Monday, January 31, 2011

Nets 23 Heat 16

The Playmaker: 10 points (5-9 shooting) & 12 rebounds ... a double-double.
p
The Nets are now 5-2.




Sunday, January 30, 2011

Ugh...

Nearly three hours later, we are finally D-O-N-E scraping the snow off the roof of the house. A Big Thanks to Our Neighbor, SPM, for the use of her roof shovel, which extends a whopping 15 feet to reach up "way high."


Saturday, January 29, 2011

Coming soon?!?





Thursday, January 27, 2011

The Dog goes through the snow tunnel...


We helped The Playmaker and The Playmaker's Sister build a tunnel. Then we let The Dog try it out.



The greatness of The Snow Day...


This was what it looked liked around 3 AM(!) this morning. It was literally raining snow. Watch it in 1080 HD to get a better appreciation.
p
Check back later for classic pictures.


Wednesday, January 26, 2011

Why is Jalen Rose smiling?!?

Because Hannah Storm's skirt is really tight and very short!



Tuesday, January 25, 2011

Hoops...


1.Taller = better?!? Two weeks ago, Your Nets lost their second straight game of the season, 24-21. (That made us 3-2 on the year.) For the first time all season, The Playmaker came across a player who was ... wait for it ... actually better than he was. Well, he wasn't better. But he was just as good, and he was three inches taller. The kid guarded The Playmaker the whole game. And while Our Son did score 10 points (on 5-9 shooting), he had to work extremely hard to get anything off. (He also went 2-2 from the foul line, making him a perfect 4-4 on the year.)

2. Hey, Coach -- you SUCK! This past Saturday, we got things corrected and defeated an undefeated team, 28-21, to improve to 4-2. The Playmaker led the way with 12 points on nifty 6-8 shooting. The other coach was a TOTAL DOUCHEBAG and we enjoyed seeing his arrogant smirk turn into a pissed off frown. We damn near went over to him after the game and quoted Randy Moss: Everyone know who we are! ("Isn't that right, sir?!?")

3. Don't forget The Playmaker's Sister! She finally got on the board this season and scored 4 points (2-2 shooting) in her team's 2 point loss.

4. Hair like that is not cool! With no NFL game to watch, we watched college hoops Saturday afternoon and then got to actually watch the 76ers on TV at night. We watched the first quarter with The Playmaker and then DVR'd the rest to watch Sunday morning. Wow -- the 76ers have actually become a solid team. They easily put away the Jazz, 96-85. (Granted, Utah was playing the final game of its road trip, as well as the second end of a back-to-back). Elton Brand is now actually an above average player. And Lou Williams is money off the bench. Heck, the 6'1" Williams even had two dunks in the game. We had never seen him dunk once in his career. Never. The only thing more amazing was the 'do of Andrei Kirilenko. As Jose-from-Norristown would say, "What's up with that?!?"

5. SJH24's son dropped 25! Not only that, but his whole team had only 32 points. Well done, Junior, well done.






Monday, January 24, 2011

How GREAT is this?!?

Seriously?!?




Sunday, January 23, 2011

Any questions?!?




Saturday, January 22, 2011

Best we can do...




Friday, January 21, 2011

No School...

Snow Days. Gotta love 'em.



Thursday, January 20, 2011

Thoughts on the Patriots...

1. Coach Bill tried to man up on Rex Ryan and lost BIG TIME! The Jets ran their mouths all week. Wes Welker tried it. Coach Bill benched him for the first series. It reeked of: Rex, you can't control your team, but I sure can! Did it cost the Pats the game?!? Probably not. Then again, they didn't score on that opening drive did they?!? Then there was the whole Danny Woodhead thing. Since the Patriots signed the Jets castoff, he has been a very nice player. He was the proverbial change of pace back, as well as a nifty third down option. Yet, last week Coach Bill decided Woodhead would become The Guy against the Jets. Again, it reeked of: Rex, I'm smarter than you. I'll take your reject running back and kick you out of the playoffs with him toting the rock. Um, good gawd, man. He's Danny Woodhead. Why would you turn your back on 1,000 yard rusher BenJarvus Green-EllisJones Smith Thompson Davis?!?

2. Matt Light sucked, as always! For unknown reasons, Matt Light has a rep as a good player. We think he's always sucked. And, for the most part, sucked badly. As usual, he got his ass kicked last Sunday. We can only hope he retires or The Krafts decide not to give him a new contract.

3. Why did Coach Bill go for the onside kick?!? S-T-U-P-I-D!!!!! Kick deep. Play D. Use your two timeouts.

4. Nice hurry-up offense! Pats fans lambasted us when our Eagles and the ever crappy Don McNabb wasted precious minutes in the huddle while trailing in the fourth quarter of the 2005 Super Bowl. What did the Pats do when trailing in the fourth quarter against the Jets?!? They dicked around in the huddle. When they finally got to the line, what did they do?!? They ran the ball about a dozen straight times. They had the ball for eight minutes! And they didn't even score. How is that effing possible?!?

5. Next year! Draft a couple of O-linemen. Then spend every pick on a defensive lineman (i.e.PASS RUSHER) or outside linebacker. And if you are really daring, go find another wide receiver.



Wednesday, January 19, 2011

Why not...

It worked last year when Amaro Junior took a flyer on Jose Contreras. This time around he's taking on Matt Anderson as his project. The former number one pick overall used to hit the high 90s on the gun. After several years of arm trouble, he's "down" to about 92 or 93. The Phillies signed him to help out in the 'pen.




Tuesday, January 18, 2011

Best we can do...





Monday, January 17, 2011

Pretty much confirmed: Aaron Rodgers is a TOTAL DOUCHEBAG...

We've never liked Aaron Rodgers since he became a starter in Green Bay. Not sure why, probably because he always seemed just a tad full of himself. Now we have a definite reason to loathe the Effing A-hole. Not so much with the second video and Clay Matthews. Not only is he the best 'backer in football (Yes, @BillPear -- we admit it!), but he clearly gets it. Good for him.







Sunday, January 16, 2011

Eagles call Jim Mora, Jr.




Saturday, January 15, 2011

The Brothers Plumlee




Friday, January 14, 2011

Nets update...



1. We won our last game before the two week Christmas break (December 18)! We blew out some team, 30-17. It was 12-0 after one quarter and 18-1 after two. The Playmaker had 14 points, including six in the opening quarter.

2. The Nets lost last week! We played the best team we've seen all season and lost, 26-22. We were down 10 heading into the final quarter and cut it to two, but ran out of time. We sat out The Playmaker for the first two quarters, for a violation of team rules. (That would be pushing someone at recess during a "touch" football game at school.) He finished the game with 6 points, including going 2-2 from the foul line. It's pretty safe to assume the suspension cost us the game -- but we wanted him to learn a lesson. Still, it sucked, because the other coach was a Major Douchebag and kept his two best players in for 6 of the 8 quarters (completely illegal).
p
3. The team rule violator was looking good! When he eventually was allowed to enter the game, The Playmaker took to the court in his new Kobes, as well as his official Nets shorts (see photo).



Thursday, January 13, 2011

(S)No(w) school today!

Um, that would be our driveway after three down-and-backs yesterday. The Playmaker recorded measurements of 16, 18 & 19 inches. (That was before we got 2 more over night.)


The deck at 7 AM today.

No school yesterday (obviously). Then we got the call after dinner last night that our school was closed Thursday. About an hour later, the call came that Our Kids had no school, too. Unadulterated joy for all of us.







Wednesday, January 12, 2011

Second blizzard of the season...

7 P.M. last night.

7 AM this morning.

Living room window.

9 AM today.






Tuesday, January 11, 2011

The Joe McKnight fad continues...

The beauty of kids is they often do random acts of kindness. Unlike adults, said acts are almost always done without motive. (As opposed to someone, like, say ... US. We are the master of, Hey, we did something for you. So now you need to do something for us!) Anyway, there we were teaching yesterday afternoon. It's a Monday, so like the rest of the Working World, we're already a bit grumpy. Add in the Eagles getting evicted from the playoffs the day before and all of a sudden we are really grumpy. We forget the exact details, but it was a late morning class and they were struggling with the grammar. Grammar, by the way, that they should not have been struggling with. A student got out of his seat and approached us at the whiteboard. As he did, we must have had a pained look on our face, for he made a quick u-turn to his desk. Sure enough at the end of the class the same student came over to us again. "I have something for you." And with that, he took out a Joe McKnight football card and gave it to us. "I thought you would want it because he helped you win fantasy football."

Suddenly, our whole mood changed. And we were bitch-slapped back to reality. Most kids are good ones -- and we are so lucky to get to help them on their journey in life.

A simple cardboard card reminded us of that. And a random act of kindness.

Wow.


Monday, January 10, 2011

This sign now hangs on our classroom whiteboard

(For obviou$ rea$on$...)



Sunday, January 9, 2011

The Playmaker knows all*...

* Well, he at least knew the Seahawks would beat the Saints yesterday. These are his playoff predictions that he made last week. Unfortunately, we think he'll be wrong about the Eagles. We think they'll lose, 30-17.




Saturday, January 8, 2011

Tough love...




Friday, January 7, 2011

Joe "Effing" McKnight!

Through 16 weeks of two fantasy football leagues we never once watched a fantasy football show on television or the computer. And we ended up in the championship in both leagues. (We lost the Play for Pride Championship two weeks ago, 108-94. In the ultimate irony, it was our much ballyhooed 2nd round draft pick Ryan Mathews who cost us the game. Mathews had done nothing all season, except suck and get injured. We picked up his backup, Michael Tolbert, who had a nice season for us. However, in week 16 during the championship he got ... wait for it ... minus two points. Mathews ended up with 13. Get rid of Tolbert's -2 and add Mathews' 13, and we win the championship 109-108. Needless to say, Ryan Mathews will NEVER play on another fantasy team of ours again. EVER.) Anyway, back to last week's Play for Pay Championship. As we have bitched and moaned about for a month, the ESPN format calls for a two week semifinal and a two week championship. As such, unlike almost every other league, the ESPN one plays in week 17 of the NFL schedule. That would be the week 17 where the playoff teams rest their starters, and the stars of the horrible teams come up with reasons not to play.

After the opening round of the championship, we were ahead 87-71. Our three concerns heading into the final day were Tom Brady, Matt Forte and Anquan Boldin. We knew Brady was playing, but had no idea how long. Our guess was one, maybe two quarters tops. Then some idiot in the Boston Globe said he was most likely done after a single series. That, coupled with the fact Sam Bradford and the Rams were battling the mediocre Seahawks for a playoff spot, convinced us to play Bradford. The Bears had about a one percent chance to get the top seed in the NFC, so we assumed Forte would get a few early touches and then call it a day. And that posed a HUGE problem for us, as our only other running backs were the aforementioned Mike Tolbert, who was out with an injury, and Darren McFadden, who had a bad toe. As for Boldin -- we'd simply had enough of his crap this season. He was our third round pick in the draft. Going into the final game his production for the year was: 11, 3, 32, 6, ZERO, 12, 15, 2, 11, ZERO, 2, 17, 4, ZERO, 1. In his last six games, discounting his 17 point outburst, he was averaging 1.4 points (1.4!). The alternative was Percy Harvin, who gets hurt a ton, and has to play with somebody by the name of Joe Webb.


So we first needed confirmation on the Brady-Forte-McFadden issues. We checked out espn.com and noticed they had a fantasy show on TV at 11:30. When the time came, we sat in front of the television with The Playmaker. The host was Erik Kuselias, whom we love. (And not because of his alleged sexual pickup lines to ESPN co-eds.) His sidekicks were Tim Hasselbeck and some guy whose name we never saw. About 30 minutes into the show they went to some blonde hottie who said McFadden was inactive. We then ran to the computer and queued up our roster. And there we stayed for the next 90 minutes. The Playmaker turned up the TV so we could hear it in our home office. And every time they talked about wide receivers or running backs he would come in and conference with us. In hour-and-a-half leading up to kickoff, we made no fewer than seven transactions.

1. Good-bye Tolbert, hello Packer wide receiver James Jones! Jones was one of the top free agent flankers. Green Bay was fighting for the playoffs and Aaron Rodgers torched the Giants last week, including one TD to Jones.

2. Good-bye Nate Washington, hello pot smoker Ricki Williams! Ricki has done little this year, but he was HUGE for us last season. More importantly, he figured to get at least 10 points playing against the Patriot scrubs in the rain.

3. Good-bye Louis Murphy, hello Michigan Man Jason Avant! Murphy did nothing for us after we picked him up on waivers at mid-season. (There's a reason why 99 percent of the guys on the waiver wire are there.) Avant figured to get a ton of PT as the Eagles rested DeSean Jackson and Jeremy Maclin.

4. Good-bye Anthony Armstrong, hello Jerome Harrison! We don't even remember when we picked up Armstrong from the waiver wire. We seem to remember doing so when the playoffs began just to "intimidate" the three other playoff owners. Not even Andy Reid would be dumb enough to let Shady McCoy play in a meaningless game. We figured Big Red would let Harrison touch the ball 20 times and get the crap beat out of him.

5. Good-bye Ricky Williams and hello Joe McKnight! Wait a minute. Rather, wait a second, because that's about how long Williams lasted on our roster. We were not even thinking about Joe McKnight -- why would we?!? His name did not even pop up on the first page of free agent running backs. But Our Guy Erik Kuselias brought his name up early on the ESPN fantasy show. He said Shonn Greene was not playing and that L.T., too, was not playing. We quickly called his name up on espn.com, convinced that our opponent had probably beat us to the punch. Alas, he had not. So we double clicked. Quickly.

6. Good-bye Darren McFadden, hello ... wait for it ... Ricky Williams (yet again)! No sooner had we added McKnight when we got word that McFadden was officially inactive. So we exhaled and reached out for Ricky. Again.

7. Good-bye Davone Bess, hello Chris Ivory! This was a tough one, as we thought long and hard about putting Bess in our starting lineup. (He burned the Patriots the first time around this season.) But Our Guy Kuselias was really pushing this guy hard. In fact, he said of the three big running back waiver names of Joe McKnight, Jerome Harrison and Chris Ivory, he would rank Ivory as number one. Prior to that, we had never even heard of Chris Ivory. But In Kuselias We Trust.

So in a little over an hour, we had completely reshaped the roster of the team that got us to the championship in our 12 team league. It now looked like this:

QB: Tom Brady, Sam Bradford

RB: Michael Turner, Matt Forte, Jerome Harrison, Ricky Williams, Chris Ivory

WR: Mario Manningham, James Jones, Anquan Boldin, Percy Harvin, Jason Avant

TE: Vernon Davis

K: Nate Kaeding

Defense: Jets


With the decision of Bradford over Brady, (and knowing we were going with Davis, Kaeding and the Jets) our decisions revolved around running back and wide receiver. Michael Turner was a given at one running back, but we were convinced not even Lovie Smith would be dumb enough to risk using Forte. We weren't willing to gamble on Ricky, so that left us with Jerome Harrison versus The Guy We Knew Nothing About Chris Ivory. Harrison has legit talent. (He ran for 109 yards, 1 TD and 17 fantasy points in week 10.) And with Kevin Kolb as mobile as you behind the less than stellar Eagle offensive line, we figured Andy Reid would let Harrison get abused and keep Kolb healthy if, don't even think it, Mike Vick gets, gulp, injured. Still, we could not shake Our Guy Erik Kuselias rating Ivory as the TOP FREE AGENT RUNNING BACK to get on Championship Sunday. We decided to hitch our wagon to some guy named Chris Ivory.

Mario Manningham was a given at wide receiver. He was our 14th round pick(!) back in September, but he had seven games with double digit points, including the last two weeks. Then we looked at the underwhelming receivers on our roster: Anquan Boldin, Percy Harvin, Jason Avant and James Jones. Boldin sucks. Harvin was playing with Joe Webb against a pretty good Detroit defense. The ESPN guys said Avant was a good guy to go with. We kept thinking that he is average at best, plus he had the misfortune of playing with Kevin Kolb. We went with Jones because he was playing with Aaron Rodgers. With no other real options at receiver, we decided to flex Joe McKnight as our third running back.

So at 12:56, just four minutes before rosters locked, we had our lineup. Bradford at quarterback. Ivory, Turner and McKnight at running back. Manningham and Jones at wide receiver, with Davis at tight tend. Kaeding was our kicker, the Jets were the defense. We were up against the top rated team from the regular season (we were second). Their big names were Peyton Manning, Arian Foster, Vincent Jackson and David Akers. Un Fortunately, they also had stars Andre Johnson and DeSean Jackson sitting on the bench -- Johnson was injured and Jackson inactive. Their owner was no slouch, as he picked up Rashad Jennings on waivers the week before. (His 108 rushing yards and 1 score would lead to 19 fantasy points.) With a 16 point lead going into the game, the computer projected we would get outscored 18 points and, thus, lose the championship by 2 points. Knowing we had already clinched $80, we resigned ourselves to the fact we would most likely not win the championship. We told this to The Playmaker and we both agreed to "not spend one second worrying about fantasy."

At 1 PM, The Playmaker turned on the Patriots game and we watched Tom Brady, our Tom Brady, lead the Pats down the field and throw a touchdown pass. At that point, the two of us got pissed. We moved to the living room, built a fire and watched the Oklahoma-UConn Fiesta Bowl on the HD DVR. We would not watch another second of NFL action the entire rest of the day. Too damn nervous. Unbeknownst to The Playmaker, however, we would check the computer for fantasy updates every 20 minutes or so. We jumped out to an early lead, as we had three guys playing early and they had only two. Still, the projection had us losing. Michael Turner was plugging away, posting solid numbers. However, there was a major problem in New Orleans. Chris Ivory had 7 carries for 33 yards in the first quarter, but then seemed to get stuck. Nearly an hour later his numbers had not changed. (We would later learn he got injured. He finished with a woeful 3 points. Jerome Harrison, our second choice to replace Forte, would have earned us 10 points.)

And then there was Joe McKnight. Joe "Effing" McKnight! Our prediction was so spot-on. Buddy's-Son-Rex indeed was intent on running the kid into the ground until he passed out. By the end of the game he had toted the rock 32 times for 158 yards against the Bills. He brought home 16 fantasy points. Sixteen points from a kid who had not been on anyone's fantasy roster the entire season. The entire season! And he was added to ours less than an hour before the championship.

Joe "Effing" McKnight!

But he wasn't the only one helping the J-E-T-S. Their defense was knocking the sheeet out of the hapless Bills. They gave up just one TD. They came up with FOUR interceptions, THREE sacks, TWO fumble recoveries and scored ONE touchdown. All that turned into a whopping 25 fantasy points for us.

On to the 4:15 PM games. The other guy had all seven of his remaining players playing. We countered with five. Predictably, our lead shrank and shrank. Eventually we were behind. Vernon Davis scored for us. James Jones did jack sheeeeet and ended up with ZERO points. Worst of all, coaching dolt Lovie Smith was playing Matt Forte the entire game. (He would end up with 15 fantasy points -- remember his replacement, Ivory, gave us 3.) We were down by 20+ points. And weren't confident that Bradford could make up the difference on the road at Seattle in the Sunday night game. We knew we were done.

And then things got crazy. We watched OU another 30 minutes and came back to the computer. Mario Manningham had come up LARGE (yet again) and scored a TD on his way to 16 wonderful points. And Nate Kaeding was nailing field goals like he was playing for a new contract. He nailed 4 of them and threw in 3 extra points, to give us 17 points. (Repeat: A kicker got 17 points!). We got the lead back, but worried as the every dangerous Vincent Jackson was on the other squad. Potentially worse, it looked like the Colts and Titans were headed to overtime. We envisioned a Peyton Manning to Blair White overtime-winning-score. Whoever the hell Blair White is, he was playing against us along with Manning.

Away from the computer we went.

When we came back, we noted (with joy) that Adam Vinatieri had won the game for the Colts in the final seconds. (Manning ended up with 18 points; White had 5.)

As the last of the 4:15 games finished, we were cumulatively ahead by 9 points. Unless Bradford threw something like 6 picks and fumbled 4 times, we were all set. And while he did not play well (zero TDs and 1 pick), he did get us 5 points.

Week 16 Us 87 Them 71
Week 17 Us 106 Them 109

Final score: The Sons of Mike Schmidt 193 Them 180

Hello, $400!

Thank you, Erik Kuselias.

And thank you, Joe "Effing" McKnight.








Thursday, January 6, 2011

Wednesday, January 5, 2011

A total phony -- and a piece of sheeeet...

Ohio State Douchebag Jim Tressel


Tuesday, January 4, 2011

It's all about Joe McKnight...