Official change

In my other blogs, I have the horrid tendency of confusing my personal life with my official life, which, right now, will be constituted of the title of this blog: football, coffee, and politics.

So to start things off, I obviously wanted to recap some of the highlights of this last weekend in football:

1. The Pac-Ten is on a serious downswing this year.

2. So is the Big Ten. The organizers of the Rose Bowl have to be hoping that Penn State keeps the offense strong and that USC pulls things together, otherwise, this will be almost as bad as last year's Rose Bowl.

3. Upswing conferences are mainly the Big XII and the Mountain West. The Big XII, if anyone has forgotten, has the most undefeated teams in one conference in the country, and have a serious amount of depth to back up the claim that they are the best in the country. Despite Colorado's ugly loss to Florida State and Kansas' loss to South Florida, look for the winner of the Big XII to be in the National Championship game. My money's actually on Missouri to pull this off. A lot of people are looking at Oklahoma and Texas, but never count out the Tigers.

4. The SEC may end up shooting itself in the foot thanks to parity. Florida and Georgia have already taken serious conference losses, not because they were particularly bad, but because the conference has seriously equalized over the last few years. Whereas Auburn, Florida, and LSU could be counted on to represent, this year, we've seen that Alabama, Mississippi, and Vanderbilt are showing up to play. What's going to hurt this conference is all of the within conference losses that they're going to suffer.

5. On the flip side, the winner of the Big East is going to seriously benefit from almost univerally poor conference play. Only Connecticut and South Florida have any serious chance of winning their conference, and South Florida's keynote win over Kansas tells me that they may actually be playing Missouri in the national championship game.

6. BCS busting looks like the trendy thing to do this year. With BYU, Utah, and Boise State (don't count out Tulsa or Ball State to make some kind of move) all pouncing on the weakness that is the Pac Ten, these teams have a lot of signature wins over a BCS conference. BYU has already moved up to #8 in one of the polls, and we don't start seeing BCS polling for weeks.

7. I know Notre Dame has this legacy or whatever of being football's darling team. I mean, all the history, etc. etc. etc. Notre Dame receives preferrential treatment by bowl committees, by pollsters, and by the public as a whole. Michigan State trounced Notre Dame, and MI State is not that good of a team. Imagine my surprise when I look at the coaches' polls and I find that Notre Dame has more votes than Mississippi, which beat then #4 Florida, or that ND has only two fewer votes than North Carolina. Notre Dame will get a bowl (they have three very easy wins...supposedly) left on their schedule, and I see them getting a better bowl as a 6-5 team than more deserving 9-3 teams will get. It's about the money with these bowls, not the football.

NFL thoughts from yesterday:

1. Washington is about a million miles away from where they were a month ago. When the Giants and the Redskins meet up again, there's going to be one mean Washington team that shows up. I think the players are starting to trust their coach a lot more than before, and Zorn is probably going to take coach of the year (chief competetion being the coaches out in Buffalo and Tennessee).

2. I'm going on the record now: either Indy or New England will NOT make the playoffs. This will be the first time in SIX YEARS that one of these teams doesn't make it. If both teams don't make it, then I'm going to be seriously happy with the result, however I just don't see enough good teams available to knock one of those two from the sixth spot.

3. I'm still sticking with the Saints to win the NFC South. Sure, Tampa has a suffocating defence, and sure, Carolina looks like it has a really good game coming together, but Tampa's offense is just plucky (not actually efficient, thanks to their QB drama) and Carolina really had not been tested. This week is not going to change things (Chiefs), but the two weeks after (at Tampa, against New Orleans) are going to be challenging. Plus, as demonstrated yesterday, the NO defence is starting to organize. Sure, they played a pansy in San Fransisco, but they are one team never to count out.

4. My original playoff picks after week three may be unraveling. I had picked Denver to win the AFC, but when I made that pick, I had thought that 1) they would show up against KC, 2) their offense could carry them, and 3) that with two Baileys and Dre Bly they could get something going on defense. Apparently, I was totally wrong. Unlike Carolina, Denver doesn't really have any creampuffs left on their schedule. They may not make it to the playoffs at this rate. I also picked Dallas to pick the NFC, and with all the drama involved in yesterday's game, I seriously doubt that they have the wherewithall to win their division, much less their conference.

5. St. Louis and Oakland are going to be looking for new coaches starting today (St. Louis already felled the ax). Look for Detroit to start cleaning up their house soon. The firing of the club president is only page one of the book of Detroit purges. Jon Kitna may be sitting on the bench too if Detroit starts getting desperate.

6. The NFC north may be about as competitive as the NFC west, in that at best the two divisions will produce mediocre teams to send to the playoffs. I think Chicago wins the north (they could easily be 4-0 now) and the west can send whoever they want (my guess is either an 8-8 or a 9-7 Arizona). The NFC should transfer one of these spots to another wild card.


Skewed coffee notes for the day:

I'm having a challenging time finding a Starbucks that has decent decaf on Sunday nights. I know it's getting close to closing, but come on, people. I want a decent cup of coffee that's worth my dollar eighty-eight.

I'm getting to the point where all I need when it comes to coffee is 1) that it comes black, and 2) that I have one flavored creamer--French Vanilla, Hazelnut, or Bailey's. The Bailey's has the added bonus of alcohol which offsets the caffeine (I can't have a whole lot of caffeine thanks to my ticker).

Of all of the Starbucks I have been to on the north side of COS, this is my list of preferred places to go:

1. Flintridge and Academy--has one of the better cups of late night coffee, isn't too busy, and has nice spaces to work. Downside is that it tends to get a little noisy.

2. Academy and Briargate--has lots of room to work, not too busy, but the location isn't so good. Plus, the tables can go a little while without a good wipedown.

3. Union and Briargate Parkway--nice ambiance, good coffee, but not so good with the spaces to work thing. Bigger tables would help those of us trying to get through college.

4. Academy and Woodmen area--adequate coffee, but a killer soy vanilla latte when necessary. Tends to be too busy for my liking.

By far the worst one though is in the shops at Briargate. It may have a few nice tables to work at, but because I don't order the frappy big drinks, my order has gotten forgotten twice, and they haggled me when I wanted my damn coffee.


Politics news:

The whole Kosovo situation is really odd still. Arab countries have been promising recognitions for months, and not one has come. And these are fellow Muslims we're talking about here. Frankly, I don't see why we trust these countries with our energy supplies. They have the irritating tendency to say one thing and to do another. I understand the Macedonian and the Montenegrin uncertainties involved with Kosovo, but the Arab ones look hypocritical. How can they support Palestine and not Kosovo?

US Presidental elections are blah. Things had looked really promising, but with both candidates supporting this bailout, which needed to go down in shame and defeat, I don't think that either one is terribly competent when it comes to economic issues.

Colorado has the annoying tendency of finding the most incompetent leaders to submit for Senate and the House. Our state government may be tolerable, but hardly extraordinary.

We also have the additionally annoying tendency to put too many bills up for amendment to the state constitution (hence the reason I'm voting yes on Ref. O).

Other than that, I have no interest in talking about politics right now.