sorting out the national championship

Notre Dame is the new #1. They have one game remaining, on the road against USC. If they win, they're in.

The SEC Championship Game is set: Alabama vs Georgia.

They still have to play Auburn and Georgia Tech respectively.

Assuming Notre Dame, Alabama and Georgia all win next week, it will be clean and easy. Notre Dame vs SEC Champ in the title game.

But if Notre Dame loses, it opens a can of worms. And if the SEC Champ loses next week, then it's anybody's guess.

illinois at hawaii

My Favorite Holiday

Mrs. Hoagie Central loves holidays. And her favorites are Christmas and Halloween. I'm generally not big into holidays. But I do have a favorite.

Thanksgiving.

It puts all other holidays to shame. Let's count the ways.

1. It's the best meal of the year. Turkey, dressing, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, green bean casserole, various family favorites. And multiple pies. Somehow this meal is huge and yet strikes that balance between delicious and not junk food.

2. Getting stuffed and watching football. Is there anything better than eating too much and sitting on the couch to watch football. The one time a year it's okay to fall asleep watching football. And it's glorious.

3. I appreciate that this holiday is not about gift giving or going out to party. This is about family coming together, saying what they're thankful for, and cooking together. It's the most genuine of the holidays. And it's a uniquely American holiday.



For a long time, I've never really enjoyed opening presents. It's always sort of awkward and it feels cheap. I do enjoy giving presents and now that I have a kid, that's what Christmas is going to be all about, so Christmas will probably get better and better.

But New Years? Halloween? I don't really care for any of them.

Thanksgiving will always be a winner.

Curling: subbing week one

So I didn't sign up for the current 5-week session. It's $120 and I figured with the holidays coming and a major purchase on the horizon, it wasn't worth it. I can still play in the session after New Year's.

However, it seems that I might get to play a majority of the session anyways, as team members have some conflicts. Tonight I was asked to sub.

We lost 8-6. We were down one, in the final end with the hammer, but couldn't get it done.

I played like crap all night. There was another sub on our team, and since he had a lot of experience he was the skip. He's a good player but I didn't like the shots that he called for me. And as vice-skip, I should have been calling the shots for him, but he called his own. So that was annoying. But not as annoying as...

Our opponent was McSerious.

He is the fucking worst. Here's all the annoying shit he does:

• he is always the loudest person on the ice, unnecessarily so
• he makes a big deal about pointing with his arm extended to line up his shot, as if he's Babe Ruth calling his shot
• he coaches the other people on his team as if he's a curling legend, but he's not that great at shot-making
• i found out his name is Barry--what a dick name
• during a lull, I asked McSerious and our skip how long they've been playing. our skip said seven years. McSerious said nothing. So I asked him again, "And how long have you been playing?" He pretended not to hear me. And then finally said, "Thirty five." Now he looks like he's in his early forties. At first I wondered if he as maybe 50, and had been playing since he was 15. But then I realized he meant he started when he was thirty five. But since I don't know his age, that doesn't tell me how long he's been playing. My skip mentioned he thought Barry had been playing for about seven years too. Which checks out that he looks like he could be 42. So he could have said seven, but said 35. The reason it matters, is this is a rookie league for people playing under three years. I understand if someone is looking for a sub...but he was on this team last session. So it doesn't seem like he's subbing. And even if he is, he should realize this is the rookie league and tone it down
• He's the only one who uses a stopwatch to measure the speed of the stones. This isn't the fucking Olympic qualifiers dude. 
• Oh yeah, and of course he takes forever, so we only got to play 7 ends instead of the full 8

Anyways, we couldn't beat him tonight, but we beat him two weeks ago. He's a dick.

#orangehush

Brit's Fantasy Football and Advanced Probability

Brit is in an 8-team fantasy football league. If every team played every team every week, these would be their records:

Possum 44-19
Brit 38-25
lily 36-27
Bellabloo 30-33
Colts 29-34
Lauren 29-34
Texan 28-35
Chad 18-45

Not bad. A solid second place.

So what are the standings through 9 weeks?

Possum is where you'd expect, but Brit and Lily drop 4 and 5 spots. Lauren, a team with a losing record in totality, is 6-3, just one game off the leader.

So what are the odds of a 38-25 team having a 3-6 record after nine games?

I tried to figure it out. I really did. And got stumped. So I asked reddit.com/r/math

And their answers were way over my head:

I have no idea what to do with that. Other than to say it's probably around 8 or 9%.

For the record, here is her roster this week:

Steven Jackson, Harvin, Sproles, Eli all on the bench. I think Big Ben and Heath go bananas on the Chiefs D. Todd Haley running up the score.

The amount of stupid comments here is rage inducing.

I'm shocked and dumbfounded that there are people who would get mad at a father for missing a game for his child's birth.

Daylight Saving visually

The red lines mark my approximate waking hours.
The orange lines mark my approximate commute.

Year-round, my morning commute is never in the dark. Yet because we just went off DST, my evening commute in the winter is in the dark.

As for waking hours, in the morning I'm never outside so it doesn't affect me. But during the evenings, I enjoy the long summer days. I would like if the days went longer in the winter too.

To sum up, I like daylight saving time. So much so, that I wish it went year-round, which is the same effect as just shifting all time zones by one hour.

The Math of a Victory, part two

Two months ago I posted this. 

I said that we could start with 237 Obama, 206 Romney, which leaves 95 tossup votes. With Romney needing 64 out of those 95.

He got zero.

Two months ago, I said he needed a semi-miracle. He didn't get it.

And yet for the last two months, all the media could report was that this was a tossup. And despite Nate Silver's name being all over everything, it seemed that no one with a microphone could go to fivethirtyeight.com and see that this wasn't a tossup.

What To Watch Tonight

via Deadspin

Monday's Sunset

Unretouched, straight out of my crappy point and shoot.

Election Prediction

Curling: Championship Game

We were 4-0. They were 3-1. Their only loss was to us.

We won the toss. Got the hammer first. We were red.

Nobody scored in the first end. It was the only blanked end that I've ever seen--I've played over 100 ends.At this point, I felt good.

Then they scored 3, and 2.

It's Yellow 5, Red 0 with five ends to play. Yikes.

We scored in the fourth, to cut it to a four-point lead with four to play.

Then in the fifth, they were sitting pretty and I hit the shot of the year. A double takeout. Removed both yellow and left my red right in the middle of the house. Our skip added a red. Yellow 5, Red 3. Three to play.

In the sixth, they had a huge cluster up front. We had a couple shots at the end, but no place to put them. We were lucky they only got one out of it. Yellow 6, Red 3. Two to play. I told the team let's get two and two.

We dominated the 7th. With each skip having one shot left, we had three in the house. And we had the hammer. And this time we had the stones up front, so they didn't really have a shot. They had to go wide around the corner, and managed to knock one of our red stones out. Our skip couldn't add anything. So it's Yellow 6, Red 5. One last end. For all the marbles.

My shots sucked. With each skip having one shot left, we were sitting one point. I figured a tie was basically a win, because we owned the better record. But sure enough our skip put one more right in the house. So now we're down one point, but sitting two in the house. Except they have one last shot. I'm standing by, ready to sweep it through the house if it crosses the line that runs through the button.

She lets it go...and I can't tell. At one point I thought it might be heavy, then I thought it might be light. And it finished right in front of our red stone. The yellow was the only one touching the four-foot circle.

Yellow 7, Red 5. Final.

So we finished 4-1. And so did they. Except they got their picture taken, a trophy, and their names on a plaque.

1.38%

That's the probability of both me and my wife facing Doug Martin this week. What have we done to deserve this?

Awful Illini

We lost to Indiana. At home.

Pitiful.

But wait. We had 80 more offensive yards. We had more time of possession. How did we lose by 14?

Short answer: We had more penalties and turnovers.

This was the first Illinois game I got to watch this year, so here's the long answer:

1. Up 7-0, personal foul on our defense. Instead of 3rd and 5 from the ILL 41, it's 1st down at our 26. Hoosier touchdown four plays later.

2. Up 14-7, personal foul on our defense. Instead of 4th and 6 at the IND 31, its 1st down near midfield. Hoosier touchdown three plays later.

3. THIS WAS THE FUCKING WORST. At 14-14, Illinois defense forces a punt. Illinois muffs at it the Illini 22, Indiana recovers. Our defense doesn't let them get a first down on three plays. On 4th and 1, Indiana lines up to go for it, except everyone in Memorial Stadium knows they're just trying to draw us offsides. And what do we do. We jump offsides. Give them a first down. Hoosier touchdown on the next play.

This doesn't deserve a bullet point, but down 14-21, with 40 seconds to go until halftime, Illinois faces a 4th and 11 at the Indiana 36. I know it's 4th and long, but there's so little time left that if you give them the ball at their own 36, what can they do with it? Not anything more than we could do with it at their 36. What do we do? Punt. Touchback. Gain of 16 yards. And the kneel to halftime.

4. Down 14-21, we fumble at the ILL 22. Defense holds again, and they only get a field goal.

Down 14-24, we have first and goal at their 7. Rush to the 6. Rush to the 1. Rush to the 3. Field goal. Cut  the deficit to 7. We had two more chances to get a touchdown but couldn't move the ball. Our defense finally bends too far and allows another Hoosier touchdown.

Except for the penalties, our defense played well enough for us to win.
Our turnovers basically gave them ten points and our offense was not good enough to overcome that.

Awful.