The NFL 2008 season is, at last, over. Teams that did not make the playoffs will have some major or minor changes to deal with and prepare for the 2009 season. Teams that did made the playoffs: it is going to be a tough fight to Super Bowl XLIII, to be held in Tampa, Florida on February 1st, 2009. I’d created this graphical chart of my Super Bowl 43rd predictions, as seen below (you can click on it to expand):
Since 1994, I have been accurately picking up the correct teams to be in Super Bowl games, regardless of win or loss, beginning with the team I loathe: Dallas Cowboys. Glad the Cowboys are out of the playoffs this season but too bad about the Redskins.
Before December, my original picks to be in the Super Bowl XLIII are still Tennessee Titans and New York Giants. So, let’s see if all of my victory picks will bear fruits in the next few weeks.
Washington Redskins great Sammy Baugh, the prototypical quarterback/pro football player, passed away at age 94 yesterday. He was the last surviving member of the inaugral class of the Pro Football Hall of Fame. His “forward pass” revolutionized the modern football game.
He played at quarterback, punter, and defensive back throughout his pro football career with Washington Redskins and few of his records still stand today (some of his were tied or broken in the later years), pretty amazing and versatile for one who wanted to be a professional baseball player when he was growing up in the rural Texas country.
His Redskins jersey #33 is the only jersey to be officially retired by Washington Redskins. No other Redskins player ever wear #33.
UPDATE: Sport historians pointed out that in Chicago, a championship game between the Washington Redskins and the fearsome Chicago Bears on a bone-chilling cold day of Dec. 12, 1937 (temperature was 15, with wind chill at minus 6), Sammy Baugh performed in one of the few all-time, greatest sport feats ever in history.
In that game, the injured rookie Baugh demolished the mighty Bears and its bone-crushing defensive team led by Bronko Nagurski, throwing 335 years and 3 touchdowns on an icy, muddy field with all the players wearing only basketball shoes. The Redskins won that game. One of the Bears coaches said of this after the game: “Baugh was a one-man team. He licked us by himself.”
Not bad for a rookie becoming a legend already for the next 16 years.
Predictably, President-elect Obama is TimeMAN of the Year. (Time, knock off those political correctness crap over the “Person” term).
I had already pegged him for the cover of Time magazine for the Man of the Year when he won on the night of the Election Day, because the nation elected DA MAN to the White House under immense historic proportions.
Had shoes been thrown at Saddam Hussein in a press conference…
…Muntadhar al-Zeidi would have been taken, tortured, murdered and thrown in a mass grave somewhere in Iraq.
Consider in mind al-Zeidi works for an Arabic news media in Egypt, one of the countries not best known for free press. Unfortunately, for Mr. al-Zeidi, he is in the custody of Iraqi judicial officials and is not yet charged with a crime for throwing shoes at President Bush, pending a probe by Iraqi investigators looking into the allegations that Mr. al-Zeidi was assaulted by Iraqi security agents while in custody.
However, it would be wise for President Bush to demonstrate his compassion by forgiving Mr. al-Zeidi for throwing the shoes at him and set him free, as what this Arabic political scientist suggested:
Dr. Lutfi Al-Obusi, a 58-year-old political science professor, said: “I disagree with [the shoe-throwing] because that is opposite of our Muslim and Arabic traditions. Because Mr. Bush was here to say bye for Iraq and Iraqis. And in the same time Bush is president of the U.S. and he called for the liberation and freedom. So I hope Mr. Bush will forgive Mr. Muntader al-Zaidi for what happened. And if Mr. Bush will not approve for releasing Mr. Muntader al-Zaidi that will create big problem.”
Already, several Arabic journalists in the Middle East are pleading themselves to support Mr. al-Zeidi, even declaring themselves as “Muntadhar al-Zeidi”.
Too bad, they didn’t acknowledge and declare the names of over 500 journalists and intellectuals murdered by Saddam Hussein and his regime for over two decades (according to the Human Rights Alliance reported in June 2001). I guess the murdered journalists and intellectuals were not important to these Muntadhar al-Zeidis?
There are other ways to express your anger and grievances at world leaders, in writing, but throwing shoes at one is just plain dumb. Had it been a grenade or small bomb lobbed at Bush instead of a shoe, I can guarantee you that heads will roll literally.
Check out the 2-mins. video of a tremendous send-off by thousand US soldiers for President Bush in Iraq on Sunday, the roars of the cheer was pretty deafening:
Check it out. The top three worst companies are Progressive, Hewitt Associates and Nationwide. Lot of eye-opening, jaws-dropping reviews from both dissatisfied and former exployees.
Verizon, Starbucks, and Presidio Networked Solutions rounded up as the top three best companies.
A word of caution: if you’re an employee of any company listed on the Hate my job side and would like to contribute your vent, do not ever fill in details at work.
Not the six degrees of separation we all know, but a very different and special kind of six degrees of inspiration and origins concerning Merlin the Mystic. Click the graphic below to expand to full size.
You’d probably wonder why I did this. Well, if you are willing to learn, research and have a truly open mind, you may eventually come to the same conclusion as I have. If you’re anxious for the reasons about it, all you needed are imagination, faith, and reason working in conjunction and without any conflict. It could be quite a leap for you . . . or not.
Dubai and American architects, take heed: South Korea may be building something so innovative and “green” that it could alter and revolutionize the urban landscape of the future around the world someday.
A Dutch architecture firm, MVRDV, has won a Korean architecture design competition for the opportunity to design a totally green city in Gwanggyo, about several miles south of Seoul.
From my last week’s visit to my mother for Thanksgiving, I have founded this amazing old pen/ink artwork that I did in my junior year in high school, sometime in the spring of 1988. Click on the low-res version below to expand to full size display:
I named it as “Trinity”. I’d only created and drew this purely out of my head for an art class assignment for practicing pen and ink drawing. Interpret it however you like, but just enjoy it.
