Things I made while offline: The Superhero Factory

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: An ink & color pencil drawing of a Superhero-producing factory 

Week 12 Picks: After the fact

I had the best Thanksgiving holiday I've had in quite some time EVER. No, it had nothing to do with football, of course. But I'll elaborate more on that once I catch up on this NFL stuff. God forbid we have the regular schedule of predictions be offset by posts containing genuine emotion.

As usual, the actual holiday games were pretty much mismatches, leaving me concerned more with the weekend's slate of games. As the Power Rankings summary will show, most everybody had the same picks for relatively high amounts for Thursday's three games and it was indeed the Sunday contests that made the difference—with the otherwise forgettable Monday night game determining a winner or two. Like I said, I'll get to those pool summaries in the upcoming Power Rankings post for Week 12, but in the meantime, there were picks to be made the morning of Turkey Day. So for the sake of posterity, this is how the predictions lined up for Week 12.

Week 11 Power Rankings: Somewhat forgettable

As I get started here on catching up on what I missed during the utterly fantastic little break I just took from work and posting here on BMC, I suppose the one thing I wanted to remember Week 11 by was Richard Seymour leveling Big Ben during Pittsburgh's 35-3 blowout of Oakland.

 

I did decently enough with my picks that week to gain another 109 points, but the week got off to a bad start with me being in the minority in picking the banged-up Dolphins to beat my beloved Bears on Thursday night. There were two other rather costly games that weekend that ultimately doomed my hopes and as a result, I wasn't able to finish atop the standings in either pool despite a respectable enough record for the week.

 

Again, it was a week where even a strong straight-up record was going to be offset by the proper placement of bets, and most damaging was the Washington Redskins continuing to be an enigma for me on the year by doing the opposite of what I had expected. I mean, wasn't that Randy Moss fellow supposed to be playing or something?

 

Whatvevs. Not necessarily a terrible week, but not a great one either.

Gimme a moment: Holiday Break

I realize I still haven't even updated my picks from Week 11 (I went 11-5, for the record) and this would be about the time the Power Rankings would be getting posted while I rushed to get Week 12 Picks ready for three games on Thanksgiving and ... oh, well, you know what? All of that's going to have to wait, I'm afraid.

See, now that I've been working again for a whole, oh, four months now, I've decided I'm going to use the upcoming holiday for a little mini-vacation of sorts. I really earned it, of course. And by vacation, I mean I'll be taking the rest of the week off starting tomorrow to help someone pretty darn special see Chicago for the very first time.

Needless to say, I have no intention of taking away from that time just to post my picks to this blog before the deadline. Sorry.

But fear not, for I have screencapped all the results from last week and will post the belated picks after the fact next week when I'm back to the normal schedule. Oh, and hopefully I'll elaborate a little more on what I actually do this week.

In the meantime, enjoy your Thanksgiving, dear readers.

Things I made while offline: The Crying Teddy Bear

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: A pencil (and some watercolor) still-life of a teddy bear holding a rose 

Week 11 Picks: Rolling with the deadlines

So this week was supposed to be the unveiling of the "rolling deadline" in our PoolHost confidence pool, but it appears that instead we're stuck with the picks we entered on Thursday—well, those of us who got those picks in time anyway. Maybe next week, I guess.

As a matter of clarification, the Yahoo pool has always allowed changes for all games right up until kickoff, but I obviously keep my picks the same for all pools I enter just to keep things simple on this blog. I don't need different sets of picks to be citing and making shit more confusing than it already can be. I imagine that after the details get hammered out in the PoolHost pool—namely the amount of the penalty to failing to submit a Thursday pick in time—I'll have more to say. But for now, my picks picks remain the same as I entered them on Thursday night, and we have yet to begin, um, "rolling" these deadlines.

Thursday Night Pick: Letting go

This being the 25th anniversary of the Chicago Bears legendary Super Bowl XX-winning team, we in the area have had to endure even more nostalgic mentions of that group than most regular seasons—which, for the most part, is still remarkably over-the-top. Considering that Bears team was my first real memory of professional sports on television, I've got a soft spot for that collection of characters too. But that said, I'm really quite over it now. And I've been over it for a while. A quarter-century is officially too long a time to still be basking in afterglow.

Of course, the hometown Bears are in Miami tonight, a city which never fails to elicit memories of the one blemish to that 1985 team's record that year. Looking back at that clip I've included here, it's still rather amazing to me that the Dolphins victory that Monday night 25 years ago remains the highest-rated telecast of that long-running program. (Oh, and of course it's even more incredible to see O.J. Simpson in the booth).

That game gets brought up every time the Bears have to face the Dolphins—even though Miami had a more recent occasion in which they ruined a Bears perfect season. But perhaps because Chicago didn't end up winning the Super Bowl that year, maybe everybody just forgot about it.

The Blackhawks' First Quarter: It isn't just Kaner that's hungover

I can't say that the expectations this season were nearly as high for the Blackhawks, even with a Stanley Cup to defend entering this year. As noted in the predictions coming into this season, nobody really liked this team's chances to repeat. A lot of that probably had to do with the heavy roster turnover, but there's also just the simple fact that repeating as champions in the National Hockey League is something that doesn't happen all that often.

Still, the Hawks came out of the gate in quite the sluggish fashion to begin the 2010-11 campaign, and you name the excuse, most everybody will have cited it. In addition to the new faces, there was the short break following the Cup win, the simple number of games they had to begin this year (no other team in their division has played 20 games yet), and of course, the injuries that are basically unavoidable in any hockey season.

So now one-fourth of the way through this season after winning it all, there's still a great deal about this team that remains to be determined. After getting the annual "circus trip" off to an encouraging start last night, here's how the first quarter of the title defense began.

Week 10 Power Rankings: Being a gracious loser

Week 10 got off to a somewhat rocky start with the Thursday night game being back in the mix and forcing me to commit to my picks earlier than I'd been growing accustomed to. I wish I could blame my lackluster 53 points on the scheduling change, but—as has been the story most of this NFL season—instead many people's picks suffered as the result of underdogs emerging victorious over presumptive favorites.

I suppose that my most regrettable pick, in hindsight, would be placing 11 points on the Steelers in a Sunday night game they pretty much got smacked around in, but even had I ranked it lower, I'm not sure it really would have made a difference when considering how the whole slate of games seemed to go.

Again, the best part about confidence pools as opposed to fantasy games remains that at the end of every given week, the participants can only blame themselves for how placed their bets. This past weekend left me with a number of games that I could say I should've gone the other way or should've ranked lower, but in the end, it's not all bad news.

Things I made while offline: Tom Petty

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: An ink & color pencil drawing of musician Tom Petty 

Moving right along: Another 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 10 Picks: Short on time

No graphics or anecdotes this week as it's a little hectic with offline business this weekend, but as previously mentioned, my picks are now apparently being submitted on Thursdays anyway.

Thursday Night Pick: Popping a cherry

So we're back to that part of the NFL season where there's a game on Thursday nights and my usual plan of waiting until late Saturday night/early Sunday morning to finalize my picks will have to change. Considering this is the first year that the one group is using the PoolHost site for that particular confidence pool, this week is going to be test run for whether I'm allowed to alter my picks after submitting them in a moment after I post this. That said, I will still be waiting until later this weekend to post my remaining picks for the weekend's slate of games, but in the meantime, I'm forced to submit my first prediction for Week 10.

The saving grace here is that tonight's game features a pretty even matchup, so while I'm waiting to see how many people might fail to submit a pick, how (or even if) they'll be penalized, and whether I'll be able to modify the rest of my picks, I think that it works out well for this first time through with my Thursday pick only being for a single point. At worst, I'll suffer the most minimal damage possible and wouldn't lose any ground to those who fail to submit picks if the site—as I fear it might—simply allows users to submit the rest of their picks and only deprives them of their one-point bets instead of, say, maximum damage by costing them 14 points as the administrator of the pool used to do in seasons past.

So let's get Week 10 rolling:

The Bears' Second Quarter: They aren't who we hoped they were

I remember a friend and I looking at one of the large posters in a local bar with the Bears' 2010 schedule on it earlier this season when things were still going well, and the nervous feeling I had about how deceptive some of the supposedly easier games were before the much tougher second half kicked in. My prediction at the time was that Chicago could finish 8-8.

So would that be considered optimistic now? When the team's first quarter of this campaign ended, I thought we'd be entering this update with a bit stronger of a winning record than the 5-3 mark the Bears enter their ninth game with. I suppose a .500 finish isn't terribly unrealistic at this point, but considering the fast start to the year, anything less than a playoff appearance would be a pretty crushing disappointment.

And another year without getting into the postseason would also likely mean Lovie Smith is also out of a job. Entering the second half of the year, you can bet that it's the head coach's job that will likely be most talked about if the Bears can't remain in the playoff picture.

Week Nine Power Rankings: What you miss can be just as important as what you get right

Maybe this past weekend would have been the most appropriate Sunday yet to break out that Browns sweatshirt. What's that? I didn't even pick Cleveland, you say?

Well, yeah, I didn't. But I also didn't bet heavily against them, either. So when you consider that New England's loss was the only real upset of the week and it was only one of two games I missed last week (the other being a single point I had gone back and forth on before placing on the Colts), the eight points Cleveland cost me on my picks made my final score of 82 points hold up quite nicely.

In many ways, last weekend served as further proof of why I still love the confidence pools far more than any of the fantasy sports, as all participants are required to play with the same pieces but it all comes down to the order they elect to play them in. And maybe there were some other contests that earned me points in this past weekend's games that helped, but ultimately, my first place finish in both confidence pools was thanks in large part to the minimal damage caused by my mere two incorrect predictions.

Things I made while offline: The Map

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: An ink map of the route from my home (at the time) to art class 

Week Nine Picks: In which the NFL appropriately has two CFL-quality teams play in Canada

On paper, it would appear that the Bears shouldn't have much to worry about when they go up to Toronto this weekend for what counts as a home game to the otherwise winless Buffalo Bills. Yet, here I am feeling increasingly cynical about all the many things that could go wrong and how Chicago will find a way to screw this one up, thus becoming the national joke for the week by becoming the first team to actually lose to the lowly Bills this season.

It won't be the lowest-ranked game among my confidence pool picks this week, for sure, but it will be a game I'll probably be watching through squinted eyes most of the day and feel the queasiest about entering this week's picks.

You know it's a weird week when the Chiefs and the Raiders are battling it out for the top spot in the AFC West. And actually, the Atlanta Falcons are also involved in a game for sole possession of the lead in their division with ... the Tampa Bay Bucaneers?

I never would've guessed that those two games would turn out to be as pivotal as they will be, but who knows what game's really going to turn out to be the one that surprises the most.

Final Thoughts on 2010 MLB Season: Everybody's a fool

Another Major League Baseball season concluded sooner than I had anticipated with an ending that was certainly more exciting for some, but left me pretty lukewarm about the whole postseason. Indeed, we went through October with only one of the seven series played going the maximum number of games—and even that one set that did go to a winner-take-all finale was pretty ho-hum.

Still, I'm sure my bitterness has a little something to do with the fact that my pick before this season began was, of course, my favorite team in the league. And seeing as how their season slowly unraveled until finally falling apart altogether in the Division Series with the eventual World Champions, it's hard to get too enthusiastic about the eventual result—especially when you consider how I felt about Barry Bonds and the Bay Area fans that mostly remain apologists for him.

But looking back, the way this season played out certainly defied most every expert's initial prediction—which is usually the case when the New York Yankees somehow aren't involved in the Fall Classic.

Week Eight Power Rankings: Purple Personnel Disasters

I've long held a passionate dislike for the Minnesota Vikings, so forgive me for really enjoying how miserably this season has gone for them so far. This past weekend offered a helluva twofer on opportunities to bask in the team's continuing struggles as not only did Gramps find himself having to be carted off the field for a couple scratches to his chin, but then the much-ballyhooed reacquisition of Randy Moss essentially blew up in Minneapolis' face.

That was a delicious double-whammy to savor since the Monsters of the Midway had the week off and spared me any further Chicago embarrassment for at least one week. Still, I got to take a little more joy in that purple & gold pain and can hardly wait to see the next disastrous chapter in this sorry Vikes saga.

The Minnesota loss to New England in the late game was one of the couple higher-end picks I actually had right last week. With only 13 games on the schedule, the couple others I missed hurt and I only wound up with 54 points for my picks on the weekend.

As you could probably guess, that unimpressive total score didn't stand out for the week, but it doesn't look all that bad when you put the races for the year into perspective.