October 2007 Archives

The Rim of the World football team will be back home on Saturday to play its first football game since last week's tragic Grass Valley and Slide fires caused Lake Arrowhead and the surrounding communities to evacuate and destroyed hundreds of homes.

After consulting with Twentynine Palms and considering the DeAnza League schedule, Big Bear and 29 Palms decided to cancel their football game, preliminarily scheduled for tomorrow afternoon.

I'd be lying if I said I was excited about the NBA season, which starts on Wednesday. I'd also be lying if I said I was happy with my NFL picks, which were awful as usual. I guess opposite-week is next week. Here's my Monday night hurrah.

If I go below .500 one more week, I'm definitely taking my first instinct, then picking the opposite. I can't believe I'm watching a movie with Arliss Howard and Goldie Hawn about a 12-year old kid slinging dope. That's probably why I suck at picking. Oh yeah, the dude who played Lou Brown in Major League is in the movie too.

Ok, no more fire rescheduling blogs for now. I swear. This method worked last week so I'll try it now.

According to Apple Valley atheltic director Rob Martin, the Serrano-Apple Valley game has been moved from tonight to Monday at 4 p.m. at Apple Valley High School. It is the second High Desert game to be rescheduled for Monday, as Silverado and Barstow will take place at 6 p.m at Barstow High School.

The hits keep on coming, as tonight's Summit-Patriot game has been postponed accordingly to the Fontana Unified School District's website. As of now, no indication of a makeup date or site has been mentioned.

After checking the air quality this morning, the Redlands-Miller game, scheduled for 7 p.m. tonight at Miller, has been moved to Saturday at 1 p.m. at Charter Oak High School in Covina, according to the Miller athletics office.

With smoke continuing to be a factor in the Bear Valley, Saturday's scheduled game between Twentynine Palms and Big Bear has been postponed.

Today's game between Rialto and Eisenhower, originally scheduled for 7 p.m. at Ike, has been moved to 4:30 p.m. at Palm Springs High School.

Because of poor air quality in Yucaipa, tomorrow's game between the Thunderbirds and Fontana High School has been relocated to Palm Springs High School and will be played at 7 p.m. tomorrow. Also, Summit and Patriot are preliminarily scheduled to play tomorrow at Jurupa Valley, but a final determination will take place tomorrow morning.

Friday's scheduled game between Rialto and Eisenhower will take place at Ike, but when it will take place is still up for debate. It will either be Friday, as scheduled, or Monday night if the air quality is ruled to be deficient. A ruling will be made by noon tomorrow.

Because of concerns of poor air quality due to the fires in the mountains, the San Andreas League has canceled its football schedule for Friday.

Because of the air quality situation in Redlands, Redlands East Valley's game with Carter on Friday night has been moved from the University of Redlands to La Quinta High School.

Because of smoke in the Bear Valley, Big Bear High School is canceling its volleyball matches with Yucca Valley Thursday and postponing the second round of the DeAnza League girls golf tournament set to be held Thursday at Bear Mountain Golf Course.

It's a little weird to be talking about football with all the fires going on, but maybe a little football discussion is what we need. It certainly can't hurt. So here's my weekly top 10 ballot.

When I called Rim of the World football coach Bob Gradillas on his wife's cell phone this evening, I had no idea what to expect. Having kept up with the Sun's coverage of the Lake Arrowhead fires and watching the local news, not to mention seeing the smoke from it billowing in the distance from my Rancho Cucamonga apartment, I wasn't sure what to expect.

Another below .500 NFL record, going 5-8. Hey, at least I'm consistent. I'll attempt to be consistent and cover on Monday night for the fifth straight week as well. Keep your fingers crossed.

Indianapolis (-3) at Jacksonville
Jacksonville has always been an annoying gnat to Indy's Joba Chamberlain, buzzing around and pulling an upset over the Colts relatively often. At 4-1, the Jags winning wouldn't be an upset. In fact, I'm calling it.
Jacksonville 27, Indianapolis 24

Quite a bit of movement after the top 4, who are still undefeated and plugging right along.

Well, I don't know about that, but after going 8-2 with no thought Saturday, I'm going to try to do the same today. Yeah buddy!

They say nothing good happens after 3 a.m. So I wouldn't take these picks too seriously. But who the heck cares.

As the high school football season gets deeper into the league season, these games get bigger and more intense. Well, duh. I didn't get off to a very good start yesterday (shocker) as I broke one of the cardinal rules of prognosticating - always go with the streak.

Now to picks.

Anyone who is looking for a Joe Torre retrospective in this space can turn to ESPN. I'm pretty sure they are pre-empting the rest of their programming for reaction to Torre gaining some perspective and running away from George Steinbrenner. But I digress.

Just when you think things can't get any weirder, you get stories like this one from Baylor University. The crime was pretty nuts, but I think the best part is at the end, where its revealed that the reporter actually works at the bar in question.

That's what I am. It's like Alec Baldwin had William H. Macy hang out with me just to mess with my picking vibe, as I went 3-8 in college and am 3-7-2 in the pros. If only Maria Bello were here to rescue me, or at least seduce Macy like she did in The Cooler.

I keep inching to within .500, moving to 6-7-1 last week. Is this the week I finally break through? Who knows, but what the heck, I'll give it a try. Home teams are in caps

No need for a glossy intro this week. Here are the rankings...

In between watching Malibu Spring Break and listening to Jay-Z, I decided to drop some college pick knowledge. I was a decent 6-5 last week and hit my Thursday pick this week. If I continue that, I'll be singing this later.

I must say that Carter looked extremely impressive against Rialto last night. Fast, aggressive, mean - how the heck did those guys lose three games? Anyway, here I am, seperating the winners from the other guys. Since I went 8-1-1 last week, you should listen to me.

Busy week, with league previews and old friends stopping in town, so I apologize for the lack of blogs this week. Then again, maybe you didn't even notice. For those of you who didn't, here's some Jessica Biel pictures to tide you over. If you want really good ones that I can't post on here, google her Gear photo shoot from 2000.

Now to the picks...

What do you know? Another week, another sub-.500 record. However, I've nailed the last two Monday night games and if I get this one, i'll be 6-7-1, which is subtle yet constant improvement for me. I doubt you care, so go to the pick.

Here's the new Sun football Top 10 before it's published in Monday's paper.

If you are a Trojan fan, I know how you feel. Michigan is my alma mater, so I dealt with an awful upset loss a month ago. It will stink for a while, but the sun will come out tomorrow. Heck, it's California, the sun comes out every day. OK, enough with being a nice guy and lets do some NFL picking.

Yeah, I went to Friday, ate some fried mac 'n cheese, a pulled pork sandwich, and am currently having a coronary right now. Just joking. Anyway, here are the rest of my picks.

That's what I tried to do last week, but I ended up looking like a chump. Guided by the clutch South Carolina cover on Thursday, I'll try to build on that. At the very least, I'll try to avoid the misery of the Angels and Yankees fans in my office. Here's some picks now, and some more picks after I go to Friday's in Ontario.

It's Friday, you ain't got a job, you don't got (nothing) to do...
- Chris Tucker as "Smokey" in the 1995 movie classic Friday.

I would have just put a Youtube clip of Smokey saying that, but the FCC probably would have given me a nice little fine, a fine I couldn't afford if I want to continue my opulent lifestyle. So here that is and here is my picks for this week. I went 7-3-1 last week, not great but not bad either.

As I type this, I'm watching the Colorado Rockies continue their ridiculous surge into the playoffs. It's amazing to me that a franchise that has Dinger the Dinosaur as a mascot could make a run like this. Unlike the first link in this blog, I'm all about keeping him as a mascot.

The new weekly tradition is the unveiling of my top 10, well after the actual top 10 is released. I'm sure everyone was waiting with baited breath for this. If you weren't, I'm doing it anyway.

Well, if there's any theme to the NFL season, its that I couldn't pick my way out of a paper bag. I was so stoked to see that the Lions and Browns covered in games I was watching with pops in Chicago, only to realize that they were 40 percent of my winners. So here's to going to 6-8 (hopefully).

The brand new top 10 rankings that will be published in the Sun tomorrow. Enjoy.