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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 2024 NFL season is over, and here are the most accurate methods for predicting regular-season game results (wins-losses):

• ITP: 67%
• MPWHFA: 65%
• MYW: 65%

This was the first time in a few years that MPWHFA was not the top percentage. The NFL is setup to promote parity, with the draft setup in reverse order and teams’ schedules setup with like teams. So there shouldn’t be a big disparity with a bunch of teams at the top and a bunch at the bottom. But this year was an outlier, with more good teams having really good records and more bad teams having really bad records. Not by a huge margin, but noticeable. And that situation favored the ITP method, which follows win trends.

If you think you have a formula that can predict the winner of an NFL game better than 62.7% 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.)

There was news recently that Jeff Bezos was to spend $600 million on his wedding. He denied it, which these days is part of the PR script for modern celebrities or companies – something gets leaked, the main character denies it, then it turns out to be true. But in this case the supposed wedding date came and went and there were no follow-up reports of said wedding actually happening. Which if a wedding did cost $600,000,000 you would think it would be hard to hide it.

Anyway, before it was denied and subsequently didn’t happen, there were a lot of reactions to the news. So now you’re getting my thoughts on the matter.

My first thought was how do you spend that much money on a wedding? Maybe buying a private island and making that the destination for a destination wedding, but the reports said it would happen in Aspen CO.

After digesting various reactions, my conclusion is that it would have been good for him to spend that much money on a wedding. Yes, it is ridiculous, but he has ridiculous amounts of money so that should be par for the course.

No matter what you think of Bezos or other billionaires, the fact is that he has that money. The options now are he can keep it or he can spend it. Of those options, isn’t spending it the better choice for the general economy?

I imagine the money would have gone to a number of local businesses in the Aspen area. Certainly not all the money, but even a small percentage of half a billion dollars would be noticeable to area businesses. And yes other areas besides Aspen would probably need it more, but my point is the money is moving from a billionaire to non-billionaires.

Some of you may be thinking that sounds like trickle-down economics and you don’t like trickle-down economics, but again what’s the alternative – you’d rather Bezos keep that money to himself? I know some people may have other ideas of what should be done via new laws or such, but I’m looking at this based on how things are today.

And yes, he could give the money away to charity like Gates or Buffet are doing, but I see that as a subset of the spending option. Or maybe I should call it the not-keeping option. Either way, you’re giving money to someone else for them to do something with it. The difference between charity and not is if the giver receives a tangible benefit. But to the general economy, there’s not much difference – $600m moves from one person to an area. Better the money moves that direction than the other.

Today is a holiday, and I’m not posting anything today.

Today is a holiday, and I’m not posting anything today.

Normally by this time of the year I would have made up predictions for all the college football bowl games. But with the change of formats it’s not the same. The addition of the 12-team playoff has made for a more interesting regular season, along with the expansion of the Big Ten (and other conference shufflings).

But the downside to all that is the diminishing of the importance or relevance or meaning of the non-playoff bowl games. It was bad last year when so many players opted out of bowl games, and some coaches too, such that many of the teams in bowls weren’t the same teams they were during the regular season. So it’s basically pointless to assess matchups anymore, except for the playoff teams where everyone involved is still trying to win their game.

And now the college football bowl post-season is just like any other sport – fill out a playoff bracket. I don’t participate in brackets for other sports, so I don’t anticipate doing this every year. But I haven’t been inspired with any other ideas for the CFP yet so here it is.

First Round
Texas over Clemson
Tennessee over Ohio State
Penn State over SMU
Indiana over Notre Dame (based on common opponent of Purdue)

Quarterfinals
Texas over Arizona State
Oregon over Tennessee (no more Rocky Top)
Boise State over Penn State (Jeanty redemption tour)
Georgia over Indiana

Semifinals
Oregon over Texas
Georgia over Boise State

Finals
Oregon over Georgia

We’ll see how it goes.

There are some things that are tradition at Christmas but are not correct. Here is what I have noticed, either on my own or once someone pointed it out to me. Hopefully this doesn’t come across as bah-humbug-ish.

• The wise men came from one country. They are not from different countries. Around here they are usually portrayed as 3 guys of different ethnicities, which implies they were from different places but came together on their mission to follow the star. But they were from the same place so they should have been of similar features. Historically they were thought to be Persian, so that’s what I think of them as.
• I’m not going to correct the idea that there were three wise men, because everyone already knows that we don’t know the number. But if you’re going to have wise men in a scene you have to pick some specific number, so you could argue with any number that’s chosen. Except one. If someone says there was 1 wise man then you can argue that. So let’s just stick with 3 and not argue about it. Feel free to argue about if the wise men were at the Nativity though.
• The angels did not sing. They spoke to the shepherds. As far as I can tell, angels are not the singing type. I even checked Revelation, and there it describes the angels as speaking not singing.
• We do know that Jesus was born at night. This point is not to correct something that’s traditionally wrong but rather pointing out that the tradition is factually correct. It’s not just because of the star, although the star is why all the Nativity scenes are portrayed at night. That, and enough other things portray the Nativity at night (such as the carol Silent Night).

Now you too can be a hit at parties and step in with a “technically” or “well actually” to keep things right.

I became familiar with this song when we watched season 24 of NBC’s The Voice. It was performed by a teenage girl, which I assume was the target audience of this song when it was originally recorded.

I get what the song was going for, and I don’t want to detract from that. But for those of us who aren’t teenage girls, I re-wrote the song to represent how they can sometimes appear to their families.

I also just watched Inside Out 2 so I think this fits in with that. And I don’t want it to come across as all negative, but the stereotypes just lent themselves to these lyrics.

I’m impossible
I will answer with a sigh
I’ve got attitude
Yeah I roll my eyes every day
I will hold a grudge
I don’t hear anything you say
I’m so sensitive
Yeah I’m impossible today

I put my headphones on, show you I’m on my own
I turn my filter on, I’ll show you that I am

repeat

I was going to go with “I’m emotional” but I think “impossible” replaces “unstoppable” better from a phonical standpoint.

Before looking up the lyrics for this blog post, I was only familiar with the chorus. Now having looked at the verses, I see the song has a different meaning than what I initially understood. And it takes me back to my earlier years with a similar song.

The song I think is most similar to this one is “I Am a Rock” by Simon and Garfunkel. Musically, it’s not close. But the lyrics talk about the same thing – putting on a stoic face to avoid dealing with hurt feelings.