The New Road

NFL Picks - Week 17

Alrighty, here are my picks for today and tomorrow. Should be a great end to the 2007 regular season.

Gotta say, in hindsight this is probably the easiest year to pick games. The whole parity thing has just collapsed. Teams are either great (e.g. Pats, Colts, Cowboys, Packers, etc.) or craptastic (e.g. Dolphins, Raiders, 49ers, Falcons, Eagles, Jets, etc. etc.) And the craptastic teams far outnumber the great ones. And while the Pats have been playing absolutely flawless football you have to wonder how they would have faired with a schedule that include a reasonable Dolphins team. And they were given that game twice. They played the awful Bills twice. The Eagles were way off this year. The played the now awesome Cowboys early in the season when they hadn't yet gotten it together.

Today's NFL Picks

Here are my picks for Sunday:

Today's NFL Pick

I'm taking Dallas. If Romo were healthy it's an easy pick. I'm worried about his thumb though. The guy is a big thrower and if you take that out of the equation...

tonights game

I'm taking Pitt.

KBR Gang Rape in Iraq

The stories coming out of Iraq are unceasingly appalling. Watch as one woman testifies before Congress as to how she was brutally gang raped while in the employ of KBR and how they covered it up. The Justice Department failed to show up to the hearing. And there are another 11 women who recount similar abuse. This is awful. People need to be held to account for their actions.

100% uncoolness achieved

I was out at the movies last Friday with Pam, Yvonne and Lori when I saw something that kinda thew me. It was a teenage kid with the usual get up; baggie pants around the knees, black hoodie, baseball cap crooked to the side. That's not unusual. What amazed me was that he pulled out a lint roller and went to work on his hoodie. Turns out that this look of total slovenliness, a look that forces the wearer to literally waddle as the pants are so low that full leg movement is not possible, is actually refined. I found myself wanting to walk up to the guy and say, "Dude, you look like shit and a lint roller isn't going to help. Pull up your damn pants."

Honestly, the Cavarrici pants that used to be all the rage when I was in High School were bad, but this baggy jeans stuff is way worse. Someone should take pictures of these kids and show the pictures to them when their are in their 30s. They'll blanch and just shake their heads at their own stupidity. At least Cavvaricis you could walk around in. When you find yourself the victim of fashion where all you can do is waddle, wouldn't you have to think twice about that?

Inquiring minds want to know; are these special types of jeans that actually go around the waste, but only start at the knees? Or are these regular jeans that they just low ride several inches below the ass?

BTW, I note that at the same location while all the boys were fashion handicapping themselves with baggy jeans all of the women were dressed in the usual slutty but functional gear.

Reminds me of that great line from Aliens; "Did IQs suddenly drop while I was away?"

I Am Legend - Plausibility

Alert, spoilers ahead for "I Am Legend". Stop reading now if you plan on seeing the movie.

I liked "I Am Legend". I really did. But looking back on it I'm kind of annoyed by the science in it, because it's just so, so bad. First, "I Am Legend" is not a Zombie movie. The people aren't undead. Undead people are actually easier to write about since they are supernatural, so regular laws of nature don't apply. "I Am Legend" is an "infection movie", for want of a better term, like Andromeda Strain or Outbreak (with Dustin Hoffman and Radio). "Infection movies" are about plagues, viruses and what not, so they should be at least somewhat medically plausible.

In "I Am Legend" Will Smith catches one of the infected people. She is athletically thin, his amazing boobs for her size, and is dressed in a zombie tank top and zombie white panties. He notes at the time that it took six times the usual dosage of sedative to knock her out. He also notes that all human personality traits are gone. Which is not true since her modesty is obviously in tact. And it looks like she had a bath recently, though she is extremely pale.

All of that's fine however. The problem for me comes when he talks about her resting heart rate, 200, and temperature, 130. Sorry, Charlie, temperature of 130, your brain would bake in two hours, you would be goo. Now about that heart rate. To illustrate the heart rate of 200 the actress had to hyperventilate during all of her scenes. Ouch.

Think about that, a resting heart rate of 200 BPM, when most of us run 60-80, and only get up to 170 when we are running for our lives? And she is idling at 200? Calorically speaking, to maintain 200 BPM all day would require 10,000 calories a day. Or in practical terms, eating all of Thanksgiving dinner every day. And I didn't see a lot of food around.

Just to add to that, the movie is set three years after the infection started. So according to the story this woman has been running at 200 BPM, eating Thanksgiving dinners every day, for three years. Yeah, not so much.

I get that the story had to be set three years out because it was primarily a character study in loneliness, but at least they could get the science somewhat right-er.

I have to give it to a film like "28 weeks later" that was shot on a fraction of the budget. They got it right. The deadly virus had run it's course in a couple of months because the infected just ran out of people to eat and starved to death.

Huckabee

This Huckabee thing on the right is getting more and more interesting. It's clear that the pundits and the old school cronies don't like him. It's clear that he isn't the usual "pander to the right then do nothing on social issues and concentrate on looting the government" type. He isn't going to play ball, so the the punditocracy is trying their best to poke holes in his campaign.

The question I have is, after the pundits have sunk Huckabee what will the social conservatives do? Will they stay with the rights chosen candidate like Guliani? Or finally realize that the republicans never represented them and splinter off? This election will be a defining moment for the party.

It will also be a litmus test for the media cabal on the right. Ninety percent of these pundits are the old school Heritage Foundation types. They talk a good game about social issues but are really just in it for the whites only croney system that they have learned to feed on. So will the social conservatives shut them down as well? Finally turn off Fox News and just listen to the old timey gospel hour on the AM?

I suppose door #2 is that the social conservatives back Guliani and thus concede that it was never about abortion but just the usual politics of racism.

Today's NFL Picks

Lost two already. Hopefully the rest will be better.

The Silent Passion

Here, in all of it's short and silent glory, is my Go Game's rendition of The Passion Of The Christ.

Tonight's NFL Pick

It's a close call but I'm going for Denver over Houston tonight.

Huckabee - Kind of a freak

Huckabee believes that angels fly on the tips of his rifle bullets:

"I decided that one way or the other, this hunt is about to be over, because I can’t stand any more of this cold. And somehow, by the grace of God, when I squeezed the trigger, my Weatherby .300 Mag, which has got to be the greatest gun, I think, ever made in the form of a rifle — for my sake in hunting, I’ve never squeezed the trigger and not gotten something — did its work, and somehow the angels took that bullet and went right to the antelope, and my hunt was over in a wonderful way."

Alrighty then...

An ID followup

People seem obsessed with putting labels on books and such in this manufactured evolution debate. How about we put this label on our biology science class doors:

"This is a biology science class. Here we deal with facts, hypothesis, theories and tests that help us understand the natural world. Genetics is central to what we do in this class. Because humans are genetically related to other species on this planet what we do here allows us to prevent and cure diseases. As scientists and people our genetic relationship to other species does not effect our spiritual lives. Science cannot prove or disprove the existence of God. Nor does it seek to. The existence of God is an interesting subject that is covered in the Philosophy class over in another building. Please do not attempt to mix a philosophy debate about the existence of God into the critical scientific study and research done in this classroom. To do would effect the contribution of billions to the economy that come from biologic science and our position as a world leader in medicine."

Whaddy'a say?

NIce weekend

Lots of fun stuff this weekend. I went to the Nutcracker with Lori and Megan. Megan was enthralled most of the time, but even though it was only an hour I could see her attention start to wain. But she liked the costumes, the princesses and the dancing.

On Saturday Megan and I took cinnamon rolls over to Dru's place. The new recipe held up well. I baked them a little long so they were a little drier than what I serve at the house, which are very gooey.

Lori went down to L.A. on Saturday to attend Barbara's baby shower. Megan and I spent the day shopping, watching Titan A.E., playing Mario, baking cinnamon rolls, and taking them to Dru.

My Sunday picks turned out to be pretty good. Even if I lose tonight I'll still be at 75% which will be my best week. The only pick I really screwed up on was Rams/Bengals. If I had known anything about that game I would have gone for the Bengals.

NFL Picks

I'm baaack. I got slammed last weekend. Only place to go from here is up, right?

Alright, I'm already starting one down, but hey, it's fun to see if I can get a few wins from here to get up from last week.

Of Labradoodles And People

i got to thinking about evolution and intelligent design a couple of days ago when a co-worker mentioned that he owned a Labradoodle. A Labradoodle is a cross between a Labrador and a Poodle that was first bred in 1989. So it's pretty recent. Which got me to thinking, how does a Labradoodle fit into the intelligent design theory Intelligent design states that some species for reasons unknown are popped into existence fully formed by an intelligent agency (i.e. god). So the intelligent design tree for a Labradoodle could look like this:

All three dogs were created by a supernatural event fully formed (as indicated here by a star). But we know that's untrue because we bred the Labradoodle. We did. Humans. Humans made the Labradoodle by forcing the mating of two related species of dogs which, as the well proven scientific fact of DNA and genetics proves, crosses the genome and creates a new unique variant.

So this:

Is obviously closer to the truth. But we also know that Labradors and Poodles are actually just bred variants of much older dogs, I'll say Rottweiler as a placeholder because they are a very old breed of domesticated dogs (Roman soldiers used Rotties.)

But this too is untrue because we know that all canines are descended from wolves. The wolves were domesticated in a parasitic relationship with the first agricultural communities.

So the problem here is that evolution is winning this debate. Every time one of the stars is replaced with knowledge, some of which you know for yourself, evolution win and intelligent design loses. And this little example is just a tiny portion of a much larger tree. Where scientific knowledge has replaced every star, including the star at the base of homo sapiens (which is us, and the only star that intelligent design scientists care about) with a very strong link to our apes.

I for one, am happy to be descended from apes, who can have their lineage tracked back to the first unicellular organisms that flourished in the organic soup that started life on this planet. I'm proud that we have evolved so far and yet are still completely connected to the rest of life on this planet. It means that we are symbiotic with this particular planet. That the Earth isn't just a bunch of dirt we happen to be on. We are one in the same, and the unique environment of the Earth, over time, shaped both itself and humans. It's amazing.

But I digress. Intelligent design theory is a joke. You can't prove it. It's not based on any facts. It's just a critique of a real theory (evolution) which has stood the test of time and test and only been proven strong. ID doesn't even hold up to explaining the origin of household dogs. I can disprove intelligent design in twenty minutes with OmniGraffle. What a joke.

Intelligent design theory: FAIL.

Chihuaha?

I don't know, man, you tell me:

Open and shut, I reckon. I'm actually fine with him being a Chihuaha.

The Go Game

On a lighter note, yesterday was our company's Christmas party. Instead of doing the usual big dinner out we were treated to "The Go Game". The company, which is still small, was divided up into three teams and sent out in a scavenger hunt through the Mission district of San Francisco. The missions ranged from finding things and reporting back information about them via a cell phone. To creating movies on the fly using available props from around the neighborhood. To finding out secret password by interacting with the locals.

It was a hell of a lot of fun and I really got to know, and like, the two guys I was playing with. At the end all three teams met up and we were shown the movies each team came up with. The hilight of the evening was the comparisons of the three teams doing a 'historical ballet' where you had to recreate a historical event using a video with no sound and do it dancing. The first team did Apollo 13, the second team did something that I'm spacing on at the moment, and my team did 'The Passion'. Josh, a Jew, played Jesus and I played a roman soldier. Explaining it here would do it little justice. The video will be posted on their site in a few days and I'll make a copy and post it up here.

I strongly recommend "The Go Game" for small groups of folks who want to have a really good time.

Marc Orchant

A few months back when Lori, Megan and I went to Colorado I spent some time with a wonderful guy name Marc Orchant. Marc is one of those people with that magical spark of life. They light up any room with their passion and intensity. His enthusiasm is infectious.

Four days ago Marc suffered a massive heart attack and is now fighting for his life in the hospital. Please join me in keeping Marc and his family in your thoughts during this tough period. He is a fighter and I know he will get through it.

Cinnamon Rolls - Jacks Variant Version 2

Here is my second take on rewriting the family's cinnamon roll recipe. This time I changed out the butter/milk combination that required both heating and cooling for a much easier milk powder and water combination. Milk powder is great in bread doughs because it's easy to add, doesn't require tricky heating, is cheap as chips and lasts forever in the pantry.

NFL Picks

Here is to hoping that I can do better than 50% today. Thankfully I'm already up one on the week with the Dallas win over Green Bay. So, here goes:

I made a lot of odd picks here. Hopefully it should be fun.

Crayon physics

This game looks really cool.

I love how he draws a car in the second level and the car actually works.