Kid-dom 101: Vibratory Football

The Boston Office Checks In

From an email thread today (Friday before game) .

Boston PJ: “I hope it is a good game but this has blowout written all over it”

Acropolis, Now (Come on you Red Men!)

It’s About Time, Sports Fans

I absolutely LOVE this. I have been hoping for years that American fans get together and do something similar. Maybe now with the internet, there is hope for us.

What am I talking about? Well, at the FA Cup Final (Britain’s Superbowl) at Wembley on May 19, the fans of Manchester United and Chelsea will be boycotting ALL of the non-ticket purchases at the Cup Final. As the English say every 5 minutes or so, “Brilliant!” The prices are too high and so they have gotten organized and decided not to buy any of it.

Prices at sporting events all over the country are out of control but somehow, dopey fans like us still pay them. Things like 15 to park at RFK in Washington. 10 for a beer at Yankee stadium. 15 for a clam roll in Fenway. Match programs that cost over 10 dollars and have no place to actually score the game! It’s insanity. And while they can charge whatever they want, we don’t have to pay it.

This fall at the playoffs, I snuck a huge bag of M&M’s into Shea Stadium in the front of my jeans, where I was pretty sure they wouldn’t pat me down. I bought one soda all night. 4 bucks. Ouch. I always try to eat before a game and to smuggle in candy or peanuts in my pants or my wife’s purse. But why should I have to resort to this nonsense?

American fans need to band together and protest some of these prices. Organize a day where no one goes to the park or no one buys any concessions or merchandise. Hit them where they are hitting us. Baseball has a monopolistic element in that if I’m a Met fan, there ain’t no candy store across the street I can go to. And once in their building, I am a prisoner for up to 4 hours and they are taking advantage of that. It ain’t right. But we have no one to blame but ourselves because we go like lemmings and pay it.

I will be closely following this boycott and wish it all the luck in the world. Good job Chelsea and ManU supporters. –fog

There is a season

This is the time of year that people will start yammering away at you for little reason about who they’ve picked in the NCAA office pool. Memo to all those guys: I don’t CARE who you “have” in the tournament.

What Font Has Prince’s Symbol?

It came up last night during the Superbowl: What font do I have to install to be able to render Prince’s symbol? Do you need your coolcard to download it? –fog

Superbowl Frequent Scores Best Box Pool Numbers-What are your odds?

This table is the result of all the quarters played in Superbowl history:

Superbowl Box Pool Number Frequency

Great stuff from someone I know at a bigtime polling/survey company (figures, right?). Thanks Toots.

Thanks and for more Click Here

This table is the result of all the quarters played in Superbowl history:

This table is the result of all the quarters played in the 2006-07 season:

For the first quarter the following numbers in the last 40 Superbowls have been: 0,3,4,6,7. That’s it. If you have those numbers, for any team, you are looking good, at least for the first quarter prize.

0 has shown up 37 times (20 times for the away team, and 17 times for the home).
3 was 19 times.
4 was 5 times.
6 was 1 time.
7 was 18 times.
Best first quarter combo? 0,0, which showed up 9 times.

For the second quarter the following numbers in the last 40 Superbowls have been: 0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9. Everyone can be a winner! Those holding 0, once again, are looking good.
0 has shown up 25 times
1 was 2 times.
2 was 2 times.
3 was 16 times.
4 was 8 times.
5 was 1 time.
6 was 7 times.
7 was 14 times.
8 was 3 times.
9 was 2 times.
Best second quarter combo? 7,0 which was 5 times. Plenty of other combos showed up 4 times.

Once again, for the third quarter the following numbers in the last 40 Superbowls have been: 0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9.
0 was 16 times.
1 was 4 times.
2 was 2 times.
3 was 10 times.
4 was 12 times.
5 was 4 times.
6 was 8 times.
7 was 17 times.
8 was 2 times.
9 was 5 times.
Best third quarter combo? There isn’t a clearcut favorite. 0 and 4 show up 4 times.

The final score everyone shows up again.
0 was 12 times.
1 was 9 times.
2 was 4 times.
3 was 6 times.
4 was 10 times.
5 was 4 time.
6 was 10 times.
7 was 15 times.
8 was 3 times.
9 was 7 times.
Best final score combo? 7&4 showed up 4 times. 7&0 was 3 times.

The best number, clearly, was 0. It appeared 90 times: in every quarter & final for the last 40 Superbowls.
7 showed up 64 times, or 20% of the time. The worst number was 8, which appeared only 8 times. This was also the same story for 5, which hit 9 times.

[Since I am getting hits from France and the Netherlands on this topic, for those of you who don't know, most American offices sell the 100 squares in a 10 x 10 grid for money. Typically 5 and 10 dollars a box but I have heard of guys spending as much as $500 a box. After all the boxes are filled in, the digits 0 through 9 are drawn randomly and written in over each column on top and down the left side for each row. Then the team names are picked. This is so you can not choose your numbers beforehand, because, the way American NFL football is scored in 3's and 7's mostly, certain numbers are much more favorable. Payouts are for the box with the score at the end of each of the 4 quarters. The big payout (usually half), is for the end. For a 10 dollar box pool, there is 1000 to win. 500 for the end and usually 250 for the half and 125 for the first and third quarter. If the score at the end of the quater is 0-0, the person who owns the box at the intersection of 0 and 0 wins, and so on.]

Movement – add a 5th Quarter to Super Bowl

It’s a natural, fans. The Superbowl is a marketing creation anyway, so what’s a little tinkering if it adds more action and more commercials to our National Winter Holiday?

There are so many TV breaks and the players are so sky high to be there that I don’t think conditioning and fatigue would be factors. It’s more revenue for the NFL and the Network and (we hope), less pregame nonsense and more GAME! Everybody wins.

Everyone has their friends over and the chips and dip are out, so why not?

Colts in the big one

I think we just SAW the superbowl…whew! What a game! That’s what it’s all about. There’s some guys thinking about dropped balls right about now. Way to go Peyton!

Also, I listened to the Bears game while working on Babe and Dave Simms, Bethany alumni, was great on the radio play by play.  A real nice listen. (It was on 66am, WFAN in NY)

–fog