The Screaming Viking

I hate to make two separate posts on the same day, but I wanted to get my NFL picks out there while I have time.

Lets start with the AFC, mostly because I don’t much care about it at all…

While the Patriots are the favorite to make it to the big game (and win it all) my money is on them not making it to the Superbowl at all. The colts…well they are another story. The resurgence of their defense during the playoffs was nothing short of miraculous, but all year it sucked and sucked hard. I can’t see them having the defensive power to stop many teams again, but they do have a high powered offense that is only getting better with age. They are my pick to make the superbowl.

AFC – North: Tuff call between the steelers and ravens here. I’m betting Big ben puts last year behind him and trudges forward. While the ravens have a solid D, I just don’t see it happening for them. Steelers!

AFC – South: Colts, obviously.

AFC – East: Patriots, but I see the dolphins surprising some.

AFC – West: In one of the surprise picks of the year, I’m taking the Raiders. They will be decent on offense with Dante under center and their defense last year wasn’t bad. I’m thinking the chargers are going to have a disappointing year, but I could easily be mistaken.

Now, on to the NFC and where football is really played. Most people consider the NFC the weaker of the two with less quality teams and competition. Looking over all the teams from each side…I really am not seeing that comparison. The Saints have a solid offense, even more so this year. On the off chance that McNabb can stay healthy the Eagles have a chance to take it all. The Bears look the same as last year…which was pretty good. Lots and Lots of people over look the Lions, which are going to surprise a few teams. The loss of Vick in Atlanta will strengthen that team and Joey will find new life. The Cowboys are always a dangerous team. Who knows what you’ll get from Eli and his Giants week to week. San Fran, St. Louis and Seattle are all right there as well. I don’t think this is a weak division at all, people are simply regurgitating what the media tells them.

And here’s a little something for you jumping on the Grossman can’t hold on to the ball bandwagon, from si.com’s Dr. Z talking about the legue leaders in fumbles at the QB position:

here are the ’06 leaders in that department: David Carr 16, Carson Palmer 15, J.P. Losman and Andrew Walter 13, Tom Brady 12, Bruce Gradkowski and Jon Kitna 11, Kurt Warner and Alex Smith 10.

Brady is right up there, and you don’t see Rex’s name anywhere. I’m not saying he doesn’t fumble or that he doesn’t deserve criticism, but for fuck sake put it in perspective.

My NFC superbowl champion of the entire world is….da Bears! (duh…haven’t you been paying attention the past couple years?) As I’ve stated before, I think Grossman will work his way out of the slump he got in and will turn out to be a solid pocket man for them. I also think that after last season and seeing what can happen when you stick with a guy that Lovie is going to be more apt to pull Grossman by the half way point if he doesn’t cut it. Should he not and we see a repeat of last year, Lovie will need to go. Most every writer I’ve seen has picked the Saints this year. And while they are going to be a solid team, I think the bears are going to “limp” in to the playoffs and then push to the superbowl. They’ve been there, and are eager to get back. This is going to be the last year for the dynamic duo, and they will get it done (briggs/urlacher). Oddly enough, if they do win it all…I could see Briggs staying but anything less than a ring and he’s gone. HUGE HUGE HUGE mistake is being made at running back now though. I don’t really know if Lovie is trying to get away from chicago’s running roots or what…but the Jones/Benson duo was perfect, finesse with smash mouth. You can’t throw the ball in Chicago come playoff time…although they are not going to have home field in the playoffs anyhow.

The Superbowl champ is coming from the NFC this year, it’s just a matter of it being the Saints or the Bears.

NFC – North: Bears…with a 10-6 record. The Lions make it interesting at the end of the season.

NFC – South: Saints with an impressive 13-3 record. The regular season beats them down though and they get knocked out in the NFC championship game.

NFC – East: This is a tuff one. If McNabb stays healthy I think the Eagles could do well. His track record though has shown he can’t. I’m saying the Giants with another 10-6 record. Make or break year for Eli.

NFC – West: I’m pickin San Fran. Not even gonna guess at a record though. I’m thinking Seattle has a few problems this year….

this is interesting, especially:

The MPAA’s acknowledgement is significant because it comes at a time when the group is trying to limit illegal file sharing by imploring movie fans to act ethically and resist the temptation to download pirated movies. To critics, the revelation by the MPAA is a possible sign that the organization is itself not above adopting unethical practices in its fight against file sharing.

dipshits.

A supercomputer for every science geek! It is rather interesting how cheap things are becoming. That’s quite a bit of processing horse power for less then 2 grand (prices have gone down since it was built). Or more horse power for the same price. I haven’t read up on how exactly it was completed, but I would expect it could be expanded even further than they decided to build it out. With some creative wiring you could probably trim down the amount of power supplies the unit uses, although you’d need fewer they would need to be larger, so it wouldn’t save money but it might save heat.

The move of the backup drive to Mjollnir was pretty painless. I was able to put it on the same bus as the CDROM. The mobo on there has 4 SATA ports but only 1 ide channel, I was concerned that due to space I wouldn’t be able to connect them both to the same port…but i made it work. I’m still amazed at how quiet that thing is. You barely notice it’s running. The monitor makes more noise than the server.

I tossed one computer last nite, and will toss the other one tonight I think. That should eliminate any desire to attempt to use this shitty old hardware again.

I -think- the backup scripts are running. There is such a small amount of compressed data that gets written by the daily backup that it’s difficult to tell. The large backup will fire Saturday morning, so I’ll know if things are working or what. I changed everything from perl scripts to shell scripts. Perl was just calling system functions anyhow…so it didn’t make much sense to use it.

Found out last nite that the microwave stand makes a pretty good portable computer “cart”. It’s not much use to me now, but after we move I’ll come in handy, the cheap racks I have back there now are really straining under the weight of the monitor and they don’t have wheels.

Depending on how the weekend goes, I am planning on cleaning the garage Monday! The god damn roof is leaking like a sieve. Luckily everything important is in rubber made tubs…but it still gets to be quite a mess.

What a frustrating fucking day…and it’s only 1/2 over.

Spent the morning fighting with the woman…about nothing. That is a blast, let me tell you what. Most all of you know how those battles go..and they are always about something oh so worth fighting about. Naturally neither of us has enough brains to just shut up. There’s never a winner in stuff like that…just an uncomfortable couch, probably my turn to sleep there tonight…she did last nite.

Check this shit out. Our first instinct in this is to look at the guy and think what a moron. He should have “authenticated” her age…but how really? At 14 she was probably not very close to looking like 18 and blood probably wasn’t circulating around his brain good enough to form coherent thoughts, but these girls need to take a bit of responsibility for what’s going on. We’re not talking about a dateline from the beginning we admitted we’re a 13 year old boy sting. This was a girl proclaiming she was 18. If the same guy were to run into a chic at a bar, would it be safe to assume she’s legal, even if she’s only 16 and stole an ID? How far does a guy have to go to assure she’s of age. There’s really nothing wrong with casual sex, and on the surface this dude didn’t really do much wrong…until he found out she was 14.

Odd situation.

Might be taking off this weekend, might not. Might be going alone, might not. I’m sure it will be a lovely evening/tomorrow/weekend.

What’s the catch?

While we’re at it…

Busted Tee’s, the zapper gun had me freekin rolling.