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.