NFL Week 7 Picks

Last week: 9-4, Season cumulative: 42-32, Season average: 8-6

(Winners in bold)

Running late...on the way to Wembley for the Bears/Bucs!! No time for commentary...

San Diego at NY Jets
Chicago at Tampa Bay
Washington at Carolina
Atlanta at Detroit
Seattle at Cleveland
Denver at Miami
Houston at Tennessee
Kansas City at Oakland
Pittsburgh at Arizona
Green Bay at Minnesota
St. Louis at Dallas
Indianapolis at New Orleans
Baltimore at Jacksonville

NFL Week 6 Picks

Last week: 6-7, Season cumulative: 33-28, Season average: 8-7

(Winners in bold)

San Francisco at Detroit
Very impressive offensive display by the 49ers last week and Alex Smith is no joke this year. However, the bigger surprise and most impressive team this year is the Lions. Detroit takes this one.

St. Louis at Green Bay
Mark my words, the overrated green bay will slip up this season...it just won’t be this week.

Carolina at Atlanta
I’m going with Cam and the boys to easily beat a disappointing Falcons team.

Indianapolis at Cincinnati
Jesus, Indy are rubbish and the Bengals have quietly turned into a contender this year and are at home.

Buffalo at NY Giants
Probably the toughest call of the week. the Jekyll-and-Hyde-like Giants could clobber the Bills on their day. Gonna stick my neck out and go with Eli.

Jacksonville at Pittsburgh
Pitt starting to show signs of life. Jax continuing to show how useless they are.

Philadelphia at Washington
It can’t get any worse for Philly, can it? I think the losing streak stops here. I also believe the ‘Skins have flattered to deceive this season.

Houston at Baltimore
We need to bounce back after the Al Davis-inspired loss last week. we couldn’t have asked for a tougher game in which to do it, though.

Cleveland at Oakland
If they can beat us, they sure as shit can whip the Browns. Campbell and McFadden should run riot this week.

Dallas at New England
New England look better this season than they have in a few years and should comfortably win. Not to worry, though, if the Cowgirls get the lead...Romo will surely once again find a way to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory...

New Orleans at Tampa Bay
I just dislike Tampa Bay so much...I never used to when they had bright orange-and-white uniforms and the picture of the moutachioed & goateed buccaneer on the sides of their helmets, but I digress. Brees and Colston to get big numbers.

Minnesota at Chicago
Which Minnesota will show up this week? Last week’s titans of the week before’s wiener’s? i’m betting that in either case, Da Bears will prove to strong for them.

Miami at NY Jets
Rexy’s boys will take all of last week’s frustration out on the shite that is known as this year’s ‘Fins.

Lol. No, really...LOL!

This article made me literally lol. You know how “lol” has become internet short-hand for anything even mildly amusing? Well, I’d like to start a grass-roots, traditional, nostalgic, “in the old days”, ye olde, post-war, pre-gothic, post-raphaelite, rennaissance movement aimed at taking lol back to its original meaning: LAUGHING OUT LOUD. I laughed out loud (several times, in fact) at the below. Brooker’s articles are always brilliant, but this one is among his best.

The kind of humor I find amusing is ridiculousness. Specifically, an idea taken to a ridiculous extreme. See Monty Python’s “Four Yorkshiremen” sketch or Eddie Izzard’s bit about Frank Sinatra’s fictional car accident in his “Dress to Kill” stand-up show for good examples of this type of ridulousness. Add the opening four paragraphs of the below to this illustrious list.

I’ve highlighted this and some of the other really funny parts in red...

Why does the BBC dump so much money in a big glittery bin by making glossy trailers? It turns me silver with rage
All these people should be employed to make programmes, not adverts for them

Being a pitiless blank-eyed hell-wraith summoned by the Dark Ones and instructed to walk among us spreading fear and misery, David Cameron loves the thought of the BBC being reduced in size and scope. In fact he famously described the very notion of BBC cuts as "delicious". He said this openly at a press conference, but also repeated it later, in the quiet confines of his lair.

It was a pleasant yet unremarkable evening for Cameron; bathed in the warm light of glowing book embers, he had already shed that day's temporary humanlike epidermis as part of his nightly skin-sloughing ritual, and was preparing to dislocate his lower jaw, all the better to ingest the live sacrificial foal the terrified local farmers had left tied outside his cave in a desperate bid to stop him preying on their herds at night. As Cameron approached the foal, turning the air dry and bitter, the creature's fur stood on end, and it kicked and bucked in instinctive awed fear; yet there was no escape for the petrified beast, since Cameron's lizard handlers had taken the precaution of nailing it to the hard rock floor by hammering thorns through its hooves earlier that afternoon before their Master returned from His Work.

Cameron paused for a moment, to observe and enjoy the spectacle of the animal's futile writhing. And as he watched it squirm on the floor below him, as he felt the cold blood of satisfaction course through his twisted genitals, he briefly recalled that day's discussion about the freezing of the licence fee, and a baleful smile flickered around the approximate area of his headlike section upon which a pair of frighteningly convincing decoy humanoid lips usually sat during daylight hours, as part of his ingenious disguise.

"Deliciousssssss," quoth he, and a shimmering slick of anticipatory saliva dripped from his reptilian maw and splashed upon the foal's cringing face, instantly dissolving both its eyes.

Anyway, Dave (as we must call him while the sun still hangs in the sky) will presumably have been delighted by the BBC's Delivering Quality First report, which outlines all the exciting ways in which it plans to prune a fifth from its overall budget. On the face of it, there's no huge incendiary headline within, apart from the loss of 2,000 jobs. Yes, 2,000 jobs. If the Stig was being sacked, there'd be 2,000 misspelled Facebook groups demanding his immediate reinstatement. But 2,000 behind-the-scenes posts? There's a widespread suspicion the Beeb has too many managerial layers anyway, so few tears will be shed. And aside from that, most of the other savings seem to come from actions it's hard to imagine the general public getting worked up about: prunings, reshuffles and repeats rather than outright closures.

That's on the face of it. The reality is that with more pressure on the BBC to be seen to be delivering value for money comes more pressure to please as much of the crowd as cheaply as possible. Which potentially means a resistance to taking risks. Sounds logical on paper, maybe – except "risks' have traditionally delivered some of the BBC's most remarkable successes, from That Was the Week That Was to Doctor Who to Monty Python to The Young Ones to The Day Today and so on. Risk also throws up things such as Bonekickers, but that's how creativity works, innit: sometimes you're going to heave out a stinker.

Anyway, among all the articles detailing which bits of Radio 1 Extra will be shared with Radio 1, and which daytime shows are likely to be axed and so on, the one thing I can't find is any mention of how much the BBC spends on promotional trails. I'm not talking about the on-air trails consisting of edited highlights. I'm talking about the bespoke mini-movies encouraging me to watch such little-known broadcasts as Strictly Come Dancing; ads created not from footage from the shows themselves, but from specially-shot glossy nonsense.

These things turn me silver with rage. Yeah, silver. I TURN SILVER. And they turn me silver not because they're bad – on the contrary, they're often very well made indeed – but because they have absolutely no right to exist in any civilised universe. It's like watching the BBC shit money into a big glittery bin.

To shoot the recent Strictly trailer, for instance, in which celebrities lead a crowd of "ordinary folk" in a patronising pied-piper dance, I'd guess they had to close a couple of streets for several days (including one very tricky night shoot involving lots of pretty lights). It's glossily made and quite complicated, so there's also a big crew to pay. And as well as the stars themselves, all of whom require costume and makeup, I'd say they also had to hire about 50 extras. And a shitload of catering. All these people should be employed to make shows, not adverts for shows. That's like paying Heston Blumenthal millions to design a bespoke scent that'll tempt people to your soup truck, which only serves bargain soup made with cheap ingredients because that's all you can afford, having blown all the money on the smell.

All that time and money to advertise a show which everybody knows about anyway. You could hold a bit of cardboard with "STRICTLY'S COMING BACK" scrawled on it in front of the lens for 10 seconds and it would have 10 times the impact. Madness.

And it's not just madness in the short-term: what about legacy? If all that time and money and street-closing and dancing and filming had been used to create a show instead of an advert, they might've created something they could broadcast again, or sell on DVD, or flog to the Swiss and the Kenyans. Instead they blew it on a promo that'll air for a few weeks before getting tossed on to the ever-mounting stack of other never-to-be-shown-again adverts, which sit there gathering dust in nobody's memories – pointless visual epics informing you that the BBC sometimes broadcasts football and has radio stations.

I wouldn't mind if they used the money to sew some shiny new buttons on Ian Beale's shirt. Or maybe a bunch of pitchforks and flaming torches for those terrified farmers round Cameron's way. Film that. At least it's money spent on the right thing.

Original article here.

NFL Week 5 Picks

Last week: 10-6, Season cumulative: 27-21, Season average: 9-7

(Winners in bold)

Tennessee at Pittsburgh
So the Titans were supposed to suck this year and Pitt got to last year’s Super Bowl. Also, all the experts are picking the Steelers. I say look at the way Ray Rice ran all over them in week 1. A big week for Chris Johnson.

Seattle at NY Giants
Duh.

Cincinnati at Jacksonville
I thinks the Jags suck marginally more than Cincy.

New Orleans at Carolina
I’m calling it...upset! Plus, I have a man-crush on Cam Newton.

Oakland at Houston
With AJ out injured, this will be the battle of possibly the two best running games in the NFL. McFadden vs. Foster/Tate. Houston will take this, though, owing to the fact that the loss of AJ aside, Owen Daniels owns.

Philadelphia at Buffalo
I have a feeling Philly will bounce back from last week’s surprise defeat to conquer a Bills team that’s apparently not quite as good as we thought...

Kansas City at Indianapolis
Tough call. On the other hand, it’s the Chiefs vs. a Peyton-less Colts, so really, who gives a shit? I’ll go with home-field advantage.

Arizona at Minnesota
I keep picking the Cards each week and they keep disappointing me each week. However, Minnesota lost to the Chiefs (the effing CHIEFS!!) last week so they must suck hard. Fitzgerald to get a squillion TDs.

Tampa Bay at San Francisco
I’m going with the 49ers because TB aren’t anywhere near as good as their 3-1 record suggests. Also, because i can’t believe Freeman is a starting QB in the NFL.

NY Jets at New England
Damn, Jets!! Why do you have to suck? Sanchez is among the worst QBs in the league this season and the defeat to the Bills notwithstanding, New England looks pretty lethal.

San Diego at Denver
John Fox’s refusal to start Billy Graham combined with a predictably strong Chargers equals another loss for Denver.

Green Bay at Atlanta
I mean, I guess I gotta pick the Pack, right? Uh, right?!

Chicago at Detroit
I LOVE the fact that Detroit are kicking ass this season. last week’s comeback win against the shitheads shows they have character as well as talent. Stafford still looks like a 12-year-old, though.

Me laugh at this

NFL Week 4 Picks

Last week: 8-8, Season cumulative: 17-15, Season average: 9-7

(Winners in bold)

Detroit at Dallas
I am seriously in the tank for the Lions this season. Oh, and Romo sucks, of course.

Carolina at Chicago
Completely going against the experts, my “controversial” pick this week is the Panthers. But really, with the awesomeness that is Cam Newton and a weak Chicago o-line, is this really controversial?

Buffalo at Cincinnati
It’s good to see Buffalo winning again. What is this, the mid-90s??!!

Tennessee at Cleveland
This is a tough game to call between two 2-1 teams. Chris Johnson’s so-far-underhwleming season, though, makes me go for the Browns. Just.

Minnesota at Kansas City
Peterson to rush for between 150-200 yards.

Washington at St. Louis
I’m liking the new Rex Grossman this season.

New Orleans at Jacksonville
Though they beat my beloved Texans last week, I still like the Saints and I like them even more to beat a poor Jaguars team.

Pittsburgh at Houston
I will never pick the Texans to lose. Ever. I mean, ever.

San Francisco at Philadelphia
Another tough call, due to the dog-torturer’s injuries and a resurgent 49ers. The explosive McCoy and the 49ers’ less-than-stellar offense, though, make me thing the Eagles will take this.

NY Giants at Arizona
Yet another tough call. The Giants are on a roll and Arizona are only 2-1. Home-field advantage and the Kolb-Fitzgerald combination make me think the Cards will take this one.

Atlanta at Seattle
No question. Look for Ryan and White to have a big game.

Miami at San Diego
Another no-brainer. Even without Antonio Gates, the Chargers’ offense has been great so far this season with the Rivers/Matthews/Jackson triple-threat. Oh, and I always knew Reggie was overrated. Why must everyone named Bush be so useless?

New England at Oakland
Believe it or not, I think this one’s also a tough call. Home-field advantage, a much-improved team over last year’s and the best running game in the NFL mean Oakland will be no pushovers. Last week’s hiccup against the magical Bills notwithstanding, though, I think Brady & Co. will be just too strong.

Denver at Green Bay
Easy pick. The Packers’ passing O will be too strong for Denver. Also, though I think Orton’s a great QB and Tebow’s a religious nut, I think it’s time to give Tim a chance to start.

NY Jets at Baltimore
Really tough to call. The Jets have so many offensive weapons and a great D. The Ravens have the best D (built, coincidentally, by Jets’ head coach Rex Ryan when he was Baltimore’s defensive coach) and all of a sudden have an offense this year. I’m going with Baltimore purely because of home-field advantage.

Indianapolis at Tampa Bay
Just don’t think a Peyton-less Colts stand a chance against home-field advantage and a decent Buccaneers team.

Podcasts of Choice

Apparently, this is "a podcast"...

I have to endure a long drive to and from work each day (it takes about 70-80 mins, one way!), but there's one thing that makes this ass-suck of a journey a little more bearable: podcasts.
For the uninitiated, there are many definitions of what a podcast is, but I prefer this one from the small business encyclopedia: A podcast is a pre-recorded audio program that's made available for download so people can listen to it on personal computers or mobile devices.

While not exactly a recent phenomenon, the number of podcasts available, and their popularity, seems to have increased exponentially with each passing year. Now you can find podcasts (of varying quality) about every conceivable subject...from the obvious: sports, film, science, news, etc., to the ridiculous: Suze Orman's.

All of which is to say that the following represent my listening material of choice on that painful drive along the A34 (Britain's worst road, ever) to and from work:


NPR's This American Life

Probably the best podcast of all time, this series from National Public Radio's Chicago station, WBEZ, is a weekly podcast around an hour long featuring four different stories on a particular theme...ANY theme. The "American" part is a bit of a misnomer in that the themes aren't uniquely American (though some are, others are pretty universal) and the stories can sometimes have nothing to do with America, such as one of the stories around infidelity revolving around a trio of people from Kent in England. This podcast is just hugely informative, entertaining and can only enrich your life.


NPR's Pop Culture Happy Hour

If, like me, you're very much into popular culture, this really is the podcast for you. Four reviewers from NPR discuss pop culture in a weekly half-hour show. What makes this head and shoulders above other pop culture/movie/TV podcasts are the following: 1) the hosts are highly knowledgeable on their subjects. I used to listen to the /filmcast but grew increasingly annoyed at the youthful hosts' lack of knowledge about almost anything pre-1995. 2) The hosts are extremely witty. It may sound snobbish to say so, but I genuinely like sophisticated, educated humor. 3) The  segment entitled "What's making us happy this week" is a great way to find out about hidden gems (such as Julie Klausner's excellent "How Was Your Week" podcast listed below) or a chance to reappraise forgotten classics.

The Guardian Football Weekly
My two favorite sports in the entire world are football and (American) football. I've yet to find a really good (American) football podcast, though I've tried many. For (European) football, though, by far the best is The Guardian newspaper's Football Weekly. Hosted by the brilliantly funny and knowledgeable James Richardson (he of Channel 4's gone-but-not-forgotten Gazzetta Football Italia) and featuring a rotating cast of writers from The Guardian, this twice-weekly podcast in the main recaps the previous weekend's matches (but also previews the coming week's games) in the EPL, as well as reporting form Europe's main leagues (Serie A in Italy, La Liga in Spain and the Bundesliga in Germany). What sets it apart, though, is the banter between the writers. It's a joy to listen to people both deeply knowledgeable about the beautiful game but also extremely funny and witty.

The Rachel Maddow Show
From one of my intellectual heroes and possibly the smartest political commentator in the media, this podcast is literally the audio from Rachel Maddow's nightly cable news show. Yes, I'm a total liberal. I really do recommend Maddow's show, though, for everyone across the political spectrum. Unlike Olbermann and Maher (who I also love) Maddow is far less combative and doesn't indulge in name-calling of any kind. She's brilliant, well-researched, funny, cares deeply for her both her country and for the people and is a reasoned voice from the left. I wouldn't recommend any of my Republican friends listen to Olbermann, but I would Maddow. To those of us on the Left, there is no better voice in the media. For those in the Center/on the Right, if you haven't watched/listened to her, give her show a try. She may be able to sway you. At the very least, you'll get reasonable and logical arguments for why we believe what we believe.

BBC Radio 4's News Quiz
The "Wait, Wait...Don't Tell Me" for the UK, or the podcast/radio version of TV's "Have I Got News For You". A weekly quiz chaired by the incomparable national treasure that is Sandi Toksvig and featuring the righteous-but-funny regular panellist Jeremy Hardy, the news quiz is first and foremost a comedy program with different guests/comedians each week, discussing the news stories from the past seven days with an emphasis on politics. I would say the satire and humor exceeds even that on the brillant HIGNFY but, like HIGNFY, the standard of the verbal interplay never drops for a single episode.

NPR's Wait, Wait...Don't Tell Me
The "BBC Radio 4's News Quiz" for the USA. While ostensibly being a quiz, WWDTM is really, like its UK counterpart, a chance for some comedians to make jokes about news stories from the previous week. This show doesn't quite attain the heights of the "...News Quiz", but that's more because of format rather than the talent of the guests and less focus on the ridiculousness of US politics and politicians. Also, is there a better prize in radio than Carl Kasell's voice doing your answering-machine message (even if the very concept of answering machines is a little outdated!)


The Guardian Film Weekly
Coming, as they both do, from The Guardian, Film Weekly couldn't be more different from Football Weekly. There's not much humor here, with regular host Jason Solomons and regular guest critic Xan Brooks both being resolutely high-brow in their criticism and in their choosing of subjects/films to discuss. As a movie nerd, I listen to many movie-centric podcasts. When I'm in the mood, though, to hear an interview with Danish auteur and cinematic bad-boy Lars Von Trier or what Lynne Ramsay has been up to since Ratcatcher, I put on Film Weekly.



Filmspotting
Heard about this on PCHH. This podcast bridges the gap nicely between the populist "/filmcast" and "...Film Weekly". Regular hosts Adam Kempenaar and Matty Robinson typically review the week's major release. What sets this apart, though, is the Top 5 segment wherein they discuss the Top 5 "something" movies. In recent weeks there's been the Top 5 Assassin movies, Top 5 Soderbergh scenes and Top 5 Slasher films. If "...Film Weekly" is Cahiers du Cinema and the "/filmcast" is Entertainment Weekly, this is more like Empire Magazine. Kempenaar and Robinson, though (unlike the /filmcast triumvirate of Hardawar, Chen and Quigley), have both seen movies from before 1995 and their viewing is not limited to mainstream American movies and Asian cinema.

How Was Your Week
Comedienne Julie Klasuner (one of the funniest people on twitter, btw) hosts a weekly show from her apartment in NYC where she just talks about stuff (again, usually centred around pop culture) with an eclectic lineup of guests that in recent weeks has included Jackie Collins, Laraine Newman and Patton Oswalt. I think the next episode features Sandra Bernhard discussing her obsession with Jerry Langford (if you didn't get that reference, you're no movie fan!). Klausner's humor is very much aligned with what I find funny - social commentary that, while bitchy, is never just mean.


WTF with Marc Maron
Marc Maron is a stand-up comedian and former radio host for Air America. This show is done from his garage and is a brilliant combination of rants about stuff he both loves and hates and interviews with some of the funniest people in America. Maron has a real appreciation for the art of stand-up and his discussions about the craft with his special guests are at once informative and hilarious. Standout episodes so far are the Andrew 'Dice' Clay and Doug Stanhope ones.




NPR's Jazz Profiles
Another NPR gem, "Jazz Profiles" is de rigueur if you're a jazz buff or even if you're just interested in music. Taking a jazz great as the subject of each episode, the show is a combination of interviews, clips of other jazz artists talking about the subject and, of course, samples from the particular subject's oeuvre. Just when I thought I couldn't learn any more about the greatest jazz pianist of all time, Oscar Peterson, JP proved me wrong.