Some race; some walk.

We are only about a week away from the long-awaited 10 Kilometer throwdown pitting Andy against both Christian “the turtle” Teter and Matt “helix pomatia” Hatem. This will be Andy’s first competitive race since he humiliated Hatem at the second Bridges for Friendship race sometime last millennium.

In commemoration of the event, limited-edition, collectible race cards will be released Sept 14. These grayscale cards (printed on a grade of paper just above Charmin one-ply camping-grade travel toilet paper) feature statistics, fun factoids, and biographical information on all three runners.

We will post ordering information soon. Please note that cards will be sold entirely on a first-come-first-served basis. Once they’re gone… they’re gone!

*Note: Matt’s card has an error! His record against Andy is actually 1 win and 3 losses, rather than 2 losses. Hopefully we can get that information to the printer in time! Click on any card for a larger, uncropped version.

Kenny easily overmatched a coin flip!

In a shocking turn of events, Kenny came back to lose by the slimmest of margins in this week’s NFL Smackdown! Always the gentleman, Kenny tried to decline the honor and to claim a tie with Emily, but that selfless move just makes Kenny all the more worthy of the First Place Loser Ribbon!

Curtis “coin-flip” James took the news in stride. “You know. Occasionally I get a game or two up, but I just seem to even out by the end. I’ll never forget the 13 game week when I got 6.5 games correct and 6.5 games incorrect. I just can’t seem to get ahead! I feel happy for Kenny, though. He deserves it! He’s been right there not winning by the tiniest of margins all season!”

Kenny outwitted a well-trained, game-picking gamecock... for second place!

Revere Red was visibly upset after the conclusion of Monday Night Football.

“F’n Arizona posers! Where’s the bird support, my fowl peeps!? All I needed was one game and I could have won First Place Loser, but will a cardinal ever help a brother out!? No! They went out there and done crapped all over my car!

I’d go back to cock fighting in Tijuana this second if  Michael Vick hadn’t turned everyone on to pitbulls instead of roosters. Damn you, Michael Vick! And damn you, Kenny!”

Andy's lackluster overall record belies his healthy and accumulating yearly winnings!

An almost perpetual cellar-dweller in the standings this year (save for his miraculous double tie breaker half pot victory a few weeks ago), Andy offered Kenny some sage advice.

“Consistency is a quiet killer. Doing well in the cumulative is for suckers, man. You gotta hang out on the bottom like a Bayou catfish and then strike like a piranha… at least a solitary piranha that’s still really angry and vicious… maybe more like a freshwater pike… I’m not quite settled on a species of fish… in any event, though, being almost great for a long time will never beat true weekly greatness! I was the greatest! I’ll be the greatest again! High highs spring forth from low lows; all else is but a flavor of mediocrity… like vanilla! Vanilla’s bad, Kenny! Aspire to be Coffee Heath Bar Crunch!”

Oh boy!

Lastly, Barney the friendly purple dinosaur chimed in, “I love you, Kenny. I love almost everyone due to my curiously infectious theme song and well-written work-release settlement. I love kittens AND puppies roughly equally! I do not, however, love your chances of ever winning an NFL Smackdown week; I don’t love your chances at all! Let’s go play with crayons, kids!”

Wake me if something happens.

Some have suggested that I have left the Cancun post up for an inordinate amount of time simply because it represents such a convincing victory over Nancy and Christian. Never before have I competed in the pseudo marine biochemistry field, so it IS amazing for me to walk away with the gold medal in salinity musing.

That being said, I have not allowed the prior post to linger for any reason other than a pesky busyness that has descended upon me. This too shall pass, or I will have it removed like a malfunctioning appendix.

In case I find no time to write before the NCAA Basketball tournament begins, let me remind everyone that I won the pool last year and I intend to win it this year.

I will post my tournament picks as soon as it is too late for any of you to benefit from them!

You're number 3... or 4... not 1!

After the possibility of New Orleans playing in… errr… winning a Super Bowl, the Jets playoff run is arguably the best team story in the NFL this year.

Instead of manufacturing a great regular season lead and then squandering it on the way towards (but not to!) the playoffs, the Jets put their act together enough to climb into the playoffs, and then they put together a couple exciting, feel good games that sucked their fans into actually believing they had a chance to be AFC Champions.

Never before has a bandwagon been built and set into motion faster than those poor Springsteen souls in parking lot New Jersey! Too bad they built it with a five-year-old’s plastic Legos and it couldn’t last one more game!

Of particular amusement to Patriot fans, you can look closely at game film of the stands in Indy and make out the exact moment when Fireman Ed’s heart explodes in his chest. Can’t wait to see you guys go 7 and 9 next year with a loss to Buffalo!

Kenny's people rise up!

Unfortunately for me, the New Orleans Saints have postponed their late season swoon this year. As they’re practically assured of a first-round bye at this point, we’ll have to wait until the second round of the NFL playoffs to watch them crush the tiny hopes and dreams of a below-sea-level, eyesore city not yet recovered from the whims of category four hurricanes and category considerably less emergency response teams.

Author’s note: the Jets and the Mets and the Orangemen and all New Yorkers still respectively suck and Rex Ryan (the Santa job at the mall is open when you get fired, Rex!) is now an obnoxious crybaby, instead of simply being an obnoxious bore. None of this is pertinent to the Saints, of course, but these facts should not be misplaced even during the brief Kenny euphoria brought on by an overachieving Drew Brees who couldn’t quite throw enough interceptions to derail the clownish, bayou pretenders.

Victory is sweet... and small!

I’m thrilled there’s at long last a mosquito’s appendix-sized bit of joy in the Silbergleit athletic spectator ranks, even if Kenny needed to travel to Louisiana to support a questionable American quasi state foolishly named after a European Monarch… a buggy, boggy burg where biting someone with your own teeth is considered simple assault while biting someone with your false teeth is prosecuted as aggravated assault. Who knew?

I’m not calling Kenny unAmerican; but if anyone else wants to do so, I think they’re certainly entitled and on firm footing to make such an aggressive claim. In any case, he’s certainly no fan of Patriots and his fries are apparently French, not Freedom.

I’ll never understand how these backward, fall-behind at the start of every frickin game but then come back people ponied up to win 10 NFL games in a row, but fair is fair, so here’s a life-size picture of Kenny’s legitimately earned prize… an elixir he can quaff quietly as the Pats exact swift revenge on the Saints Monday night.

This one's for you, Nancy!

It came down to points on Monday night and Nancy took advantage of a late, meaningless score by a thoroughly embarrassed Redskin team to secure her first NFL pool victory of the season. Excellent work, Nancy!

In addition to some $330, Nancy extends her lead in the NFL Smackdown competition.

Asked about her victory, Nancy gushed, “Jim and I were recently down in Philly, and I really got a good feeling about the city at that time. I put them in a position to come through for me Monday night, and the Eagles didn’t let me down. I’ve never felt better about green uniforms, greasy cheesesteaks, cracked bells, and Rocky Balboa. I can’t wait to take my winnings out to buy Abigail some fashionable size 12M clothing for the winter season. I LOVE this game!”

Asked about tragically losing last week on the final score tie-breaker as Denver ran both a punt and a kickoff back for touchdowns and asked about falling short again this week by one game as the Raiders couldn’t find the stadium where they were supposed to be playing on Sunday, Andy replied, “it’s all good… even losing looks better on our new television. Go Samsung!”

Forget tea leaves or psychics!

My mother and father currently have barely 50% of their football picks correct so far this NFL season. That’s not impressive. My grandmother is under .500 for her picks. That’s even worse!

What these amateurs need is a viable, proven system for handicapping teams, but instead they rely on senseless data like “which team has the better punter,” or “which team plays in a dome,” or “which team’s mascot is more powerful.”

I wouldn’t care, but since they’re foolishly gambling with MY future college funds, I need to get these people back on track pronto. Towards that end, I offer my full-proof method for determining NFL winners.

All you need is a list of match-ups and a supply of cereal. Raise several pieces of cereal above your head, close your eyes, and drop the cereal on the list of teams. Where the cereal ends up accurately determines the victorious team, since cereal naturally gravitates toward winners, milk, and dog mouths. As you can see from the example pictured, the Patriots are looking like a lock to beat the Jets and to cover the spread.

Note: don’t conduct your experiment near milk or dog mouths or you may end up with spurious data!

I happen to favor stale Cheerios for my picks, but you can also use Capn Crunch. I do not suggest using oatmeal, simply because it tends to splatter, to obscure the results and to anger the owners of the carpet.

Give my system a try. I think you’ll like the results.

Week of the dog!

As you can see from the official smackdown standings, week #1 failed to separate brains from luck in the gridiron picking arena. Both Emily and Andy finished the week at (8w – 8l), while Nancy finished at (7w – 9l), so no clear trend has emerged.

Interesting notes from week #1:

There were 15 possible underdog/favorite picks (underdogs GET points while favorites GIVE points).  The Carolina Panthers versus Philadelphia Eagles game was straight up (no points either way) in our pool.

For these possible 15 favorite/underdog matchups:

• Emily took ALL 15 possible favorites!
• Nancy took 7 favorites and 8 dogs.
• Andy took 9 favorites and 6 dogs.
• For the week, favorites went (7w – 9l) with Philly winning the straight up matchup, so the underdogs won week #1.
• Nancy took the most dogs and should have had an advantage from doing so, but alas, she chose the wrong puppies at times which left her one game off the pace.