Scattered Thoughts

I was going to put this in comment form, but I decided it was better to make a post instead of a comment that's this long.

I'm not dissin' Dungy in any way, although I am getting tired of hearing the media use the loss of his son as an excuse for everything. It sort of makes me sick, but that's neither here nor there. It was a tragic loss, but if it were any other coach's son, or any other celebrity’s son there wouldn't have been this much crap in the media about it.

I don't know about them coming out fired up. I mean, emotionally they'll be ready to go, but I don't know if their game will be up to snuff. Their offense is one that works well only when they are in a rhythm. That's how the Chargers were the first to beat them; they got the Colts out of a rhythm.

but they will be scary when they get goin

They don't have the luxury in the playoffs to "get goin'"; they have to be ready right out of the starting blocks.

And I just can't get into a team who relies on a passing game to win. It's so easy to be off with a passing game; it's almost like the Colts are a finesse-only team. The Steelers and the Bears are run-right-at-your-face-until-your-covered-in-mud teams. They only rely on the pass when they get into a long yardage situation or just to mix things up. AND what's more, the Bears have one of the top scoring defenses in the NFL. I believe they are also the highest rated defense out of the teams in the playoffs. How many times have we heard the old adage "Offense doesn't win championships, Defense does".

A lot of the Colt's starters haven't played a full game since week 15. Shoot, Peyton Manning has only played one series in each of the Colt's last three games AND HE DIDN'T EVEN SCORE ON THEM! I also can't get behind a team that doesn't travel on the road as a unit. When they went to play the Seahawks, not even the whole team went. Even if you're injured, you need to travel with your team; it's part of belonging, it's just something you do. Now I understand if you have some injury that makes you unable to travel, but having sore muscles… not an excuse.

As for the Bears/Panthers game this weekend… The Bears are ready. The first time they faced Carolina, they did so with a back-up QB. This time, Grossman is healthy, which means their long- and short-yardage passing games will be on. You know the running game will be there; how else do you think they were able to win so many games with Orton running QB? The defense is a constant in Chicago, especially with Urlacher in there. The last time the teams met, the Bears held Carolina to their second-lowest yardage of the season… with their defense… which hasn't changed since November.

The short of it, football is more interesting when teams run the ball and execute well on defense rather than having an offense that depends on so many variables to work well. I don't really care how the any of the other teams do, I just am sick of hearing all this hype about the Duh-olts. I hope they lose just so I can watch the evening news and not have to hear about them.

After all… Who won when the Bears played the Colts earlier this year?

That's what I thought…

24-17

I don't normally post about sports here, but I just want to get out some predictions I have made about the NFL playoff games coming up this weekend. That and I'm quite bored on my Graveyard.

Indianapolis Colts vs. Pittsburg Steelers
Much to the dismay of a lot of my friends, I don’t' think Indianapolis has what it takes to beat the Steelers in the playoffs. Look at what's happened to the Colts recently in the playoffs. They haven't done very well, winning only three out of eight games since 2000. That coupled with having a by week, I just don't think they're ready to compete. The Steelers team they will face this weekend is a completely different, more competitive team than the one they beat during the regular season.

Denver Broncos vs. New England Patriots
New England isn't a good team this year. They've got to win two more games on the road to make it to the Super Bowl, and I don't think this is going to be one of them. They beat Jacksonville last weekend which is like beating a decent college team. I don't think the Patriots have what it takes to win on the road in the playoffs this year.

Seattle Seahawks vs. Washington Redskins
Going with the underdog yet again with this one. Go Skins! Hopefully the Redskins can pull off the not-too-difficult upset in Seattle this weekend. If they do, it'll make it easier for the winner of the next game to advance to the Super Bowl.

Chicago Bears vs. Carolina Panthers
Ok, No contest, Chicago Bears in the Super Bowl baby! That's all I need to say about this one.

If you didn't already know, you do now. I'm a Bear's fan, always have been, and I really want to see them in the Super Bowl. Granted, they stand as good a chance as any of not making it, but a kid can dream, can't he?

I really don't care what the outcomes of any of the other games are this weekend. The Bears need to win. It would be nice to see the Colts lose too, just because I'm tired of hearing about them. I know I'm from Indiana, but for crying out loud, lay-off the Colts already.

Now on to more personal news, and probably the less interesting stuff.

I've been sick lately. Really sick. Will came back from winter break with some sort of flu thing and I inevitably got it. It sucks. I felt all floaty on Sunday and Monday, and yesterday I actually felt ok but not well. I've been taking lots of Alka-Seltzer Cold and Flu and Will gave me some vitamin supplements called Airborne which I've been taking too. Eventually Erin will get it too, so I should go to the store and get more Alka-Seltzer and Airborne so she can have some too.

I plan to post to this blog every Monday and Thursday this semester. I was going to start that this week, but with the flu and all, I didn't get around to posting until my graveyard on Wednesday morning. But, next week, expect a post on Monday and another on Thursday.

I still haven't fixed my stupid Div problem on this page. It's got to be something dynamically generated that is causing the problem, like an extra close div tag somewhere in the PHP code… I don’t' know. Frankly I'm done searching for it. I don't think it's worth losing sleep over, so I'm not going to lose any more productivity time searching for it.

Tuesday (today or yesterday depending on how you look at the time right now) was my first and only class of the semester. Apparently BUS Z302 is something to do with group work. Kendra says the class sucks, I hate working in groups, this will be a crappy semester class wise. The professor is completely crazy. I can't remember his name, but he had us clap along with him to the fight song today at the beginning of class. Apparently it's a sin to wear a different college's logo in his class, which is retarded. Anyway, all else equal, it'll be an interesting semester. I'm just glad I'm getting out of here.

I think that's about all I want to write for now. I'm getting pretty hungry, and Steak 'n' Shake is sounding pretty good right now.

peace
tm

The End-of-the-Blog Rundown

Song of the Day — Save Tonight — Eagle Eye Cherry

Quote of the Day — "What's an Intel chip doing in a Mac? A whole lot more than it's ever done in a PC." — The quote on Apple's front page after Steve Jobs' Keynote at MacWorld San Franscisco 2006.

Today's Moment of Bliss — Being drunk dialed by Will when I was eating breakfast to go to my graveyard.

Villian of the Day — THE FLU

Hero of the Day — The Lady at Steak 'n' Shake. She definitely made me the best Frisco Melt I have ever had. The bread wasn't soggy, the fries were perfect and the burger wasn't greasy. It was great!

Current Mood — — Hungry!

Until the next post…

New Year's Eve in South Bend with Erin, Will, Rachel and Emily.

Well, I think it's about time for me to make my first post in 2006, especially since it is a week into the month…

Not too much out-of-the-ordinary has been happening in my life lately, but here is a quick summary of my Winter Break:

I worked and cleaned the house until Dec. 28th. On the 28th, I drove up to St. Charles to hang out with Erin for a week. It's always fun going up to see Erin, mostly because she's there, but also because her family is cool. For New Year's Eve, she and I drove to the South Bend area to hang out with Will and Rachel. We were planning on eating at Fiddler's (a tasty Irish restaurant), but, much to our disappointment, they were closed. Instead we ate at a nice Itialian place who's name I can't remember. After a short nap, we went out to a dance-clubish place to ring in the New Year. It was a good time despite the large lines to get beverages and the large crowd. The next day, we went back to St. Charles. In the next couple days, we both left St. Charles and headed back to Bloomington. That pretty much brings us to now.

Over break, I bought and read Brave New World by Aldous Huxley. I give the book . It was a very quick read and it was quite entertaining. I'm going to save you all details from the story itself because you should all read the book for yourselves, but I am going to say that I was pretty disappointed with the way the book ended. The ending of the book isn't bad enough to ruin the overall experience Huxley created, but it is enough to keep the book from getting a higher rating. This book is definitely on my Everyone Needs to Read These Books list. I might actually put this list together depending on how bored I get on my graveyard.

I also bought Walden and Civil Disobedience by Henry David Thoreau. I planned on reading only Walden but once I started reading, I realized that the book would never keep my attention. Instead, I think I'll only read Civil Disobedience. Its political charge should keep me reading. I don't feel bad about spending money on the book (singular because they're both bound in the same volume) because it only set me back $6. If I can get $6 of enjoyment out of it, It'll be a smart buy.

Today, I inquired about a PHP programmer position on campus. I don't know many details about the job since the guy I inquired to hasn't replied to my message yet, but I hope it will pay enough and be flexible enough that it can be a second job for me this semester.

Speaking of the new semester, it starts tomorrow. I'm pretty excited and scared all at the same time. It is my last semester in college, and being such, it will be filled with working, job searching and having a good time. Next year starts the "real world" experience for Tom.

I made an STC Wordsearch on my graveyard this evening. Check it out and have fun finding all the words.

I think that's about all I'm going to write in this portion of my post since I'm getting bored.

Happy 2006!
tm

PS — I have a problem with the way my div tags are set up on this page. If you are HTML and CSS savvy, please check it out and help me solve the problem. I've been banging my head against a wall trying to fix this. You can see the error by going to the About the Author page. The sidebar bleeds past the content area and it shouldn't. It should look like the front page does.

The End-of-the-Blog Rundown

Song of the Day — Soldier Side — System of a Down

Quote of the Day — "Man, this is a dry campus, that means you can't have alcohol anywhere. That sucks." — Random, probably drunk guy walking through the IC at 3am

Today's Moment of Bliss — Realizing that some professors don't know the difference between a projector screen and a whiteboard…

Hero of the Day — Erin because she has a little pixellated soul

Current Mood — — Dazed, mostly because of the graveyard and partially because I'm le tired.

Until the next post…