As I predicted, the same group of people called me and texted me this week despite what was posted on the site, BUT, when you know they’re not all there that’s what you expect.  I was going to give ground rules on the limited number of people who can actually call my phone, but I’m not going to bother.  Despite everything we had on here, that element still existed this week, which is shocking and sad.  However, once I turned off my phone and focused on more productive things my weekend was much better.  You read that correctly: things were less annoying and stressful once we went to work.

It is with that sentiment that I will stick to my original decision and ditch the pool for this year.  If we come back next year we will certainly make some drastic changes.  For those of you that wanted to, shall we say, “take action,” I greatly appreciate it but I do believe in karma and I’ll leave people alone… and so should you.  Thanks anyway, but we’ve been legal and legit from the start, relying solely on people’s appreciation.  Just because that aspect changed against us doesn’t me we should drop to that level.

I thank everyone for their assistance this season, as do the people who were able to win.  I’ll be emailing all of the pre-paids tomorrow to get all of that back to everyone.  For those of you that still owe me, you’ll be hearing from me as well. 

As for me, I’m looking forward to the next vacation (which starts one week from now.)  I’ll still be on here for non-football related things so keep stopping by and checking in on us.  Thank you to all of you who left the positive, appreciative comments on the last few posts.  I’m dead tired, so I’ll be doing everything else tomorrow.

- Steve Pogo

Well, the pot was larger than I had prognosticated: 1,575.  Not to shabby for a Thursday due date… and certainly better than the Thursday night game.  Ugh.  The spreadsheet is posted to the left.

The three most important games are NE-IND, SD-PHI, and KC-OAK, two out of three of which would be worth watching.

One quick note - I got a call that said there were picks at Paddy Macs.  They were closed when I went by around midnight, locked up with no one in sight.  HOWEVER, I have quite a few picks in here that say “Paddy Macs” on them.  Someone dropped a bunch off to me at work and I think there are few left over there, possibly dropped there instead of Waterway after the bulk of them were already dropped off to me.  I said online I would be there between 11:00 and midnight with my “just in case” line right after it.  It looks like we might have missed a few of them.  I’m gone in a few hours (it’s currently almost 4am) so there is not much I can do.  HOWEVER, if your name is not in any one of the three rows (315 picks) in the spreadsheet, then please head back over there and get your sheets back!  Either that or the bartender just got tipped… with some paper stapled to it.

I’m sure someone will call me during my drive across the state; I’m posting in on here anyway in an attempt to nip it in the bud.

I will be out of town quite a bit between now and December 1, but I will be on here with pictures and random updates.  As for the pool, we’ll have to reorganize once I have some time.  I know exactly how I am doing things next season.  As for this season, there is obviously a demand for it and seemingly everyone agrees with me (except for one comment but that guy can’t even use the spreadsheet template so we’ll excuse that one ) so we’ll see what (if anything) we will be doing for the last 1/4 of the season.  Don’t get your hopes up; we’ll see how timing looks.  We did just book another wedding on a shortened time table, so there goes another Saturday.  We’ll see.  Check back for fun stuff in the meantime.

Speaking of fun stuff, let me turn this one over to Emily to toss us some photos back from a few weeks ago (the last time we had cooler weather and the doors open, ironically enough) when I was entering the picks, still rocking the suit until 5:00 in the morning.  Hey, I got it cut just for me, I might as well enjoy it!

Steve Pogo turning it over to the fiancée.  Terrible luck to you all!!!! 

Here’s Em:

Not much to say, here’s my handsome Pogo stylin’ while typin’. 

xoxo Em (by the way, email me if you’re interested in doing family photos for holiday cards!  It’s not too late… yet…)

delicious port makes a cool night better...

I’ve been thinking about a couple things for the last few weeks and debating on the direction in which we should go with the pool.  Obviously we have had issues in Abacoa with problems at Rooney’s and lack of follow-through at Jumby Bay.  Now comes whatever has been going on over by Paddy Mac’s and the Cigar store (one of our top places) and people need to back off for a bit.  This does not bode well for us; we are a friendly office pool and we keep everything legal and legit but a great number of people cannot see past that.  When the comment is made “it can’t be legit” or “no one would volunteer their time and not take anything off the top,” each of those say a great deal more about the character of those making the comment then it does those of us who stay above it.  The appreciation and understanding has slipped as of late, too.

This has always been a fun pool which happens to be the largest one in town and certainly the only truly legitimate, winner-take-all pot.  My original intention 10 years ago was to “make every game important” so that everything could be enjoyed on Sunday and you would have a vested interest in each outcome.  A great deal of us still have that mentality; plenty of us have been around for years and we know who we are.  Our core crew still exists and they get everything done on time and they do the right thing.  I even had picks turned in when I woke up today (Tuesday) for the Thursday deadline.  Others still like to stretch things out and convince themselves the world is out to get them and we’re evil and the whole thing is a scam.  As I have always said, please do not play if you are one of those people - the last thing we want is for you to win the damn thing to be proved wrong.

Now let’s look at things from my end.  I volunteered my time way back when we had pots in the 80-150 range.  I wrote the original program back when we had 18 people playing each week.  There was not a lot of time nor effort invested at that point.  Since then we expanded to emailing spreadsheets.  When people didn’t understand how to use email (or even write down the proper address) we switched to the website version, solely to overcome other people’s technological shortcomings.  I have attempted to streamline this entire process, including our primary focus on full disclosure.  May I fully disclose how disappointing things have been on my end this season?

Let’s be direct: last season we had the right type of people winning the pots and, despite the recession which was much worse and much more worry-some then, still did the right thing.  This season has slipped.  We like getting more people involved but the type of players has collectively devolved this year.  If you just took offense to that comment then you are one of the people about which I am typing.  If you read that and felt nothing, then you are in my sector of pool players.  I have people helping me out because this has turned into 15-20 hours of work per week, not including set-up, program writing, pre-season sheet creation, constant website updates, drive time, etc.  Barry is the only one who fully grasped the simplicity of using the spreadsheet template, making things mutually beneficial in terms of time and effort.  I asked for people to turn sheets in early (by Friday) to help us get a head start; we had 56% turned in on Saturday last week.  The gratitude in terms of gratuity has fallen by a shocking 77% from last season.  Whether it be ignorance or insult, the result remains the same.  I am not angry with anyone; I am just practical.

Emily and I are running two very successful businesses with the football pool as a fun side project on the weekends.  The fun has been replaced with bitterness and frustration from people who cannot grasp something as simple as how this pool is run.  Some weeks are better than others but let’s face it, it’s just not worth it to see a 1.7% flip back and have someone act like they are doing you a favor.

I know everyone tells me I should take something off the top but I refuse to take the route that everyone else follows.  I feel that betrays the trust and understanding we collectively have.  However, that can go both ways.  Looking ahead, I am out of town multiple weekends, I have a group of people who can never turn things in early for whatever reason, Todd can help but I am not pulling him away from his family on a holiday or his wife’s birthday - plus when I gave him 100% of the tip while I was out of town it was far FAR below what he deserved for that amount of work.  Add to that the people who have to call with stupid problems so I can have my volunteer work interfere with my actual, professional travel and work and this is simply not an intelligent thing to do anymore.

I know we have a bunch of people who do the right thing.  Unfortunately, they all seem to be just as good at picking games as I have been as of late so I have not been able to call them on Tuesdays to congratulate them.  This past week we were able to set the record for pot size and I while I believe in karma I certainly did not experience anything remotely close to it tonight with the payout.

ALL that being said, you know where I am coming from and you know where I stand.  Week 10 is due on Thursday night and that will be the last Steve Pogo pool of the season.  Hey, we can’t win them all and going out right after a record pot does feel like Elway going out on top (I guess that would make this week feel like the Pro Bowl.)

I will take care of all my pre-paid people so no one has anything to worry about there.  I appreciate everything my collectors have done for all of us this season in making this possible.  I also appreciate Barry, Al, and Kim who each did the right thing with their winnings.  Big shouts outs to Todd and Barry for entering into the spreadsheet, everyone who pre-paid and emails weekly, and all those who take the time to drive and drop off picks; all of them are in good standing with the main group.

So where do we go from here?  Well, website hits will plummet after this weekend but I’ll still be on here, blogging away with whatever comes to mind.  I’ll still direct people to other pools or Super Bowl Squares or March Madness Brackets or anything along those lines.

So long as we’re all clear, the Cliff Note’s version is that I barely had the time to do all of this anyway and the reward has been nothing in comparison to the time and effort put in by a group of us.  Go ahead, start sending the hate mail. 

I’ll be back on here Thursday night with the spreadsheet for Week 10, then Monday with possibilities and Tuesday with the winner.

Later kiddies!

- Steve Pogo

On to Week 10!  It’s due in three days so get cracking.  I do not expect this pot to be anywhere near the size of this last one, but I have been wrong before.  My guess is 1,380.  Let’s see how close I get.

You’ll notice a nice little note on the new pick sheet.  Call it a not-so-subtle reminder of how we run things around here.  I leave town early Friday morning and will be working on the West Coast all weekend so my cell phone will be turned to “alarm only” and email will only be checked late night.  If you must turn one in late and you’re willing to pay the posted late fee, you will have to email me and I’ll call you late that night (between 1am and 2am) and I will instruct you on where to go that late night to turn in your sheet.  To make life easier on all of us, pay attention to the deadline this time!

My next two weeks are packed with work and social events.  Week 11 will be due on Friday.  I will be in town Saturday the 21st but come midnight I hope to be hanging out with some of you; the 22nd is my birthday and I typed on my birthday last year like a loser.  Call it a learning experience.  I’ll be going out with people that night, then it will be football, wine, and trivia at my place Sunday, followed by an 8 day paid vacation where I get to see a bunch of friends and stay up in the mountains.  :)  How does that affect you?  Well, one person was nice enough to step up to volunteer their time for the pool over Thanksgiving but based on previous years and smaller pots combined with working on this during the holidays, I think we will just skip Thanksgiving week altogether.  Todd has a family, I will not have time to punch things into the sheet, and we’re all traveling, eating, and/or shopping that week.  If you absolutely cannot live without the pool that week, please email me to let me know what you’re willing to do to help that week and we’ll make something work.  I will let you know more over the next few weeks but that is how we stand as of now.

I know there are some issues over by Paddy Mac’s / Cigar Store… we want everyone to play and if those places need to lay low for awhile we have 50+ people working over at Waterway Cafe at an assortment of waterfront bars that would love to have your business, at least temporarily.  Waterway is all of two and a half miles down the road from Paddy Mac’s.  Just a thought.

I will be going to Waterway and Paddy Mac’s (just in case) Thursday night after work between 11pm and midnight.  If you need to drop them off, I’m at Capital Grille 6pm to close Tue, Wed, and Thurs this week and Waterway is always a good place to drop them.  Barry will do his spreadsheet, Gil will email me, JJ and Dehn will deliver and my email people will keep doing their thing.  Any questions on delivery, email me by Wednesday night.  Emailing me at 2:41am on Friday would not be all that smart. 

OK, go get to it!  By my watch they are due in less than 64 hours!

Garrett, I’ll call you tomorrow afternoon on my way into work around 5pm and I hope to meet with you tomorrow night!  Congrats again!

- Steve Pogo

Possibilities for tonight’s game to take home the entire record pot of 2,480:

Pittsburgh

2-46 Garrett Post

47+ Chris Rose

Denver

Shaun Smith

No split pots possible; one person is taking this whole thing home.

Also, I’ll have the pick sheet for Week 10 posted to the left within about 10 minutes (so unless you’re really on the ball checking this site, it will already be up for you.)  Here are some pictures from Dan’s trip to the Dolphin’s loss yesterday.  True, you could say it was a Patriot’s “win,” but let’s stay positive and say the Dolphins lost, shall we?

Best of luck on the pot tonight, gentlemen!  Feel free to trash talk via comments on here.  I’ll be at work tonight, watching the game from afar.

Do we all know Week 10 is due Thursday night?  Thursday Night is the due date for Week 10.  Any illiterate people that could not figure it out and call and leave me voice mails / emails WILL have thier names, voice mails, and/or emails posted on the site for embarrassment purposes!  We are not having a repeat of the last early due date.  Kicking people out for the rest of the season for not reading or following the rules and attempting to turn them in on Friday or Saturday is also a possibility.  Consider that nipped in the bud!

- Steve Pogo

DAL + PIT (12-1)

2-46 Garrett Post

47+ Chris Rose

DAL + DEN (12-1)

Shaun Smith

PHI + PIT (12-1)

2-37 Ryan R.

38 Ryan R. + Capt. Stabbin (split pot)

39-42 Capt. Stabbin’

43 Capt. Stabbin’ (split pot)

44+ Dan B.

PHI + DEN (11-2)

2-34 Todd

35-36 Ryan R.

37-38 Jessica Miller

39-40 Capt. Stabbin’

41-43 Shaun Smith + Charlie Brown (split pot)

45-46 Dan B. + Arthur N. (split pot)

47 Steve Pogo

48-49 Todd L.

50 Todd L. + Todd Gatchel (split pot)

51+ Todd Gatchel

I included what the record would be should that be the outcome of the games just so I can put the kabosh on the ignorant emails (ex. “I only lost three games; am I the winner?  Where do I pick up my winnings?”)  It was looking all neat and tidy until I tried the two home teams, where I found some familiar names.  11 people would be alive in that scenario, I am one of them and I know 5 of the other 10.  Let’s go Philly… but not DeSean Jackson; I have healthy leads in fantasy for both of my main teams. In each league my team is finished and I have to go against Jackson in the night game.

I’ll be back (after some food) with pictures from Dan so we can all live vicariously through him to travel to Foxboro, sit comfortably in a luxury box, and watch the Dolphins LOSE to a division rival.  Nice, isn’t it?

Please go double-check the possibilities; I slept for all of an hour last night.  I would say I’m earning my usual 10-15% tip (unless someone impoverished wins again) but hopefully I’ll be tipping myself!  C’mon, EXACTLY 47 points! 

- Steve Pogo

Our old record of 2,155 has been killed.  The best part of all of this is that the extra picks I handed out to people only drove the pot higher; we would have broken the record without my freebies to my assistants!  I also challenged you to screw me over and have the pot top 2,500 so I would have to adjust the spreadsheet.  I, of course, was hoping for a pot in the 2,300-2,450 range so we could beat our record without me having to reformat the main sheet.  I’m really happy we missed that because look at what time I’m posting this thing!

Ready for the total?  The Week 9 NFL pot is a new record of 2,480!!! That’s right - five more entries and I would have been over my current spreadsheet limit.  For those of you who use the spreadsheet (which should be all of you, truthfully) you’ll see all of 4 open slots.  496 entries this week!

The italicized picks (columns 7-54) were the ones I handed out to people.  I italicized them because if one of them wins, and they would not have played it had it not been for me…. well, you can imagine how I’ll spin that when I see them.

A couple of quickies in the sheet - there are a few people in there as phone numbers; one person did not write a name and another one was so far beyond legible three of us could not make out any definite letters.  I hope they were trashed at the time they attempted to sign their name because that one is rough!

I’m not going to do the picks within the pool (go download the spreadsheet and read them yourself - I’m tired AND we have a 10am meeting on PGA) but I will tell you that in one game, the unthinkable happened in a pool of this size.  In the Arizona - Chicago game, 248 people picked the Cardinals, 248 people picked the Bears.  We actually have an exact 50/50 pick in our largest pot ever!  Go figure that one!

I would tell you what the most important games are, but if you have one loss this week you better hope it is a MAJOR upset (Tampa Bay, Carolina, Washington, Detroit) because you have to figure with how close some of the picks are, losing one “close” game should (theoretically) knock you out of the pot.  If you’re still perfect going into Philadelphia, THEN you can start to get excited.

I’ll do the possibilities after the Sunday Night Game.  If it’s upset weekend and there are not still 50+ people alive with two games to play, I might post them after the 4:15 games.  Either way, go download the spreadsheet!  If you’ve never used it before it is very simple:

Go over to the left, download the Week 9 Spreasheet.  Open it in Excel.  Under the title “Winner” enter the abbreviation for the winning teams in boxes C13:C25.  Go find your name (good luck - we have four full rows) or look for the orange box that pops up under someone’s sheet that says “Winner!”

That’s it.  It should be intuitive and logic driven.  If you type something wrong, close it without saving and start over.  I try to keep it as easy and simplistic as I can; you never know who’s playing and just how out of it they might be!  Speaking of which… who calls in the middle of the rush on a Saturday night, tries me three times and leaves two messages, marks each one as “urgent,” only to ask me to do something that I already had posted on here that I was going to do already?  Reading is fundamental.  Logic is beautiful.  Leaving me a message where you say the same thing SEVEN TIMES and speak at a speed that would bore a sloth to death… well, let’s just say the staff had a nice laugh at that one when I replayed it on speaker!  Should I mention 6 people forgot to pick a game or am I just piling on at that point? 

Thank you to EVERYONE for getting these turned in and playing multiple times for our record pot.  I expect the remainder of the pots to still be respectable but significantly less than this one, especially with next week being due to me by Thursday night.  Wait until you see the little love note on the end of that pick sheet!  I underestimated the lack of literacy the last time I made these things due early - now I know how to nip things in the bud.  Muahahah!

Terrible luck to all of you this week!  Someone is going to win the record pot; I’ve got 10+ chances in there, why not me?!  (It’s been almost 4 years since I won my own damn pool, playing the thing 3-5 times per week!)

I’ll see you back on here tomorrow night with possibilites.

- Steve Pogo

P.S. Dan is in a luxury box for the Pats-Fins game.  If he sends me a picture tomorrow, I’ll post it on here.  Enjoy the game and the trip!  Terrible luck in this pool and even worse luck in our fantasy league (one of nine for me) I’m sick of looking UP at you in the standings! 

We love our numbers runnin’ connection. 

I believe your day was the 2nd, which means we’re the same age for only 19 days: I’ll be 29 on the 22nd.

We love you and please enjoy the hell out of your birth MONTH (stretch it out for all it’s worth, Baby!)

- Steve Pogo

Let’s blow that number out of the water this week!  It’s time to crash the pot.  This is the last weekend before the holiday season where the pool is due on a Saturday, making it the last time we can really drive this thing through the roof.  Week 10 will be due on Thursday.  We can all read, correct?  Week 10 will be due on Thursday.  I expect the pots to go down slightly each week (maybe with a spike here and there) starting in Week 10, so 9 is the time to go crazy.

Want to play twice instead of once?  Now’s the time.  Want to play 20 times like one guy last week?  Go for it!  Got family member, co-workers, friends, enemies, or anyone else that might be interested?  Get them all in this one as well.  In fact, I wrote the spreadsheet to handle 500 entries (that would be a pot of 2,500) and it would annoy me if I had to re-write it on Saturday… and I know how much you all love to annoy me so go for it!

Where should you turn them in to be collected?  Well, our boy Frank over at the Cigar Shop has been doing a hell of a job all season, but (based on things beyond our control) we need to move that collection spot.  It will now be about 50 feet to the left at Paddy Mac’s.  I’ll swing by there on Friday AND Saturday this week.  They said they would be fine collecting them and they would have sheets in house by Tuesday (oh yeah - Week 9 Pick sheet posted to the left.) We really appreciate everything Frank has done for us this season and we hope to still see him playing (quite a few times this week, actually!)

For those of you that collect for me and/or use the spreadsheet to make my life easier (not those who type them all in in a row to make my life more difficult) you will be getting a few ADDITIONAL free plays on me this week (and I plan to play QUITE a few times myself) as my token of appreciation from all of us to all of you who help us out every week.  Barry has been my MVP and was going to get the bulk of them but since he just walked away with a pot I’ll have to see how generous of a mood I’ll be in when passing them out to everyone. 

I am really glad he won it.  I was at his house a couple of years ago when he won on Monday Night as the pot was about a third of this one.  Nicely done, Brother!!!

If you’re online and have never played this thing, email me and we’ll get you all set up.  I’m not setting a clear target for this week; I just want to see it over 2,155.  If it does top 2,500 I might have to post spreadsheets A and B and compare the winners.  We’ll see how much time I have if it does grow absurdly huge.

Get ready to type a lot this week, Todd!  Both of us going on both computers.  That reminds me - they are due on Saturday but getting them in by Friday does help us out quite a bit.  We have more time that night and do not have to get up as early on Saturday as we do on Sunday.

Also, if you’re dropping them off to Capital Grille on Saturday night I’ll be back behind the bar attempting to pour some drinks so come give me a hard time.  Friday night I’ll be wandering around on the floor, closing the place as per usual.  Sunday I’ll be on my ass on the couch hoping for a miracle in my two important fantasy leagues.  Ugh - 4-5 this weekend between 9 teams.  Maurice Jones-Drew single-handedly killed me in one of them.

OK, go find some more people to jump in this thing.  C’mon Schumacher!  Let’s see a personal best from you guys at Wahoo’s.  Waterway… well, just keep doing your thing.  How about Barry’s people?  You should be able to market even more now that you’re up over 2 large for the season (he won the now-deceased NCAA pool a few weeks ago.)  Alan?  Paul?  Billy?  You guys going to remember this week?  Is Paddy Mac’s going to do an even better job now that they’re replacing the Cigar Store?  Is Morgan Stanley going to cash in a fund or two and play a few hundred million times?  (Hopefully not; we’re out of bailout money)

I’ll see you next Friday with an update.  Please email me with any questions or concerns.  I’m working a lot this week but I will get back to you overnight.

- Steve Pogo

Atlanta

2-51 Bill B.

52 Bill B. + Barry Wood (split pot)

53-54 Barry Wood

55 Barry Wood + Rich G. (split pot)

56-61 Rich G.

62 Rich G. + Randy Roberts (split pot)

63+ Randy Roberts

New Orleans

2-51 Bill B.

52 Bill B. + Barry Wood (split pot)

53+ Barry Wood

No offense to anyone else, but go Barry!  He saves us so much time entering his group’s picks directly into the spreadsheet template AND he pre-paid for the season for his entire group.  I like seeing hard work rewarded, and he’s tied with Todd for second for most amount of work put into this thing so far this season.  (Well, Todd might have had more when I was out of town, but hey.)

Enjoy the World Series tonight.  Go Phillies! (I like 7 game series)

I’ll see you back here tomorrow night with the Week 9 Crash The Pot Pick Sheet and, of course, the winner after the Falcons-Saints battle.

- Steve Pogo

Since 90 < 100, that pool is finished.  I had so many requests for a college version over the years but it just did not catch on anywhere near the way we had hoped.  It was more time-consuming on our end, so honestly I’m not too sad to see it go.  If you are one of the few who played it, feel free to play the NFL version even more!

Speaking of the NFL version… the pot is officially 1,935.  That’s up 25 from last week.  Next week we need to put this thing over the top and crush the previous pot record of 2,155.  I’ll be handing out freebie plays to the people who have been helping me all season next week… the only catch is that they have to be ADDITIONAL picks to add to the ones they would already be playing.  The official number of free picks and who will get them will be determined after this week is paid out and the tip is factored in.  This season has been a rollercoaster in that department so nothing is certain… unless someone at Waterway wins! 

I’ll figure out the free plays, YOU figure out how many extra times you’re playing next week and who else you are going to recruit, even if only for the one week.  Crash the Pot = Week 9!

Before we launch into all that… Week 8.  I got cute with the spreadsheet a couple of years ago so I’ve had this one in my pocket for a few seasons, so please enjoy the uber-nerdy “themed-spreadsheet.”  If you’re not in the mood for that, the original layout is right here.  They are the same exact sheets except for formatting differences.

To the picks within the pool!!!  Here they are in order of most important to least important:

Tennessee 206, Jacksonville 180 (1 No Pick)

Baltimore 208, Denver 179

Minnesota 212, Green Bay 175

New York Jets 220, Miami 166 (1 No Pick)

New York Giants 243, Philadelphia 144

Detroit 248, St. Louis 138 (1 No Pick)

Houston 251, Buffalo 136

New Orleans 348, Atlanta 38 (1 No Pick)

Dallas 334, Seattle 33

Chicago 360, Cleveland 27

Indianapolis 362, San Francisco 25

Arizona 362, Carolina 25

San Diego 366, Oakland 21

Let’s have some fun with those numbers:

Tennessee is 0-6 yet favored.  Denver is 6-0 and is an underdog.  To make that even uglier and more screwed up, those are the two most important games.

If you total the picks for Oakland, Carolina, San Francisco, Cleveland, Seattle, and Atlanta the sum is still less than that of Denver, Green Bay OR Miami, all of which are underdogs.

Detroit is favored… by 28.42%!!!  We have had 39 NFL pools since we had the Lions favored in a game (and that took me FAR too long to look up!)

There is a drop-off of nearly 100 picks (136 to 38) from the middle-tier games to the landslides.

We have five starting quarterbacks that were back-ups on opening day.  Three of them (Vince Young, Chad Henne, and Ryan Fitzpatrick) are getting respect (206, 166, 136) and two of them are not inspiring anyone (Alex Smith {25} and Bruce Gradkowski {21.})

Four people forgot to pick a game.  One of them was nice enough to write a question mark next to one of the picks, then never pick either team.  I’ve had some trouble picking games as well but I have never displayed the testicular fortitude to leave the bitch blank and hope for the 6th tie game since Reagan’s first term.

If you see all the “test” posts below, you’ll see I was trying to figure out how smart the program was in terms of adjusting it’s own clock.  Guess what?  I had to go digging in the back end and change the time zone to do it manually.  Welcome to the time of Chicago, St. Louis, New Orleans, and Sioux City everyone!  GMT -5, bee-yatchs!  So yeah, that’s fixed.

We finished watching ALL of Arrested Development and I think it just might be the greatest sit-com in the history of television.  Seinfeld, Friends, I love Lucy, M*A*S*H, Family Guy, The Simpsons, South Park, Taxi… all of them are great in their own right but the ingenious writing and fast-paced comedy of Arrested Development is on a completely different level.  You’d be looking for the joke set-up (sometimes three or four episodes in advance) and still get caught in the scene.  The plays on words, character development and interaction, and - above all - the writing of all the little details blows away the competition.  The first list I rattled off would all be funny after a few drinks.  Arrested Development was just to damn smart for mainstream network television.  Good thing we’ll always have NetFlix!

Something else I enjoyed a lot more than I thought I would… the new Alice in Chains CD.  Yes, Alice in Chains.  Layne Staley is long dead (he died April 5th, 2002, 8 years to the day after Kurt Cobain; 2 of the top 4 Seattle bands.  Strange, huh) but his replacement sounds just like him, especially in the dual harmonies with Jerry Cantrell.  Cantrell was always the primary songwriter so content-wise I shouldn’t be shocked but the earworms I’ve been humming to myself the past week are really good songs AND they have staying power.  Go check it out.  I’m not saying it’s the uplifting happy album that makes you want to plant flowers or paint a wall bright yellow, but in terms of quality music it has something behind it.

I did take a break today - Halloween is Type O Negative day on my stereo.  That’s another great band that released a couple of formulaic singles (except Christian Woman - that one’s great) and hid all the good stuff on the unreleased portion of the album.  When I finally get to that page about “Greatest Sings You’ve Never Heard,” their song “Anesthesia” will probably be #2.  There’s a hint. 

Enjoy the Sunday of NFL football!  I have plans Sunday night and Monday during the day, but I will do my best to get the possibilities up here in a reasonable time frame.  Remember, CRASH THE POT in WEEK 9!!!

- Steve Pogo

I’m still working on the spreadsheet; I’ll be back in a bit!

- Steve Pogo

- Steve Pogo

I just counted the pot.  Unofficially it’s 1,940.  I’ll punch in all the picks and check everywhere any more could be hiding and I’ll have the official one later.

- Steve Pogo

The pot just passed 1600, I’ll see what the final number is soon.

- Steve Pogo

Happy Devil’s night, everyone!  I have a special treat for all of you this week (well, for the motivated ones of you, at least.)  I’ll let you figure out what it is (and it’s pretty obvious to those that have been at this for awhile) but I promise you ONE treat and NO tricks.  If you’d like a sneak peek of what it is, download the college sheet.  Happy Halloween!

With that - in case you thought I had too much time on my hands - I created it two years ago and forgot to use it last season.  I also have Christmas, Hanukkah, and even Atheist’s versions… but the last one is just solid black so it won’t really help anyone. 

One quick note on the NFL pool: for the third time ever, we had someone play 20 times.  The other two times, none of the sheets even made it to the Monday night game, so we’ll see how this guy/girl does.  If you’re one of those that is not up on statistics and you think this week is already lost, keep in mind (with a 13 game week) there are 753,664 entry possibilities, so the 20-sheet-player has 0.000026537% of the possibilities covered. 

I’ll see you back on here tomorrow night with the final NFL pot (hint: it’s currently over 1,300).  Also, if you take any quality Halloween pictures (of yourself, your kids, or some girls that used today as an excuse to dress as total sluts… or if you are a total slut and you just get to act like yourself for one day every year) feel free to send pictures and we’ll share them on here when I post the possibilities for Monday Night!

- Steve Pogo

In the meantime, congratulations to Jeannine, our Week 7 winner, taking home the pot of 1,910.  Week 8 pick sheet and spreadsheet template are posted to the left.  Check back later today for the NCAA pick sheet!

- Steve Pogo

Ryan R. (who played multiple times and did fairly well except for one pick sheet) has a shot to have the unbelievable record of  1-12 this weekend, if Philadelphia wins.  Someone went 0-14 a few years ago, then went 8-8, then 15-1 (as the winner) in consecutive weeks.  I always search for dead last place (hoping it’s a friend of mine so I can ruin their day) but we almost never get anything lower than 4 wins.  Ryan, you have a chance for one of the all-time great turnarounds!  I hope you come in second next week (three guesses who I want to win the whole damn thing!)

Week 8 we should crack the 2,000 threshold, then Week 9 will be the “Crash the Pot” Week where we aim for a new record pot size!

I’ll have the NCAA pick sheet (yes, the bad one with the obscure game) posted on here later tonight.  Back to housework while the girl’s out of town!

Speaking of Emily being out of town… if you are: 1. Female 2. Attractive 3. In the Jupiter area and 4. up for anything… please swing by my place tonight!  You can wear some heels (or boots,) something black and lacy, smack on some nice red lipstick and we can slip back into the bedroom and I’ll show you my nice, large flat screen TV and we’ll watch the game while you iron all my clothes.  If you’re REALLY good, I’ll even let you go to Publix for me!  Chicken, broccoli, bananas, Chai Tea, watermelon, cans of low sodium black beans, frozen strawberries, peanut butter… oh, I’ll tell you the rest when you finish ironing.  Muah!

- Steve Pogo

Philadelphia

2-35 George Howard

36 George Howard + Kim N. (split pot)

37-42 Kim N.

43-46 Jeannine

47 Jeanine + Bob Seabury (split pot)

48-50 Bob Seabury

51+ Marie

Washington

BYK

Good luck, guys and gals!

- Steve Pogo

This should be a nice close one…

- Steve Pogo

As for the NFL pool, that number is slightly larger.  Once again, we have a season-best pot with Week 7’s total of 1,910.  We’re almost back to 2K!  The spreadsheet is posted to the left.

It was a pretty smooth week as far as turning them in to me, and for picking games (only 2 no picks out of 382 sheets!)  Better than two thirds of you got them in to me by Friday night, which does help us get a jump start on the pot, and lets me relax earlier on Saturday nights. 

Here are the games in terms of picks, listed from most important to… well… Tampa Bay.

Dallas 203, Atlanta 179

Cincinnati 208, Chicago 174

Houston 227, San Francisco 155

Pittsburgh 228, Minnesota 154

New Orleans 280, Miami 101 (1 No Pick)

Carolina 295, Buffalo 87

New York Jets 303, Oakland 79

San Diego 307, Kansas City 75

Philadelphia 339, Washington 42 (1 No Pick)

Green Bay 347, Cleveland 35

New York Giants 347, Arizona 35

Indianapolis 368, St. Louis 14

New England 374, Tampa Bay 8

374-8.  At home.  Nicely Done, guys!  It will be November 8th (our “Crash The Pot” weekend when we aim for a new record) when the Buccaneers will wear their throwback, Creamsicle-looking, vomit-inducing uniforms, but this week seems more appropriate.

We’re on our last DVD of Arrested Development, so I’m going to keep this one nice and short.  Terrible luck to you all!!!

- Steve Pogo

I’ll keep it short and sweet and share this mind boggling exchange, discussing adding a stop to our trip to the Carolina.

Steve: Well, we could stop and see Jason and Elizabeth on our way to North Carolina.

Emily: He’s in Greensboro, South Carolina.

Steve: Well, maybe we can stop on the way back to Georgia.

Emily: Yeah, but South Carolina is north of North Carlo… shut up”

I thought you’d enjoy that one!

- Steve Pogo

Barry Wood, NCAA (110)

Amber Lindsay, NFL (1,710)

Everything you need for Week 7 is posted to the left!

Three quick notes for upcoming pools:

1. If the NCAA pool has a pot under 100 that will be the last one of the season.

2. As long as the NCAA pool extends into Week 8, that one will have some fun and obscure games so you’ll all have to either guess randomly or do a sliver of research into FCS, DII, and DIII.

3. NFL week 9 (the one due on Saturday, November 9th) will be our “Crash the Pot” weekend where I encourage all of you to play multiple times and recruit other people - even if just for one week - so we can break our current pot record of 2,155.  That pool will be due on a Saturday, I will be here to run it, it is right before the shopping season hits, and at the current rate of increase in pot size should be in the range of 2,000 anyway, so I will just encourage more for that week!  After that, I’ll be out of town, due dates will change, etc.

Amber, I’ll call you sometime tomorrow; I am working around the house all day so I have no idea what time I’ll be calling, but I have your winnings right here!

I’ll see you all back here Friday night for the NCAA spreadsheet.  Happy pooling!

- Steve Pogo

For the rest of you… how’s work? 

- Steve Pogo

For 1,710…

Denver:

Amber Lindsay

San Diego:

2-31 Robert Conway

32 Robert Conway + Judy F. + Cierra Marshall (3-way split pot)

33-45 Judy F + Cierra Marshall (split pot)

46-53 Barry Wood

54- 58 My Two Sons

59 My Two Sons + Amber Lindsay (split pot)

60+ Amber Lindsay

Barry, I can’t believe you have a shot to win BOTH pools in the same weekend.  Crazy.

Other fun things in the spreadsheets include Jim B. amassing a record of 2-11 so far, and Judith being the only person in the pool to pick the Chiefs, Texans, Bills, and Raiders upsets.  Unfortunately for her, the Bucs, Giants, and Seahawks let her down so she’s out… but good upset calls nonetheless.

I’ll be back tomorrow with the winner and next week’s pick sheets!

- Steve Pogo

As for the NFL pool, we have yet another season-best pot, this time clocking in at 1,710.

This was a fun pot to do!  Most of it was knocked out last night while the portion tonight was typed in with the doors and windows open, fan on high, a nice glass of tawny port, and a great music.  Ah, I’ve missed this weather.  I also missed the fresh air - goodbye, household air from last March!

Back to the pool itself.  In terms of picks, we have a few slaughters and a couple of good match-ups, including the near-impossible 50/50 pick on Monday night.  Here are the most important games within the pool:

Denver 171, San Diego 171

New York Giants 180, New Orleans 162

Seattle 192, Arizona 149 (1 No Pick)

Washington 207, Kansas City 135

Carolina 232, Tampa Bay 110

Atlanta 252, Chicago 90

Minnesota 253, Baltimore 89

Cincinnati 268, Houston 74

Jacksonville 310, St. Louis 32

New England 322, Tennessee 20

Green Bay 323, Detroit 19

New York Jets 326, Buffalo 16

Philadelphia 329, Oakland 13

Pittsburgh 335, Cleveland 6 (1 No Pick)

Nice ones there at the end, huh?  Total the six teams with the least picks (106) and that’s still less than Tampa Bay (110), a winless team and the 19th most popular team in the pool this week, also making them an underdog.  Way to go, Cleveland, Buffalo, Detroit, Tennessee, and St. Louis!  That’s 3 wins between those teams, one of which is due to the fact that they played one another.

I would type more, but we’re halfway through Season 2 of Arrested Development (I love NetFlix!) so I’ll be kicking back relaxing on this beautiful night… err… “morning” now.  Terrible luck to all of you, good job Barry for winning the college pool, and great job Todd: you typed in a bunch of picks then never sent me your own! 

Catch you all tomorrow night!

- Steve Pogo

We decided awhile ago that if the pot dorpped below 100 we would ditch the NCAA pool altogether, but just as a pot of 90 looked like it was going final, Barry dropped in 5 from Stuart so there will be a Week 7!  Start promoting it if you like it; I struck out at my place of work but the NFL one is alive and kicking.

Speaking of which, that pot cracked 1,000 already and we still need the usual Saturday sheets plus all the ones from Wahoo’s.  (Feel better, Dino!)

If you’re bored tomorrow night you could always watch the end of the college pool with some friends over at Capital Grille, since I have my one-night cameo in a suit covering a managerial shift.  For every bottle of wine you order, I’ll fire one co-worker!  (It might not be official, but it will be fun!)

Planing ahead!  Week 10 will be due on THURSDAY, 11/12.  Don’t say I didn’t give you any warning!  I’ll be out of town for the weekend and I am not dumping on Todd’s wife’s birthday, so both pools will be due on Thursday, assuming the NCAA pots stay in the triple-digit range.

Planning further ahead!  Week 12 (a.k.a. Thanksgiving Week) as of right now, will not exist.  I’m looking for suggestions - it’s a holiday weekend, I’ll be out of town Tuesday the 24th through Monday the 30th.  I have a vacation house and a birthday; I’m allowed to enjoy both.  I’m also not dumping on Todd for the holiday since he has a family.  Anyone bored that would like to run the thing for a week?  You can keep the tip (almost all of them are 10% of the pot or more) and I’ll teach you how to do it ahead of time.  Of course, I’ll need your address and SSN in case you screw up or bolt with the pot.  Then I’ll sick Flanagan on you.  Muahahah!  But if we do have any motivated people looking to learn a new skill and help out everyone else over Thanksgiving weekend, please step to the plate!  Actually, I’ll make you a deal - if you collect them AND drive them to Western North Carolina, I’ll enter them in AND even do the website work. 

Get used to reading about changed due dates; I’ll be repeating them practically every post so no one can claim that they did not know well in advance!  Week 10 on Thursday, Week 12 non-existent as of now.

Enjoy the college Saturday; I’ll be back on here tomorrow night with the finalized NFL pool!

- Steve Pogo

Dumas (NCAA, 175)

“DF - The Commish” (NFL, 1,620)

Week 6 spreadsheet templates and picksheets posted to the left.

Thank you EVERYONE for a stress-free pool this week.  No late entries, no random emails, no screw-ups (except for 6 No Picks in the pool.)  Let’s keep this up for the rest of the season!

- Steve Pogo

I attempted to have 20 match-ups with big name schools (like last week when our winner went 19-1) but I went back and selected the games in terms of point spreads (like I did two weeks ago when our winner was 12-8) so it should be more interesting.  We should have closer games in terms of picks, since was had a couple of 95%+ picks last week, those games were basically meaningless.  With the big schools favored by large margins, you guys get to pick some television-dominating match-ups like FAU at North Texas and Illinois at Indiana!  Just be glad I wasn’t pulling out Kenyan at Oberlin or Slippery Rock at Gannon… because they are going to blind-side you on one of these pick sheets.  Sometime after Thanksgiving I’m going to bust out some Div II and III schools, just so we can be the only pool in the country playing at all levels of the college game.  Sure, we’ll have a pot of about 25, but it will be a blast! 

I’ll be back on in a few hours with the NFL winner and the Week 6 NFL sheet and template.

- Steve Pogo

New York Jets:

2-30 Vinny Hermanns

31-34 Susan K.

35 Susan K. + Mike Brooking (split pot)

36 Mike Brooking

37 Mike Brooking + Hogan G. (split pot)

38 -39 Hogan G.

40 Hogan G. + Rich G. (split pot)

41+ Rich G.

Miami:

2-37 Eric B.

38 Eric B. + The Commish (split pot)

39+ The Commish

Please double check them for me!  Use the comment box if you think there is anything wrong with the possibilities (that way you can take credit if you’re right and I can trash you publically if you’re wrong!)

R.I.P. 2009 Boston Red Sox.  :(  I guess it’s time to jump on the Rockies’ bandwagon.

- Steve Pogo

*Bashing my head on the desk*  I literally flipped a coin last night, knowing I would pick Stanford AND Oregon State in the college pool.  Stanford for… TAILS!  That will go in my second pick.  Guess what?  I had the low end on the points and an 18-2 record.  19-1 won the damn thing.  How close am I going to get in this NCAA pool?!!?  You know, it’s all about me…

Congratulations to Dumas, the Week 5 NCAA winner (175).  (Great: I got edged out by a guy who’s two letters away from “Dumbass”)

With that bitterness over (and yes, it is all in jest), on to the NFL pool!!!

Quick!  What year did the pilgrims land in Plymouth, MA?  Did anyone ever waste your time and take you to go see some arbitrary rock with a a stupid stamp on it, protected like it was the actual stone into which the old wooden ship crashed?  Well, if you know the year then you know the pot size!  I have to keep you thinking on your toes.  If your history is that bad and you’re about to Google the year, I’ll tell you the pot size is… listed later in the post.  Yes, I know I’m an jackass; I work hard at it, too!

Hey, want to see a cool trick?  Do 12 out of 14 of these picks look familiar?

BUF - BAL - PHI - PIT - CAR - DAL - NYG - MIN - SF - ARI - NE - JAX - IND - NYJ

19 pick sheets had those exact picks, 76 had just one pick different, and 204 were within two picks of those exact selections.  It is mathematically possible to 18 people to win every game and lose the thing on points.  One combination (and I’m not looking for it again) yielded 43 people going to tie-breaking points.  What’s the moral of the story?  Hope for an upset weekend, prepare for a split pot, and don’t think you have a chance with 5 losses (OK, I checked.  Yes, “Gallo” can win the thing with a record of 9-5 if all the underdogs win)  Don’t think you have a chance with 6 losses! 

All that being said, here are the games from most important to least important with the number of picks within the pool listed beside them:

New York Jets 201, Miami 123

Jacksonville 203, Seattle 120 (1 No Pick)

San Francisco 221, Atlanta 103

New England 221, Denver 103

Arizona 225, Houston 99

Carolina 242, Washington 80 (2 No Picks)

Buffalo 257, Cleveland 67

Indianapolis 271, Tennessee 53

Baltimore 285, Cincinnati 39

Dallas 285, Kansas City 37 (2 No Picks)

Philadelphia 304, Tampa Bay 19 (1 No Pick)

Pittsburgh 310, Detroit 14

Minnesota 311, St. Louis 13

New York Giants 320, Oakland 4

I don’t know what is worse: Oakland only getting 4 picks or the fact that I think 4 is a little high.  Watch them pull the monumental upset.  On the road.  In New York.  With JaMarcus Russell at quarterback.  Anyone else laughing?

Speaking of laughing, I mistyped “Monte” earlier tonight and accidentally entered him as “Monet.”  The few of you playing this that know him will agree with me that it was pretty damn funny.  He’s a more of a piece of work than a work of art.  I found it funny.  96% of you are out of the loop.  Moving on…

Hi Rick Correnti!  Thank you for dropping off picks and staying for a drink at the bar, followed by dinner!  I ran my ass off after you left.  Literally!  I probably sweat out about 4 pounds tonight, so thank you for coming in at the right time: early!  Thank you to the other people who dropped off picks to Capital, especially the ones I don’t know.  “Here, Pogo - they just dropped these off for you.”  “Cool, are they still here?”  “Nah, they bailed.”  *checking the names*  “Nope.  No clue who they are… but I recognize the names from typing them!”  So there’s my shout out to all of you!

I can’t believe I came so close to winning the NCAA pool AGAIN!  Ok, I’ll drop it.

You’re still reading?  Good for you!  The pot is one thousand six hundred and twenty, so thank you for reading and not just scanning for digits in hopes of finding the pot total.  In fact, let’s just throw out a bullshit number to get someone’s hopes up far too high if they are scanning for numbers after I first withheld the pot number, so for everyone doing that, it would be thoroughly inaccurate for me to say that the pot is 4,715!

That, my friends, is what’s known as a red herring.  Some of you are chuckling along with me, others are calling me names right now.  I can’t hear them, because it they are reading this before 12:59pm on Sunday, I’m passed out asleep.  Even if it’s after that, I’m on my comfy couch, staring at one of my giant TVs, eating everything an occasionally throwing something small at the TV (balled up socks, pillows…. maybe a brick or three for that Buffalo vs. New England Monday Night game back in Week 1…)

Hey, has anyone shot Kanye West yet?  We haven’t had a good public shooting of a “talented” rapped / R&B “artist” in quite some time.  Anyone care to start a pool?  I was a couple blocks away from that one guy in Miami (Shug Night?  Suge Knight?  Shrug Kite?  Who knows?)  and I think he lived so that one wouldn’t count.  Wait, let me check……….*Googling*  lol  OK, it’s “Suge Knight” and he lived but he got shot at Kanye West’s party.  I didn’t realize I was bringing all that back around in a nice little circular reference.  (I’ve been listening to Korn, Type O Negative, the Chili Peppers, Tool, and Dream Theater while doing the pool, just for full disclosure in case you thought I was one of those people that knows anything about that music scene)  So yeah, does anyone know if there are odds in Vegas on rapper shootings?  I’m already going to hell; I might as well gamble my way there.

I have Tuesday night off.  Emily is working Tuesday night.  I have no social life.  I might just update the photo section of the website (don’t go looking for it; it does not exist yet) and maybe write some dissertations about music and movies.  I like putting together bold lists (consisting of quantities other than 10, preferably prime numbers) just to get people going to fight with my “logic.”  If I say something like “The Shawshank Redpemtion is one of the ten greatest movies of all time” barely anyone would argue with me.  If I said it was the best all-time, I might get a few disagreements.  If I came out and said the The Godfather is a better movie than Heat, but Heat is a more entertaining film to watch multiple times, now I’m hitting below the belt.  If I come out and say A Streetcar Named Desire is severely overrated but Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels is far too underrated and the latter is far superior to the first, then I’m challenging convention.  If I come out and say Breakfast at Tiffany’s is the worst movie widely considered to be a classic, well… I’d be right… but people might consider that blasphemous.  See how many fights I can pick in a single paragraph?  I find this amusing.

I do not find the NCAA pool results amusing.

Does anyone else notice that the dialogue writing for season 4 of Dexter has regressed to the level of a daytime soap opera but with slightly better delivery?  And a couple of serial killers, of course.

I forgot what a great album Blood, Sugar, Sex, Magik was.  Good pull for this evening, Steve.  (You’re welcome, Pogo)

Terrible luck to every last one of you that is not named Steve Pogozelski.

- Steve Pogo…. zelski. 

NCAA Spreadsheet is up and the pot is 175.  That’s up from last week, down from the previous few weeks.  You’re not really loving the college version as much as we thought; you should have heard how many people asked me to do a college version over the past few years!  The good thing is that we all have a much better chance to taste victory in comparison to the NFL iteration.

As for the NFL, the pot hit 1,300 tonight.  I appreciate all of you getting them in by Friday to avoid any last minute issues.  I do like how some people were stressing out last week while I was away, trying to turn in sheets on Saturday when “Due Friday” was in bold on the front of the sheet.  (Todd was nice and let them play)

Tomorrow night I am hitting Waterway and heading home.  I swung by Jumby Bay again but they claim that there were not any there.  If you did turn one in to Jumby Bay, I have no idea where it is.  That being said, I am not going to bother going by there anymore since the bulk of them are now over at Paddy Mac’s and they (and the Cigar Shop) seem much more on the ball when it comes to taking care of their pool-playing clientele.  (That also keeps me from my weekly attempt to find a parking space in Abacoa so I’m happy!)  If there are anymore being turned into the Cigar Shop / Paddy Macs, PLEASE shoot me quick email and I’ll stop by there tomorrow.  Knowing Flanagan and his gang they’re all on top of it and got them in tonight, but if there are anymore, please let me know.

If we can get everyone on the ball to get them in by Friday (and we’re about 90% of the way there) I’ll get both pools posted by Friday late night so everyone can have an advanced look at their picks for Saturday and Sunday and determine what games are important to them.  It would also allow me to go out on a Saturday night. 

In terms of future pools… November should be interesting.  I might be gone for one weekend, I might be gone for four.  As soon as photography contracts are signed (and you know how reliable and punctual the general public is) I will let you know which weekends I will be away.  Since I am not flying early Friday morning again but rather driving Friday afternoons, I will have the pools due on Thursday night.  That way I can have everything posted before I leave and I do not need to trash another one of Todd’s weekends.  (Todd got the NCAA pool typed in tonight and organized the NFL sheets in an hour and a half.  I typed in 202 sheets worth of NFL picks in 58 minutes, so one could say that I’m getting efficient at this whole game!)

As for my weekend out of town, I have to share two emailed suggestions I received.  The first one was to triple the entry fee for anyone turning in past the due date but before the first kickoff and pocket the difference as an annoyance fee (good idea!).  The second was to bounce people for a week if they missed the deadline.  The only person I have ever bounced out of here was the drunk from last season (the same one that made off with the money from the Super Bowl Squares I refused to enter) and I’m not really in the mood to bounce anyone else… BUT!!!  If you’re one of those that likes to email (or worse, call) me just to check and see if you’re still alive, or you can’t find your name on the spreadsheet because reading is far too difficult, or you insist that you called every game correctly while I’m holding your six-loss pick sheet in your hand, trying to bet you one of my cars that I’m right and you’re wrong… yeah.  Someone might have to get bounced. 

On a much more positive pool note, thank you so much to the 98% of you that made our lives easier (including our eventual winner, which made me happy).  Way to go, Jupiter Farms!  You’re turning into the new Waterway Cafe!  Actually, you’re leading Waterway in pots won so far this year.  What do you think about, THAT, WW?  (I like competition.  Scratch that - I like to start fights!)  I also like the people that are dropping off their picks to Capital Grille… even thought I never seem to catch ANY of them!  I hope you all like James and Jon because they are handing me stuff all the time.  So to all those I personally missed over there: “Hi!  Terrible luck to you but it was nice to almost see you!”  And as for my favorite numbers-running girl, Joan of Arcadia, my house is always open to come over for a football Sunday!  You too, Al White!

As for my Bold Predicitons for 2009, ALL of them can still come true.  Of course, I had Denver wnning 4 games all year and they’re currently 100% of the way there, but people can lose 12 in a row.  Detroit.  St. Louis.  Carolina lost 15 to end a season after a 1-0 start a few years ago.  Oakland looks like they might not win until Al Davis dies.  Sorry, that was mean.  I meant to say Oakland looks like they might not win until Al Davis dies.  Oh, I guess that was mean AND accurate because nothing else is coming out there.  Oh well.

GAMES ENDING IN A TIE: Here’s a quick procedural note.  For those of you not with us last year, here’s how we handle a tie.  Based on the Battle of Ohio last week, I almost needed to address this, so just so everyone knows: In the event of a tie, instead of typing in a winner (i.e. BUF or NE), we will type “(Loss)”  Why that and not “TIE”?  Well, someone pointed something out a few season ago and they’re logic was correct: if someone does not pick a game and that game ends in a tie then - even though it was by accident - they had the game called correctly.  The odds of this happening are extremely remote (we have had 4 ties this century) and the amount of games not picked has been dropping (0 last week, 6 so far this week with one night left) so it will most likely never come into play but if it does, the rules are now posted.

Now, from a fan perspective and not looking at things in terms of the pool, hasn’t this been a great season of football so far?!  Plenty of upsets and great games in the college ranks, two amazing finished in the pros (Denver-Cincinnati and Minnesota-San Francisco) plus plenty of great plays, good upsets, and crazy records.  Denver is 4-0 while Tennessee is 0-4.  New England is no longer untouchable with Brady.  A rookie coach and rookie quarterback in New York of all places are changing defensive strategy league-wide.  JaMarcus Russel is exceeding expectations (I thought he’d have 14 interceptions by now so technically…)  Detroit won.  The Saints seem unstoppable on both sides of the ball and Reggie Bush is all but an after thought.  My upset-pick to win their division (and my pre-season pick for coach of the year) out in San Francisco are making good on my predictions so far.  Pre-season hype has gone is two different directions: Favre is the real deal, Vick has done nothing.  Who the hell is Anton Odom?!  NFL RedZone might be the greatest innovation since the iPhone.  I haven’t heard Shannon Sharpe stumble and mumble his way through the English language yet!  Is this a great season or what?!

I’ll be back here tomorrow night with the final NFL total, the picks within the pool, and the NFL spreadsheet.  See you then!

- Steve Pogo

NFL (1,420) Bill T.

Nice picks, there, Bill!  14-0, missed the points by 4!  Yes, John Sanford, you were 14-0 as well.  Too bad about the points.  (If it makes you feel any better, Todd ran the pool and lost the NCAA by one lousy point and three years ago I went 15-0 and lost by two points.)

BUT, Bill T. is our winner and the new picksheets and spreadsheet templates should be up by the time you’re reading this!  I’ll see you all next week as I am back in front of the computer on Friday and Saturday instead of on a tropical beach during a paid vacation.  (Yes, I missed all of you, too)

- Steve Pogo

Congratulations to Weepers (yes, that’s what they put as a name) for taking down the pot of 125 for the NCAA pool.  In my world, this is the second consecutive week I have had the correct number of games picked accurately, but I blew it on points.  Then again, five of us blew it on points so I don’t feel bad.  I am amazed at how the pool played out; “Weepers” lost ALL 6 of the 12:00 games, then ripped off 12 out of 14 to end the day and had the closest points.  It looks so weird in the spreadsheet, taking 6 in a row to start and somehow winning.  Strange.  Anyway, call ya tomorrow!

As for the NFL…. we’re down to 4.  For the pot of 1,420:

Minnesota:

2-45 John Sanford

46+ Bill T.

Green Bay:

2-44 John Sanford

45-47 Joey O.

48 Joey O. + Ken Wade + Bill T. (3-way split pot)

49+ Ken Wade + Bill T. (split pot)

Three guys in a 3-way, huh?  OooooK.  Joey O. was a late admission so thank Todd if you pull that one out tomorrow!

I will have the NCAA pick sheet posted soon and we will be back here tomorrow with the winner tomorrow night!

- Steve Pogo

- Todd

Two quick notes… first off, if Todd’s only issue was not picking up some spreadsheets on Saturday night for a pool what was due on Friday, I’d say he did a pretty damn good job!

Secondly, I really like being popular and all but WOW that was a lot of crap on my cell phone.  When I say I’m out of cell coverage, I mean it!  Anyone want to take a guess at what I had waiting for me?  Anyone want to toss out some numbers?  How about 46 missed calls, 23 voice mails, and 15 text messages.  Take a wild guess what most of them involved.  Anyway, if you were one of them (or five of them, you know) I was not ignoring you; I killed the phone once it displayed “Searching for Signal” for 12 hours in a row.  I land in Lauderdale, turn it on, and I see just how popular I can be when I’m not around!  So to all of you, “Hi!  This is me returning all your messages!”

Click here for the spreadsheet update It’s not much, but it has the winners in there and it is formatted correctly.  I’m leaving the other one up because I know how freakishly paranoid some people can get, so let’s make everyone happy and let them cross-reference on their own.

If I see anything else I’l let you know!  I’m off to Publix now because food is essential and I currently have none of it in the house (hooray working vacatons) so I’ll be back with possibilities and NCAA winner(s).  It’s good to be back and thank you everyone for getting them in early and not harassing him too badly.  Thank you to Todd for sacrificing more of he weekend than he would have liked!

- Steve Pogo

Todd

Spreadsheet works just fine; don’t worry about the “no picks;” the important thing is the formulas work.  I have a bunch of hidden cells in there; at the end of the second row there are some totals missing in cells no one can see (just from a copying and pasting job.)  What does that mean?  It means that if you type in the winners and you’re in row two (picks 126-250) you might not pop up as the winner… yet.  I should be home in the 8:00-9:00pm range (barring a plane crash or meteor or something) and I will post the corrected spreadsheet in a new link so you will all be able to see both of them.  All in all, GREAT JOB, TODD!  Way to get the largest pool of the season while I’m chillaxing on island time.  (I saw 44 seconds of football last night, by the way.)

Todd has definitely earned his eventual tip… which he can use to take his wife out to dinner to bail himself out of the dog house.  (Hi Kim!  We all love you!  Muah!)  That’s right, Todd - I just blew your wife a kiss!  Take it like a man.

SIDEBAR - play by play of the last two minutes at the hotel where I am stealing wireless in the lobby: we heard a loud crash downstairs and while we were hoping it was the lazy bellhop with a bad attitude and two speeds (slow and stop), it was actually a guest who apparently mistook the stairs for the water slide and went barrel assing down, laptop in hand.  That wasn’t funny.  What was funny is that her husband’s immediate reaction to this was “Dammit, Nancy, not again!!  Every time we come to the Bahamas you fall down!” in a very pissed off tone.  (By the way, she’s still on the floor.)  So, yes, technically some old lady fell down a flight of stairs and we were laughing shortly afterward.  I hope the paramedics get her up soon; she’s blocking my path to the fruit punch!  (I’m going to hell; anyone want to carpool there?)

Back to the pool!  Just kidding… I’m wrapping up here.  Enjoy your day of football and I’ll have the updated spreadsheet posted sometime tonight.

By the way, if anyone even thinks of complaining, you win the opportunity to help Todd for Weeks 9 and 11!!! 

- Steve Pogo and Emily Not-quite-Pogo-yet

SOOC! (for those non-camera nerds, "Straight Out Of Camera", no editing.)

Todd

Todd

Actually, I just looked at the spreadsheet and I notice that there is something wrong with the formula’s. There are -125 no picks. I have no idea what that means except that the spreadsheet may not calculate correctly. However, the picks are up for everyone to see, so even if the spreadsheet doesn’t work correctly, at least the integrity of the pool has not been compromised. To be clearer, everyone’s picks are available to see and compare to everyone else’s (including mine and Steve’s), so even if the calculations don’t work, the picks have been made public before the games begin. I guess that’s really the most important thing, full disclosure. I haven’t entered the ncaa winners, so I don’t know who won that. I apologize also for missing one college pick sheet that was sent via e-mail. I have two more times do do this this year and get everything right. Steve should be home tonight. I’m sure he can tell me what I did wrong.  Thanks everyone for being patient.

Todd

Love and other indoor sports,

Todd

With that said, in the spirit of full disclosure, here are my picks for this week.  Why am I posting them?  In the HIGHLY unlikely event that I win and somehow the spreadsheet does not make it up / internet is out / who know’s what I at least want my picks up for all to see.

Here goes!  NCAA first, then NFL

Pogo 1: MSU / CLEM / WIS / UNC / USF / PUR / ISU / PSU / STAN / ND / BC / AF / FAU / NEV / MISS / ASU / ARK / USC / MIA / UGA / 58

Pogo 2: MICH / CLEM / MIN / UNC / USF / PUR / KSU / PSU / STAN / ND / FSU / NAVY / FAU / NEV / MISS / ASU / TXAM / CAL / OK / LSU / 63

Emily: MICH / CLEM / WIS / UNC / SYR / PUR / KSU / ILL / STAN / ND / FSU / AF / FAU / UNV / MISS / OSU / TXAM / USC / MIA / UGA / 57

Pogo 1: WSH / NE / TEN / HOU / CIN / IND / NYG / CHI / MIA / NO / SF / DAL / PIT / MIN / 38

Pogo 2: WSH / BAL / JAX / HOU / CIN / IND / NYG / CHI / BUF / NYJ / SF / DEN / PIT / MIN / 39

Pogo 3: WSH / BAL / JAX / HOU / CIN / IND / NYG / DET / BUF / NO / SF / DEN / PIT / MIN / 51

Emily: WSH / NE / TEN / HOU / CLE / IND / NYG / CHI / BUF / NO / STL / DEN / PIT / MIN / 41

…And there you go.  Yes, she picked St. Louis and yes, we all picked Washington despite that loss to Detroit.

Of course, all of that will be moot when Todd posts the thing.  I thank you all in advance for making life easy on him.  He’ll most likely post the thing Sunday morning at a reasonable hour (like noon) instead of 5:21am like I have a propensity to do. 

OK, that’s it for me.  I’ll see you all Sunday night where I will be tired, missing my day of football, and most likely sunburned.

Terrible luck to everyone but Todd… but terrible luck to him in the pool, just for good measure.

- Steve Pogo

I went to the bank today (where I’m known as “The $5 Bill Man”) in one of my uber-annoying counting excursions turning in a couple thousand bucks worth of 10’s, 5’s and 1’s.  Three guesses whose pool my teller was filling out when I walked up to the counter!  Boo-yeah!  This thing spreads like wildfire!  Muahahah!

Also just for fun:

My Bills are 1-2, five starters out with injuries, Pro-Bowlers on IR, T.O. being T.O., the offensive line is under-performing, we just got trounced at home…………. and we’re favored on the road against the lowly Dolphins.

The only Dolphin game I would consider attending is this weekend and I’ll be out of the country.

I will not be able to check scores, the pool, or any of my nine fantasy teams between 3:30pm and 7:oopm on Sunday.  How will I survive!?

A couple of weeks ago, Kim stapled a Buffalo Bills pen light to her pick sheet as a gift to your humble football pool servant.  This week, she went 15-1 and won the whole thing.  Karma.  Pure Karma.  (I also like food, wine, cars, and women - staple away!)

Dan Bellino turned in his pick sheet with a picture of Jim Kelly on it for me this weekend (Great Brownie Points!)  He then picked Buffalo to beat New Orleans (Great Brownie Points again… yet not all that bright!)  I’m just kidding; he’s about 6 inches taller than I am - I’m not messing with that guy.  But I did kick his ass last week!!!  (It was in Fantasy Football, but still)

Todd told me that my 85% chance of the spreadsheet being posted this week was a little low, so I’ll now forecast a 97.312% chance of the spreadsheet being posted.  Of that, I am 91% sure he will include all the picks.  (I just want to instigate another discussion for the morning.  Muahaha!)

We’re watching our NetFlixed DVDs of Arrested Development.  Awesome.

Not only am I skipping the gym this week, I ate an order of french fries tonight at work.  With Bacon.  Whatever; I’m not the one that needs to fit into a wedding dress. I’m the guy behind the camera that won’t show up in any photos.  ;-)  (In case you were wondering, I capitalized the “B” in Bacon purely out of respect for Bacon.)

I’ll be back on here by Thursday with all of our picks, then I turn it over to Todd so he can call me creative names on my own website again!

- Steve Pogo

NCAA (190) goes to Johnnie Radcliff

NFL (1,350) Goes to Kim N

I had two other people up there for possibilities BUT… Arizona did not win.  (I’m sorry if you had false hopes, Dan!  Someone asked me for possibilities as I was walking out the door and I pasted in the wrong set!)  That makes a difference so we posted the wrong possibilities based on the previous outcomes after the 4:15 games (4 combinations of teams, 4 different outcomes, those would be the only people left alive.)  I try not to post the possibilities since when there are 10+ people the points can sometimes result in multiple ties and people can get lost in the shuffle; those of you that use the spreadsheet don’t have that problem, but some people like us to go out of our way to tell them how far out of first place they are.  We will not be doing the possibilities next week while I’m out of town.  And for those of you that like to email things like “I have 5 losses, am I still alive?” please stop wasting our time.  We post the spreadsheet as the official source for picks - your picks, my picks, and everyone else’s picks. We’ve put a lot of time and effort into it to set it up and it takes a lot of work each week to maintain full-disclosure.

Since it wasn’t me typing this week I can actually say this, but it’s a good seven to nine hours of work to get all of this typed in and plenty of you use the sheet the right way.  Please cut my boy some slack and use the program provided to you (and everyone else for that matter) to determine the winner and to see if you’re still alive.  Plus, if you have even a basic understanding of statistical mathematics, having 270 people playing and you have 5 or more losses, do you really think 269 people missed 6 or more games?  I was very surprised to see how many of those emails he got this week.  Kim was 15-1 (only loss was Miami to San Diego).  6 people had 14 right, 29 people had 13 right, 65 people had 12 right, and 65 others had 11 right, meaning if you had 5 losses you could have come in 166th in a winner-take-all pool.  Nice try.

As for next week, I will be out of town and out of touch, working in the Bahamas.  How does that change things?  Well, first off, since almost all of you had them in by Friday this week we’re going to make the NCAA and the NFL pool due on Friday night so he’s not typing until 5:00am Sunday morning.  (I don’t really mind that, but most people do.  Based on when people turned them in this week, it should not make a difference.)

Also, be nice to my guy.  :)  I know we get a lot of people who have some sort of mental issue thinking it is impossible to pick games before 11:57pm Saturday night or they pick them on Tuesday afternoon but they don’t want to turn them in to us until 2:00am on Sunday or they misplace them and ask us to call them in or email them late or… who knows.  I told him to take what is in by Friday night, work on the sheet, and anyone time-stamped on-line after that or those trying to turn them in on Saturday is out of luck.  I can make exceptions when I’m here since I know a lot of you; I told him not to be too trusting.

Also, I will give it an 85% shot of the spreadsheet being posted.  Yes, that is our official source for the games, no matter what we post up here.  I have had a few people that seemed a little worried that I could not guarantee the sheet being up (since I’m working all day Saturday, if there are any technical or computer issues I cannot fix them from a remote island, ya know?!)  If you’re worried about it or you think you’re going to get screwed out of something or anything else of that nature, just skip it this week.  Seriously.  We haven’t screwed anyone out of anything in the decade since I took over the pool, we have never taken anything off the top, and we never will.  If you’re actually that paranoid in life that you cannot fully comprehend that, please abstain from playing.  We’d rather one of our people win it, anyway.  Our core group of 200-250 people who play religiously and understand how the whole thing works (i.e. Waterway, Capital) are the ones we’d like to win.  For the 2-5% of people who play and like to claim a conspiracy theory or imply that this is anything but legit, please go play someone else’s pool.  I appreciate that almost all of you try to explain how we do things, but some people still aren’t bright enough to grasp it and I do not think there is a single one of us that wants to see any of those people win.  Am I right?!  :)  Sorry about that, but we were getting a lot of unneeded accusations from a couple of people and I’d like all of you to help me make sure those people never have a shot at the pot.  OK, enough said.  Time for happier things!

I will have my picks posted on here (in text form) before I leave on Thursday night.  In the unlikely event that something happens and the sheet is somehow not posted on time, I will post it as soon as I get back late night Sunday.  My picks will be up WAY ahead of time, so in the event I someone do well, all of you would have known before the weekend began.  Also, if you’d like to copy my picks and play them, feel free!  Just remember I haven’t won my own damn pool in over three years.  Grrrr.

I do not foresee any issues but I cover myself 100% and I let you know things well in advance.  I’ll have the next pick sheets up within the hour, but something tells me you’re all asleep already. 

- Steve Pogo

Todd

Everything you need for Week 3 (picksheets and templates for NFL and NCAA) are posted to the left.

As a friendly reminder, I am doing all of this for Week 3 but I will have someone covering me for Week 4.  All of my picks will be posted before I leave that Friday morning, but I ask all of you to be on time, organized, and understanding that week that I am gone just in case the spreadsheet doesn’t make it up, the website is not updated properly, etc.  I know he can do it, but it is easy to make a mistake and I cannot guarantee that everything will be fixed by Week 4 kickoff at 1:00.  I’ll be back in town late that Sunday evening and while I do not foresee any problems, I just want everyone to be aware well in advance that for the first time in a decade (and for the first of at least three times this season) I will not be here personally to take care of everything.  He’s also allowed to bounce anyone and everyone that misses the deadline so you know I’ll have his back if you try to sneak one in the next morning.  Everything is time stamped so I’ll know it all when I get back. 

Thank you to everyone for being on the ball this week - no missed picks in either pool!  Everything was in on time!  Good job, peeps!  Keep up the good work (for me, and especially for Todd).

I would like to extend a personal congratulations from me to Aniunas; since I do not have that phone number to call and say it myself, please except my congrats via text.  Barry will take care of you!)

I’ll see you all back on here Friday night with the NCAA pool.

- Steve Pogo

P.S. I know this means nothing to you, but thank you for all the website hits!  We’re averaging nearly 100 unique hits per day (my own hits and multiple hits from the same computer do not count towards that number so we’re doing well!  Thank you for your support!)

If Indianapolis wins:

Aniunas

If Miami wins:

0-39 Jon Ermides

40-43 Aniunas

44 Aniunas + Jeff Martin (split pot)

45+ Jeff Martin

Also, the NCAA picksheet and spreadsheet template are now posted to the left.  I included the Toledo vs. FIU game just to be a jackass. 

- Steve Pogo

For the rest of you thinking about leaving notes, that is always encouraged.  For those of you thinking about stapling something random to your pick sheet, my birthday is November 22nd so you have plenty of time to think up something of quality. 

- Steve Pogo