Vegas

Prayers?!? God wants you to enact gun control laws. You want signs? How about Sandy Hook and Vegas?

Super Bowl LI Predictions -- Patriots and Falcons

Photo: Brady is congratulated by Patriots coach Bill Belichick after New England beat the Colts 44-13 in Brady's first career start on Sept. 30, 2001.  Victoria Arocho, AP. From usatoday.com at this address.

Just a quick post about today's game, due to start in about 2 hours. Any given Sunday, of course, but:

--I'll pat myself on the back for a second: long before the Vegas oddsmakers made the Pats a 3-point favorite, I said weeks ago that the Pats would win a close one by 3.

--My overall score pick: Pats, 40-37 or 41-38. High scoring game, and by 3. That's been my stance since both teams won two weeks ago.

--Why? Overall, because the offenses may cancel each other out, but the Pats defense is better. It's that simple.

--The Falcons were bad against the run this year. The Patriots, surprisingly, were in the top-5 rushing. The Falcons' running game was average at best.

--The Falcons were a good, but average good, 11-5 this season. The Patriots were 11-5 a few years ago and didn't make the playoffs. So 11-5, while good, doesn't knock me outta my socks.

--Sure, the Patriots schedule this year may have been easier than that of the Falcons (or of anyone, really), but that doesn't mean it's not a great team. They had a hiccup of two games in there, one of which they lost with Brady, but overall it's possible they were a great team with an easier schedule.

--The schedule thing evens out, by the way. Next year could be brutal.

--The Patriots also have an edge with experience. An inexperienced team can win, of course--like the Patriots in 2001. But I'll take it when it's used mentally and productively, which Belichick and Brady seem to do. They visualize and channel well. Brady in particular could have a post-sports career on the self-help lecture circuit.

--Speaking of Belichick, he's an edge, too. His reputation precedes him and it can mess with you. Just ask Pete Carroll and Marshawn Lynch. Belichick is one of the few coaches whose name is as well known as his best players. Who's the Falcons coach? (Atlanta, don't answer that.)

--The Falcons have one truly great receiver. The Patriots have 3--and 4 if you count The Gronk, who--of course--isn't playing.

--Another edge the Patriots have is the very large chip on Brady's shoulder. It's actually about boulder size, and can be seen for miles with the naked eye. I mean this, by the way, as a compliment. The man is a HOFer, a millionaire perhaps literally hundreds of times over, is married to a gorgeous supermodel, has incredible homes and cars, is famous outside the sport--and he's as angry and petulant as a foot-stomping teenager. Except, he focuses better and is more driven, but still...Most guys in his position would've mailed it in a long time ago. Not him. He wants to be perfect, and believes he can be (and often is, on the field), which is why he may come across as arrogant and bossy. But he's earned the right to be that way on the field. His players like and respect him, which is all that really matters.

--Though I can do without his politics. Curt Schilling needs to step away from the political mike, too.

--By the way, Brady went on vacation for those 4 games, all over Europe, with his gorgeous supermodel wife and his undoubtedly perfect kids. If Roger Goodell thinks that's punishment, he doesn't understand the word or the concept. And, note to Goodell: The Patriots were 3-1 in those 4 games. And good job finding, finally, the right judge for you. How many millions of lawyers' fees did that cost you? Because Brady's were paid by Robert Kraft, who has more money than God--and much, much more than Roger Goodell.

MVP: Brady. Possibly Hogan, if he repeats his AFC game.

Still, it'll be a close one. Either team could, and maybe should, win. Having said that, Patriots by 3 in a high-scoring game, 41-38.

I've got a small pile of dirt from my backyard in a little cup, in case I need to eat some in about 5 hours.

Randomness 10/23/12

 Photo: Jackson asleep on the couch.  A colleague said he looked "angelic" in this picture.  True dat.  What can you say when your dog is more photogenic than you are?

Been away for awhile again, this time because my dog's been very ill, to the extent that I had to bring him to the vet yesterday and he has to spend two, maybe three, days and nights there to recover.  He's got an infected pancreas, which sounds nasty to me.  Very treatable, they say, and he doesn't have a fever, which means the infection wasn't too bad, but he'd been vomiting a ton of times over the past few days.  So wish Jackson the Wonderdog well!

So a few random things on my mind lately:

--I'm as lazy as anyone.  (Well, actually I'm very hyperactive and always busy, but whatever.)  But I draw some kind of line.  Convenience is just a fancy word for laziness, and there's only so much convenience I can take.  I don't know exactly where the line is, but a lot of money at the cost of convenience/laziness is simply not something I'll allow myself.  (Heck, not even a little amount of money.)

So recently there were two instances on Pawn Stars that drove me crazy.  I temporarily misplaced lost my notes about one of them, so I can only speak about one.  For sale: a 1760 bell.  Very good condition; used to be someplace very important and historical.  (Forgot where.)  Anyway, the expert was called in, and he said that at an auction it would fetch at least $15,000.  At least!  So let's just say fifteen.  Auctions take fifteen to twenty percent of the sale price.  Ten percent of fifteen grand is fifteen hundred, so twenty percent is three thousand.  So now it's twelve grand.  Maybe there are taxes to pay; I don't know, but there'd be taxes to pay, theoretically, selling it to the Pawn Stars, too, so that's a wash.  Let's say that other fees, like shipping it to the closest good auction house (though he's already in Vegas!  He couldn't just drive it to an auction house in Vegas?!?) would bring the total take down to ten grand (and I'll bet the take would be closer to the twelve.)  And that's minimum, as the expert said at least fifteen grand.  Bottom line, then, is that at an auction, the seller could walk away with ten to twelve grand.

He sold it to the Pawn Stars for $7,200.  After the expert says that if the seller takes it to an auction, it would sell for fifteen grand, and so he'd walk away with at least ten to twelve thousand, he sells it to them for $7,200.  That's a loss, minimum, of $2,800, and probably more like $4,800.  Why?  Because he's standing in front of a buyer, right then and there.  Didn't want to make a few calls, and drive it or ship it anywhere--or wait.  That's just crazy.  Someone's got to explain this to me.

--Two girls, both twelve years old, were murdered this past week by someone as they were walking or riding a bike to a friend's house.  And a twenty-two year old woman in Oregon was killed by a man who punched through a window of her SUV, got in the car and killed her, dumped her body, used her phone and then dumped the phone (cell phones can be traced), and then left her car somewhere.  It's a sick world out there.

--I've heard weather experts say it's going to be a very cold winter around here.  I've also heard the same number say it'll be a warm winter, though not as warm as last year.  A warm winter actually means more snow around here, as it's too dry to snow when it's too cold.  I'll take the too cold anyday.  More snow means bad driving, more shoveling, less walking of the dog, which will lead to much more whining, and possibly paying a neighbor to plow my driveway if the snow gets crazy.  So here's to the cold--but no ice on the roads, please.  Hate that.

--If Romney wins, I don't want to hear it from the 47% he obviously doesn't care about.  In his head, he's the rich white man's president.

--During the last debate, his facial expressions ran the gamut between obvious lovey-dovey towards Obama, to looking like he was about to vomit, with the occasional greasy used car salesman thrown in.  Weird, sad and slimy, in turns.

--His chin and jowls are tucked; his hair is slicked; his chin got in a duel with Jay Leno and won; his smile is either slick, sick or frozen.  He's more superficial than flavored ice cream on the nip and tucked face and silicone lips of a bottled blonde with chest enhancements.  And he openly and honestly doesn't give a damn about at least 47% of the country.  Voting for him would still be less insane than voting for Bush, especially the second time, but it would still be insane, nonetheless, and if you believe his assertion that he's run businesses and so therefore he can run the country, then you must think that snuffing out a lit candle makes you a professional firefighter.

--You can break a mirror in one second, but it would take a ton of hours to fix every little piece of glass into the mirror frame.  And so it would obviously take more than four years to fix eight years of broken pieces.  In fact, it would take at least a generation.  We can't give that, but we can give four more.

--This is post #250 on this site.  I appreciate my audience.  Thanks for reading, everyone.