PHIL NGUYEN

The Apple verses Microsoft advertising war delights me. All those “I’m a PC” commercials are just downright bizarre. They say that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, and I cannot say I disagree. It’s kind of like that kid in high school that leaves for summer break as a nerd and returns in the fall as a punk. Something just isn’t quite right. Of course, Apple responded directly to that strange set of events with two sets of advertisements that ask why Microsoft is spending so much on an advertising budget and less on the development of the software itself - a pretty fair point. Windows Vista is a poo poo platter if I ever saw one.

I am pleased with Apple’s new line of Macbooks, Macbook Pros, and 24″ cinema displays. Though, I’m not purchasing any of them, it is definitely a step in the right direction and it seems that their market share will continue to increase.

This is definitive proof that people are, indeed, very stupid. I don’t think the book is all that great to be honest - I think pretty much everyone is categorized as a douchebag. It’s more geared towards bad comedy than its blog counterpart (you can google that, since I’m lazy). The blog is fairly academic and makes some valid points about the evolution of men, but the book moves away from that ideology which is upsetting.

Malcolm Gladwell is fantastic, and his ruminations about different kinds of geniuses is worth the read if you have some spare time. It’s kind of academic at points, so skimming through part of it isn’t a big deal - but definitely check it out. It’s not too late for me to realize my own self genius! I especially enjoyed the bits about how Mark Twain and how he wrote Huck Finn.

I made a trade in fantasy football. I gave up the touchdown machine Jonathon Stewart in order to acquire the injured Joseph Addai. I already rostered Addai’s backup Dominic Rhodes, so that makes the trade a little less risky. Since the Indianapolis coaching is staff is notoriously coy about their injury reports, there is a fair possibility that Addai’s injury is more serious than currently being let on. But anytime you get a chance to add a featured top 10 running back on a pretty strong offense, you jump on it. My current roster is pretty robust for a 12 team league:

QB: Romo, Delhomme
RB: Westbrook, Addai, Rhodes, Buckhalter, Charles
WR: Marshall, R. White, M. Jones, A. Bryant, Avery
TE: Clark
K: K. Brown
DEF: NY Giants

If I can get some of these guys healthy, I am very excited about the prospects of this season. I have an excellent receiving corp. Marshall is a top 3 fantasy receiver, and White would probably be redrafted in the 7-10 range. My depth there is not bad either, as the other three are definitely serviceable. I like my set of running backs too. I crushed this week thanks to strong performances by Avery and Westbrook, so now I stand at 5-3, but with the second most points in my league.

I want to buy a Cavalier King Charles Spaniel. Here is a baby boy pictured below. This breed is playful and easy to maintain. Perfect for me.

I probably have to wait on that for a little while. I’m concerned about house training a dog in the winter and that whole transition of becoming a pet owner, so this will probably have to wait until the spring, but gosh, I am excited.

Fantasy football is one of those things - politics, financial systems, sex - that not only causes people to over-inflate their own knowledge, but make them feel compelled to tell everyone about it. They think they know their stuff, but in reality, they know nothing at all. Sometimes, I wish that life was like a video game, and hovering over everyone’s head would be a graphic meter that measured everyone’s bullshit level. When they start talking about things like fantasy football, I would get to visually see the meter rise as if you dunked a thermometer into a heating pot of water.

Now, I don’t claim to know much about anything. In fact, I probably know relatively very little about politics or finance, and god knows I know nothing about sex. BUT, I am a fucking fantasy football expert. I would say that I am probably within the top 3 percentile of people that follow football and the math game associated with it. Fantasy sports has more to do with probability, expected value, variance, and team pairings than it does with knowing how tall Terrell Owens is (I’d guess 6′4″). The problem is, in my $1k money league, a third of the people are better than me, and the other two-thirds aren’t bad themselves. Put me in the office league that your dad works at, and I’d clean up more than a obsessive-compulsive cleaner at the nearest Chinese food restaurant.

ANYWAY, a quarter of the NFL season is gone. This is a good time to analyze the season. A 2 game stretch of good play could be an anomaly, but 4 games worth of data is a trend. If any of you are in any leagues, listen to my advice (especially if you are looking at trading), because it is pretty much the gospel. Here are some of my thoughts on the season thus far.

1. Jay Cutler is no fluke. He has a ton of weapons and the Denver defense got filleted by KC. He will be a top 5 QB by the end of the season and I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised if he’s ahead of a familiar names, Peyton Manning and Donovon McNabb. Drew Brees is also the real deal for pretty much the same reasons. He’s a little riskier than Cutler because of all the Saint injuries (Colston, Shockey, Bush’s nagging problems), but Sean Payton is one of the best offensive coaches in the game, and Brees will heave the ball 50 times a game if necessary - they even threw a 60 yard bomb the other day while up by 19 in the 4th quarter. His yards per attempt stat is pretty outrageous considering how many dump off and swing passes they throw.

1a. I’d be wary of guys like Phillip Rivers and Kurt Warner. I think Rivers is just running on the good side of variance at the moment; his top receivers are Chris Chambers and Vincent Jackson. Yikes. And eventually, SD will realize the key to winning will be handing the ball off to LT2. Easy game. Warner is … old and fragile. Odds he plays 14 games this season are like two to one.

2. Cincinnati, once a home for fantasy legends, has become a fantasy football obituary. Carson Palmer, as if things couldn’t get worse, might opt for elbow surgery to shelve him for the season. He’s no better than a risky low-end QB1 even if healthy. Something is not right with him. Chad Ocho Cinco was drafted as a top 15 WR, a little behind guys like Anquan Boldin, and a little ahead of Santana Moss. Both have had two games EACH this season that totals more fantasy points than Ocho Cinco’s entire season. TJ Housh has looked slow and defeated and I’d be surprised if he got to 1000 yards, 8 TDs. Their RBs have struggled mightily, even against a shoddy Cleveland defense. It’s a bad situation all around.

2a. Unsurprisingly, the WR landscape is littered with land-mines. Guys that were consensus top 10 at their position have become colossal busts for various reasons. Andre Johnson has more TD drops than catches. Braylon Edwards forgot how to catch a football in any situation. Marques Colston can’t put up big numbers if he’s not healthy enough to play. Randy Moss lost his Hall of Fame quarterback and any effort to run a good route. Picking receivers this year was like throwing a dart with a blindfold on.

3. Frank Gore is an absolute stud. He’s putting up 120 yards of total yards per game and has three scores. He fits the Martz offensive system like a glove and looks like a vintage Marshall Faulk. I’m going to say right now that Gore will lead all RBs in total yards (rushing and receiving) this year by at least 10%. I expect his offensive output to increase once Martz figures out even more ways to use him and because he plays in the cake division (NFC West), he has some tasty matchups coming up. He will also top 10 TDs this year. Pretty solid for a guy that was drafted around 11th in most leagues and in the mid second round in others (assuming standard 12 team league). If I had a guy like ADP, I’d trade him for maybe Gore and a low WR1 or high WR2 (Braylon Edwards?).

4. If you are a Larry Johnson owner, sell sell sell. His last game against Denver will be the best game he has all season. I’d offer him and perhaps your WR3 for a guy like Marshawn Lynch and call that a steal. I’d also sell high on guys like Michael Turner, Ronnie Brown, and Matt Forte. Some WRs to sell high? Santana Moss, Laverneus Coles, and Desean Jackson. I’d rather have Plaxico Burress than any of those guys.

5. Brandon Marshall is the best WR in the game at the moment and I don’t think it’s particularly close. There is a strong chance that B15 will finish in the top 3 in receptions, receiving yards, and receiving touchdowns. No matter how your league scoring is structured, that is fantasy gold. Some people mocked me for taking him as the 8th WR in our draft. Ironically, some of those guys are the guys that drafted WRs from point number 2a. After him, TO and Wayne are next in line. Steve Smith, Larry Fitzgerald, Calvin Johnson, and Greg Jennings are in that next tier. Going forward, I like Smith the most out of that group (his rapport with Delhomme is great) and I’d be leery of Jennings if Aaron Rodgers misses any time. The Cardinal and Lion receivers will get theirs because their running attack is non-existent and like a dirty whore, they are always playing from behind.

And to put my money where my mouth is, I recently have upped the ante in my wagers.

In addition to my $1000 league entry fee with payouts of $6k/$3k/$2k + $1k for high total points, I’ve made some side bets.

$500 with Luckybacon, total points.
$500 with AAismyfriend, total points and I get a 35 point handicap.
$200 with Triumph44, week 4, which I won already.
$200 with AAismyfriend, week 5, which is this week.

I hope I’m on the right side of variance.

I saw My Bloody Valentine on Tuesday. I must say, it’s like nothing I’ve ever been too. It’s the first show where I’ve had the wind knocked out of my from just being there. Scott says it best: it’s like standing 20 feet being the engine of a Boeing 757. You can actually feel the sound waves hitting your body. I was really skeptical as to why they would hand out ear plugs before you enter. I now understand. I ate brownies beforehand and at moments, I was immersed in the sound and light show. I don’t think I knew who I was or where I was at. It was awesome, to be sure.

I still haven’t bought Girl Talk tickets yet. He sold out in like two weeks and I couldn’t find time on my schedule to get them. As a result, I will have to resort to Stub Hub and overpay by 500%. Thats OK, though, because Girl Talk is completely worth it, and if it’s similar to his performance at APW, then I will be a happy camper.

Poker has been going well recently. So much so that I’m considering this epic dinner. It’s one of those things that only happens once in a decade or so, and probably the only point in my life that I’ll have disposable income to go (read: no real responsibilities). Still, it’s a pretty penny and I could do other fun things instead. Like travel.

Speaking of travel, I want to try to qualify for some European Poker Tour events. In particular, I’d like to make it to Prague, Copenhagen, or San Remo. I think I’ll definitely try to make to the event in the Bahamas because that is somewhat large in the poker community. C’mon poker gods! Give me some tournament luck please.

Clint Dempsey is much-maligned in this blog. But that has more to do with his coaches misplaying him than his actual skill. I think that he can be a serviceable attacking midfielder or right winger for the men’s national team, but the coaches keep playing him up top. Anyway, I think this is a “must read” for anyone even if you aren’t a fan of the beautiful game. It’s a five-part profile that is compiled into one flowing article. There is some good stuff in there and it reminds me that no matter what you do in life, we’re all kind of fighting the same battle.

OK, I’m not going to anoint Jozy Altidore as the savior for American football (ahem, soccer) after one half of impressive play. But he thoroughly overwhelmed a smaller Deportivo squad the other day. He has a rare combination of size and speed that no other American can match. On two occasions, he could’ve earned an assist and had a decent shot from distance himself. Combined with his 3 goal effort in Villareal’s last exhibition, I think we can expect big things from Altidore in Europe. Thus far, no American (besides goalkeepers) has made a real impact with any top flight European teams. Onyewu has made a nice contribution to Belgium’s Standard Liege and there have been some decent players in the German Bundesliga, but no one has starred. Altidore will change that.

Yanked Around was kind enough to upload a video of some of his highlights.

Back over on this side of the pond, my $1k fantasy football team is chugging along nicely. After I got beat worse than an ugly stepchild last week, my team has rebounded this week and I am feeling good for the rest of the season. Brandon Marshall is an absolute stud and at this rate looks like a top 3 wide receiver (perhaps only behind TO and Moss) on the field, and probably equally nutty as the two off of it. But Moss has Matt “I am a glorified Vinny Testaverde” Cassel throwing to him now, and he was even sulking in yesterday’s Patriots win. There were a few plays where he just didn’t run a route. I give him 3 weeks before he loses his mind, along with any desire to play competitive football. After Marhshall’s 18 catch, 170 yard, 1 touchdown day (along with 24 targets!), his self-proclamation of the NFL MVP doesn’t seem totally absurd any more.

My fantasy lineup also includes the dreamy Tony Romo, the hard-working Brian Westbrook, and the third wheeling Jessica Simpson. This is encouraging because with LT2’s and Brady’s injury, Peyton Manning and Joe Addai looking like poo poo, Steven Jackson running with the worst team in the NFL, Cincinnati imploding, and Braylon Edwards forgetting how to catch the ball, you could make an argument that I have 3 guys that are in the top 2 at their position - I’d say Romo and Manning are probably tied for best QB, and Westbrook is only behind the injury-prone Adrian Peterson.

My problem is that my team has no depth. An injury to one of my stars is season-crippling and it’s hard to play when you know that any given week, you’ll have a few zero’s on the scorecard. Thanks Sidney Rice and Anthony Fasano! What will make or break my season is if rookie tailback Jonathon Stewart can emerge as a consistent fantasy football threat. The good news is that he had a great game yesterday (14 carries, 77 yards, 2 touchdowns) and the coaching staff gives him the all-important goal line carries. The bad news is that, well, he’s still splitting his workload and generally, it’s a fantasy no-no to rely on guys that don’t play 100% of the time. But the NFL is evolving and nearly all teams split the running back duty. I can only think of 5 or 6 that don’t.

Anyway, I don’t think I’ve actually posted my fantasy football team yet, but here it is.

QB: Romo, Delhomme
RB: Westbrook, Stewart, K. Watson, Charles
WR: Marshall, R. White, Coles, Rice, Curry
TE: Clark, Fasano
K: Bironas
DEF: NY Giants

I’m probably going to drop one of my terrible backups (Curry maybe) for Matt Jones from Jacksonville. Michael Bush may be an interesting pick up too. In our touchdown-emphasized league, we start 1 QB, 2 RB, 3 WR, 1 RB/WR, 1 TE, 1 K, and 1 DEF. Like I said, I have no depth and I thoroughly blame that on drinking too much during my draft. Though I have to say, I helped Rob draft in his Sayreville league, and he has the best squad in the league - I think he lead the league in points both weeks which is sicker than sick. I need to become a professional fantasy football manager.