Say, did any of you notice how badly I did with predictions last week?

So here are my predictions for the week: Carolina will beat a beat up Vikings team. The fifth-round college backup coached by BillBel will notch another win.

And about that  0-3 of the title? On paper, by all reasoning, the Chargers should beat the Jets. But that last second thing is really killing them this year, so you gotta go with Favre. 

Finally, the Jaguars keep trying for that elusive break-out game against Peyton Manning. The Jags aren’t the team they were last year. But then, neither are the Colts. Two teams with swiss cheese for an O-line, the Jags still looking for their first win, in Indy?

Unfortunately, I think there are going to be at least two playoff teams from last year that’ll be 0-3 after this weekend.

Can you say 0-fer? In related news, randiego showed up again. 

And if that doesn’t make me pathetic enough, know that I fell asleep just as the Wolverines were beginning their big comeback yesterday–missed the whole damn thing. Go Blue!

I’m just going to take solace in the fact that the Lions finally got rid of Matt Millen (the TSA guard in SFO was teasing me about how long that took), and we’ve got a week to try to become a pro team again.

So rather than risking any predictions this week, I’ll just pose this question for discussion: Why is Nick Saban so much better as a college coach than a pro coach?

There are a bunch of games. Half the mopes will lose. Teams from Phoenix will be among them; but with the USC burp Thursday night, it is a little easier to take. This done on the fly, so additional fun discussion will have to follow later. I am thinking you guys know how to rip the joint up without a bunch of mumbo jumbo anyway.

Trash and smash at will!

(Video: Hey Georgia Bulldogs! They kicked the Sun Devil’s butt last Saturday. Their tailback, Moreno, is seriously good)

I might as well have posted this later Sunday afternoon. After all, the big games of the week are on Sunday night (the scary looking ‘Boys against the new-look Packers) and Monday night (one of the best two-minute drill quarterbacks ever, Favre, playing a team that has lost two in a row in the last seconds of the game, the Bolts). It’s like someone actually wants us to do yard work on Sunday or something. Or maybe canvass.

Speaking of the Bolts. I haven’t seen randiego around these parts lately, ‘specially not during trash talk. I wonder why that is? I mean, I know it must suck to have the very best ref in football lose the game for you. But still, you gotta talk trash!

See, I can say that. I know my local team gave up a bunch of touchdowns at the end of the game last week–but that’s what we know to expect from the Lions.

Speaking of local teams, John McCain has officially lost MI. True to form for McCain, he’s trying to win by pandering to the home crowd–and he has chosen OH over MI. You can tell it’s pandering, too, because he bought Cindy a necklace–a Buckeye necklace!?!?!–that cost less than $1000.

McCain shopped for bargains and purchased two black Ohio State T-shirts priced at two for $20. He also grabbed a porcelain statue of Brutus Buckeye.

On his way out of the store, McCain also decided to buy a Buckeye necklace for his wife, Connelly reported.

Palin’s pandering too, like McCain claiming to be a Steelers fan, while secretly favoring the Seahawks. Seahawks!?!?! 

Biden, however, is so far above pandering that he claims Delaware can beat the Buckeyes. I mean, I hear what bmaz says about how crappy the Big 10 is and all, but … really, Joe?

Which leaves Obama, the narrow winner of the much-coveted "want to watch football with" vote. 

People would rather watch a football game with Barack Obama than with John McCain – but by barely the length of a football.

Obama was the pick over McCain by a narrow 50 percent to 47 percent, according to an Associated Press-Yahoo News poll released Friday that generally mirrored each presidential candidate’s strengths and weaknesses with voters. Women, minorities, younger and unmarried people were likelier to prefer catching a game with Obama while men, whites, older and married people would rather watch with McCain.

 [snip]

McCain backers were a bit more intrigued by watching with Obama than the Democrat’s supporters were with making McCain their football buddy. While fewer than one in 10 Obama backers wanted to watch with McCain, nearly one in five McCain supporters wanted to kick back with Obama.

"He seems intensely focused in a way I’m not sure he does sit down and relax," McCain supporter Lanita Linch, 41, of Harrison, Ark., said of the Republican. She said she’d rather watch with Obama because he seemed like "someone you could be comfortable and at ease with," but cautioned, "If he’s not a Cowboys fan, we’d have a problem."

Lanita must never have seen the pictures of McCain kicking back with Charles Keating, huh?

So here are my predictions for the week: Carolina will beat a beat up Vikings team. The fifth-round college backup coached by BillBel will notch another win.

And about that  0-3 of the title? On paper, by all reasoning, the Chargers should beat the Jets. But that last second thing is really killing them this year, so you gotta go with Favre. 

Finally, the Jaguars keep trying for that elusive break-out game against Peyton Manning. The Jags aren’t the team they were last year. But then, neither are the Colts. Two teams with swiss cheese for an O-line, the Jags still looking for their first win, in Indy?

Unfortunately, I think there are going to be at least two playoff teams from last year that’ll be 0-3 after this weekend.

Week 2 is upon us, football is really back, and the big games are really starting to be played now. The first weekend you are just glad to have the pigskin back in the air, you don’t care that the games are usually not that good. Last weekend’s game between Tennessee and the Bruins of UCLA was a definite exception. Holy cow, it was a great game, especially the second half (masaccio, being a Vols fan, may not agree). Rick Neuheisel may be starting something special in Westwood, and that would be a fantastic thing for Pac-10 football, and college football generally.

Wobbly yawner games, where the cobwebs are still being shaken off, are not the case for Week 2 though, there are huge games on tap. Let’s belly up to the bar then.

NCAA – The Rose Bowl. The Grandaddy of Them All. Right here in the second week of September no less. All kidding aside, it is hard to envision a more compelling early September matchup than Number 5 ranked The Ohio State University invading the Coliseum and the Mighty Men of Troy, the Number 1 ranked USC Trojans. What can you say, the game speaks for itself. National Championship hopes are already on the line big time; even if they were not, college football games just don’t get more compelling than this. Don’t be a McCain hiding behind a skirt wimp, be open and notorious, pick a side and state yer case. Then let me give you a hint. There is a track record on these kind of matchups, and it ain’t a real pretty one for the three yards and a cloud of dust conference. That record will continue I’m afraid. Other games to pay attention to include #10 Wisconsin at #21 Fresno State, UCLA at #18 BYU, and the Ramblin Wreck from Georgia Tech at Virginia Tech. Oh, and and yet another scintillating meeting between Michigan and Notre Dame. Hard to imagine that it could live up to last year’s matchup of the un-victorious and un-tieds. But they will try.

THE BIG BOYS OF SUNDAY – Pats at Brett and the Jets tops the list. Ground control sans Major Tom looks to be in the offing for the Pats. I think they will still run the same basic offense with Matt Cassel in place of Tom Brady, now done for the year, but look for a bigger commitment to the run. And look for Cassel to find Randy Moss a lot. If you were a young quarterback making your first start since high school wouldn’t you look for Randy Moss? Of course you would. Thing is, Mangini may be a prick, but he ain’t stupid, he knows about Moss too. I don’t know who is going to win this game; but, man, is this gonna be must see TeeVee.

In the other games, there may not be quite the compelling drama of the Jets/Pats, but there are some good hookups. One is the Frightning Bolts visiting the Donkos at Invesco Field. The last time we saw Invesco, there was quite a show put on; this may be a worthy sequel. Jay Cutler is really starting to come into his own this year. I literally saw some shades of Elway’s arm last week, and I think the Broncs are going to send the Powder Blue to 0 and 2. Pittsburgh at Cleveland and the ‘Boys hosting the Iggles are also pretty interesting. I dunno on the latter, both look real tough this year, Iggles may be a surprise here though.

THE BOYS OF SUMMER – Well, the Sawx are still rockin, the Yanks are a fadin, The LA teams are killin, and the fuckin Diamondbacks suck. In light of the total suckiness of the young D’backs, I am full on rooting for a 405 series. Thats right, Mrs. O’Leary’s Bovine Creature still holds forth, the Cubs go bye bye and we get the Angelic Ones versus Lasorda’s Beloved Boys in Dodger Blue for the World Series. Vlad the Impaler versus Manny being Manny. And a line of Bentleys and Mercs stuck on the 405 freeway going between the ballyards. Yep, that’s the ticket.

F1 Circus In Monza – What could be better than a great duel down the stretch between Ferrari and McLaren for the driver’s championship and a trip to the fabled Monza Circuit? Not much really. This is simply the highest form of auto racing as it is supposed to be. But as I write this, we have breaking news. There is a bit o the wet at Monza this morning for qualifying, and Lewis Hamilton, perhaps the best tiger in the wet on the circuit now that Michael Schumacher is no longer prowling the field, has just failed to make it past the knockout round. That means he is not going to start in the top ten positions when the race goes off Sunday. Curiously, Kimi Raikkonen didn’t make it past the knockout either, and Felipe Massa barely made it, squeaking into the pole fight at P 10.

For those of you unfamiliar with Monza, wow, where to start. This is the place of legends. You’ve heard of the banked turns at Indianapolis? Nothing compared to what they used to face at Monza. Here is an old video that kind of shows what banking really is. This ten minute clip from the movie Grand Prix is even better. Phil Hill drove the camera car for Frankenheimer in the filming of Grand Prix, and the footage is utterly spectacular. The clip is very much worth the time to watch. Monza is the fastest circuit on the Grand Prix tour; always has been. Some of the best drivers in history have lost their life at Monza, including Count Louis Zborowski (driver of the real "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang"), Alberto Ascari, Wolfgang von Tripps (whose death in the 1961 Italian Grand Priz at Monza gave his teammate Phil Hill, the winner of that tragic race, the championship in 1961), Jochen Rindt, and Ronnie Peterson. If you have ever had a hankering to watch a F1 race, this would be a great one. Coverage on Speed TV.

The Brett Favre drama has kind of sucked up all the attention in the off-season, so it’ll take some time to get figure out what happened in the off-season. For this season opening trash talk thread, then, I’ll just let you all weigh in on the following questions.

Most importantly, which will have more viewers, that wrinkly white dude’s presidential nomination acceptance speech, or the Super Bowl Champs taking on their division rival?

Will anything that happens in Mile High this year electrify the crowd as much as last Thursday’s doings?

Which Manning brother will have better success this year, Venus–with a gimpy knee–or Serena–without two of the key defensive contributors from last year?

Which division will be more competitive this year, the AFC South (Colts, Jags, Texans, and Titans) or the NFC East (Giants, Skins, ‘Boys, and Iggles)?

Otherwise (since my muse has been beaten by the server gods), I send you to First Draft for this post. Since nasty nasty seems to be the mood of the last day or so, I feel okay indulging in this sort of mean-spiritedness.

There’s something I’m really, really hoping for tonight.

I hope that the football game runs long.  Really long.  So long that NBC has to cut away from it to show McCain’s speech in Minnesota.

Will there be a repetition of the infamous Heidi incident?  Not in New York or DC, as NFL contracts now require that broadcasters show games to their conclusions in their home markets.  But what about the rest of the country?  Wouldn’t it be great if NBC (the network, by the way, responsible for the aforementioned incident) cut away from the final few minutes of tonight’s NFL season opener to cover Oldy McBoring’s speech to the moribund GOP?  Wouldn’t that be great?  Man, lots of people would be pissed at McCain!  In addition to the NBC switchboards being melted by overuse, the RNC would see a lot of heat, as well.  It’s been a long year without football, as far as NFL fans are concerned, and they’d probably despise missing even a minute of the season opener.

photo by ButterflySha

Despite the wall to wall coverage, not just on NBC and MSNBC, but all the networks, the hand wringing, the eulogizing, the lionization, the body lying in state at the Kennedy Center, and the funeral worthy of royalty, not enough has been said about the recent passing of a giant. Probably because all that bleating was about Saint Tim of Russert. I am talking about a different giant. A giant in my own family has passed. Granpa Pricky.

Granpa Pricky was our 24 foot tall saguaro cactus that majestically guarded the east entrance to Casa de bmaz since at least several decades before Casa de bmaz was built, and our house is almost fifty years old. Just woke up one morning and there it was, keeled over into the road. Saguaros are truly grand and majestic entities, standing tall as the guardians of the Sonoran desert. Granpa Pricky was not just a centurion, he was a home as well. There are now a couple of homeless woodpeckers. Actually these peckars don’t even peck wood that much. They like to perch on my chimney and wail on the metal vent cover on the top. Sounds like a freaking machine gun or jackhammer in the house. Very annoying. Metalpeckers.

At any rate, an autopsy was conducted. Any and all of these photos can be enlarged by clicking on them.

The whitish material in the center is very squishy. There is simply a ton of moisture in saguaros. And we don’t even have the cacti on drip systems; all they get is rain water, and it does not rain that much here. It is kind of fibrous pulp like stuff. People trying to survive in the desert desperate for water cut up that pulp and put chunks in their mouth to suck the water (and there is a lot) out. The cactus does produce a red, bulbous, pretty sweet fruit that is fully edible and not bad. Granpa Pricky died on June 5. Here is a photo just taken of the same cross section depicted above.

Note how the pulp is shrinking as opposed to the outer shell and especially the spine. The spine is the circle of dowel like looking things in the middle. When you tap on the outer surface of the pulp, which has hardened, you can tell from the sound that there is still simply a ton of water in there. It has been really hot here lately (112 degrees today), this thing is dead and cut up into pieces; yet it still holds that much water. Pretty remarkable. Saguaros have a relatively long life span. They take up to 75 years to develop a side arm. Granpa Pricky had three arms. The arms themselves are grown to increase the plants reproductive capacity (more apices equal more flowers and fruit). The growth rate of saguaros is strongly dependent on local precipitation patterns, and saguaros in drier western Arizona grow only half as fast as those in and around Tucson, Arizona. The night blooming flowers appear April-May and the sweet, ruby-colored fruit matures by late June. Each fruit can contain up to 2,000 seeds. Saguaro flowers are self incompatible and require a pollenizer to supply viable pollen. For more information, see here and here.

Well, that is the end of the desert discussion for today. If you are interested in knowledge of the desert ecosystem and all it’s different species, as well as some other Southwest, Pacific and Pacific Northwest ecologies, please visit the site of the Center for Biological Diversity. The center was founded decades ago by a friend, Dr. Robin Silver, and it really is a remarkable organization, the EFF or ACLU of Southwest ecology. Their website is also a superb resource of information.

In closing, a photo of Camelback Mountain Western Camel Head’s Face/Praying Monk Rock, taken from close to the exact spot of ground where Granpa Pricky once stood guard. In the previous Sunset Musings post, I was forced to use a picture culled from the web that was actually taken at sunrise. This is the real deal taken during "golden hour". Last week was fast, furious, and a bitter disappointment. We got some incredible and fascinating substantive work in this weekend thanks to Marcy’s Ghorbanifar Meetings Timeline post. But I also wanted to do a couple of general, and lighter, things to give everybody a chance to vent, decompress, and recharge their batteries. So, the same rules from yesterday’s The Sun Always Rises post are in effect. Chat and comment away on any of the things we do or you want. If there was/is stuff in the news that is noteworthy, give a link and let’s discuss it (I haven’t even done my daily reading yet). Tomorrow, it is back to the war. FISA is not a done deal until the Senate sends it out in a form that Bush signs. But our backs are to the wall, and the road steeply uphill from here. Got some more effort left in you? I do.

The sun always dawns a new day, and so it has again. The day after a disappointing yesterday. Possibly we get so wrapped up in all the swirling malevolence and scorched trail of destruction by the Administration that is Cheney/Bush, the ravenous corporate robber plunderers, and the feeble enabling Democratic Leadersheep, that we forget that there is still a whole lot that is good, that still maintains, and that is worth feeling warm and fuzzy about and fighting for. Let’s all remember that it does maintain and, as Roberto Benigni would say, Life Is Beautiful.

Marcy is going to take a couple of days off to chill, do some gardening, and have a couple of pints of Beamish with Mr. Wheel. Good, she deserves it. She puts absolutely a ton of heart and effort into both this blog and the common effort as a whole. I probably don’t have to tell you this, but she does a heck of a lot more than you see on the surface, and we are all better for it. And I can tell you, in fact, I think you all personally know from your own passion, that the constant battle seeps inside of you and can consume a great deal of your soul along the way. Disappointment burns, and sometimes you just need to step back so you can realize the tremendous value and beauty of all that you are fighting for.

So, I will be minding the store for the weekend. Marcy may drop by, she may not, but trust me she knows we are all here; and I assure you she is having some much needed fun (and pulling weeds from the yard is way fun!), is working on some great stuff, and will be back Monday and raring to go. In the meantime, I will put up some substantive posts here and there and all here should feel free to use this post, and any this weekend, as a free floating discussion forum on whatever is of interest. If there is anything uniquely significant, then we will deal with that too.

Lastly, several people turned off their cloaking devices and delurked in the last couple of days to say hi and relate their thoughts. That is a good thing. If you are smart enough, and passionate enough, to read this blog religiously, you are plenty good to contribute. Myself excluded, there are some of the finest minds available that participate here, and from some incredibly diverse backgrounds. We are all strong and opinionated people, and there are no sacred lambs that cannot be picked apart, not even Marcy, and certainly not me. From the outside looking in, it might seem sharp elbowed, testy and intimidating. But that is true only from the analytical perspective, not the compassionate. Everyone’s theories, positions, thought and comments are subject to the scrutiny; as well they should be. That is why this, overall, is the best, most rational, and most elegant blog in the blogosphere. If I do say so myself; and I do. It is because of you. All of you. So if you are a regular but have been hesitant to jump in, hop to it. You will be fine and we will all be better as a result.

To quote the type of leader we could have used in the last couple of days, Jean Luc Picard, "Engage!"

Well, we got Mr. Obama’s reply to all of us. Everybody has a lot to say to Mr. Obama. Here is the place. Now is the time. Trash talk is allowed. I heard the Lakers, er Celtics just won something. Also heard Curt Schilling is done, how the Sawx gonna win without him? And hey circus freak, the French Grand Prix is this weekend. Migny-Cours is the track? Chat away.

There is a lot going on out there, so consider this a somewhat open thread to yammer at will.

The first item of business is the passing of Jim McKay.

He was host of ABC’s influential "Wide World of Sports" for more than 40 years, starting in 1961. The weekend series introduced viewers to all manner of strange, compelling and far-flung sports events. The show provided an international reach long before exotic backdrops became a staple of sports television.

McKay provided the famous voice-over that accompanied the opening in which viewers were reminded of the show’s mission ("spanning the globe to bring you the constant variety of sports") and what lay ahead ("the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat").

McKay — understated, dignified and with a clear eye for detail — covered 12 Olympics, but none more memorably than the Summer Games in Munich, Germany. He was the anchor when events turned grim with the news that Palestinian terrorists kidnapped 11 Israeli athletes. It was left to McKay to tell Americans when a commando raid to rescue the athletes ended in tragedy.

"They’re all gone," McKay said.
…
McKay was the first sportscaster to win an Emmy Award. He won 12, the last in 1988. ABC calculated that McKay traveled some 41/2 million miles to work events. He covered more than 100 different sports in 40 countries. In 2002, McKay received the International Olympic Committee’s highest honor — the Olympic Order.

McKay was simply an outstanding journalist and reporter. Not just for sports, but of any kind; he was that good. His work will live long, and we have all prospered from it. Thanks for all the thrills of victory and the agonies of defeat Jim, vaya con dios.

Now one of Jim McKay’s greatest loves was thoroughbred horse racing, particularly the triple crown races.

McKay’s first television broadcast assignment was a horse race at Pimlico in 1947. It was the start of a love affair — horse racing captivated him like nothing else.

"There are few things in sport as exciting or beautiful as two strong thoroughbreds, neck and neck, charging toward the finish," he once said.

Today is the Belmont Stakes and Big Brown is going for the triple crown. There hasn’t been a triple crown winner in thirty years, and Big Brown is a hell of a horse in what is seen as a weak field. Lets see if he can make it a special day for Jim McKay. I am pumped, and think this may be the year, and Big Brown’s biggest competition, Casino Drive, has been scratched from the field because of injury. But Big Brown has a little agony in da feet himself. Got a bum hoof, but the experts seem to think he is good to go. The Belmont sure will test it though, it is one long distance. What do you folks think?

Lastly, F1. Didn’t think I would leave F1 out did you? This weekend is the Canadian GP. Round seven of the 2008 Circus. The Montreal circuit is one of the faster tracks; should be a great race. Lewis Hamilton in the McLaren is leading the Driver’s Championship standings by a scant three points over Kimi Raikkonen of Ferrari; and four drivers are within six points of the lead, which is unusually tight grouping. The race is at 10:00 am EST and is being covered this week on Fox.