November 01, 2004

Monday Night Football

New York Jets vs. Miami Dolphins. Line: Jets by 6½. Take the Jets minus the points.

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October 27, 2004

IM Conversation While Watching The Red Sox Win

annikagyrl: the curse is over
annikagyrl: the curse is over
annikagyrl: long live the curse
leaky: nah, they're still cursed
annikagyrl: lol
annikagyrl: yah?
leaky: John Kerry is from their state
annikagyrl: hahahaah

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October 25, 2004

Monday Night Football Pick

As a Raider fan (which is tough to be this year), i hate having to pick Denver for tonight's Broncos vs. Bengals game. i'm looking for a way to justify not doing it.

The Broncos are playing in Cincinnati, and are favored by seven points on the road. They have a five and one record, as opposed to the Bengals' one and four record. Jake Plummer's been decent, with ten touchdowns and an 87.4 rating.

Contrast that with Carson Palmer's stats: four TDs against eight interceptions, with a 59.6 rating. He sucks. But you should already know that, since he went to USC.

So, basically, there is no good reason for me to pick the Bengals tonight. But i will anyway, and hope that Denver wins by less than seven points.

Update: Cincinnati actually created the ilusion of a good team tonight, i was surprised. With tonight's Bengals win, i improved my record to 3 and 3 on the year. (Last week was my bye week, due to the computer glich.)

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October 11, 2004

The Fantasy Footballer's Dilemma

"Yaaah, go Chris Brown!"

seconds later:

"Yaaah, c'mon Favre!"

i am the John Kerry of football fans.

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Football Update

Snooze Button Dreams is killing me in Fantasy Football this week. (Good luck on the interview, Jim.) The Raiders sucked again on Sunday. And Saturday, Cal outplayed USC and still lost. Very depressing.

Hey, at least the Niners beat the lowly Cardinals.

Regarding Monday Night Football, i need Chris Brown of the Titans to have a stellar game for my fantasy team. But i actually think that Green Bay will win this one. Green Bay is favored by three points and they're at home.

This is actually a pretty tough game to pick (i'm 2 and 2 on the year with my predictions). Both teams' quarterbacks are hurting, but how can you bet against a Favre led team on Monday Night? Although i also read that Green Bay's center is out, and the replacement is not as good. But i don't know if that's just bad or really bad. (i actually didn't even know what a nosetackle was until Casca told me. i thought nose tackle was when you hung a snap swivel off your nostril piercing.*)

The hardest question for me is, will the Packers cover the spread? i have a sense that the game might be close, but i know that as soon as i say the Packers won't cover, they will. That just seems to be my luck lately. So i'll pick the Packers minus three points.

Update: Chris Brown: 148 yards + 2 TDs. Will it be enough to overtake Snooze Button Dreams though? i'll find out tomorrow. Re: my MNF predictions this year, i don't want to talk about it.


* Ba-dum-bump. That's a little fishing humor for y'all.

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September 27, 2004

Monday Night Football, Week Three

Tonight it's Dallas at the Redskins. Both teams are led by elite coaches trying to restore some former glory to their respective teams. Both teams have one and one records. The spread is 1.5 points, with Washington as the favorite. It sounds like a close one, but i need only one reason to pick Washington to cover the spread: Vinnie Testaverde sucks.

Update: Testaverde still sucks. Defense won that game. Like Dallas, i'm now 2 and 1 on Monday night. In Fantasy Football, DFMoore kicked my butt on the strength of Peyton Manning's performance Sunday, and i've now fallen to 2 and 1.

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September 20, 2004

Gimme A Quick Pick, Cash Value

Quickly, tonights game, Vikings at Eagles, McNabb and Owens vs. Culpepper and Moss, blah blah blah. The difference for me is Westbrook over Onterrio Smith, though the Vikings might have a better run defense. Spread is Eagles minus three. i think the Eagles will cover, go with Philly.

Update: Eagles over Minnesota, 27-16. Moss and Owens were roughly even in effectiveness. But Brian Westbrook rushed for 69 yards and caught for 69, including several big plays. Whereas Onterrio Smith only had 28 yards rushing.

Go ahead and say it: i fucking rock!

Update 2: Oops, i just checked out this weeks results for the Blogger's Bowl fantasy football league. My opponent this week is Victor's Rats of Chaos (what is it with that boy and rats?), and while i currently lead him by a hefty margin, Yahoo has not yet updated the stats and he has four Philly players on his team. He's predicting an additional 60 points based on McNabb and company's performance tonight.

As Charlie Brown would say: "Rats!"

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September 13, 2004

The Return Of annika's Picks

Yes, it's that time of year again. annika's Monday Night Football Picks is back in da house.

Tonight, Carolina hosts the Packers, and Carolina is favored by three points, according to ESPN.com.

Tough pick, but i gotta go with Green Bay. Favre is getting slower, but he's not done yet. And Ahman Green is simply awesome. Spot these guys three points and i'm going to take that bet.

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September 06, 2004

My Fantasy Football Team

As you may know, i am participating in Blogger Bowl 2004, a Yahoo! Fantasy Football league started by Nick at Patriot Paradox. My team's first game is a big one, this weekend against Ted of Rocket Jones and his Rockets.

i'm gonna beat Ted like a drum. Like me, he's a Raider fan, and his wide receiver corps is heavy on the Raiders. He's got Jerry Rice and Jerry Porter, to go along with St. Louis' #2 option, Isaac Bruce. Now i love the Raiders, and Rice may be my favorite player ever, but i think my receivers, Marvin Harrison, Chad Johnson and Justin McCareins are gonna lead annika's journal to an easy victory this week.

Here's my team:

  • Quarterback - Matt Hasselbeck, Seattle Seahawks

  • Wide Receiver - Marvin Harrison, Indianapolis Colts

  • Wide Receiver - Chad Johnson, Cincinnati Bengals

  • Wide Receiver - Justin McCareins, New York Jets

  • Running Back - Clinton Portis, Washington Redskins

  • Running Back - Chris Brown, Tennessee Titans

  • Tight End - Kellen Winslow, Cleveland Browns

  • Kicker - Matt Stover, Baltimore Ravens

  • Team Defense - Philadelphia Eagles
i took a chance on Justin McCareins, but i got a good feeling about the kid. i think he'll have a breakout year.

i had originally drafted the future hall of famer, Morten Anderson of Kansas City. Not only is he one of the greatest kickers of all time, but we were both born in Copenhagen, so i had to have him on my team. Now i find out that KC cut him on Friday, so i had to scramble to find a replacement! i can't believe they cut him. Sure he's 44, but he was still effective, i thought. Now, if Stover gets hurt i'm in trouble at kicker.

It would be nice if i could post a link to the league like i did with my baseball team, so you all could watch our progress. But i tested the link and apparently Yahoo! won't let you look at it unless you're a member of that league, for some dumb reason.

Anyways, season starts for real on Thursday and i can't wait.

Hey Ted: "We want the ball and we're going to score!" Ha ha! : )

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August 25, 2004

A Vaguely Olympics Related Poetry Day

It was so funny listening to Bob Costas talking about the Greek island of Lesbos tonight on the Olympics broadcast. He totally skipped over the one question that had half of America giggling. i can imagine all the Beavis and Butthead imitations going on in living rooms across the country: "huh-huh... he said lesbos... huh-huh."

Yes, strictly speaking, a lesbian is what you call someone from Lesbos. So how did that word become transformed into a gay moniker? And what does that have to do with poetry day? Read on:

The most famous lesbian of all was the classical Greek poetess Sappho, who lived in the seventh century B.C. She ran a school for girls on Lesbos that was sort of the artistic hippie commune of its day. She was such a revered poet that people called her "the tenth muse."

Sappho wrote a series of beautiful lyric poetry that survives only in fragments. It was written on stone tablets, which broke over the years and many of the pieces are missing. The only thing left of much of Sappho's work is a line here and a line there, leaving only glimpses of some romantic and evocative poetry, now lost forever.

Some of Sappho's poem fragments have been interpreted as evidence that she was indeed a lesbian, in both senses of the word. Thus the modern meaning of "lesbian." Although there is still some dispute about whether Sappho really liked girls or whether it was more of a sisterly thing she was writing about.

Sappho's poems have consistently resisted translation into English in a way that reveals their beauty to the non-Greek speaker. Or so i'm told. i took Latin, not Greek in high school, so i'll just have to take the poetry scholars' word for it.

Mary Barnard's recent translation is very nice, although i'm not sure how faithful it is to the original. Today's poem is an especially pretty translation by Barnard, which seems to be from a more intact fragment.


Yes, Atthis, you may be sure

          Even in Sardis
Anactoria will think often of us
of the life we shared here,

          when you seemed
the Goddess incarnate
to her and your singing
          pleased her best

Now among Lydian women she in her
turn stands first as the red-
fingered moon rising at sunset takes

precedence over stars around her;
her light spreads equally
on the salt sea and fields thick with bloom

Delicious dew pours down to freshen
roses, delicate thyme,
and blossoming sweet clover; she wanders

aimlessly, thinking of gentle
Atthis, her heart hanging
heavy with longing in her little breast

She shouts aloud, Come! we know it;
thousand-eared night repeats that cry
across the sea shining between us


i think it's appropriate that this week's poem is a selection from Sappho, in honor of the Olympic Games in general and a couple of American gold medalists in particular who, perhaps unintentionally, paid homage to the spirit of Sappho the other night.

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August 13, 2004

Olympic Play-By-Play - Opening Ceremonies

[an experiment in contemporaneous blogging]

. . . i despise Katie Kouric. i really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really despise her . . .

. . . i just turned the thing on. What's up with the glowing pregnant chick? That shit is straight up weirding me out . . .

. . . Kouric's tone of voice is soooo condescending. She talks down to the viewing audience like we're a bunch of fucking babies. God she's annoying. She almost makes me not mind the short guy. What's his name? . . .

. . . Costas . . .

. . . Interesting that Bulgaria sent an all male contingent of athletes this year . . .

. . . i'm sure the German team didn't mind following the French team in the parade of nations. Germans are very used to seeing the backs of Frenchmen . . .

. . . Cool, no boos for the Americans. But what's up with that music? Is that a techno version of Albinoni's Adagio? Couldn't they have picked a happier tune for the parade? . . .

. . . i've heard from Europeans that we Americans walk differently and we're easy to pick out from a crowd because of the way we carry ourselves. It doesn't matter what we wear, either. i can't put my finger on the difference, but i see it when i look at our team. It's almost like an optimism, if it's possible to exude optimism while walking . . .

. . . Best looking guys so far have been on the Bosnia-Herzegovinian and Irish teams . . .

. . . Italy too . . .

. . . i bet that blue haired Cameroonian chick was pissed when she saw the blue haired Italian chick steal her idea . . .

. . . Del Harris?! What the fuck are you doing on the Chinese team? He's the Manchurian coach! i hope no one shows him the queen of diamonds. Damn traitor . . .

. . . Time for another beer . . .

. . . The Iraqi team got a nice reception too. That's very cool . . .

. . . The Cook Island team wins the gold for having the most fun during the parade of nations. i wanna party with those guys . . .

. . . More blue hair. This time on a Mexican chick . . .

. . . That guy carrying the flag of Mauritania looks like the black dude from Gladiator . . .

. . . The Brits are all dressed like they just came from the Village. (not Shyamalan's village . . . McGoohan's) . . .

. . . The Olympic Stadium really was worth waiting for. It is spectacularly beautiful . . .

. . . But is there anything more boring than an Olympic opening ceremony? Maybe an Olympic closing ceremony . . .

. . . Still, it is amazing when you think that the Olympics were invented in that exact place, three thousand years ago . . .

. . . AθHNA . . .

. . . Now here come the runners, passing off what appears to be the largest fattie spliff ever rolled . . .

. . . Holy shit. At first i thought the dude was using that fattie to chain light the world's most gigantic joint. But then, as the torch slowly began to rise, it's true symbolism became obvious. Those perv Greeks built a huge working replica of an erect phallus! . . .

. . . i think i'm blushing . . .

Posted by: annika at 09:04 PM | Comments (10) | Add Comment
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August 11, 2004

Wednesday Is Poetry Day

In keeping with today's football related theme, i want to share a pretty cool website i discovered. It's called Football Poets, and it deals with that other football, which Americans call soccer, and which i call kickball.

i may sometimes deride soccer fan, but it's an uncomfortable truth that your average hooligan has a lot in common with your stereotypical Raider fan.

Read the following poem, by a poet named simply, Glenn. Tell me if it doesn't remind you of any beloved black hole dwellers you know.


Sunday, Bloody Sunday

He wakes up to the siren of the clock beside his bed,
He rubs his eyes and starts to feel the banging in his head,
It's 8 o'clock on Sunday morn, he's only had five hours,
But he mustn't let his mates down so he summons up his powers.

He drinks a litre of diet coke to ease the dehydration,
Then sets off down to meet his mates at the petrol station,
His lift turns up and they all pile in, squashed and jammed up tight,
The car is filled with smells of beer and curry from last night.

He shouts and swears with all his mates as they change in a cold, damp room,
The boisterousness holds no bounds, it's Sunday in the tomb,
He strides out through the mist that hugs the rutted council pitch,
Up to the centre circle, hand down shorts, attending to the itch.

He tentatively shakes the hand of his foe in black and red,
Then shouts 'tails' as the tarnished coin spins above his head,
He runs, he kicks, he hurts, he spits, his vitriol unchecked,
He courts displeasure of the man, who is in black bedecked.

He leaves the battered field of play, threatening retribution,
Knowing, deep down inside, his worthless contribution,
And afterwards in the bar he's pompous, rude and haughty,
'Cos this is Sunday football and tomorrow he is forty.

He knows his days of mud and blood are nearly at an end,
The paunch that sits upon his belt is now his new best friend,
He'll fill him up with pie and ale until he's fit to burst,
But he will go on drinking to satisfy his thirst.

He staggers off the bus and somehow opens the front door,
He slumps down in the armchair and sleeps three hours or more,
He wakes up to the siren of the ambulance outside
Then cries as he realises, that Sunday football had just died.

Posted by: annika at 04:19 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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Go Cal Bears!

i was pleased to see that Cal's football team is ranked in the top 25 on at least six pre-season polls. The latest is a number 22 ranking on Sports Illustrated's poll. SI ranks USC at number one, which is no surprise, but guess which Pac-10 team handed the Trojans their only defeat last year?

That's right, it was the Cal Bears!

Some other rankings are:

We're not on the AP's radar yet, but i'm hoping we will be, as soon as the season gets going. Watch returning junior Aaron Rodgers at QB and senior Geoff McArthur at wide receiver. McArthur averaged 115 yards per game with ten touchdowns on his way to a conference leading 1504 total yards. As a passer, Rodgers was second in the PAC-10 in yards per attempt and second only to Matt Leinart in QB rating.

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July 27, 2004

The New Anna?

i'm pleased to hear that Maria Sharapova is supplanting Anna Kournikova as a feminine icon of beauty and talent. That's because Maria's got game. Anna has a good bod and a flashy lifestyle, but even i could probably beat her on the court once out of every ten games. Maria, a Wimbledon champion at seventeen, seems to be the complete package:

Maria Sharapova, dressed head to toe in Louis Vuitton on Sunday evening, looked every inch a future fashion icon.

. . .

She chose a gold lamé mini-dress with gauzy underskirt, gold snakeskin platform shoes and a turquoise, monogrammed evening bag. It was a brave decision but one that any 17-year-old with model good looks could easily pull off.

. . .

Nick Cox, fashion editor at Harpers & Queen, agrees that her look is perfect for fashion campaigns. 'Sharapova is classically beautiful, but she's also a blank canvas. You could manipulate her to look youthful or sexy or more glamorous and grown-up and that is the kind of versatility that fashion labels would look for. Anna Kournikova is quite limited because she has a prettier, sexy look. But Sharapova is much more sophisticated.'

And, at least up until now, Maria seems more down to earth than Anna turned out to be. Of course, that might all go out the window after the estimated ten to one hundred million pounds in endorsements starts rolling in. As a model, i think she could easily earn the same kind of money and attention that Anna enjoys, but i hope Maria resists that easy temptation and keeps pushing her game.

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July 26, 2004

Kerry Loses New York

Attention all Yankee fans. How can you vote for a man who said the following:

[Interviewer]: When you get into office,* would you consider passing an executive order that would prevent Pedro from signing with the Yankees?

[Kerry]: I'd consider an executive order that abolishes the Yankees. We'll have to set up some very strict regulations with respect to Yankee behavior. I think the Red Sox may take care of it. I think there may be an A-Rod backlash this year. I think there may be a reverse curse here.

Okay, so Kerry may lose the New York baseball fan vote with a statement like that, but he probably gained twice as many votes from all other baseball fans. Probably the smart political move.

Until he goes to stump in NYC, when he'll probably say that he was a Yankee fan before he was a Red Sox fan.


What's this "when" shit?

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Is This Getting Boring? Nah! (Reprise)

Instead of writing a new post on how awesome Lance Armstrong is for winning his sixth Tour de France in a row, i'll just link to my post from last year, about him predicting this year's win. Next year: number seven!

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July 25, 2004

Fantasy Football Tip

So Miami running back Ricky Williams is quitting the NFL at age 27 so he can smoke pot full time? Interesting career choice. He's on his way to Asia as we speak, and one wonders if he'll meet up with Todd Marinovich somewhere along the way. Well, at least that makes picking an RB for my fantasy team a little easier.

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July 22, 2004

Crazy Question

Watching the Tour de France with my housemates yesterday, the following question came up:

What kind of being would you create if you could somehow cross Lance Armstrong's DNA with the DNA of his chief rival, Ivan Basso?

The answer is not all that good. It's quite frightening, actually.

Update: i guess nobody gets this joke. It's a bit obscure, but we all thought it was hilarious over at my house.

Clue: Crossing the DNA of Lance Armstrong and Ivan Basso might create a bike rider who's derailleur is perfectly in sync!

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July 21, 2004

Give 'Em Hell, Lance

i watched Lance power his way to the top of l'Alpe d'Huez tonight. He's not just winning, he's dominating and embarrassing the competition. He passed Ivan Basso, like he was standing still. And this was a time trial! They're racing against the clock. i didn't expect to see Lance lapping guys.

lance.jpg

Lance in yellow, Tiger in green, pinstripes in October. It's like something you expect to see every year.

One disturbing thing about the Tour, though. It gets pretty crazy along the route, with fans jumping in front of the riders, waving flags, running alongside and trying to touch them. i saw a streaker during stage 13 last weekend. But on TV today, Lance said that people were spitting and throwing shit at the American riders. That's bad news.

There were lots of fans, and it was a little scary. To me, sincerely, it was not a good idea to have a time trial at l'Alpe d'Huez. It's over now but a lot of German fans were just disgusting. C'est la vie.
i wonder what Lance's left-wing girlfriend Cheryl Crow had to say about that display of America-hating. Stupid Germans. The race organizers really should try to control them, i'd hate to see someone get hurt.

Posted by: annika at 09:26 PM | Comments (11) | Add Comment
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The Tour de France

Have you been watching Lance Armstrong? i watched replays of the end of stage thirteen on Sunday and the end of stage fifteen last night. The dude is awesome. He doesn't even look like he's breaking a sweat. Look at the other guy's faces at the end, they're in agony. But Lance is a machine. i sure hope he's not dopin, 'cause he's great. It's funny that Greg LeMond seems to think Lance is dirty. Does he know something or is he just jealous?

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