Baylor Just Scored Again

Good morning everyone.  Unfortunately I had to go and work last night, and I left my place when Washington and Baylor were tied 21-21 in the Alamo Bowl.  Later on, I learned that the Huskies were ahead of the Bears 42-24.  My next update had the Bears trailing 49-46.  Then Baylor was ahead 53-49.  When I asked for a final score, I was told  Baylor 67  Washington 56...  :)  Do you think today that there are some BCS Bowls that are regretting passing on the Bears for their own bowl game???  Speaking of bowl games, as much as my NFL picks have recently been missing as often as an Alamo Bowl tackler, I went on a nice little run during the past week.  After going 20-4 on my bowl picks for the last 8 bowl games (no, that is not a misprint), I am now 27-15 overall.  I am 10-4 straight up (losing only the Air Force game this week), I am 10-4 against the spread (8-0 this past week), and I am 7-7 on my over/under selections (5-3 this past week).  For those of you who are new to the blog, these bowl selections can be found in my 'Comprehensive Bowl Predictions (2011-12)' entry.  I think that I have stated here before that I usually do well during the bowl season, and it's a good thing, because if you've been following my NFL picks recently...

As I am typing away right now, I am predictably watching ESPN, and although you may not agree with them, there is a certain amusement factor to watching Stephen A. Smith and Skip Bayless barking at each other...  Okay, enough stalling...  Last week I once again went 3-7 on my NFL selections, and for the season I am now sitting at 25-34-1.  If you have been following the blog for a while, you know that I had a winning NFL record before I jumped from selecting 3 to 10 picks a week when college football's regular season ended.  Using last week's poor performance here as a teaching tool, that is one of the things that I can take from it.  In a sports-betting book that I have been reading in anticipation of my eventual return to Las Vegas, the book instructs to go with the picks that you feel most strongly about.  During the season I have been typing my NFL picks for this blog in order of strength.  I skim through the games, find my strongest pick, type it, then go on.  Well, if I would have stopped at 3 last week, I would have gone 3-0 (next thing you know, I will be writing an article here on why the college football season should be extended...).  ;)  The other thing that I can caution you on about betting is that you can come really close and still lose.  In the Miami/New England game, I took the Patriots to win (- 9 1/2), and I picked the under (under 49).  After trailing the whole day, the Pats came back and took a 27-17 lead with about 2 minutes to go.  The Dolphins get stopped on that drive, I win both picks.  Low and behold, Miami scores a touchdown, the final is 27-24, and I lose both picks...  The most important lesson to convey is that you should only bet what you can afford to lose.  My recent NFL run has made me feel pretty thankful that I am just betting air here in San Marcos, America, and not losing my bankroll in the desert.  I am going to once again make 10 NFL picks this week, but I am going to use this week as a tune-up for my NFL playoff game predictions that I will be making for the next month.  I am going to give you my score predictions on five of this weekend's most meaningful games, and by virtue of doing that, I will be picking each game against the spread and in regard to the over/under (picking the toughest college games throughout the year worked out well for me, and what do I have to lose at this point?...).  ;)



Baltimore @ Cincinnati:     Ravens (- 2 1/2)     Over/Under  38

The Ravens lock up the AFC North and a high playoff seed if they win, and the Bengals lock up a playoff spot if they win.  Let it be noted here that I am a Steelers fan, but I am not picking the Steelers/Browns game because if we don't win the game, then we deserve to be a wild-card team.  However, if we do win, and the Ravens lose...  :)  The Ravens won the first meeting in Baltimore 31-24.  I am trying to keep my heart out of this, but I honestly believe that the Bengals and their home-field will show up for this game.  The number 38 is so low, that just like in the first game, I think that points will come from somewhere...  Will the Bengals pull off the upset?

My Prediction:     Bengals  24   Ravens  17     -----   Cincinnati (+ 2 1/2)     Over  38

                                                                     

Kansas City @ Denver:     Broncos (-3)     Over/Under  37

The Broncos lock up the AFC West with a win, and the Chiefs probably win a coaching job for Romeo Crennel if they win.  The Broncos won the first meeting 17-10 in Kansas City.  This is the game where Tim Tebow completed 2 passes (he went 2 for 8).  Kyle Orton gets some revenge if he can win in Denver.  This number is also temptingly low, but there is less offensive firepower on the field in this game.  Can 'Tebow Mania' extend into the playoffs???

My Prediction:     Broncos  20  Chiefs  13     -----   Denver (- 3)     Under  37



San Diego @ Oakland:     Raiders (-3)     Over/Under  47

Let's assume that the Raiders don't trust my Broncos' prediction and believe that they can win the AFC West with a win and a Denver loss.  The Raiders won the first meeting 24-17 in San Diego.  This is the third straight game where there ought to be an absolutely crazy home crowd in the stadium.  Oakland and San Diego have been involved in a lot of high-scoring games this season, and this is the game in this first group of three that I can see turning into a track meet.  Will the Raiders do their part?

My Prediction:     Chargers  31  Raiders  20     -----   San Diego (+ 3)     Over  47



Carolina @ New Orleans:     Saints (- 7 1/2)     Over/Under  54

The Saints are playing for a first-round bye in the NFC if the Rams can beat the 49ers.  For our purposes, let's pretend that the Rams can beat the 49ers...  The Saints won the first meeting 30-27 in Carolina.  54 is a high number, but these teams just play so much offense.  How many yards will Drew Brees tack onto the record?

My Prediction:     Saints  38  Panthers  28     -----   New Orleans (- 7 1/2)     Over  54



Dallas @ New York Giants:     Giants (- 3)     Over/Under  46

The winner of this game takes the NFC East - the loser is watching football on t.v. next week.  The Giants won the first meeting 37-34 in Dallas.  The Cowboys have let so many games slip away this year.  The Giants are capable of playing great and then losing to the Redskins twice.  The Cowboys are probably already a victim of this game's magnitude, as the move to primetime will likely provide colder and nastier weather for this matchup.  Tony Romo's hand is bruised and Dallas doesn't have DeMarco Murray.  The Giants now have both Ahmad Bradshaw and Brandon Jacobs and are playing at home.  Barring a blizzard, points will be scored.  Can the Cowboys take a bite out of the Big Apple?

My Prediction:     Giants  27  Cowboys  21     -----  New York (- 3)     Over  46

If my friends who are Cowboys fans don't execute me on the Square in San Marcos, America, I will be back on Monday with my ramble.  On the other hand, with my recent lack of success picking NFL games, Dallas fans must be feeling pretty good right now.  I hope that you have a great weekend, one that promises to bring you some very meaningful football games.  Happy New Year!








    

  









  

Goodbye 2011

Good morning.  Since I'll be doing my regularly scheduled weekly NFL predictions tomorrow, we'll take this opportunity to say goodbye to 2011.  2011 was a mixed-bag for me personally.  Those of you who know me or have been following this blog consistently know that the overwhelming low point of my year came during the summer when I was unsuccessful in finding a teaching and coaching job after spending the majority of my summer driving all over the state to fruitless interviews.  On the bright side, that has resulted in bringing me back to San Marcos, America, which is a place that I have always enjoyed.  If I have to be in a place where I don't have instant access to sportsbooks and poker tables and the ocean, I'll take San Marcos...  :)  2011 also has the distinction of being the year that I decided to start my little sports-related blog.  I will continue to refer to 'Bikini Hill' as being "sports-related" because I am going to continue writing my Monday ramble, which is and can and will be about anything and everything.  Additionally, just as there already have been, some of the Tuesday and Thursday topics that I write about won't necessarily be sports-related.  As much as I follow sports and have enjoyed starting this sports-related blog, I have friends that I don't get to see very often who couldn't care less about sports, friends who inexplicably enjoy my sarcasm and wit and would be perfectly happy if the subject matter here didn't stretch beyond the scope of my weekly rambles.  :)  Being the team-player that I am, I will continue to be there for everyone...  ;)  It definitely appears that there is a niche for my sports-related blog, as the viewership here has started to explode during the course of December.  My blog had been viewed about 900 times since its inception (in late September) through the end of November.  In this month alone, my little sports-related blog has seen over 1,300 clicks.  As I'm sitting at my computer this morning, watching the stand-ins on the 'Mike and Mike' show and cringing, I almost feel obligated to write my blog...  :)  Since I woke up this morning, I have heard this on the show:  1)  One of the guys (who I do not know) said that the NBA's Eastern Conference is better than the Western Conference???  2)  Brian Billick was comparing the late-season schedules of the Giants and the Cowboys heading into Sunday night's showdown, and he mentioned that the Giants had losses to the 49ers, Packers, and the Saints, while the Cowboys were playing teams "like Miami and Washington."  Ummm, Coach Billick, Washington beat the Giants TWICE this year...  You MIGHT want to use a different team in your comparison???  3)  Mark Schlereth said that fans shouldn't be involved in voting for the Pro Bowl because "fans are stupid" - OUTSTANDING Mr. Schlereth...  :)  ANYWAY, I'm glad that there is room in cyberspace for my little sports-related blog, and I hope that you continue to enjoy it.  Now on 'Mike and Mike' the guy just asked Mark Schlereth if he thought that Ben Roethlisberger would play against the Rams this week (the team that the Steelers beat LAST WEEK).  This show is turning into a total trainwreck...  Regarding my blog, remember that you are always free to leave comments here, and if you have suggestions for any subjects that you would like to see covered, or if you have any questions that you would like to have answered, let me know.  Back to 2011, I hope that the year went well for you, and maybe more importantly, I hope that we all have an OUTSTANDING 2012.  You have less than three full days now to make those resolutions for next year...  Remember to visit again tomorrow if you want to know what may or may not happen on this final Sunday of the NFL regular season...  (I'm just gearing up for my playoff predictions, okay???)  ;)  Have a good one!
                                 

Father Time Is Undefeated

"Father Time is undefeated" -Charles Barkley-  I don't know if Sir Charles thought this quote up himself, but I believe that it is very appropriate for describing what promises to be a very chaotic NBA season.  I am going to address this imminent trainwreck in greater detail for tonight's entry, and then I will let it be...  I am currently watching the Jazz/Lakers game as I type this.  With each passing day it seems that NBA analysts and commentators are starting to vocalize with greater frequency what is in store during this condensed regular season schedule, but I still don't think that they grasp the magnitude of how turbulent the scene will be with injuries, fatigued players, missed games,  increased stress levels, etc...  I addressed this issue quite awhile back, but just like some of the predictions that I have made in the past, the more that I think about this, I don't see any way that a frenzied, previously uncharted atmosphere will be avoided.  Players are not going to have adequate time to recover between games during this schedule of 66 games being crammed into 4 months.  It is not even major injuries that I am necessarily referring to as being problematic.  The potential for bumps and bruises and ankle sprains and various other 'nuisance' injuries becoming more serious are a very real threat.  A factor that I don't think I have given enough time to before is the fact that a lot of these players may not have played much serious basketball since their teams' seasons ended in April, May, or June of last season.  It is already the end of December, a full half-year in some cases for many of these players.  It is my experience that no matter what type of offseason program you put yourself through, it is rarely as tough as the actual grind of the season of the sport in which you participate.  Many players will literally be trying to 'play their way into shape' during the regular season since the preseason only consisted of two games.  Another point that I did not address before was the fact that coaching staffs (who normally work most of the time anyway) will have less than a day in many cases to scout their next opponent and relay that information to their own team.  The quality of basketball is going to be way down during the regular season due to fatigued starters and to the number of bench players who will be seeing record minutes along the way.  Although this could be a potential source of contention for ticket-buying fans, virtually every team in the league should be in the playoff chase for most of the season because there are not going to be a lot of games for that 8th seeded team to separate itself from the pack of teams trailing it.  The teams within the top 8 of each conference should also be packed pretty tightly.  I found this to be true when I did my regular-season predictions blog entry.  I didn't group the eight playoff seeds in order until after I had assigned every team a record, and predictably the whole group was pretty stacked fairly close to each.  The potential for seeds to flip-flop in the last few weeks of play will be very high.  I have to smile - as I'm typing this, the Lakers are still playing Kobe Bryant, up 24 points on the Jazz with 6 minutes remaining in the game...  Tsk, tsk, tsk...  I have to ashamedly admit that I am more interested in watching games during this regular season just to see how all of this plays out.  Knowing that the players and owners are making MILLIONS of dollars makes me feel less guilty though...  Okay, that's the last time that I am getting up on that soapbox for awhile...

I want to extend a sincere thanks to you for stopping by and reading my blog.  'The View From Bikini Hill' was born exactly 3 months ago today, on September 28th, and today the blog went over the 2,000 mark for  views.  Whether you are here for my Monday rambles, my surprisingly accurate college football predictions, or my TRUCKLOAD of missed NFL picks during the past month, thank you for following the blog.  Hopefully when the NFL reduces that field of teams to 12 this weekend, my selections there will be a lot more accurate.  I hope that you have a great day and I'll see you on again on Thursday.

          

Christmas Wrap Up

Good afternoon everyone, and welcome to what is my last ramble of 2011.  I hope that all of you enjoyed your Christmas as much as I did.  I woke up early yesterday for no reason, which at first you might attribute to the fact that it was Christmas, but I've actually had a habit of being a late riser on Christmas Day.  Particularly when I was a college student (and maybe this is true of all college students), I have vivid memories of my younger brother and my even younger stepsister coming into my room and imploring me to get out of bed so that we could begin opening our presents.  My dad and my stepmom would already be in the living room also, making me the very last one to wake up.  Of course when I was much younger I woke up early like every child, but yesterday I was up before 7:30 for whatever reason...  I decided to fill up my gas tank because I knew that I would be heading down to the Alamo City to see my family, so I drove through the very empty streets of San Marcos, America.  Let me tell you, there wasn't a lot going on in San Marcos, America at 7:30 a.m. on Christmas morning.  I filled up my gas tank, drove home, ate some scrambled eggs and toast, made my texts and phone calls to San Antonio, and then I headed south.  As I took the same path toward Interstate 35 for the second time yesterday morning, I approached the same blinking red light a couple of hundred yards from the highway that I had seen a few hours earlier.  This time I had a couple of cars in front of me though, and as I followed them, they both preceeded to drive through the light - they didn't STOP, but they just drove THROUGH the blinking RED light.  As I pulled to a stop, now mentally quizzing myself about the law, I sat there thinking, 'do they think that the blinking red light is some sort of tribute to CHRISTMAS?!  Blinking lights on the Christmas Tree, blinking traffic signals...'  :)  Anyway, I reached San Antonio and got to see my twin niece and nephew, eleven years-old and enjoying their new gifts as children should be.  As I chatted with my stepsister, more of the sarcasm that you know and love (or simply tolerate) started brewing in my head...  A family member was trying to track down an item that one of the twins had apparently misplaced, and my stepmom eventually became a key player in this search, as she may have seen the missing item.  My stepsister was unable to reach her by phone, and assumed that she was at church.  When relaying this information, my stepsister's theory was questioned, because surely my stepmother's church would be closed.  (ENTER MY MOUTH)  "Her church would be closed, on CHRISTMAS, and when Christmas falls, on a SUNDAY?"  Anyway, it's not like I've never said anything questionable (just check my NFL predictions for the last three weeks if you don't believe me)...  ;)  My stepmother eventually showed up to the house, and it was very nice seeing everyone again.  That's one thing about living in San Marcos, America - San Antonio is the home of my closest immediate family members, and I don't see them as often as I probably should.  Later in the day I was hanging out with my dad watching basketball games, the Packers game, and socializing.  I STILL don't think that most NBA fans or analysts realize how turbulent this condensed season is going to be with injuries, tired players losing their cool, the pressure of every game being more meaningful due to the reduced number of games, seeing bench players play a bigger role than they EVER HAVE during an NBA season, etc, etc...  Soooo, I'm socializing when this Packers fan enjoys our gathering at the start of the Packers game...  :)  She IS a Packers fan, from Wisconsin, and she's talking to the t.v. from the outset of the game (and she's friendly - I'm not getting ready to say anything horrible about her, just because I'm a Steelers fan)...  She waves me over after a few minutes, and straightens out my upturned collar - after I take my seat, I joke that she wouldn't have done that if she knew which team I was a fan of...  When asked, I hinted that my team would LOVE a rematch with her team.  After a few missed guesses, she figures out that it is the Steelers.  She proceeds to barely say a word to me for the next 20 minutes before she leaves - some people take their football just a little too seriously...  ;)  I also smiled this morning when driving by the Bikini Hill that inspired the name of this little blog - there was a man on the predictably empty stretch of grass searching for treasures with a metal detector...  This is the same Bikini Hill that hasn't had its regular masses of inhabitants since like... August???  GOOD LUCK finding something buddy...  A friend of mine relayed a story to me from the local institution of higher learning during final exams:  he was walking by a couple of female students who were engaged in a 'deep' conversation when he overheard, "Do you know how I can tell when it's cold outside?  When I walk outside, and I'm cold..."  Makes me proud to be a Bobcat...  ;)  I hope that all of you enjoy the start of what is the last week of 2011, and I will see you again tomorrow.
                                      

Drowning

Good morning everyone.  Welcome back to what have recently become the dreaded Friday football predictions here on 'Bikini Hill'...  Let me give my first update on how I'm doing on my bowl game selections before we talk about the NFL.  I am involved in a bowl pool with some of my friends (just picking the winners of the games straight up), and I have to admit that after the first three bowls I was drowning in the pool (I cannot express how much I hated seeing 2 of my 3 picks -Utah State & San Diego State- lose their games in the final seconds)...  On the picks that I made here for the blog, I am now 7-11 overall in the bowls.  I am 3-3 straight up after winning the last 3 games, I am 2-4 against the spread, and I am also 2-4 on the over/under selections.  In the next week we will have more bowl games descending upon us than we will know what to do with.  The dates and matchups of all 35 bowl games are still in the blog in my 'Comprehensive Bowl Predictions (2011-12)' entry if you want to check them out.

Now onto the NFL...  Taking the Chiefs plus the 14 points last week was about my only saving grace in recent memory, getting me that victory and making my prediction that the Packers wouldn't go undefeated come through...  I can't imagine how many of you laughed at the Chiefs pick...  My blogging friend in Las Vegas http://pkrdlr.blogspot.com/ and one of my friends and former co-workers in Austin both let me know that the thought that crossed their minds was "CHIEFS???"...  :)  The bad news is that I still only managed to 3-7 for the week on my selections, and I am now sitting at a dismal 22-27-1 on the NFL season with just 2 weeks remaining...  The Saints (-6 1/2) over the Vikings (42-20) and the Seahawks (+ 3 1/2) at the Bears (38-14) are the only other picks that I hit last week.  Needless to say, I am swinging for the fences this week, needing to have at least 8 victories in my 10 picks to get my record back above the .500 mark.  This recent drought makes me so glad that I've decided to pick all of the NFL playoff games with scores for the blog...  Ah, I forgot to mention this up above, but I did predict that TCU would beat Louisiana Tech 35-24, and TCU actually beat them 31-24, so there is that...  :)  Okay, now for this week's picks:

Raiders @ Chiefs  UNDER  42
Bengals (- 4 1/2) vs. Cardinals
Giants @ Jets  UNDER  46
Bears @ Packers  UNDER 44
Broncos @ Bills  UNDER  41 1/2
Dolphins @ Patriots  UNDER 49
Patriots (- 9 1/2) vs. Dolphins
Vikings @ Redskins  UNDER  44
49ers @ Seahawks  OVER  37 1/2
Eagles @ Cowboys  OVER  50 1/2

Just a couple of over/unders there for you...  ;)  I'll be back Monday with my ramble.  I hope that you and yours have a Merry Christmas!
      

Chemistry Takes Time

Good morning.  Believe me when I tell you that this entry is not being typed by a scientist - don't let the title mislead you.  There are times when I compose this blog for you that the ideas come easily to me.  At this point, 'Bikini Hill' is on a sort of autopilot on Mondays and Fridays, because I know that I will always being doing a ramble or making predictions on those days.  There was nothing that I felt compelled to write about leading up to this post, so I was skimming the news and sports stories out there, keeping my eye out for topics to share with you.  One of the popular stories out there with the upcoming NBA season preparing to get underway on Christmas Day deals with the Los Angeles Clippers.  Now that the Clippers have acquired Chris Paul and Chauncey Billups to go along with Blake Griffin, a lot of people seem to have exceedingly high expectations for the team this season.  The Clippers finished last season with a 32-50 record, which was the 3rd worst record in the Western Conference, and left them a full 14 games out of the final playoff spot.  As I did my '2011-12 NBA Regular Season Predictions' entry for this blog, I debated with myself over projecting them to finish with a winning record this season (I predicted that they will finish with a 35-31 record this season, giving them a playoff spot as the 7th seed in the West).  Yesterday I heard a t.v. analyst putting the Clippers in this season's Western Conference Finals.  I am not saying that this can't happen, but let me mention a few examples here of other teams who were supposed to be the next big thing in recent memory.  As recently as September, everyone just LOVED the Philadelphia Eagles, and had them CRUSHING the NFC...  Those same Eagles are now just barely clinging to playoff life, needing multiple things to break their way to finish the NFC East in a three-way tie with the Dallas Cowboys and the New York Giants at 8-8, which is the only way that they can reach the playoffs.  I will admit that I expected Philadelphia to perform better than they have this season, but a lot of that was based on their success in recent seasons, and was not attributed solely to their new additions.  Not trying to pick on the city of 'Brotherly Love', but the Philadelphia Phillies are another team that added some talented players, and were unable to live up to some very big expectations.  After free-agency, the Phillies had a starting pitching rotation that looked dominant on paper.  I will grant you that in the case of the Phillies, the team did win 102 games in the regular season and was knocked out of the playoffs after losing a 1-0 game to the St. Louis Cardinals, but for all of the hype that was generated surrounding the team, they did not even reach the National League Championship Series.  The Miami Heat have to be the most infamous victims of the hype-machine in recent memory.  In the case of the Heat, they added LeBron James and Chris Bosh to a roster that already included Dwyane Wade.  This prompted former NBA coach Jeff Van Gundy, while working as an analyst for ABC and ESPN last season, to predict that the Heat would eclipse the 72-10 single-season wins record that Michael Jordan's Bulls achieved in the 1995-1996 season.  Not only did the Heat not come close to winning 72 games, but they failed to win the championship also.  Building chemistry takes time, but now the Clippers are being touted as the next superteam.  Let these guys introduce themselves to each other first maybe...  Not only do I think that the aforementioned Miami trio is better than this Clippers trio, but I also believe that the Western Conference is stronger than the Eastern Conference.  I think that this year's Clippers squad is more talented than last year's group without a doubt, but I think that it would be wise to remember the overhyped teams of the recent past before engraving their names on anything...  I will be back tomorrow with my weekly NFL predictions (which will be good for a chuckle if I run anything like I have been for the last two weeks)...  Have a great day and I'll see you then.
                        

Today's Special: Rocks

Good morning everyone.  I have to apologize for not having this post here yesterday.  No matter how fast and skillfully I type right now, it became Wednesday on the West Coast about 20 minutes ago, so I've missed my Tuesday deadline.  My sleep pattern gets disrupted whenever my schedule at work has a day shift thrown into it, so I ended up working a little bit on Monday night, going back in Tuesday morning to run an errand for my friend/boss, and I did this before returning a few hours later for another short early afternoon shift.  Don't mistake this for complaining - I'm just letting you know why my post wasn't here.  I woke up a little over an hour ago after sleeping from 7 p.m. to 1 a.m.

I had a job waiting tables in a town about 15 minutes from San Marcos, America when I was a college student. My workplace started out a 'Sizzler' restaurant (yes, the same 'Sizzler' chain mentioned in the movie 'White Men Can't Jump' when on the basketball court the over-confident player starts chanting, "We going to the Sizzler, we going to the Sizzler")...  Anyway, my manager at Sizzler, a good friend of the family, once made the comment about our specials board in front of the restaurant.  He said that if we put the word 'Rocks' on that board, then we would have customers coming in and ordering them...  The reason that I am mentioning this is that I am going to be doing a little house-cleaning with this post, and will actually being doing some literal house-cleaning here in the next week, but I knew that if I had tagged this post with that title, there might be a total of 2 people who would read what I'm typing right now.  Sorry that I had to deceive you...  ;)  By the way, I laughed at my manager's statement about the rocks, because I think that he was completely right.  I am on the other end of the spectrum - advertising has almost no effect on me.  I cannot remember the last time that I opened one of the advertising packets that my friend Mr. Mailman has put into my box.  I specifically remember my dad getting upset with me on one New Year's Day when we had friends over to watch the bowl games because I would change the channel from one bowl game to another during EVERY SINGLE COMMERCIAL...  :)  If you have been a regular reader of this blog for the past month, you have probably figured out that I watch commercials just to make fun of them in my Monday rambles as much as I'd watch them for any other reason other than that I forgot to change the channel.

I have quite a bit of house-cleaning to do personally and we approach 2012.  For those of you who don't realize it, we are TEN days away from New Year's Eve.  Today we are also exactly one year away from the date that the Mayans predicted that we'll see the end of the world (allegedly) - like everything else, the meaning of the Mayan inscriptions is being disputed.  Either way, since I am personally prone to making a prediction or two, I will probably be keeping an eye on this one...  2011 was a year that took a definitive downward turn for me about midway through when I decided to get back into teaching and coaching, coming up as dry as the drought that plagued the state of Texas during this past summer (see my post 'Cruel, Cruel Summer' if you want a more detailed accounting of this).  The job that I currently have is not going to make me rich, but I do enjoy the people that I work with and the job has given me the opportunity to recuperate from what was a MISERABLE summer.  I am glad that I decided to start this blog, and at the present time I do not plan on changing anything.  I will continue posting four times a week, and the blog will continue to be a mixture of things that I find amusing, sports-related topics, my predictions about sporting events, and whatever I feel like typing about at any given time...  ;)  I told a friend after I had just started the blog that I wouldn't want to make a bunch of predictions and then go 0-5 on my selections every week.  I also wouldn't want to write a blog that no one was reading.  Well, the blog has now had over 1,700 visitors since its inception on September 28th, and I feel that its quality will only improve as I continue working on it.  I laughed recently as I skimmed through a few online articles that dealt with the topic of attracting more visitors to blogs.  One piece of advice was that the title of the blog should be strongly connected to its content,  and that the content should have a specific focus...  :)  Don't get me wrong, I'm not mocking this as bad advice, but I'm just saying that 'Bikini Hill' is going to shoot for being the exception to the 'rule'...  ;)  Remember, you're reading the blog of a person who thought that the Chiefs could make a game of it with the Packers a few days ago...  As I have said in the past regarding this blog, if you ever have any comments or suggestions, feel free to leave them.  As we enter 2012, my resolution for the coming year will simply be to trust my reads.  From the poker and life experience that I have gained at the poker tables, this is one of my favorite phrases - "trust your reads" (the phrase simply means that after you analyze a situation, you should have faith in the fact that you have made the right analysis of the situation and that you should ACT on your analysis).  A few days ago one of my facebook friends posted that her New Year's Resolution was going to be to lay around on the couch and be lazy since she never follows through with her resolutions...  :)  As you leave here today, keep in mind that there are only FOUR days until Christmas now.  I hope that everything is going well in your holiday preparations and I will see you again on Thursday.  Have a good one!