Blah, Blah, Blah: Another obligatory fantasy update

Your author is hard-pressed to think of something that can cause an immediate loss of interest quite like hearing about someone's fantasy team. Having friends and co-workers recite their rosters with no real purpose other than to gloat about conquering leagues you're not involved in seems quite banal and pointless, no?

That said, the author knows full well that you the dear reader probably also couldn't give two shits about whatever fantasy team he's gone and created after so many years of taking that road less traveled where non-participation seemed cooler. Now the author has multiple fantasy teams, and while he tries mightily not to bring those into the other posts here on BMC that you might actually read, every once in a while, if for no other purpose than to help him remember who he had on such teams in a given year, he likes to keep a recorded entry of how he's done.

This is one of those times. Your non-interest in the remainder of this post is understood.

Week One Power Rankings: Where there's always 16 ties

The opening week's Power Rankings are traditionally the most meaningless numbers of the season, but still fun to look at and reflect on which teams came through, which were surprises, and which were real busts. Considering that many people in both confidence pools got their 16-point—and supposedly most confident—game wrong (including yours truly), this week wasn't short on surprises—or as the picture to the left there proved, a little bit of controversy. (For the record, I immediately said I felt "dirty" after seeing the Bears win the game like that.)

My picks were good for 90 points last weekend, a real drop from the 117 points I had to open last season. But how good was that in comparison to the other participants in the two confidence pools I'm in?

Things I made while offline: Fergie Jenkins

Because this blog will be dominated by football-related content for the next five months, your author has decided to make an effort to regularly post pictures his lovely and talented sister took of some of his artwork. These posts will include a brief thought or two about when the piece was made. 

This week: Charcoal pencil drawing of Chicago Cubs Hall of Fame pitcher Ferguson Jenkins

Week One Picks: How do I do this again?

As another season gets ready to kick off here, I'm trying to remember how I did things last year—and the year before that. So be patient with me as I adjust, but I'll have you know that I fancied up the table of predictions from others for this year. Brian Burke's probabilities haven't been listed yet over at the New York Times' Fifth Down blog, so adding his theoretical confidence pool sheet to the table is apparently going to have to wait for another week. Still, in the meantime, here's four other confidence layouts for me to use as a starting point and for you to peruse in perhaps filling out your own:

2010 NFL Predictions: Far from confident

The NFL season kicks off tonight, and it has once again snuck up on me—despite my being in two different fantasy football leagues (where my interest is rather "meh") and the same two confidence pools (where my interest will once again be more along the lines of "batshit crazy").

On a local level, I'm sure my lack of enthusiasm going into this season is somewhat justified by the hometown Bears losing all four of their preseason games. Oh sure, it was "just the preseason" and my uncle was quick to remind me about the Lions winning all four of those meaningless games the same year they lost all 16 of the games that did count. But I would've preferred some semblance of, say, an offensive line to make sure Jay Cutler is not ending up on his ass as often as he had to last year. So I'm not too terribly optimistic about my own favorite team's chances.

I'm also not too optimistic about the owners locking the players out next season, which will probably become a story we'll hear more about throughout this year—nor am I too terribly confident in general about how my prognosticating about the forthcoming NFL season in general is going to go.

Still, this blog's basically all about the predictions I make for the four major sports, and I'll give it another shot this year.

The Braves' Third Quarter: No shortage of suspense

Much like when I'd had an alternate graphic prepared for the first quarter of this Braves season, I'd thought that the memorable evening dedicated to Tommy Boy was certainly going to be a lock for this third quarter image. Instead, the horribly unfortunate hand of fate made a win in Houston feel like something of a loss as Atlanta's future Hall of Fame third baseman went down for the remainder of the season—possibly even his career (although I really doubt he's going out like that).

If indeed the pretty much universally pre-season favored Phillies complete a late-season charge to overtake the Bravos for the division, I suspect it will be that night in Houston to which many point as the point the whole thing began to go downhill. However, as a fan, I still believe Chipper was only a part of what put this team into first place. There's plenty of other assorted pieces to the puzzle that have kept them there—and could continue to if those players keep it up to the very end:

The BMC Vault: Greg Couch on the death of Pat Tillman

Welcome to The BMC Vault, yet another tag recently created that will hopefully provide future excuses to post. Since so many online publications decide to be dicks and not leave some of their really great older stuff available for the sake of our posterity, I'm trying to lend a helping hand in the name of humanity. Requests for future installments can be sent here.

Today marks the release of the movie I previously stated I had to see in the theater as soon as it's released. Of course, it's just a limited release this weekend (lucky bastards in New York and Hell-A), but the story of Pat Tillman is one that still fascinates me to no end. And so far, the reviews look pretty darn good. 

Movie Review: The Messenger

Way back when, your author used to fancy himself a movie critic. And on occasion, some people he hasn't talked to in a while will immediately ask if he still reviews movies. Since he usually has to begrudgingly admit that he is still waiting tables instead, there will occasionally be movie reviews posted here at BMC—not necessarily new or even the most recent releases, but still technically reviews—just so he can say he indeed still bitches about what's getting too much/not enough attention. Reviews will offer a quick take that ends with a brief summarizing thought that, in the spirit of Metacritic or Sound Opinions, will be in green (denoting a positive opinion), yellow (mixed opinion) or red (negative opinion). And sorry, but no star-ratings or letter grades.

Today's review: "The Messenger," originally released January 19, 2009 at the Sundance Film Festival. 

Final Thoughts on 2009-10 (STANLEY CUP CHAMPION [!!!]) Chicago Blackhawks: I can die a happy man now

The last time I attended a championship rally for one of my Four Bs was in 1998, when the Chicago Bulls were in Grant Park celebrating their sixth title in eight years and basically saying the dynasty was over.

It was the first time I'd actually made the voyage to the city to take part in the festivities, which by that point, seemed to be an annual part of summer. My friends and I were also now a couple years into our individual college experiences, and me being the sap that stayed home to go to community college, that particular year marked the time I began the love affair with alcohol that pretty much became the nucleus of my twenties.

The night before that rally and the train ride downtown involved many repeated shots and sips of Jack Daniels or whatever vodka was in that Sprite bottle, and one buddy had to take one of the girls back to the 'burbs after she got sick. But I was so incredibly proud of my own developing tolerance in those initial stages that I brought a sign to the rally proclaiming, "I'M DRUNK" with an arrow pointing down. I wanted the whole world to know how great a time I was having, but instead the sign (it read "FUCK KRAUSE" on the other side, by the way) ended up being placed over a different buddy's chest after he passed out in the park as soon as we arrived. People passing by would stop and have their picture taken beside our intoxicated friend while he slept and I could only laugh, completely oblivious to the disaster the Bulls were about to become and thinking that this party was how it would be every summer, every year, for the rest of time.

So it was a strange yet wonderful feeling this past June when after nearly two years of being off the sauce, I found myself in the city once again to be part of the madness that was the day honoring our World Champion Chicago Blackhawks. If my own feelings about just the rally are hard to put into words, then what, really, can be said about all of the glorious moments from this unforgettable season? 

Stupid Fucking Virus: Never, ever, EVER pay to have malware removed

I had planned to squeeze a different post in for the last day of July, but instead spent far too much time this weekend dealing with something called "Antivir Solution Platinum." It is yet another bogus piece of computer security software that not surprisingly ends up high on the Google search results when I typed in those first three words to the title of this post.

My friend once told me how he came to learn a lot about computers simply by fixing any problems on his own, and now that he's got a kid, he can no longer run over to my house to fix our PC after Mom or Dad (but certainly not me, of course) fuck some shit up old-school by clicking on one of the fraudulent security threats. So the past three or four times this has happened, I referred to the video in this post and followed those simple instructions. Until this weekend, the trio of spyware-killing programs did the trick. You can and should download all three—seeing as they're all free: