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Wednesday, September 25, 2002
THANK GOD FOR HANGING CHADS My new FrontPage column: A look at Al Gore's anti-war speech, which yields (at least) 10 reasons to be glad election 2000 turned out exactly the way it did. Monday, September 23, 2002
WEINKOPF.COM FOOTBALL POOL WEEK 3 UPDATE: WILD THING 
This week's winner, Stacey "WildStyle75" Pressman. Stacey selected an awesome 11 out of 14 picks correctly and racked up 93 points -- almost as much as this season's first two winners were able to amass in sixteen-game weeks. Most impressively of all, she was the only pooler to pick the hapless Seattle Seachickens plus six points over the Giants. How could she have possibly known -- the team that held the Niners close in Week 1 and thumped the Rams in Weeks 2 couldn't manage a touchdown against the Seachickens? Genius, I say, pure genius. That puts WildStyle75 in first place for the week and overall, with 177 group points total. Rounding out the top five are Scott "Hail to the Redskins!" Rubush, Stinky Cheese, Lynn "Flipper" Donahoe, and Grogan's Heroes Kenny. Of course, this makes Stacey week four's One to Watch. Runner up In earlier posts, I've noted the ironic, poor performance of NevadaNiners Jason (more later), chief proponent of the controversial confidence-points system. Yet with WildStyle75's ascent, the irony is compounded. No one has complained more vociferously (read: annoyingly :) than this ESPN employee and friend of many an NFL athlete who has far more access to the details of the game than the rest of us. And now, three weeks into the confidence-points regime, Stacey is sitting pretty in first place, a beneficiary of the very system she's decried. If we were just counting wins, her friend and defending Weinkopf.com Football Pool Champion "Jersey Girl" Chris would share this week's top honors, having also picked 11 games correctly. But the confidence factor puts Stacey ahead by 12 points -- think she'll keep complaining? As for Jersey Girl, did anyone else notice that she picked all seven of the early Sunday games correctly? I thought we were looking at a perfect week for a while there ... Middle Management After Wildstyle and Jersey Girl, it was a steep drop for the rest of the pool. Solid, but uninspiring performances were put in by Hail to the Redskins! Scott, Stinky Cheese, Flipper Lynn, Grogan's Heroes Kenny, New York Lancers Dave, Hoboken Orphans Chris, Spurrier Fan Cris, the Blitzburgh Brawler Ben Kepple, Cappuccino Commando Charles, and Steel Man Joe. Also putting in a respectable week were Barrio Bravo Matthew Rubush, who recovered nicely from last week's disaster, and Bruiser Tim, who at last managed to get all his picks in on time. Finally, last week's winner, G-MAN Glen fell victim to the One to Watch hex, scoring 53 points, down from 94 the week before. Sometime last week, Glen also changed his handle to Seriously Disturbed!!!! We can only guess why, but my guess it has something to do with my running this picture of him (and yours truly) last week: 
Ugly Ducklings Then there were the truly atrocious among this week's poolers, those of us scoring less than 40 points. "When's baseball season start?" Bob (26) has his excuse -- he put in all his picks before week 1, and chose the Rams every week. Padawan Ebin (31) is also off the hook, seeing that he's still riding in a booster seat. Sadly, there are no excuses for Mrs. Zebra (29) and yours truly, the Mighty Mighty Pats Fan (34). We pitiful losers can only take consolation in the fact that at least we're not NevadaNiner Jason, who, with 19 points, put in the worst single-week performance of the season. Jason's new lows have inspired a new honor: He is officially this week's One Not To Watch. Maybe he should start cribbing his kid's picks ... A crazy weekend I had the good fortune of watching last weekend's games at the home of Steel Man Joe with Blitzburgh Brawler Ben, who was visiting from New Hampshire. The two took great delight in watching me sweat as the Mighty Mighty Super Bowl Champion New England Patriots struggled to beat the K.C. Chefs, then failed to cover the spread (thus costing me 13 points). The Squeeler fans also must have been relieved that Pittsburgh didn't lose again this week -- albeit only because it had a buy. Anyway, here's a picture of yours truly and the Brawler, taken only one day before we watched the gridiron madness unfold, courtesy of Joe's massive satellite dish. 
But as fun as it was to watch the game with Ben, Joe, and Joe's overindulged dog Lucy, next week should be even better. That's because Mrs. Mighty Mighty Pats Fan and myself are heading down to San Diego to see the world champions take on the momentarily undefeated Chargers. Sorry, WildStyle, but your namesake will not be registering any sacks this week against the NFL quarterback with the most touchdowns this season, Super Bowl MVP Tom Brady. Look for me on TV, and see you all in next week's pool! Yours, Chris, the Mighty Mighty Pats Fan KA-CHING Last week I joked that only the Patriots can get away with selling its kicker's jersey. Now, with Adam Vinatieri icing another game with a last second, I'm reminded why. Um, where do I buy one of those jerseys again? |