Running shoes
So I spent $130 on a pair of New Balance running shoes at Frontrunner's, thinking that as it is the shit as far as running stores go, they'd hook me up. Well, my four year old Brooks Addiction (or something like that) cost $20 less and are still more comfortable. Maybe I need to try insoles or something, but how the hell are you supposed to tell if a shoe is going to be as comfortable after an hour of cardio as it does walking around a store?
They didn't have my old Brooks at Frontrunners, nor did they have any Brooks shoes at all in wide sizes, so I had to settle for NB.
Buying comfy shoes is a pain in the ass.
These are hilarious. I like Manny's and Lance Armstrong's. Michael Vick's...wow.
Gus Johnson
Chirag, is Artose Pinner's first name pronounced Ar-toze, or Ar-toose? Because your boy Gus keeps calling him Artoose. Anyway, with the swings of emotion Johnson goes through calling even a 1 yard run play, I keep hoping he'll flip out and accidentally refer to him as "Artoose Detoose."
Book it.
Random stuff
1) What the hell is up with random people taking the time to shit talk on my blog? Jesus Christ!
2) Sorry Jesus, didn't need you, just making an exclamation. Feel free to go back to what you were doing.
3) Macy's has LOADS of cashmere and it's 62% off. The tag on the rack says 50% off, but the register marked those items 55% off, then they added an extra 15% off that number for some reason. Wasn't a mistake either. One of the better deals around.
Incidentally, I drove 45 miles this morning to go to a mall in the OC called South Coast Plaza. That thing is huge. And it's got everything - from Versace to Macy's Men's Store to Sears - but not hot girls. What the hell? I thought this is California.
Also, very weak selection of running shoes. One Foot Locker which absolutely sucks. Once again, what the hell? I thought I this is California.
4) King Kong, killing me.
5) I'm in the semifinals of my fantasy football money league, and my opponent randomly decided it was time to pick up New England's defense this week. New England, one of the worst fantasy defenses year to date, promptly goes out and pitches a shutout with seven sacks, racking up 20 points for my opponent. Naturally.
6) [Edit: basically I do not like the way my apartment complex operates. The language offended some folks so I had to take it down.]
7) Chirag, knower of all things football: a few years ago, one of the "Madden" editions included the following ref call on some personal fouls: "Personal Foul, he's giving him the business!" I never could understand what the hell the ref was saying, till Chirag pointed out to me a few days ago that some ref several years ago didn't know what to say and said those exact words during a game call. It always bugged me, and now I may lay that annoyance to rest! Good times.
Looks like I was wrong on Kong. $9.7MM on opening day. Maybe it somehow turns in a huge weekend but they'll need some kinda advertising blitz to pull off this $100MM in five days business. At this point if it keeps going like this they'll be lucky to hit $75MM. Only Shrek 2 pulled in a weak Wednesday and went on to rake in over $100MM.
KK could still pull in huge worldwide final numbers, but that won't be worth a damn thing on the Tradesports contract. Funny thing is,
Titanic had very weak numbers in its opening week but grew from there (actually dropped from #1 at one point but was so strong that it took back over at #1 because people kept going). All time, Titanic has the highest gross ever for a movie in each of its 4th week, 5th, 6th, 7th, and 8th week. Pretty sick, huh? EVERYONE is coming back from this movie and loving it. So I imagine it will have huge staying power.
Will be interesting to see what went wrong with this one. Perhaps people just weren't really aware that it was opening yesterday.
I'll wait till Friday's box office take to officially declare this bet dead. But Tradesports right now is giving it a 25% shot of making it.
I'm sure all four of you faithful readers are just thrilled to be reading this shit. Whatever, not like you want to hear about the Pasta Roni I cooked tonight. (BTW, that stuff just never looks like it does on the recipe on the back of the box, does it? Still was quite edible though. For me at least.)
I do stocks for a living. Essentially we analyze numbers and shit and try to decide if the market is pricing things correctly. So I've never done this for movies before, and I figure what the hell?
Through history,
not a lot of movies have grossed over $100MM in their first five days at the box office. That said, 11 of the 13 which have accomplished it have done so since 2002. Half of those are Star Wars or Lord of the Rings.
Tradesports is currently offering a contract which allows you to wager on whether or not Kong hits $100MM in its first five days. As I write this the bid is 20 and the ask is 55. A wide spread, but even hitting the 55 bid gives the possibility for a decent profit. So what do I think?
King Kong is opening in 3,567 theaters, a lower number than any of those top 13 except two of the Star Wars flicks and Passion of the Christ. It's not a huge difference versus the average, perhaps 3% or so, but that could make all the difference. It is, however,
the highest screen count (7,500) ever for a Universal release, and they're trying to temper expectations down to the level of the first Lord of the Rings, which grossed about $75MM in its first five days. Of course they're not going to overpromise on this one, and I'm sure they're inwardly hoping for $100MM at the very least - it is clear that $75MM will be an absolute bottom for this thing, as simple inflation since the original LOTR's release in 01 would indicate. Further, Peter Jackson was a relative unknown in 2001 (at least to the masses), but after the Rings series his name sells.
Even further,
everyone and their mother has given this thing a glowing review, adding even more to the hype that is sure to surround this release.
The
movie geeks at Box Office Mojo are projecting $82MM for King Kong - over the weekend ONLY. So we get an extra two days. IF they're off by 10%, and you can check their historical accuracy
here, KK would still only need $25MM over today and tomorrow in order to make it through the $100MM barrier. That would be a bit tough, but certainly doable, especially since tonight's numbers will be an enormously inflated Wednesday total simply from the hype leading up to this. In fact
six films have actually accomplished the $25MM single day mark on a Wednesday.
If you dig on the Box Office Mojo forecast history linked above, you'll see that the audience underestimated Potter and Narnia's recent releases, and it's a good bet they're underestimating this one as well. Even still, if I were long this contract I'd be happy with an $82MM weekend, leaving only $18MM needed today and tomorrow.
Oh what fun it is to ride...yada yada yada! (By the way, in case you hadn't figured it out yet, I am suggesting that going long this contract would be the best bet. If you have to pay 75 cents or more for it, I wouldn't do it, but at coin-flip odds or better? No question.)
By the way, did you guys know that
Andy Serkis, aka Gollum, is playing King Kong??
A couple weeks ago I threw out the idea of shorting the Bears to win the NFC North at 83 cents and going long the Vikes at 17 cents, based on their respective schedules in the following three weeks. Since then, The Bears have gone 2-1 (wins over Tampa and Green Bay, and a loss to Pittsburgh) while the Vikes have expectedly gone 3-0.
As I didn't expect the Bears to beat Tampa, this threw a bit of a wrench in the argument. That said, the Vikes held up their end of the bargain and as it stands, the Bears need to lose to either the Falcons at home this week or the Packers at Lambeau next week (neither is likely, in my opinion) and the Vikes need to beat the Steelers at home AND the Ravens on the road, in order to set up a winner-take-all Week 17 clash between the Vikes and Bears at the Metrodome.
All that said, the trade actually has made money thus far if you put it on. You could have sold that spread at 66 cents and can now buy it back at 53. It's too bad; had the Buccaneers been able to connect on a 27 yard field goal late in the 4th, that game would have gone to OT with Tampa having plenty of momentum after a late surge. And the spread on the trade would likely be a lot closer to 20. Ahh well, it was a fun exercise in market psychology, with the market clearly having undervalued the ability of Brad Johnson to deliver against a very weak schedule (Browns, Lions, and Rams).
Link through CFR, click there to get to the eBay auction. Hilarious!
Losing a little faith in the Horns
After all,
Vince Young sounded like a complete baby after his Heisman trophy runner-up finish. Not sure why he was surprised, hadn't he been reading
HP all year long?
Anyway, I've been rather confident in Texas winning this one but this sort of reaction strikes me as a little bit immature. Kind of feels like the slightest mistake early in the Rose Bowl will completely destroy his confidence. Especially if SC gets up 2 scores.
Dinner tonight
1 Lean cuisine pizza
1/2 can of baked beans
2 cupcakes and a glass of milk
And a newfound knowledge that the goal line extends to infinity and beyond. Thanks, Al!
And Jim Haslett made a good coaching move for the first time since that glorious playoff year of 2000 - anyone else know that if your offense commits a penalty with under 2 minutes left and the clock running, you can burn a timeout instead of having the 10 second runoff? Well, Jim Haslett knew it. Good for him.
We suck by the way. So badly that we can't suck enough to jump Houston for the #1 pick in the draft. They'll take Reggie anyway, so 2 will be good enough for me. But will we even do that? I doubt it.
And we just got the Falcons with a safety on us. Awesome.
[Edit: dunno if this one was deemed offensive but edited it anyway. It's the line with a former Democrat President's wife named. I found it amusing.]
Bruce Eugene of Grambling threw 6 TD's in the title game victory today, giving him a season total of 4400 yards, 56 TDs, and 6 INTs. Seriously, hat tip to those ridiculous stats. Wow.
You know the good folks down in burnt orange nation have to be getting a leeeetle bit worried at the possibility of losing the football version of the 1 vs 2 this bad...say 55-19?
Severely doubt that'll come close to happening, but good God, Duke is good. 3rd biggest margin ever in a 1 vs 2 game. You know
the little bro is going [Edit: he's going crazy.].
Fox Christmas bonuses
As youse guys know, my roommate works for Fox. This bucket of M&Ms was his Christmas gift from the company. I offered him $100 to eat the whole thing tonight. He wouldn't do it!
You wanna see my what?
[Edit: I find the Grillz song funny. And Kanye took a line from Happy Gilmore in his song, "Jesus Walks."]
Oh yeah, and football americano
([Edit: Yes,] I know it's spelled futbol in the espanol.) I'm stoked we (LSU) get to play Miami in the Peach Bowl, but we BLEEEEE-HEEEEEWWWWW against UGA. With Les and Jimbo at the helm, we'll likely BLOOOO-HOOOWWWW against Miami. But I'm still excited we get that matchup. Will our wide receivers learn to catch? Will our offensive line learn to block? Will our veteran leaders minimze ridiculous personal foul penalties in what's still a big game? Tune in and find out!
Also, the sponsor of the Peach Bowl is Chick-fil-a. I love Chick-fil-a nuggets, and their waffle fries. God is good.
One last thing, if USC's 70-17 victory over Arkansas is so telling compared to the measly margins of victory the SEC had over the Razorbacks, what does USC's 66-19 victory over UCLA say about the rest of the Pac 10? Will this even be addressed or just brushed under the rug by HP et al? Probably brushed under the rug, but I'm guessing more because folks are just growing weary of the Pac-10/SEC talk rather than just dodging the question. After all, there's USC-Texas to discuss.
Can't say I'm entirely disappointed with the way the bowls have turned out. I'm not a fan of either SC or Texas but am pumped to watch that game. I could give a rat's ass about Penn State and Florida State (mostly because Penn State should roll easily there), but Notre Dame and Ohio State in the Fiesta should be fun, and hell it'll be intriguing to see the results of Bama-Texas Tech, Auburn-Wisconsin, and Oregon-Oklahoma. Maybe UCLA-Northwestern, but other than that, yech. Hope you have something better to do on New Year's Eve than watch college football, because all you're getting is TCU-Iowa State, NC State-South Florida, and Tulsa-Fresno State. Joy.
Random NFL observations:
- If I'm somehow in the area at the time, you know damn well I will be at the
first Saints game back at the Superdome next year, no matter how bad we are.
- Yeah, all signs point towards our being really REALLY bad next year. Let's see, hapless franchise who has an unstable future. No coach in his right mind would want to come here, so we're stuck with Jim Haslett, one of the worst head coaches in any sport, since no one else in his right mind would take the spot. I say his, but perhaps Pat Summitt would consider the opportunity if we gave it to her? Yeah she's a basketball coach, but I mean, her knowledge of rudimentary football strategy has to rival that of anyone on our staff. [Now, this was deemed offensive, but I'm choosing not to edit it as I think my point was entirely misconstrued by someone who was entirely unaware that Pat Summitt is one of the greatest coaches in any sport in history. The point is that she coaches women's basketball, but is a great coach, and thus to me would probably do a better job coaching the Saints tham Jim Haslett.]
- Good God, Brett Favre is just bad. Not that he doesn't have talent still, but his decisionmaking has dropped so precipitously, he clearly trusts no one on that team what with all those injuries to his supporting cast. Still, many of the throws he makes are just inexcusable, particularly the floater off his back foot 20 yards into the endzone near the end of the first half that the Bears took back 95 yards to set up a lead-changing field goal as the clock expired. Brilliant.
- That look Kerry Collins gets when everything is going wrong, it's somewhere between a six year old staring at a linear algebra textbook and your typical pet goldfish. I wonder if anything actually goes through his head. Ever.
- Then again, lately I suppose the same can be said about Aaron Brooks more often than not.
- Just when I start thinking the Texans are going to make it a battle for the #1 pick, giving us hope to move up a bit in the draft, they pull off more gut-punch ways to lose. Last minute length-of-the-field game-winning drive orchestrated against you by perhaps the worst offense in the NFL? Check. Why the Texans even bothered to celebrate the FG with a minute left that put them up 2 is beyond me. We all knew what was coming. (And yet I held out hope for our draft pick anyway. Kill me.)
- Ok so the Bears/Vikes NFC North winner trade isn't working out so hot just yet. But the Vikes have won both games as I expected and host the Rams this week while the Bears travel to Pittsburgh, so the 2-game lead ought to close to 1, with three to play (including a head-to-head). I still think the Bears win the North, I just don't think it's 90% likely.
- Speaking of the Rams, that sound you hear is the Ryan Fitpatrick bandwagon crashing and burning. I'm sure
Chirag will have something to say about it, as he actually worked that game for Fox.
[Edit: Nelly's Grillz song is funny]
[Edited out my commentary here altogether.]
Charles Tillman, student of the game
On the Kenny Mayne special on the "Fair catch free kick" this morning, Bears DB Charles Tillman discussed the history of the rule and pointed out an occurrence in 1999 in which the Cowboys made a fair catch at the Giants 45 yard line as the 1st half clock expired. Rather than attempting their allowed free kick for a possible three points, the Cowboys went into the locker room for the half.
Tillman: "Ole Chan Gailey forgot the rule!" Leans in, whispering into the camera: "Maybe that's why he's coaching at Georgia Tech!"
AAAAHHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAH
Sunday Countdown bit on Warrick Dunn
Seriously, if a kid is going to have a role model aside from his own father, it would be extremely difficult to find anyone more worthy than Warrick Dunn.
No Joe Addai, and we're terrible
Also, what the hell is wrong with CBS' audio? There's this awful clicking sound constantly in the background during the game, same with the Arkansas game last week.
Anyway, penalties and dropped passes, great time for all this to be cropping up again.
In case you missed their Phil Fulmer apology letter to Vols fans...absolute hilarity.
