Some Blog Site

The recent Super Bowls have had awful logos, but someone finally noticed and fixed it for next year. Or maybe they got a new designer – one who cared about readability and meaning.

In case you’re not familiar with how they name Super Bowls, they use Roman numerals. Not sure why, but it’s their thing.

So Super Bowl 54 is really Super Bowl LIV. And here’s the logo:

See how it has the L and the I and the V?

But that’s wrong – that’s actually the logo for Super Bowl LV.

You see, they like to put the image of the Lombardi trophy in the Super Bowl logo also, and it is mostly shaped like an “I”.

It would make sense for me if they did that on purpose, but they’re putting a thing that looks like an “I” where an “I” should be for Roman numerals, but they don’t want it to actually be an “I”.

That’s not how logos are supposed to work.

And here’s Super Bowl LIV, in case you’re wondering:

To me, that looks like Super Bowl LIIV. And that’s even worse because it’s not valid Roman numerals.

But, fret no more – they fixed it for Super Bowl LVI. Someone finally realized they shouldn’t have the numbers be the same size and color as the trophy if they didn’t want the trophy to actually be a number.

Different colors, overlapping instead of in line – no confusion. Much better. Give that new designer a raise.

In case you’re wondering, it’s been bad for the last few years. Super Bowl 50 and before were fine, but they used this bad style of logo for 51-55. I should have written about this before; I would have had an annual item going.

Side note: I am disappointed that Super Bowl LV was not held in Las Vegas.

Another side note: maybe it’s just the fact that they both prefer goatees and berets, but Bruce Arians and Jamie Hyneman remind me of each other.

Who decides what groups of things are called?

I saw one of those lists of odd names for groups of animals, like a clowder of kittens, and wondered why that name stuck.

And what does one have to do to propose a name for a group of things when that group doesn’t have a specific name yet. I’ve tried to find an animal that doesn’t have a collective noun, but everyone has already thought of all the animals I could think of.

Let me know if you can not find a certain animal that a website somewhere doesn’t already have or propose a collective noun.

Then I noticed that there are terms only for living things. I thought there might be an opportunity to name a group of something not living. But what non-living things gather in groups?

Clouds! – clouds can gather in groups, maybe. Certainly not intentionally, but the wind might corral them in one place sometimes. Alas, a quick search on the interwebs informed me that “a billow of clouds” has been proposed.

Dust bunnies also gather in groups, but I figured they’d be called “a colony” because regular bunnies already use that term.

Other things that gather in groups are N64 game cartridges, cereal boxes, comic books, and pillows.

I supposed one could create and propose group names for each of those items, plus countless other inanimate objects. The only one that I was inspired to name was for pillows. In keeping with the spirit of some of the other collective terms (a blessing of unicorns, an intrusion of cockroaches, a flamboyance of flamingoes, etc.), I am proposing that a group of pillows be called a “puddle”.

No real reason, that was just the term that popped into my head. After “pile”, but “pile” was not really memorable.

There you go – a group of pillows is called a puddle.

So let it be written.

No blog post this week. I’m busy preparing for the Super Bowl.

Not really much for me to prepare though. Really this week has been about battening down the hatches for the bitter winter weather moving in, plus getting started on taxes (CARES act stuff plus some unemployment is making this a fun year for taxes), plus lack of inspiration (I have ideas, just not able to get them together). Everything’s conspiring together to make this a week without what I consider a real blog post.

I was very tempted to call it Fall Fotos, but I didn’t. And now that’s in your head anyway.

Here are some pictures I liked, to represent what things can be like around here in the fall. The first two are around my property and the last 4 are at a park.

It is time once again to update Some Blog Site readers on the results of my Some Fun Site project to create a more accurate football prediction method.
The 2020 NFL season is over, and here are the most accurate methods for predicting regular-season game results (wins-losses):

• MPW: 68%
• MPWHFA: 64%
• ITP: 64%

Partway through the season, it was looking like the Home Field Advantage factor wasn’t helping the MPWHFA method much, but it came through at the end.

If you think you have a formula that can predict the winner of an NFL game better than 63.1% of the time, let me know and I’ll add it to the list.
(For the ideas behind the methods, please visit the Some Fun Site page.)

Okay, okay, it is 2021 at this point, but the results are headlines as 2020 because they match with the 2020 predictions made in 2020 for the 2020 season. Also, the results are not all-haiku, just the predictions were. A more accurate title would be “Results for the All-Haiku Predictions made in 2020”.

Before the bowl games commenced for this past college football season, I made some predictions and some more predictions. Here, for your reading enjoyment, is the tally of those predictions. Note that the results are not in haiku form, in contrast to the predictions.
Read the rest of this entry »

There is a certain infographic that made its rounds a while ago and was a popular way for people to describe why it’s important for everyone to wear a mask.

But the analogy bothered me.

First of all, I didn’t like it because it was crude and used urine to make a point. Not what I wanted to work with, but that is what the internet has served up.

Second of all, I didn’t like the attitude with which it was presented.

Third of all, it’s wrong.

It might have been right at the time it was made, based on what was known then. But now that we know more, it’s time to update the analogy.

Read the rest of this entry »