Buffalo -8, Atlanta +7, Cincinnati -3.5, Dallas -11, Kansas City +9.5, Houston +7, San Francisco +5, NY Jets -1.5, Philadelphia -3, San Diego -7.5, Green Bay +1, Tennessee -3, Baltimore +5.5

Last week (6-10): Atlanta -5.5, Cleveland +2.5, Oakland +9.5, Chicago -3, Green Bay +3, Denver -5.5, Indianapolis -5, Carolina +3.5, New England -12.5, Cincinnati +13, Philadelphia -3.5, San Francisco -4, St. Louis +9.5, Tennessee -4.5, Arizona +3, NY Jets +8.5

Overall (22-25)

Footbawful.  From the minds responsible for Basketbawful.  Entertaining perspective focused mostly on the professional leagues.  While I’m linking to sports blogs, SLAM started a pretty good Truth or Myth series: Kobe Bryant, Allen Iverson, Amare Stoudemire, and Chris Bosh.  And, hey, while I’m linking to things about Amare Stoudemire, here’s his appearance on Yo Gabba Gabba.

Go crazy.  Go crazy.  Let’s go grazy.

Starcraft units in Spore. Looks awesome, and I’m sure it’d be more interesting if I actually played Spore and had some idea of what it took to make these things.

We drove on Monday.  The drive was long.  And didn’t have the same feel as driving to, say, Vegas, but it was still  good knowing that I was hours away form sleeping on a mattress that wasn’t on the floor.  The drive is pretty boring.  It’s like driving through central California except twice as long plus some mountains.  But the end of the drive really topped off my thoughts regarding how I’ve taken Seattle for granted.  Heading north on I-5, you come around a curve and the Seattle skyline takes over the horizon.  We came in at night and Safeco, Qwest, and the buildings in the background looked a whole lot nicer than I ever remembered.

For the past few days, I’ve been cleaning and I’ve been trying to make a point of reducing clutter.  So I’ve been breaking down cardboard boxes like crazy.  (I was going to make up some simile about Jacquizz breaking the USC defense down, but I just get frustrated thinking about it.  Awful.  But the “Beavers Trap Trojans” headline is sort of priceless for immature people everywhere.)  My trusty desktop wanted to join the fun in the clutter pile and decided to destroyed itself.  I tried to turn it on this morning but one of the hard drives in the RAID array was clicking.  I knew it was going to happen eventually, and I’m sort of over it because it’s been six months since I used it and I don’t even really know what I’m missing.  I pulled the hard drives out and that’s ready to go in the old gomi pile. 

School started on Wednesday, and I’ll be working remotely part time starting Monday.  Not sure yet what that means in regards to this site, but I guess we’ll see.  I love school.

P.S. I don’t actually love school.

Atlanta -5.5, Cleveland +2.5, Oakland +9.5, Chicago -3, Green Bay +3, Denver -5.5, Indianapolis -5, Carolina +3.5, New England -12.5, Cincinnati +13, Philadelphia -3.5, San Francisco -4, St. Louis +9.5, Tennessee -4.5, Arizona +3, NY Jets +8.5

Last week (7-8): Arizona -6.5, Chicago +3, Tennessee +1.5, Green Bay -3, Minnesota +1.5, Buffalo +5.5, Kansas City -3.5, New England +1.5, St. Louis +8.5, Pittsburgh -6, San Diego -1, San Francisco +7, Atlanta +7, New Orleans PK, Philadelphia +7

Overall (16-15)

Dan’s coming down this weekend to join me as I say goodbye to the bay area and drive back up to Seattle. He also picked up some tickets for the 49ers game on Sunday against Detroit. Bill Simmons’ weekly lines with Cousin Sal are one of the highlights of my week. Here’s what he had to say in this week’s edition (the link goes directly to the mp3 on ESPN):

That’s an awful game.

On the bright side, there’s the classic battle of student vs. teacher. The depressing part of that bright point is that it refers to J.T. O’Sullivan vs. Jon Kitna. Still, it’s exciting to finally go to Candlestick Park. My earliest NFL memories are from the Super Bowl XXIII version of those tapes highlighting the season of the Super Bowl winners that they sell immediately after the Super Bowl ends. Dan and my dad apparently watched it enough, because I certainly remember hearing Candlestick Park over and over as a kid. I was checking Wikipedia to see if it’s actually Candlestick again or if that was after this year, and I finally learned that the Monster in question is a cable company and not the job website. If you ever tell a kid that they’ll learn something new every day, make sure to also tell them that what they learn won’t always be useful.

It finally came out this week. The problem is that probably about five of the tracks were released before the rest of the mixtape, so I’ve more than played those out. And another five tracks involve a vocoder. It appears the first time in the chorus of a song over The Game’s “My Life” beat, and I understood that, since the original song has Li’l Wayne on the hook with a vocoder. But then there are entire songs where verses are put through the auto-tune.

Between T-Pain’s entire career, Li’l Wayne dropping the ball with Tha Carter III, Love Lockdown, and Weezy and Yeezy on Swagger Like Us, I was through with vocoders in songs. That was enough. Then yesterday me and Junior are discussing plans to re-record The Essence with vocoders when I stumble across a link titled new John Legend ft. Kanye West. “Ft. Kanye West” used to be sort of a key phrase for me to instantly download something, along with “ft. Andre 3000″ and “Peter North POV”. So I download it and of course, Kanye’s auto-tuned. Now Nickel Nine’s putting his voice through the cursed thing. I feel like the crying Indian at this point.

There are a few lines about Joe Budden. And Joe Budden’s said that he has a few things to say to Royce that he’ll put on wax in the coming weeks. If they beef, even if it’s the non-hateful type ala Kanye/50, I’ll just be happy to see Royce’s aggression focused on something.

After reading a few comments regarding this mixtape, I couldn’t help but notice that more than a few people feel he’s one-dimensional. He only talks about how good he is, that’s basically it. My first reaction was anger and a lot of thoughts starting with “But he…” And I’ll defend him based on other albums, but as far as this mixtape goes, I have to agree that it’s mostly him bragging. But he sure sounds good doing it.

Arizona -6.5, Chicago +3, Tennessee +1.5, Green Bay -3, Minnesota +1.5, Buffalo +5.5, Kansas City -3.5, New England +1.5, St. Louis +8.5, Pittsburgh -6, San Diego -1, San Francisco +7, Atlanta +7, New Orleans PK, Philadelphia +7

Last week (9-7): NY Giants -4.5, Seattle +1.5, New Orleans -3, NY Jets -3, Pittsburgh -6.5, Jacksonville -3, Atlanta +3, New England -16, Baltimore +2, Philadelphia -9, San Francisco +2.5, San Diego -9, Dallas -6, Indianapolis -10.5, Minnesota +2.5, Denver -3

Overall (9-7)

For easier viewing, all of the videos are embedded after the jump.

Eminem and Proof freestyle. It has 3,000,000+ views, but it’s new to me. Looks like this was on MTV some time ago. Bittersweet. Obviously, for one, because Proof’s not alive anymore. But Eminem genuinely looks like he’s enjoying himself. And of less importance, they’re actually rhyming off the top (as far as I can tell), which doesn’t seem to be a requirement for something to be called a freestyle these days.

Knowshon Moreno hurdles a defender. Apparently didn’t make the top-10 plays on SportsCenter that day. It seemed to be making the rounds today, and I liked Deadspin’s take on it the most:

Georgia fans (and their coach) are up in arms over ESPN’s perceived slight to their Heisman Trophy candidate. Not least because if Tim Tebow had made the same run ESPN would have announced the rebranding of ESPN U as Tim Tebow’s Network.

Gilbert Gottfried at the Bob Saget roast. “Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen walk into a bar…” You stop believing in Santa a few years before you learn that Danny Tanner and Iago are comedians with dirty, dirty sets.

Norm Macdonald at the Bob Saget roast. Bill Simmons mentioned Norm’s roast set in a podcast. He heard from a friend that was actually at the show that more people “got it” than the telecast makes it seem. Kills me around 1:55.

Takeru Kobayashi vs. Giant Bear. I was pretty hype for this back in high school. Re-watching it now, if I didn’t know any better I’d guess it was from a sketch comedy show. Especially for about thirty seconds starting at 3:25 with the bear growling and the trainer answering interview questions absolutely straight faced. The icing on the cake comes at the end when they have the preview of upcoming segments, including midgets vs. an elephant.

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Bill Simmons had an all-Brady mailbag today. This question reflects the sentiments of a lot of friends, some more vested in the home teams than others, but all of us feeling the pain.

Q: Brady’s out. That really sucks. But it could be worse — you could be a Seattle sports fan. Let me break it down for you: The Mariners are struggling through one of their worst seasons ever. Our Sonics, the only team to win a professional title in Seattle, moved the team to Okla-friggin-homa and stuck us with the Storm. And the Seahawks — in Holmgren’s final year, mind you — are now without their TOP FOUR RECEIVERS! Imagine losing Moss, Welker, Gaffney AND Kelley Washington. Plus our quarterback is having back problems (including rumors of bulging discs), and our best running back left last week’s game with an injury. Of course, a 6-10 record might win our division, which means we get to lose in Round 1. Oh, and the travesty that was the excessive celebration call on Washington’s Jake Locker. But on the bright side … well, I give up. Be thankful you don’t live in Seattle. – Dan Gomez, Seattle