Author and Thinker
The parade of New York columnists complaining about moving a cold-weather game to the nighttime in reference to Panthers-Giants.
That may have also killed Giants-Vikings (although that’s in a dome) and even Cowboys-Eagles if arcane rules didn’t do so.
On this day two years ago, I made the very first post in the history of Da Blog. I remember it clearly. The post was written inside a bus stop shelter in cold conditions, and I shivered as I typed those first words about myself. I had a few ideas of where I was going to take Da Blog, but few of them were very clear in my head. Some jerk, probably coveting my laptop, kept needling me while I tried to work. I told myself that one day, I would be writing posts in nigh-luxourious conditions and would look back on that first, bus-stop-penned post, with laughter and chuckles.
I’m writing this post… well, the main reasons I’m not writing this in a bus stop shelter again are 1) the Storm of the Century hitting Seattle making it even worse than last time and downright treacherous for a laptop, 2) I’m writing this Sunday night after burning up my laptop battery on my last Flex Scheduling Watch of the year, and 3) as I’ve mentioned a few times, the public wi-fi I used two years ago has almost been abandoned.
But hey, no one’s making me fearful for my safety, so that’s progress!
Now, at the time, the main reason for the weird conditions was that I was on winter break. I was still living in the university dorms at the time during the regular class year. So the instant that I moved back to campus I was already writing in a hundred times more luxourious conditions than I was before (and on my desktop). But that February, I was basically kicked out of the dorms and sent home. Since then I have used various means to improvise to get any internet connection at all. I’ve stolen two different connections from neighbors. I made mad dashes of half a block to squeeze out a little bit of Internet time and back. I went to the library for a while. I’ve even taken advantage of an offer from my dad to use the Internet at the place where he works.
Since this summer, I’ve made at least a token effort to get a real job, and even gotten some initial interviews. But nothing has panned out, and because I haven’t been able to get a real job I haven’t been able to move elsewhere or get an Internet connection I don’t need to steal. So it’s been Improvization City for the better part of two years. No doubt the tanking economy (we wish you a merry recession-day!) has played a part in my lack of a job – certainly it would seem fatal when combined with my general lack of experience.
But there’s also the fact that I’ve been treating Da Blog as more of a job… even though I still don’t have the readers to justify it. Or any revenue streams besides advertising – but that’s one more revenue stream than I had a year ago.
The past year has been one of finding my voice on Da Blog. Over the course of this year, I launched Sandsday, the Random Internet Discovery, started doing regular webcomic reviews, started forming my opinions on the state of politics today, started doing college football schedules and added pages on the web site for the college football rankings, and so, so much more. I think it’s been at least June since I’ve failed to post on a weekday. Given that volume of postings, you may think it way overdue if you’ve noticed that the Blog Archive on the sidebar has switched to breaking down posts by week. It’s easy to forget that a year ago, I was making twelve to twenty posts in an entire month. This is the 374th post I’ve posted in 2008, and already the 28th this month. I posted 155 times prior to 2008, which means I’ve well over doubled the output of my first year in my second.
(I was remiss in not marking my 500th post, in part because all my counts I get from Blogger include posts I’ve abandoned. Post #500, oddly, was this one announcing a move to CAPTCHA for all comments.)
With the move to a more regular posting schedule, and the addition of more quality content, people have started to notice. A year ago, I got excited at 25 visits in a single day. These days… well, there’s still quite a few times when I get fewer than 25, but generally, especially on weekdays, at least 25 is the norm, and less than ten is a disappointment. From March through November, readership on Da Blog has increased every single month. This month is already over 1.5 times last December, and while it only has 682 visits so far through around 6 PM PT Sunday, it can still easily top last month’s mark of 923 visits. The 1,000 frontier remains within reach. And last December, I was excited to get around 300 hits in a month, a mark I haven’t fallen below since May. And some surprisingly heavy hitters have showed up. Okay, so when you’re talking about webcomic names like David Morgan-Mar and Robert A. Howard commenting on (and linking to) Da Blog posts, you’re talking maybe T-list “celebrities”, but I’m a Z-lister at best, so anyone with their own site and any kind of following taking notice is going to leave me awestruck.
(My post with my predictions of SportsCenter’s “Top 10 Games” proved to be surprisingly popular on searches, so look for me to potentially repeat it next year and in future years.)
Even with football season over, I’ve got still more plans for Da Blog, and for the web site. I’m going to be running a “mail call” feature to mark the first anniversary of Sandsday in about a month’s time (I hope), so if you have any questions about the strip, leave a comment on this post, the open thread, or mwmailsea at yahoo dot com. Howard rightly pointed out that my webcomic posts have fallen into a rut of Ctrl+Alt+Del, Order of the Stick, and Irregular Webcomic! over and over again, and in something I had been planning on already, I’m going to aim to change that starting tomorrow. I still hope to complete at least my Democratic platform examination before the inauguration. As I vowed last year, I still plan to focus on my studies, but I’ll only be taking two classes – although I still hope to add a job on top of that. And I still have a boatload of new projects I hope to have coming down the pike in the new year.
What of my advertising revenue, as much of a trickle as it may still be? I started adding advertising in August and I already have four dollars. Woo-hoo! But what do I do with it? As much as it sounds frivolous, given all my other problems, I’m going to start thinking of registering “morganwick.com” as a place to stow my various projects (including, potentially, Da Blog). And before my latest term with Freehostia runs out in August, I need to start thinking about potentially getting a new hosting provider to go along with the new domain. If I can afford it, I need to look for a hosting provider that provides the most bang for the buck, especially where PHP support and MySQL support is concerned. Ideally, I need more MySQL databases for the College Football Rankings and some new webcomic ideas I have percolating in my head. I also need to think about upgrading my SiteMeter account, pending what happens when they launch the new service for real – I need to start looking back more than just 100 visitors to see where they’re coming from.
Year Two of Da Blog was a momentous one, for itself and for me. Let’s see if Year Three takes us on just as exhilirating a ride – and if I end it posting in slightly better conditions than now.
#9 USC v. #1 Oklahoma
The game turned out to be surprisingly boring… aside from the team that was winning.
It didn’t look to be that way at first. Mark Sanchez’s second pass attempt was picked off – but the Trojan defense forced its second straight three-and-out. The next time the Trojans got the ball, Joe McKnight broke off a 40-yard touchdown run. Then Oklahoma coughed up the ball on a fumble and USC went on another 53-yard drive for another touchdown, and the Sooner crowd was silent the rest of the way. Sanchez kept the scoring going with a long pass to Patrick Turner that he managed to take in for a score early in the second. Oklahoma went into the half without having tallied a single first down and down 28-0.
The Sooners finally picked up a first down midway through the third… only to see their next punt be taken to the house. The Sooners also got on the board with a 57-yard rushing touchdown on the first play from scrimmage after the ensuing kickoff, but by that point they were already down 35-7 and no one thought any sort of miracle comeback was anything near possible – a near 5-minute touchdown scoring drive taking up the rest of the third quarter, with the touchdown itself coming in the fourth, made sure of that. The stands were sparse for much of the second half and virtually empty for most of the fourth, as college football pundits and Sooner fans alike found themselves scratching their heads. Yes, Pete Carroll had undoubtedly motivated his squad with the indignity of having to play in the freezing snow of Salt Lake City in the first round when they all knew they had deserved a first-round home game. Most of the questions involved the Sooners: What had happened that left them vulnerable to freaking Troy, and then left them as little more than the butt for another set of Trojans to whoop, in a replay of the 2004 Orange Bowl? And how had Joe McKnight gone completely ignored in the Heisman conversation this season?
Final score: USC 55, Oklahoma 14
#7 Texas Tech v. #2 Florida
From the opening bell, it was clear this was not going to be Texas Tech’s day. That became apparent when Jeffery Demps broke open a 51-yard run on the first play from scrimmage. Florida went on to score later in the drive, then picked up a field goal on the next one. The Red Raiders proceeded to pick up their first first down, but then Graham Harrell threw one of his two picks and that resulted in a touchdown-scoring drive. Texas Tech finally picked up a touchdown on a drive that spanned into the second quarter, but the extra point was blocked, and a good kickoff return allowed Florida to drive to another field goal.
The Red Raiders defense finally stopped Florida from scoring with a three-and-out, only for Harrell to throw INT #2, this time returned all 48 yards for the touchdown by Joe Haden. Florida went into the half up 30-6 and the Red Raiders never scored again. Tim Tebow didn’t look like a running quarterback – he ran 17 times for only 11 yards – but Demps and Chris Rainey picked up the slack, and while Tebow went only 5-8 passing, it was for 53 yards.
Final score: Texas Tech 6, Florida 40 (I’m assuming Florida keeps running with less than 2 minutes to play, picks up the first down, doesn’t need to kick a field goal, and doesn’t try to punch it in with goal to go)
#6 Cincinnati v. #3 Texas
In by far the greatest game of the Golden Bowl tournament so far, Cincinnati proved they deserved their seed that so many called unusually high. So impressive were they that Dominick Goodman, who caught 7 passes for 153 yards, was considered the player of the game.
Why was that impressive, besides that it was a wide receiver? Read on.
An early Texas drive that looked like the landslide many pundits had predicted was cut short when Colt McCoy, after driving his team to the Bearcat 30, threw the ball into the hands of Brandon Underwood. Tony Pike then went 4-for-4, every throw for a first down, culminating with Goodman making a running catch and winning a footrace for the endzone, a 30-yard play that served as a notice to the Longhorns. Cincinnati 7: Texas 0.
Although Texas went three-and-out, anyone who dismissed that drive as a fluke probably seemed vindicated when Pike threw an interception of his own, and after Texas went three-and-out again, promptly threw another interception on his very next play, this one taken back to the end zone by Earl Thomas for the game-tying score. After that, the Bearcats kept the ball on the ground, throwing the ball only three times on the ensuing drive on the way to a field goal to retake the lead. The Longhorns promptly struck back, as McCoy drove them 46 yards before Chris Ogbonnaya picked up a 24-yard touchdown run on a draw. Cincinnati doesn’t pick up a first down for the rest of the half, and the Longhorns add a field goal of their own before the half. The pundits’ halftime analysis: the Longhorns started slow, but they will now play much more like they played in the second quarter and will put the game away.
Not so fast.
Anyone thinking the Bearcats would go down that easy were shut up when John Goebel ticked off a 48-yard run all the way to the 2, setting up a subsequent touchdown run to re-tie the game. Cincinnati’s next possession ended in a three-and-out and the ensuing punt gave the Longhorns good enough field position to re-take the lead, but Pike managed to lead the Bearcats to the endzone himself on the very next drive. The Bearcats were not going away, and they would stay in it all the way to the end.
After forcing Texas to punt, the Bearcats got the ball back on their own 17 for their first drive of the fourth quarter, and after two plays, picked up a first down when the Longhorns were flagged for encroachment – only to be set further back by a holding flag the next play. Thanks mostly to a second-down pass to Goodman, the Bearcats still picked up the first down, then crossed midfield on a 13-yard pass to Ben Guidugli. Another second-down pass picked up another first down before the Bearcats stalled, only gaining two yards on each of the first two downs before Isaiah Pead, on one of only two rushes of the day (both for losses), got nailed for a five-yard loss and forced a punt. On the clock, the quarter was already half over, and the score remained 24-24.
McCoy proceeded to break the hearts of the Bearcat faithful by running for 17 yards on second down to the Longhorn 35, then handed it off to Cody Johnson who broke open for a 64-yard run, just barely being stopped short of the end zone. After two incomplete passes and a run got stopped, Mack Brown decided to roll the dice by going for it on fourth down. Had it failed, it could have ended up endlessly questioned – but it worked, and the Longhorns retook the lead. But before the Bearcat faithful could beat themselves up for very long, Pike threw a screen to Goodman, who proceeded to make a Heisman-like dash for 65 yards down to the 12, and Jacob Ramsey punched it in the rest of the distance. Cincinnati 31, Texas 31, 4:28 to play. Texas returns the kickoff to their own 30. Play sequence: Incomplete, 1-yard pass, incomplete, punt. Cincinnati gets the ball back on their own 38, 3:33 to play, chance to win the game and shock the nation by shutting the Big 12 out of the semifinals.
First play: Interception.
After an illegal motion flag against Texas, Ogbonnaya promptly breaks open a 46-yard run down to the 10. Two Foswhitt Whitaker runs later, McCoy hits Quan Cosby in the endzone. Cincinnati 31, Texas 38, 1:47 to play, Tony Pike – after a fantastic game – needing to redeem himself and not become the scapegoat.
Cincinnati gets the ball back on the 23. First play very familiar: Pike to Goodman, out of bounds, gain of 8, second down Ramsey gets a four-yard run for the first down. Bearcats call timeout, 1:32 remaining. Goebel runs east-and-west and manages to pick up a yard before going out of bounds. Pike throws… batted down. Pike completes it this time to Marcus Barnett, but he gets nailed immediately… can’t go out of bounds. Clock stops for the measurement and first down, but they have to get back to the line. Clock ticks down to 55 seconds. They run a draw to Ramsey… ends up out of bounds for another 1-yard gain. 51 seconds. Pike throws to the sideline to Charley Howard. Out of bounds, six-yard gain, 45 seconds left, they’re in Longhorn territory now. Third and 3. Pike throws it downfield to Barnett… just out of his reach. Fourth down, three to go. 38 seconds. This time the first down is most important. Pike pitches it right into the hands of Goebel.
Two yards.
Texas avoids an unmitigated disaster for the Big 12 and becomes the only Big 12 team still playing for a national championship. Cincinnati will have to settle for a trip to the Orange Bowl at least a week too early. Tony Pike and Brian Kelly will have that interception and final drive replaying in their nightmares for years. Bearcats fans are merely left to shake their heads and wonder what might have been. Dominick Goodman, though, gains a new level of respect around the country from people who might not have been paying attention to the Big East.
Final score: Cincinnati 31, Texas 38
#5 Penn State v. #4 Alabama
No sooner did the Cincinnati Bearcats get done scaring the Texas Longhorns than two of college football’s most storied teams managed to top it, in a game that proved to be surprisingly high-scoring.
Daryll Clark threw for three first downs on Penn State’s second drive of the game, and with the ball on the 25, Evan Royster – on his way to an amazing two-hundred-yard day – picked up a fourth on a 16-yard run, then proceeded to pound ahead another eight for the touchdown, the first sign that Alabama’s defense wasn’t in proper working order. Though Alabama had picked up the first first down of the game, the first sign that Penn State’s defense wasn’t working either might have been dismissed as a fluke: Glen Coffee pounding through it for 51 yards on Alabama’s second play from scrimmage on the ensuing drive, only getting stopped at the three, setting up Roy Upchurch for the equalizer.
After three more runs by Royster put the Nittany Lions in Alabama territory, the Tide defense seemed to bear down and get the stop, helped in no small part by a delay of game penalty, and a long punt return to the Lion 29 set up an 18-yard run by Mark Ingram and an 11-yard touchdown by Coffee, and Alabama took the lead heading into the second quarter.
Both defenses traded stops, though both teams penetrated their opponent’s territory, but then the Nittany Lions suggested that the Tide defense still wasn’t quite working the way it should have. Clark was the star of this drive, with three decent-sized completions early before, on 2nd and 11 from the 21, handing the ball off to Royster on a draw and setting up the Lions on the 2. Derrick Williams pounded it in from there to re-tie the game. Alabama struck back, with the help of another big run by Coffee and a slightly shorter one from Upchurch. The drive stalled after a false-start flag, but Kevin Kelly still made a 47-yard field goal – his only attempt of the game – to retake the lead. Penn State went three-and-out, a Tide first down was rendered moot by holding on the next play, and Penn State got the ball back with 17 seconds left and couldn’t do anything before the half. The pundits’ consensus: If the Tide’s defense could get more consistent they can put away the Nittany Lions during the second half and turn what’s been a close game so far into a laugher, because the Lions can’t stop Glen Coffee.
But the Tide’s defense doesn’t get more consistent. Instead the Nittany Lions, namely Royster, have a fantastic third quarter. After a three-and-out, they get help from the special teams with a punt return into Tide territory, and Royster tags on a 30-yard touchdown run. Penn State’s next drive is a three-and-out but the punt pins the Tide inside the 20, but Upchurch renders that irrelevant by leaving the defense in his wake for an 87-yard touchdown run – the only Alabama drive of the quarter that isn’t a three-and-out. Royster immediately takes the challenge and takes it 79 yards for a touchdown of his own on Penn State’s first play from scrimmage. The next time Penn State gets the ball, Clark takes over and leads the team on a five-minute drive that only gets stopped on fourth and goal from the 4. Penn State 31, Alabama 24.
The Tide’s defense buckles down in the fourth quarter, as both teams trade three-and-outs, and although Penn State does eventually pick up a first down, the defense sets up the Tide with what would seem to be a perfect opportunity to tie the game when Tyrone King picks off Clark and takes it to the 11. But the Nittany Lion defense is ready: after Coffee picks up six yards on a draw, they hold Upchurch to only one. On third and 3 from the 4, John Parker Wilson attempts to pass but finds no one open and ends up scrambling for a yard. Now it’s fourth and 2 from the 3, and Alabama needs the touchdown. Nick Saban calls a draw play to Coffee.
Stuffed after a yard.
One of the most memorable stops in the history of Penn State’s storied defense – if it holds. Penn State gets the ball back with 2:52 to play but on their own 2 – seemingly, with a lot of field to cover, a good chance to burn the remaining clock. A pitch to Stephfon Green gets two, then Clark – in a call that threatens to be questioned forever – throws an incompletion. Stopping the clock and gaining nothing. Finally Joe Paterno and Clark realize this situation calls for giving it to Royster (already at 200 yards) early and often, but on third and eight, a draw play only picks up one yard.
Alabama gets another chance, 1:38 to play with, and a full complement of timeouts – and the ball on the Penn State 30. The first call may seem somewhat questionable – running the ball, not with Coffee or Upchurch, but with Mark Ingram, and straight ahead instead of towards the sideline – getting only a yard and burning a timeout. Coffee gets the ball on second down and gets out of bounds after five yards. Another questionable run call, this time to Demetrius Goode, gets stuffed at the line, but this time Alabama converts on fourth down when Wilson finds Julio Jones, who strides out of bounds at the 13 with 1:02 to play. It’s the first first down Alabama has gotten since their first play of the quarter. Nittany Lions fans fear the worst – what if Saban elects to go for two?
The Lion defense quickly buckles down, and a forward flip to Marquis Maze gets nailed instantly for a two-yard loss, burning another timeout. 57 seconds left. Wilson tosses it again, this time to Travis McCall, who gets stopped at the line of scrimmage and doesn’t get out of bounds. Clock continues to run… 50… 49… 48… 47… Finally, at 35 seconds, the Tide takes the third-down snap. Wilson once again aims for McCall, but this time overthrows him. Clock stops with 31 seconds left. No more dilly-dallying: the Tide have to make fourth and 12.
Wilson takes the snap and steps back. Looks for an open receiver, in the end zone or even just short of it as long as it’s past the three-yard line or near enough. Looking… looking… he breaks out of the pocket and attempts to elude the rush. Looking… looking…
And steps out of bounds right at the line of scrimmage.
Penn State escapes with the victory despite a couple of close scares. Evan Royster is the breakout star, but despite allowing 24 points, mostly by not being able to stop Glen Coffee for the first half, the defense is the star of the game in a contest Nittany Lions fans will tell their children and grandchildren about, especially if Penn State can go on to win the championship. Nick Saban is questioned for most of the post-game press conference about some questionable calls, especially on the final drive, but truth be told, he was out of tricks after nothing else he had tried had gotten past Joe Paterno’s defense for the second half.
Final score: Penn State 31, Alabama 24
Semifinal Matchups:
Rose Bowl: #9 USC v. #5 Penn State
Okay, so Alabama-Penn State wasn’t the defensive battle I advertised, but USC-Penn State could be. But with Joe McKnight playing at a Heisman-caliber level, Penn State might have trouble with him for more than a half. Because this is the real Rose Bowl, I won’t be simulating it.
Sugar Bowl: #3 Texas v. #2 Florida
Some may call this the real national championship game. There are some similarities with the real real national championship game. This one might be a battle of the last two Heisman winners, and it pits two able offenses against each other, but while the Big 12 team’s is most impressive, Florida boasts a fantastic defense, and we’ll see if Tim Tebow can make the difference in this one. This simulation will be announced after the new year.
Non-semifinal BCS bowls:
Cotton Bowl: Oklahoma v. Alabama
Orange Bowl: Texas Tech v. Cincinnati
I lost the first version of this post. This is a quick update. Will update this post as the day progresses. Maybe.
-Colts and Ravens improved their standing, but a Colts loss next week could still bring them down to a tiebreaker. Tiebreak checks later. Dolphins and Pats both win, Jets playing Seahawks.
-Chargers took care of their half. Can the Bills beat the Broncos?
-Titans lock up the 1 seed, Steelers the 2.
-Falcons-Vikings, Eagles-Redskins on now. Bucs and Cowboys both lost, so the Redskins aren’t out yet.
-If an NFC game can be selected, don’t expect an announcement on FNIA like last year.
Broncos leading Bills, but barely. Seahawks up by a touchdown over Jets. Redskins up on Vikings but Falcons up on Vikings, which would eliminate the ‘Skins.
AFC East Tiebreakers: If Jets beat Miami next week they hold tiebreaker over Pats who hold tiebreak over Dolphins, assuming all three are tied with each other (a possibility with the Jets losing), otherwise all three are 1-1 against each of the other two. If the Dolphins and Pats win next week the division records will all be 4-2, if the Jets win they will hold the division tiebreaker, if the Pats lose and the Dolphins win the Pats lose the division tiebreaker.
Right now the following scenarios are possible: If the Jets lose today:
-Jets win, Patriots lose. Three-way tie goes to Jets for division. Pats and Dolphins go to common games. More on that later.
-Jets win, Patriots win. Pats win division outright. Jets win tiebreak over Dolphins.
-Dolphins win, Patriots win. Pats and Dolphins go to common games for division. Jets to 7 losses and probably out of playoffs.
-Dolphins win, Patriots lose. Dolphins win division outright. Pats first choice of NFC East for wild card spot with six losses. Jets to 7 losses and probably out of playoffs.
The Seahawks appear to be wrapping up the game.
Pats-Dolphins common games: Pats 7-1, Dolphins 7-1 outside division. Dolphins would hold conference tiebreaker.
If Colts lose next week, Ravens, Dolphins, Pats win, Colts-Ravens-Pats three-way, one team must be eliminated to determine wild card. Indy beat both teams so they win the head-to-head sweep and are in the playoffs. No Titans-Colts next week on SNF. Ravens would hold the conference games tiebreak over Patriots, but are still vulnerable to a loss next week.
Seattle beats the Jets. Buffalo leading Denver by a touchdown. Washington leading by a touchdown but Atlanta running away with it over the Vikings.
If Pats lose next week Dolphins-Jets is for division. If current score holds Chargers-Broncos will also be for division. If NFC game can’t be selected it will be one of those two. My pick is Dolphins-Jets, because of the Favre factor and because they’re better teams.
Vikings are in big trouble unless the Packers win Monday night. Bucs can’t win division but the dream is still alive for the Falcons to continue the last-one-year-first-the-next trend. Assuming the Falcons go on to win, the Redskins are out and they will have been in the process of eliminating the Eagles as well, and a Packers win would eliminate the Bears entirely.
Falcons may be clinching themselves a playoff spot, in all practicality. The schedule breaks down such that I think they are cinching up the common games tiebreaker over the Bucs. Even if Dallas wins next week, which would mean they would likely have a conference games tiebreaker, the Falcons would be in by virtue of that tiebreaker – assuming the Bears lose.
If current scores hold, not even Cowboys-Eagles may look as attractive as NBC would like, if the Eagles are already out of the playoffs, and if the Bears lose I think that would lock up a playoff spot for the Cowboys, a risk NBC can’t take if they have to make their pick before MNF. Giants-Vikings has the same pitfall, and if current scores hold the Vikings will have lost and won’t have a bye to play for.
Buffalo knocks off Denver, but it’s the other two games I’m watching for SNF/NFC purposes.
Atlanta knocks off Minnesota. That essentially locks up a playoff spot for them and puts the Bucs in big trouble, and it eliminates the Redskins. The Eagles MIGHT still be alive for a playoff spot, as they would still be only a half game behind the Cowboys and Bucs. Beat the Boys and hope for a Bucs loss, and the Eagles are in the playoffs.
Philly making one last push – if they win this it would actually be worse for Cowboys-Eagles as the Eagles would be playing for nothing. They fail. But if the Bears win two straight it could render Cowboys-Eagles irrelevant by the end of the day. Two Bears wins put them at 10-6, and the best the Eagles could hope for is 9-6-1. We could see a Bears-Falcons-Cowboys three-way tie, though, and Cowboys would win the conference tiebreaker for the first spot.
Honestly, the Favre factor means Dolphins-Jets could be selected even if the NFL can select an NFC game. Especially if the Bears win on Monday Night and create the possibility that the Eagles won’t have anything to play for by Sunday night. With six losses, the Jets will still have something to play for even if the Patriots win next week. The Ravens could lose, and the Jets would have the conference games tiebreaker. Or the Ravens could win, and the Jets really would have nothing to play for. Giants-Vikings is probably out with the Vikings having no chance to steal the 2 seed, meaning the Giants will have nothing to play for no matter what happens tonight, and the Vikings will have nothing to play for if the Packers win Monday night.
Final prediction: Miami Dolphins @ New York Jets, but I would be far from surprised to see Cowboys-Eagles selected.
Actual selection: Denver Broncos @ San Diego Chargers. Huh? Either NBC and the NFL really don’t want to put the Dolphins on or they’re really scared about the game being rendered irrelevant for at least one team by game time. If the latter, we still don’t know if NBC could have selected an NFC game.
Rankings reflect my College Football Rankings. This week’s rankings only (not past weeks) reflect a correction: Stanford’s game against San Jose State was being counted as being against San Diego State. It shouldn’t affect anything at the top and certainly not anything in the Golden Bowl, but it does affect three conferences’ ratings, and as a direct result the Mountain West has retaken the lead over the MAC, implying they may have been almost always ahead all along. SDSU has been a constant in the Bottom 10, though its ranking in it isn’t affected. Lineal titles also updated. All times Eastern.
| BOWL | Teams | LOCATION | DATE/ TIME/ CHANNEL |
| TOP 25 TEAMS | |||
| FedEx BCS National Championship Game | #1 Florida | Miami | Jan. 8, 2009, 8 p.m. |
| Princeton-Yale/2004 Auburn-Utah Unif. | #2 Oklahoma | Dolphin Stadium | FOX |
| Tostitos Fiesta | #9 Ohio State | Glendale, Ariz. | Jan. 5, 2009, 8 p.m. |
| #3 Texas | University of Phoenix Stadium | FOX | |
| Rose Bowl Game Presented by Citi | #5 Penn State | Pasadena, Calif. | Jan. 1, 2009, 4:30 p.m. |
| #4 USC | Rose Bowl | ABC | |
| San Diego County Credit Union Poinsettia | #10 TCU | San Diego | Dec. 23, 8 p.m. |
| For Creation of 2008 Boise State Title | #6 Boise State | Qualcomm Stadium | ESPN |
| Allstate Sugar | #8 Utah | New Orleans | Jan. 2, 2009, 8 p.m. |
| 2006-7 Boise State Title | #7 Alabama | Superdome | FOX |
| AT&T Cotton | #11 Texas Tech | Dallas | Jan. 2, 2009, 2 p.m. |
| #16 Mississippi | Cotton Bowl | FOX | |
| GMAC | #25 Tulsa | Mobile, Ala. | Jan. 6, 2009, 8 p.m. |
| #12 Ball State | Ladd-Peebles Stadium | ESPN | |
| Valero Alamo | Northwestern | San Antonio | Dec. 29, 8 p.m. |
| #13 Missouri | Alamodome | ESPN | |
| Outback | South Carolina | Tampa, Fla. | Jan. 1, 2009, 11 a.m. |
| #14 Iowa | Raymond James Stadium | ESPN | |
| Capital One | Michigan State | Orlando, Fla. | Jan. 1, 2009, 1 p.m. |
| #15 Georgia | Florida Citrus Bowl | ABC | |
| Pacific Life Holiday | #17 Oklahoma State | San Diego | Dec. 30, 8 p.m. |
| #20 Oregon | Qualcomm Stadium | ESPN | |
| Meineke Car Care | #18 North Carolina | Charlotte, N.C. | Dec. 27, 1 p.m. |
| #22 West Virginia | Bank of America Stadium | ESPN | |
| Pioneer Las Vegas | #19 BYU | Las Vegas | Dec. 20, 8 p.m. |
| Arizona | Sam Boyd Stadium | ESPN | |
| Brut Sun | Oregon State | El Paso, Texas | Dec. 31, 2 p.m. |
| #21 Pittsburgh | Sun Bowl | CBS | |
| FedEx Orange | #23 Virginia Tech | Miami | Jan. 1, 2009, 8:30 p.m. |
| Cincinnati | Dolphin Stadium | FOX | |
| Champs Sports | #24 Florida State | Orlando, Fla. | Dec. 27, 4:30 p.m. |
| Wisconsin | Florida Citrus Bowl | ESPN | |
| OTHER POSITIVE B POINT TEAMS | |||
| Bell Helicopter Armed Forces | Houston | Fort Worth, Texas | Dec. 31, Noon |
| Air Force | Amon G. Carter Stadium | ESPN | |
| BOWL SUBDIVISION | |||
| EagleBank Bowl | Wake Forest | Washington, D.C. | Dec. 20, 11 a.m. |
| Navy | RFK Stadium | ESPN | |
| New Mexico | Colorado State | Albuquerque | Dec. 20, 2:30 p.m. |
| Fresno State | University Stadium | ESPN | |
| St. Petersburg | South Florida | St. Petersburg. Fla. | Dec. 20, 4:30 p.m. |
| Memphis | Tropicana Field | ESPN2 | |
| R+L Carriers New Orleans | Southern Miss | New Orleans | Dec. 21, 8:15 p.m. |
| Troy | Superdome | ESPN | |
| Sheraton Hawaii | Hawaii | Honolulu | Dec. 24, 8 p.m. |
| Notre Dame | Aloha Stadium | ESPN | |
| Motor City | Central Michigan | Detroit | Dec. 26, 8 p.m. |
| Florida Atlantic | Ford Field | ESPN | |
| Emerald | California | San Francisco | Dec. 27, 8 p.m. |
| Miami (FL) | AT&T Park | ESPN | |
| Independence | Louisiana Tech | Shreveport, La. | Dec. 28, 8:15 p.m. |
| Northern Illinois | Independence Stadium | ESPN | |
| Papajohns.com | Rutgers | Birmingham, Ala. | Dec. 29, 3 p.m. |
| NC State | Legion Field | ESPN | |
| Roady’s Humanitarian | Nevada | Boise, Idaho | Dec. 30, 4:30 p.m. |
| Maryland | Bronco Stadium | ESPN | |
| Texas | Central Michigan | Houston | Dec. 30, 8 p.m. |
| Rice | Reliant Stadium | NFL Network | |
| Gaylord Hotels Music City | Vanderbilt | Nashville, Tenn. | Dec. 31, 3:30 p.m. |
| Boston College | LP Field | ESPN | |
| Insight | Kansas | Tempe, Ariz. | Dec. 31, 5:30 p.m. |
| Minnesota | Sun Devil Stadium | NFL Network | |
| Chick-fil-A | LSU | Atlanta | Dec. 31, 7:30 p.m. |
| Georgia Tech | Georgia Dome | ESPN | |
| Konica Minolta Gator | Nebraska | Jacksonville, Fla. | Jan. 1, 2009, 1 p.m. |
| Clemson | Jacksonville Municipal Stadium | CBS | |
| AutoZone Liberty | Kentucky | Memphis, Tenn. | Jan. 2, 2009, 5 p.m. |
| East Carolina | Liberty Bowl Memorial Stadium | ESPN | |
| International | Connecticut | Toronto | Jan. 3, 2009, Noon |
| Buffalo | Rogers Centre | ESPN2 | |
This post was originally planned for tomorrow, which is when the College Football Rankings will likely be delayed until. The main reason is because someone gave me another reason to post today.
Robert A. Howard somewhat belatedly commented on my post on Tangents, and mentioned that he “definitely [would] mention [Da B]log over at Tangents.” Once that comes down the pike it should result in some sort of traffic bump, although between the hiatus and then the move to the new site I suspect Tangents has bled some readers recently.
After reading that comment, I think John Solomon may have been on to something in his characterization of Howard as a suck-up. I hope he doesn’t make too many changes just because I say so, and I hope he doesn’t define his writing style entirely on what other people say it should be, but I hope he knows what’s the blog he wants to write. Not that he should entirely shut himself off from the criticism of others – then he’s basically Tim Buckley, and no one wants to be that – but I think most people want to read “Tangents by Robert A. Howard,” not “Tangents by Eric Burns(-White), John Solomon, Morgan Wick, and a gazillion others”.
I’m trying to take it easy with this post. I slated quite a few things to put on Da Blog during the break, not least of them being a resumption of my platform reviews and another political feature to run during the summer, which I would work on now so they wouldn’t become a repeat of the platform reviews later, and so that I could work on several posts at once. But with my limited Internet access time, most of my time has been dominated by what I’m doing for Da Blog now. I haven’t even been able to look for any jobs, even for just during the break.
It doesn’t help that I don’t have the services of the local public library available during the winter break (don’t ask why), unlike in summer, and Seattle just got hit with the Cold Snap of the Century right AFTER it wouldn’t have mattered so much to me, so sitting outside and using the Internet, either stealing it from someplace else or using the city of Seattle’s on-again-off-again public connection, is a good way to get frostbite. I also don’t have the services of running just outside the house briefly anyway; the only connection left that’s a block or so from my house is far more inconsistent than what I’ve used before. (A nearby business has repeatedly offered to allow me to sit inside, but for at least two reasons I doubt I would like its atmosphere.) I burned my one real shot at using the Internet at a place I would have to pay for in a context where it netted me about an hour and a half, most of it not used on anything productive. I’m using the Internet four nights a week at a place where the only reason I don’t pay for it is because my dad works here, and it’s still technically mooching off another place’s connection.
And Da Blog and Sandsday are the closest things I have to any sort of income… I had been hoping to use the winter break as a time to wind down and relax before redoubling my efforts to get schoolwork done in the new quarter, but that doesn’t seem to be happening.
If the NFL decides not to schedule another tentative game for Week 17 primetime again, they should list “Game TBD” on their schedule page.
Never assume anyone has a positive IQ.
NBC’s Sunday Night Football package gives it flexible scheduling. For the last seven weeks of the season, the games are determined on 12-day notice, 6-day notice for Week 17.
The first year, no game was listed in the Sunday Night slot, only a notation that one game could move there. Now, NBC lists the game it “tentatively” schedules for each night. However, the NFL is in charge of moving games to prime time.
Here are the rules from the NFL web site (note that this was written with last season in mind):
Here are the current tentatively-scheduled games and my predictions:
Week 17 (December 28 Playoff Positioning Watch):
If you’re interested in fancying yourself a Jackson Pollock and creating your own work of “art”, have at it. There’s something more profound I need to get to.
This post (link courtesy Awful Announcing) takes a look at how the blog market could be affected by the present recession. It’s mostly written from a sports blog perspective, especially paid sports blogs, but it has implications for everyone else who blogs, paid or not, employed by a third party or merely doing it themselves, whether for fun or profit.
It takes an interesting perspective: Although some, like the blog collective Gawker, think ad revenue is likely to decline in the current recession, the post itself talks to several bloggers and draws its own conclusion based on a study, and they seem to all agree that the recession could help blogs. Some people might decide that, needing to cut costs, the Internet might be one of the first things to go, but AA’s own proprietor suggests the Internet might be one of the last things to go, because it has become so important to job searches – and thus could increase in importance to many people. Some of the bloggers talked to suggested that the blog population could rise as newspapers cut traditional journalists, making room for cheaper bloggers, and as laid-off workers of all stripes look for new lines of work.
Regardless of whether it becomes Great Depression II, this could be one of, if not the, most important recession in our history.
If some of these reactions are true, this recession could greatly accelerate the rate at which the Internet becomes the chief way people get their news, information, and entertainment. At the moment, the Internet is big enough that “old media” – newspapers and TV – are concerned about the impact of losing their audience to it, but not big enough that they’re comfortable with making money off it. If it ever can get that big – and this recession could greatly hasten the day that it happens – newspapers and television as we know them could become as antiquated as the telegraph.
And as the Internet and blogging grows, it has the potential to change the very way we live. We may well look back on the first decade of the new millenium as a time of great flux and transition, when the Internet was still in its relative infancy, or at least childhood and was still taking shape, still taking the form that would shape the twenty-first century. One thing I neglected to mention when I listed a number of ideas I have and might like to work on was a book coming out of my continual wonder at how dramatically the Internet has already changed our lives, and how it holds the potential to change our lives even more, affecting everything from the news to entertainment to politics to even the very underpinning of our economic system. I had been thinking about holding off on writing it until I had enough of a name that I would have any credibility whatsoever, but recent events – not least of which being the coming recession – have convinced me that right now is a unique moment in history in the evolution of the Internet, and “the fierce urgency of now” – to borrow a phrase from our president-elect – would seem to dictate that I get such a book written in the next couple of years, and preferably starting as soon as possible.
There’s supposed to be a second part coming out today, “focus[ing] on reactions from bloggers who blog as a hobby (i.e. for free) and from readers whose blog-reading habits may be affected by the economy,” and the post elicits reactions from anyone that would fall in either or both of those categories. I’ve sent this post to the blogger in question, but I want to hear from anyone that would have a voice in all of this, anyone who might use the Internet on a regular basis as an outlet, from YouTubers to webcomickers – not to mention, if possible, any advertisers who I imagine count for a significant amount of revenue. Send an e-mail to mwmailsea at yahoo dot com, or if you want to take it directly to him (and his second post encourages it), use the address on the sidebar of that page.
I should probably stop talking so much about YWIB&YSFB. It was popular for maybe five months last year, made a brief (and far less productive) comeback early this year, and hasn’t updated since. But when it was at the height of its (reluctant) popularity, one of its favorite targets, when it took aim at something other than the subject of a post, was Robert A. Howard, proprietor of Tangents.
Referred to simply as “Bobby Tangents”, Howard was regularly painted as a “c**ksucker” with a gender-switching fetish, apparently because he reads a disturbingly significant amount of gender-switching comics, which might have something to do with the fact that there are a disturbingly significant amount of gender-switching comics. When he did a review of Tangents itself, John Solomon compared him to the kid in the playground who desperately wanted to be anyone’s – anyone’s – friend, no matter the cost, because if you asked him to eat a bug, by golly, he’d practically cook up a bug sandwich if he felt it would make him your friend. (What’s everybody looking at me for all of a sudden?) So with Howard, as Solomon saw it, he would tell a webcomic author how great they are supposedly just so they would give him the attention, or at least credibility.
Well, ol’ Bobby Howard took that to heart, and he started shifting, becoming less of a suck-up and throwing in more actual criticism in his reviews, thanks in part to the influence of other webcomic reviewers who could call out a webcomic’s flaws without being, well, John Solomon. (I know Howard has talked about this somewhere, but I’m not sure if it’s in the part of the archive that’s been reposted to the new site, or if it was even on Tangents at all.) He’s even gone so far as written what amounts to a “you had me and you lost me” for College Roomies From Hell!! What I’m here for is to determine how well he did that, and take a general look at Tangents, because I wasn’t able to find an actual webcomic I could review for today (though I think I’m good for two weeks after this, by which point it’ll probably be time to revisit the world of OOTS), and as Websnark and Tangents are really the only two webcomic review blogs that have ever mattered, an examination of the latter is long overdue, especially when a review of Websnark might have been the very first post to win the “webcomics” tag and I’ve already reviewed YWIB already. (I haven’t reviewed Tangents already because of the lengthy hiatus while the site was down, which I complained about several times at the time.)
You wanna know what’s something I’ve noticed about Tangents from reading, really, a smattering of reviews?
The writing style.
Apparently Howard learned in English class that, when writing an essay, you are supposed to “hourglass” your argument: start with a broad topic, narrow the focus down to whatever you’re writing about, then bring things back out to a broad level at the end. Howard certainly has the first part of that down. He will start most reviews by talking about some general trend in webcomics, or about writing, or about some other topic that ties into the comic he’s reviewing, or occasionally about the comic itself. It’d be easy to consider a parody of Tangents just looking at the beginnings of his posts:
Games have been played since the beginning of time, but it has only been in the last quarter-century or so that people have taken to the idea of playing them on computers. As the video game industry has evolved and taken its place as a medium on par with any other, it has become natural that a medium which involves the one-time release of single, complete stories, like movies, would see the attraction of sequels and trilogies, and so forth. And like movies, it’s easy to see how this would lead to an overreliance on said series. Sandsday has brilliantly skewered this trend in its latest comic…
Part of that is that Howard’s style is different from that of Eric Burns. In Websnark’s heyday, he would review a specific episode of a webcomic, and often the same webcomic at least twice a week, or at least twice a month, with little more than “this is funny,” or saying something about the webcomic in general at the same time; Howard started out trying to do long-form reviews about entire comics, not unlike what I try to do in the regular Tuesday space, but for the sake of his own sanity, he has more recently moved on to shorter, more condensed and moment-in-time reviews – though he still tries not to review the same webcomic all too often, and he still tries to pull it back to the comic as a whole.
Still, he reviewed Megatokyo once on September 30 and again on December 13. He’s also reviewed Order of the Stick, Gunnerkrigg Court, The Wotch, and xkcd twice in similar timeframes. In fact, he’s reviewed xkcd at least four times over the course of this year, including once on October 13 and again on December 5, which begs the question: does he intend to review xkcd as often as I review Order of the Stick? (And that’s not even counting the reviews posted on Howard’s LiveJournal when Tangents was down, which aren’t part of the new archive. Yet. OOTS and the Court haven’t been reviewed twice since the new site went up, only once each.)
And the thing about this shift is that Howard has, really, started making Tangents more like Websnark, but he still seems to want to write his reviews like they’re essays. Once upon a time, Howard introduced the “secant” as a way of differentiating his moment-in-time posts from his webcomic-in-review “tangents”. As Howard started trying to condense all his reviews, by his own admission the definitions flipped, and while he attempted to rectify that situation, the truth is that not only had the secants become the lion’s share of the posts by that point, almost all the posts on the new site are tagged “secant”. The distinction, truly, means nothing anymore and I’m not sure Howard can get it back.
What’s more, the openings of Howard’s posts really presage something about the posts themselves. In many ways, Howard’s deconstructions of the medium makes Burns look downright normal. Sometimes, as with his recent Something Positive post, all Howard basically has to say is “this is somewhat derivitive, but hey, this part is funny!” But Howard’s most recent Megatokyo post is as much about how any webcartoonist can avoid “talking heads” as it is about anything having to do with Megatokyo itself. In fact, he has quite a few “how it’s done” posts, targeted not only at webcomickers but, at one point, at podcasters. A trip through the Tangents archives, especially more recent ones, could be considered almost “Webcomics 101”. When he reviews a story-based comic, namely The Wotch or Gunnerkrigg Court, he will go into an in-depth examination of his interpretation of the characters and where the story can go from here, which sounds downright normal unless you’ve actually read those posts. (Granted, it’s not that different from what I do with Order of the Stick, which surprisingly, Howard doesn’t seem to treat quite as in-depth.)
Maybe this is because of the weightiness of the other posts, but reading those posts that don’t attempt to explicate Howard’s feelings in depth, that spend the lion’s share of their time really just explaining the context without saying much about it, I sense a creeping pointlessness, dolled up in enough prose to attempt to hide it. We could continue the parody we started above by having it essentially say, “I laughed at this”, only hidden in a lengthy explanation of the entire history and even concept of the strip, or we could take the beginning we used and attempt to use it to write an entire theory of Life, the Universe, and Everything.
Howard’s biggest problem, I think, is that a significant number of his posts aren’t much different from Websnark in substance – but he has nowhere near Eric Burns(-White)’s sense of humor. If he had more of a sense of humor, some of his three-paragraph posts could be written in three or four sentences.
Now, this is probably a conscious decision on Howard’s part. Websnark was never originally intended as the Founder of Webcomics Criticism, only a place where Burns could comment on whatever funny things he found on the Internet, which happened to mostly be webcomics. So it’s natural that Burns(-White) would create an atmosphere where he was just shooting the breeze about the webcomics he loved, even if he did spend most of his time going through it with an English teacher’s fine-toothed comb.
But one thing webcomics have always been paranoid about is respect (any non-mainstream medium is), and while the Webcomics Community(tm) was quick to seize on Websnark as the first place to treat webcomics as worthy of serious discussion, no doubt there were many who were concerned that, in tone, Websnark didn’t take anything all that seriously. I think this may have been a more overriding factor in Tangents’ creation than Websnark’s “ignoring comics that deserved reviews” (although oddly, judging by the April 2005 posts in the new archive, Howard actually started out with a bit more of a sense of humor than he does now). If Websnark was the first place to treat webcomics as worthy of any sort of serious discussion, Tangents would be the first place to treat them as worthy of the discussion you would give 1984 or Wuthering Heights.
So Howard would write what amounted to English papers on the topic of webcomics (although the first time he writes about a strip, he will basically review it to some extent, and give some sort of recommendation on whether you should read it)… and the problem is that it’s probably the wrong style for when he wants to just write these short posts that basically say “I enjoyed this”. Howard still does posts, labeled “webcomic commentary”, that are substantially such deconstructions of the medium in general that they don’t even consider one specific webcomic as their example. But when you write superficial posts in an English paper’s style, you become a target for parody, even self-parody, and you remind people why people don’t talk that way in real life.
Funnily enough, not only does Howard display some humor in the aforementioned CRfH snark, it’s not boring and rather appropriately tears into what Maritza Campos did with her comic. In fact, it’s almost as funny as YWIB, only actually convincing. When Howard has something negative to say about a webcomic, his “Webcomics 101” style helps him point out exactly what turned him off to that webcomic, while still doing so in an entertaining style. Unlike Websnark, Tangents continues going strong nearly four years in, still doing webcomic reviews on a semi-regular basis, and for potential webcomic writers and artists Howard’s opinions can be eye-opening. And as I always say, none of what I have to criticise about Tangents is a complete turn-off. But – unlike Websnark – it’s not compelling enough to make my RSS reader.
On the other hand, my own webcomic reviews bear more than a few similarities to Howard’s…