December

Good morning everyone.  It's hard to believe that it's the last month of 2011 already.  I'm sitting here this morning with plenty to write about, but there's not really one specific topic that I want to dedicate a whole blog entry to, so I guess that you could classify this undertaking as one of my rambles that makes a little bit of sense.

For most standard fantasy football leagues, tonight marks the first game in the last week of the regular season, and has the Eagles traveling to the state of Washington to take on the Seahawks.  In my two fantasy leagues, I have one team that is right in the thick of things, while the other has no chance of playing beyond this week.  Let's start with my hopeless team, a team that is currently 5-7. This team has lost FIVE straight games after jumping out to a 5-2 start.  The thing that has tripped me up in this league is that each week the teams with the worst records get the first selections from the waiver wire.  Pretty much everyone has to make changes to their teams during bye weeks, so the quick start ending up shooting me in the foot.  Well, that and injuries to Andre Johnson, Ahmad Bradshaw, Benjarvus Green-Ellis, etc, etc, etc...  In my other league my team is 8-4 and is currently in a four-way tie for first place.  I have already secured one of the six playoff spots in this league, and my team can realistically finish anywhere from 2nd thru 6th place for the regular season based on what happens in this week's games.  In this league players are pretty much 'first-come, first-served' when it comes to adds and drops - the catch is that you are limited to 15 transactions for the whole season.  I have also sustained injuries in this league, but I was fortunate to draft Tom Brady and a very strong group of running backs, and this has helped me to overcome those setbacks.  If you are in the thick of your fantasy football playoff chase or have already assured yourself a spot in the playoffs, I wish you the best of luck as the NFL's regular season winds down.

I have decided that two weeks from today, on December 15th, I will be typing up my comprehensive football selections for the college bowl season.  After snooping around online, I found out that the bowl games are scheduled to take place from December 17th - January 9th.  The bowl pairings are also supposed to be announced this Sunday if everything that I read is correct.  I will pick my winners for each bowl game in my blog entry on the 15th, and I will also include my predictions for the final score of each game.  That score will give my thoughts on whether the game will be over or under the number of total points that is projected to be scored, and will give my thoughts on which team will cover the spread.  I will include the spread and the over/under total beside the game information (this promises to be quite the blog entry)...  ;)

December certainly promises to be an entertaining month, with the college bowl games, the NFL playoff chase, the return of the NBA on Christmas Day, fending off the next cold and virus that will be going around, the joy of holiday shopping in crowded stores, the bombardment of absolutely insane advertisements...  I was thumbing through a magazine the other day when I saw the print ad:  "Pringle Bells, Pringle Bells"...  :)  I also saw a t-shirt at the store the other night:  'Dear Santa, Define Good'...  This was on the trip where I bought 'AA' batteries for my work flashlight.  I found a pack of four 'AA' batteries for 97 cents.  The caption on the package stated, "Ideal for low-drain devices."  Don't you think that's a great way of saying, "These are CHEAP batteries."???  :)  One of the more interesting tidbits that I read this week came from 'Newsweek' I believe.  There's this outfit called Kentucky Fried Chicken (they sell chicken) - anyway, they evidently refused to reserve a table for John Travolta.  I had not heard about this story before reading this quote in the magazine, but whatever the ramifications of the decision were resulted in a higher-up at KFC being quoted as saying something to the effect of, "in hindsight, we probably should have reserved the table..."  You really can't make this stuff up...  :)  I am going to stop here, but I will be back with my football picks tomorrow.  It looks like we'll have five matchups of college teams in the 'Top 25' this weekend, and I'll find some NFL picks that I'll try not to screw up.  If you only knew how much I despise going 1-2 again...  :)  Have a great day and we'll see you tomorrow.