take on the QBR

All summer we have been hearing about this new ESPN creation called the Ultimate QB Rating (QBR) as its final answer to the very flawed passer-rating stat which has been around for about 4 decades.

The issues with the passer rating has always been a combination of

·         Like its name implies, it's really a passer rating which does not accurately reflect the total value of a quarterback since it doesn't take into account a ton of things including fumbles and weighs other items like  hail-mary INT's as too heavily

·         nobody quite understands the math to it, I looked it up again today and felt like I was trying to do quantum physics

·         anything where a perfect rating is a 158.3, does not fit in our perfectly square society.  

Obviously these are all valid arguments but mostly they are all because for 40 years we've been trying to squeeze a round peg into a square hole.   What is good about passer rating is because it's been around forever everybody knows that hitting 100 is good, hitting 120 is great and hitting 150 is phenomenal.     The math is completely impossible to understand but so is the BSC ranking and people can live with that and although the perfect score is quirky, we are a society which still hasn't adopted the metric system so really it's never going to be a huge issue

Well ESPN comes back with their answer to the passer rating with this QBR and today I looked over the list of week 1 QB's to see how accurate the list seems relative to the way the QB's played

No.	Name	Total QBR
1	Ryan Fitzpatrick	91.2
2	Aaron Rodgers	91.1
3	Tom Brady	88.6
4	Matthew Stafford	87.4
5	Joe Flacco	79.6
6	Cam Newton	75.7
7	Rex Grossman	75.0
8	Drew Brees	71.6
9	Matt Schaub	71.0
10	Chad Henne	70.7
11	Michael Vick	68.4
12	Alex Smith	66.2
13	Tony Romo	62.9
14	Matt Hasselbeck	62.1
15	Jay Cutler	60.4
16	Eli Manning	53.6
17	Philip Rivers	52.8
18	Kevin Kolb	44.0
19	Luke McCown	43.0
20	Josh Freeman	34.7
21	Kyle Orton	33.0
22	Bruce Gradkowski	32.7
23	Sam Bradford	28.7
24	Matt Ryan	27.7
25	Andy Dalton	27.0
26	Jason Campbell	22.8
27	Tarvaris Jackson	21.1
28	Donovan McNabb	20.7
29	Colt McCoy	17.6
30	Mark Sanchez	17.6
31	Matt Cassel	11.2
32	Ben Roethlisberger	10.8
33	Kerry Collins	2.3

The top 5 seem pretty accurate as they were all QB's who not only had great NFL weeks but they all won their games pretty decisively.      Can't complain about Cam Newton high on the list because he had a great game too.

But here are some issues:  

Alex Smith at 12.      He threw for a total of 124 yards with exactly 4 passes for first downs.  He was efficient 15 for 20 but threw no TD's and basically was asked not to lose the game.. yet this new perfect system has him basically in the top 3^rd of QB's???

Tony Romo at 13..   He put up stats but was terrible when it counted.. he had two turnovers that are unforgivable including fumbling on third and goal within the 5 and throwing a pick into double coverage when one of those covering him is Darrell Revis.     There is no way he was the 13^th best QB out there this week if you watched the game

Eli Manning  at 16..  didn't see this game but I hear he was very up-and-down including the pick 6 in the shadow of his own end-zone.. I guess middle of the pack is right but there were guys behind him who were better including Kevin Kolb who actually led his team to a tight win.

Josh Freeman at 20.   I guess the ranking isn't bad but he got all his yards and his TD in total garbage time

Matt Ryan at 24..   he threw for about 120 yards up until he started to pat his stats in complete garbage time..   he threw a bad INT and fumbled a ball that was returned for a TD..both in critical parts of the game. 

Mark Sanchez  (full disclosure is that I'm a Jet fan)..   he wasn't perfect but he threw for 300 yards at a 59% clip including two TD's.   He had a stupid INT and held onto the ball too long for the fumble but he was surely not the 30^th best QB in week 1.   

So explain to me how Mark Sanchez who wins his game is ranked 30^th, Josh Freeman and Matt Ryan who both patted their stats in garbage time of a loss are ranked 10 and 6 slots ahead of him.   But the most striking thing is that on the exact same field in the exact same game he played against Tony Romo and their stats were basically even.    Both made mistakes although Sanchez played better as the game got close while Romo played worse.  Sanchez made throws to help win the game while Romo for all intents and purposes lost the game on his own. 

Maybe it's time for Trent Dilfer, Gruden and the rest of the boys go back to the drawing board

take on the West Indian Parade

I read an article in the local papers yesterday about a bunch of cops grinding up against some scantily dressed women during the West Indian Parade and everybody is all up in arms because there were apparently a bunch of shootings along the parade route. 

Gawker pointed out that 'If only these officers had engaged with parade-goers in the traditional NYPD way—stopping and frisking all of them for no reason—those shootings would have been prevented!

 Maybe this the new NYPD method of frisking?  These chicks are wearing tiny bikini tops and small tops, the only place they could be hiding a gun is in the crack of their asses so maybe the cops were actually doing their jobs here.    And anyway have you ever seen this West Indian Parade it is basically an all-out-orgy, I'm surprised they had enough control to keep their pants on..Have you seen the way those girls dress,?? you can't expect anything less than a little round-girl-dry-hump when one of these chicks dressed like strippers starts bumping up against your pole. 

But really I'm wondering, what kind of West Indian parade would it be if there weren't at least a couple of shootings..  The Post in describing the nine shooting, two of whom were shot critical said the parade was 'especially violent' this year.   I'd like to know what kind of violence is more typical of the West-Indian parade, maybe only 3 people shot???    This is just one of these cases where like showing up to a Raider game wearing Broncos blue or a Dodgers game wearing SF colors is going to lead to bad things..  You know it's going to be bad, so maybe    just maybe they should think about canceling this thing..  yeah I know it's a crazy concept.

 

Take on the bench

Leave it to government to screw up the most simple task even when their intentions are good. A few months ago as part of a beautification program the city put up benches along third avenue giving some seating space for residents ad shop patron. But almost immediately I knew something wasn't quite right. It took me about three minutes of actually sitting in one of the new benches to realize the mistake. These clowns in their infinite wisdom set the benches about a foot off the curb keeping them comfortably out od the sidewalk path but then in a stroke of genius had them face towards the avenue. Basically it means that you will be staring at a parked car because as anybody in NYC will tell you, the chances of an empty parking spot on a busy commercial street is about 0.01%

Absolute idiots

Take on the metric system

Our disdain of Ikea is well documented from the endless lines, the Allen wrench, the terrible return policy and those filthy Icelandic meatballs. When I bought a few frames recently I thought I couldn't to wrong. But like most things Norwegian we were left out in the cold when we got home

Now I am not complaining about the terrible quality since I paid less than $5 but what I can bitch about is that these Finnish frames are 8.5x11 while American pictures are 8x11 which means all my pictures now have some idiotic white border.
So my advice to these Danes is if you want to sell me a frame again start making them in normal sizes

Take on hot coffee

I love coffee and 99% of the time will drink it black, the only exception being when I am forced to go to a few select spots which feel the need to play a cruel joke on their paying customers. This morning I got a cup if Joe along with a couple of bagels and before I made it the one block home, I felt like my hand was going to burn off. I felt like that woman who spilled coffee all over herself a that McDonalds drive-through a decade ago without being dumb enough to drop it in my crotch. I'm not saying I am going to sue the local bagel shop, although I am upset that they don't have fresh bagels at 8:30 on a Saturday morning. The issue is that there are many place who serve their coffee at blazing temperatures so that those of us who like our coffee to taste like coffee are forced to water it down with milk just to be able to not burn the roof of our mouths. I cannot imagine anybody has asked for this, it is like a sick joke on those of us who are caffeine addicts and I keep waiting for some producer to jump out of the bushes asking me to sign a release form.
And don't get me started about those stupid sleeves, you have to think when store owners see you doubling up on those while still feel it burn through your calluses, they'd turn down their burners just for a cost saving measure.

taking on the politicizing of a tragedy

On the eve of the ten year anniversary, NYC is in complete tribute mode even while there was a 'credible terrorist threat' warning yesterday.    I'm not anti 9/11 by any stretch but I am very much against how politicized the entire day has become.  Everything that this city has done since 9/12/11 has been done to make sure the elected officials have a platform, Silverstein got his money and the construction companies have work.    It's never really been about the victims or their families, it's never been about the first responders who were the real heroes of that day, it's never been about making sure the people who went into that hell-hole breathing those fumes after they were promised it wasn't fatal.   It's never been about the ordinary people who saw their lives change for ever.. it's always been about giving a platform for those who least need it.

I'm not saying that this is a GOP vs. Liberal issue as much as it's just another example of every politician in the country trying to prove their patriotism.     On Sunday morning there will be a ceremony and the guest list includes senators, congressmen, elected officials, past and present mayors, governors, state assembly men and women, commissioners and other elected people, sadly it will probably be thin on actual people.    If Mike Bloomberg had any guts he would have banned every person with any political motive –including himself- from the site and leave that day and that ceremony for the families of the nearly 3000 people who perished that horrific day.   

What the families of the victims have after 10 years is downright criminal.  I've driven past Ground Zero every single week for the last two years and I get a pit in my stomach every single time I drive by it and sadly it has less to do with the events on that clear Tuesday morning as I walked through Times Square and more to do with the fact that after 10 years it is still a gigantic open pit.     I know they threw together a small park but as anybody who has walked past you will tell you, there is no serenity or rest there.   It's a couple of trees set in the middle of a billion dollar construction site surrounded by foul mouthed construction workers, wall-street guys on a smoke break and tourists snapping pictures like they are cruising down the Walk of Fame.  After 10 years there has been nothing these politicians have done but stonewalled every sensible decision that could have been made.

take on the perfect pint.....of coffee

About once a week, I give myself a little gift..  I'm not talking about anything as detailed as a little self-love to XNXX but instead I treat myself to a decent lunch to offset the four days of dirty-gyros I consume.   For about 2 years I've been going to a great little dive called the Perfect Pint in midtown about a half-a-block off of Times Square.    The food is great, the beer is cold, the service is fantastic and the prices are ridiculous but the best thing about the entire experience has to be the coffee.  This little place –which has a twin restaurant on East Side of Manhattan- has a certain old Irish charm you don't find in your typical mid-town joint.   They have a daily special which for about $14 is usually a really interesting combination and they have about 100 beers on tap and their regular bartenders are friendly and always remember your name (even when you don't remember theirs).   Think the 50% of Marks brothers with 200% the personalities.   Keith looks like the Irish Brad Pitt if you morphed him with Sloth and Tommy looked like a cross between Mel Torme and Lee Corso.  What this place lacks in hot-young women they make up in with personality

But past the stellar service, the good food and the flat-screen TV's the best reason to come there is the fact they make the absolute best coffee this side of Columbia..   Somehow paying $6 for a Smithwicks is completely justified if you know you are going to be washing it down with the best cup of Java you'll probably ever have especially since it comes out of some gigantic machine which looks like it should be spitting out dollar-coins when the screen hits three coffee beans.     the secret to the success is apparently that Tommy cleans the machine every other day and Keith spikes the beans with JD.

Take on shipping and handling

When I got a long awaited package delivered today to say i some mixed emotions would be an understatement. I was happy the package did finally arrive after having anxiously awaited it for two weeks, I was not happy to see it sent via US Post. Now this is not a rant against the postal service (that one will come shortly) but instead about the shipping and handling charge I paid.
I had no issue paying $24.99 for the item I ordered although I was a bit disappointed when it came to check out and I find out that there is a $7.99 shipping and handling charge. After I did not get anything delivered for about a week, I go back to the confirmation email and check the website link and I realIze that they did not give me a tracking number which I think is the minimum you can expect when ordering something online. After a week and a half I finally get notification from the company that my package could not be delivered due to an 'unknown delivery address' which is crazy since I had it sent to my work.
After some further frustration and delay my package finally arrives and when I look at the envelope I see a $1.88 stamp on it. In other words I paid a $6.11 handling charge for them to put the paperwork on an envelope and drop it into a mailbox.

taking on facebook cravings

When I caught a friend's Facebook post that said "14 weeks and craving ice-cream" I was surprised but very happy for her.   I didn't realize she'd been trying and didn't know she had a serious guy but was happy for her especially since she embraced it so openly.   I wasn't quite sure how to congratulate her but figure that if she was going to come out on Facebook that in 2011 that was the right medium for this kind of news.  She responded with a weird emoticon wink and I left feeling a bit annoyed after I sent her a well thought out congratulatory message
Two days later a coworker posted "12 weeks and craving chocolate" and all of a sudden i notice this is just some stupid joke cause she already had a couple of kids and I believe is well over 40.  I mentioned this to my wife and she explained that it was some new Facebook thing where you write a crazy cryptic message to confuse your friends for some hidden meaning and says it is done to support breast cancer or something.
I guess I am too old or just don't get it but I don't see the value.   You imply that you are pregnant as some lame show of solidarity for cancer and this is supposed to make you some kind of saint??   This is the kind of typical empty gesture you get out of this generation and proves again how worthless Facebook is

First of all what support do you offer by posting some bizarre joke?   I am sure some woman who is going through chemo feels so much better because you tried to trick your friends and family.  It is like wearing one of those idiotic yellow bands or a ribbon.  There is nothing courageous about it
but even if you are too self-centered to realize that you are trying to support a woman's issue by minimizing another one       I have a friend whose wife has been trying to get pregnant for two years with no success and I am sure she's thrilled to see get Facebook wall cluttered by these self-centered c-words and their clever altruism.

Take on the hidden parking prices

Parking in NY is a total pain in the ass as there is hardly any street parking so you are often dependent on the various parking garages which although convenient require a sense of math specific only to them
First of all the prices posted never include taxes which for parking lots are ludicrously high so even when there is a big sign which says $12 you will easily pay $15 as apparent punishment to bringing your hard earned business and dollars to New York City. Now I understand trying to maximize a revenue stream but the fact those costs get buried in the fine print on the pricing sign already feels nasty. But when the garage blatantly ignores its own posted pricing to gauge you during a special event you feel that much more ripped off. This weekend I drive down to Brooklyn Bridge Park and as there is absolutely no street parking within a square mile, I bite the bullet and pull into the only garage. As I step out of my car the attendant informs me it'll be $20 which ensures that a day in a city park will cost $40 after you get a couple of drinks and a hot dog. I understand capitalism and the concept of supply and demand but i think that a city park should have more than 5 token parking spots or at least offer a municipal lot which if nothing else can help finance the park
But even past that issue what really bothered me was the fact the listed prices are drastically different than the one he quoted me

Righetti. It says $11.77 for two hours on your board

Attendant. That is only for weekdays

Righetti. It doesn't say anything about limitations on your sign

Attendant. The sign is wrong there is a board outside which shows the special

Righetti: so you should change it

Attendant: We have an all-day special for $20 on the weekends

Righetti: But it is 3pm, I won't be here all day so I don't need the special

Attendant: it's the only option

Righetti: a special sort of implies a deal, this is a rip-off

Attendant: do you want to park or not?

Righetti: I do but don't agree with this policy. It clearly states that 2 hours is $11.77 nowhere does it say that it is not valid on the weekends, I don't get why it should be more

Attendant: Talk to my boss

Righetti: ok. Can you get him

Attendant; He's not here

Righetti: great thanks



So I lay out $20 to park for a couple of hours and just feel like I have no other option. What is crazy is that this is not in any kind of high traffic spot, there are no office buildings, restaurants or stores so to have rates posted for a normal weekday is idiotic. I am sure they do 80% of their business on the weekend yet the posted rates are apparently there only for the random jerk who goes to deliver buns to the hot-dog stand on a Tuesday.

Take on the Starbucks welfare state

Maybe this is different in the suburbs but the one thing I notice when I walk into a city Starbucks is how little regard its patrons have for the store. The irony is that with its cushy chairs, open policy for bathrooms and free WiFi it's meant to feel like an office away from home but when you look around it feels like my college living situation. Forget a place where great minds can come together because of its liberal policy of allowing people to sit there all day means you have a bunch of near homeless people holding court

The bathrooms are some of the most disgusting in the city with a puddle of java colored piss separating every toilet-bowl from the door and the stink so strong it'll make your grande double vanilla latte taste like homeless ass. Their willingness to open their doors to anybody basically ensures it becomes the bathing spot for the filthy since you don't even have to buy a coffee to use the bathrooms. If you are a hobo it's a great deal but if you just spent $5 on a coffee, at some point feel like you are subsidizing the bladderly challenged. This is where those liberal northwesterners have it all wrong.
it goes deeper than just the free bathrooms, Starbucks is a prime example of what kind of ownership people feel they have in a welfare state. It starts with these filthy bathrooms which have left these stores looking and feeling so ratty that it's normal paying patrons start to treat it like their own personal garbage dump. Maybe people feel that because they spent $5 on a cup of coffee they think it should come with maid service or maybe they see that nobody else cares to keep it up either so why should they.

It is shocking how often you walk past one of its tables and see it covered with empty coffee cups, crumbs and dirty napkins. It is obvious that there isn't any table service so I don't see where exactly people get this belief that people should be cleaning up after them; people look around and see that everybody else gets away with it, so why should they bother. you don't see this is McDonalds or Wendy's but somehow Starbucks attracts a highly messy crowd.
The problem is that the eventually the image and brand gets killed because of this, who wants to spend the equivalent of the price for lunch for a coffee and then feel like you can't even make it into the bathroom without wearing waders.

Yeah for now you have enough rich guys willing to drop $25 per week to keep it running but when they wise up and start putting their money in Swiss coffee where does it leave those bathroom hanger-ons?

Take on the bathroom stink up

When I walk into a bathroom in a public spot I always check to make sure the air is clear. See when you are forced to follow some slob in the bathroom relay race after he dropped the kind of deuce which turns the air so you can literally taste there has to be some grounds for disqualification

Public restrooms generally have a major design flaw being they are always only four by six feet are always in some back corner of a restaurant and never have any proper ventilation let alone a window but my biggest issue isn't even my own suffocation.

My issue isn't even about the stink left by the slob but more what happens when you walk out of said stiinky bathroom. Now I can stink up a room with the best of them and have literally stopped a cop in his tracks when he was in the middle of throwing me out of a dorm room. But despite my own propensity of filth, I don't want somebody assuming that the stink left by some guy coming from an all-you-can eat Mexican Cantina is mine.
I never know how to properly deflect the stink so I wind up spending more time in one of those shitboxes hoping the stink will dissipate because there is just no way to avoid looking guilty. If you walk out causing a huge commotion like "holy cow if smells like something died in there" everybody thinks you are covering up and if you pretend nothing is wrong you look guilty. So I suggest that we add a new social rule of etiquette which says that if you stink up a can, it is your social responsibility to stay there for three additional people and take the blame for the damage you caused.

Take on the touch screen that touches back

What the hell was that???
It felt like somebody just stuck my tongue on a battery except instead of my tongue it was my finger and instead of a battery it was my IPhone
You know how you get that weird fly-zapper buzz when you touch the screen of a tube TV well that is what it feels like when I sometimes go to search for an app. Now this has always been some issue with a TV although I think it has not been as much of a problem with LCD screens although I don't routinely put my hands on my 42 incher reserving that for my 8 incher. But there are times when I use my IPhone and it feels like I have to penetrate some kind of forcefield and somehow it just doesn't feel 'right'
It doesn't happened all the time but when it does it seems like the electronic equivalent of getting zapped when bra ing a door handle after walking over a carpeted floor but every time it does happened I am left to wonder if I'm sucking in just a bit of finger cancer

Taking on the no smoking sign

I am not one to nitpick (well maybe I am) but isn't it about due time to remove those No Smoking lights in airplanes. Although I remember smoking being allowed on flights when I was a kid with those ridiculous partitions which worked about as well to keep smoke out of the nonsmoking cabin as wearing a sock over you winkie would to prevent you from getting the clap.

I am fairy certain that smoking was outlawed 20 years ago and was replaced with those announcements about dismantling a smoke alarm in the bathroom constituting a federal crime. Well in 20 years you would think that some airline would have had the sense to remove the electronic illuminated smoking sign being that smoking is never allowed and thus leaving it on constantly is just redundant. If you are going to have a permanent sign just affix stickers to the walls and use the lighted ones for something that actually be used by the pilot to communicate with the passengers like telling them when an approved electronic device could be used.
Replacing those panels can't be hard, is not even like the electronics have to be changed it would only mean replacing the glass panels with a picture of something other than the non smoking sign.
It just seems to me that if airlines can't be bothered to replace those little windows in 2 decades what care are they giving to other issues like my lost luggage