Author: Gil

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2006-2007 NFL Playoff Challenge, round 1: the post-mortem

It’s never a good feeling to get up in the morning and find that one of your favorite writers just called you out like a bitch. But I deserve it, not having gone online yesterday to explain my horrific weekend of NFL picks.

On Saturday night, my brother said, “A game can be played horribly, but still be exciting.” This was moments before Tony Romo botched the hold on the potential game-winning field goal for the Cowboys. He was right; the ‘Hawks and the ‘Boys played like crap, but at least the game came down to the final minute. Unfortunately, this level of excitement didn’t make up for my call that Seattle would cover the 7-point spread (actually, I predicted a 21-point win, but hey).

Similarly, the Giants ignored the conventional wisdom that they’d quit on their coach, and busted their butts in their game against the Eagles, coming up short by 3 points, instead of the 7+ that I would’ve needed for a cover.

But my biggest mistake was going with the Jets outright. I thought it’d be a 17-14 finish or thereabouts, but it turned into a late rout, because the Pats are That Good. What’s funny is that, in both 2004 and 2005, I wrote on this very site, “Never bet against Bill Belichick.” Clearly, the fact that I didn’t reiterate this in 2006 doomed me to failure last weekend.

So I ended the weekend 1-3 against the spread, while Ron Rosenbaum went 2-2 in our Playoff Challenge (we both called the Colts cover correctly, even though we both blew our call that Larry Johnson would run wild for KC). Still no word on what should actually be at stake on this run. I’d offer up that the loser hosts a Superbowl party at his home, but we’re already planning on throwing one here at palatial VM Estates, so that’s out (on the plus side, you’re invited!).

Anyway, this Saturday morning, we’ll both post our second-round picks, based on Thursday’s betting line from the NY Daily News. Ron contends he’s also going to hazard a guess on what Philip Roth’s picks would be, even though I don’t think he’s aware of the, um, odd history I have with Mr. Roth (I’ll fill you in on that story sometime).

(Oh, and you guys should all pick up Ron’s newest book, The Shakespeare Wars, for two reasons: it’s a wonderful exploration into the wonder of Shakespeare’s plays and poetry, and if enough people buy it, I’ll be able to say that NYTimes best-selling author called me out like a bitch.)

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The information

I, for one, find it refreshing when a scandal in the Catholic church doesn’t involve the rape of an underaged boy.

This story — about the newly appointed archbishop of Warsaw having to step down because he was informing for the secret police back in the ’60s — reminds me of Timothy Garton Ash’s book The File, in which he checked out the Stasi’s records on him after East Germany’s truth commission made that stuff available. I recall Ash marveling over the sheer volume of reports, and their utter minutiae.

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2006-2007 NFL Playoff Challenge, round 1

As longtime VM readers know, I’m more of a pro basketball guy than an NFL guy. That said, I spend more money on my NFL package (including HD) on my satellite account than I do on hoops.

For a couple of seasons now, I’ve been making Super Bowl bets with Ron Rosenbaum, one of the best writers of our time. This year, Ron has his own blog, so he’s taking up the official VM challenge and posting NFL playoff picks for each week. You can find Ron’s picks for this week over here. As we get to the big game, we’ll start going head to head.

Meanwhile, here are my picks for the first weekend of the NFL playoffs:

COLTS by 7 points over Chiefs. This is the worst Colts team in the last bunch of years. While Payton’s capable of putting a team on his shoulders, his counterpart (Trent Green) is capable of modeling for Prada. The Colts can’t stop the run, which means Larry Johnson is going to be the first NFL player ever to crack the 1 mile mark in rushing for a game. That said, I have a hard time picking against Indy until they face the Patriots, most years. So I’m taking Colts minus the touchdown. (Update: WordPress ate this post for a while, so it’s actually going live when the Colts are up 9-0. I suck)

SEAHAWKS by 3 points over Dallas. Dallas overachieved this season, and the Hawks are going to pants them on national TV. I don’t like Seattle particularly, but I think Dallas is utterly outclassed. ‘Hawks -3. Don’t be surprised if this one’s a 3-touchdown blowout for Seattle.

PATRIOTS by 8.5 points over Jets. My pick for the upset (or at least the coverage-of-spread). I think Mangini knows enough of the Pats tricks to confound Bill “Fred Norris” Belichick on Sunday. My brother thinks I’m smoking crack for making this pick, but I have a feeling this’ll be a 17-13 finish, and the Jets will be on top. Jets +8.5, baby.

EAGLES by 7 points over Giants. Everything I said about the Cowboys being outclassed? That holds up for my favorite team, the Giants, too. The NJ Giants are going to be too busy pointing fingers all night to actually play football. Tiki’s final season will flame out in Philly, which sucks, because it means we’ll have to get ready to see him about 10 million times a week. Eagles minus 7.

So go on over to Ron’s site and see how his picks jibe against mine. In a couple of weeks, we’ll start betting head-to-head, so come up with some good suggestions of what we should bet, exactly.

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Answer me these questions three

On the way to the airport yesterday morning, we stopped at a Dunkin Donuts in Boonton. It’s the third or fourth time I’ve gone there on the way to Newark, but I’m going to have to quit that practice. As it turns out, their coffee is so impossibly hot that I only get to drink four or five sips of it by the time I get to the airport. So I’ll need to find another one earlier en route.

But yesterday’s stop does give me occasion for the first official entry in the Overheard in Dunkin Donuts category of VM (I’ve retroactively added those other recent DD posts)!

I walked into the place around 6:45am. A workman (flannel shirt, jeans, boots) was in front of me on line. He finished his order and then asked the cashier, “My boss come in here already?”

“I don’t know. What’s he look like?”

“Short guy. Looks like a bridge troll.”

“Oh, yes! He was in about half an hour ago.”

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Balling

The itinerary for the first day of our St. Louis trip was as follows:

  1. 9:10am flight to St. Louis
  2. Land 11:30-11:45am
  3. Get baggage (we needed the full-sized suitcase to bring along the birthday presents for my niece) and rental car
  4. Get lunch at Amy’s favorite Vietnamese restaurant, Mai Lee
  5. Check into hotel
  6. Get to my brother’s school by 2pm so I can play basketball with him, a bunch of high school students, and another teacher.

Now, it was #6 that I found a bit problematic from the moment my brother proposed it. See, I haven’t picked up a basketball in at least three years, and I’m several days away from turning 36. I didn’t relish having to explain a massive sports-related injury to my coworkers next week.

Still, basketball was a secondary religion to me and Boaz, behind pinball. Since Bo knows he’ll never be able to top my pinball-achievements, I figured it’d be fine for me to offer my sacrificial self up on the court this afternoon.

So while I packed last night, I pulled my high-tops from the closet, inspected them for scorpions or mice, and stuffed them away in the big suitcase, along with some shorts and a T-shirt. And today, five minutes after checking into the hotel, I headed out to get my ass beat by a bunch of 15-year-olds.

Funny thing: It turned out not to be so bad. I held my own on defense, managed to sky for some rebounds, and hit some wide-open jumpers, as well as a shot or two in traffic, from offensive rebounds. I was actually amazed that I could move as quickly as I did, and that I didn’t have any significant pain in my back. I guarded Boaz most of the time, except when I got tired and decided to stop chasing him through screens. He torched me, which was to be expected, but he was pleasantly surprised at how much life I showed on court. He also admired some of my defensive footwork and the ways I closed out some of his angles to the basket. I’m firmly convinced that all the basketball acumen I’ve picked up in the past year comes from reading Charley Rosen’s basketball column at FoxSports.com.

Anyway, I’m not tooting my own horn here, because I still sorta sucked. My passes were terrible, the release-point on my jumper is laughable, and I did a lot of “lurking” on offense, which is my strategy for avoiding getting the ball and having to make decisions. But still, it was a lot of fun, and I got back to my old basketball practice of sweating worse than Patrick Ewing.

It’s off to dinner with some of Amy’s friends tonight, then breakfast with another friend of hers tomorrow, before we have the birthday party for my niece on Saturday night. I don’t plan on getting back out on the court anytime soon, but it was nice to know I can still bust a 15-year-old with an elbow to the kidney during a back-screen.

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Shock the Monkey (with caffeine)

A few months ago, I wrote about a strange moment in a Dunkin Donuts on my morning commute. Today, I pulled in to another nearby DD on my way back from lunch, and a woman driving a Jaguar walked in ahead of me. She was wearing jeans, sneakers, and a sweater, with a plaid flannel shawl.

I stood behind her on line, and noticed that she had some sorta loose collar on her neck. It was red, with little silver buttons. A red, heart-shaped “dog tag” was hanging from it, on the back of her neck. It read

PET MONKEY
BILL IS
MY MASTER

I’m just gonna hide under my desk for a while.

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Steal a little and they throw you in jail / Steal a lot and they make you king

Here’s a neat interview with architect Renzo Piano, who over the years has inherited a bunch of projects from other architects (for a variety of reasons).

When you visit buildings by other architects, what do you look for?

Haha! First, I enjoy them very much. Second, I steal everything. Stealing is maybe too hard a word. There’s an Italian word, you say “rubarro,” which means a nice robber, without a mask.

What did T.S. Eliot say, “Good poets borrow, great poets steal”?

It’s really about that. But art is about that. Music is about taking and giving back. In a way I spend my entire life stealing from everything — from the past, from cities I love, from where I grew up — grabbing things, taking not only from architecture but from Italy, art, writing, poetry, music. And you know what, I put all my robberies in a little piece of paper that I have with me and fill almost a whole sketch pad. Even when I don’t like a building, I still find something to take. This is probably because I was never a good school boy, so I grew up with the idea that I was not the first in class and I was a problem all the time. When you grow up with that idea, you spend your life taking from others.

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Cereal Killer

Back in November, I wrote about how I’ve boycotted the large-sized box of Wheaties at our local supermarkets because Alex Rodriguez is the featured athlete. At least I could get by with the 12-oz. box, since I had got no beef with Steve Nash.

It just got worse. I hit the supermarket this week and discovered that A-Rod is still the large-box athlete (I need to check the expiration dates on those boxes; is it possible that no one is buying them?), but the Nash-boxes are gone. The 12-oz. box of Wheaties now features . . . your WNBA champions, the Detroit Shock!

Seriously. It’s a team photo of a WNBA team, which would be bad enough. But the picture also includes the smiling faces of the team’s head coach and top assistant: Bill Laimbeer and Rick Mahorn.

I’m goin’ back to Atkins.