We’re getting killed out here. We need help at wide receiver. Seriously, we’re just one bad attitude wide receiver away from making the playoffs. (Pulls out cell phone) Cincinnati. Jerry here. The bank’s open, what do you want for Ocho Cinco?

OK. Christmas is behind us. Here’s where football really heats up. We’re into the bowl games where more than a handful of homers give a flip about the teams. And in the NFL, this may be the last week of the regular season on the calendar, but for a lot of teams it’s as good as the beginning of the playoffs. For posterity, here are my heart / brain picks for games coming up.

Meineke Bowl – UNC vs. West Virginia: Heart: UNC, Brain: WVU
I love what Butch Davis is doing at Carolina. He’s on the scene at the perfect time to establish a basketball school as one of the ACC’s new consistent players in football. But I also think they are still a year away from taking down a big one like this.

Champs Sports Bowl – Wisconsin vs. Florida State: Heart: Neutral, Brain: Wisconsin
Tough one. I’m a big fan of both teams so I follow this one only out of interest. Most are giving FSU the edge in this one. Wisconsin plays well in bowl games so I discount the “virtual home game” for FSU theory. Also, the ‘Noles are the product of a very soft conference this year. Wisconsin is too, but not as much so.

Emerald Bowl – Miami vs. Cal: Heart: Miami, Brain: Neutral
Big Miami and Randy Shannon fan with both on the rise. Again discounting the “Cal home game” bit. Wherever they go, the ‘Canes pack a chip on their shoulder. They’ll be there to make a statement. This is a tough one to pick objectively. Miami is not all the way back. This isn’t the Cal of last year. And Cal hails from the “9 stinky reasons why USC’s strength of schedule keeps them from getting into the National Championship game” conference.

On to the NFL …

Detroit at Green Bay: Heart: Green Bay, Brain: slight Green Bay
I don’t think this is the foregone conclusion that everyone says it is. The Packers have been slumping down the stretch and have nothing to play for. Detroit … how hard would you play to avoid going down in history as the first 0-16 team. I think the Lions will be leaving it all on the field tomorrow. Green Bay in late December is the only reason I pick the Packers. Detroit has become a gang of domed-stadium pansies and they’ll be playing at a man’s venue this week.

Dallas at Philadelphia: Heart: Philadelphia with a side order of T.O. implosion, Brain: slight Dallas
Honestly I have no guess how this one will go. Either team could come out and thump the other and I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised. I’m not sold on Philadelphia suddenly being consistently dangerous. Which McNabb will we be seeing? Dallas, the same. They could come out and click and light Philadelphia up. Or they could lead off with a couple T.O. drops and never quite get their footing in this one.

Miami at NY Jets: Heart: Miami, Brain: neutral
Here again, either way won’t surprise me. I’ve recently posted that I’d love to see Chad Pennington return to New York (really New Jersey) and just rip Jet fan’s heart out. The Jets and Favre have been horrible as of late. But you know they are capable of more. Meanwhile the Dolphins have been playing awesome, but you know they are capable of less. If Miami brings the same game they showed in KC last week, they march into the playoffs on a high note.

San Diego at Denver: Heart: Neutral, Brain: San Diego
This one looks to be a laugher. Denver is plummeting. San Diego is playing up to their capability finally. And the teams hate each other so it’s not like there will be a letdown on either side. Call this the “This is what you get when you have a bazillion tiny divisions” bowl.

Holiday Aftermath

Originally uploaded by brianjb

Dixie and Shelby miss their grandparents.

Brian Besaw
(from mobile phone)

Free Agent Go

Originally uploaded by brianjb

The 500 Gb Free Agent Go in Titanium Silver. This thing rocks. It’s light as a feather and as fast as an internal hard drive which means …

Enough of synching between work and home and home laptop. While there are tools to make the task easier there is no avoiding frequently being where the current version of a file that I need isn’t.

Everything goes on the Go, which is then backed up to my MyBook every night. Now my thumb drive is a tool box – scripts, utilities and commonly-used install files.

This is my favorite talk radio week of the year because everyone is doing their “best of” shows. Today I caught a debate on Mike Gallagher over whether or not it is appropriate to use your cell phone in a public rest room. Actually, a really good and lively topic. So, I thought I’d lay down some of my rules of cell phone etiquette.

1. In the Bathroom – General? The rule I use for myself and thus that I hold those who call me to: As long as you spare the person on the other end. For my money, just knowing that the person I’m talking to is sitting on the can is TMI. Unless you are someone that I would feel comfortable walking in talking to face to face in the bathroom (and that list consists of exactly NO ONE), I don’t want to know about it on the phone either. And I sure as hell don’t want to hear any flushing, splashing, spraying, plopping, etc.

2. In the Bathroom – Public? First, #1 applies here as well. The more important the call and / or the person I’m calling, the less likely I am to risk it. In the public rest room you need to remember that the risk is heightened. Even if you are discrete with your own performance you have no control over what someone else may do.

And that brings me to another point. We live in an age where people are increasingly annoyed whenever forced to listen to someone gabbing on a cell phone. (more…)

OK, I know they couldn’t possibly have known how it would all play out, but man! The last two weeks of this season boast more great and meaningful games than anyone could ever have expected.

Last weekend, in both conferences we had #1 against #2 for home field through the playoffs. And imho one or both of those games could easily have been conference championship previews. And now the top dogs can rest and pace themselves during a weekend in which a number of teams will battle head to head with the winner grabbing a playoff berth and the loser likely going home.

– B –

In one of those games I’m so rooting for the Dolphins and Chad Pennington. I don’t like how Brett Favre handled himself during the last off-season. I think the Jets erred in mortgaging their future on the myth of a glorious, Favre-fueled present. I would love nothing better (more…)

It seems Chrysler has taken out a full page ad in the Wall Street Journal to thank us for “investing” in Chrysler. Well actually, what am I saying? We, the taxpayers, out of the pure goodness of our hearts, took out a full page ad in the WSJ …

Anyway, Mark Cuban is on it and not pulling any punches.

I will simply echo my sentiments from the other day – Chrysler, shut up! WE didn’t willingly give you anything. It was ripped from us, and might just as well have been thrown to the wind for all the good that money is going to do. So mainly leave well enough alone and just shut up. You got our money, but you won’t get our hearts.

So, another breaking news event has come and gone, and the Twit-Folks are convinced it has provided further evidence that Social Media has MSM on the run.

Here is the “news” as reported by a twitter user involved in the crash:

Holy f*g s*t I wasbjust in a plane crash! 8:25 PM Dec 20th from twitterrific

Ugh … My glasses fell off in the mass exodus getting off the plane .. Can’t see very well 8:57 PM Dec 20th from twitterrific

This was crash #2 for me. Maybe I should start taking the bus. 8:58 PM Dec 20th from twitterrific

Can’t see much, but that’s the crash site. http://twitpic.com/ut2c 9:35 PM Dec 20th from twitterrific

Continental keeping us locked up at the presidents club until they can sort everything out. Won’t even serve us drinks. 11:21 PM Dec 20th from twitterrific

… and by this point MSM is well underway on the story.

By the way, if you work with this guy and ever have to travel … take a separate flight.

Anyway nothing against the tweeter. Considering he was under duress I think providing any info at all was an accomplishment.

The point is, if you happen to be one of his followers and suddenly get those tweets, so what? You don’t know jack other than that you need to turn on the TV or log on to a MSM news site and find out what is going on. And, as one commentator to the post linked above mentioned – you can’t really even be sure this guy was actually in the crash.

Elsewhere I have read “I followed it on Twitter,” or “I followed it on Facebook.” Great. But I’m willing to bet Twitter or Facebook, in those situations, was merely serving as a relay. That user might have been getting info there, but somewhere on up the food chain you’ll find a user who was tuned into MSM and passing the info along. No harm in that, but just don’t represent it as Social Media getting over on MSM.

I think it will happen as these sites mature (if they can continue to find investors who will subsidize their operating at a loss). As events go down, users will live blog, tweet, or update with real “on the scene” information and beat the big news boys to some interesting details.

But it seems like before we can get to that point, a whole bunch of Social Media fanatics need to tone down their campaign to sell the world on Social Media. This has become the new global warming. Whatever happens, however inconsequential, it somehow stands as proof that Twitter is the most awesome thing ever in the history of man and if you don’t see that you’re lame. When there is real value to be seen, no one will notice because by then they’ll be too sick of the Twit-folk attempts to conjure up value where there isn’t any.

These sites / tools are making progress. Irrational pushing isn’t going to help things.

Much as I’d like to pile on Dallas’ offense and the dysfunction that lies within, I can’t put last night’s loss to Baltimore entirely on them. Sure, they struggled. While Baltimore was forced to settle for field goals in trip after trip to the red zone, Romo logged two interceptions preventing Dallas from gaining some breathing room on their opponent. And while Tashard Choice was having great success running the ball (avg 5.3 per carry), the ‘Boys shelved the run and tried to force the pass at the most inopportune times.

All of that said, Dallas was only down 9 entering the 4th quarter. With all of their weapons, that was no problem. It didn’t hurt that midway through the quarter Baltimore suddenly changed up a defense that had been rocking all night. They went to the dreaded “prevent” defense which, as is usually the case, was eminently successful in preventing the Ravens from putting that game on ice when they had the chance. Romo led the Cowboys on three solid scoring drives, which should have been plenty. Except …

On successive possessions, on successive offensive plays from scrimmage, Baltimore gutted the Cowboy defense for two 75+ yd TD runs! And that defense is especially culpable beause they should have known exactly what was coming. Two minutes and change left on the clock and clinging to a 2-pt lead, what’s a team going to do? RUN CLOCK!! They won’t run sweeps which risk going out of bounds and killing the clock, and they won’t pass which risks clop-stopping incompletions. They might have gotten them, but the Ravens weren’t going for touchdowns. They just needed one or two first downs. So the plan was simple and has been played out in waning moments of thousands of games over the years: Run it up the middle. Hopefully you move the chains and Dallas never touches the ball again. But worst case you punt it back and let your stout defense carry the day.

So, how a team rings up two TDs and 159 yards on two bread and butter runs up the gut is inexplicable. That’s not on TO. It’s not on Romo. It’s on the defense. Either the players didn’t execute or coordinator Brian Stewart and resident defensive genius Wade Phillips failed on the play-calling. Either way, at the close of the game the offense was doing everything that could be expected to salvage the game and the defense was undermining their efforts.

In Illinois, with Gov Blagojevich having tainted the state government, the majority of residents would prefer to hold a special election to assign the US Senate seat vacated by President-elect Obama. State officials are balking at the idea. I’m sure it has nothing to do with a reluctance to cede control of this appointment. No, the stated reason is that a special election would cost $55M in taxpayer money.

Makes sense, I mean, $55 million! Do you know how many Senate seats you can buy with that?

I just love how the government is only concerned about taxpayer dollars when it’s convenient. We’ll pay people billions to produce cars that no one wants, but when faced with the prospect of letting the electorate speak directly, well, it’s time to tighten our belts.

If a special election is held, step aside triple-J. The smart money is on dark horse candidate Jeff Kennedy, the gym teacher at Avondale Elementary in Chicago. Even an abbreviated campaign should give the little-known Kennedy ample time to win voters over with his qualifications. I mean, you did notice that his last name is “Kennedy,” didn’t you? Come on. Appoint the guy already and save the taxpayers some money as is your stated desire.