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For those of you not familiar with the story of the indirect conversation between Richard Sherman and Peyton Manning, please read this article about how Peyton Manning throws ducks.

As you may have heard, Peyton Manning admitted he throws ducks. I found it odd there was no footage of this, so I went about my blogging business and got some footage.

It could use some more frames, to make the animation smoother, but I don’t have that much free time. Someone else can improve it.

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 2013 NFL season is over, and here are the most accurate methods for predicting regular-season game results:

• ITP: 61%
• MPW: 61%
• HTW: 60%

ITP is listed first because it was one game better than MPW – the first year that MPW or MYW did not win.

This year saw the addition of YPP to the prediction methods. “YPP” stands for Yards Per Point and contends that the team that will win is the team that is most efficient at converting yards into points. It fared okay, not good but not bad either. (For the ideas behind the methods, please visit the Some Fun Site page.)

Okay, okay, it is 2014 at this point, but the results are headlines as 2013 because they match with the 2013 predictions made in 2013 for the 2013 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 2013”.

Before the bowl games commenced for this past college football season, I made some 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.

Results

Here is the list (correct predictions in green, incorrect in red):

Washington. St. over Colorado St.

USC over Fresno St.

San Diego St. over Buffalo

Tulane over ULL

East Carolina over Ohio

Oregon St. over Boise St.

Bowling Green over Pitt

Northern Illinois over Utah St.

Marshall over Maryland

Minnesota over Syracuse

Washington over BYU

Notre Dame over Rutgers

Cincinnati over UNC

Louisville over Miami

Michigan over Kansas St.

Navy over Middle Tennessee St.

Georgia Tech over Ole Miss

Oregon over Texas

Arizona St. over Texas Tech

Boston College over Arizona

UCLA over Virginia Tech

Mississippi St. over Rice

Texas A&M over Duke

Georgia over Nebraska

UNLV over N. Texas

South Carolina over Wisconsin

LSU over Iowa

Michigan St. over Stanford

Baylor over Central Florida

Alabama over Oklahoma

Missouri over Oklahoma St.

Clemson over Ohio St.

Vanderbilt over Houston

Ball St. over Arkansas St.

Florida St. over Auburn

And here are the results of the various forecasting methodologies (see the first year for description of the methodologies) (also, use the word methodologies if you want to sound important; methods would work just as well and is shorter) :

• Some Blog Site picks were 20-15 (better than last year)
• CBS120 picks were 20-15
• HTW was 20-15 for the official Home Team Wins (HTW)
• HTW was 20-15 for the Geographical Home Team (GHT)
• Isaacson-Tarbell Postulate (ITP) was 18-17 if using HTW
• ITP was 18-17 if using GHT

I won’t analyze the results as much as I did last year, mainly because I had more time and more sleep last year. But it was a good year all predictors – every method was over 50%. I just need to figure how to better predict outcomes. Especially against the spread.

Thoughts on the season’s results

1. That was a nice playoff round. Now let’s have the championship game between Michigan State and Florida State. I know the BCS has Auburn as the number 2 team, but it’s the playoffs – lose and you’re out. Too bad we’ll never know…
2. Remember what I said about the SEC last year? No? Good. Never mind.

Conferences

Since the strength of the conference has something to do with the results, I thought I would tally each conference’s bowl game record for the 2013 (and the first bit of 2014) season.

• AAC: 4-3
• ACC: 3-6
• Big 10: 2-5
• Big 12: 3-3
• Independent: 2-1
• MAC: 0-5
• MW: 3-3
• PAC12: 6-3
• SEC: 7-3
• Sun Belt: 3-1
• USA: 2-2

So the best conference was the Sun Belt (they won 75% of their bowl games) and the worst was the MAC (at 0%).

Or maybe the Sun Belt and Conf USA are the worst conferences because they sent the fewest teams to bowl games again this year.

Perhaps you could say that the SEC was the best because they had 10 teams go to bowls. Or you could say they were just the most popular conference.

Perhaps you could say that the ACC was the best because they won the championship. Or maybe the SEC is the best because they won the most bowls (at 7).

I don’t know what happened to the MAC. It’s hard to lose all 5 bowl games. At least they have company with the Big Ten and their 5 losses.

Next year: playoffs! Maybe I’ll get to put a bracket together. Don’t worry – there will still be plenty of meaningless bowl games to predict too.

Based on the popularity existence of last year’s article predicting bowl games in haiku form, I present to you this year’s all-haiku bowl game predictions. Still America’s only all-haiku college football bowl game predictions.

These are listed in order of date (earliest first). Some picks are whom I think will win, and some picks are whom I want to win. I’ll leave it to you, the reader, to decide which is which.
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I thought about what I sometimes do as a dad, and then for some reason I wondered how to make it a competition. If there were Olympic events for dad activities, here are some possibilities:

1. Throwing Height – tossing your 35-lb. child into the air (and catching him). Contestants are ranked by highest toss.

2. Throwing Reps – tossing your 35-lb. child into the air (and catching him). A toss must be at least two feet into the air to count. Contestants are ranked by number of reps.

3. Crib Crawl – You need something that was left under the crib of the sleeping baby. You must open the creaky door, walk to the crib (avoiding any noisy toys scattered on the floor), reach all the way under the crib to retrieve the item, and make your way back out. The child must remain asleep for at least 10 seconds after you shut the door in order for the attempt to count. Contestants are ranked by fastest time.

4. Back Breaker – While standing, you load as many children as you can on your torso (on your back, on your shoulders, in your arms). Each child must be touching only you or another child who is on you. Only your feet may touch the ground. Contestants are ranked by amount of weight carried.

5. Loaded Race – Load a 50-lb. child on your back and carry a 20-lb. child in each arm. Run 100 yards. Contestants are ranked by fastest time.

6. Stroller Push – Load a 30-lb. child in a standard umbrella-type stroller. Push the stroller for up to 10 yards before letting go (before the foul line). Stroller must remain on the track for the push to count. Contestants are ranked by longest distance of stroller travel.

7. Stroller Race – Load a 30-lb. child in a standard umbrella-type stroller. Run for 2 miles while pushing the stroller. At least one hand must be touching the stroller at all times. Contestants are ranked by fastest time.

8. Unloading Race – There are 3 sleeping children (50 lbs, 30 lbs, and 20 lbs) buckled in car seats in a minivan. You must put each one in the correct bed with the correct blanket and teddy bear (all of which are tossed in the back of the minivan). You may unload the children in any order, but you may not unload another child if any child inside the house is awake (you must get him back to sleep first). Contestants are ranked by fastest time.

I was going to make it 10 events (a dadecathlon), but I wasn’t happy with anything else I came up with. Leave a comment if you have any ideas for the final 2 events.

Here are some things that popped into my mind during the last few weeks of running. When you’re running for a couple of hours with no headphones, you get a lot of time to think about various topics. The problem is remembering them later.

• Sand and stones work their way into my socks and shoes while I am running, but they never work their way out.

  Someone should design socks with the fibers oriented upwards so that small objects that get into the socks get ratcheted out.

  Although… maybe the problems is that my leg hairs are oriented downward, and that ratchets objects down.

  Someone should conduct a study – do men with hairy ankles get more nuisance objects in their socks/shoes than men with shaved ankles?
  Secondary study – do women get fewer nuisance objects in their socks/shoes than men?
  Are there enough women with hairy ankles to conduct a third study?

• Track meet sprint events rely too much on reaction times for the overall times. Why do the runners have to wait for the gun to fire at some inconsistent time?

  I propose that the starter’s gun is replaced by something more predictable, like the red-red-red-green light sequence found in drag racing and Mario Kart. Then the start wouldn’t be so surprising. Do you want to award the fastest runner or the runner with the best reaction time?

• Subdivisions should have different signs for different entrances.

  It was disconcerting the first time this happened to me: I had been running for a while. I saw an entrance sign for a subdivision but didn’t think too much of it. I ran for another minute or two, saw the same sign, and wondered just how few steps I had taken during the last minute.

  Have different signs. Rather than two signs that each say “Briarwood Villas”, have a “Briarwood Villas East” and “Briarwood Villas West” or something. That way I know I have made progress.

• I know some schools don’t allow kids to wear Heelies, but I haven’t seen a race that has banned them.

  It would be fun to find a hilly course on smooth roads. Then you could sprint up a hill and coast down, sprint, coast, etc.

• If you see a guy running without a shirt, don’t assume he is trying to show off. Sure, there are some who are vain, but there are other guys who just have chafing issues.

  On that note, here’s a public service announcement: I have heard the 3M brand Nexcare (active, waterproof edition) bandages stick better than the Band-Aid brand Clear Spots.

• And speaking of shirts… if you are reading this and you are in charge of ordering shirts for a race, please consider the old-fashioned long-sleeved T-shirt of good quality. It used to be that the local 5Ks would give the runners cotton short-sleeved T-shirts, and longer races (e.g. marathons and half marathons) would hand out long-sleeved cotton T-shirts.

  Nowadays, every race hands out tech shirts, either long- or short-sleeved. The problem is that I have a dozen different shirts I can wear running, but only 2 or 3 that I can wear normally, going out and about like taking the kids to the zoo or going to the store or whenever you would normally wear a T-shirt.

  I suppose I could wear a tech shirt out and about, but it seems a bit ostentatious to me. Plus some of them use such a thin fabric. That may be great for competing, but not watching football or whatever.

  Race organizers: bring the pendulum back to the middle. Can some of you take the extra money you would have spent for tech fabric and just upgrade the quality of long-sleeve cotton shirt instead?

  Thanks.

I thought about writing something when Riley Cooper first made the news during the off-season. His name resurfaced in the news last week because of an altercation during practice, and I thought now might be a good time to write about it.

This piece is not to condemn or condone anything – just my explanation of how it happened. As a response to the people on the radio who were wondering “How can anyone in this day and age mess up so badly? I mean, everyone knows you just don’t say that.”

And to those of you who don’t know what’s going on, Riley Cooper is a player in the NFL. He is a white guy, and he went to a country-music concert and got somewhat intoxicated and got in trouble for yelling a bad word at a security guard, who is a black guy. The bad word in this case was a strong racial word. Mr. Cooper apologized for his speech and actions. End of synopsis.

I heard people wondering why he thought he could say that. Is he secretly racist? or was this just a slip-up?

I’m going to say he’s just a product of his culture.

The culture in this case is the NFL. It could apply to the NBA as well, but not the NHL (more on that later).

Let me use an analogy here. I’m going to use one even if you don’t let me.

Imagine you grow up in Michigan, then you move to Texas. Your accent is different from theirs. Theirs, of course, is funny, and you vow to yourself that you do not want to sound like them. So you make a conscious effort to avoid speaking like they do. You do fine for a few years, then one day when you are at a party with some of your Michigan friends, you let your guard down for one minute and some Texan-sounding speech slips out.

Does anyone blame you for sounding like a Texan? Or is it expected that, after a few years, you’ll have absorbed some of the culture around you?

That’s how I see the Riley Cooper incident. From my understanding, the black professional athletes toss around racist terms like candy at a parade. Only to each other, of course. A white guy like Cooper doesn’t participate in that, but it’s around him all the time – he is bound to hear that word every day. On the field, in the weight room, in the locker room.

Over the years, he has gradually absorbed some of that culture. Normally, he knows enough to restrain himself and not let that speech slip out. But it’s there in his subconscious. All it took was some alcohol to remove some of the restraint and bring the subconscious more to the forefront.

That’s my explanation. I’ll let other people debate the rightness and wrongness of the people involved.

I mentioned the NHL earlier, that an athlete there wouldn’t get into the trouble that Mr. Cooper did. Not because they are that much less racist, but because the culture is different. A white American on an NHL team is not going to slip up and offend a black American, but I bet he would offend a Russian or a Swede. Because any Russian (or Swedish, or whatever other language happens to be prevalent in that team/league) he learns will likely include some unsavory words.

With whom is a person spending his time? What do his ears hear all day? Don’t be surprised when his speech starts to match.