Bear with me

So after getting my hopes up after last week’s game against the Lions, they came crashing down yesterday when the Bears fell apart against the Bengals.  Yesterday’s game was the first one I’d actually been able to see, and there wasn’t much about it that I liked.  For the most part, I thought the defense did pretty well.  They were put in some tough positions after some turnovers, but for most of the game, they really didn’t do that badly.  They kept the running game in check, but I don’t think they were able to put enough pressure on the QB.  Things fell apart at the end, but they had been on the field for most of the day.  The defense can’t do it all.

The Bears’ offense, well that didn’t look any different from what I’d seen last year.  Something is definitely wrong when I find myself happier when the Bears are on defense because I think they have a better chance of scoring than when on offense.  Orton had a horrible game and threw five interceptions.  At least he is a rookie, and Harrington and Culpepper can’t use that excuse.  It’s now Favre’s turn to throw five picks in a game.  Most of Orton’s interceptions were a result of bad decisions, and only one was really not completely on him.  The first pick of the day probably should have been caught, but it was slightly behind the receiver, and ended up getting tipped up in the air, and dramatically caught by the Bengals.  The good news is that Orton really can’t do much worse, it’s still early in the season, and the rest of the division is struggling just as much.

I guess the Bears are a Jeckyl and Hyde team this year.  One week they play great and rack up 38 points, and the next they fall off a cliff and can’t even get a first down for most of the game.  If they play bad like this in their next game against the Browns, I’m going to have to back off my prediction of at least 9 wins, but for now, I’m going to stick with it. 

Quick Thoughts 9/23

• Iowa State plays Army tonight at 7PM on ESPN2.  I’m not going to say much about this game because it really should be an easy game for the Cyclones.  My prediction is ISU 38 – Army 10.
• The Bears play the Bengals on Sunday.  I’m excited because the local CBS affiliate is airing that game, and it will be the first one of the season I get to see.  I doubt Chicago will put up 38 points again this week, but I’m still predicting them to win.  The Bengals have done well so far this year, but they have not played very good teams yet.  I expect Chicago’s defense to tone the Bengal’s offense down a notch.  I predict Bears 24 – Bengals 17.
• I just added a poll to yesterday’s post.  Be sure to go back and cast a vote.
• Usually, I listen to music when writing my blog entries.  From now on, in my “Quick Thoughts” entries, I will post some lyrics from a song and if you know the song it’s from and the artist, post the answer in the comments.  Please try not to use search engines to figure out the answer though.  So, with that, here is today’s lyric: “Maybe I’m just blind.” 

Wash Your Hands!

Yes, I’m a bit of a germophobe.  I don’t take it to extremes, but I always make a point not to touch the door with my bare hand in a public restroom.  That’s why I  prefer paper towels over those air dryers.  With the air dryers you have to either suck it up and touch the door or wait for someone else to open the door for you.  I hate making that decision.  It just amazes me that some people will come out of the bathroom stalls and proceed directly to the door without washing.  I sure hope that extremely thin toilet paper found in public restrooms did its job.  That is just the absolute worst.  I’m never as surprised when guys don’t wash after using the urinal, but it still disgusts me.  Luckily, I’d say over 95% of the people I see in the restrooms at work, wash their hands.

Anyway, a study was released that found only about 75% of men wash their hands after using public restrooms.   I found a lot of in-depth statistics from this study on the washup.org website.  They said the worst results were at an Atlanta Braves game where only 63% of men washed their hands.  I think that’s a surprisingly high result actually, and would have expected it to be under 50%.  You just don’t see many people washing their hands after using the “trough” at stadiums.  The same goes for bars.  There is no way the percentages would be that high if they had monitored bars and other places that serve alcohol.  I think back to some of the college dive bars in Ames and what they had for facilities.  Most did not have soap, and I can recall one that had some problems with the toilet one night, so people were using the sink instead.  In that case, it was probably best not to wash.  I theorize that number of hand washers at an establishment is inversely proportional to the amount of alcohol being served.  What do you think?

Do you wash your hands after using the bathroom?
	Yes, always
	Sometimes
	Only after a #2
	Never
Free polls from Pollhost.com

 

Pluck

I’m trying out a new RSS feeder today called Pluck.  Does anyone else use this or any other RSS feeder software?  I’d like to hear your thoughts.  So far it seems decent, but it annoys me that some sites update their webpages, but their RSS XML feeds are very stale.  That kind of defeats the purpose of using the RSS feed. 

Quick Thoughts 9/20

• I was flipping through the channels and came across a pretty funny music video tonight.  I couldn’t figure out who it was, since I didn’t catch it from the beginning.  It looked like a home video of an 80’s hair band called Sphynkter.  I was totally shocked to find out that it was the Backstreet Boys and their song “Just Want You to Know.”  The video was hilarious, but both Holly and I both agreed that the song wasn’t very good.   
• I had only watched one previous episode of Rock Star INXS before tonight, but decided to watch the finale.  Who has a name like J.D. Fortune anyway?  I highly doubt that is his given name.  Anyway, I think he sounds an awful lot like Michael Hutchence, so that will help.  I thought Marty had too much of a David Bowie look going on, and I find that disturbing. 
• I caught the last half of a program on the Science Channel about parallel universes.  Apparently there is this M-theory that they think can explain the singularity at the beginning of the big bang and follow time back before that even.  It has something to do with the eleventh dimension.  This was pretty deep stuff and it might have made more sense had I seen the entire program.  That kind of stuff just fascinates me.
• Thanks to everyone for posting comments yesterday.  I’m more inclined to write when I get feedback.  My dad reads my blog about every day, but I can’t get him to post comments.  I don’t know what else to do, since talking about TV couldn’t even get him to post.  He usually has two to three VCRs going taping all the shows he likes that are on at the same time.  So he knows his TV.  Maybe calling him out will get him to post.

TV Talk

I really don’t watch that many prime time network television shows.  There are a handful of shows that I am loyal to, but sometimes it feels like work to make sure I don’t miss any episodes.  About two years ago, I started watching all of the CSI shows.  Well that right there eats up three hours a week.  I am very close to not watching CSI: Miami anymore.  This would be an excellent show if it didn’t star David Caruso.  I don’t know of anyone that likes him, and actually some CSI fans won’t watch this show at all because of him.  Fortunately, I do like the supporting cast, (especially Emily Procter) and they make it tolerable to watch.  Something was different with the directing though in last night’s episode, and it really annoyed me.  There were way too many slow motion scenes and “cutesy” film tricks.  It’s like they were trying too hard to be creative, and it just ended up looking forced.  If they kill off any of the supporting cast, I’m done with that show. 

Survivor started again last week.  I taped it, but when I went to watch it, I found that I had recorded static.  I located the source of the problem, so that shouldn’t happen again, but in the meantime, I missed the first episode.  Luckily, the CBS website has quite a bit of video from that episode and I got a good feel for what happened.  I’d hate to say it, but I think Survivor is starting to get stale.  Not many shows last eleven seasons, but when you pack two seasons into each year, you just end up burning it out due to over-exposure.  I’m just not getting excited to watch Survivor like I did the first few seasons. 

While it seems to be getting cruder with every episode, The Family Guy is still my favorite show on TV.  No other show makes me laugh out loud so much.  All the references to pop culture things I remember from my childhood are priceless.  One of my favorites is when the Kool-Aid Man bursts through the courtroom wall.  OH YEAH!  I’m so happy the Family Guy is back on the air. 

Superfan Kahn's Thoughts 9/18

I predicted the Bears would beat the Lions, but I had no idea they would totally dominate the game like they did.  My prediction was 13–6 Bears, and the final was 38–6.  38 points!  And when I look at the box score, 24 of those were actually scored by the offense.  It looks like they could have had 6 more points as well, but had missed FG’s.  Even though I predicted the Lions’ point total correctly, they actually did get a TD, but missed the PAT.

The Bears have a lot to be optimistic about after today.  Their running game gained almost 200 yards, and Orton didn’t have any interceptions.  The defense had five interceptions, one for a TD, and two sacks.  I have Chicago’s defense in one of my fantasy football leagues, and today’s performance turned in 35 points for me; better than any offensive player on my team.  The Bears played very good today, while the rest of their division really sucked it up. 

Today was the beginning of the end of Joey Harrington, I’m afraid.  It isn’t too often a QB throws five interceptions in a game, but he did exactly that today.  Don’t worry Joey, you have some company in this fine category because the Vikings’ QB Daunte Culpepper also threw five picks today.  I don’t think Jonathan Quinn or Craig Krentzel even have that accomplishment on their resumes. 

Next week will be an interesting match-up against the very hot Cincinnati Bengals.  Hopefully the Bears can keep the Bengals’ offense under control, and can score 20+ points again themselves.  I’ll write more about this game later in the week.  In the meantime, I’m going to enjoy today’s victory.  Bear down!