Somebody stole the Honda logo off the back of my car on Sunday.



I actually laughed when I saw that, because it reminded of me people I knew in junior high who would "collect" the logos from different cars.

Actually, I was just happy that the person didn't steal something functional.

I lost my planner sometime last week, and so now I have to try to remember everything that I had in it...

The worst part was that I wrote down some account numbers and passwords in it... I just hope it didn't end up in the wrong hands.

I don't want this to happen to me again, so I think I'm going to stop using a physical paper planner.

Does anyone use Yahoo! Calendar? I'm going to try it for now and see how I like it...

Here's some info about bets (NFL season wins) I just made.

I'll start with my disclaimer:

1) It's difficult to predict how a football team will do. Since there are only 16 games in a season, luck is a major factor in a team's performance.

2) There's significantly more variance in sports betting than in the stock market because there are only 2 possible outcomes with each bet (win, or lose everything). With stocks, you can gain or lose incremental percentages of your investment.

3) The probabilities below come from the projections done by Pro Football Prospectus.

Statistical analysis is much more difficult to implement in football than in baseball, so these projections are not as reliable as my baseball projections.

So there's 1) a lot of variance, 2) a lot more variance, and 3) even more variance.

Team	Bet	Vegas	Probability	Odds	Average Return
Atlanta	Under	9.5	88%	1.77	56%
Jacksonville	Under	8.5	71%	2.15	53%
Philadelphia	Over	11.5	60%	2.40	44%
Washington	Under	7.5	62%	1.91	18%

These probabilities aren't too reliable, so I used some discretion to exclude other possible picks. I bet the same amount on each team despite the differing rates of return.

Some explanations behind my picks:

The under on Atlanta
No, Michael Vick isn't injured-- yet. But Pro Football Prospectus gave Atlanta an 88% chance to win 9 or fewer games because:

1) The Falcons only outscored their opponents by 3 points last year, meaning they were lucky to win 11 games.

2) Atlanta's defense was much better on 3rd downs than on the first 2 downs last year. So they were able to stop drives more often than expected last year. This year, their 3rd down performance will probably regress toward their 1st and 2nd down performance.

3) They play a tough schedule that includes the Eagles, Patriots, Seahawks, and Jets.

The under on Jacksonville
Jacksonville is pretty bad on offense-- Byron Leftwich has some upside, but he doesn't have much help around him. Even when Fred Taylor is healthy, he's not that great. The defense is good, but I don't think it's good enough to enable them to win 9 games.

The over on Philadelphia
The only reason I'm taking Philadelphia is because they're getting 2.4:1.
The only reason they're getting 2.4:1 is the uncertainty around Terrell Owens.
But even without him, they're still the class of the NFC.

The under on Washington
The Washington defense got worse over the offseason, and it wouldn't surprise me at all if rookie Jason Campbell were the starting QB by midseason.

I decided to double the contribution percentage in my 401(k) from 5% to 10%.

Why?

Because by doing this, I'd save almost $2 million more in my lifetime!

Here's the 401(k) Savings Calculator I used to determine that. It's fun to dream about how much money I can save...

And it's pretty crazy that even one year or one percent can make such a huge difference...

I didn't realize that I could add my blog onto My Yahoo! homepage until today.

So after figuring out how to do that, I set up my blog so that it's XML-enabled. Anyone can use RSS feeds to check my blog.

If you want to add my blog to your My Yahoo! page, simply click on this button:



Then click on the Add to My Yahoo! button after the new page loads.

Seen at this year's KCPC softball tournament:



That's some crazy hair...

From now on, I really have to make sure I'm not too close to the car in front of me when I'm in bumper-to-bumper traffic.

As I was driving up from the OC to the Bay Area yesterday, I had to brake somewhat hard because the car in front of me stopped suddenly. The car behind me gave me a not-so-soft tap, but fortunately there was no damage...

This is one of the best baseball plays I've ever seen in my life.

August 9: No hands? Yeah, Wright

Could he have caught the ball with his glove hand? Maybe, but it's a lot more entertaining this way...

I finally went to the doctor to check out my chronic shoulder dislocations.

I'm going to rehab the shoulder first, but the doctor said I may need surgery...

What a terrible way to give up first place in the AL West...

The Angels' bullpen blew a 4 run lead in the 7th inning. Then closer Francisco Rodriguez allowed the game-winning run to score when he missed a simple return throw from catcher Jose Molina.

That's just unacceptable.

Oh, and to make things worse, Basile decided to become a bandwagon A's fan.

Well, at least there are still 48 more games left, and the Angels are still leading the Wild Card...

The KCPC A Team won this year's softball tournament.

This would probably be a noteworthy accomplishment, except that most of the players on the team don't regularly go to KCPC.

As for the B Team, we lost 20-11 in our first playoff game, so we got to go home early.

My big accomplishment on Saturday was not getting hurt. But the same cannot be said for Jomo...

He was playing outfield and there was a short pop-up in between him and Georgia Dave, who was playing shortstop. Jomo was running in to make the catch, but got distracted when he saw Georgia Dave running at him.

So he took his eye off the ball, and missed the catch. The outcome was a "tremendous impact upon the groin region".

He had to come out of the game for a little bit, but was able to come back...

I forgot one more record:

Big Daddy Barrick Burger
48 minutes, 10 seconds
Sonya Thomas

From this event's press release:

"Thomas has often been compared to a combination of Anna Kournikova and a ravenous jackal loose on the Serengeti."

9 pounds
Bun 12 inches in diameter
A half head of lettuce
2 tomatoes
2 onions
4 pickles
Mayonnaise
Mustard
12 slices of American cheese
$49.99

If a person finishes the burger within 24 hours, it's free of charge.

Some world records in the field of competitive eating:

Butter
7 quarter-pound sticks in 5 minutes
Donald Lerman

Cheesecake
11 pounds in 9 minutes
Sonya Thomas

Chicken Wings
161 chicken wings in 12 minutes
Sonya Thomas

Cow Brains
17.7 pounds in 15 minutes
Takeru Kobayashi

Doughnuts
49 glazed doughnuts in 8 minutes
Eric Booker

Eggs
65 hard-boiled eggs in 6 minutes, 40 seconds
Sonya Thomas

Ice Cream
1 gallon, 9 ounces of vanilla ice cream in 12 minutes
Cookie Jarvis

Mayonnaise
4 32-ounce bowls in 8 minutes
Oleg Zhornitskiy

Onions
3 onions in 1 minute
Eric Booker

Oysters
46 dozen oysters in 10 Minutes
Sonya Thomas

Spam
6 pounds of Spam (from the can) in 12 minutes
Richard LeFevre

Vienna Sausage
8.31 pounds in 10 Minutes
Sonya Thomas

I'm always so excited to be at small group. Just ask Henry.