Some Blog Site

Or, It Takes Suh to Make a Thing Go Right

Disclaimer: If you don’t follow the NFL, this post won’t make much sense. If you want it to make sense, please read this article about Ndamukong Suh first.

Now that the Lions’ season is over, the players can relax and pursue their hobbies during the off-season. And for Lions #90, that hobby is off-Broadway shows. Not just watching them, but participating as a cast member.

In fact, Some Blog Site was able to procure an advance copy of the promotional literature for Suh’s upcoming show. Here, exclusive to Some Blog Site, are the flyers.
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Any introduction I give would be useless or worse, so no introduction here.

Transcript:
Young Bananakin Skywalker started his Jedi training without any experience at all – he was quite green.

As he progressed in his training, his skill increased and he matured noticeably.

Unfortunately, he matured too much and went bad.
He went dark side.
And dark front and middle too.

But Bananakin, in his ripe old age, sacrificed himself for others.
Then he split.

The End

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 2011 NFL season is over, and here are the most accurate methods for predicting regular-season game results:

• MPW: 66%
• ITP: 65%
• DPE: 64%

This year saw the addition of DP and DPE to the prediction methods. “DP” stands for Davis Postulate and contends that the team that will win is the team that has been winning. While they put up a good fight, they are still no match for the combination of MPW and MYW. (For the ideas behind the methods, please visit the Some Fun Site page.)

True to the subtitle of this blog, I am providing some random thoughts to start 2012.

• If you give a million monkeys a million typewriters, you’ll end up with rough approximation of the internet. But nothing close to Shakespeare.
• Some say the dishwasher is half empty. Others say the dishwasher is half full. I say that either way there’s a chore that needs to be done.
• It seems like everyone has a breakfast nook, but nobody has a breakfast cranny. My next house is going to have a breakfast cranny

Photo shoot-type of shots, that is.

Here is what Christmas looked like around here, and at various relatives’ houses too.

First of all, in chronological order at least, was the traditional gingerbread train.

We keep telling the kids that no, they cannot eat it, especially since it is more than a couple of weeks old. But that doesn’t stop them from picking bits o’ candy of it and eating them anyway.
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Now that the bowl games have started, it’s time for the annual discussion of playoffs for college football.

Plus I know my youngest brother thinks there aren’t enough playoff proposals, so I’m adding mine to the mix. I’m sure he will appreciate it.

Introducing:

Some Plan for College Football Playoffs

• Step 1: Combine some conferences so that there will be 8 conferences.
  This step is slightly muddy, because I’m arranging the current conferences without taking this year’s planned changes into account.
  But the overall goal should be achievable.
  • ACC – currently 12 teams. Adds 4 teams to become a 16-team conference. The 4 teams come from half the Big East.
  • Big 12 – currently 10 teams. Adds 6 teams to become a 16-team conference (yet keeps its name). The 6 teams come from the entire West division of Conference USA
  • Big Ten – currently 12 teams. Adds 2 teams to become a 14-team conference (yet keeps its name). The 2 teams come from the Big East (Pittsburgh and Cincinnati, in case you’re wondering).
  • MAC – currently 13 teams. Adds 1 team to become a 14-team conference. The 1 team comes from the East division of Conference USA.
  • MWAC – currently 16 teams. This new conference just combines the 8-team Mountain West Conference with the 8-team Western Athletic Conference.
  • PAC 12 – currently 12 teams. Not scheduled to get any new teams. Maybe it could take 2 teams from the MWAC.
  • SEC – currently 12 teams. Adds 4 teams to become a 16-team conference. The 4 teams come from East division of Conference USA (3 of them) and the Big East (1 of them).
  • Sun Belt – currently 9 teams. Adds 3 teams to become a 12-team conference. The 3 teams come from East division of Conference USA (2 of them) and the Big East (1 of them). May need to rename this one to something ending in ‘C’. I’ll propose GSC for Gulf-South Conference.

  Of course, the 16-team conferences might to share with the other conferences so that everyone has 14 or 15 teams. Or maybe not.

• Step 2: Every conference must have a championship game.

  The championship game becomes the first round of playoffs, so there are 16 teams right there. One of them has to be the best in the country. If they aren’t the best in their conference, they can’t be the best in the country.

• Step 3: Change the major bowl games to quarter-final playoff games.

  This would maintain the importance and tradition of the bowl games.

  • Rose Bowl – Currently PAC12 vs. Big Ten. Stays that way. Everyone is happy.
  • Fiesta Bowl – Currently BIG12 vs. ???. Adds the MWAC.
  • Sugar Bowl – Currently SEC vs. ???. Adds the MAC.
  • Orange Bowl – Currently ACC vs. ???. Adds the GSC.
• Step 4: Change other bowl games to semi-final playoff games.

  This would maintain the importance of the bowl games.

  • Cotton Bowl – Currently BIG12 vs. SEC. Stays that way. Everyone is happy. Would need to add MWAC and MAC into the mix, in case BIG12 or SEC lost.
  • Citrus Bowl – Currently Big Ten vs. SEC. Can’t stay that way. Too bad. Changing to Big Ten or PAC12 vs. ACC or GSC.
• Step 5: Keep the championship game rotating among the 4 major bowl games.

  This would placate the people who like the current BCS format. All 3 of them.

  And it would be the concession they want in order to agree to be the quarterfinal round instead of the semifinal round.

There.

That wasn’t so hard, right?

I’m looking at you, NCAA.

Oh, right…the schedule.

• Conference championship games are the first weekend in December.
• Quarterfinals are the second weekend in December.
• Semifinals are the fourth weekend in December.
• The championship game is the Saturday after New Year’s Day.

I don’t care as much about the schedule. They can keep the games on separate nights like they do today.

The main thing I care about it that the contract does not go to ESPN. It must remain with the over-the-air broadcasters so that regular Americans can watch.

I don’t have fancy-schmancy satellite TV or cable or streaming internet, and I would like to watch the bowl games.

In general, I like Christmas music. We turn on the radio in the van for our travels during the month of December so that we can partake in the sounds of the holiday.

But the songs on the radio station get old fast. Rockin’ around the Christmas Tree might be fun to hear 3 or 4 times through the Christmas season, but when it becomes 3 or 4 times a day then something is wrong.

“I’m tired of these fake Christmas songs and I’d like to head some real Christmas songs,” I thought to myself recently. And that got me thinking:
s
What makes a song a real Christmas song?

It’s easy to sort them as I hear them:
O Holy Night is a real Christmas song, and
Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas is not.

I figured it out today – fake Christmas songs are about the Christmas season and real Christmas songs are about the birth of Christ.

Alternative method: if it’s in our hymnal, it’s a real Christmas song.

I suppose you could use the terms “carol” and “song” to differentiate between real and fake. If that’s the case, then I’d like the radio stations to play more of the carols. And no, having 3 different versions of O Holy Night doesn’t count as 3 carols.