Bowling for Dollars

Here are my bowl picks for this season, in descending order of confidence. I got off to a good start tonight with TCU's decisive victory over Northern Illinois tonight. Upset picks are denoted by boldface type.

Game	Matchup	Pick
Hawaii Bowl	Arizona State vs. Hawai'i	Hawai'i
Sugar Bowl	Notre Dame vs. LSU	LSU
Fiesta Bowl	Boise State vs. Oklahoma	Oklahoma
Texas Bowl	Rutgers vs. Kansas State	Rutgers
Gator Bowl	West Virginia vs. Georgia Tech	West Virginia
Poinsettia Bowl	TCU vs. Northern Illinois	TCU
Alamo Bowl	Texas vs. Iowa	Texas
Outback Bowl	Tennessee vs. Penn State	Tennessee
BCS Championship	Florida vs. Ohio State	Ohio State
Emerald Bowl	Florida State vs. UCLA	UCLA
Sun Bowl	Oregon State vs. Missouri	Oregon State
Holiday Bowl	California vs. Texas A&M	California
Independenc Bowl	Oklahoma State vs. Alabama	Oklahoma State
Orange Bowl	Louisville vs. Wake Forest	Louisvile
Motor City Bowl	Middle Tennessee State vs. Central Michigan	Central Michigan
Liberty Bowl	Houston vs. South Carolina	South Carolina
Insight Bowl	Texas Tech vs. Minnesota	Texas Tech
Papajohns.com Bowl	South Florida vs. East Carolina	South Florida
Chick-fil-A Bowl	Georgia vs. Virginia Tech	Virginia Tech
New Orleans Bowl	Rice vs. Troy	Rice
International Bowl	Cincinnati vs. Western Michigan	Cincinnati
Capital One Bowl	Arkansas vs. Wisconsin	Wisconsin
Rose Bowl	USC vs. Michigan	Michigan
Meineke Car Care Bowl	Navy vs. Boston College	Boston College
Armed Forces Bowl	Tulsa vs. Utah	Utah
New Mexico Bowl	New Mexico vs. San Jose State	San Jose State
MPC Computers Bowl	Miami vs. Nevada	Nevada
Music City Bowl	Clemson vs. Kentucky	Kentucky
Las Vegas Bowl	BYU vs. Oregon	BYU
GMAC Bowl	Ohio vs. Southern Mississippi	Southern Mississippi
Champs Sports Bowl	Purdue vs. Maryland	Purdue

Fast Food Nation

The McDonald's and Taco Bell franchises that are closest to my house are located on opposite corners of the same intersection. For reasons that I will probably never know, both restaurants were demolished within a few weeks of each other earlier this fall and are now in the process of being rebuilt from the ground up. Having never dined at either of these restaurants, I can't say what was so wrong with them that they had to be completely torn down and rebuilt.

Taco Bell is an interesting restaurant. I don't think I've eaten there since I was in college and I have no desire to ever eat there again, but I do really enjoy their commercials. I can't think of any other product or service whose advertisements I enjoy as much relative to the product or service being sold.

Light Show

Here's a picture of the first annual Christmas light display at our house. It's not exactly Clark Griswold quality, but it's a start.

Sikh and You Shall Find

Due to the limitations of the form and the drudgery of churning out one strip after another each day in perpetuity, comic strip artists will occasionally (some more occasionally than other) craft a comic strip whose joke requires such an obvious set-up that any humor that may have been there is sucked completely out of the page. Today's installment of Curtis, a comic that is rarely funny even when such shenanigans are not being used, demonstrates a textbook application of this technique.



Ray Billingsley achieves a rare two-fer in this strip, he constructs a joke that requires knowledge of eastern religions and underground artists (knowledge that as far as I know has never been required to understand Curtis) and links it together in such a contrived fashion that it is painfully unfunny.