Weekly Picks

A garbage touchdown by the Jets cost me a perfect 6 and a winning record for the season. Look how close to .500 I am all across the board, all types of bets.

indianapolis +7 1/2 KANSAS CITY
The Chiefs have been on fire. The Colts are very questionable but they have performed much better against good teams than bad ones.

denver -10 1/2 HOUSTON
The Broncos still need this game for homefield so they will come out guns blazing, except Welker.

CINCINNATI -7 1/2 minnesota
The Bengals look horrible in losing to Pittsburgh on Sunday Night. The Vikings looked great in scoring 48 points against the Eagles.

JACKSONVILLE +5 tennessee
The Jags are actually playing much better lately. And I have only picked 2 home dogs all season.

BEST BET
dallas -2 1/2 WASHINGTON
I hate doing this but Dallas has been embarrassed all week, and they need this game and the Redskins are just sooooooo bad, the spread is so small and Shanahan doesn't even seem like he wants to win. The only wild card here is Kirk Cousins. If he has a great game against a shitty defense, that's the only way the Redskins can win.

Last Week: 4-1 (3 points)
Season: 37-38 (32 points)
Best Bets: 0-1 (5-10)
Home Favorites: 1-1 (17-17)
Home Underdogs: 0-0 (1-1)
Road Favorites: 2-0 (10-9)
Road Underdogs: 1-0 (9-11)

Ship the Cheese

The Poop is poker's newest thousandaire.

Here's the explanation: holiday promotion by Ultimate Poker. A nightly $1 buy-in tournament, with $1000 guaranteed for first place. They call it the Thousandaire!
Not only did I win the tournament I did it while fighting with Julian to eat dinner, then putting them to bed, including pajamas and teeth-brushing (no story, though). I even had Chase reading my cards to me and pressing fold while I wiped Julian's ass.
I did get lucky in some spots (bottom set vs top 2 and top-top was the hand that really propelled me) but I never had a blatant suckout, and during heads up (with a $967 pay jump) I played great, pounding on my opponent until I got him down 2 to 1 and finally put him away with 8s vs 7s.

This means a lot to me because I can now play cash games and tournaments without really worrying about what it will do to my bankroll. It also feels great because I have tried really hard at poker for a long time and never had any major success. Now I am surely a lifetime winner at poker and hopefully better things lay ahead.
But more importantly I set a great example for my children (Chase is gonna love it), that if you want to be good at something you work hard, you believe in yourself and you can accomplish great things!

The NFL is Poop - Week 15

Who Wants It?
After an entire season of Denver and New England going back and forth at the top of the AFC, both teams have hit the skids recently. The Broncos turned in a prime time stinker against the Chargers and the Patriots needed a miracle to beat the Browns but lost Rob Gronkowski which proved to be a huge loss when the Patriots followed that up by losing to the Dolphins. That loss opened the door for the Bengals...who got smoked by the Steelers. The Colts are 9-5 but maddeningly inconsistent, so it would be hard to pick them to win the AFC. That leaves one team, with the best record in the conference, the Kansas City Chiefs. Yes they had a 3 game losing streak, but two of those losses were to Denver, and they have rebounded nicely by scoring 101 points in two games. They went from sleeper, to pretender, to serious threat, in the span of a month.

Home is Where the Heart Is
Meanwhile in the NFC, there are two top contenders, Seattle and New Orleans, that are completely different teams. They share one thing in common, they are both dominant at home and iffy on the road. I can't believe New Orleans dropped that stinker in St. Louis, and though the Seahawks dominated the Giants, I'm not sure how much that tells us. At this point it would be very har to pick anyone else to win the NFC besides Seattle.

Game of the Week
Green Bay Packers 37 Dallas Cowboys 36
An epic collapse has sent the entire franchise into disarray. Jerry Jones blaming Jason Garrett. Jason Garrett blaming Bill Callahan and Tony Romo. And everyone pointing the finger at Dez Bryant. But I want to talk about Tony Romo. This is the second game this season (the 51-48 loss to Denver was the first), when he had an amazing game, but made one big mistake late that hurt the team. But we shouldn't let it overshadow the amazing comeback by the Packers, with Matt Flynn leading them to 5 touchdowns in the second half. Flynn is another mystery/enigma we can deal with another time.

Crybaby? More like Lie-Baby
Dez Bryant walked off the field late in that game, but before time had officially run out. I don't buy that it sends the message that he is walking out on his team, but I also don't buy his excuse that he went inside the locker room to cry where no one could see him. What it does tell me, is that he a selfish guy who cares very little about anyone but himself. He didn't care about anyone or anything when he took improper benefits from Deion Sanders, or when he lied to the NCAA investigators about it or when he screamed at his teammates on the sidelines.
Randy Moss had similar attitude problems, and even did the same walk off early thing, and had similar tremendous physical gifts and he had a very successful career. Bryant is so good, and so troublesome, his career will likely trace a similar arc.

A Brief Rant About the Redskins
This team is in a pickle. It's not just the injury, Robert Griffin III played horribly. At his best RGIII is miles ahead of Cousins at his best. But what if RGIII is never at his best again? I don't think you can trade Cousins in the offseason because you need some insurance, and even if he plays 3 good games, you won't get much back for him. Better to just keep him.
But definitely fire Mike Shanahan.
He should have played for overtime.

Game of Next Week
Indianapolis Colts and Kansas City Chiefs.
There are a few good ones this week including New England at Baltimore, but I am anxious to see if one of these teams assert themselves as a real contender in the AFC. This is also a possible first round preview.

If the Super Bowl Were Played Today
Seattle Seahawks 21 Kansas City Chiefs 17
We've spent most of the column addressing this already, but I have doubts about Denver and New England, and Kansas City has looked amazing in the past two weeks. No way anyone goes into Seattle and beats the Seahawks. I just don't see it happening.

The Orange Will Be Well-Represented at the Texas Bowl

I have often criticized Sean Keeley, author of Troy Nunes is an Absolute Magician (the blog of record for Syracuse University sports) as having gotten too big for his britches. And I still may be correct on that one, but I have to give him credit for an awesome idea of his that really took off.
Keeley posted that since many SU fans would not be able to get to the Texas Bowl in Houston to see the Orange play Minnesota, they should donate some money, and if he could raise $10,000, the money could send roughly 200 kids from local youth organizations to the game to cheer in our stead.
Like I said, the idea really took off, donations are close to $20,000 and Texas Bowl organizers lowered the ticket price to $20 from $50, meaning sending 1,000 kids, giving them SU shirts, and hot dogs and drinks, is now a reasonable goal.
The only problem is finding enough kids.

Song of the Week

"Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" - Mary J Blige

I Don't Remember Getting Older, When Did They?

The producers of "Girl Meets World" posted this picture, the "Boy Meets World" cast then (1996) and now, 17 years later.

First thing that jumps out is that Mr. Turner is not there. He's not dead. He's just not relevant to this spinoff and probably wasn't willing to be in the picture and go home without getting paid. Other things I noticed: Topanga looks great. Shawn and Eric look like brothers. Feeny looks very old. Amy hasn't aged a bit. What the fuck is on Alan's head? It looks like he took Turner's mullet and bleached it then slapped it on his head.

That's Gonna Leave a Mark

Hockey can be a dangerous game. There are angry guys with sticks shooting frozen rubber discs at up to 100 miles an hour. And oh yeah, they are wearing very sharp skates on their feet.
Every once in a while one of those skates cuts someone.
That's what happened to Sebastian Courcelles during a Ligue Nord-Americaine de Hockey (LNAH) game in Quebec.

Warning: if you have a vagina you will probably not want to see this picture.

But don't worry, 50 stitches later, they fixed Courcelles up real nice, you can hardly tell.

Egad! That almost looks worse.

Kind of makes players who don't want to wear visors seem pretty dumb. Even though it might not necessarily have helped in this particular case.

Story found by Billy