Some Blog Site

While it might be nice to live in someplace warm and sunny all year, there are some benefits to living in the north where we get a good winter.

Like this, for instance:

For at least a couple months each year, we don’t need to worry about how full our fridge or freezer are. Just toss the food into the garage and it stays good until April.

It is time once again to update Some Blog Site readers on the results of my Some Fun Site project to create a more accurate football prediction method.

The 2013 NFL season is over, and here are the most accurate methods for predicting regular-season game results:

• ITP: 61%
• MPW: 61%
• HTW: 60%

ITP is listed first because it was one game better than MPW – the first year that MPW or MYW did not win.

This year saw the addition of YPP to the prediction methods. “YPP” stands for Yards Per Point and contends that the team that will win is the team that is most efficient at converting yards into points. It fared okay, not good but not bad either. (For the ideas behind the methods, please visit the Some Fun Site page.)

Those of you who received a Christmas card from us can skip this post. Everyone has probably already received the Christmas letter (not everyone everyone, just those on our list), so if you have the letter there is no point in viewing the image below.

If you haven’t received our letter yet, then either you’re not on our list or the post office has some explaining to do. If you’re not on our list, the best way to get on our list is to send us a Christmas card or letter. Then we will feel compelled to return the favor.

For those of you interested in what our Christmas letter looks like this year but don’t want to involve the post office, here it is:

Okay, okay, it is 2014 at this point, but the results are headlines as 2013 because they match with the 2013 predictions made in 2013 for the 2013 season. Also, the results are not all-haiku, just the predictions were. A more accurate title would be “Results for the All-Haiku Predictions made in 2013”.

Before the bowl games commenced for this past college football season, I made some predictions. Here, for your reading enjoyment, is the tally of those predictions. Note that the results are not in haiku form, in contrast to the predictions.

Results

Here is the list (correct predictions in green, incorrect in red):

Washington. St. over Colorado St.

USC over Fresno St.

San Diego St. over Buffalo

Tulane over ULL

East Carolina over Ohio

Oregon St. over Boise St.

Bowling Green over Pitt

Northern Illinois over Utah St.

Marshall over Maryland

Minnesota over Syracuse

Washington over BYU

Notre Dame over Rutgers

Cincinnati over UNC

Louisville over Miami

Michigan over Kansas St.

Navy over Middle Tennessee St.

Georgia Tech over Ole Miss

Oregon over Texas

Arizona St. over Texas Tech

Boston College over Arizona

UCLA over Virginia Tech

Mississippi St. over Rice

Texas A&M over Duke

Georgia over Nebraska

UNLV over N. Texas

South Carolina over Wisconsin

LSU over Iowa

Michigan St. over Stanford

Baylor over Central Florida

Alabama over Oklahoma

Missouri over Oklahoma St.

Clemson over Ohio St.

Vanderbilt over Houston

Ball St. over Arkansas St.

Florida St. over Auburn

And here are the results of the various forecasting methodologies (see the first year for description of the methodologies) (also, use the word methodologies if you want to sound important; methods would work just as well and is shorter) :

• Some Blog Site picks were 20-15 (better than last year)
• CBS120 picks were 20-15
• HTW was 20-15 for the official Home Team Wins (HTW)
• HTW was 20-15 for the Geographical Home Team (GHT)
• Isaacson-Tarbell Postulate (ITP) was 18-17 if using HTW
• ITP was 18-17 if using GHT

I won’t analyze the results as much as I did last year, mainly because I had more time and more sleep last year. But it was a good year all predictors – every method was over 50%. I just need to figure how to better predict outcomes. Especially against the spread.

Thoughts on the season’s results

1. That was a nice playoff round. Now let’s have the championship game between Michigan State and Florida State. I know the BCS has Auburn as the number 2 team, but it’s the playoffs – lose and you’re out. Too bad we’ll never know…
2. Remember what I said about the SEC last year? No? Good. Never mind.

Conferences

Since the strength of the conference has something to do with the results, I thought I would tally each conference’s bowl game record for the 2013 (and the first bit of 2014) season.

• AAC: 4-3
• ACC: 3-6
• Big 10: 2-5
• Big 12: 3-3
• Independent: 2-1
• MAC: 0-5
• MW: 3-3
• PAC12: 6-3
• SEC: 7-3
• Sun Belt: 3-1
• USA: 2-2

So the best conference was the Sun Belt (they won 75% of their bowl games) and the worst was the MAC (at 0%).

Or maybe the Sun Belt and Conf USA are the worst conferences because they sent the fewest teams to bowl games again this year.

Perhaps you could say that the SEC was the best because they had 10 teams go to bowls. Or you could say they were just the most popular conference.

Perhaps you could say that the ACC was the best because they won the championship. Or maybe the SEC is the best because they won the most bowls (at 7).

I don’t know what happened to the MAC. It’s hard to lose all 5 bowl games. At least they have company with the Big Ten and their 5 losses.

Next year: playoffs! Maybe I’ll get to put a bracket together. Don’t worry – there will still be plenty of meaningless bowl games to predict too.

A song, for tired parents. If you’ve been awakened too many nights by a fussy child, this song is for you.

Verse 1
What child is this who, laid to rest Refuses to keep sleeping?
Whom parents greet with shuffling feet, And causes them much weeping?
This, this is nothing new, The hours of sleep are far too few;
Haste, haste, to bring him milk, The baby, who wants dairy.

Verse 2
Why lies he in such mean a mood, And wish-es to be feeding?
Good parents, fear, to toddler here the quiet is conceding.
Wails, yells pierce parent through, he’s crying now for me, for you.
Rush, rush to make him hush, the babe, who’s quiet rarely.

Verse 3
So bring him bottles, toys, and books, Come parent, soon to calm him;
The need of things insomnia brings, Try music, poem; try psalm, hymn.
Raise, raise a song on high, The mother sings a lullaby.
Joy, joy for he’s asleep, The baby, calm now, barely.

Credit to Bryan Dumont at OpenHymnal.org for the source to the music for the original What Child is This.

One of the things I got for Christmas was the kit where the kids draw on circles of paper and then we send those pieces of paper back to the company and they magically turn them into plates.

It came with 7 papers. I let the kids do them all – the youngest got 1 and the older 3 each got 2. But Beta messed up one piece and tossed it, so we ended up with 6 papers to send in. Here they are:
Read the rest of this entry »

I got myself a late Christmas present this year:

That’s right – I stocked up on 60W incandescent bulbs before the ban goes into effect.

I’ve written on my opinions on the ban of incandescent bulbs before. The difference this time is that we are hoping to move this summer. I’m not about to stock this house full of expensive LED bulbs just to abandon them in a few months. And I’m not about to pay extra to change the dimmers so that we can use CFLs instead of normal bulbs.

So, I got me a bunch of regular light bulbs. Take this as a reminder to get yourself some, while you still can.