Archive by Author | Evil Wordsmith

NFL Week 17

More good news and bad news for Dallas. Good news? You don’t get killed by anybody in the playoffs. Bad news is: see you next year. Make that later this year. Much later…

In order to update my playoff predictions, I had to break the three way tie in the AFC West between Denver, Oakland and San Diego. Very tough tie breaker decision to see who sucked the most in the AFC. Denver won that one by a hair, followed by Oakland. San Diego’s reward: the number four seed in the playoffs. They won’t get any further East than Pittsburgh.

My take:

Away	Home	Away	Home	Favorite	Line	O/U
Washington	Philadelphia	19	22	Philadelphia	3	41
Pittsburgh	Cleveland	20	16	Pittsburgh	3	36
Baltimore	Cincinnati	19	18	Baltimore	1	37
NY Jets	Miami	23	21	NY Jets	2	44
Carolina	New Orleans	19	27	New Orleans	8	46
Tampa Bay	Atlanta	19	24	Atlanta	5	43
Detroit	Green Bay	18	29	Green Bay	11	47
San Francisco	St. Louis	19	18	San Francisco	1	37
Indianapolis	Jacksonville	22	23	Jacksonville	1	44
Buffalo	New England	18	28	New England	10	46
Tennessee	Houston	20	22	Houston	2	42
Chicago	Minnesota	18	21	Minnesota	3	40
Dallas	NY Giants	22	22	NY Giants	1	44
Kansas City	Denver	23	22	Kansas City	0	45
San Diego	Oakland	25	21	San Diego	3	46
Seattle	Arizona	20	25	Arizona	5	46

Vegas:

Favorite	Line	O/U	Bet	O/U
Philadelphia	8.5	45.5	Washington	Under
Pittsburgh	6.5	33.5	Cleveland	Over
Baltimore	2.0	38.0	Cincinnati	Under
Miami	3.0	39.0	NY Jets	Over
New Orleans	7.0	54.5	New Orleans	Under
Atlanta	10.5	45.5	Tampa Bay	Under
Detroit	5.0	41.5	Green Bay	Over
San Francisco	10.5	35.5	St. Louis	Over
Jacksonville	3.5	37.5	Indianapolis	Over
New England	10.5	49.5	Buffalo	Under
Tennessee	2.0	39.0	Houston	Over
Minnesota	2.0	41.0	Minnesota	Under
NY Giants	3.0	47.0	Dallas	Under
Denver	3.0	37.0	Kansas City	Over
Oakland	3.0	48.5	San Diego	Under
Arizona	3.0	41.0	Arizona	Over

There is one good bet today, based on the notion in Vegas that Green Bay will park their A team and lose by 5 to Detroit. As a Green Bay fan, I hope that every game means something to them. I know if I had tickets to that game and they play to lose I’d probably sell them. Well, I’d think real hard about selling them.

E.W.

In the big (idiotic marketing speak) craze to “go green” the NFL should just disqualify the AFC West from the playoffs due to the amount of computing power they could save breaking a three way tie between a bunch of 500 teams. Think of the gas that will be wasted by Pittsburgh fans heading off to watch that boring playoff game.

NFL Week 16

Dec25

Good news and bad news for Dallas. Good news? You don’t get killed by New Orleans in the playoffs. Bad news is it really won’t matter.

My take:

Away	Home	Away	Home	Favorite	Line	O/U
Houston	Indianapolis	23	21	Houston	1	44
Miami	New England	18	24	New England	7	42
Cleveland	Baltimore	15	23	Baltimore	8	37
Arizona	Cincinnati	18	21	Cincinnati	3	39
Minnesota	Washington	21	22	Washington	0	43
Denver	Buffalo	20	22	Buffalo	1	42
St. Louis	Pittsburgh	14	24	Pittsburgh	10	38
NY Giants	NY Jets	19	25	NY Jets	6	44
Tampa Bay	Carolina	20	19	Tampa Bay	0	39
Jacksonville	Tennessee	18	24	Tennessee	6	42
Oakland	Kansas City	21	22	Kansas City	0	43
San Diego	Detroit	25	23	San Diego	2	48
Philadelphia	Dallas	23	25	Dallas	2	48
San Francisco	Seattle	18	21	Seattle	3	39
Chicago	Green Bay	16	25	Green Bay	9	41
Atlanta	New Orleans	21	25	New Orleans	4	46

Vegas:

Favorite	Line	O/U	Bet	O/U
Houston	7.0	40.5	Indianapolis	Over
New England	7.0	49.0	Miami	Under
Baltimore	11.0	38.5	Cleveland	Under
Cincinnati	4.0	41.5	Arizona	Under
Washington	6.0	43.0	Minnesota	Over
Denver	3.0	43.5	Buffalo	Under
Pittsburgh	10.0	33.5	St. Louis	Over
NY Jets	2.5	46.0	NY Jets	Under
Carolina	8.0	48.5	Tampa Bay	Under
Tennessee	8.0	38.5	Jacksonville	Over
Kansas City	3.0	43.0	Oakland	Under
Detroit	0.0	52.5	San Diego	Under
Philadelphia	2.5	49.5	Dallas	Under
San Francisco	2.5	37.0	Seattle	Over
Green Bay	12.5	41.5	Chicago	Under
New Orleans	6.5	52.5	Atlanta	Under

Still no good bets.

E.W.

I went to a party where they played Dirty Santa. One of the gifts was a cast iron Fluer-de-lis which we all assumed was a weapon. I warned the people who got it that, while it would protect them from all manner of beasts, such as Bears, Jaguars, Panthers, Colts, Lions, Falcons, even Pirates and Vikings and mythical creatures like Giants and Titans, that it would offer no protection whatsoever from Rams.

NFL Week 15

Dec15

I picked the Dallas game wrong, and never been happier. The Football Giants not only won, but knocked Dallas to the bottom of the playoffs. Worse for Dallas, they will now get slaughtered at New Orleans in the first round. And that’s assuming they don’t lose one of the remaining games and any of a quarter dozen teams hold their own or just win one more game than I figure.

On the other hand, Denver is now in the playoffs. If you’re a Bronc fan, don’t get excited, they aren’t going any further than Dallas. Tebow is a great quarterback, unfortunately, John Fox doesn’t have the slightest clue how to use one of those. If only he knew of some way a quarterback could somehow get the ball to a receiver down the field. Some way that the ball would go past the defenders out of their reach and end up at one of his runners. Almost like it could fly through the air…

Here’s my take this week:

Away	Home	Away	Home	Favorite	Line	O/U
Jacksonville	Atlanta	18	24	Atlanta	7	42
Dallas	Tampa Bay	22	20	Dallas	2	41
Cincinnati	St. Louis	21	19	Cincinnati	2	40
Miami	Buffalo	19	18	Miami	1	37
Washington	NY Giants	20	23	NY Giants	2	43
Tennessee	Indianapolis	20	22	Indianapolis	2	43
Seattle	Chicago	18	26	Chicago	8	44
Green Bay	Kansas City	25	19	Green Bay	6	43
Carolina	Houston	19	25	Houston	5	44
New Orleans	Minnesota	23	24	Minnesota	1	47
Detroit	Oakland	21	23	Oakland	3	44
Cleveland	Arizona	20	23	Arizona	3	43
NY Jets	Philadelphia	22	22	Philadelphia	0	43
New England	Denver	27	21	New England	6	48
Baltimore	San Diego	19	22	San Diego	3	41
Pittsburgh	San Francisco	18	21	San Francisco	3	39

Here’s Vegas:

Favorite	Line	O/U	Bet	O/U
Atlanta	12.0	42.5	Jacksonville	Under
Dallas	7.0	47.0	Tampa Bay	Under
Cincinnati	6.5	40.0	St. Louis	Under
Buffalo	0.0	42.0	Miami	Under
NY Giants	7.0	46.5	Washington	Under
Tennessee	6.5	41.0	Indianapolis	Over
Chicago	3.5	36.0	Chicago	Over
Green Bay	13.5	46.0	Kansas City	Under
Houston	6.5	45.0	Carolina	Under
New Orleans	6.5	51.5	Minnesota	Under
Detroit	1.0	47.5	Oakland	Under
Arizona	6.5	37.5	Cleveland	Over
Philadelphia	3.0	44.0	NY Jets	Under
New England	6.5	46.0	Denver	Over
Baltimore	2.5	44.5	San Diego	Under
San Francisco	3.0	39.5	Pittsburgh	Under

The economy still sucks, so there’s still no good bets this week.

E.W.

I watched the painful St. Louis game. Seven shots at the endzone from the 1 yard line. At some point the quarterback should have just said, “Screw the play call, you two line up behind for the hand off. When the ball snaps, you shove my ass through the line.”

More Design Guy Sightings

Dec12

I love my old Chevy truck. But it is old. Which means things break on it every now and then. Of course the AC pump’s been broke for a loooong time. But it finally got so bad I needed to take it out. It was whining so loud that people would look up to try to see the RC plane they heard. I may one day put a new one in there, but then, I like summer and have never had a vehicle with AC. So… not today.

I got a pulley to replace it and set about removing it. Seemed like it would be a pretty easy repair. Take off the belt pull the electrical connectors and hose connection. Remove the three bolts, whip it out and drop the pulley in place and zip tie the lose electrical and hose connections. I’m going to kill the next person who asks me to do something and adds, “it’ll only take five minutes.”

I pulled the belt. Pulled the connections. Loosened the five inch long bolt and discovered that there was only two inches clearance to pull it. It jammed up hard against the pulley of the compressor that it was holding in place. Ditto with the other two bolts.

After looking at it a while it was clear that the pulley would have to come off the compressor. I looked online seems I’m not the only one who had this problem. Some of the guys actually cut the bolts off. As you will see in a moment that’s a Real Bad Idea ™. But several of them said that the bolts will come out if you wiggle them around..

I took another look at it. The pulley probably can come off, but it looks like you need The Special Tool ™. I don’t have it of course. So I tried the wiggling idea. After some unproductive moments trying really hard not to say any words the group of 6 years old gathered around don’t need to learn, suddenly, one of the bolts is now flush with the ridge on the pulley that was blocking it. I was momentarily fascinated by the fact that it seemed the bolt and the pulley were now occupying the same space and time. But I didn’t bother to really wait to figure out what I was seeing and jerked the bolt out.

Now, with the bolt in hand, I had time to be fascinated again. At first glance the bolt appears to be a standard metric flanged cap bolt. However, one side of the flange is ground away flat, which allows the bolt to come past the pulley when magically turned just right. So basically, instead of designing the bracket’s bolt diameter to be just an 1/8” larger, the solution was to make three special bolts only for this AC compressor. All those people that cut them off and bought new bolts were screwed.

We really should spend some time and resources to find the Design Guy and eliminate him.

E.W.

I bet you can buy the Special Bolts ™ from the dealer. I bet they’re ten bucks each.

NFL Week 14

Dec8

Been having pretty good weeks for picks, gambling finally fell deep in the negative zone for all bets, no surprise. But I’m in the black for good bets… Thanks Indy, I know all of your necks hurt after the surgery, but you really pulled it off there and covered the 20 and a half point spread!

Here’s my take this week:

Away	Home	Away	Home	Favorite	Line	O/U
Cleveland	Pittsburgh	16	23	Pittsburgh	7	40
Tampa Bay	Jacksonville	20	20	Jacksonville	0	40
New England	Washington	26	19	New England	6	45
Houston	Cincinnati	22	20	Houston	2	42
Kansas City	NY Jets	17	22	NY Jets	6	39
Minnesota	Detroit	21	25	Detroit	4	45
New Orleans	Tennessee	24	22	New Orleans	2	46
Philadelphia	Miami	24	23	Philadelphia	1	47
Oakland	Green Bay	18	28	Green Bay	10	46
Indianapolis	Baltimore	18	25	Baltimore	7	43
Atlanta	Carolina	21	18	Atlanta	3	40
Chicago	Denver	22	20	Chicago	2	41
San Francisco	Arizona	21	22	Arizona	2	43
Buffalo	San Diego	18	26	San Diego	8	44
NY Giants	Dallas	21	25	Dallas	5	46
St. Louis	Seattle	16	23	Seattle	6	39

Vegas:

Favorite	Line	O/U	Bet	O/U
Pittsburgh	14.0	39.0	Cleveland	Over
Tampa Bay	2.0	39.0	Jacksonville	Over
New England	8.0	48.0	Washington	Under
Cincinnati	3.0	38.0	Houston	Over
NY Jets	9.0	36.5	Kansas City	Over
Detroit	8.0	49.5	Minnesota	Under
New Orleans	3.5	48.5	Tennessee	Under
Miami	3.0	45.0	Philadelphia	Over
Green Bay	11.0	52.0	Oakland	Under
Baltimore	16.5	41.0	Indianapolis	Over
Atlanta	2.5	47.5	Atlanta	Under
Denver	3.5	35.5	Chicago	Over
San Francisco	3.5	39.5	Arizona	Over
San Diego	7.0	47.5	San Diego	Under
Dallas	3.5	49.0	Dallas	Under
Seattle	5.5	39.5	Seattle	Under

There aren’t any good bets this week.

E.W.

Looks like a lot of planned slaughters this week.

NFL Week 13

Dec4

Great week last week for Panther, DC and Titan fans, they all won a game! Here it is for this week:

Away	Home	Away	Home	Favorite	Line	O/U
Philadelphia	Seattle	23	22	Philadelphia	2	45
Oakland	Miami	22	22	Miami	1	44
Atlanta	Houston	21	23	Houston	1	44
Tennessee	Buffalo	20	21	Buffalo	1	40
Kansas City	Chicago	20	24	Chicago	5	44
NY Jets	Washington	22	19	NY Jets	3	41
Cincinnati	Pittsburgh	18	23	Pittsburgh	5	42
Baltimore	Cleveland	20	17	Baltimore	3	36
Carolina	Tampa Bay	21	21	Carolina	0	42
Detroit	New Orleans	19	28	New Orleans	9	46
Denver	Minnesota	19	24	Minnesota	5	43
Dallas	Arizona	22	23	Arizona	1	45
Green Bay	NY Giants	25	22	Green Bay	3	47
St. Louis	San Francisco	14	24	San Francisco	10	37
Indianapolis	New England	20	27	New England	8	47
San Diego	Jacksonville	23	21	San Diego	2	45

Vegas:

Vegas Line:	Favorite	Line	O/U	Bet	O/U
Philadelphia	3.0	43.5	55.5	Seattle	Over
Miami	3.5	43.0	45.0	Oakland	Over
Atlanta	2.0	38.0	40.0	Houston	Over
Buffalo	1.0	43.5	44.0	Tennessee	Under
Chicago	8.5	35.5	37.5	Kansas City	Over
NY Jets	3.0	38.5	43.0	Washington	Over
Pittsburgh	7.0	43.0	40.5	Cincinnati	Under
Baltimore	7.0	38.5	37.5	Cleveland	Under
Carolina	2.0	46.5	42.5	Tampa Bay	Under
New Orleans	9.0	54.0	45.5	New Orleans	Under
Minnesota	1.0	37.5	37.0	Minnesota	Over
Dallas	4.5	47.0	41.5	Arizona	Under
Green Bay	7.0	54.0	50.5	NY Giants	Under
San Francisco	14.0	38.5	42.0	St. Louis	Under
New England	20.5	48.5	40.0	Indianapolis	Under
San Diego	3.0	39.0	51.0	Jacksonville	Over

Only one good bet… gulp… take Indy and the points. I’m going to need more beer for the night game.

E.W.

It’s amazing that losing Manning not only killed Indy’s offense, but apparently he was a huge part of the defense too. I guess they have the wrong label for his position. It should be QuarterLineCornerSafetyRunningTightEndBackMan.

Holiday Etiquette

Dec4

holiday-napkin I saw a thing on the morning news where they were talking about Holiday Etiquette. To help people out I thought I would give you a short, but instructive quiz on the subject. It’s just one question.

You’re in a mall toy store searching for the must-have toy of the season, The Uber-Marketed-Dolly ™. You just spotted the very last one on Earth, currently at the other end of a long aisle. In front of you to the right and approaching the toy is one soccer mom. On the left, slightly behind and also approaching the toy is soccer mom #2 who is pushing a baby stroller.

Do you:

A. Give up and prepare to tell little Susie about the realities of Christmas?

B. Wait till one of the mom’s picks up the toy and then start a bidding war to buy the toy?

C. Jump in front of soccer mom #2, plant your foot in her stroller and use it like a skate board to rush past soccer mom #1 and grab the toy?

If you answered C, then you lose because I vaulted over your shoulder to plant my foot in the stroller and I’m already at the check out. Next year maybe you’ll have your game on.

E.W.

Perhaps your failure here is that you didn’t drink enough coffee before shopping. It’s a common mistake.

NFL Week 12

Nov27

No real surprises last week. Sucked as usual for Panthers, Titan and DC fans. I don’t know what Kansas did to deserve the beating they got, but they took it better than Indy has.

Here’s my take this week:

Away	Home	Away	Home	Favorite	Line	O/U
Green Bay	Detroit	25	22	Green Bay	3	47
Miami	Dallas	18	23	Dallas	5	41
San Francisco	Baltimore	16	24	Baltimore	8	39
Minnesota	Atlanta	20	24	Atlanta	4	44
Houston	Jacksonville	24	21	Houston	3	45
Tampa Bay	Tennessee	20	22	Tennessee	2	42
Arizona	St. Louis	21	20	Arizona	1	40
Cleveland	Cincinnati	17	20	Cincinnati	3	37
Buffalo	NY Jets	16	24	NY Jets	8	40
Carolina	Indianapolis	19	24	Indianapolis	4	43
Washington	Seattle	18	21	Seattle	3	40
Chicago	Oakland	20	18	Chicago	2	39
New England	Philadelphia	24	22	New England	1	46
Denver	San Diego	19	25	San Diego	6	44
Pittsburgh	Kansas City	22	18	Pittsburgh	4	40
NY Giants	New Orleans	21	26	New Orleans	5	47

And Vegas;

Favorite	Line	O/U	Bet	O/U
Green Bay	6.0	55.5	Detroit	Under
Dallas	7.0	45.0	Miami	Under
Baltimore	3.5	40.0	Baltimore	Under
Atlanta	9.5	44.0	Minnesota	Under
Houston	3.5	37.5	Jacksonville	Over
Tennessee	3.0	43.0	Tampa Bay	Under
St. Louis	3.0	40.5	Arizona	Under
Cincinnati	7.0	37.5	Cleveland	Under
NY Jets	9.0	42.5	Buffalo	Under
Carolina	3.0	45.5	Indianapolis	Under
Seattle	3.5	37.0	Washington	Over
Oakland	4.0	41.5	Chicago	Under
New England	3.0	50.5	Philadelphia	Under
San Diego	6.0	42.0	Denver	Over
Pittsburgh	10.5	40.0	Kansas City	Under
New Orleans	7.0	51.0	NY Giants	Under

There are no good bets this week.

E.W.

Looking the spreadsheet, my gambling average would be great if all the games today end tied 0-0. I wonder if someone would give odds on that happening…

How the Draft Deals With Natural Disasters or At Least It Wasn’t Godzilla

Nov26

You are President Jones. And as a president, when a natural disaster strikes you’re expected to do something about it. Generally that means fly over to where ever it happened and look at it while the news people film you looking at it. Of course that’s about as useful as your buddy looking at the new six inch long gash in your forehead and going, “Ow, that looks bad.”

Thus Operation Hot Tub was born and so there you are, sitting in your cabin in the Mile High Club, sipping Jack Daniels. Your Japanese language coach, code named Pai Mei, (Hell that actually might be his real name, you just don’t know) is schooling you on the finer points of Japanese night life. He is particularly annoyed that you are fixated on the idea of spending some quality time with a geisha. He insists you won’t and you insist on at least making an effort.

“Anata wa sushi no yona aji nodarou ka.” You say to him. Continue reading →

NFL Week 11

Nov20

Anybody know what happened to the Panthers? The Queen has a theory on bye weeks being bad for the team, says they come back rusty cause they haven’t played a real game in two weeks. She may be on to something.

If I was coach I’d fix this, “bye week” would be words of dread among my team, they would all whisper things like, “I hate bye week, I wish we were going to be playin’.”

Here’s my take this week:

Away	Home	Away	Home	Favorite	Line	O/U
NY Jets	Denver	24	21	NY Jets	3	45
Carolina	Detroit	20	24	Detroit	3	44
Tampa Bay	Green Bay	17	25	Green Bay	8	42
Dallas	Washington	20	19	Dallas	1	39
Buffalo	Miami	21	23	Miami	2	45
Jacksonville	Cleveland	18	20	Cleveland	2	38
Tennessee	Atlanta	19	23	Atlanta	4	43
Oakland	Minnesota	19	24	Minnesota	5	43
Cincinnati	Baltimore	17	24	Baltimore	7	41
Seattle	St. Louis	19	22	St. Louis	3	42
Arizona	San Francisco	17	23	San Francisco	6	40
San Diego	Chicago	23	24	Chicago	1	47
Philadelphia	NY Giants	25	23	Philadelphia	1	48
Kansas City	New England	19	27	New England	8	45

And Vegas;

Favorite	Line	O/U	Bet	O/U
NY Jets	6.0	39.5	Denver	Over
Detroit	7.0	47.5	Carolina	Under
Green Bay	14.0	48.5	Tampa Bay	Under
Dallas	7.5	41.5	Washington	Under
Miami	2.0	43.0	Miami	Over
Cleveland	1.0	34.5	Cleveland	Over
Atlanta	6.0	44.0	Tennessee	Under
Oakland	1.0	45.5	Minnesota	Under
Baltimore	7.0	40.5	Baltimore	Over
St. Louis	2.5	39.0	St. Louis	Over
San Francisco	9.5	40.5	Arizona	Under
Chicago	3.5	45.0	San Diego	Over
NY Giants	4.0	47.0	Philadelphia	Over
New England	15.0	46.5	Kansas City	Under

There are no good bets this week.

E.W.

Ok what did poor old Kansas City do to deserve a Monday night whoopin’ like this? I bet they wish it was just going to be the Spanish Inquisition.