Aggie87

I think if it turns out that Teo was complicit in this hoax, then it's a shame that he was voted as high as he was in the Heisman vote. To me he clearly wasn't the best defensive player in college ball this past season - Jarvis Jones probably was. A number of others (Clowney, Damontre Moore, Mingo, Milliner, Werner, etc) were better than him as well, in my opinion. Part of his appeal was that he was a good (not great) defensive player that embodied all that was good about a college athlete. And for him to have dealt with the dual deaths of his grandmother and his supposed girlfriend in the same 24 hours, and then essentially dedicate his season to them - that's terrible. I think Teo's overall popularity because of his story helped with his Heisman campaign, and helped Notre Dame get to the national championship. On the other hand, if he wasn't involved in the hoax at all, he's got to be one of the most naive, gullible people out there. Surely things didn't add up a number of times during their online/phone relationship. Didn't he ever try to meet her? To be as deeply in love as he claimed, surely he'd have tried to meet her in person at some point before she "died". edit - some stories are indicating that the person behind the hoax is a (male) friend of Teo's. There are supposedly pictures of the two of them together. Surely if this guy was pretending to be the girlfriend, Teo would have recognized his voice? If he truly wasn't involved.

I think that eventually people will come to respect Armstrong for at least telling the truth. I don't think he'll ever be adored by the public like he was before though. The difference to me with Bonds is that I doubt he will ever tell the truth. But for him it almost doesn't matter - he's never going to be adored by the public anyway.

I'm picking Denver and San Francisco for today's games. Denver's 7-1 at home,and SF is 6-1-1. Too hard to bet against.

I'm not impressed with this hire either. Kiffin's getting a bit old to relate to today's players, IMO. Yes, he did good things a long time ago in Tampa Bay, but that was a long time ago. I'm not sure the Cowboys defense will adjust to this new direction.

H4ppy Bir7hd4y!

Rock Scissors Paper - K, you go first, then I'll tell you what I picked!

Happy Birthday, Clifford, from Sammy Hagar and me!! **note - Person with Sammy is not me, and used for illustrative purposes only.

I'm going with both home teams today, Ravens & Redskins. Though the Seahawks are hard to bet against.

I'm gonna take the Packers tonight, too. Would have taken them anyway, but the Vikes are also without Ponder tonight.

I'm picking the Texans for the first game today. Do we have to pick all the games before the first one starts, or can we pick each of them up until game time? I'd rather just pick straight up than against the spread, I think, like we've been doing all season.

There was one about 8 years ago in a Texas vs Texas A&M game. I think that's the last one that has happened in college football, so they're pretty rare. Not sure why this merits it's own thread, though.

Perhaps "not getting it" and "not liking it" aren't the same thing.

Glad I caught this, I thought we were done! I'm not sure how I managed to catch back up, I thought Moose was going to take it all. I don't think the website is letting us make our picks yet for the playoffs though - anybody else having problems?

20 years ago...

Apparently her first job out of Notre Dame was as a DJ at Corpus Christi's hard-rock radio station, C-101. That's an odd first job out of Notre Dame. I remember listening to her when she moved on to Houston and was doing radio things for the Rockets and Astros.

Some of the craft breweries or microbreweries in the U.S. produce much better beer than the big corporate beer makers (Budweiser, Coors, and Miller and their ilk). That said, I prefer European beer in almost any case.

Jade says Happy Birthday!

The deluxe version of Raven is up for pre-order on Burning Shed as of today. It's a 4 disc set (the album, demos, DVD-V and Blu Ray) in a big book, looks nice. Price is $64, which isn't all that bad I suppose, but the shipping is $27 this time around. Ouch. I'm really having to think about that. Gets expensive for what amounts to 3 discs of the essentially the same material and a demo disc.

Vajerzy - I got home too late to make my pick before kickoff tonight, but I've got Denver, if you're willing to update mine for me. Thanks!

Happy Birthday, John!

Happy Buzzday!

It was just a mirage - vajerzy is looking at all of us in his rear-view mirror now!

Thanks Lon - haven't spun it yet. Took my son to see Life of Pi this afternoon instead. Really enjoyed it!

My copy finally arrived today, along with North Atlantic Oscillation's "Grappling Hooks" 2 disc set, and Engineer's "In Praise of More" 2 disc set. My personal Black Friday purchases I guess! Now if I can convince the kids to find somewhere to go, I can crank it up!

I went back and re-read this. What's even more interesting to me than Richard's comments about the individual albums are the comments about Steven. He obviously has some great respect for Steven as a songwriter, but how he interacts with the rest of the PT band members seems like an issue for Barbieri, as well as how SW wasn't exactly "professional" early on. I wonder if this is indicative of tension between SW and RB, and maybe a factor in why SW wasn't ready to work with PT again any time soon.