HOT POTATO, The Monstrosity at the Meadowlands

(This week's blogs are going to be pretty short ones with links and etc. No posts on Thursday or Friday.)

TEN THANGS
1. It's HOT POTATO time! Duke takes on Elon tonight, and it's time to make our picks.

(In case anyone is curious, this is a simple game where people pick the points scored by a given player chosen by me before a Duke game. The difference between their pick and the actual points scored is their total for the day. Low score is better. If anyone misses a game, they get the average score of that game plus 3. If anyone hits the nail on the head, they get a -3 bonus. People can join at any time since we use an average rather than a total. You can view the current standings here.)

The Hot Potato for Duke vs. Elon is:


Mason Plumlee
Make your picks in the comments below!

2. This happened. Unbelievable. Unconscionable. I wanted to kill the punter. It was just a complete disaster of a game, and at the very least it'll cost us a chance for a home playoff game. Instead of hosting Green Bay or someone like that in Jersey, we'll be traveling to Atlanta or Seattle. Great.

3. I liked this:


Thanks to Jill for the link. Still no word from Durham about his future, though.

4. Elon, huh? This will be interesting. We beat them in football, which does not bode well for their chances in anything. Unfortunately, I'm in New York and it won't be on local tv. Any of you internet buccaneers know how to find this one online?

5. From the annals of my stepfather's hopeless dalliances with computers: for the past 10 days, his status message on g-chat has been this:

Hey Jo. You there?

At first I was wondering if this was some kind of weird movie reference or joke or whatever. But no, it's not. It was simply him trying to send a message to someone named 'Jo,' and typing it in his status box instead of a chat box. That, to me, is absolutely delightful.

6. Hey, I'm 3-0 in picking bowl games! On Saturday, I correctly nailed BYU, Northern Illinois, and Troy. Last year I finished well under .500 both straight up and against the spread. Looks like my constant studying has finally paid off. Also, I sleep with a football. And a calculator. And a spelling bee trophy from fourth grade, but that's not important.

7. This was an awesome story about Zack Greinke by the great Joe Posnanski, written a couple days before he ended up with the Brewers. I'm still dying for his 32 Greatest Sports Books post, but I suppose that will have to wait.

8. As a huge fan of westerns and the Coen Brothers, I could not be more excited for this movie. If you take an actor's three best performances from the past 15 years, I'd be interested to see who compares with Bridges for awesomeness and variety in Lebowski, Crazy Heart, and this. And yes, I'm already assuming he's amazing in True Grit. And I'm sure there are several good answers for this, but I'll stack the Bridge against anyone.

9. I really enjoyed the Fayetteville Observer's three-part series on Coach K. Here's part one, part two, and part three. Nice writing by Dan Wiederer.

10. This is what people do in Burlington, Vermont the day after a party with a gingerbread castle contest:


and...


See you tomorrow. Happy 16th birthday to my younger brother, the dude they call Special K.