CIN at STL: This will be a great game, too bad I won't get to watch it. If Bruce doesn't play, the Rams might be in trouble (and so will my fantasy team). CIN

DET at CAR: The record will be set this week. CAR

NO at JAX: So I guess Jaxonville's defense isn't as good as advertised. NO

TEN at HOU: Neil O'Donnell may make an appearance, not that it will matter. TEN

MIA at BUF: The slide continues. Has anyone besides me noticed how wretched Drew Bledsoe has been this year?BUF

WAS at CHI: Every week there are games like this. CHI

BAL at CLE: Will Jamal Lewis break 300? I'm predicting he won't even go over the century mark. You heard it here first. BAL

NYG at DAL: Giants are done. DAL

SD at PIT: Both of these teams are jockeying for top draft picks. PIT

AZ at SEA: As bad as the Seahawks are on the road, they usually win at home. SEA

SF at PHI: The Eagles aren't this good, people. SF

DEN at IND: Without Portis, no chance for the Broncos. IND

GB at OAK: Laugh. GB

This morning on ESPN2 they were showing some sort of miniature golf championship. The "athletes" were dressed just as absurdly as real golfers, and the announcers spoke in hushed tones like we were witnessing history or something, but the fans were typical Florida yahoos. One guy weighed at least 300 pounds and was wearing only a speedo, which you could barely see thanks to his stomach. Ouch.

College Football season is over except for the annual Cavalcade of Meaningless Bowl Games, the NFL moves to Saturdays in order to garner more nationally-televised games. Here are my picks for tomorrow's games:

ATL at TB: Somehow Tampa is not yet mathematically eliminated from the playoffs, although they need lots of help to get in. Their first bit of help is that they are scheduled to play the Falcons. TB

KC at MIN: Something about this game scares me, whether its the fact that Minnesota has the potential to score a lot of points or that both teams have no defense to speak of. But what worries me the most if I were KC is that the Pats are living a charmed life right now, and a KC loss would all but clinch homefield advantage for the Patriots. MIN

NE at NYJ: Speaking of, here's the aforementioned luckiest team that ever was. They are approaching the Super Bowl season of 2001 wherein at one point they fumbled away the ball in overtime and would have lost the game except the refs ruled that David Patten was simultaneously touching the ball and the sideline at the same time and therefore the ball was out of bounds. Patten was lying unconcious on the field at the time. NE

Lately there has been a rush of TV and internet ads for "Art Schools" that are just itching for new applicants. In order to get people to apply, they are offering to judge your artistic talent for free without any effort on your part. You just give them your name, address, email address, and phone number, and in exchange for this personal information to sell, they send you a "free art test".

Now you don't have to guess whether you have artistic talent. Just do this simple test to see if your drawing more closely resembles the Mona Lisa or "Stick Figure and Tree". This is such a brilliant idea, I think it should be picked up elsewhere:

WashU Med School: Free med school test! We mail you a cadaver and you dissect it and mail it back. Half of your grade will be based on whether you damage any internal organs. The other half will be if you look the other way when you find out that the cadaver in question was stolen from a local graveyard.

MIT Computer Science Department: Free Computer Science test! We'll send you a computer and you get 2 days to mess with it. Extra points for the following activities: starting your own illegal file sharing network with it, formatting the hard drive and installing Linux for no apparent reason other than to "stick it to the man", opening up the box and using the parts to build a faster computer that never really works right, but think of the money you saved!

Author Test: Free test to see if you can be a published author! You send us your completed manuscripts, and we rail on your regardless of quality. This way when you become famous you have one more to add to the "people who told me my work sucked, but now I can afford to have them killed" file. Immediate disqualification if your work in any way resembles "fanfiction", takes place in the Star Wars universe, or has its own complex language spoken by the characters.

For some reason, Snoop Dogg is everywhere these days. His MTV show was only marginally funny, if that, but apparently it struck a chord with marketers everywhere. Now either Snoop or his "-izzle talk" can be found in:

-an AOL 9.0 commercial where after a lame couple are told they should install AOL and use Snoop Dogg CDs for their artwork by Jerry Stiller, Snoop walks into their living room and says "now wait one minizzle". At no point is the couple surprised that two celebrities appear in their living room.

-an Old Navy Commercial where The Nanny, after chastising a there-for-the-sake-of-being-there monkey in a scarf, exclaims "my shizzle's gone fazizzle!" or something to that effect.

and the most egregious offender:

-"Red Light, Green Light", a horrible horrible song with Limp Bizkit that Snoop should've avoided like the plague.

With this in mind, some of you may want to join the craze and start talking like Snoop before it officially jumps the shark. I send you here where a Scott Friedman-authored script will help you sound like an even lamer white guy or girl. Fo shizzle!

I actually picked up a little bit of ground on the Dynamic Duo last week, and it's a good thing given that there are only 3 weeks left in the regular season.

SEA at STL: I said earlier this week that I would bet my life on the Rams winning this game. The current state of the NFL is unpredictable, but I'm quite confident that the undefeated-at-home Rams will beat the 1-win-on-the-road Seahawks. STL

JAX at NE: A classic trap game, but the good teams win games against lesser opponents at home, and the Patriots may be the worst 11-2 team ever, but they're still good. NE

PIT at NYJ: The Jets can't stop the run, and the Steelers can't stop the pass. It should be a wild one, but Jerome Bettis is old. NYJ

HOU at TB: It's getting hard for me to pick against both the Saints and Bucs every week when a) they played each other last week and b) they play teams that are starting guys like Tony Hollings and Dave Ragone. TB

MIN at CHI: Outdoors, on the road, it's not looking too good for the Vikings. But their craptacular defense has nothing to worry about against a Bears offense that can't score. MIN

SF at CIN: I want to pick the Bengals to choke again, I really do, but I have this nagging feeling that the 50 points score by San Fran last week was more a product of the Cardinals sucking than themselves being good. CIN

BUF at TEN: As we saw last week, the Titans can lose at home. Buffalo is no Indianapolis, but I just have a little twitch to make this my UPSET SPECIAL!!! BUF

ATL at IND: This is the game where the "Michael Vick may be good, but he can't play cornerback" argument will gain strength. IND

DET at KC: I thought only NFL teams were playing this week, I didn't know that there was still a college team playing. KC

CLE at DEN: The Broncos are this years beneficiaries of the Dolphins' annual swoon. And the beneficiaries of getting to play the Browns: We Go Through QBs Like Steve Spurrier Goes Through RBs. DEN

BAL at OAK: It's hard to believe that Rick Mirer was once a high first round draft pick. His stat tracker chart on ESPN.com looks like the stock market from 1999-2002. BAL

DAL at WAS: The most boring rivalry in the NFL gets another boring chapter. Tim Hasslebeck gets to prove that he, just like the others, is not the Redskins' quarterback of the future. DAL

CAR at AZ: Are the Cardinals good at anything? If there was an expansion draft right now, I don't think a single member of their team would get drafted. CAR

NYG at NO: It's the battle of the NFL's elite fumblers: Tiki Barber and Aaron Brooks. Last week Brooks singlehandedly lost the game by losing 3 fumbles, while the Giants have appeared to give up even trying anymore. But only one of these teams has Jesse Palmer. NO

PHI at MIA: It's my favorite holiday, the annual December swoon for the Dolphins, so this game will clearly be won by...Miami? There must be something in the water. MIA

Again with the obscure Pumpkins lyric as a subject line. If you know where it's from, you get a gold star.

Anyways, the big news this week is that I got a job offer! Cerner has extended an invitation for me to work there when I graduate, and I have until December 22nd to decide. I'm currently in the process of contacting WashU people who work there, if you know of anyone besides Jenny McGee and Chris King, send me their email address and you get another gold star.

Accepting this offer would mean relocating westward to the Border of Civilization©, Kansas City, MO. Like ancient maps of the world, which depicted oceans west of Europe as being filled with sea monsters and mermaids, I think of the area west of KC as off the edge of the map (until you get to Cali and the O.C.).

Kansas City itself seems like a pleasant city, kind of like St. Louis Lite. It has many of the benefits of the Lou without the rampant crime. Although the Cardinals are definitely a much better team than the Royals, I would at least get to see the Red Sox 3 or 4 times a year, which is a plus. And the Chiefs play the Patriots much more often than the Rams do (minus huge Super Bowl upsets).

As Ron implied, my lack of posting has been due to being busy lately. I had my Advanced User Interfaces final tonight, so now that that's over with I have a take-home final in Advanced Compilers to work on and a gigantic final project for Advanced UI.

This is about the time of year when everyone on campus ratchets up the competition for "who can whine the most about how much work they have". You can't take 3 steps without walking past some sorority girl with her Prada bag talking on her cell phone about how she has 3 b-school exams coming up. The best is in places like the Subway line where groups of 2 or 3 students will enter into an elaborate game of one-upsmanship to see who can claim to be busiest:

Student 1: Man, I didn't sleep at all last night studying for my exam today.
Student 2: Oh yeah? I've got a paper due tomorrow, a problem set due Thursday, 2 finals Friday, and another paper due on Monday.
Student 3: Well I've got a 10 page paper due in one hour that has been assigned since September, but I only have 1 page done since I spent all semester drinking and playing Snood. I've pulled 3 all-nighters in the past 4 days, but haven't actually done any work during this time. Instead, I've spent all night calling people on my cell phone and telling them how much work I have to do.

And then there are the people who take Orgo, the ones who study every night of the whole semester, only to forget everything except what they cram in the final 2 days before the exam.

Here's an idea people: set aside a time to study, then....actually study during that time. This will give you lots of other time in which to relax before taking your tests or writing your papers. Or perhaps you could start your projects in advance! There is no rule that says you have to wait until the night before and then chug 10 Cokes and 2 packs of No-Doz, so if you choose to do so then I, for one, don't want to hear about it.

I didn't almost forget to do picks, I was gone all day today. Here's the abridged version:

TB at NO: Never pick TB again. NO
WAS at NYG: Giants have given up. WAS
DAL at PHI: Cowboys hit the wall. PHI
OAK at PIT: Both teams suck. PIT
SEA at MIN: Seahawks don't win on the road. MIN
HOU at JAX: Mini-upset special I guess? JAX
CIN at BAL: It's been fun, Bengals fans. BAL
SD at DET: Two in a row for the Lions? DET
CHI at GB: Bears run the table? Hardly. GB
IND at TEN: Just to be different. IND
AZ at SF: Both teams blow. SF
MIA at NE: Pats win in the snow...again. NE
NYJ at BUF: Bledsoe is dizzy, 2 more picks than usual? NYJ
KC at DEN: KC about to be tied with the Pats. DEN
CAR at ATL: Panthers have also hit the wall. ATL
STL at CLE: Wipeout. STL

For the third straight day, there is no snow on the ground. That makes Weather.com 0 for 3 this week in terms of predicting the weather. If they were a baseball player, they'd be getting pinch hit for in the later innings.

How can they still be calling this "reality TV"? According to CNN, MTV will be showing an Osbourne Family holiday special that features:

-Jessica Simpson singing a duet with Ozzy
-Kelly Osbourne "singing" Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas
-"Twas the Night Before Christmas" as performed by Sharon Osbourne, Big Boi from Outkast, JC from NSync, Tracy Morgan, and Carmen Electra.

This sounds nothing like Christmas at my house, how is this "reality"? I'd have to say my house gets the slight edge, though. We may not have Jessica Simpson, but we also don't have Kelly Osbourne.

It's December 5th, and I've bought a grand total of one Christmas present so far. I was planning on going shopping on Saturday, but forgot that my people had already committed me to a previous engagement. I guess I will have to forego my usual orgy of football on Sunday to join the crowds at the mall. That is if I don't gamble away all of my money before then.

Speaking of gambling, I just finished watching "Celebrity Poker" on James' computer. That's some good stuff. There's nothing like watching David Schwimmer confirm my suspicions by being the absolute worst poker player ever. Nobody gets the dead-giveaway "aww man" look on his face when he misses the flush he was going for quite like Mr. Schwimmer. The only disappointing part was that Ben Affleck was not permitted to use J-Lo as a wager.

I know there are still 28 days to go in 2003, but I think I am safe in proclaiming that the newest White Stripes album is the worst album of the year. Somewhere along the line (early 2002 to be exact), Rolling Stone magazine decided that 60's garage rock was going to make a comeback. Out came band after band that all sound like they recorded their album with a cassette deck in the drummer's basement: The Strokes, the Hives, the Vines, the White Stripes, etc. etc. ad infinitum.

The White Stripes in particular chose to justify their lack of instrumentation, overly simplistic guitar and drum sequences, poor recording quality, and off-key singing as "minimalist style". It is so minimalist, in fact, that my most recent recording of Got to Get Her Out sounds like it was recorded at Abbey Road in comparison.

Let's take a look at their song "Seven Nation Army", which is played approximately every thirty seconds on 93X. First of all, we get it Meg, you know how to play the damn kick drum. Over and over again, kick drum kick drum kick drum. This is drumming for 3rd graders. Anyone can do this. And above it we have...a repetitive bass line. Over and over again. I can play this, and I don't even play bass. Sure it gets stuck in your head, but any song with a repetitive progression can do that, and chances are it won't have Jack's certifiably awful singing.

Then there's their new single "Hardest Button to Button". Once again, Meg shows off the drumming abilities of a first year member of middle school band. [thunk thunk thunk thunk] over and over. This time, there's no catchy simple bass line, but just quick repetitions of the same guitar chord. This is what's going to "save rock and roll"?

Then there are the lyrics (besides the constant "the hardest button to button"):

We started living in an old house
My ma gave birth and we were checking it out
It was a baby boy
So we bought him a toy
It was a ray gun
And it was 1981
We named him Baby
He had a toothache
He started crying
It sounded like an earthquake

This is just horrible, and it's not like the vocals lend anything to the song besides a nails-on-the-chalkboard cringe.

And according to Rolling Stone, this is the 390th greatest album of all time. But how much credence can you lend to a list that puts the Strokes "Is This It" at #367, just below The Smashing Pumpkins' "Siamese Dream"? Siamese Dream is a classic, with 4 hit singles and complex, layered instrumentation. The Strokes are disposable crap that people will have forgotten about in 5 years.

During my hectic and crazy Thanksgiving Break, I got to become briefly reaquainted with my old hometown of Atlanta. I didn't think it was humanly possible, but the traffic in Atlanta is even worse than when I lived there. At 1:30 PM on a Monday, the highways were clogged with cars and the major side roads were not moving.

It's hard to explain traffic like this to people in St. Louis. Here, we're accustomed to highways that have 2, maybe 3 lanes in each direction. It Atlanta it's common to have 6 or 7 or more.

They also have the HOV lane, which stands for "Hovercraft". Actually, it stands for High Occupancy Vehicles, but based on the number of cars riding in this lane, it might as well stand for Hovercraft. While the other 7 lanes are jam packed with cars trying to maintain a 70 mph speed while randomly switching lanes in bumper to bumper traffic, the HOV lane is empty. Riding in it reminds me of the Simpsons episode where Homer becomes a Stonecutter and gets to skip the traffic by using the secret underground street. Perhaps this is why the traffic in Atlanta is so bad: nobody carpools.

The airport is also an experience unto itself. It's the size of a small town, and while Lambert has the Metrolink that goes from the East Terminal to the Main Terminal, Hartsfield in Atlanta has a train that goes between 5 different concourses in the South terminal alone.

And built into your flight time out of Atlanta is the approximately 40 minutes you'll spend sitting on the runway waiting to take off. My flight was scheduled to leave at 4 EST, but didn't end up taking off until roughtly 4:45. After waiting there for half an hour, the pilot came on the intercom and said "we're now fourth in line for takeoff". I don't think I've ever been more than second or third in line for takeoff from here, even just after leaving the gate. Somehow it still made it in time to St. Louis at 4:55 CST.

I therefore have these travel tips for those traveling to the State of Georgia, a.k.a "Metro Atlanta":

-Bring something to do on the plane. You can't use your cell phone or electronic devices while taxiing, so ideally it should be something low tech and time consuming for the wait like a Rubiks Cube, 5000 piece jigsaw puzzle, or the latest Harry Potter novel.

-Bring a friend. You can't ride in the HOV lane without another passenger in your car, so kidnap someone if you have to. Anything in order to stay out of the 7 "death lanes".

-Avoid the city altogether. Besides the two clogged highways through downtown, there are numerous equally-clogged bypasses going around the city. Keep in mind that due to the size of the city, some of these bypasses go through other cities, such as Montgomery, Alabama. Besides beating the traffic, you also get to avoid Atlanta's biggest eyesore: the Atlanta Falcons.

Every winter, the young and old alike are besieged by an invisible visitor. Whether sleeping or awake, he doles out painful gifts to all in order to remind them of his ubiquitous presence. If you wear stockings (or socks), he visits you even more often. He is the child of cold weather.

I am, of course, referring to my great wintertime archnemesis: Static Electricity. Whenever I open a door, drink from a water fountain or get into my car between November and March I am painfully reminded that I walked on a carpet with socks sometime in the previous few hours.

If you're a frequent visitor to this website, you know that I'm not one to sit idly by in situations like this. I therefore propose that as a service to its citizens, the city of St. Louis should coat all metal surfaces with rubber during the course of the winter. While on one of their rounds to salt the streets, they can also "rubberize the city" by coating cars, door handles, and other metallic fixtures with rubbery goodness.

It's not like they're spending their time and money filling in potholes or anything.