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Talislegger is not working too well tonight. I tried to log in a few times and watched the mac think about whether or not that was actually going to happen. It didn’t—at least not at the writing of this post. I went to the word file, cracked open a document file and started typing.

Yesterday was both a disappointment and a reaffirmation. I don’t think I could function day to day if I didn’t spend at least ten minutes, BIC (Butt in Chair) just writing. I’m doing what is necessary to move the words back up to the prime position in my life/lifestyle. I’ve tried a few different methods—waking up extra early, hiding in my office, etc. The one thing that works is getting out of the house and into my office, a restaurant or a coffee shop and just forcing the words out until they start to make sense. I think this part of writing, the hard part, is what people don’t see and clearly don’t understand.

Being a writer has little in common with a 9 to 5. Your job is to channel creativity into the page by any means necessary. Those means don’t look a bit like the work wageslaves do, nor does it resemble the movie impressions of writing. There is no cool montage with slick music and cut scenes. You’re in your space clawing the words out of you. Sometimes that means staring at a wall or playing a video game or watching random people walk by, but all of it is process and all of it leads to pages.

I’m moving towards something special now with my writing. I’ve come quite far—even from 100 posts ago. Now I wonder what I’ll be like 100 posts from now.

I came across an episode of ‘The Biggest Loser’ today and it served to remind me how obsessed we are about weight in American society. About an hour before watching the show I walked past my sale and considered weighing myself. I’ve become of a bit of  a slave to the slave and to the idea of losing a pound a week. I think this is more detrimental than Weight Watchers. This idea of a number being the key factor in whether or not a person is healthy really makes you a slave to the number vs. promoting any sort of real happiness.

 

Some Thoughts:

1. Here’s something sad. Being both sick and tired, that is all I could drum up today. Sometimes you have a jackpot moment. Sometimes you miss all 3 ‘7’s’

 

 

NYG over WAS
Look, I know this is predictable, but if you say the same thing long enough, you put it in the universe and maybe it comes true. The Giants will win this game. They will break even and gain a division win in the process. I’m a fan. I’m beholden to believe.

DET over NYJ
Unless they release the Kraken (Vick) this team is going to suck. I get the point. You cannot bench your future franchise player for a albeit better QB for only a year. That stuff wrecks your confidence forever-no matter how you phrase it. So the Jets and their weak WR core (save for a surprising Salas) will need to shoot it out with Team Megatron. Good luck with that.

BAL over CAR
Ravens say they wont give Smith Sr. extra targets in this homecoming. They won’t need to. This will be a reckoning. Smith intends to make the Ravens understand how bad a choice they made. I see 10+ catches in his immediate future.

BUF over HOU
Not much to say here… Buff has a solid run game and Jennings exposed quite a few holes in the Houston D.

IND over TEN
The Titans are going to be good one day. They aren’t right now. The Colts are good and they’ve come around to a balanced offensive attack that can be sustained for 4 quarters without putting the QB at risk. Do the Titans even have a QB? Haven’t heard about one.

OAK over MIA

PIT over TB

SD over JAX

ATL over MIN

SF over PHI

DAL over NO

NE over KC

 

I’d say more but 10 and out…

 

In our rearview mirror is the Ray Rice scandal. We can still see it but it isn’t coming at us anymore. Instead we are navigating through a road littered with injured players. Each week a big name goes down. This week saw Ike Taylor, Stephen Tulloch, and Danny Woodhead all exit stage left. Receivers Eric Decker and Brandon Marshall left the same game with a chance of missing time. What does that tell us? The NFL is a rough league and you can get hurt in all sorts of ways. It also tells us that no fantasy roster is safe.

Lions Defensive Player Stephen Tulloch tore his ACL doing a ‘discount double check’ celebration after sacking Aaron Rodgers. Now Tulloch is sacked for the year, after being placed on the IR by his team. This is funny, horrible, and deeply karmic all at once.

The Decker situation is Karmic in an entirely separate way. The Jets paid this dude a lot of money to be Geno’s security blanket and now he’s nursing a hamstring… Look, I’ve seen the offense run this year. Decker is acting like Vick–as in not terribly disappointed to be on the bench. Can you blame the guy? The QB competition was rigged and now that Geno is back to stinking up the joint, Rex is standing behind him. I loved the optics right after the last play of the game where Geno is on his knees and the camera shows Vick standing in front of him looking at Bilal Powell like, ‘this kid is a joke’. Powell shrugs.

Meanwhile in the valley of the sun, San Francisco continues to look victimized–both from a football and a human perspective. 3 years after a dodgers ‘fan’ famously beat a SF Giants fan nearly to death, this happens at the UFO (Cardinals Stadium). Notable is Darnell Dockett’s tweet to a fan that tried to protect a security guard. He offered the man tickets and said of the action, “I like that s*it”

This is what football is today–violence on the field and in the seats as a backdrop to a flurry of action and hopefulness. Everyone still has a limited shot at the title and the Cards can still have a perfect season, but hey, its week 4. S*it still has a way of happening.

 

Waiver Finds:

1. Giants TE #84: Donnell (in PPR format the dude is worthwhile). He’s a system guy in the vein of a Kellen Winslow who keeps Eli very happy. He might fumble on occasion or try to dive over players, but that’s just spunk.

 

 

I am energized by writers.

I linger in the presence of wordsmiths–those who take their craft seriously. Today I had the pleasure of working with Tom Leveen, author of Zero, Sick, Party, and several other top notch YA novels. Tom has energy, style, and purpose. That last bit is the most infectious. In his presence you believe in the ability of an individual to pursue a dream and through the force of will and desire, make it happen.

One of the life issues I’ve been slogging through lately is “What do I want?” Do I still want what I wanted when I was 7? 14? 21?At what point are we allowed to revisit our dreams and goals? I ask because it seems like there is a point where society locks you into your particular goal/dream/aspiration and uses that as a baseline by which to identify/define you. I spent a good year of posts dancing around the fact that I reached my goals–goals born of a certain era–and was feeling quite motivationally completed and useless. I had no idea what to do next. I struggled with defining new goals –largely because I was satisfied with life and locked into that life. Times change, kids grow, and we should be allowed to want more and be more than we are today. We should be allowed to be what we are capable of being.

I submit that the moment we start to move away from chasing dreams and goals we move into merely getting through the routine of the day. We move from growing to decaying and death–if only on the inside–comes upon swift wings.

 

Some Thoughts:

1.  I did this post by hand and recopied it into the blog interface. Old school, meet new school.
2. </Scorpion> tries too hard. Just saying. The show adds the element of an outsider ‘a normal person’ or ‘mortal idiot waitress’ who happens to be hot as a way to give the viewer that look in and something to look at. Yeah. Trying too hard.
3. You know who else tried too hard? Surface.

 

Everything I read and see and hear in regards to being a better writer and person has to do with routine. Even Tony Robbins’ rituals are routines. They represent the things we do everyday as a mantra to move through life. I’ve struggled with routines and the idea of routine as long as I can remember. I became convinced early on that routine would kill me; would create the conditions under which I was most likely to fail. I wasn’t wrong. I lean towards developing negative routines. I do what isn’t best again and again and fail to recognize the lasting effects of that.

Routines can be wonderful but they can also lead to ruin. If your routine chips away and what is good and true, if it degrades you, if it separates you from true communication and understanding. It can reinforce everything that is wrong in your life, but it can also make you aware of what is wrong with your life and help you to understand how to change it. That change must come incrementally; we piece it together to make a life that is right in the same way that break apart a multitude of things in life, because no one thing represents all that is wrong.

All we can do is try to do the best we can for ourselves and those around us.

 

Some Thoughts:

1. Hector and the search for happiness mirrors an idea I’ve been kicking around for a while now. I’m not ready to share the idea but it uses that platform as a jumping off point to something I hope will be extraordinary.

Weeks ago I ranted about how my iphone 4 up and crapped the bed, dying and refusing to power on at all. Well this morning the sucker powered up on its on and reminded the world it still has juice. This is where things get complicated. My new phone, the 15 decided to walk that fine line of suck and no longer is willing to access the internet for any apps. I can still make phonecalls from the new phone and text but the internet only performs when it sees fit. So now there are two glitchy iphones instead of one. I can predict Apple’s solution: Get an iPhone 6. This is by design, I think. As much as I love Apple products I am noticing a decline in the quality of their devices as I am noticing an uptick in how quickly new devices arrive on market. I have no proof that corners are being cut or that the company is officially aiming for a larger market share, but these things seem probable… and problematic.

The beauty of Apple is its bourgeoisie approach. The price points allow the company to market products to a specific and wealthy clientele. The smaller market allowed for greater time on task and a focused purpose to the devices and their support. Now I see Apple everywhere, which points to a larger market and one that supports a more varied clientele. This exposes Apple to the quick turnover mentality of that ‘what else you got?’ audience. While it deepens the pockets it weakens the products, and overall I really don’t like it at all.

 

Some Thoughts:

1. Jason Mraz covering Boys II Men. Yeah. That’s dope.

It might be easier to ignore the ‘way things are’ if it were just the Ray Rice/Adrian Peterson situation or if it were just ISIS and the slick video production that is turning the group into a media sensation. When I heard Randall Wallace talk about his feelings on the Scottish referendum I realized there was a larger issue in play here. It wasn’t so much his feelings on the vote that swayed me as his tacit admission that there is a huge following of his Braveheart film running through Scotland like a river of pent up rage. The film gave viewers an image to tie to their emotion. If it is true that 65% of people are visual learners, it must also be true then that the optics–the specific amount of information and circumstance they see greatly effects how they interpret the world.

As Americans we are trained to chase the flashy thing. Bigger is better and brighter is King. ISIS gets it. They produce high quality videos that will attract our attention if for no better reason to comment on how well done the video is. The Rice case turned ugly the moment we actually saw him punch his wife. We’d know about the abuse incident for quite some time up to that point, but the optics of the thing–actually seeing it–changed everything. Rice, who’d been suspended two games and was likely going to be moved to a 6 game punishment, was suspended forever. Officially the suspension is indefiite, but it is  unlikely that anyone will pick him up…

That brings us to Wallace. In his NPR interview he references to the Braveheart’s, which is a movement of people who see his film as a tipping point. It helps them remember the longstanding loss. Without Braveheart it seems like less of a movement and more of scattered group of people. Why is that? Optics.

I tweaked my morning ritual to include a few minutes of positive reinforcement. The original plan was to go to sleep an hour earlier than normal and wake 30 minutes earlier, providing me with 30 extra sleep minutes and 30 extra minutes of kid-free morning time in the exchange. The cost has been an hour of evening space where I lay on the couch watching the bad TV I DVR. This, like many other things in my daily life, has led to cause for reflection.

Tony Robbins speaks of success in terms of rituals and small steps meant to add up to a larger sense of planning, purpose, and determination. I am in day two of a process forged late Tuesday afternoon, yet I already can see the effects taking root. The problem—the fear—is that I will fail to stick to it and ultimately sink back into the ways of a near-do-well and not become the person I intend to be. Fear does have its purpose, but that purpose is not served well in this instance.

Full speed ahead.

 

Some Thoughts:

1. This morning I broke my fast at a Village Inn near my campus. I enjoy this particular spot because of the regulars. I suppose I myself am a regular, but not like the gentlemen I witnessed today. It was interesting to watch the 3 men sit and discuss the long years they’ve been coming to this place and lament the three friends who couldn’t make this particular meeting because they’d gone off to Normandy to revisit their past. It made me think about the role that places play in our lives. Often we have a favorite watering hole or a place where something epic happened in our lives and these places become a part of our routine or even seared into our memory as a place we ought to get back to and visit and remember and, in some cases, revere. I have such places twirling through my memory and understanding. Just yesterday I drove past the site where the Albertson’s stood—the place I went to nearly every day when I first moved to AZ. The geography of my life sprang from that faded mall. I remembered all the moments leading up to and away from my time living near there, and the memories warmed me.

Fantasy Football just got a whole lot more interesting.

With My first pick–on two teams–Adrian Peterson sidelined because of a 2012 child abuse accusation, my fantasy teams are at a distinct disadvantage. I’m mildly sickened by this, moreso in fact than I am by the so-called abuse inflicted on the child. In truth I’ve bee beaten worse in my life by my mom, and we’re not even from the south. An even deeper truth: I deserved it. Some kids like me are completely unwilling to respond to other forms of discipline. Like one student of mine said, “You put my nephew in timeout and the kid just goes to sleep. What punishment is that?” I recognize that this is controversial. I also recognize that this particular blog is supposed to be about football, so without further ado…

 

Atlanta OVER Tampa Bay
The fantasy situation here is sketchy at best. Last week the ATL QB was a poor play and this week he faces a defense capable of putting another L in his column. There is going to be a reliance on the running game, especially late in the game. I believe Stephen Jackson is going to get on track here.

Buffalo OVER San Diego
I’m a believer in the Bills right now. I think the running game is solid, and barring injuries, the D and O will continue to click. This San Diego team is awfully legit, but early evidence suggests that Buffalo can survive a shoot out if it comes to that–and it will. I don’t think Gates will have the day he had last week, but there is going to be a lot of scoring going on.

CIN over TEN
Cincinnati is a very tough team to beat and they have been for some time now. Andy Dalton, likely a system guy, does well at home and has a tendency to have big games against defenses with weak safeties. Guess what?

BAL over CLE
In an earlier post I mentioned how much the CLE D would rest on the play of a rookie corner. It has, and that corner was awarded less playing time for his weak performance in the first two weeks. Sorry, Mr. Gilbert. You are no Haden.

Here’s some quick picks:

GB over DET

IND over JAX

NE over OAK (play the NE D!)

NO over MIN (see above AP comments)

NYG over HOU (can’t lose forever, right? Right?!?!)

PHI over WAS

DAL over STL (because they can afford to stick to the run game)

AZ over SF

MIA over KC

DEN over SEA (Manning figures this out)

CAR over PIT

NYJ over CHI — look, i’m always gonna go for the NY teams. It is a flaw.