The Annekenstein Monster

Parity (through the salary-cap structure) in the NFL means no teams dominate anymore. Means that there still can be some god-awful teams, but that the rest tend to rise to about the same level of quality and ability. It means that it’s that much harder to pick who’s going to win each week.

At least that’s what I’m blaming this week’s abysmal record on. Usually, I manage to hover around 60% accuracy. This week, though, my picks fell apart big time.

Out of 14 games played this weekend, I only picked 4 winners correct. Horrendous.

My Toin-Coss experiment, however, managed to get 7 right. 50%. Just what one would expect if winning was a random event. Which, in the NFL, it seems to becoming.

Next week, though, I suck it up and make some more picks. Forget about going against the randomness of coin-flipping. Next week, I take on a babe in the woods. Next week, I go up against my son and his NFL-innocent picks.

Okay, I’ve been reading (to the limit of my comprehension, it seems) responses here to the following puzzle:

You are in hell and facing an eternity of torment, but the devil offers you a way out, which you can take once and only once at any time from now on. Today, if you ask him to, the devil will toss a fair coin once and if it comes up heads you are free (but if tails then you face eternal torment with no possibility of reprieve). You don’t have to play today, though, because tomorrow the devil will make the deal slightly more favourable to you (and you know this): he’ll toss the coin twice but just one head will free you. The day after, the offer will improve further: 3 tosses with just one head needed. And so on (4 tosses, 5 tosses, ….1000 tosses …) for the rest of time if needed. So, given that the devil will give you better odds on every day after this one, but that you want to escape from hell some time, when should accept his offer?

The replies have gotten over my head somewhat, but I’m wondering if they are all missing the boat on what the answer is. Or do I just not understand probability mathematics?

It would seem to me that you should take the devil’s offer on the very first day. Because wouldn’t your odds remain the same – 50% – each day, regardless of how many flips of a coin you get each day? Isn’t it incorrect to make the assumption ‘if I have x number of flips today, my chances are greater that one of them will be heads’? Don’t you have to take each flip individually, as a separate entity unto itself? And don’t the odds remain the same – 50% – for each flip?

In other words: with one coin flip, there’s a 50/50 chance it’ll turn up heads. In a thousand coin flips, there’s also a 50/50 chance that each flip will turn up heads. Am I wrong in assuming that your odds don’t improve the more times you flip a coin?

If I am wrong, then am I also wrong in my assumption that the 649 Atlantic from Atlantic Loto is a rip-off? They are selling you the notion that because it’s only played in Atlantic Canada, you have a better chance of winning (winning a much smaller jackpot, by the way), when in fact, you still have to match 6 of 49 numbers. They (or, we the gullible buyers) incorrectly imply that you are competing against fewer people so your chance of winning is greater. But you’re not competing against others. Your competing against the odds of matching 6 of 49 numbers. So, your chance of winning the 649 Atlantic is as slim as winning the national 649. Or am I wrong on that too?

That is the day I can expect to die, according to The Death Test. I will be 75 years old. There is a 40% chance my death will be from cancer or heart attack. 10% chance that it’ll be from alien abduction. 7% chance that either loneliness or auto-fellatio will be the culprit.

Personally, If I have to go then, auto-fellatio seems like the preferred method.

Driving out by C.Tire today and some slow-moving, decrepit van-driving moron gives me the finger. Gives me the finger because HE’s moving so slow!

or

I see Nils at the Canadian Tire today, give him a ‘howdy neighbour’ honk, and the bastard shoots me the finger.

or

I was nowhere near Canadian Tire today.

Yes, Reinvented was my first. Peter was the first who posted in his blogroll a link to this monster. While appreciating the nod, I do think Peter, as far as his blogroll is concerned, is something of a suave ladies man (if blogs were ladies, that is). His blogroll is like his little black book; the links are phone numbers to all the ladies he meets, whether he’s dated them or not. It’s his security blanket. He doesn’t want a Friday night go by, and him without a date, so he’s got his ever-growing roll of names, you know, just in case some bird leaves him in the lurch. Peter is such a great guy, though, that us girls don’t really mind being lumped all together. And besides, since breaking my cherry, Peter’s even called me a few times and given me compliments.

There are other sites I visit, blogs I’m interested in, and I occasionally check out their ‘friends list’ to see if I’ve been added. And even though their lists are smaller and presumably more selective, you know, it still hurts a little bit when I see a blog I like – I mean LIKE like – and it doesn’t even seem to know that I exist. I mean, what’s wrong with my blog? I know sometimes my posts are fat, but I can’t help it. It’s glandular (or is it glanular?). I have a lot to say, sometimes. Besides, my friends all say my blog has a great personality, and lots to offer the right blog reader. I don’t need those other blogs’ links. Any blog that doesn’t link to me just doesn’t know me. It’s their loss, not mine!

But, Oh! Joy of joys. About a week ago, I noticed that one blog I visit daily finally added me to his roll. And then tonight, I noticed another did too. Like Sally Field, you really like me!

Now, though, I’m wondering if my address is written on some online washroom wall? Do these people think I’m easy? I’m loose with my words. Is that what you’re thinking?!

Well, I’m not. Although I am partial to daquiri’s and download sites. But I’m not implying that offering a few of either of those to me will get you anything.

I have a reputation to build and maintain, you know.

Here is an experiment.
As my wife and son can attest, I am a huge NFL football fan, and even bigger Miami Dolphins fan. I start thinking about next week’s game around Tuesday. I keep tabs on all the teams, but not in any statistically anal way. I generally know which teams seem to be doing better than, or worse than, expected but don’t bother with things like how injuries will affect teams (other than the Dolphins and who they’re playing each week), or how team A’s offense stacks up against Team B’s defense.

I tell you this, only so you get an idea as to my general knowledge of football and how that relates to this experiment, which is: I am going to post my predictions as to who will win each game this weekend. I will also post the prediction of a coin-flip. The experiment is to see how much better I do than a seemingly random guess.

On each line below are the matchups, visitor first, home team second. After that will be my expert pick (MP:), followed by the toin-coss pick (TC:).

I’ll inform you of the results next Tuesday, as if you give a shit.

San Diego @ Chicago – MP: San Diego TC: Chicago
NY Giants @ NY Jets – MP: NY Jets TC: NY Jets
New Orleans @ Tampa Bay – MP: Tampa Bay TC: Tampa Bay
Jacksonville @ Baltimore – MP: Baltimore TC: Jacksonville
Indinapolis @ Miami – MP: Miami (of course) TC: Miami
Oakland @ Detroit – MP: Oakland TC: Detroit
Carolina @ Houston – MP: Carolina TC: Houston
Cincinatti @ Arizona – MP: Cincinatti TC: Arizona
Pittsburgh @ Seattle – MP: Seattle TC: Pittsburgh
Philadelphia @ Atlanta – MP: Philadelphia TC: Philadelphia
St.Louis @ San Fransisco – MP: St. Louis TC: St.Louis
Washington @ Dallas – MP: Washington TC: Dallas
Green Bay @ Minnesota – MP: Minnesota TC: Minnesota
New England @ Denver – MP: New England TC: New England

I’m not what you would call political in a social sense. I’m not the type that typically joins things, groups, organisations, etc. I’m like Squiggy’s pal Lenny: I’m a Lone Wolf.
I’m not one to protest, either.

Yet, driving home from work last night, listening to Mainstreet and the coverage of the Souris blockade of the seiners, I had a momentary compulsion to go and join the Souris fisherman. Granted, I don’t know the complexities of the situation, but on the surface it sure seems like what the seiners do is bad for local fisherman. And right or wrong, it can’t be denied that the fisherman feel strongly enough about the state of affairs to risk going to jail.

That got me wondering what is important enough in my life to risk going to jail for. I can come up with plenty of if/then scenarios where I’d do whatever I had to do in order to try and right something I thought was wrong. Things like if my son was molested by someone and that someone was being protected from prosecution for whatever reason, then I’d willingly risk anything to try and get justice. All the scenarios I come up with, though, have personal or selfish motivations to them. Yet, nothing in my life currently is in such a sorry state of affairs where I feel compelled to rectify it through protest or other drastic measures. I guess for that I should be thankful. Or else I should be shown my blindness to the injustices around me.

What about the people who travel to protest G7 and World Trade meetings? Do they protest from a specific personal need to do so, or is it a general sense of social outrage, or are their motivations something else altogether? I suppose for some, trade summits are akin to seiners. If I feel a momentary compulsion to stand with the Souris fishermen, I suppose that I can imagine myself, in an alternate world, feeling compelled to go to BC and stand with the G7 protestors too. In my current world, though, things like mortgages and living paycheque to paycheque tend to temper any simmering social activism in me.

Locally, I see people who protest Social Injustices. It’s usually the same group of people at each event. It almost seems not to matter to them the specifics of what they’re protesting, just that they’re protesting. Whatever the protest, they sure sounds like it’s important to them. I suppose it is, otherwise they wouldn’t bother? However, when you’re protesting legalised abortions on Wednesday and protesting dog leashes on Thursday, it seems to me that you end up devaluing both.

So, I guess I’m keeping quiet until compelled to stand up against whatever it is that ends up pissing me off enough.

I think all people who wear prescription glasses would agree. We hate it when other people ask to try on our glasses. We hate those few times when we cave in and let them try them on. We hate the inevitable reaction of ‘Whoa!’ or ‘Holy shit, these are strong!’. We hate our apologetic feelings of inadequacy that accompany such outbursts; the implied superiority inherent in the ‘Whoa’; the squinting fish-out-of-water feeling we have during those brief unfocused moments.

Or maybe it’s just me.

Never one to indulge, overly, in self-promotion (this flaw, by the way, is the only reason [so I keep telling myself] I’ve never become as famous as I’d have liked), I nonetheless feel compelled to tell the world about a couple of things I’ve been involved in that will be presented at the upcoming Reel Island Film Festival, November 12-16 in Charlottetown.

The first is the 22 minute film Florid. It’s a black comedy about 4 bums (“We’re bums, not assholes!”) who, in the dead-cold of a Charlottetown winter, get the idea to move to Florida and bum in warmer climes. The movie records their endeavours to raise the capital necessary for the move. I play one of the bums. I also co-wrote (along with good pal, Dave Stewart, who directed). This project took far too long (over 3 years, I believe) to complete and has some rather significant plot holes. Yet, beyond all that, it’s a pretty funny, warped movie.

The other involvement is in the showing of the pilot for a TV series called Cinemaniax created and produced by good pal Dave Moses. The format has, I believe, changed somewhat since this pilot production, but the concept was: 3 teams of 2 film-makers are given an idea for a film, some actors and some equipment. They then have 2 days to write, film and edit their short movie, afterwhich the 3 films are presented to an audience which votes for their favourite. Good ole Dave Stewart and I were one team for the pilot, Team Smithee. I believe the 3 short movies created for the pilot are still available for viewing at the Cinemaniax website. The Team Smithee entry is called ‘With This Job’. We didn’t win.

The recent renewed interest in drug-enhanced athletes has me wondering whether drug-testing of athletes should just be dropped altogether. Afterall, the cheaters will always be ahead of testers, always using the newest and so-far-undetected drugs to enhance their performances. With the recent investigaions, it’s now to the point where practically any athlete who excels, whether professional or amateur, is assumed to be cheating, even if tests imply innocence. The sad thinking now is that that individual just didn’t get caught.

Obviously, athletes can’t be allowed to use performance enhancing drugs carte blanche. “Have at it, girls, whatever it takes to be the fastest, strongest” would eventually turn into nothing more than a Hulking freak show. Not to mention the miriade of side effects such embibing would cause.
I wonder if artificial performance enhancing would eventually level out, though? Would there be a line in free-for-all open-knowledge drug-enhancement that athletes wouldn’t be willing to cross? “I want to win, but I don’t want seven toes”. Of course, there’ll always be someone else who will be willing to go that extra step to gain the slightest advantage. And if that person goes that far, then others will have to follow suit, repurcussions be damned, otherwise, they’ll be left in the dust.

I think we all (even athletes) would like a sports world where athletes test the *natural limits* of the human body and mind. I don’t think there’s any way we can have that world. Drug-enhanced athletes are here to stay. So, what do we do?
If we allow athletes to use steroids and other enhancements, ask them to declare what they’re on, without fear of reprisals or sanctions, how far would they take that freedom? How far would we, as spectators, allow athletes to take it before we say ‘this is foolish’ and stop caring? The problem is, once we reach that plateau, athletes will stop declaring the ‘too foolish’ enhancements, yet still take them, and then we’re back to exactly the place we are now: a sports world where we’re all suspicious of any feat of strength or speed or grace.