Super Bowl thoughts

There's little to say that hasn't been said elsewhere. Some points I'd like to make:

1) People who complain that Belichick left the field with 1 second left on the clock need to first acknowledge that the clock had run to zero before time had been added, and that only later was a second added. Thinking that every possible action a person makes is a revelation about that person's black heart, thinking that every gesture or word is a sign of inner contempt: these kinds of things are more revelatory about the people making the "observations" than anything else.

I was hoping the Pats would win more to just shut up the sanctimonious critics than anything else. Now these mouthbreathers are going to be with us for a while.

2) Um, KSK? You guys really need to get a grip on your hate orgy.

3) The Pats Oline played like crap. But with that in mind, the Patriots' offense was more productive than people realize. What happened is that, in the second quarter, the Pats had two sacks in a row, and that kind of immediate reinforcement of a phenomenon makes it appear more significant that it really is. The Pats gave up 5 sacks on 69 plays. The Giants gave up 3 sacks on 63 plays. That's not as much of a difference as people are making it to be.

4) Luck played a huge role. Namely, the three fumbles lost were all recovered by the Giants. And the scrambling pass from Eli to Tyree has no business being successful. The Pats had no similar lucky plays.

5) Penalties played a huge role. The Pats made a lot of stupid penalties. The Giants made few, and also got away with a couple egregious ones, most notably when Toomer pushed his defender in the face to catch a ball.

With all that said, the Pats did not play well enough to deserve to win. The luck that had carried them against the Eagles and Ravens was not there. The coaching was suspect: the refusal to attempt a FG on 4th and 13, the abandonment of the running game, and the decision to cover Burress with Hobbs in single coverage on the biggest play of the game were all bad choices. McDaniels is a good offensive coordinator, but I don't like the decision to abandon the running game altogether in favor of the short passing game. Maroney ran well in the 3rd quarter, and then only one rushing play was called in the 4th.

Basically, everything went wrong. This does not mean "good defeated evil" or that the Patriots got their comeuppance for "running up the score" or that God hates a cheater or anything like that. (If the last theory were true, we wouldn't have had 8 years of W in the White House.) Problem is that it all happened at the wrong time.

People who think the Pats peaked too early must have forgotten the game against the Jaguars, which was easy as pie.

The Pats' D is starting to get old, which makes me fairly certain next season won't go as well as this one did, esp. if Assante Sammuel leaves. The idea of Hobbs and Gay being the starting CBs scares me. They need help at linebacker, too. The only upside for next season is that the schedule will be relatively light.

For people worried about the impact: I would say this rates about the level of the loss by the Celtics in the 1985 finals. It's nowhere near as bad as the really bad Sox losses in 1978, 2003, or esp. 1986. It's not as bad as the thumping the Pats took in Super Bowl XX. It's disappointing, but I'm not of the mind that the only way to enjoy a football season is if your team wins the Super Bowl.

One down, one to go

So I've finished a draft of the mammal phylogeny paper and sent it off to the Z-man. Yay! Now he'll probably ignore it for a while and then read it and make comments about the charts and graphs or something like that. It needs more polish, for sure, but that part is not my job.

So I'm done with that and can move to the FastME paper with Olivier. I've got the protein alignments and their respective distance matrices, so it's time to build trees, trees, and more trees. This is pretty easy to automate.

On the job-seeking front, I had a meeting with a guy at State today who I know from my college buddy, let's call him Perv until he shows up with a different name. Perv is one of the big reasons I left Georgetown, namely because he's so much smarter when it comes to policy issues than I am. So I figured I had to outflank the wonks of the world by learning a little math.

I may have taken that strategy a wee bit too far. Huh huh huh.

Anyway, I got to meet a guy named Fernando at State which was good because it made it a bit more real to me that these jobs are out there. Unfortunately, not at State, at least not in the fashion of "knocking at the door". They only get their scientists through the AAAS fellowships, which I've applied for twice with no result. Well, it's just like running in a sense: the hardest thing is to start running - once you have a bit of momentum it's easier to keep moving.

Ginger on the wrist

What does it say about me that I'm typing this with Ginger resting comfortably on my left wrist? I wish I could take a photo of this - I'm going to count on somebody with a digital camera doing this sometime in the near future, so blog readers can understand how much Ginger likes it when I type at the computer.

return of Ikea Boy

So I made another trek down to College Park to get some storage furniture: a bookcase, some extra shelving, a bureau, and a TV stand so I can use my coffee table as a coffee table or whatever else I want to use it as.

The extra shelving possibilities were 80 cm or 40 cm. 40 seemed too short for the Ikea bookcases I already have, so I went with the larger size. But I got home and I think what I already have are 60 cm wide, so I'm going to have to find a saw somewhere or give up on this idea.

And let's face it: finding a saw would be more fun.

The divergence paper is close to done and I should finish the draft today or tomorrow, unless I'm really slacking. The FastME paper is nowhere near done, but I'll deal with that later.

And then there's job-hunting. Well, as they say, avoidance isn't only a river in Egypt. I did find a nice possibility at AAAS in Cambridge (Mass, not the poncy place in East Anglia). But I'll treat it as a long shot.

the importance of SSRIs (or 'Whispers comes out')

I'm just saying that Tom Cruise is an idiot.

I can go months doing all the mental exercises in existence, work hard, exercise, eat right, and even swallow down St. John's Wort and still feel like crap. But a couple days back on citalopram and I'll be good as new.

SSRIs are not the end-all to avoiding depression. But having fought this battle for twenty years, both with meds and without, I think at this point, esp. as I get older, that the notion of trying to fight depression with taking meds makes about as much sense to me as a person trying to fight diabetes without insulin injections.

p.s. No, I'm not gay. I'm thin and single, but I'm not neat by any stretch of the imagination.

p.p.s. In case the p.s. seems obscure, it's a reference to a famous "Seinfeld" episode.

Ikea boy gets to work

So, I'm facing a mostly-empty condo, with only a bed frame, a couple bookshelves, and a futon mattress hijacked from Landru which will probably turn into a pumpkin at some point. The girls are very happy that I'm back on a queen-sized mattress, instead of the tiny twin-sized sofa-bed I was sleeping on in Montpellier. Now they can both demand my attention simultaneously, rather than be forced to take turns. (And somehow, when they are forced to take turns, it is usually Ginger's turn.)

Anyway, I'm gradually furnishing this place. First I've dug out things from storage in MD and KS. I got a cheap 19" flat-screen TV at BestBuy early this week. And a couple days ago I made a run to Ikea on Route 1.

I swear, I really am the target audience for Ikea. I just love the place. Getting furniture that I build myself is so much fun! On this trip I decided to pick up what I need most, while leaving the more luxurious items for the next trip, and the general storage items for a trip after that one. (I could probably use a few more bookshelves, but really, that's a low priority.)

So, I've picked up a desk, which is the highest priority, and a chair to go with it. And a coffee table for the TV & VCR. And a comfortable chair to sit in while watching TV. But the only thing I've assembled so far is the nightstand.* What else do I need? Dining room set, sofa, another comfortable chair or two, a mattress set, storage, etc. The mattress set is next on the list, but I think I'll defer that until after Christmas.

*In German, "nightstand" is "Nachttisch" and this is a great word for testing the tendency of English-speakers to run the end of one consonant into the next consonant. The German word for dessert is "Nachtisch", which literally means "after table", i.e. after the meal, while "Nachttisch" literally means "night table". The thing to remember is that when saying "Nachtisch" you need to have clear separation between the syllables, "Nach tisch" (nawhk tisch) and avoid the temptation to use the 't' in the first syllable. If you do that, when you think you are ordering dessert in a German restaurant, they will wonder why you are ordering a small table to be put next to your bed.

close calls for the Pats

I don't care.

OK, for starters, everybody who has doubts about the validity of the numerous penalty calls against the Ravens on fourth downs during the Patriots' last drive on Monday needs to watch the NFL network's rebroadcast of the game, and have the NFL's rules guru explain why it really is holding when Chris McAllister rides Randy Moss for the first 7 yards of his route, seeing as no contact at all is allowed beyond the 5-yard zone.

Anyway, the Pats are going to get the #1 seed and I don't really care if they go 16-0 or not.

Though it would be good to do so, if only to piss off Mercury Morris.