I always find too many informative political and economic articles to share, so I’ll select a few and throw them all in to one post of important stuff you should read to get your week started:
1. Maybe we shouldn’t be blaming our leaders for not being able to lead:
A thought-provoking read from Slate.com: Down With the People:“…the biggest culprit in our current predicament: the childishness, ignorance, and growing incoherence of the public at large.”
That’s you, Glenn Bleck-loving, Sarah Palin-voting idiots. (Some Democrats are probably to blame too…)
It’s been a while since I’ve posted my full weekly NFL preview column on here. But it’s the Super Bowl, so I figure I might as well go out of the football season with one last big push. I have some recap stuff to get to once the season is completely over, and I will always repost the best YouTube video of the year, but as far as demonstrating my awesome predictive abilities for football games, this is it for the next seven months.
All of the story lines and angles for this game have been beaten to death by the mainstream media over the last two weeks. So, I won’t bore you with stories of Hurricane Katrina, the Manning’s connection to New Orleans, Kim Kardashian’s ass, or Dwight Freeney’s ankle. I’ll go with some more exclusive NFL content for you:
That’s right. A young Great Wahl (in a tangerine-colored golf shirt with my tongue hanging out, no less), Wernick, BJones‘ formerly better half, and Sweisen w/ the greatest QB in NFL History. But this was back in 2005 when he kept choking against the Patriots. He went on to win the Super Bowl the following season after hanging out with us. Coincidence? Not at all.
In person, the first thing you notice about Peyton is how tall he is. He is listed at 6′3″ (or, at least he used to be), but he’s really closer to 6′6″. Peyton said he lists himself shorter so that people don’t perceive him to be big, slow, and immobile. But he is big, slow, and immobile…so I don’t know how much of a benefit the shorter listing really gives him.
For the first time in a long time, I don’t really have a team I’m going to be strongly cheering for. I would be happy to see either team win, and I think either team can win. I just am hoping for a close, entertaining game. However, that doesn’t make an interesting blog post, so I have to pick a side. I think Peyton is really too good right now to lose this game. Plus the Indy defense is better than most think (held Chris Johnson to two of his worst games of the season). And if the Saints have to go to overtime to win an NFC Championship team against a Vikings team that turned the ball over 67 times, then I just think New Orleans isn’t peaking at the right time.
The Saints can definitely win this game, but they’ll have to play a game like they did against New England in the middle of the season. That was one of the most dominating performances in recent memory. But, unfortunately, practically every big game New Orleans played this year was in the Super Dome in New Orleans w/ the unbelievable home field advantage. Now they’ll be playing on a neutral field against a team that really hasn’t lost a game more than one game it has tried to win in like the last 25 attempts.
I don’t know these teams nearly as well as I know my Green Bay Packers for my usual Big Game Preview pieces, but I’ll try to put together a few keys to the game that I perceive to be important to the outcome of the game. And I’ll try to make them a little more exotic than ‘Dwight Freeney’s ability to rush the passer’ and ‘winning the turnover battle’:
1. Reggie Bush – ‘X Factor’ is a really overplayed term. But I can’t think of a better phrase to describe Mr. Kardashian. The Saints would be, and are, a perfectly lethal offense without him (if Drew Brees gets back on his game). However, if Bush can add a couple of big plays, both in the running/passing game as well as in special teams, it can completely change a game. The game is going to come down to converting redzone opportunities into touchdowns, and not field goals, so if they can design some plays to get Reggie on the edge diving for pylons, like he seemingly always does, then that will go a long way to improving the Saints chances. Also, field position will be vitally important. Bush needs some good punt returns and shorten the field for the Saints offense.
2. Indy’s White Receivers – Dallas Clark and Austin Collie. If they have big games, the Saints don’t stand a chance. If they have big games, it means Peyton is picking apart the middle of the Saints defense and checking down to take short completions for first downs and extending long scoring drives. The Saints are going to be trying to blitz and pressure Peyton. That just means he’ll take the easy, quick completions to his white receivers. If those connections are successful early and often, especially in the redzone, Indy wins easily.
3. The Last Two Minutes of the First Half – Both Championship games were decided, in a fairly large part, by the last two minutes of the first half. I think the same will hold true for the Super Bowl.
In the AFC Championship game, Peyton threw an entire drive down the middle of the field to Austin Collie (see #2) for a touchdown in the last two minutes of the first half, after being shutdown by the Jets defense for the first 28 minutes of the game. It gave the Colts the momentum and confidence they needed going into the half. The finished the game by scoring 24 straight points and winning 30-17.
In the NFC Championship game, Reggie Bush was trying to make a big play for the Saints (See #1) in the last two minutes of the first half, but actually made a big play for the Vikings by muffing a punt inside the Saints own 20 yard line. Fortunately, for the Saints, Adrian Peterson and Brett Favre mishandled an exchange and fumbled the ball back to the Saints. Had the Vikings scored a TD there, it would’ve significantly altered the outcome of the game. Again, all in the final two minutes of the first half.
There is always a chance the Saints can have a great game (underdogs are 6-3-1 against the spread in the last 10 Super Bowls), but I really think this is a statement game by the Colts, with Peyton cementing his place on the over-cliched ‘Mount Rushmore’ of Quarterbacks — even if he often looks like a bumbling retard (I apologize in advance for using the ‘R-word’, Sarah Palin) most of the time:
The Official Prediction: Indianapolis Colts, 34 – New Orleans Saints, 24.
Then, this morning, I get the following picture in my inbox from Evan, titled ‘Man Purse’:
Jason Campbell on the left. DeAngelo Hall on the right, sporting a man purse. Don’t know who the other guy in the photo is, but I’m guessing it’s a Washington Redskin of some sort. Perhaps it’s Albert Haynesworth and he has just shed some serious lbs in the offseason.
I’ll be very impressed if a Great Wahl reader can fill me on who that might be. Evan said there were hundreds of former and current players at this particular party last night and he was lucky if he could identify 10% of them.
Because one can never get enough football stuffed into one week, even Mental Floss is throwing together Super Bowl related brain games for us. It’s been a while since I’ve posted a brain game, but this one is fun, and doable. Enjoy.
Today’s Brain Game offers twelve anagrams of various football player positions; think tailback or offensive guard or (as in today’s title) punt returner [Upturn Renter]. Can you identify each of these twelve positions? Good luck!
So I’ve gotten a couple emails about this new website called Chat Roulette. Basically it’s like Russian Roulette except instead of putting one bullet in the chamber of a gun you just randomly get assigned to talk to strangers with a webcam. It can be just as dangerous though in many respects. I mean one second you could be chatting with a chick and next second you could have some dude stroking his c*ck. It’s f*cking nuts.
The blog was nice enough to provide a screenshot of the action:
I don’t know which type of roulette is more dangerous. All are dangerous to your health. Some are physical. All are mental.
(Quick Editorial Note: Edge of Darkness with Mel Gibson is a decent late winter excuse to go to the movies. It also makes a convenient blog post title when commenting about selling your soul to the evils of technology).
3) A ’status update’, with a link to the blog post, is automatically generated from my Twitter account to my Facebook account, where I have scores of both fake and real friends that will easily see it.
4) Hopefully some of said fake and real friends will click on the link and visit my website, simultaneously boosting my web traffic, ego, and feeling of self worth (which are all perfectly correlated).
So, if you are too anonymous to become a Facebook friend, follow my twitter account. Then you should, in theory, if this all works out, be able to see right away whenever I make a new blog post.
Last night, I optimized this site for the iPhone. Now I’m making it much easier for you to passively follow my blog via newfangled technology. I’m a man of the people.
II) Question: What could be better than Peyton Manning in a Super Bowl commercial with The Situation from the Jersey Shore?
Answer: Probably nothing. Not much in the way of details here, just a ‘tweet’ from The Situation saying he was flying to Miami a couple of days ago to film an ad w/ The Sheriff:
I’m this close to packing it up and moving down under to New Zealand (or is ‘down under’ exclusive to Australia?) to earn a living:
WELLINGTON, New Zealand – A New Zealand teenager who says she auctioned her virginity online for $32,000 to raise tuition money did not break any laws but it might be risky for her to follow through on the deal, police warned Wednesday.
The anonymous 19-year-old student offered her virginity to the highest bidder on the Web site under the name “Unigirl,” saying she would use the money to pay for her tuition. She said in a post that more than 30,000 people had viewed her ad and more than 1,200 had made bids before she accepted an offer of more than New Zealand $45,000 (US$32,000).
Unlike similar New Zealand Web sites, bidding and correspondence between buyers and sellers on the Web site is private so it is not known what bids Unigirl’s offer received.
Web site owner Ross McKenzie said the site’s policy was that as long as an ad was legal and did not offend the general standards of society, “it was OK.” He confirmed Unigirl was a member on the site.
Prostitution is legal in New Zealand under laws considered more liberal than many countries.
Prostitution among consenting adults is allowed in brothels and on the streets, and offering sexual services in print ads and online is also legal.
National police spokesman Jon Neilson said no law appeared to have been breached.
A virgin female college student can get $32,000. I think I’d be happy to get a couple hundred. Or at least enough to cover the cost of my flight down there…
It’s always bugged me that The Great Wahl would look weird on the iPhone vs. your normal computer browser. It’ll probably look wonderful on the new, wonderful iPad, but for those on the go, you can now check your favorite blog w/ ease. It should also load much, much faster.
It’s like a poor man’s NY Times, USA Today, or Huffington Post app:
In the last six months, only about 2% of my unique daily visitors have come via the iPhone/iPod platform. Maybe now that will increase since it’ll be that much easier to check in from time to time.
And to the person who looked me up on their Wii: that’s impressive.
The plug-in I’m using boasts this as an Apple optimizer, but I think it may apply to all/most mobile browsers. People with droid and blackberry phones, please try it out and let me know. Thanks.
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