Some Blog Site

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 2022 NFL season is over, and here are the most accurate methods for predicting regular-season game results (wins-losses):

• MPWHFA: 61%
• MYW: 57%
• MPWLS: 56%
• DPE: 56%

The Home Field Advantage factor finally came back into play this year, after still being an effect from the no-crowd games of the Covid era.

If you think you have a formula that can predict the winner of an NFL game better than 61% of the time, let me know and I’ll add it to the list.
(For the ideas behind the methods, please visit the Some Fun Site page.)

Okay, okay, it is 2023 at this point, but the results are headlines as 2022 because they match with the 2022 predictions made in 2022 for the 2022 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 2022”.

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.
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This review is of five books but in two series.

First up: The Great Peach Experiment series by Erin Soderberg Downing

This has two books:
When Life Gives You Lemons, Make Peach Pie and
The Peach Pit

The first book was okay. The second book was better in some ways and worse in others. To make my life easier, I’m just going to call the first book the Peach Pie book and the second book the Peach Pit book.

The Peach Pie book was a little slow. It was fun to see the small towns that the author put in the book, including some in my area. It’s not every day that a town you know gets put into a book like this. But other than that fun tidbit, it didn’t exactly capture my attention. It wasn’t bad, and nothing offensive, so there are worse ways to spend you time.

Which brings me to the Peach Pit book. There was a little more going on in this book, so it was a little better in that regard. But it has a nod to – how shall I say it – alternative lifestyles, so it is worse in that regard.

It seems my overall rating is going to be one sideways thumb.

Last up: The Storm Keeper’s Island series by Catherine Doyle

This has three books:
The Storm Keeper’s Island, The Lost Tide Warriors, and
The Storm Keeper’s Battle

The series was written as a series – i.e. when the first book ends it is not the end of the story so you can’t just enjoy the one book. In general, I dislike that trend, but I won’t count that too much against this series.

This series was certainly better for me than the Peach bilogy, but it didn’t capture my attention fully the way some books do. There was nothing bad or wrong with the books, although my kids did think it was a Harry Potter knockoff when I started describing the story to them.

Spoiler Alert
I told them it’s about a boy who doesn’t know he’s a wizard, and then he has to learn to become one and handle the magic he didn’t know was in him. And they asked a couple follow up questions, and for each one they asked, the answer could fit for either this book or Harry Potter. Sadly, I can’t remember any of them, and all the questions I could think of now in lieu of their questions do not apply to both sets of books.

End Spoiler Alert

Overall, I’d say one thumb’s up. If you need a fill a wintry weekend or something, you could do worse.

That’s it for this review. More book reviews coming up later this year.

I’m on holiday this week, so no real blog post.

I will take this time to mention that around here, we don’t put the wise men at the Nativity, because they didn’t arrive until a couple years after Jesus was born. But I think you should be allowed to have the wise men at your Christmas display if you note they are the wise men from two years ago. Then you get into all sorts of time travel logistical problems, such as shouldn’t the baby Jesus then be the toddler Jesus, and how can you have the baby Jesus and the toddler Jesus in the same place? Maybe it’s best just to keep the Wise Men apart from the manger to show the time distance that way.

Some Wife was rather inspired this year and made Christmas cookies. Lots of them. A lot of types of them. So, for your viewing pleasure, here they are. Unfortunately for you, they are not for your eating pleasure. Unless you’re family or a neighbor.

These are in alphabetical order by what we call them.

Carmelitas

These have a plain dough base, with carmel and chocolate in the middle, and a crumble topping.

Chocolate Crackle

These are chocolate dough, with chocolate chips in them, and a powder-sugar dusting.

Chocolate Mint

These are chocolate cookies, but with an Andes mint in the middle.

Circle Pretzels

These are just circle pretzels with a Hershey’s kiss melted into it and then a couple M&Ms dropped on top. They’re small, so it’s easy to eat too many.

Coconut Macaroons

These are coconut and chocolate, not unlike an Almond Joy, but without the almond. I would say Mounds, but Almond Joy is better known. And the chocolate is only on the bottom.

Frosted Cookies

These are the easiest to make, because they are ready to bake. GFS has a box of frozen cookie dough already cut into Christmas shapes, all we do is bake them and then frost (and sprinkle) them.

Fudge Puddles

These were new this year. Plain cookie base in a mini muffin tin, then fill with fudge and top with a pecan. Very good.

Graham Brittle

This has a variety of names. It’s a brittle, made with a base of graham crackers and topped with chocolate and toffee. Always very popular.

Lemon Crackle

The lemon version of the chocolate crackles above.

Lime Glaze

These are a plain cookie base, with a lime glaze on top.

Marshmallows

These are marshmallows, dipped in chocolate, then rolled/coated with something while the chocolate is still wet. Half of them got sprinkles (to look Christmas-y) and half of them got crushed graham crackers (to imitate a S’more).

Peanut Brittle

It is just what it says – peanut brittle. This is the microwave recipe, which tastes just as good as the stovetop method, but is waaaaaay easier.

Raspberry Bars

A perennial favorite. Vanilla cake mix for the base (but really dense, don’t follow the cake directions) and raspberry jam and chocolate chips.

Rice Krispie Treats

I have written about these before (see A Christmas Snack). In general, we like the wreath cookies made with corn flakes, marshmallows, and green food coloring, then topped with red hots. But the recipe has not cooperated the last couple years and we end up with a sickly-looking sticky blob of corn flakes. So it lieu of those, Some Wife made these. They still have cereal and melted marshmallows, so it’s close.

Thumbprints

I think everyone knows about this one – make a plain cookie, press a divot into it with your thumb, then fill with jelly. Ours are overachievers and have some icing on top too.

White Chocolate Thingies

One of my favorites, and not everyone likes white chocolate so there’s more for me. Melt white chocolate and mix it in with Cheerioes, Chex, pretzel sticks, and M&Ms.

Not pictured, because it hasn’t been made yet: Chocolate-covered caramel corn. This one can’t be made yet, because if she did make it now, it wouldn’t last until it is needed at the Christmas gathering.

Based on the popularity existence of last year’s article predicting bowl games in haiku form, I present to you this year’s all-haiku bowl game predictions. Still America’s only all-haiku college football bowl game predictions.

These are listed in order of date (earliest first). Some picks are whom I think will win, and some picks are whom I want to win. I’ll leave it to you, the reader, to decide which is which.
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Here is a guest post I wrote for SCL back in the day (2011 in case you’re wondering, and no, the link there is not to my guest post). It wasn’t run because I didn’t actually write a full blog post for Jon, I just sent him an outline of ideas. But I decided to fill it out and present it to you today.

Cheering for Bannerman

Many of you may be wondering who Bannerman is. Kids these days don’t know their history. Bannerman was 20 years old when I started writing this guest post over a decade ago.

Bannerman is a song by Steve Taylor. Not Tyler, Taylor. Also popular for the song “Lifeboat”.

But Bannerman the song is about Bannerman the person who was ubiquitous in that era: the guy who holds up the Bible verse behind the goal posts during football games. I don’t know how that guy was able to make it to every single football game, or how he managed to get tickets in the same spot in various stadia, but that guy was consistent.

He may have retired or something, because I don’t see him at every game anymore. Or maybe the ticket prices are keeping him from attending multiple games every weekend.

I also wonder if he thought of himself as a missionary
“What do you do?”
“I’m a missionary.”
“In what country?”
“In the USA.”
“Oh, which people group do you minister to?”
“Football fans.”