Real frustrations

Fantasy football is…frustrating. Don't get me wrong, I like my team. I mean, I really like my team. Like, too much. One of my problems in week one was overconfidence in the players I drafted. I was confident that Adrian Peterson would outscore Chris Johnson, so I "reached" for AD with the #1 pick. I'm still fairly confident, but so far I'm wrong. Just wrong. I was confident that Jonathan Stewart's injury slow-down was over, but it clearly wasn't. He earned me one point. I was confident that Malcolm Floyd and Mike Wallace were primed to be go-to wide receivers in their respective offenses, but it seems so far that they're simply options in two offenses of varying potency.

I still have faith in all of these players but not enough that I can confidently and assuredly decide to start them over the likes of LeSean McCoy, Mohamed Massaquoi, and Hakeem Nicks who earned me a combined 38 points on my bench, almost doubling the 20 points that the four players above earned me. Fantasy football is very much a confidence game; you have to be sure of the players you're starting. But at this point, the only thing I'm sure about is my 0-1 record.

Frustrating.

At least I'm leading in my Pick 'Em group, as usual.

I reviewed Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions for the other blog. You can read that here. And then potentially find a link back to this blog in the comments section because the internet is now an enormous, self-referential Möbius loop, especially with Facebook.

For the weeks surrounding this week, three of my four classes are involved in varying degrees of Facebook discussion, so I'm guessing some Facebook stuff will begin to show up in my blogs. Speaking of which, these blogs are automatically posted on my Facebook page, thanks to the wonders of technology. So if you found this there, hi. Welcome to my blog.

Quote of the Week:

"A million dollars isn't cool. You know what's cool? A billion dollars."

-Justin Timberlake or whoever he's playing in The Social Network

BIStrash talk

It occurred to me recently that my dome hair – for lack of better terminology – can be explained in three different parts: my sideburns, my hair, and my beard. With that revelation came a further conclusion that each piece relates significantly with a particular part of my personality and my personal experiences. Irrespective of its potential value to you, I've decided to explain those three connections. Let's begin.

My sideburns, which are usually pretty long and bushy, remind me of my childhood because I was the only five-year-old who could grow sideburns, but also because my grandfather had pretty prominent 'burns at one time. When I started growing sideburns in college – about 15 years after I developed the ability – they were even longer and bushier (and wider) than they are now. I'm always stupefied by my burnage in this picture:

There's no way I could have maintained that, but I decided to keep (more reasonable) sideburns because my grandmother once told me that they reminded her of her late husband, my grandfather, a man I greatly respected.

My haircut, which is usually pretty short, reminds me of my brother, a man who I don't respect at all but obviously love and care for. It also reminds me of college and of being young and foolish. When I was growing up, I always assumed that when I finished that process – when I was "grown up" – that I would get a haircut like my father had, which was the prototypical man-part haircut. It is classic and respectable.

Since then, I've decided (a) that I'm never growing up and (b) that I don't want to comb my hair in the morning. (The sideburns and beard are needy enough.) My short haircut is the one I decided on when I entered college (after my brother got it), and it very much represents the carefree lifestyle that I lived then and still try to emulate to this day. It's simple and low-maintenance, especially when it's this short:

The beard is something else altogether. Not since the days of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle-sponsored hair gel have I spent this much time on hairstyling in the morning. (This morning my beard needed some extra attention and has taken on a slightly different look.) But rather than harkening back to my fresh-faced childhood, the beard represents my future.

If I ever want to be a tenured professor with a Don Draper bar in my office, I feel like I need a beard. Obviously, that's not essential, but I think beards are relevant to my profession. Beards speak of respect, something that I don't demand from my students through my teaching style, which is practically dependent on leveling the respect scales so my students feel comfortable in class. So the beard represents things that I need to create and maintain my desired lifestyle (distance from my students, a successful career, booze). It's also useful for pictures like this:

Quote of the Week:

"Mustrash Talk (n): A form of trash talk where Keith Hernandez delivers the trash and the talk… and the mustache."

Bloomberg sports. Hilarious.

Hurrican’t

That's a terrible title. I know.

Today, the University, as we call it, canceled classes starting at 4:00 because of Hurricane Earl. The thing is, on Thursdays (todays), most classes start at either 3:30 or 5:00, including mine.

So, my 3:30 to 4:45 class was in a liminal space. I suppose we could have gone to class for 30 minutes, but then I think I'd be obligated to stop at 4, which wouldn't have been that useful. So, short story shorter, five-day weekend.

The UNC football program is pretty much screwed this season, right as it was starting to gain (deserved) national prominence. I suppose that could be the result of cheating.

Regardless, this was to be the year when the Tar Heels made the leap to national relevance, which of course they have (for the wrong reason). However, it's becoming more and more evident that this year's team probably won't be in the national spotlight for their spectacular play on the field.

But – this argument has a lot of turns and I'm running out of valuable conjunctions – I'm fairly contented with the compliance path that the program is taking. Sure, UNC would probably have a better chance at staying in the top 25 if they kept all of their players around, but (repeat) they'd also be more likely to face USC-esque repercussions down the road.

Obviously this is a negative situation, but at least it should be a relatively contained one.

It'd be better, though, if UNC football just got away with cheating like everybody else. Or, I suppose, if nobody got away with cheating.

Question of the Week:

What's your most feared natural disaster?

My take: Even more than hurricanes, I fear tornados, even though I'm clearly situated in hurricane/Hurricanes country. There's something frightening about the suddenness and unexpectedness of tornados, like in that movie Twister how Helen Hunt suddenly wasn't hot anymore.