Quick Sports Post

I'm having a nice blogging haiatus, thanks for asking.

I've started a post -- a hum dinger of a story. I'm not sure it will translate to a typed web page, but I'll get it finished and get it posted this weekend. I've got another post in mind for next week, so I might be getting back into the swing of it.

Until then, here are a couple of thoughts from the last few days.

If you go into Hemingway's Tobacco on Jefferson Highway on any given weekday afternoon, there are a group of old out of shape dudes, shooting the shit and smoking cigars. Despite the fact that they smell bad and have yellow teeth, I'm more than just a little envious of them. Sitting over source code while shooting the shit and drinking coffee in one's necktie just isn't the same.

Regardless of where you are, football is the usual topic of discussion right now. The average Baton Rouge citizen knows a lot more about college football than the average voter in the polls. I just don't know what the current voters are watching on Saturdays. I saw Oregon beat Cal by something like 35 points. Who would you rank more highly? What about when you sit down to rank undefeated Iowa and Penn State, whose only loss was at home to Iowa? How could you possibly put Penn State first?

The answer is that the "experts" are still relying on who they think should be good. Preseason polls are fine, but you have to throw them out on week one. The first weekend of the season, almost all of the big boys beat up on directional schools. BYU beat Oklahoma. They would have been my #1 pick the next week. Does that mean the spot is there until they lose? Not at all. I throw it all out the window and each week vote for the teams that have the most wins over quality opponents. Easy as that.

Again this year, I'm in the underdog pool where we pick an underdog who might win outright, and if they do, we get the number of points by which the other team was favored. I've picked four winners in four weeks. Unfortunately, one week I picked a team that wasn't an underdog, but my big play was Washington over USC for 19 points, which has me in the lead right now.

When looked at in aggregate, the quality of the picks from this group is unbelievable. I guarantee that if you bet these picks -- either on the money line or with the spread, you'll be a winner. From here on, I'm going to keep track of it to prove that I'm right.

And then next season, for a low subscription fee, you'll have access to these picks, which will be much more reliable than most of the pay to handicap sites that are out there now. We'll use some of the subscription money to sweeten the pot for our winner, and we'll split the rest among ourselves. I love this idea.

Sorry Chicago. If I had known you would be eliminated, I would have tried to watch. A packed area of stunned silent people is high comedy in my book. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EuE60mq0r1Q