Bears - Eagles Musings

Wow, I just realized that I wrote this up during the game a few weeks back and never posted it. I bet I was just so pissed at the end of the game that I just went bed as soon as the clock hit 0:00. Anyways, here it is, with an some additions at the end.

I wasn't going to do this, but I really need an outlet to vent...

So here's what I learned during the 1st quarter of play:
Faith Hill is hot when dressed up in a tight outfit with thigh-high boots and singing a rockish song.
The Bears defense has officially jumped the shark. They just can't stop anyone. Can't stop the run, can't stop the pass, can't stop Vick when he comes in at QB for 3rd-and-1 and everyone in the world knows he's not going to throw it. They still have some talented guys, but it's just not working.
We can't run the ball for shit. Everyone puts it on Forte, but it really does appear to the be the o-line. He's not Barry Sanders; you have to give him a hole to run through once in awhile. I think the RB is doing an admirable job given the garbage he has to work with. Plus, with as bad as Cutler's been everyone is playing run. No need to keep extra guys back in coverage.
Speaking of Cutler...he's not good. I'm not saying he can't get good, but he's not good right now. He just missed 2 wide-open guys for TDs to go with some additional poor throws. On the plus side we're mid-way into the 2nd-quarter and he hasn't throw a pick yet...knock on wood! And unless he suddenly gets good again, I'll never understand why he's any different from Grossman. High-risk QB is just not the right guy for this offense.
Okay, I feel better. Time to put the laptop away for a bit and re-focus on the game, my chips and salsa, and my tasty adult beverage(s).

Flash-forward to middle of the 4th...
Just watched Tillman force his 3rd fumble of the game; 2 of which the Bears recovered. The man is an absolute machine. And he's literally punching the ball out. Closed fist, throwing knuckles at the ball. It's horribly fun to watch.
Cutler is still pretty unfun to watch. Yeah, he was good on the TD drive, but he's been pretty bad every other time. He's just flat-out missing open guys, not hitting guys in stride so they can run after the catch, throwing into triple-covered receivers, etc. Same shit I used to watch with Grossman, just with the knowledge that he's been better with his former team. On the plus side, I have a whole bag of chips and a jar of hot salsa in my belly. My colon has taken quite the beating this weekend. Quite literally a trial by fire before the 3-day T-Day event.


And begin new material from 12/20:
So I think my PC has a bad hardware component. The last couple months it's been spontaneously rebooting itself when idle, and the last week or so it's been doing it even when you're using it. I could spend some time trying to figure out what's bad; probably a RAM module, but since I already wanted to rebuild it as a low-power machine I'll probably just do that. New processor, maybe a solid-state hard-drive, low-power video card, do it right. I just don't know if I want to put the time, effort, and $$ into that right now. I can reuse some of the parts, but not many. The case and disk drive will stay. I could just wipe the current hard-drive and use it again, but that would work against the low-power goal. Video card will be tricky. I need to figure out how much juice it's using and compare it to a newer one before I know if it can stay or go. But the motherboard, CPU, and RAM are all out.
If anyone has some experience building for low-power, let me know. You will be rewarded with beer and junk food for any help and/or advice you can give.
Okay, time to get ready for hockey. Should be a really good grudge match tonight b/t 2 teams that are developing some bad blood b/t them.
PEACE!!

Fox's New Commercial Strategy for a Venegful God

I'm not sure how long this has been going on, and I'm not sure how many other networks are doing this, but I've noticed that Fox has a new sequence for their commercial breaks. They used to open with the credits, then go to a commercial break, followed by evenly-spaced breaks of equal length. Clearly they've picked up on the fact that people today have very short attention spans and will change channels pretty quickly during a commercial break if they aren't hooked on the show. And with so many channels available to us now, you know you can find something good to watch somewhere else. Not all of their shows do it, but it's very obvious if you watch "Fringe". No commercials after the opening credits, and the breaks start off quite short and get longer as the shows goes on. So as you get more and more hooked in the show, they know that you'll hang in longer and longer during the commercials. Very smart; but annoying when you have to wait longer and longer when you're hooked on the episode and don't want to wait.

And now for this blog's more serious thinking.
Anyone that's involved in the various Christian religions has been well versed in the notion that God doesn't punish you on Earth for any of your various sins. Naturally most of us that are also superstitious can think of many instances where that doesn't seem to be true. So that got me thinking about it. No one has every really talked to God. So all we have to go on is the bible. Which is a collection of letters and recountings that was edited by the Vatican and put into convenient book form. Are there letters in there from an apostle that talk about how God will punish you in short fashion for sinning? Could be! I mean, who knows how many things were edited out to make sure the story is being told correctly. If you've ever taken the time to read the entire new testament you'll have noticed how the story really breaks down in Revelations. Breaks down in disturbing fashion. Speculation is that it was a coded message about the current Roman rulers. If that's possible then it's totally reasonable to assume that the bible has been edited to tell the "God doesn't punish ye" story. Hard to say either way. And I'm not going to try to say. I'm just here to create discussion and get people thinking.
And now, just the way I planned this, the Bears - Eagles game is about to start. Just to make things interesting, if the Bears successfully hurt McNabb during the game I'll give anyone who shows up to Party T-Day and mentions this blog a dollar. (Hurt qualifies as missing a significant portion of the game due to something the Bears did to him.)
Done and done.

Terrible Sports Weekend

Wow, this was most certainly a depressing sports "weekend" for me (including Thursday night, thus the quotes). Not only did a suffer some losses, but they were especially painful ones.
First, Bears - SF. This is definitely a game that the Bears should have been able to win. The 49ers are not a great team this year and the Bears should have been out to prove that they are a play-off team. Instead it was a sloppy, poorly played game in which both teams consistently squandered opportunities to take control. Well, mostly SF squandering all the opportunities the Bears were giving them. Watching our new "franchise" QB throw 5 INTs was brutal. 2 of which came in the end zone. Even worse, the 1st of those was to a large gentleman who was standing in plain sight. And even if he had missed it, there were 2 more defenders jumping in front of the receiver. So there was roughly a 0% chance of the pass not getting picked. Yeah, some were flukes with receivers falling down and running into refs, but even those looked like they could have been picked anyways. Even with all that, they still managed to bring it down to a last-second drive to possibly win it. A drive that ended in soul-crushing fashion with the 2nd INT in the end zone.
That brings us to yesterday's Purdue - Michigan State game. Purdue, even after so many brutal early-season losses was still in a position to get bowl eligible. All we had to do was Beat MSU and IU and we'd be set. First play of the game? Purdue fumbles a hand-off and MSU runs it in for a quick TD. 7 seconds; 7 points down. But they did rally back and were up by 11 in the 4th quarter before letting it slip away to lose 37-40. And thus a rough season of close losses and huge wins (Ohio State), yet another 2nd-half failure ends our run at a bowl game. Even though I'm excited about the direction the team is heading, and the young talent they have, it's tough to spend another year without a bowl.
And then came the Iowa-Ohio State game. I still had hopes that some family pride could be salvaged and have Iowa finish on top of the BigTen and head to the Rose Bowl. But it was not to be. The 3rd maddeningly close game of the weekend resulted in an Iowa loss. Luck for them they are still ranked #10 in the BCS and have a shot at moving up to at least #8 with a win next weekend and scoring a sweet BCS bowl.
And now I'm a short 2.5 hours away from my own hockey game, wondering if my luck will change just enough to get us a win. I don't ask for much; just a W.
Fingers crossed!!