NerdStarGamer » Random Thoughts

The Oatmeal on Restaurant Websites

Alissa Miller — Wed, 09 Feb 2011 18:33:51 +0000

Dead On.

What I want from a restaurant website

Typographical Humor

Alissa Miller — Wed, 26 Jan 2011 21:33:24 +0000

A good list of posters and videos full of knee slapping humor. My favorite one below should give you a good idea of what to expect.

Backup and Convert iPhone SMS Conversations to an HTML File

Alissa Miller — Fri, 17 Dec 2010 18:44:36 +0000

I love my iPhone 3G and can’t wait until the end of my contract when I can upgrade to the latest and greatest version. However, one of my biggest gripes with the iPhone is that there is no standard way to backup and save your text messages in an easy-to-read fashion. After much searching, I’ve finally discovered a great application for backing up your messages. I’ve also combined that with a little web development trickery to convert the final product into a self contained and beautiful HTML file.

Exporting Your Messages

First off, you need a way to export your text messages from either your phone or your backup. All the messages are backed up on your computer with the normal iPhone sync process, but they aren’t in a format that is readable for humans. There are several different software applications that will do this for you. I’ve tried a few different ones with varying success. Most of them seemed downright kludgy. After trying out several apps, I finally discovered Decipher TextMessage from Decipher Media. It is very modestly priced at $6.99.

Decipher TextMessage is an OS X only app (sorry Windows users) that simply pulls your text messages out of your iPhone data backup file. I like the idea of this because it’s only messing with the backup file, not your actual phone. The great part about Decipher Text Message is that it uses your address book to match up phone numbers with contact names. All texts are sorted into conversations with each contact. You can then easily select a conversation and save it as either a text file or a CSV file. For this method, I just exported the conversation I wanted as a text file.

Make Your Texts Into a Self Contained HTML File

The text file is great, but if it’s a long conversation, it’s going to be hard to read and not terribly useful. This is where a little regular expression kung fu and some HTML and CSS love come in handy.

Once you export your text conversation, you’ll get a text document that looks something like this:

Conversation with: Johnny Appleseed (5555558555)


Wednesday Mar 31 14:56

Me: Do you still have that spare ticket?

Johnny Appleseed: I dont BUT if you want to go I can probably grab another.

Me: What time is it at?

Johnny Appleseed: Doors @ 8 but we'll most likely grab food down there first and get there shortly after 8

Me: Hmm. I think I'll pass. I got into work late today so should prolly stay until at least 8. Have a good time though!

Johnny Appleseed: Mmmkay.   Perhaps next time.


Sunday Apr 04 15:49

Me: I just got home.

Johnny Appleseed: Hey, im @ the field. You should come here

Me: Oh yeah? Who you out with?

Johnny Appleseed: Work peeps. Theyre cool. Come out

As you can tell, although there is a lot of text, it’s all in a very predictable pattern. One part at the top, dates, texts from your contact, and texts from you.

Make the document into an HTML file

The first thing we need to do to our text file is convert it to HTML. Setting our text into an HTML template is easy. Just surround the whole conversation with a very basic HTML head tag and a body tag. For the purpose of this document, I’m not even worried about getting all the right tags in there, just enough to make it work. Here’s what it looks like now:




    Me and Johnny Appleseed Converstaion



    Wednesday Mar 31 14:56

    Me: Do you still have that spare ticket?

    Johnny Appleseed: I dont BUT if you want to go I can probably grab another.

    Me: What time is it at?

    Johnny Appleseed: Doors @ 8 but we'll most likely grab food down there first and get there shortly after 8

    Me: Hmm. I think I'll pass. I got into work late today so should prolly stay until at least 8. Have a good time though!

    Johnny Appleseed: Mmmkay.   Perhaps next time.


    Sunday Apr 04 15:49

    Me: I just got home.

    Johnny Appleseed: Hey, im @ the field. You should come here

    Me: Oh yeah? Who you out with?

    Johnny Appleseed: Work peeps. Theyre cool. Come out

As you can see, I deleted the first line from the text file that said “Conversation with: Johnny Appleseed (5555558555)”. I don’t need that for this case. If I had wanted, I could have used that as the title of the document. I’ve also changed the extension of my document from .txt to .html.

TextWrangler is a beast

Next up is putting all of our text into HTML tags. Now, for any conversation that is more than a few texts, doing this by hand is just out of the question. That’s where some regular expression kung fu and my favorite find and replace tool come in handy.

For this job, I use TextWrangler from Bare Bones Software. It’s a great free text editor that includes the best search and find and replace tools I’ve found. In my opinion, it’s much better than the search tool for TextMate, which is the editor I use for pretty much everything else.

Get rid of the pesky extra line breaks

The first thing we’ll do is reduce the length of the file by getting rid of the extra line breaks. The line break pattern will match our line breaks. We just use \r for this. We want to end up with just one line break after each line with text and no empty lines. We do this by searching for two line breaks in a row and replacing them with one.

Doing “Replace All” once on this search will give us a much more manageable file length.

Mark up the dates

Next we want to put all of the date lines in a paragraph tag with a class of “date”. We can use the TextWrangler find and replace and, making sure that the Grep option is checked, search for a regular expression that matches all of the date lines. The following regex does just the trick:

^[a-zA-Z]* [a-zA-Z]{3} \d{2} \d{2}:\d{2}$

The above regex will match the entire line and then we use the ampersand (which just represents the entire match) in our replace string. We just surround the ampersand with our HTML:

Here’s what it looks like in TextWrangler:

Mark up each of the conversation bits

Next I’ll search for all of my parts of the conversation. These each start with the label “Me:”. I want to code the classes so that the CSS will be easily to reuse later for different conversations. So in this case, I’ll just use generic ‘me’ and ‘you’ classes. For my parts of the conversation, I want to do the following things:

Mark up each of my texts in a paragraph
Give each of the paragraphs two clases: ‘message’ and ‘me’.
Change the starting label from “Me:” to be my full name instead.
Enclose my name in a strong tag.

In order to accomplish each of these things in one fell swoop, we can basically just match the text “Me:” at the start of a line and save the match that is everything after it in that line. There parenthesis save the pattern that is matched inside them. Since we’re getting rid of the “Me:” part, we don’t save it. Here’s what the regular expression looks like:

^Me:( .*)$

In the replace string we just surround the entire match that we saved (indicated by \1) with our appropriate HTML and label. Here’s the replace string (Obviously you wouldn’t want to use my name):

Alissa Miller:\1

The step is to match the other person’s texts. Here we’re trying to accomplish a very similar thing:

Mark up each of the other person’s texts in a paragraph
Give each of the paragraphs two clases: ‘message’ and ‘you’.
Enclose the other person’s name in a strong tag.

We’ll use almost exactly the same search pattern as the last time, except this time I’m using Johnny’s name instead of mine. Just substitute the Johnny part for whoever the conversation is with.

Here are screenshots of each of the last two searches in TextWrangler.

And there we have it. Just a small bit of regex kung fu has given us a fully marked up HTML document. This is a great start, but in order to make it actually usable, we have to add some CSS styling to it. Here’s what are document looks like so far.




    Me and Johnny Appleseed Converstaion




    Wednesday Mar 31 14:56
    Alissa Miller: Do you still have that spare ticket?
    Johnny Appleseed: . I dont BUT if you want to go I can probably grab another.
    Alissa Miller: What time is it at?
    Johnny Appleseed: Doors @ 8 but we'll most likely grab food down there first and get there shortly after 8
    Alissa Miller: Hmm. I think I'll pass. I got into work late today so should prolly stay until at least 8. Have a good time though!
    Johnny Appleseed: Mmmkay.   Perhaps next time.

    Sunday Apr 04 15:49
    Alissa Miller: I just got home.
    Johnny Appleseed: Hey, im @ the field. You should come here
    Alissa Miller: Oh yeah? Who you out with?
    Johnny Appleseed: Work peeps. Theyre cool. Come out

Styling Our Conversation

For the purpose of this conversation, my goal was to make the HTML page mimic the look of the iPhone text messages. I also want to make the HTML page self-contained, so I’m going to use internal CSS styles for everything.

Basic body styles

The first thing is to add some very basic styles to the body element. Here we are setting the background color and fonts. We also use the margin: 40px auto; to center the page and the width property to give us a nice narrow page width for our conversation.

body {
    background-color: #dbe1ed;
    color: #000;
    font: 14px/1.4 helvetica, arial, verdana, sans-serif;
    margin: 40px auto;
    width: 450px;
}

Styling the `strong` tags

Next we should style the strong tags. In this case, I want the strong elements to have a normal font-weight, but to be a different color. I styled all the strong elements as a medium gray color and then used the me class to override the the gray color with a bright green for my texts.

strong {
    color: #555;
    font-weight: normal;
}
.me strong {color: rgb(78,145,3);}

Basic paragraph and date styles

Now we style the paragraphs and the date class. We’re going to be floating elements in a bit, so we want to make sure to add a clear to all of the paragraphs on both sides. Also, the date class should have bold text that is centered and slightly larger than usual. Here are the styles:

p {clear: both;}
p.date {
    color: #777;
    font: bold 14px/1.4 helvetica, arial, verdana, sans-serif;
    text-align: center;
}

Creating rounded speech bubbles

Now that we’ve done some basic styling, we can start mimicking the speech bubbles. First we’ll style the message class to give some padding and rounded corners. We’ll also set the max-width of the each message to 70% so that it will stretch only slightly less than three quarters across the page.

p.message {
    position:relative;
    padding:5px 10px;
    border:2px solid rgb(74,77,82);
    border:2px solid rgba(74,77,82,.5);
    -moz-border-radius:10px;
    -webkit-border-radius:10px;
    border-radius:10px;
    max-width: 70%;
}

Add the fancy CSS gradients

After that, we’ll set the background colors and use CSS3 gradients to create the green and gray speech bubbles. The gradients are a bit complex, so I used the online Ultimate CSS Gradient Generator tool. This was a fabulous way to visually match the iPhone styles as closely as possible while getting the cross-browser compatible code automatically generated. After generating the two sets of gradients, this is the CSS I ended up with:

/* Gradients and styles for each bubble */
p.you {
    background: #EBEBEB; /* old browsers */
    background: -moz-linear-gradient(top, #EBEBEB 5%, #D6D6D6 15%, #D2D2D2 71%, #E7E7E7 99%); /* firefox */
    background: -webkit-gradient(linear, left top, left bottom, color-stop(5%,#EBEBEB), color-stop(15%,#D6D6D6), color-stop(71%,#D2D2D2), color-stop(99%,#E7E7E7)); /* webkit */
    filter: progid:DXImageTransform.Microsoft.gradient( startColorstr='#EBEBEB', endColorstr='#E7E7E7',GradientType=0 ); /* ie */
}
p.me {
    background: #D0ECCC; /* old browsers */
    background: -moz-linear-gradient(top, #D0ECCC 5%, #87CD65 15%, #92D664 70%, #ADE763 99%); /* firefox */
    background: -webkit-gradient(linear, left top, left bottom, color-stop(5%,#D0ECCC), color-stop(15%,#87CD65), color-stop(70%,#92D664), color-stop(99%,#ADE763)); /* webkit */
    filter: progid:DXImageTransform.Microsoft.gradient( startColorstr='#D0ECCC', endColorstr='#ADE763',GradientType=0 ); /* ie */

    float: right;
}

Notice that I also tucked in a float:right to the ‘me’ class. This will set my speech bubbles off to the right of the page.

Using just these few styles, we’ve created a nice looking self contained HTML page displaying our exported SMS conversation. Take a look at the HTML page so far.

Make more better speech bubbles

We could stop here and the page would be fine. However, we’ll use some really fancy CSS border trickery to make the text bubbles looks just a little bit better. Using images would make the text bubbles perfect, but remember, we want the file to be self contained.

In order to make the speech bubbles, I used a technique of arranging multiple CSS borders and using positioning to create a small triangle off to the side. The code is modified from Nicolas Gallagher’s excellent post on Pure CSS Speech Bubbles. In this case, I chose to use a modified version of the “Triangle Border” shown in Gallagher’s demo page (the one’ with the thick green border). The CSS had to be changed a bit because I didn’t actually want borders. Here is the final CSS I used:

/* The basic speech triangle */
p.message:before {
    content:"";
    display:block; /* reduce the damage in FF3.0 */
    position:absolute;
    border-style:solid;
    border-color:transparent rgb(74,77,82);
    border-color:transparent rgba(74,77,82,.5);
}
p.message:after {/* creates the smaller  triangle */
    content:"";
    display:block; /* reduce the damage in FF3.0 */
    position:absolute;
    border-style:solid;
}
/* Me points to the right */
p.message.me:before {
    right:-14px;
    bottom:7px;
    border-width:8px 0 8px 14px;
}
p.message.me:after {/* creates the smaller  triangle */
    right:-10px;
    bottom:8px;
    border-width:7px 0 7px 14px;
    border-color:transparent #94d749; /* green */
}
/* Other person points to the left */
p.message.you:before {  /* creates the larger triangle */
    left:-16px;
    bottom:7px;
    border-width:8px 16px 8px 0;
}
p.message.you:after {   /* creates the smaller  triangle */
    left:-10px;
    bottom:8px;
    border-width:7px 14px 7px 0;
    border-color:transparent #d3d3d3; /* grey */
}

You can see the finished effect on this page.

So with just a little bit of work we’ve marked up our conversation into HTML and created some advanced CSS styles to put our entire text conversation into a nice self contained HTML page that should be easily viewed in browsers for years to come.

Even better, we’ve made the CSS generic enough that we can just copy and paste it into another conversation we’ve marked up using HTML.

Obviously, there are a few caveats here. The Decipher Text Message program only on works on Macs. I haven’t tested any Windows-based software for the same purpose, but I stumbled across quite a few of them when I was looking for the software, so there are definitely options out there. Also, we’ve used some pretty complex CSS and several CSS3 properties that aren’t fully supported by all browsers. I have tested this in Firefox, Chrome and Safari. Hopefully things shouldn’t look too terrible in other browsers. I confess though, I did not even check it in IE.

The Bahnhof Bunker

Alissa Miller — Thu, 09 Dec 2010 19:03:30 +0000

Could this possibly be the coolest server farm ever? The The Wikileaks house their data with Bahnhof AB, which is housed in a former bomb bunker in Sweeden.

Check out the complete slide show of the place on TPM.

Patchwork Nation

Alissa Miller — Wed, 05 May 2010 22:25:52 +0000

I just discovered the Patchwork Nation project which was launched by the Christian Science Monitor in 2008. The PBS NewsHour has a whole section on the website dedicated to it.

Patchwork Nation is a reporting project that aims to explore what is happening in the United States by examining different kinds of communities over time. The effort divides America’s 3,141 counties into 12 community types based on certain demographic characteristics, such as income level, racial composition, employment and religion.

I always find this type of information fascinating. it’s incredibly interesting to me that whenever I find national data like this, there is always a section broken out for the Mormons. It seems as though they are such outliers to the rest of the country that they (and those regions) need to be viewed on their own to put things in perspective.

Also, according to this data, I live in a “Monied ‘Burb”, which is entirely surrounded by “Campus and Careers” counties. Interesting, but also not terribly surprising when I stop to think about it.

Another interesting personal parallel that I picked up was in viewing the state of Montana, where much of my family comes from. Montana is a mostly rural state. It’s also mostly conservative and has a fairly low per capita income. The two major college towns Missoula and Bozeman are notable exceptions, serving and liberal and cultural epicenters. There are also some other cities such as Butte, Helena and Billings. I’m pretty familiar with both Helena and Butte, but I can’t speak to Billings although I do know it’s very large for Montana.

In northwestern Montana there is a large lake called Flathead lake. My family owns a cabin there. My great grandfather bought the land in the 1930′s for $500. We own 5 acres of lakefront property and another 10 off the lake that is completely undeveloped. Our lakefront property has a one room cabin with electricity and no running water. There’s an outhouse. It’s very rustic, and very beautiful.

We’re kind of the odd ones on Finley Point (the area where the cabin is). All of our neighbors have retaining walls and docks. One of our neighbors has a giant water slide. Most of them cut all the trees down and grew grass. None of the animals in the area can actually get to the water because of all the development on the lake.

Over the past couple of decades (more or less, I don’t know), Flathead Lake has become a popular destination and summer home spot for tourists. And in Montana, that pretty much means people from outside the state. In particular, people from California…with money. Flathead Lake has become so popular with the tourists that the land value has skyrocketed, making it almost impossible for Montana families to hold on to their land in that area. This is a problem that hits home for me as my Montana family struggles to figure out how to keep their very modest family cabin in the family. If you take a close look at the Patchwork Nation Communities in Montana, you’ll notice that Flathead County is one of two counties in Montana that are labeled as “Monied ‘Burbs”. Interesting. This kind of screws with part of my point, but the southern part of Flathead Lake region (where my family’s cabin is) is actually in Lake County, designated as a “Tractor Country” community. Regardless, much of Lake County (in particular the stretch of 93) is quite a bit different that the areas bordering on the lake.

Long story short, you should definitely check out Patchwork Nation and draw your own personal parallels.

Quote of the Week

Alissa Miller — Wed, 05 May 2010 19:23:20 +0000

Mike Davidson has written an excellent article regarding the whole Apple vs. Adobe stuff. Read the article for sure, but what I’m more interested in is the Quote of the Week honors:

And the HTML/CSS that slowly sashayed that 300×250 div right the fuck over that paragraph you were trying to read is an open standard too.

Definitely made me laugh out loud.

Bus Wisdom

Alissa Miller — Tue, 13 Apr 2010 23:47:41 +0000

On my bus ride to work today I found a little religious flyer (of the Evangelical persuasion). As it seemed like an appropriate reading for the morning bus commute (not too long and easier to hold than the Metro), I actually read it. I’d like to share two and a half sentences from said flyer:

[..] The Bible is the only Book in the world that predicts the future. Thus the Bible is more modern than tomorrow’s newspaper. The Bible accurately foretells the future [...]

I actually really like the phrase “more modern than tomorrow’s newspaper.” It has a nice ring to it.

Jersey Shore Spin-off in Boston

Alissa Miller — Tue, 13 Apr 2010 23:41:56 +0000

Apparently a new spin-off of Jersey Shore is set to begin filming in Boston in July. The show will be called Wicked Summer. Full disclosure: I’ve never actually watched an episode of Jersey City. I have to admit, I’m kind of intrigued by this. I imagine that it will contain some amusing tidbits. Having lived in Boston for the last ten years, hopefully I can find humor in it.

Thoughts and Links About the Facebook Login Fiasco

Alissa Miller — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 01:42:58 +0000

I think most people that follow the same news feeds that I read probably have heard about this whole Facebook login thing, so I won’t summarize too much. Basically, the blog ReadWriteWeb posted an arcticle about Facebook. The article subsequently got ranked as a very high search result for “Facebook login” on Google. The content of the article itself is irrelevant to the issue at hand (although the article itself is interesting). Pay special attention to the comments (or at least the first 100 or so).

First Impressions

The typical nerd response to this has been laughing and pointing. Now, I have to admit, that was my first response as well. But, after I stopped laughing and shaking my head (well, actually I’m still shaking my head), I started thinking of all of the crazy things that I’ve seen people do in the last 5+ years I’ve spent working in computer support. While I find this whole thing rather amusing, I can’t say that I’m actually surprised. I have witnessed someone physically lift a mouse into the air when asked to “move the mouse up”.

I think the biggest difference between developers (or nerds) and normal people, is that normal people don’t want to know how a computer or the internet work. They don’t care. They don’t want to learn. I’ve never really gotten over this because it’s something that I find terribly disappointing about working in computer support. I can watch a person do the same thing over an over again knowing that there is a better way to do it, but they don’t care. They don’t want to understand. They don’t want me to teach them how to understand why something works a certain way. They just want to get the result they need.

I still have yet to decide the which angle of this attitude is the more important one. Is it an indication that a certain population of people will always be lagging behind because they refuse to adapt to a quickly changing world that requires them to understand certain aspects of technology? Or perhaps is it an indication that technology (and the people who develop it) simply hasn’t evolved enough to adapt to “real people” who do not “need” to understand black box in order to use it?

The Wider Debate

Much has been written in regard to the Facebook login fiasco, and quite a controversy has been sparked in the development community about what this really means, and whose “fault” it is. First, check out some of these articles which highlight very interesting points for both sides of the debate.

On Whether Or Not Google Got It Wrong

I guess this really depends on how far exactly the RWW article made it up the search rankings. I’d say that it’s an entirely different debate depending on whether the search result was first or fifth. I thought originally the result was first, but Stratton claims it never made it to number one. I don’t see any reason why that RWW article should not reach a high rank on the search term “facebook login” since that is what the article is about. It’s a popular blog and presumably the article was popular as well.

A number one search result is another matter though. I agree with the camp that says it would be impossible for Google (or any other search engine) to always know what a person meant. But seriously, isn’t that what Google is always trying to do? It just doesn’t sit right to me that an article about a website as huge as Facebook would ever be a more popular search intention that the site itself.

The search “facebook login” seems to clearly indicate a search for the login page itself. That seems fairly intuitive. In fact, substitute facebook for most major web apps and I think it’s the same. However, if the search changes slightly to something like “facebook changes login”, it’s now an entirely different issue.

Perhaps the artificial intelligence of search algorithms just isn’t sophisticated enough to parse nuances of language that seem so obvious to humans. Then again, perhaps they are and that’s why the RWW page never made it to the number one spot for the “facebook login” search. In that case, I really think this whole debate about whether or not Google got it wrong is really a non issue.

On The Users Themselves

Moving past the whole Google question, there are a couple of things that really baffle me about this entire fiasco. First of all, it’s clear that these users have no idea what a URL is. Both because they are using Google Search to find a URL like facebook.com and also (and more importantly) because they did not realize that the RWW URL bears absolutely no resemblance to any Facebook URL, and therefore cannot possible be the Facebook website.

How is it that these users who have to most superficial understanding of what a website is and how the internet works, are also capable of writing comments to the RWW page? They are baffled about how to log in to a site that’s not the Facebook site they’re used to (and in fact bears absolutely no resemblance to it). But they still can use the comment form in order to voice their disapproval of the perceived redesign.

Okay so, maybe typing into a comment form is no big deal. Even people that think the entire internet is just Google/Facebook/YouTube can figure out a comment form. What about using Facebook itself? It’s not like Facebook is that simple to use. This isn’t a slam on Facebook user interface, it’s just that Facebook is huge, and there are a lot of things that you can do on it. How can these people figure out how to use Facebook?

Perhaps this is an issue of normal people realizing that they want to use Facebook enough to spend time learning about friend networks, walls, how to upload photos in the little snazzy uploader. Why is it that they deem it important enough to figure out how to use websites like Facebook, but at the same time don’t care to understand what a web address is? I think I just fail to understand why someone would not care about that kind of stuff because I am so interested in it myself.

Is It Actually a Facebook Problem?

I logged on to Facebook for the first time in several weeks today. I don’t find myself doing this too much these days because I often either don’t look at Facebook at all or only look at it through the Facebook iPhone app. Much to my surprise, Facebook looked quite a bit different than the last time I saw it. I started thinking about how often I have to do what Steve Krug calls “muddling through” when I’m using Facebook. I know what I can do on Facebook, it just usually takes me a couple of tries to figure it out.

Why is this? Well, when I think about it, the Facebook website changes quite a bit. They’ve made several large and small changes to the website in recent years (or less?). Compare this to something like the Google home page which has changed very little since it’s inception.

Perhaps Facebook users have come to expect over time, and through personal experience, that the Facebook website will change, and sometimes change dramatically. They expect this because it has happened. Perhaps it wasn’t so far fetched after all to believe that the RWW page was simply just the newest reiteration of a Facebook design.

Now, I know this is a stretch, but perhaps it’s not too much of a stretch. Has Facebook changed its pages so much that users are now willing to accept that a complete makeover, such as the RWW page being a new Facebook design, is a real possibility? Does Facebook redesign too often? Has Facebook unwittingly trained it’s users to expect this?

One Last Only Slightly Related Thought

Anyone like me (aka: nerd, developer, gamer, general computer enthusiast) who thinks that the iPad is stupid and going to be a flop is not seeing the big picture. The iPad is designed for exactly the type of people commenting on the RWW website. Both Mike Rundle and Fraser Speirs are dead on (along with some other smart people as well). I think that most people will love the iPad. I think the iPad is going to revolutionize the netbook/eReader market just like the iPhone revolutionized the mobile phone market. Will the iPad be as successful a device as the iPhone? I don’t know. But I guarantee that it will change the game.

Comcast Rebranding as Xfinity

Alissa Miller — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 21:54:27 +0000

Apparently Comcast is going to be rebranding itself as “Xfinity”. We are all of course to believe that this has absolutely nothing do with the general connotation of the word Comcast being something akin to “terrible service.”

What we can all really expect from this rebranding is nearly spelled out by Marc Brownstein:

“Verizon has FiOS. Comcast now has Xfinity. It’s rebundling it in a high-tech package. You are rebundling an improved product, an enhanced service,” said Marc Brownstein, president and chief executive officer of the Brownstein Group, a Philadelphia brand communication, public relations, and advertising firm.

When you read that sentence about “You are rebundling an improved product…” just imagine that you are the subject and what he is really saying is that “you will be paying more money for an ever so slightly enhanced service with a different name.”

They also have a clever and vacant holding page for a new website. Is it just me or does this look like the cover of a Jehovah’s Witnesses pamphlet? Seriously. All they need is a little Jesus on those clouds.

Dear Comcast: Good luck making people like you more once you’re called Xfinity. Here’s a tip, if your services still cost a fortune and barely work, and your customer service is atrocious on top of that, that new name will be just as dirty as the old one.

Week 13 and 14 NFL Results

Alissa Miller — Sun, 20 Dec 2009 17:20:09 +0000

Week 13 Results

Jets √ Vs Bills

Philadelphia √ at Atlanta

St. Louis at Chicago √

Detroit at Cincinnati √

Oakland at Pittsburgh √

Tennessee √ at Indianapolis

Denver √ at Kansas City

New England √ at Miami

New Orleans √ at Washington

Tampa Bay at Carolina √

Houston √ at Jacksonville

San Diego √ at Cleveland

Dallas √ at NY Giants

San Francisco √ at Seattle

Minnesota √ at Arizona

Baltimore √ at Green Bay

Week 13 Summary

So for week 13 I ended up being 8-8. Bad news. Apparently I forgot to do a See If It Sticks ® pick. Season total: 115-60.

Week 14 Results

New Orleans √ at Atlanta

Green Bay √ at Chicago

NY Jets √ at Tampa Bay

Miami √ at Jacksonville

Detroit at Baltimore √

Seattle at Houston √

Denver √ at Indianapolis (See If It Sticks®)

Buffalo at Kansas City √

Cincinnati at Minnesota √

Carolina at New England √

Washington √ at Oakland

St. Louis at Tennessee √

San Diego √ at Dallas

Philadelphia at NY Giants √

Arizona √ at San Francisco

Week 14 Summary

I did much better on week 14. 12-3 for the week and I missed my See If It Sticks ®. Picking against the Colts every week has gone against my better judgement. I still think they are not as good as it seems.

So through week 14 I’m 127-63 and 5-7 on my See If It Sticks ®.

NFL Week 12 Results

Alissa Miller — Sun, 06 Dec 2009 16:21:27 +0000

Green Bay √ at Detroit
Oakland at Dallas √
~~NY Giants √ at Denver~~
Tampa Bay at Atlanta √
~~Miami √ at Buffalo~~
Cleveland at Cincinnati √
Seattle √ at St. Louis
~~Carolina √ at NY Jets~~
Washington at Philadelphia √
~~Indianapolis at Houston √ (See If It Sticks ®)~~
Kansas City at San Diego √
~~Jacksonville √ at San Francisco~~
Chicago at Minnesota √
~~Arizona √ at Tennessee~~
Pittsburgh at Baltimore √
New England at New Orleans √

Results

Overall this was a tough week for me. I’m happy though that I got some of the tougher picks like Baltimore over Pittsburgh, and also that a lot of the really close games went my way. Big surprises this week for me were the loses of the Giants (wtf?), Miami and Arizona. I also have to say that my Texans had a great first half against the Colts. Too bad they couldn’t close the deal. I’m happy that I’m only an occasional Texans fan, because being a regular must just be heartbreaking.

So for the week I’m 10-6 and missed my See If It Sticks ®. I think that’s the worst week I’ve had for quite some time. Better luck in week 13. For the season I’m not 107-52 and 5-6 for See If It Sticks ®.

Week 13 NFL Picks

Alissa Miller — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 23:37:41 +0000

To start off my picks for this week here is the Thursday night game.

Jets √ Vs Bills

(12/6/09): And here are the rest of this week’s picks.

Philadelphia √ at Atlanta

Redman played well last week, but I think the Eagles have the advantage here.

St. Louis at Chicago √

Stinky, stinky.

Detroit at Cincinnati √

Oakland at Pittsburgh √

One Pittsburgh can finally win?

Tennessee √ at Indianapolis

Originally I picked Indy for this game, but given the fact that I didn’t see any better See If It Sticks &res; picks this week, I’m using it here. I might continue using my See If It Sticks &res; pick against Indy for the rest of the season.

Denver √ at Kansas City

New England √ at Miami

Pats off a bad loss and Dolphins minus Ronnie Brown. Pats should win easily. Then again, nothing between the Pats and the Dolphins ever seems to come easily.

New Orleans √ at Washington

Tampa Bay at Carolina √

Houston √ at Jacksonville

San Diego √ at Cleveland

Dallas √ at NY Giants

San Francisco √ at Seattle

Sad story. I have both Justin Forsett and Julius Jones on one of my fantasy teams.

Minnesota √ at Arizona

Battle of the old men. This game is going to be a mess if Warner doesn’t play. I’d give the advantage to Arizona with Warner, but I’m less sure about it without.

Baltimore √ at Green Bay

NFL Week 12 Picks

Alissa Miller — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 17:14:31 +0000

Well, I’m not missing the Thursday games this week since it’s Thanksgiving and there are three games today. I’m all geared up for the traditional Turkey Day Stinkers.

Green Bay √ at Detroit

Detroit continues it’s Turkey Day losing streak. The debate about this particular tradition rages on.

Oakland at Dallas √

Dallas pulls it together somehow.

NY Giants √ at Denver

Denver’s slide doesn’t end today.

Tampa Bay at Atlanta √

Miami √ at Buffalo

Cleveland at Cincinnati √

Seattle √ at St. Louis

Carolina √ at NY Jets

The Jets haven’t been so good for a while.

Washington at Philadelphia √

I predict this game will be just as terrible as the first matchup between these two teams.

Indianapolis at Houston √ (See If It Sticks ®)

Kansas City at San Diego √

Jacksonville √ at San Francisco

Chicago at Minnesota √

I think every Chicago game the year induces yawns just thinking about it. No offense to my friends that are Chicago fans.

Arizona √ at Tennessee

I like Tennessee a lot in the last couple of weeks. I’m picking the Cardinals, but this is going to be a good game.

Pittsburgh at Baltimore √

This is another really tough game. I think the Ravens are going to pull it out. I would use my See If It Sticks ® here, but I already used that for the big upset of the Texans over the Colts. Hmmmm.

New England at New Orleans √

Once again, it hurts to pick agains the Pats, but this game is in the Superdome on a Monday night. It’s going to be real hard for the Pats to win.

NFL Week 11 Results

Alissa Miller — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 17:00:02 +0000

Unfortunately I’m one game short on this week because I forgot to pick the Thursday night game ahead of time. Regardless, here are the results:

Washington at Dallas √

Cleveland at Detroit √ (What the Heck ®)

San Francisco √ at Green Bay

The next three games are all very close losses.

Pittsburgh √ at Kansas City

Atlanta √ at NY Giants

New Orleans √ at Tampa Bay

Buffalo at Jacksonville √

Indianapolis √ at Baltimore

Seattle at Minnesota √

Arizona √ at St. Louis

NY Jets at New England √

Cincinnati √ at Oakland

San Diego √ at Denver

Philadelphia √ at Chicago

Tennessee √ at Houston

Results

Interesting week. I picked four games wrong, but three of them were within three points and two went to overtime. The only one that wasn’t that close was the Green Bay and San Francisco game (which was still only six points different).

That makes me 11-4 (with one abstention). I got my See If It Sticks ® pick too. On the season: 97-46 and 5-5 for See If It Sticks ®. Very close to two thirds.

NFL Week 10 Results

Alissa Miller — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 16:52:53 +0000

Chicago at San Francisco √

New Orleans √ at St. Louis

Wasn’t quite a gimme after all.

Tampa Bay at Miami √

Same.

Detroit at Minnesota √

At least I got one of my gimmes right as an actual gimme.

Jacksonville at NY Jets √

Buffalo at Tennessee √

Cincinnati at Pittsburgh √

I knew I should have picked against the Steelers.

Denver √ at Washington

Wow. Denver really did lose to Washington.

Atlanta √ at Carolina

Kansas City √ at Oakland

Seattle at Arizona √

Dallas √ at Green Bay

Philadelphia √ at San Diego

New England at Indianapolis √

Baltimore at Cleveland (See If It Sticks®)

Yep. That was crazy.

Results

This was kind of a rough week for me. For the week that’s 8-7. Yikes. And I missed my See If It Sticks ®. That’s 86-42 and 4-5 for See If It Sticks ®. Sigh.

Week 11 NFL Picks

Alissa Miller — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 17:06:47 +0000

The Thursday night game threw me this week and I missed the pick. I think I would have gone for Miami, but we’ll just have to not count that game towards my totals. Oh well.

Washington at Dallas √

Cleveland at Detroit √ (What the Heck ®)

San Francisco √ at Green Bay

Pittsburgh √ at Kansas City

Atlanta √ at NY Giants

New Orleans √ at Tampa Bay

Buffalo at Jacksonville √

Indianapolis √ at Baltimore

Seattle at Minnesota √

Arizona √ at St. Louis

NY Jets at New England √

Cincinnati √ at Oakland

San Diego √ at Denver

Philadelphia √ at Chicago

Tennessee √ at Houston

NFL Week 10 Picks

Alissa Miller — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 00:17:17 +0000

I won’t lie. I’m a little bit upset about having to make my picks on Thursday night instead of the customary Sunday morning right before the game. At least I get to watch football tonight. Although, I think this game is going to be a stinker.

Tough picks abound for this week. Even the crappy matchups are tough to pick. Who will stink more? Who knows. Let’s hope I at least get the gimme games.

Chicago at San Francisco √

This one is tough. Both teams are kind of in a slide. I’ll go with San Francisco.

New Orleans √ at St. Louis

Gimme #1.

Tampa Bay at Miami √

Gimme #2. Although, I did go against Tampa Bay last week and lose.

Detroit at Minnesota √

Gimme #3

Jacksonville at NY Jets √

Buffalo at Tennessee √

Tennessee on the up and up?

Cincinnati at Pittsburgh √

I won’t bet against Pittsburgh this week. Tough matchup though.

Denver √ at Washington

A couple weeks ago this would have been a gimme game. Not so sure now though. Washington stinks though, and I think Denver will use this game to get back on track.

Atlanta √ at Carolina

Kansas City √ at Oakland

Seattle at Arizona √

Dallas √ at Green Bay

Dallas at the head of their division. Who’d have thunk?

Philadelphia √ at San Diego

New England at Indianapolis √

This hurts. I don’t think New England is going to get it done in the dome. Indy is going to have a big surprise though playing a good team.

Baltimore at Cleveland (See If It Sticks®)

Picking Cleveland? I must be crazy.

NFL week 9 Results

Alissa Miller — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 00:05:10 +0000

Washington at Atlanta √
Arizona √ at Chicago
Baltimore at Cincinnati √
Houston at Indianapolis √
Miami at New England √
~~Green Bay √ at Tampa Bay~~
Kansas City at Jacksonville √
Carolina at New Orleans √
Detroit at Seattle √
Tennessee √ at San Francisco (See If It Sticks®)
San Diego √ at NY Giants
Dallas √ at Philadelphia
~~Pittsburgh at Denver √~~

Results

This was a good week for picks for me, unlike in my fantasy teams. I got blown out on one team and nearly lost on my other to a team that neglected to play a tight end. Sigh.

Out of the two games that I got wrong, one was a big surprise (Tampa Bay over Green Bay) and the other I was torn about in my pick. I’m pleased with picking both the Cowboys and San Diego as winners in their respective games. I’m patting myself on the back.

So for the week I’m 11-2 and got my See If It Sticks® pick. That’s 78-35 for the season and split at 4-4 for See If It Sticks®. Let’s see if I can stay as good. This coming week has some tough games.

NFL week 9 Picks

Alissa Miller — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 17:45:54 +0000

Washington at Atlanta √

I tell you, there are some stinkers this week. Atlanta.

Arizona √ at Chicago

“They are who we thought they were!” Hehe. That will never die. Cardinals bring it back this week. They won’t let ‘em off the hook.

Baltimore at Cincinnati √

Ravens had a big win last week but the cardiac cats are well, the cardiac cats.

Houston at Indianapolis √

My Texans are a lot better than people realize. I don’t think the Colts are as good as people think. That said, I’m still picking the Colts in a close one.

Miami at New England √

Finally, the Pats play the Dolphins. There’s something wrong with the schedule this year. The Jets and Dolphins have already played twice, and this is our first game against the Dolphins. I’ve got to believe that Belichick has an answer for the wildcat, whether it be just keeping the Miami offense off the field or hitting them really hard. He’s got to have an answer. Pats.

Green Bay √ at Tampa Bay

Um, Tampa Bay stinks.

Kansas City at Jacksonville √

Both these teams stink

Carolina at New Orleans √

New Orleans certainly doesn’t stink.

Detroit at Seattle √

These teams really stink.

Tennessee √ at San Francisco (See If It Sticks®)

This is the stinky teams game of the week. I’m thinking Chris Johnson has a break out game.

San Diego √ at NY Giants

I think I’ve picked the Giants the last three weeks in a row and gotten burned. I’m picking the Chargers on that fact alone.

Dallas √ at Philadelphia

The Eagles surprised me last week. They got game. I think Dallas will win though.

Pittsburgh at Denver √

This will be a tough, tough game. What a great Monday Night Game. Denver.

NFL week 8 Results

Alissa Miller — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 17:37:12 +0000

Houston √ at Buffalo

Yay for my Texans.

Cleveland at Chicago √

No surprise here. Everyone stomps on the Browns.

Seattle at Dallas √

The Seahawks don’t stand a chance.

St. Louis at Detroit √

Yeah, got that one wrong.

Denver √ at Baltimore

Oh boy did those Ravens show up to play. I’m kind of sad I missed seeing this game. I’m not quite sure what happened to the Broncos. I would love to get my hands on some of those coaches tapes.

San Francisco at Indianapolis √

A lot closer than I thought.

Miami √ at NY Jets

I am so happy I got this one right.

NY Giants √ at Philadelphia

Unbelievable thumping. I have to stop picking the Giants so that I can be more happy when they lose.

Jacksonville at Tennessee √ (See If It Sticks ®)

Titans for the win? After their bye maybe they can pick off Jackonsville. Maybe.

Oakland at San Diego √

Everybody beats up on Oakland. The Raiders nearly beat the Chargers in week 1, and haven’t looked back since coming face to face with a big win. The Chargers got this one.

Carolina at Arizona √

Another one that I got really wrong. Bad week for me.

Minnesota at Green Bay √

Well, it was a good game. The Packers were just no match for the Vikings. The Vikings are a good team.

Atlanta at New Orleans √

I nearly forgot this one. Finally a good Monday Night game. Saints.

Results

I was only 8-5 for week 8, with the big losses by the Giants, Cardinals and Broncos really screwing me up. I did get my See If It Sticks ® pick though.

For the season I am 67-33 and 3-4 for the See If It Sticks ®. I’m still on track for picking two thirds of the games correctly, which is my goal.

NFL week 8 Picks

Alissa Miller — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 17:42:42 +0000

Houston √ at Buffalo

Ooooh. Underdogs. My Texans will win.

Cleveland at Chicago √

Chicago has got to win this one.

Seattle at Dallas √

The Seahawks don’t stand a chance.

St. Louis at Detroit √

Hmmm. This is kind of a funny matchup. I’ll vote for the Lions with their second win of the season. Err, second in two seasons.

Denver √ at Baltimore

Denver isn’t going to run the table or anything, but they will beat the downtrodden Ravens.

San Francisco at Indianapolis √

The 49ers are losing it and this week they aren’t going to find it.

Miami √ at NY Jets

Rematch. Should be a good game. I think the Dolphins are going to snag this one.

NY Giants √ at Philadelphia

The Eagles are only average. The Giants have had some letdowns, but they’ll pull through today.

Jacksonville at Tennessee √ (See If It Sticks ®)

Titans for the win? After their bye maybe they can pick off Jackonsville. Maybe.

Oakland at San Diego √

Everybody beats up on Oakland. The Raiders nearly beat the Chargers in week 1, and haven’t looked back since coming face to face with a big win. The Chargers got this one.

Carolina at Arizona √

I run out of things to say.

Minnesota at Green Bay √

Game of the week. Vikings have their best defensive player out. I’ll pick Green Bay and their home field advantage. This will be a slugfest though.

Atlanta at New Orleans √

I nearly forgot this one. Finally a good Monday Night game. Saints.

NFL Week 7 Results

Alissa Miller — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 17:32:10 +0000

Green Bay √ at Cleveland

San Diego √ at Kansas City

San Diego wins one. At least they can still beat up on the little guys.

Indianapolis √ at St. Louis

Still waiting for a real matchup for Indy.

Minnesota √ at Pittsburgh

The Vikings fall from grace.

New England √ at Tampa Bay

Pats beat up the Bucs as expected. It wasn’t nearly as good a thumping as it should have been.

San Francisco at Houston √

Look at Houston go! The 49ers need to get it together; the season is starting to slip away.

Buffalo at Carolina √

The Bills are still hanging tough at the bottom of the AFC East.

NY Jets √ at Oakland

Bigger blowout than I expected.

Atlanta √ at Dallas (See If It Sticks ®)

Well, it was a See If It Sticks ® pick. Nice try.

Chicago at Cincinnati √

And I thought this one was going to be close.

New Orleans √ at Miami

My prediction: “Tough game for the Saints, but they will pull through.” More accurate than I ever imagined. These Saints proved they have grit. The Dolphins let another win slip away.

Arizona at NY Giants √

I never would have picked Arizona over the Giants at home.

Philadelphia √ at Washington

This game was so boring. I tried to watch it. Really.

Results

My picks were 9-4 for week 7. I missed my See If It Sticks ® pick. Not bad considering I thought a lot of the games could have gone either way. That makes me 59-28 on the season and 2-4 for the See If It Sticks ® picks. Still pleased.

NFL week 7 Picks

Alissa Miller — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 17:43:23 +0000

Green Bay √ at Cleveland

Umm, not really sure what to say about this except, Green Bay.

San Diego √ at Kansas City

San Diego finally gets to win one?

Indianapolis √ at St. Louis

This just isn’t fair. Indy gets St. Louis off their bye? What a waste of a bye week. Anyone think they spent the bye preparing for the 49ers next week?

Minnesota √ at Pittsburgh

I think this will be a tough hard-nosed run game. It could really go either way. I’ve been picking the Vikings all season, so I’m going to stick with that. By no means though am I solid on this one.

New England √ at Tampa Bay

It’s really a shame they can’t change these international games as the season progresses. This one is going to be a stinker. New England.

San Francisco at Houston √

Tough call. I think the Texans are strong right now.

Buffalo at Carolina √

Battle of the mediocre. Trent Edwards is out for the game and Jonathan Stewart should be healthy. I’m picking Carolina based on this and their two game win streak (that sounds so sad). Not a lot of confidence on this pick though.

NY Jets √ at Oakland

Can the Jets pick themselves up and at least beat Oakland? Let’s hope so for their sake.

Atlanta √ at Dallas (See If It Sticks ®)

Atlanta has been on a roll. Dallas is just off the bye week and at home. I’m going out on a limb here and picking the Falcons. Why? I’m not really sure. Dallas just doesn’t seem to have it together this season. They have all the pieces, but nothing has come together for them this season yet.

Chicago at Cincinnati √

Another tough game. I’ll pick the Bengals because they’re my favorite underdogs this season in picks. Tough call.

New Orleans √ at Miami

Tough game for the Saints, but they will pull through.

Arizona at NY Giants √

The Giants got spanked last week. Expect them to be the ones doling out the spanking this week.

Philadelphia √ at Washington

See comment above. Eagles for the win. Washington’s new play caller can’t save them here. PS: This is a Monday night game? Who cares about this game.

Notes

This week is full of tough games. I had a really hard time on several games and am really just guessing. I think the last couple of weeks I’ve been riding high on a bunch of easy game picks. This week it gets tough again. We’ll see how I do.

NFL week 6 Results

Alissa Miller — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 17:00:58 +0000

Houston at Cincinnati √

Tough one here. At least my Texan underdogs won.

Detroit at Green Bay √

Yeah, no brainer here.

Baltimore at Minnesota √

I made the right call choosing to play Berrian over Harvin.

NY Giants √ at New Orleans (See If It Sticks®)

Ouch, I don’t think anyone saw that blowout coming. Week 6 Big Surprise #1.

Cleveland at Pittsburgh √

Carolina √ at Tampa Bay

Well, at least Tampa Bay managed to score 21 points.

Kansas City √ at Washington

St. Louis at Jacksonville √

Closer than I thought it would be.

Arizona √ at Seattle

Well, Arizona won by a lot. My pick was right. But, Hasselbeck scored me exactly zero points in my fantasy loss. Jerk.

Philadelphia √ at Oakland

Wow, the Eagles laid a stinker here. Week 6 Big Surprise #2.

Tennessee at New England √

Well, I said the story was that the Titans were awful, but they’re even worse than I thought. Good job to New England, but seriously. The NFL fines just about everything. Do they have a fine for a teams failing to show up to play a competitive game?

Buffalo at NY Jets √

Week 6 Big Surprise #3. What’s going on with the Jets?

Chicago at Atlanta √

Denver √ at San Diego

So far, Denver is for real. Not counting New England though, the total record so far for Denver’s opponents has been 9-14. They’ve got some tough games coming up, but I think that they’ll stand tough all sixteen games. Don’t expect any miracles though, they’re going to drop a few.

Results

So for the week I’m 10-4 on my picks and I lost my See If It Sticks® pick. Interesting week though, with three games that were really surprising.

So far for the season I’m 50-24, with my See If It Sticks® picks at 2-3. I’m quite pleased with that.

NFL week 6 Picks

Alissa Miller — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 16:13:10 +0000

Houston at Cincinnati √

Cinci is on a roll. Another close one here.

Detroit at Green Bay √

I think the Packers will pull it together today.

Baltimore at Minnesota √

Tough game, but Minnesota will prevail. More importantly, should I play Bernard Berrian or Percy Harvin in my fantasy league?

NY Giants √ at New Orleans (See If It Sticks®)

Game of the week here. It’s the battle of unbeatens in the dome. It could go either way, but I’m picking the Giants, even though I hate them.

Cleveland at Pittsburgh √

Cleveland still stinks. Steelers.

Carolina √ at Tampa Bay

Both these teams stink. I’m picking Carolina off their “big” win over downtrodden Washington.

Kansas City √ at Washington

Speaking of downtrodden. I think KC can win this one.

St. Louis at Jacksonville √

Again, with the downtrodden. The light will shine on Jacksonville.

Arizona √ at Seattle

Battle of quarterbacks? I’m benching Warner for Hasselbeck. Hmm. Yet I’m picking Arizona.

Philadelphia √ at Oakland

Um, yeah.

Tennessee at New England √

The story here is that the Titans are positively awful.

Buffalo at NY Jets √

See Titans above.

Chicago at Atlanta √

Tough game, but Atlanta is just off its route of San Francisco.

Denver √ at San Diego

Denver is for real and San Diego has been underperforming all season.

NFL week 5 Results

Alissa Miller — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 17:42:47 +0000

And, the results for my week 5 picks are:

Cleveland √ at Buffalo (See If It Sticks ®)

Hehe. I had this game nailed. I didn’t get to see it, but judging from the 6-3 score, it sounded pretty boring. I’m guessing that score wasn’t the result of stellar defensive play.

Dallas √ at Kansas City

Dallas won, just barely.

Minnesota √ at St. Louis

Check.

Oakland at NY Giants √

Check.

Tampa Bay at Philadelphia √

Check.

Pittsburgh √ at Detroit

Quite a bit closer than I imagined.

Washington at Carolina √

Well, Carolina did eventually show up to win.

Cincinnati √ at Baltimore

I nailed this one.

Atlanta at San Francisco √

Horribly wrong pick #1.

Jacksonville √ at Seattle

Horribly wrong pick #2.

Houston at Arizona √

New England √ at Denver

My expectations for the game were good, but the result was not how I picked it. Great game nevertheless. And props to Josh McDaniels.

Indianapolis √ at Tennessee

Check. I watched this game and I got to say that the score shouldn’t be attributed so much to Indy being great (they were good), but to the Titans being miserably bad. They just screwed up at every corner. I think they got three turnovers in the first quarter and failed to get a single touchdown. They were just plain awful.

The Colts do look good, but so far they only managed to beat mediocre teams: Jacksonville, Miami, Arizona, Seattle and the miserable Tennessee. I give them lots of credit for the Miami win especially since Miami had the ball for 45 minutes of the game. But still. This is a week schedule. Assuming the 49er’s don’t start sucking after their miserable loss this week and the Colts only have five tough games on the rest of their schedule (49er’s, Pats, Ravens, Broncos, Jets). The two Texans games are a toss-up as well. So basically, expect the Colts to go at least 11-5 on the season. They have an easy schedule. Let’s see how well they do on those five tough games.

NY Jets √ at Miami

What a game. The Jets offense played great. So did Miami. Braylon Edwards was phenomenal and both young quarterbacks good as well. The defense was lackluster. The Jets got beat in the end. Did you hear Rex Ryan in the press conference? Ouch. He was pissed. Regardless, I lost this one by an inch.

Results

This week I ended up being 10-4. Two games I was entirely wrong on why the other two were lost in overtime or late fourth quarter heroics.

So far in the season (not counting Week 1 which I didn’t do) I am 40-20. Not bad.

NFL week 5 Picks

Alissa Miller — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 16:15:56 +0000

Week 5 is about to start, time to make my weekly last minute picks.

For the record, I think most of the picks this week are pretty clear. I went through and did these very quickly.

Cleveland √ at Buffalo (See If It Sticks ®)

Yuck and Yuck. I spent the longest time on this game, only because I don’t know which team here is worse. We’ll go for the Browns.

Dallas √ at Kansas City

Off the loss, Dallas should crush KC.

Minnesota √ at St. Louis

No brainer here.

Oakland at NY Giants √

No brainer #2

Tampa Bay at Philadelphia √

No brainer #3. I think…

Pittsburgh √ at Detroit

No brainer #4

Washington at Carolina √

Can Washington do it? I don’t think so. Carolina has more talent, let’s see if they show up.

Cincinnati √ at Baltimore

Cinci is cruising. This will be a good close game, but I think the Bengals will win.

Atlanta at San Francisco √

Another one of the close match-ups. The 49′s are on a streak. I don’t think this week is the one they’ll fall on. They will fall, just not this week.

Jacksonville √ at Seattle

Matt Hasselbeck should be back in play this week. His team is still going to lose.

Houston at Arizona √

This one is a toughie. I always want the Texans to win. Both teams are struggling, but Arizona is just off the bye. I think they’ll win.

New England √ at Denver

Game of the season? Don’t expect fireworks like that Jets and Patriots game with Mangini a couple of years ago. Mangini was/is and ass. Josh McDaniels on the other hand, played by Belichick’s rules. Belichick doesn’t want to be beaten by anyone, but I guarantee that he is proud of McDaniels. That said, I expect the Pats to pull out another close one.

Indianapolis √ at Tennessee

The Colts cannot be stopped by the struggling Titans.

NY Jets √ at Miami

Miami destroyed the Bills last week. It’s easy to beat up on teams smaller than you. Shame on you Miami. Pick on someone your own size. I think they bit off more than they can chew with the Jets. The Jets won’t be embarrassed two weeks in a row.

NFL week 4 Results

Alissa Miller — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 15:59:45 +0000

Detroit at Chicago √

Cincinnati √ at Cleveland

Seattle at Indianapolis √

NY Giants √ at Kansas City

Baltimore at New England √

Tampa Bay at Washington √

This one was close.

Tennessee √ at Jacksonville

Tennessee carried me through my fantasy league last year. Not this year.

Oakland at Houston √ (See If It Sticks®)

NY Jets at New Orleans √

Buffalo at Miami √

St. Louis at San Francisco √

Dallas √ at Denver

I knew this one would be close, but I though the Cowboys would prevail.

San Diego at Pittsburgh √

The Steelers are in a free fall. Chargers are starting to look coherent. Steelers will win.

Green Bay at Minnesota √

Shootout. The run game and defense of the Vikings will win this one. Look for Farve to play hero and make some mistakes. Just sayin’.

Results

So, magically, my record this week was 12-2. Quite a jump. Only Denver and Jacksonville blemished my perfect record.

NFL week 4 Predictions

Alissa Miller — Sun, 04 Oct 2009 16:39:58 +0000

Detroit at Chicago √

The win streak stops here for Detroit.

Cincinnati √ at Cleveland

Cleveland stinks. Cinci, is started to look not bad. Don’t expect that to change this week.

Seattle at Indianapolis √

The Colts will get the better of this one. Don’t expect a blowout though.

NY Giants √ at Kansas City

Do expect a blowout.

Baltimore at New England √

The Pats are going to keep getting better as the season goes on. They’ll win this grudge match.

Tampa Bay at Washington √

The Redskins have to win this one to save their coach.

Tennessee √ at Jacksonville

The Titans are going to have a tough time with this one, but I think they’ll pull it out.

Oakland at Houston √ (See If It Sticks®)

Toss up here. I pick the Texans every week here and usually am wrong. I think Kevin Walter is going to have a good week. Shame I dropped him from both my leagues.

NY Jets at New Orleans √

Game of the week here. I think the Jets are going to win their division. But, I also thing the Saints are Super Bowl contenders. Saints win this one. It’ll be close though.

Buffalo at Miami √

Another close game. The Wildcat will prevail.

St. Louis at San Francisco √

49er’s still look good.

Dallas √ at Denver

Close match. Hopefully both teams run rather than throw. Dallas will win in a close one.

San Diego at Pittsburgh √

The Steelers are in a free fall. Chargers are starting to look coherent. Steelers will win.

Green Bay at Minnesota √

Shootout. The run game and defense of the Vikings will win this one. Look for Farve to play hero and make some mistakes. Just sayin’.

NerdStarGamer » Random Thoughts

The Oatmeal on Restaurant Websites

Typographical Humor

Backup and Convert iPhone SMS Conversations to an HTML File

Exporting Your Messages

Make Your Texts Into a Self Contained HTML File

Make the document into an HTML file

TextWrangler is a beast

Get rid of the pesky extra line breaks

Mark up the dates

Mark up each of the conversation bits

Styling Our Conversation

Basic body styles

Styling the strong tags

Basic paragraph and date styles

Creating rounded speech bubbles

Add the fancy CSS gradients

Make more better speech bubbles

The Bahnhof Bunker

Patchwork Nation

Quote of the Week

Bus Wisdom

Jersey Shore Spin-off in Boston

Thoughts and Links About the Facebook Login Fiasco

First Impressions

The Wider Debate

On Whether Or Not Google Got It Wrong

On The Users Themselves

Is It Actually a Facebook Problem?

One Last Only Slightly Related Thought

Comcast Rebranding as Xfinity

Week 13 and 14 NFL Results

Week 13 Results

Jets √ Vs Bills

Philadelphia √ at Atlanta

St. Louis at Chicago √

Detroit at Cincinnati √

Oakland at Pittsburgh √

Tennessee √ at Indianapolis

Denver √ at Kansas City

New England √ at Miami

New Orleans √ at Washington

Tampa Bay at Carolina √

Houston √ at Jacksonville

San Diego √ at Cleveland

Dallas √ at NY Giants

San Francisco √ at Seattle

Minnesota √ at Arizona

Baltimore √ at Green Bay

Week 13 Summary

Week 14 Results

New Orleans √ at Atlanta

Green Bay √ at Chicago

NY Jets √ at Tampa Bay

Miami √ at Jacksonville

Detroit at Baltimore √

Seattle at Houston √

Denver √ at Indianapolis (See If It Sticks®)

Buffalo at Kansas City √

Cincinnati at Minnesota √

Carolina at New England √

Washington √ at Oakland

St. Louis at Tennessee √

San Diego √ at Dallas

Philadelphia at NY Giants √

Arizona √ at San Francisco

Week 14 Summary

NFL Week 12 Results

Results

Week 13 NFL Picks

Jets √ Vs Bills

Philadelphia √ at Atlanta

St. Louis at Chicago √

Detroit at Cincinnati √

Oakland at Pittsburgh √

Tennessee √ at Indianapolis

Denver √ at Kansas City

New England √ at Miami

New Orleans √ at Washington

Tampa Bay at Carolina √

Styling the `strong` tags