0 and how many?

It's hard to avoid the talk now. It's basically the cover story on espn.com, and it won't be long until everyone picks up the story. I mean, there can't be more than 70 or so who think the Lions stand a chance against New Orleans this week, not with one of the best passing attacks in the NFL coming to town against a banged-up secondary, and after that game, well, remember week 2? Do you really think a game outdoors in December will go any better?

Some people think it's a good thing if the Lions go 0-16. I guess they figure that this will be the last straw, and suddenly William Clay Ford Sr. will realize that for more than 40 years, he's been absolutely clueless, and the only reason he ever made the playoffs at all, other than one fluke season when they were just testing out this wild-card thing, was that the Lions were spectacularly lucky to land outstanding RBs just when the rest of the team was pretty decent. And then the right GM will get hired, and the right coach, and the right players will come to town, and so on.

Of course, 3-13 didn't do it, 2-14 didn't do it, and really, is there anything that honestly makes you think Mr. Ford understands anything about what he's done, or even if he does, that he'd do anything about it? The one thing Ford admired about Matt Millen above all else was his tenacity, that Millen would stick with a cause no matter what, no matter how quickly he demonstrated he was in over his head, no matter how badly he faltered, no matter how far out of his league he was. For most people, the unwillingness to walk away from a job so far beyond their abilities would be unthinkable. Only the most crooked or the most clueless would continue to work, and Millen is neither of those. No, it was tenacity, tenacity to a fault.

So what will 0-16 do? It will make Mr. Ford vow to redouble his efforts, because he really can find a way to make this team win, yes he can. And next season the Lions will take a QB with the #1 pick, and they will go 3-1 in exhibition games, and hope will return in August, and they will go 3-13 or 4-12, and another season will be wasted, and more talented players will leave because they cannot stand it any more. (Remember, Barry Sanders didn't retire because he was physically spent. He retired because he couldn't stand losing any more.)

I can't possibly root for that. This season is killing me. At least with 3 or 5 or 7 wins, there's some hope on Sundays, some bright spot, a possibility that the dark clouds will lift someday and that eventually I will get to see an X by Detroit in the standings, or perhaps even a Y. (Not even in 1991 did the Lions get the coveted Z, not that it would have mattered: Washington would have crushed them anywhere.) But this season has been different. Two weeks in, it was already worse than I'd pictured.

My friends talked me into going out to watch Bears-Lions, round 1 (I know some Bears fans, they're not bad people other than that), and it was so awful, they couldn't really even say anything about it ... and I knew it would be.

I don't even bother watching the games now. I watch the Red Zone channel or sometimes the Game Mix on DirecTV, and occasionally I'll flip to the Lions game, but they collapse so quickly I can't bear to watch. Thanksgiving was awful, worse than the beating inflicted by the Colts in 2004. I was thankful to miss the first three quarters. It's bad enough I don't even watch the night games much. Why bother, other than for fantasy purposes? (Somehow I'm playing for the title in one league and third place in the other, go figure.)

Some of my friends don't understand, they think it's simply pessimism. They don't know that I've seen this before, but never this bad ... all the bad seasons, none of them have been like this. Most of them have never rooted for a team this bad, and the ones who did either had history to cling to or great times in the future. The Lions have neither, not unless you're in your 60s or 70s. They don't understand what it's like to know that if everything falls just so, your team might be able to keep the game close, and that's all.

The players try so hard, and they're just getting to the point where they can actually put decent quarters together, but it only holds for so long, and honestly, how can a team with this little depth possibly survive what they've been through? The Lions have played five quarterbacks this season, and I doubt any of them would decisively win the job anywhere else. The receiving corps includes players cast off from the Colts and Seahawks, the secondary has a player who couldn't cut it in Oakland, and the linebackers, well ... they try hard.

It's been eight years since I had something to watch in December, nine years since a playoff game, seventeen years since a meaningful playoff game. Don't get me wrong, there are plenty of other things to root for as a Detroit fan: since the 1991 NFC Championship, the Wings won three Cups, the Pistons won one title and played for another, the Tigers played in a World Series, and heck, even the Shock have raised a few banners in the WNBA.

But I really, really like football, perhaps even more than hockey, and it's hard to explain what it's like to endure eight years of absolutely awful football with no history on which I can draw. I know Bobby Layne and Doak Walker, but they're just names; the epic battles with Jim Brown's Cleveland teams are faded history, the loss of divisional control to Green Bay older than I am.

In a best-case scenario, the Lions will manage to land a GM with possibilities, a decent coach, two quality first-round picks (thank you, Jerry Jones) ...

and they'll win three, maybe four games. And then what? Another rebuilding year? Maybe, in three years, they'll be exactly where they were before Ford allowed Millen to destroy the team: above .500 but just outside the playoffs, searching for those elusive pieces but never quite finding them ...

or maybe they will, and maybe someday Gus Johnson really will get to call that magic play, and maybe, for a change, I'll actually care about the Super Bowl.

But for now, all I know is that in ten days, the Lions will do something they'll never be able to undo. How could I possibly root for that?

It's odd, in a way, because I'm much more detached than I used to be, with sports in general and not just the Lions. It's probably a good thing. When I was younger, this might have killed me. Now, it's more like breaking up with your girlfriend because you got a job in a new city, and not finding anyone remotely interested in you while you hear through the grapevine that she's doing very well for herself, thank you. At first, you might envy her, maybe even wish something bad for her (who's her in this analogy? I don't know), but eventually, you just want to find someone decent. Not necessarily Ms. Right, not even someone with long-term potential, just someone for a nice evening or two, but it never seems to work out, and every time you get that "Oh, sorry, I can't," you lose a little more hope, and you're not sure that even your lowered expectations can be met.

The worst thing is that there will be eight months of nothing before there's even a chance to change things, and even then, well, it'll be the AFC North and the NFC West. St. Louis? Cincinnati? Cleveland? Maybe, but if you looked at the schedule this year, didn't Atlanta and San Francisco look like possibilities? How did those games turn out? And what if they don't beat those teams? Pittsburgh? Baltimore? The last-place team in the NFC East? New Orleans again?

I just wish it were over.

$20 off Amazon Prime membership

No kidding. What's the best thing about Amazon Prime? Two-day delivery, free, including the Christmas season, and $3.99 per item for next-day delivery. (If the item doesn't arrive next day, you get your $3.99 back, too. I've done that once.)

Give it a try. If you normally order things from Amazon, it's absolutely worth it.

You can't spell Hopeless without HP

http://consumerist.com/5107363/hewlett-packard-wipes-your-hard-drive-to-fix-a-broken-key-on-your-keyboard.

I mean, really, do you need anything else? You don't even have to click the link (although Consumerist stories are usually good ones).

Humidifiers

At some point last winter, my humidifier decided to retire itself. I didn't replace it right away because it wasn't a big deal. Around here, what you need during the summer, if anything, is a dehumidifier. We get all kinds of moisture, trust me.

And then during the fall or something, I saw a tolerable one on sale, and foolishly I bought it. I say "foolishly" because I had already learned in the past, or so I'd thought, that cheap usually means crappy when it comes to humidifiers. (That's true for a lot of other things as well.) I suppose I thought it would be different.

Last week, the first cold, dry spell hit. How did I know this? I woke up all congested, runny nose, dry throat, the usual stuff. My humidifier said sorry dude, I know it's only about 30% in here, but I don't feel like working harder.

I turned the fan on high one night, just to see if it would help. It helped all right: it helped drown out the radio when I woke up. Humidity? No help at all.

So finally, after two days of emptying Kleenex boxes at work, I order a Hunter humidifier, the kind I had before. Bad news: they tend to break after a few years. Good news: they work great until something breaks.

It got here yesterday. I unpacked it, filled the tank (it has a big tank, which is nice except that you have to remember it's going to be heavy, 8 pounds per gallon and all that), and plugged it in.

57%, it says. I don't need to do anything yet.

Oh really? I says. I go into the living room. The hygrometer reads something like 28%. The cats agree: don't touch us, we've seen this before. The cheap humidifier, now sitting near the hygrometer, guesses about 30% and is quietly doing not much of anything.

I go back in the bedroom, thinking this one was broken in the box. Time for a return. Great ... only now it says 56%.

Oh, you thought I thought it was really humid? Joking! That was just because I was bored in the box. Give me a bit, I'll figure out what's going on.

Ha ha, very funny, Mr. Appliance. Eventually it realizes how dry things are, I set it and turn it on, and it's off.

40% last night in the bedroom, 35% in the living room, much better than before (I prefer 45%, higher sometimes depending on what's going on outside.) Came home today after all the rain we've had, and it's 45/40. Almost tolerable. To no one's surprise, my congestion has mostly cleared up.

Dry weather, cold weather ... why do I live this far north again? Oh yeah. No hurricanes. And it's cheap. And the cats don't want to move.

Lesson: don't go cheap. Cheap humidifiers are worthless.

Impersonal finance

I've been using an old, old version of Money for a while. There are things about it that always bother me, like how it fails to categorize the same type of transactions over and over, all sorts of little things are difficult to set up, blah blah blah, so I figured I'd upgrade.

ha. I poked around on Amazon and found that pretty much everyone hates both Money "Plus" and Quicken. Also, apparently Money Plus Deluxe costs $1250. Special offers available, indeed. (Seriously, who would buy it at that price? What, does it come with Suze Orman?)

I guess it'll be mint.com for me.

It always amazes me when there's a serious need in the marketplace and it's completely unmet by the market leader or leaders. It's like they figure we'll give up and go with them if they agree to suck equally.

Dear old people,

I understand that you want your independence and all that, and maybe when it's dark and rainy, you aren't quite as comfortable as you were when you were, I don't know, my age or something.

But if you can't get yourself to drive faster than 50 in a 65, and you're in what's soon to be the left lane of an interstate highway, and traffic is merging into your lane, get off the road, or at the very least, get into the far right lane.

You're a danger to yourselves and those around you.

Sincerely,
not old people

Dear Notre Dame,

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.

Sincerely,
everyone

P.S. Keep that Weis around for the length of his 10-year contract. Sheer genius, I tell you.
P.P.S. Did he forget to mention the videotapes?

Sheeple

So we're off to Cincinnati for Thanksgiving, but of course we want to eat something as we get started. (Proper Thanksgiving planning means eating early enough in the day that you'll be hungry when it's time.) She wants McDonald's, I'm fine with pretty much anything, so we decide we'll go to the one at 131st and 37.

But it's not open. Okay, we head to 69 ... but as we pass the 116th offramp, we see the one near the SuperTarget is open. (Maybe, it sure looked open, though.)

Oh well, too late. So we stop at 96th, knowing that if that's not open, we'll hit Einstein or Panera, both of which are open.

We pull up and get out. I try the door - it's locked. But there are cars in the drive-thru, so it must be open. We get in line and wait.

It seems to take forever, but finally we get up to the screen, which is politely waiting to take our order, but we don't hear anything.

So we wait. And we wait.

And suddenly, I have a thought. I say, "What if they're not open?" We look at each other, and now everything makes sense ... everyone else who's stopped by tries the door, then sees a car in the drive-thru, so they get in line. It's fall, so everyone has their windows rolled up until they get in line.

The car in line waits until they realize they won't be waited on, so they drive around ... and see that it's dark inside because it's actually closed. But nobody goes back and tells the people waiting in line ... (we didn't either).

We go to Einstein and eat. On our way back, she asks me how many I think are in line. I think, add a few, and say 7.

There are about 15 in line, going through both drive-thru lanes.

We're sheeple.

Out of what?

There's a Pizza Hut just down the street from us at work, so we get carryout every now and then.

Today we decided to get our usual: Stuffed Crust, two larges instead of one (because there are four of us eating and we likes our pizza). So B calls, and we get bad news:

They're "out of stuffed crust." Apparently they're out of the cheese they need to make it, or some such nonsense, and won't have it for two or three hours. This is like BWW being out of sauce, or wings, or chicken, or something. Totally unacceptable.

Fortunately, there are like 5 Pizza Huts within a few miles of here. Lunch is saved.

Cooperation

So finally, after six years of cohabitation, the cats are working together.

I'm in the living room, half-watching the Colts-Chargers game as I work on my homework, and I hear a light rattle in the kitchen, as if something had been knocked off the counter. (ems volunteered to take my big-ass coat to the dry cleaners on her next trip, so I emptied my pockets on the counter.) No big deal, Calle sometimes forgets what she can and can't play with.

But then I heard a lighter rattle, almost like something was being batted on the floor. Time to investigate.

As I came into the kitchen, Calle was making her way along the counter by the sinks, as if to suggest that nothing was happening here, she was just passing through to see if perhaps I'd left any tuna on the counter, but it was too late. I could clearly see what was happening: there was a black-and-gray cat on the counter, carefully knocking stuff onto the floor, and a white-and-black cat on the floor, batting at each item to see if it was actually a toy.

Naturally, I'd prefer that they cooperate in other ways, like lying next to each other so that I don't have to Photoshop a Christmas card picture, but I guess this is a start ...

Retained

So Tuesday, I have my super-six-month checkups (dentist, orthodontist, eyes - it just happened that way). Well, eyes are every year, but you know what I mean.

And the orthodontist says hey, it's been a year, no need to wear your top retainer any more during the day. Only at night.

Hurray!

Oh, one thing, if it starts to get tight when you put it back on, you'll have to wear it more often. (Because the teeth need to settle in, like the bottom ones have.)

Okay. So I don't wear it the rest of the day, very cool. And I put it in Tuesday night.

It's a little snug. I knew it would be. Before, I'd miss an extra hour or two, and it was always different when I put it back in. This didn't seem to change much.

Wednesday night, a little tighter. Same thing Thursday.

So today, I get home from work, and I put it in. Yep. Looks like as soon as my retainer was out, the top teeth yelled "Party!" and began moving in all directions at once. (In a tooth kind of way - they aren't actually moving yet, they just want to.)

Sigh. And it was so close ...

Now that's better

I'm so embarrassed. Here I am, trying to learn more about web design, and I suddenly realize that forever, I've been using a style sheet with fixed widths.

Bad zlionsfan! Bad!

Now really, fixed widths have their place ... I suppose if you have a graphic-intensive website, you might want to use them. But for the most part, they are a pain. I mean, I'm looking at this at 1440x900, and half the screen is empty space. (Hey, I don't really have a place to put a big monitor, and I don't feel like running another cable across the living room to hook up the TV. Now if this next consulting gig pays off ...)

So now it's fixed. Percentages, not fixed widths. Enjoy zlionsfan's writing in all its full-screen glory!

My, how things change

So AT&T sends me a new card. Did I mention this before? Probably not. Oh wait, I found it. Anyway, they send it to me, and I'm going to use it once and then lock it away, just so they don't cancel it and crush my debt-to-credit ratio, right?

Yeah, that was like six weeks ago. What did I buy?

Nothing.

I'm just having a difficult time buying something right now. Maybe this means I've finally changed, and in five years, I'll be financially responsible. Or maybe I'm rejecting the hypercommercialization of Christmas. Or maybe it's just a reaction to the arrival of crappy fall. (Remember where I live. In Indiana, fall means 40-degree days and rain, and sometimes rain and 40-degree days.)

Still, not buying things isn't a bad reaction. I guess it could be worse.

Okay, none of you will appreciate this anyway. I try not to let on about how financially irresponsible I've been, because ... um ... something.

That's all for now. Off to Facebook to play more games.

Weekend thoughts

So, for the first time in a while, I have been away. Went up to my home state for a weekend of football and, um, unplanned activities or something. (Western Michigan vs. Illinois at Ford Field. Who wouldn't want to see a real football team there?)

Friday, we get up there around 7. Rush-hour traffic in Detroit = bad. (I tried to make us late. I should have tried harder.) Funny, we thought the economy in Detroit was bad, so where's all the traffic coming from?

We get to our crash pad, and our host takes us out to Chris Chelios' restaurant, right in the Comerica-Ford Field area.

But the kitchen's closed. Oh ho, now I see the effects of the economy. To be fair, there wasn't a Wings game that night, and without something like that, well, downtown Detroit was not bustling. At all. You would have thought it was 1 AM instead of 7 PM. (It did seem somewhat safe, though.) So we went to Hockeytown Cafe instead (warning - obnoxious Flash movie with sound that auto-plays: I blocked it and so should you) and had a nice little snack, then off to Fishbone's for some sushi. Good stuff, although I really don't care for masago.

The next day, the whole group goes to the stadium, and right away you can tell how Detroit is different than other NFL franchises. The will-call section is not at the ticket counter, because that would make sense. It's over in the players' will-call section. Huh? So we pick up our tickets and go right in, only perfunctory security (like last week at the UM-Purdue game). Good to see security theater hasn't struck NCAA games, either that or I forgot and it's not like it used to be.

So we go inside to our seats, and they're very good. Lower section, 15th row, between the 40s, I think, behind the Western bench. (The three of us who drove up are neutral - me, a WMU alumna, and an Illinois alumnus. The rest of the group are a mix of MSU, UM, and WMU people, all rooting for WMU.) And from there ...

Ford Field sucks. No, really. I mean, part of it is the problems you always seem to have at a non-NFL game in an NFL stadium. There's way too few people for the stadium, way too few concession stands, not enough food when you do get there, and so on. (I didn't get anything - I did my usual routine, don't get up for 3.5 hours. What can I say? I'm a Libra, I don't like bothering people. I'd rather just sit the whole game and not have to get up to pee.) Anyway, the seats are narrow, there's no out-of-town scoreboard, no stats on the scoreboard ... okay, that might be an NCAA thing, but still, they did a really bad job of putting this game on. If it weren't for the fact that it's an excuse to get back there and see a relatively inexpensive game, I don't know that I'd do it again. I sure wouldn't use it as a reason to see the Lions in Ford Field.

Of course I let my stupid iPhone run down, which means no updates. Fortunately, our neighbors planned better, so we knew that Purdue had lost (surprise) and Michigan had won (surprise!). Back to the crash pad for a cookout, then football on TV, then off to meet some friends (new to me) at Fishbone's again. Went with the lump crab cocktail, not quite what I was hoping for. I prefer heated crab to chilled crab.

Also, Notre Dame sucks. Did you know they were shut out on Saturday? Yes they were.

Sunday, we head back through Ann Arbor. Stopped on campus to check out a few stores (picked up a couple of UM shirts), eat lunch, and see a few sights along the way. Drove through some familiar areas, then back on the road and home. Traffic better, weather not so good. (No sleet or ice, fortunately.) Boo winter.

Got home, checked in on my friends' cats (not happy - no surprise, one's not been left at home like this before and the other one does not approve of me) and mine (not too unhappy, except for pooping).

Overall, a good time. The only thing I forgot was my lower retainer, and that one's not the problem. When I put it back in, it fits into place neatly. When I leave the top one out for a few hours, it fits a little more tightly. I'll probably have to wear it until I'm 50. (Next week, I'm sure he'll tell me another six months, no change.)

Did I mention the Lions suck? Yes, they do.

Obama!

So ... we're in the polling place, ready to open. There's a few people waiting outside the inside door. We figure no big deal ... but wait. There are about 50 people waiting outside the outside door.

Steady stream of people from 6 AM to 2:30 PM; it tailed off after that, but we never stopped. Strangely, we had no 5:00 rush, and at 6 PM, no one was in line. We closed with no issues, wrapped everything up, and had the results returned by 8 PM. (McCain took our precinct by about 5:4, which is not a good sign - we are strongly Republican.)

And now I'm watching TV (I'm dumb, but I had homework to do, and how often does this happen?), and I see PA, and OH ... and Indiana has not been called yet.

fivethirtyeight.com shows that McCain has a 0% chance of winning without taking Ohio. They've called 194 votes for Obama, and easily 77 will go for Obama (CA, OR, WA, and HI). That's 271.

Cha-ching!

Wow!

Okay, the Purdue-Michigan game was exciting enough (although I have to confess we missed the last touchdown to make sure we didn't get trapped in Lafayette traffic for two hours), but wow, Texas-Texas Tech, wow. Wow.

Wow.

They didn't even use a timeout.

Wow.

Somehow, they got everyone off the field twice, once after the TD and once after the review. I guess people in Lubbock aren't really good at telling :01 from :00.

I love college football.

Chicago's back

I'm watching the Wings-Hawks game tonight, and in the background, in the third period, I hear two chants ... can't tell the first, but the second one is clearly "Detroit sucks!" (Or is it "Detroit's Cup"? Because we have it now, you know.)

It's good to hear. Why? Because there were 22,000 people in the United Center, a regular-season record. If you're not aware of the importance of that, well, Chicago's been in the league longer than John McCain's been alive. Finally, the new generation is washing away the disrepair into which the franchise had fallen.

Oh, and the game? Right after the chant, Datsyuk scored to tie it at 4. :)

Recession? It's all in our heads.

Yeahright. I was just catching up on my mileage today (I track it, yes I do, every time I fill up the hybrid), and I noticed something.

9/30 ... $3.569
10/10 ... $2.779

In 10 days, the price of gas fell about 80 cents a gallon around here. Now, it was really more like 60-65 cents, because the 9/30 purchase was probably up by my house, and the 10/10 purchase was near work, but still.

It gets even better when I add in the previous entry.

9/20 ... $3.839

Twenty days, $1.06 off the price of a gallon of gas.

Yeah, things being cheaper is a nice thing. Unless they are things you own. And you know gas prices aren't the only falling prices ...

Physics

So I'm leading Penn State 10-3 (no, I'm Army, we actually took Indiana's spot in the Big Ten), and they're driving at home to tie it. Second and goal at the 4. TD pass over the middle to the TE. Funny, I thought he was covered, so I look at the replay.

Apparently his QB has special powers, because he threw the ball right through my safety's arm.

Nice. I didn't realize EA kept the "computer needs to win" setting in today's games.

The way politics ought to be

Ever heard of the Alfred E. Smith Memorial Dinner? Me either. You know about it now, though.

Why? Well, it's an annual event (these are links to the 63rd, from earlier this week), and both candidates were invited to speak.

Oh, by the way, it's a roast.

Are they funny?

McCain part 1
McCain part 2

Obama part 1
Obama part 2

Obama is a better speaker, I think. He definitely gets the timing down. McCain may not quite be in his element, but I'll tell you what, he is absolutely funny.

It's a shame we don't get to see them like this more often.