3:33 PM EST - I'm sitting here at my favorite of all places, the airport. In this case I'm at the airport in Charlotte, NC, and I can only assume I'm at an airport since if I look outside all I can see is fog.

The esteemed folks at US Airways have pulled the old bait and switch on me for this flight. I purposely purchased all of my tickets this winter on flights with large aircraft, as I always do. The bigger the airplane, the less like an airplane and more like a crowded train it feels. If possible, I'd like to fly on a plane where I can't see any windows so that I more easily pretend that I'm on the top floor of a very tall hotel with small beds and no room service.

But a few weeks ago, I got an email from my friends at US Airways informing me that my flight, originally scheduled on one of the big planes with a name like "737" or "747" (presumably denoting the number of seats they can cram into the aluminum tube) has been changed to a smaller plane, with a name involving the phrase "Regional Jet". So I pay for a US Airways Seven-Thirty-CattleCar and they give me NoName Regional Airlines, where it's quite possible I'll have to walk out onto the tarmac and climb a flight of stairs to get onto the aircraft, much like the crew departing to visit King Kong in the original movie. At least if it's too snowy to land in KC we'll still be able to make it to Monkey Island.

3:46 PM EST - I was supposed to be up in the sky right now, but my flight has already gotten delayed twice. As much I enjoy the foggy scenery of Charlotte, NC, with their middling football team, nondescript hockey team, and semiprofessional basketball team, I would rather not spend the night here. The Regional Jet I'll be riding on today hasn't even left yet to get here, so I'm not exactly closing up my laptop to leave. Try telling me now that air travel is faster than driving.

I'll do full picks for tomorrow's games and abbreviated ones for the rest of this weekend's slate. I won't give the Colts defense a free pass after the egg they laid against the Bengals on Sunday. Indy may have won the game, but a team with a defense that porous isn't winning any championships. It's amazing how exposed they are against real NFL offenses.

ATL at DET: The Falcons have been in an embarassing free fall lately, but nothing cures all ills like the Lions. ATL

DEN at DAL: This one has all the makings: on the road with short rest against a tough defense. The Broncos' yearly swoon begins now. DAL

CAR at BUF: CAR
BAL at CIN: CIN
SF at TEN: TEN
NE at KC: NE
CLE at MIN: MIN
CHI at TB: TB
SD at WAS: SD
STL at HOU: STL
MIA at OAK: OAK
JAX at AZ: AZ (Upset Special)
GB at PHI: PHI
NYG at SEA: NYG
NO at NYJ: Well I know one thing I won't be doing Monday night. NYJ

I'm not actually in line tonight, but many people are. The much-ballyhooed XBox 360 arrives in (some) stores tonight, and everyone is all atizzy at spending the long weekend playing Halo.

Personally I'm sitting this shopping frenzy out, but it'll be interesting to see if this is the beginning of the end for Sony. Nintendo ruled the late 80's, Sega ruled the early 90's, and Sony had the late 90's, but Microsoft is getting the jump on them with this release and there doesn't seem to be any buzz at all around the Playstation 3. Even Nintendo's Revolution is generating some talk around the new controller style, and they're wisely staying away from direct competition with Sony and MS.

I've heard nary a peep about next year's Sony offering, and by the time it comes out the hardcore gamer types will already have a huge library of XBox titles and months of online play under their belts. There's not enough room in anyone's wallet for two gaming machines that cost half a grand each, and I'll go out on a limb and say that no one will be patient enough to even see what Sony brings to the table.

Todays scaring midwestern fact of the day: I'm only about 2.5 hours from Omaha, Nebraska.

TB at ATL: Both of these teams will lose in the first round of the playoffs, but I just have no faith in the Buccaneers offense. Maybe I'm still thinking of the homosexual winking pirate on their old helmets. ATL

CAR at CHI: One of these teams has an offense and a defense, while one of them has a defense that relies on returning a missed field goals 108 yards for a touchdown to beat the worst team in the league. CAR

MIA at CLE: Miami looked good last week against the hapless New England defense, but bad teams often seem to have letdown games in situations like this, especially on the road. CLE

DET at DAL: The Lions may not be in the midst of a long winless road streak anymore, but I still can't bring myself to pick them away from their dome. DAL

JAX at TEN: When you have a 1-3 record at home, you know you're not going well. At least the #1 draft pick is well within reach. JAX

AZ at STL: Oh Rams, it's games like this that make you think you're a good team, when we all know better. STL

NO at NE: Calling the Patriots defense "patchwork" is an understatement at this point. It's pretty scary when you're actually glad to see your #3 wideout playing DB because it's an upgrade over the other available corners. NE

PHI at NYG: If the Giants hadn't lost this week, this would have been a perfect upset special. As it is, the Eagles are falling fast and the Giants are pissed. NYG

OAK at WAS: Weren't some people picking the Raiders to make the playoffs? Oh, preseason NFL previews, how you fail to see the obvious weaknesses in your quest to make daring picks. WAS

PIT at BAL: Tommy Maddox against a good defense? Nuh-uh. Upset special. BAL

SEA at SF: This is one of those games that the old Seahawks would lose. Have they really turned the corner? SEA

IND at CIN: Whenever it seems like the Bengals are poised to make the leap, they lose disappointingly. Sadly, this game will be no different. IND

NYJ at DEN: Is it just me or does it seem like Denver gets to play at home every week? It's not just me, this is their 6th home game of the year already. The slide is still coming, mark my words. DEN

BUF at SD: There is no possible way the Bills could possibly win this game, although with Marty Schottenheimer anything is possible. SD

KC at HOU: The Chiefs are the new Titans, I've lost all concept of whether they will win each week. This game will probably be closer than it should be. KC

MIN at GB: The Packers don't seem to be good enough to win 2 in a row, but then again neither do the Vikings. GB

If you blinked at any point in the past year, you may have missed one of the many new offerings by everyone's favorite public corporation, Google. It wasn't too long ago that Google was the darling of the geeks, with their clean interface and powerful search engine that rid us of the visual nightmare that was Yahoo. But then they went public, and Slashdot turned against them.

At first I was skeptical, figuring that it was just more of the same crowd that loves skewering Microsoft for releasing popular products finding fault with anyone who makes a buck. The furor even died down somewhat, but have you noticed how much they've done recently?

Google Talk indexing your conversations, the Google sidebar indexing your desktop, Picasa indexing your pictures, Gmail indexing your email, Google Maps indexing where you go and where you live, Google Analytics indexing your personal web site traffic (as well as this site's traffic...), Google Base indexing your recipes and items for sale, and someday the Google book offering indexing what you read.

Clearly from here there are only two possibilities. One is that Google organizes the mishmash of pornography and people buying video game content for thousands of dollars that is the internet into a digital version of the Great Library of Alexandria, making it a real repository of the collective knowledge of the human race.

The other is that it uses all of this information to finally give us Minority Report-style advertising wherever we go, targeted specifically to us. One of these two possibilities makes money, the other doesn't.

Google can waste their time mining my data and analyzing my click patterns, but they'll just learn what is blatantly obvious: I spend most of my time online looking for code samples to help me with programming projects at work. See, Google, all you had to do was ask.

As a programmer by trade and a computer scientist at school, I've been a pretty big nerd for a pretty long time. However, this Thursday I reached new heights when I attended the Visual Studio 2005 Launch Party here in KC.

Ostensibly I was there for work, but in reality I was there to get a free copy of the new version of Visual Studio to play with on my own time, since we probably won't be using it at work for a few months at least.

Other than that, I've been working a lot and enjoying the outdoors since it has been unseasonably warm here lately. I haven't much enjoyed the news from across the border in Kansas that teachers will now be teaching intelligent design in schools. Kansas already has the reputation as the most backwards state in the nation, and they're doing nothing to dispel that notion. Raising your children in Kansas should be considered a crime.

KC at BUF: I don't know what to think about this matchup. The Chiefs have been uneven all year, but they have the better record. The Bills are playing at home, but it won't much matter. KC

SF at CHI: Who is starting at QB for the 49ers? Joe Montana must be spinning in his car commercials about now...CHI

AZ at DET: Joey Harrington sans Rogers vs. Kurt Warner sans Boldin. Yuck. DET

HOU at IND: I see the Colts are back to their regularly-scheduled patsy. It was nice of the NFL to ensure that there's no possible way for Indy to have a letdown game. I also see that Jason Whitlock on ESPN.com was the only one who saw Monday night's game for what it was: an exposure of the many holes in the Colts defense. IND

NE at MIA: Thankfully I won't have to watch Duane Starks get torched anymore, but that just means they'll have to find some other scrub to play corner. Is Earthwind Moreland still available? NE

MIN at NYG: If the Vikings were at home, I'd be almost tempted to pick them. But they haven't won a road game all year. NYG

BAL at JAX: I can't in good conscience pick the Ravens to win anything, even with Kyle Boller coming back to "jump start" their offense. JAX

DEN at OAK: And thusly, the slide begins. Upset special. OAK

NYJ at CAR: Will the Panthers be too distracted by this week's cheerleader controversy to take the Jets seriously, or will the Panthers' fans be too distracted by the cheerleaders to provide a home field advantage? CAR

GB at ATL: And here's my weekly one game advantage on Lucas. ATL

STL at SEA: Am I really picking the Seahawks to go 7-2? I just can't do it. I'm going to regret this one. STL

WAS at TB: Two teams that started fast, then faded. The Redskins are coming off a big prime-time win against their division rivals, while the Bucs lost in a similar situation. Letdown game for the Skins? Not with Chris Simms on the other side of the field. WAS

CLE at PIT: This week's pearl of wisdom from ESPN's NFL page: "Batch could pose problems for Browns". Could? It's the Browns. PIT

DAL at PHI: So the Eagles have no running game, a hurt QB, and no receivers to speak of. I want to pick them at home against Bledsoe, but I just can't bring myself to do it. They'll be lucky to score 10 points. DAL

Eileen's folks are in town this weekend, so I don't have time for a full post. Here's the quick version of the NFL picks:

TEN at CLE: CLE
OAK at KC: KC
ATL at MIA: MIA
DET at MIN: MIN
SD at NYJ: SD
CAR at TB: CAR
HOU AT JAX: JAX
CIN at BAL: CIN
CHI at NO: NO
SEA at AZ: SEA
NYG at SF: NYG
PIT at GB: PIT
PHI at WAS: PHI
IND at NE: NE, of course