The 2014 NFL regular season has come to an end. Time for the playoffs! There were a few surprises this season and a couple of records broke, but nothing too extraordinary. The usual suspects are back in the playoffs this year in the AFC. Although there are some teams missing and a few present in the NFC, the teams in this year's playoffs aren't much of a surprise, either. Let's look at the matchups and predict the winner of Super Bowl XLIX.
The AFC:
Baltimore at Pittsburgh
Pittsburgh was pretty impressive this year. They have a few talented young players that should carry the Steelers into the future. Ben Roethlisberger had a career season thanks to this young talent. Baltimore wasn't all that surprising and didn't impress me much. Unfortunately for Pittsburgh, their star, the workhorse, Le'Veon Bell has suffered a few injuries throughout the season.
Winner: Baltimore
Cincinnati at Indianapolis
Indianapolis has a young star on the rise in Andrew Luck. I hope he continues to impress us for his career. Cincinnati started the season strong and kind of drifted into just an average team. Although Indianapolis put up some big statistics this year, I feel both these teams are a bit weak.
Winner: Indianapolis
Indianapolis at Denver
Both Indy and Denver started out amazingly strong, but slowed down towards the end of the season. Something has happened to Peyton Manning the past few weeks that nobody seems to be able to put a finger on. Peyton Manning has forgotten more about football than I will ever know. The Broncos team as a whole can pick up the slack.
Winner: Denver
Baltimore at New England
New England started the season pretty slow. It looked like they were in a "rebuilding" year. It looked like Tom Brady might be getting closer to retirement. They definitely turned that all around and have hit a rhythm that is dangerous to every other team. Baltimore and New England have battled it out in the playoffs in the past. Baltimore just isn't strong enough this year.
Winner: New England
Denver at New England
Peyton Manning just can't win in New England.
AFC Champions: New England Patriots
The NFC:
Arizona at Carolina
If regular season records mattered, Arizona would destroy Carolina. Unfortunately, that's not reality and Arizona has fallen apart at the end of the season while Carolina has hit a playoff run streak.
Winner: Carolina
Detroit at Dallas
This is my favorite matchup of the wildcard round. It's going to be a good game. Detroit is playing some hard nosed defence this year. Dallas... well, I've never been a fan of Tony Romo, but he has won me over this year. This Dallas team is ready to face the tough teams. It's weird to see a team have so many road wins and such a lackluster home record. It doesn't matter much. Detroit's offence can't score what it needs to, leaving the defence to try and win.
Winner: Dallas
Carolina at Seattle
What can anyone say about this game? Seattle's defence is still dominating. Cam Newton vs Russell Wilson should be a dream match. It won't be.
Winner: Seattle
Dallas at Green Bay
Neither of these two teams have spectacular defences. Both teams have stellar offences. Aaron Rodgers just doesn't throw interceptions, but he does throw a lot of touchdowns. Dallas has been playing this season with an old-school approach of running the ball, controlling the line of scrimmage, and controlling the clock. It should help to keep Green Bay's offence off the field. It's too bad those times that Aaron Rodgers is on the field, Green Bay will score at will.
Winner: Green Bay
Green Bay at Seattle
Seattle's offence really isn't that impressive. Beastmode is still a power runner, but their offence has relied too heavily on Russell Wilson running backyard plays. Still, how many teams can actually win in Seattle? The Legion of Boom and Seattle's 12th man is just too much for any team.
NFC Champions: Seattle Seahawks
Super Bowl XLIX
New England Patriots at Seattle Seahawks
Seattle dominated Super Bowl XLVIII. New England has been cut down by the little Manning brother their past two Super Bowl appearances. This year's game should be a good one. If my predictions are right, this will be a good matchup. Tom Brady and Gronk have gotten their rhythm back this year, and other role players have stepped up when they needed to. It's like a trademark for Bill Belichik's Patriots. They've even slightly improved their defence this season. This is bad news for the Seahawks. This won't be a blowout like last year, though. This should be a showdown that will compete for title of best Super Bowl played. There will be a winner, though. New England's preparation to play strengths and weaknesses of every team is unmatched since Bill Belichik has been head coach. It will continue this year.
Super Bowl Champions: New England Patriots
01 January 2015
30 December 2014
Watcher
I always feel like an outsider looking in. An observer. That's not a whine or some kind of depression fueled cry for help. When I'm with people I'm genuinely more interested in hearing more about their lives. But, it's actually a statement based on the fact that I don't understand most anything.
People have problems that I don't even see as problems. There are so many causes that people take up, but I honestly don't know who they're fighting, or why. They do tend to lead to counter causes that I equally don't understand. Feminism, masculism, racism, globalism, socialism, capitalism... none of these things mean anything to me. It's all triumphalism. I don't mean to say that these things don't exist, or don't have validity, but these fights don't apply to me.
I like social media as much as I dislike it. I get to see how my family and old friends are doing. I also get to see the opinions of many different people on all sorts of subjects. But, this the point that I don't understand. So many people seem to try rile me up for their cause. Asking for contributions, trying to convince me of their righteousness. Many times it's a call for somebody to do something or that something needs to be done. Or, worse, that mankind needs to change. And, ridiculous in the belief that mankind will change.
What gets me is the "somebody needs to do something" part. Why can't it be you? Why does somebody else have to do something for you? Not that I don't want to help people, but why is there a belief that the world is wrong and I'm right? Why are there so many insults? Why does everyone think that everyone else is stupid?
I've seen happiness, pain, the goodness of people, and the evil in people. We all have. The evil I've seen still hasn't convinced me that mankind needs to change. I still maintain the unprofessional opinion that everyone is good. In fact, I actually like everyone. Everyone. There are people that have hurt friends and family, yet I still can't hold a grudge.
There is one particular day in school when I was a kid that I do remember. I was friends with everyone, but this one particular friend... I saw him as one of the toughest kids. Toughest kids. He was strong and couldn't be rattled. He talked back to teachers, he was tough. This day, however, he cornered me in a hall while walking back into the school from recess and just broke down. He cried right in front of me. His little brother had swallowed poison and he was so worried his brother wouldn't make it through the day that he broke down in front of me. I didn't know what to say or do then and I still wouldn't know now, but I stayed there with him until he was ready to face the world again.
My family also fell on hard times when I was about that same age. I still don't know the entire situation, but I do know money became very tight and that they lost their house. My family was very good friends with another family. This other family had no responsibility to anyone but themselves, but out of the total goodness in their hearts, they gave my family a place to stay. A place to stay until my parents could get back on their feet. My parents never blamed anyone else for their troubles, and I'm sure they thanked their friends a million times. My parents never took anything from anyone, but they did work, and work hard to get out of their hole. Needless to say, for my parents, the work became easier and easier and they are now entering retirement living pretty comfortably.
I never looked back at this time with any kind of bad feeling. I actually have good memories of this time. The two families followed their own paths, but I know they are still friends. I don't talk to the two girls who became something like sisters to me and my own sisters at that time as much as I probably could, but I still consider them great friends. And, I still look up to their parents almost as fondly as I look up to my own.
I don't know what any of this has to do with a new generation taking up fights that other generations have already fought like it's something new. Maybe it's because I've seen the good, the bad, and the ugly and there is so much more good that I don't feel these fights are necessary.
I hold no "ism" in my heart. Everyone is created equal and deserves the right to pursue their happiness. They don't have the right to be happy, nor do they have the right to try and stop anyone else from pursuing happiness, but they have the right to pursue happiness.
The current trend (yes, trend) of calling racism on everything is insane to me. It's not in my heart or brain to see that skin color makes a person. I definitely have seen racists, though. I know Al Sharpton furthers a racist agenda. I also know that you will not win me over with James Woods pushing the fight even further as he does the same exact thing that he accuses others of doing. These two men are both pushing agendas that I don't want to be a part of.
The recent (fake) feminism fight is not coherent to me. It seems to be pushed by hatred and greed. It's also caused a backlash of men and women who push back. This counter fight is less coherent to me. Stop letting people push you around and deal with it. Quit being pussies. That's my advice to both sides.
Atheism has seen quite a surge in popular culture recently. I don't care if someone believes in God, or many gods, or no gods. I just don't care. I don't understand how atheism has become a religion itself. Guys like Richard Dawkins are out to prove the falsehood of God. Why? We can all tear apart the literal translation of old religious texts, but too many people, religious and not, seem to miss the message. The message that you are not the most important thing in the universe. And, if you want to interact with other people, try to do something good.
I also don't see how science and religion are even mentioned together. I hear so many people that f***ing love science, but don't do anything scientific. They read the scientific things others have done just like me. Science can't disprove religion, science is not about disproving religion, and science shouldn't even care about religion. On the other side, I have seen how the many advances in science have strengthened a belief in God. This type of religious person sees science as the gift, or work of God. Anyway, I'd like to keep religion and science separate, because they're not related.
These are a few of the current issues that amaze me. None of them have any place in my life. I am more curious about what the beginning of this universe looked like. I want to know how it ends, if it ends. Will all these tiny stars just expand into nothingness further and further until the universe is a dark, cold, boring nothing? The beginnings of the universe and life confuse me and make me nervous to think about. The fact that all this light could eventually drift so far away that it is only dark makes me sad and lonely. My feeble mind can't even comprehend how long forever is.
Maybe all I'm saying is that haters will probably, most likely continue to hate, but what makes us so special that we have haters? Why are there haters? Why does anyone care so much about what everyone else is doing? The more I learn and the more I listen, the more questions I have, and the dumber I feel. My suggestion is to stop letting words hurt you. Stop asking for contributions. Leave me alone and pursue your own happiness. I'll gladly support your happiness, as long as you just let me pursue mine.
People have problems that I don't even see as problems. There are so many causes that people take up, but I honestly don't know who they're fighting, or why. They do tend to lead to counter causes that I equally don't understand. Feminism, masculism, racism, globalism, socialism, capitalism... none of these things mean anything to me. It's all triumphalism. I don't mean to say that these things don't exist, or don't have validity, but these fights don't apply to me.
I like social media as much as I dislike it. I get to see how my family and old friends are doing. I also get to see the opinions of many different people on all sorts of subjects. But, this the point that I don't understand. So many people seem to try rile me up for their cause. Asking for contributions, trying to convince me of their righteousness. Many times it's a call for somebody to do something or that something needs to be done. Or, worse, that mankind needs to change. And, ridiculous in the belief that mankind will change.
What gets me is the "somebody needs to do something" part. Why can't it be you? Why does somebody else have to do something for you? Not that I don't want to help people, but why is there a belief that the world is wrong and I'm right? Why are there so many insults? Why does everyone think that everyone else is stupid?
I've seen happiness, pain, the goodness of people, and the evil in people. We all have. The evil I've seen still hasn't convinced me that mankind needs to change. I still maintain the unprofessional opinion that everyone is good. In fact, I actually like everyone. Everyone. There are people that have hurt friends and family, yet I still can't hold a grudge.
There is one particular day in school when I was a kid that I do remember. I was friends with everyone, but this one particular friend... I saw him as one of the toughest kids. Toughest kids. He was strong and couldn't be rattled. He talked back to teachers, he was tough. This day, however, he cornered me in a hall while walking back into the school from recess and just broke down. He cried right in front of me. His little brother had swallowed poison and he was so worried his brother wouldn't make it through the day that he broke down in front of me. I didn't know what to say or do then and I still wouldn't know now, but I stayed there with him until he was ready to face the world again.
My family also fell on hard times when I was about that same age. I still don't know the entire situation, but I do know money became very tight and that they lost their house. My family was very good friends with another family. This other family had no responsibility to anyone but themselves, but out of the total goodness in their hearts, they gave my family a place to stay. A place to stay until my parents could get back on their feet. My parents never blamed anyone else for their troubles, and I'm sure they thanked their friends a million times. My parents never took anything from anyone, but they did work, and work hard to get out of their hole. Needless to say, for my parents, the work became easier and easier and they are now entering retirement living pretty comfortably.
I never looked back at this time with any kind of bad feeling. I actually have good memories of this time. The two families followed their own paths, but I know they are still friends. I don't talk to the two girls who became something like sisters to me and my own sisters at that time as much as I probably could, but I still consider them great friends. And, I still look up to their parents almost as fondly as I look up to my own.
I don't know what any of this has to do with a new generation taking up fights that other generations have already fought like it's something new. Maybe it's because I've seen the good, the bad, and the ugly and there is so much more good that I don't feel these fights are necessary.
I hold no "ism" in my heart. Everyone is created equal and deserves the right to pursue their happiness. They don't have the right to be happy, nor do they have the right to try and stop anyone else from pursuing happiness, but they have the right to pursue happiness.
The current trend (yes, trend) of calling racism on everything is insane to me. It's not in my heart or brain to see that skin color makes a person. I definitely have seen racists, though. I know Al Sharpton furthers a racist agenda. I also know that you will not win me over with James Woods pushing the fight even further as he does the same exact thing that he accuses others of doing. These two men are both pushing agendas that I don't want to be a part of.
The recent (fake) feminism fight is not coherent to me. It seems to be pushed by hatred and greed. It's also caused a backlash of men and women who push back. This counter fight is less coherent to me. Stop letting people push you around and deal with it. Quit being pussies. That's my advice to both sides.
Atheism has seen quite a surge in popular culture recently. I don't care if someone believes in God, or many gods, or no gods. I just don't care. I don't understand how atheism has become a religion itself. Guys like Richard Dawkins are out to prove the falsehood of God. Why? We can all tear apart the literal translation of old religious texts, but too many people, religious and not, seem to miss the message. The message that you are not the most important thing in the universe. And, if you want to interact with other people, try to do something good.
I also don't see how science and religion are even mentioned together. I hear so many people that f***ing love science, but don't do anything scientific. They read the scientific things others have done just like me. Science can't disprove religion, science is not about disproving religion, and science shouldn't even care about religion. On the other side, I have seen how the many advances in science have strengthened a belief in God. This type of religious person sees science as the gift, or work of God. Anyway, I'd like to keep religion and science separate, because they're not related.
These are a few of the current issues that amaze me. None of them have any place in my life. I am more curious about what the beginning of this universe looked like. I want to know how it ends, if it ends. Will all these tiny stars just expand into nothingness further and further until the universe is a dark, cold, boring nothing? The beginnings of the universe and life confuse me and make me nervous to think about. The fact that all this light could eventually drift so far away that it is only dark makes me sad and lonely. My feeble mind can't even comprehend how long forever is.
Maybe all I'm saying is that haters will probably, most likely continue to hate, but what makes us so special that we have haters? Why are there haters? Why does anyone care so much about what everyone else is doing? The more I learn and the more I listen, the more questions I have, and the dumber I feel. My suggestion is to stop letting words hurt you. Stop asking for contributions. Leave me alone and pursue your own happiness. I'll gladly support your happiness, as long as you just let me pursue mine.
22 December 2014
Corrupt Hard Drive
About a month ago, the hard drive in my wife's desktop pc failed. I booted up her computer and it took longer than normal for the BIOS to do its thing. It returned a message saying there is an error with the hard drive and hit F1 to continue. So, I hit F1. It should've went to the Windows bootloader but instead told me there is no system disk. My wife has all of her pictures on this hard disk, so I got a little nervous. First I made sure there was no USB devices in any slot that the pc might be trying to boot from, and that there was no disc in the DVD drive. Reboot. I get the same thing.
I shut the computer down and open it up. I start investigating and changing jumper settings, switching cables, and moving connections around. Every time I boot, it's still the same thing. I started to get a bit worried at this point because my wife has experienced a hard drive failure in the past. She always means to make backups, but she never gets around to doing it. The one thing I have going for me at this point is that I can hear and feel the drive spinning up and there is not clicking or any other scary noises.
I am in no way affiliated with any of the software I mention here, but this is what I did next. I went to my wife's laptop and downloaded the latest Puppy Linux. Puppy saved me in the past with one of my own hard drives. Then, since I have no blank CDs, and because I was feeling a bit lazy, I downloaded Unetbootin. I installed Puppy to USB stick using unetbootin. So convenient!
Now, back at the desktop, I connected a new (formatted) hard drive and the old drive with all the photos. I plugged in the USB stick with Puppy on it and turned the computer on. Of course, I have to set the computer to boot from the USB stick. I get the same message about the disk error but, this time Puppy runs from the USB stick. Normally, Puppy boots pretty quickly, but this time I can hear that it is trying to read the failed disk. It's actually a good sound. It really was taking a while so I walked away for a few minutes to play with the cats.
Upon my return I see that Puppy has finally booted to its desktop. I shift my focus to the bottom of the screen where Puppy will show the drives that can be mounted. There is an SDA, the new drive, an SDB, the USB that Puppy is on, and there is also an SDC. It read the drive! But, for how long will the drive be operational? I start copying files from the old drive to the new one. It's not fast enough! I don't want the drive to fail mid process!
Well, I completed the transfer of all my wife's files and photos with no errors. The drive didn't even seem to have anything wrong with it. Although, it is a re-certified drive from a company in Singapore I've never heard of. Anyway, after copying the files I wanted to see if I could try and get the old drive to boot Windows again. I run "ntfsfix" on the drive and it completes successfully. This command will set a few things on a corrupted ntfs filesystem that will, hopefully, allow Windows to boot again. It also forces Windows to run a complete and thorough "chkdsk" scan when it does boot.
I shut down the computer and make the old hard drive the only drive. Turn the computer on. I get the same disk error, and the same system error where the Windows bootloader should be. Well, there are other options for me to explore further, but I think the drive has run its course. I was able to get the things off of it I needed to, there's no reason to push the drive to absolute failure. Now to make two or three backups of all of it!
15 December 2012
Ghastly Politics
Just two days ago there was a heinous act commited in the US state of Connecticut. Young, and I do mean YOUNG school children were gunned down by a psychopath along with some of their teachers. Regretfully, I envisioned the political arguments that would arise from such an event before I even had time to think of the pain their families will never be able to ease or the dreams that were destroyed before they were even dreams. In short time my fears proved correct. My own US president was on camera before an entire world audience making hints at turning this tragedy political. Before I continue I just want to make known that I can never follow a leader who cannot stand strong in the face of adversity. While an event like this can certainly conjure many emotions we never knew we had, to see a powerful man who represents many people's ideas of strength, hope, and change pretend to cry in front of the entire world makes me fear that he will tuck tail and run when confronted with the difficult situations that the voters of the United States have thrown all their trust into him to confront. It is completely revolting and distasteful that we turn every event into a political debate. I am just as guilty as anybody.
Now come the voices of the many. The gun rights battle wages on in the United States. Many who hold support for stricter laws and some who support a downright ban on firearms. There is also an opposing side who support the idea of no such laws or bans. While it easy to get caught up in the emotion following tragedy to support strictness and banning firearms in hopes that further tragedies might not take place, I find this idea to be very simplistic and short-sighted. Even ignorant and proving that history surely can repeat itself.
Let's just say that the United States figured all that out and every citizen was honest and handed over every firearm that was requested. That's assuming that the firearm was not sold privately with no tracking ability whatsoever. Explosives are not new nor are they a secret recipe held by some shaman sitting on the top of Mt Everest. I can foresee that honest citizen who actually turned in their firearm (assuming criminals don't care about laws; most people don't unless they're caught breaking one) would be making their own firearms and bullets. So, some have suggested forgetting the ban on firearms and limiting the number of bullets allowed at one time. Again, this would turn into private bullet making. Look at alcohol and drug bans. Let's revisit a law of physics for a second. Every action has an opposite and equal reaction. So, on the surface making the guns or bullets disappear seems like it could stop the mass shootings. But, humanity hasn't come as far as it has by not being innovative. No, instead with the forced hidden bullet and firearm making would come innovation. Do we really need innovation in ballistics from vindictive "freedom fighters"?
One surprising thing that was spoken after this incident is the line that this would not have happened if prayer was allowed in school. I can't even begin to comprehend the stupidity behind a statement like that. I could debate anybody all day about a person's natural born right to believe or not believe and what role it should or shouldn't play in public, but a statement like that is profoundly idiotic. Statements like that come from self proclaimed Christians who think that because they label themselves as such that they are somehow superior to those who don't share the same beliefs or those who know that such labels don't mean shit. I don't want to debate Religion/Non-Religion here. Religion has no place in any conversation except for religious ones. I will not speak of my own beliefs here, either. I will say that I have read and almost have a beginners understanding of the Bible and many other religious texts. This statement by so-called Christians is the most anti-Christian statement I could ever hear. It is a direct challenge to God. You are entertaining the idea that God is fallable. You are also leading me to believe that God would somehow forget and cast aside children who are not led to pray in school. If you had any idea about what you claim to know, you would remember it was this very same talk that got Satan cast out of heaven. Don't be so self-righteous.
This brings me to the issue of seemingly isolated events. I hear many people, including friends say that they don't care about politics. None of this has anything to do with their lives. The ancient Greek politician Pericles is oftened credited to have said: "Just because you do not take an interest in politics doesn't mean politics won't take an interest in you" and “The
whole earth is the tomb of heroic men and their story is not given only
on stone over their clay but abides everywhere without visible symbol
woven into the stuff of other mens lives.” Think about those words the next time you feel you don't need to care.
13 December 2012
First One Out Is The First One Hit
As this is the first blog post of my very own, I should thank Normi at http://heartboxx.blogspot.com for motivating me to finally share my exploits with the world. Whether the world wants to know or not is something to not ever be contemplated at a later time. I will keep this first post short.
In the first six years of my life I was lucky enough to see more than most people ever get to see in their entire life. Because my father was a badass at his job he was requested to live in four different states by the time I was six before finally deciding to stay in Alaska. Before moving to Alaska we traveled up and down the east coast of the United States by car, Texas, and then made the drive from one coast all the way to the other, up through Canada via Seattle and into Alaska. Since then I have traveled the US and Canada extensively. From border to border and ocean to ocean. Many will say that travel within the US is not really travel, but I suspect they've never experienced it. Boston to San Francisco is roughly the same distance as Moscow to Lisbon. I've also had the pleasure to experience Japan and a few countries in southeast Asia. I plan to see much more before I'm done. And, I will never be done. I have already started sharing my more recent sightseeing over at http://heartboxx.blogspot.com and I will continue to share my experience here. I can't promise it will be good, but it will be mine and you're welcome to spy into my wandering, pointless thoughts with caution.
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