New pics

January pics are posted on the website. Enjoy!

Pinewood Derby

Ben and Chris have been working hard on their cars, and tonight was finally the big night--the Pinewood Derby. Ben built a video game themed car (of course) with Mario and Luigi driving, while Chris made an all-American patriotic car. Their cars both turned out great!

As far as the race itself, both cars performed well. Chris finished 12th out of 27 cars in his age group. To give you an idea of how close it was, his average time was 8/100ths of a second slower than the car that won first place. Ben finished in 18th out of 42 cars. His average time was 4/100ths of a second slower than the car that won first place. I'm really proud of both of them!

In addition to Ben and Chris, the other kids in the den made some really cool cars. If you'd like to check them out, click here.

Hoop Dreams

The boys are playing Upward basketball again this year. If you have kids aged 6-11, I highly recommend it...it's the best sports program my kids have been involved in. Anyhow, in Upward they try to match up kids of similar size/skill levels so they are guarding each other. Chris, being fairly tall for his age, guarded the big guy on the other team. The big guy turned out to be the son of John Kitna (Cincinnati Bengals backup QB). He had no idea who John Kitna is, but for a Bengals fan like me it was kind of cool. Chris had a great game, scoring a basket and playing great defense! Ben, meanwhile, had his best game in his three years of basketball--scoring eight points and also playing solid defense!

Survivor 12

Yes, it jumped the shark many seasons ago...but I'm still addicted to Survivor. The cast for season 12 has been announced. Check them out here. One of them is a retired astronaut who has been on several shuttle missions. There don't seem to be any local (Cincinnati) connections this time...the closest one is from Chicago. Based on a quick scan of the bios, Bobby, Bruce, Dan, Misty, and Danielle look pretty interesting.

Playoffs

Everyone seems to think the Bengals are going to lose tomorrow's playoff game. Here's an interesting article from ESPN.com. Let's hope they're right!

Click here for full article.
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BENGALS (+3) over Steelers
As far as trilogies go, this one is somewhere between Lewis-Rahman III and Ruiz-Holyfield III. In other words, NFL Films isn't getting the A-team documentary crew ready or anything. With that said, this game gave us the most shocking line of the week (and maybe the whole season); I was 5 points off with my guess on Sunday night. Just five weeks ago, the Steelers were giving 3½ to the Bengals in Pittsburgh, lost the game ... and now they're giving 3 in Cincinnati? Huh?????

Anyway, I see three rules from the Manifesto in play here, including ...

Rule No. 2: When in doubt, seek out the popular opinion and go the other way.

Not to keep bringing this up, but Pittsburgh hosted Cincy with its playoff hopes on the line last month, turned the ball over four times and blew the game ... and then San Diego saved their butts the following week by choking at home to the Dolphins. Everyone forgets this now, just like everyone forgets how Roethlisberger choked for two straight weeks in the playoffs last year. But because the Bengals lost a fluky home game to Buffalo two weeks ago (highlighted by a kick-return TD and an interception TD), then rested everyone in a blowout loss to KC last week, suddenly they're reeling and Pittsburgh is fine? Huh??? This line perplexes me. It's vexing. I'm vexed.

Rule No. 7: When in doubt, research special teams and turnovers.

I'm not crazy about Cincy's special teams, but the Bengals forced a league-leading 44 turnovers this season, including four from Pittsburgh in their Dec. 4th game, and if you don't think this stuff matters in the playoffs, you're crazy. Also, if Cowher has a pattern in January, other than the spit freezing in mid-air as it comes flying from his mouth, it's this -- his teams keep blowing winnable games with dumb interceptions, fumbles and special teams miscues. That's their M.O. I don't see why that would change in Cincy.

Rule No. 8: Beware of the Road Favorite.

The oldest rule in the book. If you're going against a good team at home, you better have a really good reason. I'm not crazy about this Bengals team, but what have the Steelers done, really? They lost to the Pats at home, lost to Jacksonville at home, got killed by Indy on the road, lost to Cincy five weeks ago ... what am I missing here? Just because they beat the Browns by 41 points, I'm supposed to take them as a road favorite against an 11-5 team? No thanks.

The Pick: Bengals 28, Steelers 26