New Arrival

At approximately 3:30pm today. Erin Hughes gave birth to a baby girl. Shiloh Suri Hughes (that's not her real name, her real name is X Hughes) was born at 7lbs, 10oz.
Both child and mother are said to be doing well and Erin is said to have finally stopped swearing at Josh.

Josh also managed to pick up the Arizona Cardinals defense for his Fantasy Football Matchup during the early morning hours today. Multitasking!

Toss Up

Worst postseason of 2006:

NFL (Conference Championships and Super Bowl)

NCAA Basketball (Final Four)

Major League Baseball

True Life: I'm a Staten Island Girl

Against Paul’s wishes I checked out MTV’s True Life: I’m a Staten Island Girl last night.

MTV followed three girls (I’ve forgotten their names already) from Staten Island in their mid-20’s who have gotten through life with the help of their parents money who now must strive to leave Staten Island and overcome their accent, credit card debt and affection for meatheads to achieve their dreams. My heart literally bled to the floor for these people. While MTV cleverly crafted one scene to make it look like the credit card debt girl got denied a waitressing job simply because she was from Staten Island. The show provided one hilarious highlight. I’ll set it up:

Meathead loving girl who is hanging out with her girlfriends meets a random greaseball meathead (one of literally hundreds) in a club.

They start dancing on the dance floor and the greaseball meathead proceeds to grab one of the girl’s girlfriend’s asses.

Girl: “What are you doing grabbing my friend’s ass while we’re dancing?”

Greaseball Meathead: “What are we, committed?”

I spit out my beer, laughing profusely.

PPI Mixes BCS' Top Three

On Sunday, the first BCS Standings were announced with poll consensus Ohio State Number One, Southern Cal Number Two, and Michigan Number Three. All well ahead of Number Four Auburn. In my latest Pizza Parlor Index, as well as the combined Computer Ranking Average the top three teams are in different order. USC one, Michigan two, Ohio State three. Here is an explanation as to why.

1) USC's non-conference opponents (Arkansas, Nebraska, Notre Dame) all have only one loss.

2) Michigan and Ohio State have almost identical strength of schedules except that they both don't play two teams in the Big Ten each. Michigan and Ohio State both don't play Purdue for the second year in a row, but while Michigan has played and beat Wisconsin, the other team off Michigan's schedule is Illinois. So the Illini's woeful performance counts against the Buckeyes but not Michigan.

In regards to the BCS but not PPI Number One team in the country, scroll down the picture to find out more about THE Ohio State University.

Syracuse slides seven spots to 60.




Rnk Team PPIndex
1 USC 83.298
2 Michigan 82.897
3 Ohio State 82.476
4 Rutgers 82.247
5 Louisville 82.181
6 West Virginia 82.103
7 Boise State 77.110
8 Florida 75.526
9 Auburn 73.732
10 Texas 73.016
11 Tennessee 72.478
12 California 72.262
13 Clemson 72.161
14 Nebraska 72.026
15 Texas A&M 71.900
16 Oregon 71.315
17 Missouri 70.806
18 Wisconsin 70.601
19 Wake Forest 70.364
20 Pittsburgh 70.045
21 Boston College 69.568
22 Notre Dame 69.160
23 Arkansas 68.968
24 Georgia Tech 67.891
25 Tulsa 66.626
26 LSU 65.286
27 Indiana 62.783
28 Alabama 62.724
29 Iowa 62.560
30 Oklahoma 62.272
31 UCLA 62.003
32 Florida State 61.750
33 Georgia 61.263
34 San Jose State 60.740
35 South Florida 60.614
36 Navy 60.199
37 Purdue 59.707
38 South Carolina 59.131
39 Brigham Young 58.704
40 Oklahoma State 58.249
41 Maryland 58.049
42 Kent State 57.714
43 Virginia Tech 57.486
44 Washington State 56.479
45 Western Michigan 56.287
46 Miami, FL 55.949
47 UTEP 55.877
48 Air Force 55.872
49 Washington 55.753
50 Arkansas State 55.071
51 Hawaii 53.899
52 Southern Miss 53.881
53 Colorado State 52.659
54 Texas Tech 51.687
55 Penn State 51.059
56 Kansas State 50.480
57 Houston 49.016
58 Utah 48.773
59 Connecticut 48.664
60 Syracuse 48.499
61 New Mexico 48.322
62 Ohio 47.980
63 Southern Methodist 47.972
64 Michigan State 47.894
65 Central Michigan 47.503
66 TCU 47.484
67 Idaho 47.270
68 Northern Illinois 46.976
69 Oregon State 46.480
70 Nevada 46.450
71 Bowling Green 45.844
72 Louisiana-Lafayette 45.332
73 Arizona State 45.034
74 North Carolina State 44.944
75 Wyoming 43.820
76 Cincinnati 43.677
77 Ball State 43.360
78 UAB 42.155
79 Arizona 42.044
80 Vanderbilt 42.031
81 Kentucky 41.924
82 Minnesota 41.537
83 Middle Tennessee State 41.148
84 Baylor 40.777
85 Army 40.756
86 Northwestern 40.729
87 Iowa State 39.826
88 Tulane 38.925
89 Mississippi 38.827
90 East Carolina 37.963
91 Akron 37.487
92 Kansas 37.168
93 Rice 37.070
94 Virginia 36.794
95 North Texas 35.228
96 Illinois 32.941
97 UCF 32.697
98 Mississippi State 31.773
99 Colorado 30.990
100 Fresno State 29.925
101 Buffalo 28.849
102 Troy 28.634
103 Florida Atlantic 27.961
104 Toledo 27.673
105 Miami, OH 26.862
106 Utah State 26.488
107 Stanford 22.551
108 North Carolina 21.924
109 Duke 20.653
110 San Diego State 19.333
111 Temple 19.315
112 Louisiana Tech 18.943
113 Memphis 18.705
114 Marshall 18.594
115 Eastern Michigan 18.315
116 New Mexico State 18.285
117 UNLV 17.868
118 Florida International 17.675
119 Louisiana-Monroe 16.326

Swagger U?

On the week the first BCS standings were announced, the story in college football that is getting the most attention is the brawl between the University of Miami and Florida International. 31 players between both teams were suspended by the ACC and Sun Belt conferences including 8 Miami players who were suspended indefinitely by lame duck Head Coach Larry Coker.

The ironic thing is this is more than likely the final nail in the coffin for Coker, who along with his predecessor Butch Davis have worked hard to restore the image of Miami football from the camouflage wearing, felony committing and hanging out with Luther Campbell that seemed to coincide with the Jimmy Johnson era of the 80’s.

With planes rented by boosters, calling for Coker’s firing and the publicity of the cat calls impossible for his players not to notice, he is just about powerless to continue to implement his authority and prevent outbursts like Saturday nights.

The problems for Miami started with two quick losses to teams that were just better than them, Florida State and Louisville. Immediately, media and alumni were talking about Miami regaining its “swagger” and the misunderstanding of the word caused what happened Saturday night. In college football swagger is expecting to win, acting like your expected to win and winning. Saturday night in Miami, one Hurricane player thought “swagger” meant swinging your helmet at your opponents head, another thought “swagger” meant bodyslamming an opponent onto the turf.

Miami broadcaster Lamar Thomas thought “swagger” meant beating down players on a Sun Belt school which prior to this weekend, few even knew existed and had a Division 1-A football program. Expect his mea culpa or termination sometime this week.

The final scene was several Miami players jumping up and down raising their helmets, celebrating the regaining of their “swagger”. Without one clue as to what the word actually means.

Real World/Road Rules Challenge: The Duel

Because people like me can never get enough, MTV is doing ANOTHER Real World/Road Rules Challenge before Real World: Denver debuts this winter. The idea this time is a one-on-one competition which could be most interesting from beginning to finish yet. Unfortunately, the final challenges always seem to fail to live upto the hype caused by the very well thought out immunity challenges. The cast has the usual lifers, as you would expect. Just about no one on this cast is a surprise. This cast is very deep at "asshole dude" but somewhat thin at "hot girl". Which may make sense since the hot girls never do well in these games. Your cast with comments:

Girls
Beth-RW Los Angeles: Why? She's not even entertaining at this point.
Paula-RW Key West: Didn't watch Real World Key West, but she is easy on the eyes.
Svetlana-RW Key West: See Paula
Robin-RW San Diego: Died her hair, did not reduce her boobies
Aneesa-RW Chicago: Looks like a woman this season, believe it or not
Kina-RR X-Treme: Not sure if she's still with Bad Ran or not, haven't said yet.
Tina-RR South Pacific: Like you had to be told this.
Jodi-RR X-Treme: Missing Alton, he couldn't be on this season, it wouldn't be fair.
Diem-Fresh Meat: In remission from the Chemo. Wears a wig now. Still your feel good story
Casey-Fresh Meat: Took her money from Fresh Meat that Diem would use towards cancer treatment and bought new breasts.

Guys
Wes-RW Austin: God's gift to MTV reality shows.
Brad-RW San Diego: Underachiever in these, really.
Nehemiah-RW Austin: Great!
John-RW Key West: Already eliminated
Tyler-RW Key West: Token gay
CT-RW Paris: Token Masshole
Derrick-RR X-Treme: See Tina
Evan-Fresh Meat: Healed from his "sports hernia"
Kenny-Fresh Meat: Nose is still broken
Eric-Fresh Meat: Good comedy.