The SoapBoxers

Last Week:
Straight Up – 12-8 ATS: 11-9

For the Year:
Straight Up – 51-21 ATS: 36-36

Back to level par on the spread picks for the year.  Most of the upsets did not pan out…so I will take a stab at a few more this week.

Thursday

Colorado @ West Virginia (-17.5) – Too many points, Colorado is overmatched but will make it a decent game.  WV- 35- COLO 21

Friday

Pittsburgh (-6.5) @ Louisville – This one scares me for some reason.  Upset special?  Lousiville 24- Pitt 21

Saturday

Michigan @ Michigan State – Mich State feels disrespected.  Go Green!  Misch St 27- Mich 24

Northwestern @ Purdue (-6.5)  – Seems like the boilermakers will go big here.  Purdue 35-  NW – 20

Kansas State @ Iowa State (-3.5)  -eeessh…battle of the bottom of the Big XII North.  IA St 35- K St 17

LSU @ Georgia (-3.5) – How bout dem Dawgs!  GA- 17- LSU 14

Penn State (-6.5) @ Illinois – Penn State still stinging after last week.  JoPa will have em ready to play.  Penn St 30- Illinois 24

Washington @ Notre Dame (-13.5) – Jake Locker only wins big games at home.  ND pads another easy win but closer than you might think.  ND – 28- Wash -24

North Carolina State (-1.5) @ Wake Forest  – Wake has to do it sometime for me.  WF- 21- NC ST – 21

USC (-6.5) @ California – Antoher intriguing matchup.  Is USC overated?  Is Cal underated?  USC – 28 – Cal 21

Oklahoma (-7.5) @ Miami – Too Many points..Miami in a close one.  They are a different team at home.  The U – 28- OU 24

NFL

Detroit @ Chicago (-10)  Big spread for the Bears but they will harras Stafford early and often.  Bears – 28 – Lions 17

Tennessee (-3) @ Jacksonville – Who thought these teams would have just one combined win between the both of them.  Tenneseee 17- J-ville 14

Baltimore (-1.5) @ New England – The Ravens are the REAL DEAL – Balt – 24- NE 21

Dallas (-3) @ Denver- Cowboys still have not played a complete game..until this week.  Cowboys – 35- Denver 14

Cincinatti (-6) @ Cleveland – Derek Anderson is the savior for the Browns.  CLE – 24- CIN 21

New York Jets @ New Orleans (-7) Match up of the week.  Blitzing won’t frustrate Brees.  Saints 35- Jets 17

St Louis @ San Francisco (-10)  Wow big number..will Frank Gore Play?  Rams cover but lose.  SF- 28 – STL 20

San Diego @ Pittsburgh (-6)  This is a fishy number to me…superbowl hangover?  Pitt 21- SD – 17

Green Bay @ Minnesota (-3.5)  The one we have all been waiting for.  This one should go down to the wire.  Green Bay 21- MN 20

Marie Tiller heard the crunch of gravel announce the arrival of a car on the long lane to the Tiller home.

Marie poked her head into the living room.  “Hey, guys, they’re coming.  Everyone be on their best behavior”.

Her husband Jeff turned off the TV and pulled himself out of the recliner.  Seven year old Mark jump up excitedly and ran to the kitchen.  He had been chattering all week about the chance to meet his brother’s new girlfriend.  Seventeen year old Sarah grinned at her brother’s exuberance and follow him into the kitchen, exhibiting a much more restrained  manner.

The car doors slammed shut, and a moment later, the screen door creaked.  Andrew and Beth entered the house, and the gaze of four sets eyes were upon them.

“Hey everybody.  This is Beth.  Beth, this is Mom, Dad, Sarah, and Mark.”

Beth, a tall, attractive brunette, smiled nervously.

“Supper’s ready,” announced Marie.  “Everyone, find your seats.”

Jeff settled into a seat at the far end of the table, leaving the head of the table for Marie.  Andrew and Beth sat next to each other on one side of the table, and Mark quickly jumped into the chair on the other side of Beth, leaving Sarah as the lone occupant on the other side of the table.  Andrew stifled a laugh – it definitely appeared as if his little brother had a crush on Beth.

Marie set the spaghetti and meatballs on the table.

Mark immediately scooped up two meatballs and a large helping of spaghetti in an effort to help Beth.  Most of the food landed on her plate, but one of the meatballs bounced free and splattered onto Beth’s blouse before finding a final resting place on the floor.

“Oh, Mark, look what you’ve done!” exclaimed Marie.

“But, but, I was just trying to help,” explained Mark, on the verge of tears.

“It’s OK, Mark,” said Beth, in a soothing tone.  “I’m sure the stain will come out.”

“Well, I want to get to work on the stain immediately to make sure that it does.  Sarah, take Beth upstairs and find her a different blouse to wear.”

Sarah and Beth went upstairs.  When they returned in a few minutes, Beth was wearing a clean white blouse and a big smile.  Marie was happy to see that Andrew’s girlfriend wasn’t phased by the accident.

“Hey, Mom, I’ll go work on the stain so that you can spend some time with Beth.”

The crisis had been averted and everyone sat down to enjoy the spaghetti and meatballs.  The dish was a longtime family favorite, and it seemed that Beth also enjoy the pasta and garlic bread.  Mark was on his best behavior during the rest of the meals.  He was a good kid, but sometimes he just allowed himself to get a bit too excited.

When they finished supper, Beth and Sarah volunteered to do dishes, and Marie happily agreed.  Marie could hear the two girls chattering as they washed and dried the dishes.  In the living room, Andrew regaled them with crazy tales from his first town months at college.  Marie couldn’t imagine living in the midst of thirty thousand young adults.  She suspected that Andrew’s tales were only scratching the surface of the college shenanigans.

When the dishes were done, everyone went back to the kitchen table and Jeff got down the Trivial Pursuit game.  Not surprisingly, Mark wanted to be on the same team as Andrew and Beth.  Marie, Jeff, and Sarah formed the other team.  The game was close throughout, with Andrew, Beth, and Mark emerging victorious.  Marie noted that Beth’s strengths – Entertainment and and Geography – were perfectly suited to Andrew’s weaknesses in those areas.  Marie looked forward to many more games of Trivial Pursuit with Andrew and Beth in the future.

Recently, we switched from cable to a combination of DSL and DirecTV.  The DSL is working out OK so far – no service interruptions or anything like that.

What about DirecTV?

Installation

Our tech showed up in the early afternoon.  Very friendly guy.  Pretty quickly, it became apparent that this isn’t going to be a simple installation.  Our current wiring won’t support the requirements of DirecTV.  Since we have a finished lower level (also known as “no access to wiring”), this means drilling new holes.  Note: if you’re in the market for a house, consider drop ceilings.  They make things easier.

The installer thought that our house was a condo and asked questions about what type of installations were allowed.  I assured him that the house is not a condo, but a zero-lot-line house (known as a duplex in many areas), and that there are no restrictions.  We then discussed the option of placing the dish on the roof or on a pole in the ground.  We get snow during the winter, so we opted with a ground-based unit to allow easy snow removal.  Two other guys show up to install the dish and run the line (underground) from the dish to the house.

The rest of the installation was pretty smooth, and the installer gave us a crash course on the remote before he left.  (This wasn’t the last time we’d see him, though – he left his drill charger behind and would have to return to pick it up).

Billing

Billing did cause some frustration.  My wife was quoted a certain introductory price and was told that there was an additional rebate that would drop the price lower.  In actuality, the rebate could not be used in conjunction with the introductory price.  After reading bunches of fine print, it seems that the people my wife talked to were confusing the details of two different promotions.  Probably an honest mistake, but still frustrating.

We’re also locked into a 2 year contract – there was no contract with cable.

NFL Sunday Ticket

We have the NFL Sunday Ticket.  My wife is pretty happy about this, because she can watch her Rams.  We’re ever so slightly outside the local area for the Fox station that covers the Rams – about 10 miles.  I haven’t taken much advantage of Sunday Ticket because I’m boycotting Brett Favre’s stay with the Vikings.  Dump Favre and put in Sage Rosenfels.

We also found out that the channel that allows you to watch 8 different NFL games at the same time is NOT part of the standard NFL Sunday Ticket package.  I’m not sure how much we would use this anyway, but this seems a bit crazy.  Seriously, the Sunday Ticket is pricey enough – throw this in.

Baseball

We didn’t get MLB Extra Innings this year because the pro-rated price wasn’t worth it, with just a couple of weeks left in the regular season at the time.  I was hoping this might be part of the promo package we got, but it wasn’t.

I have been able to catch my Rockies on a variety of stations, though.  We’re getting the regional Fox Sports Net channels.  Sometimes the games are blacked out, sometimes they aren’t.  I haven’t figured out the logic behind this yet, so I basically flip the TV on and hope for the best.  I’ve caught more games in the last 2 weeks than in the rest of the season combined – the Rockies were NEVER on TV with my cable provider.  Right now I’m watching Rockies vs. Brewers on FSN Wisconsin – complete with  commercials for Piggly Wiggly.

We also get MLB Network, which we didn’t get with our cable provider.  I really, really like this.  It’s like ESPN, but with the non-baseball stuff filtered out.  Pretty cool …

DVRs

The DVR we had with the cable provider wasn’t the greatest.  It seemed to hold between 50 and 80 hours of shows, and also exhibited some bad behavior from time to time.  At least once a week,changing channels would slow to a crawl, and we’d have to pull the plug overnight and plug back in.  This was the recommended fix.  There were also problems with recordings from one particular channel – the local NBC affiliate.  Shows from that channel would not allow the basic DVR functions (rewind, fast forward).  This seems really strange, as I assumed the recordings were just data streams, and that the DVR device wouldn’t even be able to differentiate between shows from various channels.

We have two DVRs for DirecTV, each of which should hold about 200 hours of shows (we don’t have HD – this would be less with HD).  One of them is quickly filling up with Rockies baseball games.  I need to take some time to nab  a few forensics shows, too.  So far, no weird occurences.  Hooray.

The ability to program the DVRs over the internet is cool.  I haven’t used this for anything important yet, but did test it, just as a proof of concept.  It works as advertised.

Miscellany

My alma mater’s game are only covered by the cable company (a channel that the company owns), so I won’t be seeing many of their games.  That’s a bummer, but getting baseball is a fair trade.

When I went to return my cable equipment, there was a security guard at the cable office.  The place actually got robbed a while ago.  I guess a lot of students pay their cable bill in cash.  I’m not sure how there weren’t 100 witnesses, though – the place always seems to be somewhat busy.