HOT POTATO

Interestingly enough, my throat was scalded yesterday when I tried to swallow a certain food item and its accompanying gravy a bit too quickly. I stood up from the table, shouted an obscenity, and grimaced while it cooled off. No permanent damage, but I bet you can guess what it was. That's right...

A HOT POTATO.

You'll have to trust me that the potato in that picture is scalding.

(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 at the bottom of this post.)

The Hot Potato for Duke vs. UNC-Greensboro is:


Nolan Smith
Submit your picks by game time, and we'll all get rowdy.

-What's got two thumbs and is now 10-1 picking bowl games? This guy. (Looks down, remembers my tragic thumb accident, blushes furiously.) I nailed NC State over West Virginia and Iowa over Missouri last night (both upsets), and today I've got ECU over Maryland, Baylor over Illinois, and Arizona over Oklahoma State. Take note, gamblers.

-Remember all the shit I was talking yesterday about being awesome at Dance Central on Kinect? Well, I bought the game around 3pm, brought it home, set it up, and proceeded to get whupped by my mom. It was like she had practiced beforehand. My dancing ego took a serious hit. At the same time, my girlfriend took a 3 games to 2 lead on me in our Scrabble series. I'm getting defeated by females left and right this vacation.

-Teixeira says Andy Pettitte is going to retire. I was hoping it wouldn't come to this, but it looks like Robinson Cano will have to pitch for us this year.

-Kim Jong-Il is very pleased that amazing Harrison Barnes scored excellent 9 points to defeat mighty Rutgers.

-The Cuse is still undefeated. I'm seeing them play Notre Dame on the 1st. Woo.

-Wisconsin defended their house against Minnesota in a top-25 match-up. My stepfather told me he won't root for Minnesota because of this incident:


I had no idea this happened. Absolutely brutal. According to Wikipedia, this is when the NCAA banned pre-game dunks when refs aren't present.

-I'm not totally clear on the math, but does Philadelphia's loss last night mean that Chicago can rest their starters against Green Bay? They definitely get a bye no matter what, but I think they still might be playing for homefield advantage throughout. If not, that screws the already-pretty-screwed Giants, who need the Packers to lose.

-On the topic of tonight's game, UNC-Greensboro is 0-11. Duke is 11-0. I really don't need to say more, I guess. I'll be watching Seth Curry run the point to see if that's a viable option, and it'd be nice to see Miles Plumlee get on track. Other than that, I'm just glad a brutal December is almost over. ACC play begins with Miami on January 2!

That's it for today. Have a strong Wednesday, and be smart with your decisions. GO DUKE!