (Den)

16) DEF - Indianapolis (Ind..Oh, wait. You might already know that.)

Immediately following the draft, I made the following changes...once again displaying the wonders of my intellectual prowess, as these moves were made at the recommendation of a couple of my...friends (read "mortal enemies" or "opponents," as you prefer):

1) Tatum Bell was dumped in favor of Frank Gore (BN/RB, SF)

2) Laurence Maroney was dumped in favor of Mike Bell (RB, Den)

Now you know, and knowing is half the battle...or knowledge is power...or any cliché you choose to insert here.

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Shelvable Heros

When I was growing up, one of the best times of the week was Tuesday at lunch. You see, every Tuesday, there would be new comic books in the local grocery store, and I would walk (okay, run) up to it after getting done with lunch to see what might have come in this week. It worked out great for a while. My parents gave me an allowance of $3.50 every week. $.35 went into the offering plate at Sunday School, leaving me $3.15, which was perfect. Comic books at that point were one dollar each plus tax. Seeing as I was living in a place where we had 5% sales, I could support a three comic book per week habit, and that's what it was. At least until they raised prices on me by a quarter, but for the longest time, it worked out great. Somewhere in the process of graduating from high school and going to college and getting married, I slipped away from reading comics on a regular basis. This was due to the rising cost of comics coupled with the fact that my disposable income went down the tube. Well, not to say that I ever had much disposable income, but I felt more guilty about spending what disposable income I had on comics as opposed to something slightly less frivilous - like rent. There were the rare occurrances where I would pick up an issue that looked especially interesting or if there was some sort of package deal with a full story-line for one price or a graphic novel that looked good, but for the most part I left all of that behind.

Spider-Man had always been one of my favorites. I still remember the first issue of Amazing Spider-Man that I purchased. It was issue #340 where Spider-Man fights against a group of evil women called the "Femme Fatales." Was it great literature? No, but it was an interesting story, and I was hooked on the character. Spider-Man is really the character that got me hooked on comics in general.

It was also Spider-Man that brought me back into comics. I as walking through Barnes & Noble one day when I saw a huge hardcover collection of Spider-Man comics. It was titled The Ultimate Spider-Man Collection. The sucker was thick; like two-and-a-half inches thick on very nice heavy-weight paper. I paged through it really quick and immediately recognized Mark Bagley's art on the pages as he was the artist on Spider-Man when I stopped collecting. The books were being written by some guy named Brian Michael Bendis that I had never heard of, but I was willing to give him a shot, so I put the book on my Christmas list and received it that December. I was hooked again.

It's hard for me to justify dropping a few bucks just to read 22 pages (or so) a month. What isn't hard to justify, though, is using Christmas, birthday, or Father's Day money on buying the graphic novel collections of the comics. They're several issues all in one very nice package with no ads, and they fit nicely on the book shelf. I've also discovered that our library system has quite a few graphic novels in stock. I've been on a reading frenzy lately. I've read a bunch of Alan Moore's stuff (Watchmen, V for Vendetta, Supreme, America's Best Comics) and Frank Miller's Sin City line along with most anything Marvel or DC that I can get my hands on. It's been fantastic. I don't think that I'll ever be at the point where I'm actually going to the comics' shop to buy two or three books a week, but for now, I'm getting my fix mostly for free through my local library and also listening to a couple of comic book-themed podcasts like Fanboy Radio, Comicology, and wordballoon. The odd thing is that one of the libraries seems to put the comic books in the non-fiction while another puts them in the SciFi section and still another puts them in the Young Adult section. Sigh. At least I can reserve the books from all over and have them sent to the library closest to me. However, some of the libraries don't exactly know how to label the comics in the sense that they have the "author" for some of the graphic novels for recent stories listed as Bob Kane who is the creator of Bat Man, but died in 1998.

So there you have it; I'm back in. I'm getting my fix as often as I can, and I'm loving every minute of it.

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