kkktookmybabyaway

Where do you live?

You're right. This is why I decided to abort the "cumulative" aspect of the contest (also because there were only a few people interested, which is fine; Bravesfan did this a few years ago so I figured it was worth a shot to try and bring back). For those that don't have a team, if you just want to submit picks each week and compare yours with those who have a team, that's fine. One thing though: Use the point spreads when making your picks. It'll make my job a lot easier that way.

• Sure the Pirates suck, but there’s a silver lining around this dark cloud that has been above Shittsburgh for the past dozen-plus years. The Pirates are no longer in last place in the N.L. Central. And just who is currently occupying this division’s cellar? Why, it’s Racist Dusty and pals. If there’s one team or person out there that I want to see fail more than the Pirates, it’s Racist Dusty followed closely by Barry Bonds. Let’s go Bucs! • This past weekend I was channel surfing and came across this special on a certain cable news network that makes all of us LOL in 2006. This hour-long program dealt with the cost of higher education and how much of a rip-off it is. During this broadcast we got to follow these middle-class parents who earned $125k/year and couldn’t afford to put their two daughters through college. Now this might have gotten a smidgen of sympathy from me had I heard that these kids also had jobs (they might have; I didn’t watch the entire special, but all signs pointed to “no” on this one), and when the father, who worked several jobs to try and pay for his daughters’ education, mentioned the prospect of his girls going to community college, he was greeted with laughter by his brats. While watching this family was aggravating enough, this special also highlighted the woes of some chick that burned through more than $100,000 in a quest for a Special Education Degree. When she got out of college she owed more than $80,000, and when asked how she was coping with this debt she talked about how all her friends buy retail-priced clothing while she has to look through a store’s BARGAIN RACK. She then began to cry. • Yesterday featured the premiere of Katie Couric on the cBS Evening News. Don’t care. I don’t follow broadcast news, so why should I treat Katie any differently? I will defend her in one area though: I don’t remember NBC’s Brian Williams, ABC’s Charles Gibson or cBS’s Bob Schieffer being criticized for how they looked or what they wore. • Oh man Allah’s going to be pissed: Look at this head -- it's not even a real one chopped off from an unholy Westerner's neck. • And there are those in the media who wonder why so many people hate them. Steve Irwin’s kids have just lost their father to a freak accident. One kid is eight-years old, the other one is two. Can we please refrain from headlines like "Kids of 'Crocodile Hunter' May Follow in His Footsteps" until these kids are old enough to, oh I don't know, be of legal age to work? • Now it’s time for the Dr. Laura Call of the day (or whenever I feel like doing this): This woman’s 18-year old daughter has had a continuous drug problem and wants to know if it would be a good idea if she should unknowingly sign up her daughter to take part in some nationally televised intervention program. What was the reason for the caller to take such drastic steps? Because three previous interventions with this kid have already failed.

Good luck in the field. (What's your area of study -- print, broadcast, radio?) You can either kiss ass and have a chance at getting ahead, or you can do what I did. Trust me, you don't want to do the latter. But at least I still have my pride. Yeah.

Boise State Missouri Notre Dame Clemson Tulsa Colorado State UAB California SMU Georgia New Mexico State Ohio State Texas Tech Oregon Tiebreak #1: 31 Tiebreak #2: 151

When I was a kid I asked my mom to let me try some of her V-8. After taking in a hearty mouthful of this shit, I spit it back into her glass.

Because I have a life outside of TSM, believe it or not.

• Oh, yeah. This will turn out well. • No offense health nazis, but when someone orders a double quarter pounder with cheese and large fries, I don't think they care about their value meal's calorie content. Look, I get that people are getting fatter and fatter, but it's up to each individual to make the proper choices in regards to their health and nutrition. It's true fatty foods are out there now more than ever before, but there are also more healthier choices, too. • I'm sure this Ahmadinejad guy from Iran probably doesn't care too much for my infidel lifestyle, what with me eating pork and letting the better half out of the house every now and then. I'm also quite certain he'd want to chop my head off if given a rusty saw and a video camera to tape the incident for broadcast on Al Jazeera. However, upon reading this headline, I'm sure there's at least a little common ground we can share: Ahmadinejad Seeks Purge of Liberal Profs. • This made me laugh. I seem to remember years back a similar event happening in California. Some hippie group wanted businesses to pay their workers "living wages," but yet these commies wanted to be exempt from the laws they were advocating; they claimed that they couldn't afford to keep their workers if forced to shell out the same hourly wage as they wanted to impose on the rest of us. • That Ryan Howard guy from the Phillies has been on a tear, and it’s possible that he could hit 60-plus home runs this season. One topic du jour around the sports-talk circuit has been that if Howard hits 62 round-trippers this sesaon should he be considered the “true” home-run king instead of those roided-up ballplayers currently at the top of the single-season homer list. I say hell no. For as much as I loathe Barry Bonds, until someone else surpasses his single-season total, let his single-season home-run record stand. And let this be a reminder of how MLB and the fans didn’t give a shit about whether or not the game was being played clean in the late 1990s and early 2000s. While I’m on this subject, boo-fucking-hoo to the players now whining about how the suspicion of illegal performance-enhancing drug use is now over every over-achieving athlete’s head. You people made your bed, now go lie in it. • So last night in-between commercials for the Florida State University/Miami football game I was channel surfing, like any good male does, and what did I stumble across? Some movie about the behind-the-scenes action of the sitcom "Diff'rent Strokes." Who in the world thought this was a good idea to do, and who in the world gave this person the green light to produce this piece of crap? • Wow. Be careful what you wish for; it just might come true. Um, if I’m going to die, at least I want to win the $100 million Powerball 50 years prior.

• Steve Irwin has just died thanks to a stingray putting a barb through his chest. I always liked the Crocodile Hunter program, even though half the time the show was about a dozen guys lying down on a reptile as if it were a drunk hot chick at Mardi Gras. Too bad this attack didn’t happen to Jeff Corwin; last night I was watching some retarded “HUGE MONSTERS” show with him pretending dinosaurs or some other large extinct animals were chasing him. Christ was this show awful. I kept watching this piece of shit just for the sheer awfulness of it all. • Speaking of trash, I saw one of Morgan Spurlock’s hippie “30 Days” episodes tonight. I wish Morgan would spend 30 days provoking stingrays in their natural habitat. OMG spending 30 days in jail sucks. No fucking shit, genius. That’s why you don’t BREAK THE LAW. I love it when some guilt-ridden do-gooder tries to tug at your heartstrings by producing something like this “30 Days” show and you end up spending 90 percent of the program either laughing out loud or saying, “And what exactly am I supposed to be feeling bad about, douche bag?” • I don’t care about tennis, but God I loved how every ESPN pundit I paid attention to was predicting Agassi to beat this Becker hippie and go on to face Andy Roddick or other some guy I have never heard of before and will never hear of again. Andre, you had a great career. You made a buttload of cash. You seem to actually care about the human race. This makes you a better person than me. Now go and fuck Steffi Graf a whole bunch of times. Just don’t force your kids to play the sport you and your wife succeeded in for all those years. • Michael Caine isn't happy with today's films. Here’s an excerpt from the article I linked to: I’m not a Caine-hater or anything like that, but should someone who played a prominent role in… …be in any kind of position to comment on the awfulness of Hollywood? • And finally, what the hell is wrong with people? And here is a picture of this raucous crowd. Oh well, at least these people can probably point out Pluto on a chart of our solar system. That’s better than those pseudo-hippies who protest child labor conditions in some Asian or South American shoe factory but can’t find the country they’re bitching about on a map.

Ha. I missed that. I turned it off once Morgan got "free." What crimes did his buddies commit?

If someone PM's me their picks I post them on this thread as "Picks PM'd." (Take nl-asshole as an example.) When that person's opponent (in nl-asshole's case bob barron) submits his picks either publicly or via PM (it doesn't matter which way because bob will submit his at the last second like he always does) I will then publicly post both players' selections.

Manny's MySpace profile.

Since one matchup has been determined already, this is for the n00bs: Here is how you can track your picks against your opponent's: Below in the "CIN" line are Teke's picks. The "KC" line has Alf's picks. The "DIFF" line shows the differing picks in this matchup, along with the TB scores for each person, if their matchup needs it. In this case, since an even number of differing picks are being used, the TB score may be a deciding factor if the differing picks get split 1-1. Cincinnati (Teke) at Kansas City (Alfdogg) CIN: MIA/CAR/TB/NE/CIN/DEN/NO/TEN/PHI/SEA/CHI/DAL/SF/IND/WAS/SD/32 KC: MIA/CAR/TB/NE/CIN/DEN/NO/TEN/PHI/SEA/CHI/JAX/SF/NYG/WAS/SD/20 DIFF: DAL/JAX, IND/NYG, 32/20

Thanks, but Corwin was actually my second thought. My first was why couldn't Manny, Mark and Megan have been taken out, but their piece-of-shit show got canned long ago.

Only if his dying words were, "She ... was ... a ... real ... beauty..."

For reasons that exist outside of this folder, these words made me laugh. I guess the stingray got pissed when Steve's thumb went up its butthole. I always liked Irwin. Peace out. (Why couldn't this have happened to Jeff Corwin?)

On Friday I talked about how the better half and I split the maintenance duties for our lawn, among other outdoor activities. I was going to talk about indoor cleaning responsibilities yesterday, but that damn Shittsburgh mayor just had to die from cancer Friday night, and I felt like talking about him instead. I swear one of these days I need to put my priorities in order. I do most of the cooking and post-meal cleaning, but that’s because if I left washing dishes up to the better half she would use the dishwasher. I have a problem with dishwashers; I don’t know why (although this should provide some insight into my reasoning). I guess one reason is because dishwashers cross my laziness tolerance line. Nevertheless, most of the kitchen duties are mine, unless Mrs. kkk wants to bake cupcakes or something for a church event or some other get-together. I should note that my culinary skills don’t require much more than nuking veggies, cooking some meat in a skillet or putting something in the oven, so it’s not like I’m slaving away for several hours at some elaborate dish. In regards to house cleaning, we have a weird system. Every few months the house will get cleaned, and most of the time it’s mostly done by just one of us. On Friday she cleaned most of the house while I was at work. However, the previous cleaning, which took place in early July, I spent an afternoon and evening running the vacuum cleaner and spraying chemicals all over the house. The last time we had a joint effort in cleaning up the house was this year’s Memorial Day weekend. Laundry duties are mostly separate because I don’t like running my clothes through the dryer at medium/high heat while Mrs. kkk does. However, if I’m washing my clothes and the better half’s hamper is full, then I’ll do a separate load or two with her stuff. I must say though that I completely stay away from washing the bedding; that’s all her. So there you have it. Our “ying-yang” system has worked for seven-plus years now ever since we began living in sin. Funny enough, even though Jesus freaks and moralists decry couples cohabitating, I really don’t have a problem with it. If the couple is serious about their relationship, then I think they should see what living together and splitting household duties is like. Getting married is hectic enough, what with all the ceremony and reception planning (not to mention trying to pay this expensive date off afterward, but that’s another story for another time). Fighting over whose turn is it to take out the trash won’t help matters much to a newlywed couple when the honeymoon ends and real life begins (for the record, I’m the trash hauler). I also apply this “tryout” rule when it comes to child rearing. Before popping out a few demon seeds, how about adopting a dog or kitty (or two) from your local animal adoption agency and seeing what it’s like to be responsible for a life form that’s not as high-maintenance as a newborn baby?

Week 1 threads are up. Can a mod please close this thread?

This year's contest will be run the same way as it was run last year -- rules are at the end of this post. The only change of note is that if I'm convinced a person has dropped out of the contest, even if their Emergency Picks aren't over their limit, I'm going to give their team to someone else. (For example, if someone has a 1-5 record and misses the next 2-3 games, I'm not going to bother to wait until their EPs are over the limit to give their team to someone else, which happened a few times last season.) If you participated in last year's contest and didn't violate your emergency pick limit, you have dibs on re-claiming your team for this year. Returning vets have until August 24 to re-claim thier team. Below is a list of who was on what team. If you are in bold that means you re-claimed your team. Either let me know in this thread or via PM if you want (or don't want) to participate in this year's league, and if you are playing this year then send me your Emergency Picks via PM. That will activiate your team. If you didn't participate in last year's contest and are interested in taking an open team, just give a shout-out in this thread: it's first come first serve (a waiting list of sorts will be right below the division standings in this post). Currently all spots have been claimed, but I think there could be a few openings should I not get emergency picks in by August 24, so even if you didn't get in now still post your interest and if anyone should lose their team this regular season due to inactivity, I will give dibs to whichever n00bs signed up but weren't able to claim a team. If you were in last year's contest, maxed out your emergency picks, and want another chance, I'm not going to consider your entry request until after August 24 when all vets and n00bs have a chance to join. Remember, in order to officially activate your team (activated teams are in boldface) you need to give me Emergency Picks via PM. If I do not receive EPs from someone that is affiliated with a team by August 24, that franchise becomes vacant and I will give the poster who is next on the waiting list line a chance to claim that team. AFC EAST Buffalo Bills (Bob Barron) Miami Dolphins (Spaceman Spiff) New England Patriots (Nl-asshole) New York Jets (Gert T) AFC NORTH Baltimore Ravens (Marvin Is A Lunatic) Cincinnati Bengals (Teke) Cleveland Browns (SFA Jack) Pittsburgh Steelers (Kahran Ramsus) AFC SOUTH Houston Texans (Bored) Indianapolis Colts (Prime Time Andrew Doyle) Jacksonville Jaguars (Always Pissed Off) Tennessee Titans (Cuban Linx) AFC WEST Denver Broncos (Canadian Chris) Kansas City Chiefs (Alfdogg) Oakland Raiders: (Smues) San Diego Chargers (Porter) NFC EAST Dallas Cowboys (Hawk 34) New York Giants (Cartman) Philadelphia Eagles: (The Real World's Champion) Washington Redskins (Human Fly) NFC NORTH Chicago Bears (Agent Of Oblivion) Detroit Lions (Bravesfan) Green Bay Packers (Vitamin X) Minnesota Vikings: (Danville_Wrestling) NFC SOUTH Atlanta Falcons (King of the 909) Carolina Panthers (Fazzle) New Orleans Saints (Cena's Writer) Tampa Bay Buccaneers (Starvenger) NFC WEST Arizona Cardinals (Vern Gagne) San Francisco 49ers (Lightning Flik) Seattle Seahawks (C Dubya 04) St. Louis Rams (Canadian Guitarist) RULES 'N STUFF 1) 32 TSM'ers pick their own NFL team to represent and are placed in their respective divisions. 2) Each week during the NFL season every person submits their weekly picks as to which teams will win for that week. You make picks for all the games for that week. If your claimed team has a bye week, then you don't submit picks. 3) Your picks are matched up against the picks of the person your team is matched up against. Whoever has the most correct picks wins the matchup. (For example: In Week 1, Shittsburgh plays Miami. TSM poster Kahran Ramsus has claimed the Steelers and TSM poster Spaceman Spiff has claimed the Dolphins, so for Week 1 their picks go head to head. Kahran correctly picks the winners of 8 games and Spiff correctly picks 10 winners. Spiff wins the matchup to go 1-0 in the regular season. Kahran loses and goes 0-1.) 4) The rules will be just like the NFL -- Only division winners and two wild card teams from each conference will get to make the post-season, etc. 5) Not only will you submit your picks, but also, as a tie-breaker, you will predict how many points your team will score that week. If you and your opponent picked the same amount of games correctly for one week, the person who more accurately predicted how many points their team would score for that week wins the matchup. If both TSMers are tied after this, then the matchup is a tie. (For example: In Week 1, Atlanta and Carolina play each other. That means King of the 909 and fazzle are matched up against one another. Both TSM'ers correctly picked 9 winners, so they are tied. Now it's time to go to the tie-breaker. 909 predicted the Falcons would score 10 points and Fazzle predicted the Panthers would score 20 points. The actual score of the game was ATL 13, CAR 26. Therefore, 909 wins the matchup because he had the more accurate tie-breaker: 3 points to Fazzle's 6. It doesn't matter if you go over or under your team's score. All that matters is if you are closer to you team's score than your opponent's.) 6) Instead of picking the outright winners of each NFL game, there will be point spread with each NFL game. I'm hoping giving under-powered teams a few extra points might encourage some TSMers to pick them instead of going with a favored team. 7) The end-of-season tiebreakers will be the same as the NFL's (division record, conference record, etc.) 8) Before the season begins, you will have to submit a set of "Emergency Picks." I'll explain this to any n00bs that claim a team via PM.

One note: I am also doing a cumulative pick 'em league like Bravesfan had a few years ago before he stopped caring about you all. That contest will NOT have point spreads. I will enter all picks that are submitted in this league into that league as well. If you want to change your picks for that league since it's not using point spreads, feel free to do so. I don't care how you go about doing this. (Send in two separate selections; make notes in your picks about which teams you think will win and which team will cover the spread, etc.) EDIT: See my post later on in this thread that's in-between posts by Bravesfan and CanadianChris.

Late last night I learned that Pittsburgh Mayor Bob O’Connor had passed away after a brief bout with a rare form of cancer that attacks the brain and spinal cord. He was 61 years old. I knew he was going to succumb to this sudden diagnosis, especially when the hospital he was at stopped providing updates to the media a few days ago. When it was announced Friday night that the mayor had died, it left a pit in my stomach that’s still there this morning. I don’t know the man, nor have I ever met him, but I’ve followed his public service career for years and always thought of him as a person of integrity. I may not have agreed with him on a number of issues, but many times in local politics you throw away party affiliation and support the better man (or woman, depending on the situation). I think the saddest part of this story is that for years this guy had tried to be mayor, only losing in the Democrat primary each time to the incumbent Tom Murphy. In fact, during the 2001 mayoral election there were allegations that Murphy had some illegal backroom deal with the city’s firefighter’s union where he would give them a sweetheart contract if they would support his candidacy over O’Connor. Murphy ended up winning that election by just 699 votes. (Like I said before, it was a primary, but in this town the “general election” takes place in the Democrat primary.) Whenever Murphy announced he would not seek another term in 2005, it was all but a formality that O’Connor would become the city’s next mayor. There were “elections” and “campaigns,” but everyone with half a brain knew Bob would end up winning. Even when he was on the campaign trail, it seemed that O’Connor was talking more about what he was going to do once elected rather than asking if he could have your vote so he could be elected. When O’Connor finally took the helm in January of 2006 he tried as much as he could to show he wasn’t going to squander the opportunity to head the city he loved. There were two early examples of his leadership in action. The first was successfully planning a post-Super Bowl downtown parade for the Steelers. Even though more than a 250,000 people came downtown to congratulate the Super Bowl champs, O’Connor and his administration made sure the event ran without a hitch, and from the reviews people gave afterwards, it appeared that O’Connor and his staff was for real. The second incident came in wake of a sniper scare. (I commented on this incident back in January.) At first there was concern of a person atop a building with a rifle looking for people to shoot, but in the end it turned out that it was just a maintenance worker hunting pigeons. However, the way the city police/fire/medical services handled this event during those hours when they didn’t know what they were up against showed to many in the area that this town was being managed differently than it had been in previous years. And O’Connor was out in the middle of the action overseeing this operation. One could say he was just being pomp, seeing that his first term was just under way, but if you heard him you could tell he wasn’t trying to be out in the limelight. He wanted to show the city, and the surrounding counties, that the buck was stopping with him. And it showed. It’s a shame O’Connor didn’t win the Democrat primary back in ’01. If he had, Pittsburgh might be in better financial shape today. Sadly, we here in the southwestern Pennsylvania area will never get to know what O’Connor would have been fully capable of as mayor. RIP.

I have no clue. All I know about city council is that the race-baiting black guy got booted in the most recent primary. Ravenstahl said he's going to continue with what O'Connor wanted to do for the city, but I have a feeling there's going to be a back-room conspiracy or two to get him out because God forbid this region can't have any young people at the helm.

Well, if you have a clean slate debt-wise, can afford to pay for much of the debt you'll have with this M.A. pursuit, then best of luck to you.

I thought you had to be of a certain age (around 25) to get this done. If you want to do this, then knock yourself out. It's not my plumbing you're tinkering with.