NFL 2007/8 A2K Road to Phoenix-The Duel In the Desert

Oooh, pretty statistics! (Nice job JPB!)

I think the deviance (ha!) in scores between me and RP proves we speak of this very little. None of this "please pass the peas and who do you like in the Cincinnati game" for us.

My wife probably knows more about football than I do, because I've been away from it for several seasons. It's pure luck! It has nothing to do with "pass the peas."

When are you going on your next trip, Tak (and where is it to)? I hope you can still play each week, but if not perhaps you could put your picks on auto-pilot. You could ask JPB to always go for the home team or the team with the better record or the team with the most points scored for the season. It's only guesses so you could get back and discover yourself in 1st place!

I once had a dear boy friend, first fellow I loved, in the same chemistry class as I took. We met in the lab, so romantic. Anyway, he got the second highest grade in a class of 250 students, and I got a D by the skin of my teeth. If he had talked of chemical analysis to me, with or without peas, it would have done no damned good.

rjb, I'll be going to Tunisia from October 5 to 18. I'll try to finish my picks for the two weekends I'll be away. I'm also taking a trip to China and Tibet from November 7 to 28 - that's three weekends away from home. I'll figure it out when I'm home in between trips.

So, are you packed yet?

About 80 percent.

Re CI's travels:
Totally unrelated, of course, but while we are waiting for JPB to post the schedule, I ask if I ever told you the story of "Brandy?" Her last name was Brand but she went by the single name "Brandy." And she always dressed in purple. Totally in purple.
She lived, this old lady lived, in an old house in the UVA district. She would call and ask us to deliver a tube of paint. And we would do so, because she and her house were such a trip.
Whenever a crack appeared in the plaster, she would paint a vine or something creeping up the wall and across the ceiling. Her house, clean and all, was covered on the interior with paintings of vines.
Whichever employee of mine delivered a $5 tube of paint could count on spending an hour with Brandy and getting tea and scones or something.

But I digress. Brandy's husband was a diplomat in the 1940's but died young. Brandy had a diplomatic passport, allowing her to go to a lot of places during and after WW2, dressed in purple and coming across as this very flighty woman. Europe and North Africa in particular.
A couple of times, over tea and scones, I would gently ask if her travels were as innocent as they seemed. She would laugh, and wink, and effortlessly go back to being the eccentric Brandy.

That reminds me of Mrs. Redmond. She was the greeter, for years, at St. John's Hospital in Santa Monica. You may ever so slightly recognize the name, as the population the hospital serves has some famous names. in the community, and they sometimes become ill. I worked there as a junior in high school to the end of university in various clerical capacities. The volunteer service got more formalized in my time there, but as long as she was able, Mrs. Redmond greeted folks in the, er, foyer.

That hospital is big time now, but in those days, it was a place of rather nice decoish architecture, 220 or so beds. I know (if not the exact number), as I did bed reservations weekends for quite a long time.

As I was saying, Mrs. Redmond (her first name may have been Marcella)... she wore purple crepe dresses or sometimes other colors like royal blue, often with a scarf, probably red.

We all loved her, but now, exactly 50 years later, I wish I could talk to her at more length than I did then.

Back to football - when I worked at St. John's, my first job was taking screening photofluorographs of the patients. It was a small department, offshoot of radiology, an attempt to find tb in the population. I also worked later on a survey that found no tb in, uh, thousands of minifilms, and given that they were big on shooting rads, they were abolished. Similar to those Buster Brown foot machines, relatively big rads.

Anyway, when I used to wait in between patients, I occupied myself in various ways, including teaching myself to write badly lefthanded. But another way was to listen to Notre Dame football games...

Pulling them now --

Week 5 (14 games)

Carolina (2-2) @ New Orleans (0-3)
NY Jets (1-3) @ NY Giants (2-2)
Arizona (2-2) @ St. Louis (0-4)
Detroit (3-1) @ Washington (2-1)
Miami (0-4) @ Houston (2-2)
Jacksonville (2-1) @ Kansas City (2-2)
Cleveland (2-2) @ New England (4-0)
Seattle (3-1) @ Pittsburgh (3-1)
Atlanta (1-3) @ Tennessee (2-1)
Tampa Bay (3-1) @ Indianapolis (4-0)
San Diego (1-3) @ Denver (2-2)
Baltimore (2-2) @ San Francisco (2-2)
Chicago (1-3) @ Green Bay (4-0)

Dallas (4-0) @ Buffalo (1-3) + total score

Week 5 picks:

Carolina
NY Jets
Arizona
Washington
Houston
Jacksonville
New England
Pittsburgh
Tennessee
Tampa Bay
San Diego
Baltimore
Green Bay

Dallas 32

Carolina
NY Giants
Arizona
Washington
Miami
Kansas City
New England
Seattle
Tennessee
Indianapolis
Denver
Baltimore
Green Bay

Dallas total score 53

{rubbing hands together}
mwuh-ha-ha-ha-haaaaaaaaaa!!!!
(i do aspire to be the biggest deviant here...)


none, zilch.
pass the guac...

Week 5 (Nawlins & St Looey get off the schnide this week... miami does not)

New Orleans
NY Jets
St. Louis
Detroit
Houston
Kansas City
Pates (4-0 w/o harrison)
Pittsburgh
Tennessee
Indianapolis
Denver
San Francisco
Green Bay
Dallas (54)

Time for the Southern Strategy.

Carolina (2-2) @ New Orleans (0-3) NO
NY Jets (1-3) @ NY Giants (2-2) Jets because they come later (more Southern, ha!) in the alphabet
Arizona (2-2) @ St. Louis (0-4) AZ
Detroit (3-1) @ Washington (2-1) Washington
Miami (0-4) @ Houston (2-2) Miami
Jacksonville (2-1) @ Kansas City (2-2) J'ville
Cleveland (2-2) @ New England (4-0) NE (they're either South of Cleveland or close to it. No, I'm not looking at a map )
Seattle (3-1) @ Pittsburgh (3-1) Pitt
Atlanta (1-3) @ Tennessee (2-1) Atlanta
Tampa Bay (3-1) @ Indianapolis (4-0) T'Bay
San Diego (1-3) @ Denver (2-2) SD
Baltimore (2-2) @ San Francisco (2-2) I think Baltimore is more Southern. If not, change the maps.
Chicago (1-3) @ Green Bay (4-0) Chicago; Favre has to eventually get tired

Dallas (4-0) @ Buffalo (1-3) + total score Dallas, 41

Thank you. Next week's strategy is a secret. :wink:

Week 5 Picks

Carolina
NY Giants
Arizona
Washington
Houston
Jacksonville
New England
Pittsburgh
Tennessee
Indianapolis
Denver
Baltimore
Green Bay

Dallas (45 total)

Carolina
NY Jets
Arizona
Washington
Houston
Kansas City
New England
Seattle
Atlanta
Tampa Bay
Denver
Baltimore
Green Bay

Buffalo (31)