Friday, July 10, 2009

A Move Toward Substance?

I've been known to actually write about something on occasion. I'm not there yet, but let's see what we can do about slowly reasserting that reputation. There are no developed ideas here yet, but at least it's not Skywalker-style whining about my sad, sad shoulder routine!

Ten Weeks Until Football

Kirk has already gotten our fantasy league going. I doubt I'm going to be any better prepared this year than I was for the last three. Still, it's a good ritual. I've been trying to get Kirk to blog about football. He's considering it in a lukewarm sort of way. That's actually progress. Kirk is renowned for his unique stubbornness. Has been since we were kids. Damn, that was a long, long time ago.

The Packers have a totally revamped defense this year. That will be interesting. Maybe we won't have any more losses by four points or less. That would be nifty. There have been no significant changes to the offensive line. Anyone who knows me, knows that I obsess about the O-line all year long. I have since 2005 and will continue to until the line is re-established. I believe in fundamentals. Clearly McCarthy believes that the line is fine and that the Pack was just unlucky with injuries last year. Well, this is the year that we see if he's the offensive genius they say he is. If the line coheres early, we know we're going somewhere. If not, I'm prepared to call the whole cut-blocking scheme a failure. I admit it. I place my trust in big, beefy motherfuckers. Size is everything. You know. Like the Cowboys and the Saints had last year. Mobility, shmobility. I like BIG, BEEFY FUCKERS. Always have. And I never liked the Broncos and their cut-blocking scheme anyway. Anyone who knows me remembers exactly why.

If Favre shows up as a Viking, I'm hoping the new defense will pummel him into a greasy, purple spot on the astroturf of the Metrodome. I really don't know why the Vikings want him. Historically, Favre has always sucked in the Metrodome.

Procrastination

I'm realizing procrastination is a major problem with me. Before MS, it was never a problem because I would just suppress the "I don't feel like it" emotion and work my ass off. I can't suppress the emotion anymore. So how do I find ways around feeling the damned feeling?

There have been two methods I've had some luck with. The first is having another, stronger emotion to balance the "I don't feel like it" or "I'm scared of it and don't want to acknowledge the fear" feeling that's blocking me. Creating structures that generate the counterbalancing emotion helps. For letters of recommendation, I make the student have an interview with me, where I learn enough about his or her goals that I can write a good letter. Then I make them pick up the letter from me in person, so if I fuck up, I have to face the student. That's usually enough to keep me in line. The other, new method that seems to work is to set aside a time for the task every single day. It's working for getting to the gym. Forcing myself to track the progress on the research block helped for a long while. The problem is that when I fell off the wagon, I had a lot of trouble getting back on. That was always the problem with working out. Making working out a daily event seems to have solved it. Doing the same with writing might help.

3 comments:

Kirk said...

You'll be unsurprised to know one of my fantasy football mags (Fantasy Football Index) ranks the Packers offensive line at 27th out of the 32 teams. My other fantasy football mag doesn't talk about O-lines at all, which normally would be a signal to just put down the magazine and buy another but it was the only one I saw that had player statistics going back 3 years.

My NFL preview magazine (Lindy's) gives the Pack's O-line a rating of 7 out of 10, tied with quite a few other teams at the low end of the ratings. The Bungles came in dead last with a rating of 6.0 and a couple other teams got ratings of 6.5. Otherwise the Pack is tied with about 5-10 other teams for the third-worst offensive line.

Cheers!

Cuphound said...

Ain't he sweet? 'Cause you know I'm just yearning to have all the numbers on how badly my boys suck. Gotta love that practical statistical sense.

Well maybe McCarthy is actually brilliant and it was all bad luck last year. Denial, brother, is so much more than river in Egypt. It's the lifestyle of any post-2005 cheesehead.

Kirk has admitted on the phone though that the Kid looks fuckin' awesome and is going to rank relatively high on his fantasy index for his drafts.

Kirk said...

I do like Rodgers this year as well as Jennings and, to a lesser extent, Driver. I'm not so sure about Grant because of the O-line although I would be more than happy with him as a backup but wouldn't want to rely on him as a fantasy football starter.