This is not a tag line!
sports
NFL/FFL Week 7-8
Nov 1st
FFL-counting games are not done yet for this week but unless a miracle happens, I’m not going to win this week again: I’m down 48-93 with two of my players against one of his still to play. I didn’t notice that my kicker was on bye today and Culpepper had his first bad game of the year. My players did OK but all of my opponents’ had huge days (except for the Arizona’s defense)…
I had managed to scrap a win last week but that was no feat since my opponent seems to have given playing up…
On the NFL, the Broncos lost their second game in row: after being thoroughly dominated by Cincinnati last Monday night, they played poorly despite a stellar performance by Rod Smith this week to lose again at home against Atlanta. The defense didn’t seem to have an answer for Michael Vick who ran wild for 115 yards, while Plummer made costly mistakes… Hopefully, they’ll manage to win next week against a not-to-be-sneered-at Houston team. The playoff future which looked rosy after the big win against Oakland two weeks ago is turning out bleak in a repeat of the previous seasons. Broncos: pretenders or contenders? The jury is still out.
Fake Garden from the album NOIR ORIGINAL SOUNDTRACK II by Yuki Kajiura
NFL/FFL Week 6
Oct 19th
Well, there’s been some improvement on the FFL front but you’d think that leading by ten with both my opponent and me still having one player to go (I had Bruce and she had Faulk), I would manage more than a tie! I again got several players who got me no points this week (Dunn, L.G. Smith and yes, Bruce). I decided not to start Dillon this week because I didn’t think that he would play that much not having practiced all week and all. I was right, on the other hand, in not starting Roy Williams (though Bruce didn’t end up raking me more points)… My players are too inconsistent and I never know what to expect. The only bright spot is Culpepper. I had lots of players on bye last week so I had to scramble a bit to get a decent line up. I also managed to grab Droughns (the new featured running back for the Broncos) off the waivers so I’m pretty happy about that. We’ll see how things shape up but I’m not too confident I can turn my season around. We’ll see.
The really good (at least for me) football news, on the other hand, is that Denver won convincingly (dare I say ‘routed’? 
) against arch-rivals Oakland at Oakland. For the second time in a row, the running game worked really well. As is starting to become usual as well, Plummer made up for his early mistake (four incomplete passes followed by an interception on the fifth attempt to open the game) by playing quite well the rest of the game, throwing 3 TDs and not turning the ball over. In the past, such an early mistake would have (as it happened several times before) given the momentum to the Raiders but the Denver defense excelled once again only allowing a field goal after the turnover despite the really short field. Ashley Lelie also got his long touchdown, which is also starting to be quite a familiar sight. Should the Broncos keep their current focus and not look ahead too much and keep playing one game at a time, they have a chance to go far. However, they should NOT take a struggling Cincinnati team, looking to make a statement on Monday night, lightly.
Full OF Stars from the album Ether Song by Turin Brakes
NFL/FFL week 5
Oct 13th
In a rather untypical fashion for me during football season, I wasn’t able to follow football action this week. I was away for the long week-end with a couple of friends. I therefore don’t have much to say except that I am pleased about the fact that the Broncos won against Carolina and that they seem to have found a way to revive their running game. Ashley Lelie seems to begin performing like they thought he would, coming up with big plays in the fourth quarter to cement Denver’s victories three weeks in a row.
On the FFL front, I was playing Robert’s Feta Cheese team this week. As he mentions in his weblog, the contest resulted in another defeat for me despite managing to score quite a bit of points this time. Problem is that my receivers didn’t perform at all this week: Harrison continues to be disappointing while Roy Williams got hurt netting me 2 points between them.
At this point, with a record of 1-4, I’m not quite sure what to do. I have the second highest score this week, meaning that playing against anyone else in the league, I would have won. Overall, my team has scored the second highest number of points but I have the worse record. For that matter, one of the guys in our league doesn’t seem to be playing anymore since he hasn’t changed his line up in a while despite having players on bye and yet his team has a better record than I do! :’(
This week doesn’t look too good either: my opponent has some serious players and my best performers (apart from Culpepper) are on bye or hurt. I had to scramble to find a kicker, defense and receivers. I don’t think I will play Williams this week since he might not be healthy enough. I’m not holding my breath. My team, the Cassoulet Farts (renamed from their early name of Cassoulet Power) was originally supposed to defend the honor of this traditional French dish but seems now to just focus on the after effects… 
Francesca from the album Francesca by Special Needs
NFL/FFL Week 4
Oct 5th
Another week, another FFL defeat. This is all the more disappoiting because, before looking at the actual results, I thought I had won: I was down 10 points entering Monday Night’s game with Baltimore’s defense and kicker (Matt Stover) still to play for me while my opponent was already done.
I knew it was going to come down to the wire but when Stover hit a 50 yarder (which is worth 5 points in our league), I started to relax some more. Then I thought I had clinched the victory when B.J. Sams, the rookie punt returner for Baltimore, returned a punt for a touchdown. You see, in all the previous leagues I had played, special team plays count towards the accumulated defense score. So I naively thought that the returned punt all but gave me the victory. Wrong! It turns out that our current league doesn’t work that way. So instead of scoring 7, Baltimore’s defense only scored 1 while Stover racked me a total of 8 points. Adding that up gives you 9, one short of my opponent! Bummer…
On the plus side, Denver won their fourth game grinding a victory past Tampa Bay in another offensive struggle. Fortunately, they managed to get the running game going when it mattered most in the fourth quarter, leading by 3 and needing to chew up the clock. I’m not real happy with the way they’re playing (especially when it comes to their traditionally dominant running game) but they’re showing great resilience and the defense is pretty good. Most importantly, they’re finding ways to winning close games (they would have won against Jacksonville were it not for that infamous fumble). If they can find a way to muster more efficiency on offense, they’ll be pretty damn hard to beat.
NFL/FFL Week 3
Sep 28th
The Broncos won in Denver against San Diego. A win is a win but the Broncos couldn’t run at all against a not-so-good Chargers’ defense. On the plus side, Plummer played really well and Lelie contributed a huge play, a 33-yard touchdown on fourth-and-nine. However, Griffin couldn’t get anywhere. He finished with 7 yards on 12 carries and only his yardage on the last couple of touches. Not only was he not productive but he also fumbled (third time in three weeks) leading to San Diego’s lone touchdown. This doesn’t bode well for the rest of the season. Hopefully, this was just a fluke…
This is also problematic for me as well since I started Griffin which actually led me to losing points… I also picked up Roy Williams during the week but forgot to change my lineup. My receivers did OK but not great (Harrison and Bruce). My second running back, Clinton Portis, ended up not scoring either thus gaining me not enough points to make up for my deficit and I dropped my second game in a row, sitting not too pretty at 1-2 right now. Oh well… I picked up Reggie Wayne as well this week so I might be getting more production out of my receivers in the coming weeks. I need to get some more points at the running back position as well. Hopefully, Griffin will regain the confidence he seems to have lost. Not sure if I will keep playing him right now. I’ll see.
Fantasy Football update
Sep 21st
Well, I went from top scorer to lowest scorer. I’m now 1-1 but at least, only my friend Robert is 2-0. My first week studs all fizzled this week: Portis and Griffin had bad days, Culpepper (whom I needed to score more than 20 points if I wanted to win my match-up this week) did reasonably but nothing compared to his first week output. I need more points from my receivers: neither of my starters (Isaac Bruce and Marvin Harrison, who has been really disappointing so far) scored a touchdown and my tight end (Randy McMichael) didn’t do much either while my reserve TE (Todd Heap) is hurt. I benched Matt Stover in favor of Ryan Longwell this week and that was a mistake though I had assumed that Green Bay would score more against Chicago at home. Only Baltimore’s defense performed higher than expected this week. Oh well… Hopefully, I can get more consistent production from there on.
Girl With Golden Hair from the album Change of Living by The Only Children
Jaguars 7 – Broncos 6
Sep 19th
So football season began again last week. Like many football fans, I had been waiting for the season to start again and it didn’t disappoint me. My favorite team (Denver Broncos) won convincingly despite Jake Plummer’s efforts to make it interesting against divisional foes Kansas City. To top that, my fantasy team did really well scoring the most points in my league.
Today is completely different. The Broncos suffered a crushing defeat when, after what seemed to be a tough defensive game (not living in the same area than your favorite team makes it tough to see the games when you’re not a satellite TV subscriber), they came in range to score the winning field goal in the last seconds of the game only to see victory evade them as first week hero, running back Quentin Griffin, fumbled the ball away in an attempt to make Jason Elam’s kick easier.
I always tell myself that this is only a game and that it doesn’t matter (it really DOES NOT) and yet, it keeps affecting me. My spirits are higher when the Broncos win. Today is obviously not so good. It’s really rationally stupid to be upset when a football team loses and yet, I cannot help myself. <sigh>
Oh yeah… My fantasy team is not doing too well either but who knows how it will shape up when all the games are played. Not holding my breath though.
First snowboard trip of the season
Jan 19th
It took me a while to finally go snowboarding this season but I finally made it to the slopes on Saturday. I went to Whitetail with a fellow snowboarder.
It took me a couple of runs to get back into a riding groove but it was well worth it. My gear is pretty sensitive to settings and I had to tweak them some to adjust them to attain the level of control that would bring the familiar snowboarding grin on my face!
We had the pleasure to experience an OK weather (meaning not too cold, not too cloudy) before it started snowing. Contrary of what you could think, I actually enjoy riding when it snows, provided that there is no fog. As it so happened, there wasn’t any fog so it was all good! Since it was snowing pretty hard, we got to enjoy some fresh powder after a while which made the experience all the more enjoyable. I also had the nice surprise to discover that Whitetail was actually bigger than I thought: a whole pan of the mountain was open that I had never seen opened before during previous trips. I guess the lack of snow the last time I was there contributed to keeping that side closed. Anyway, the hill sure is not the Rockies or the Alps but it was still pretty fun!
We were scheduled for a Laser Tag game in the evening so we decided to leave around 6pm to leave us time to face the drive back home on snowy roads which turned out just as difficult as we thought it would be. I’m just glad I’m driving an AWD car!
All in all, a very refreshing first sortie which left (as did the Laser Tag) its imprint on my body: I spent Sunday mopping around, exhausted from all the unusual exercise (and this, despite regular Kendo practice)!
The Nasty from the album Bricolage by Amon Tobin
