Sorry about that.

Let this be a lesson to any of you who forget to pay your ISP bill.

I thought this was an interesting story.  Turns out that the Pope’s parents met through a personal ad in the paper.  It’s funny to hear the ad from today’s perspective:

Middle-ranking civil servant, single, Catholic, 43, immaculate past, from the country, is looking for a good Catholic, pure girl who can cook well, tackle all household chores, with a talent for sewing and homemaking with a view to marriage as soon as possible. Fortune desirable but not a precondition.

Anybody think a woman today would answer that ad?  More likely the man would be beat by an angry mob of women.

But to all those who use a dating service, have hope: you just might find that perfect someone who will join with you to have a future Pope!

The Cal Bears website has posted a short blub stating that the Cal vs. ASU game will start at 12:30 PM.  The game will be televised nationally by FSN (can we really can that nationally?).

Also of note is that the Washington game now shows up on the schedule and results page as a 12:30 PM game even though no TV contract has been announced with it.  That seemed odd to me so I called the ticket office and they confirmed that on their computer it is a 12:30 PM game.  I still feel odd about it and would expect that a TV contract would change the game time, but I wanted to make sure the info was out there.

As most of my readers know, I take my two children (both boys 3 and 1 1/2) to the Bears games.  Some people think it must be really difficult but it’s really not.  There is so much excitement for them.  Other than occasionally having to get up to let them walk around, they’re no bother at all.

In fact, it’s a great joy to take them.  Everything is SO big to them.  Those steps inside the stadium up to the stands are their personal Mount Everest.  Plus, the public transportation that is a big hassle for you and I are the thrill of their trip (we had been in the stadium for less that a half hour when the older one was already asking for another bus ride… and don’t get me started about the potential BART rides).

Then, everything comes alive for them once the bands start to play.  They love the music and jump and clap their hands.  The whole experience is a big party to them.

Is it a bit long?  Yeah, it is.  Sitting there for 3+ hours is tough on them.  But if you take the time to walk them around (I highly recommend going up and down the stairs: you can catch a glimpse of the game while they get a vigorous workout) and to bounce them on your knee and hold them up high when there is a big play… all of these things make the game a joy to them.

So: bring your kids if you’ve got ‘em.  It doesn’t matter if they’re 3 months old or 30 years old, going to the Bears games is a great joy.

Well, the Bears finally showed up for their first football game.  Unfortunately, it took two games for that to happen.

The first series of the game had a “Tennessee” feel to it with the Bears going three and out and the Gophers taking advantage of poor pass coverage to turn a big play into a touchdown drive (at least this time the Bears tackled them before the endzone and they had to earn the last 20 yards or so).  After that, Tedford’s Bears finally took the field and although the game was tied up until the mid second quarter and in reach until the early 4th quarter, I had no doubt the Bears were going to win once Longshore marched the Bears down the field to tie it 7 to 7 and the defense stopped the gopher run game in its tracks on the following possesion.

I think the biggest revelation from this game is that there is no more quarterback controversy.  As I said in last week’s commentary, Longshore is still young and he needs time to mature.  Well, count this week as proof of his maturing… and fast.  He looked confident, he picked the right receivers, did a good job of avoiding the rush when he could and didn’t throw too many ill-advised passes.  Yes he’s got a ways to go, but he’s definitely on the “Tedford track” and I think he’ll be the quarterback we need.  Next week will give him time to refine his game for the ASU game in two weeks.

The second revelation is that this hybrid spread/pro offense can work.  While I don’t know that it is a improvement over the pure pro-set, it’s not a step back either.  We’ll be able to accomplish what we need with it.

The final revelation is that Syd Thompson is going to be OK at cornerback.  I was hopeful before the game that he too was on a learning curve and he proved it yesterday with solid play.

The biggest disappointment with the game was the penalties.  The players need to realize that it doesn’t matter what the other team does to you, you can’t retalliate.  It always seems to be the case that the retalliation is what gets the flag and this game was no different.  I still think the refs were calling a biased game and there were two or three plays where the Bears didn’t retalliate to plays that should have been called for personal fouls, but nevertheless, the Bears can’t afford to lose yards because of personal fouls.

While we’re on the topic of refs, that “blocking the punter when he’s out of the play” penalty was a J…O…K…E.  Are you stinking kidding me?  The guy was running straight at the play!  If Jackson had managed to elude the tacklers, that block on the punter would have been the difference between a TD and a 20-30 yard return.  That was by far the worst call by the refs.

So, what do we have in summary?  The Bears have a team that has a LOT of potential but is still young in a few more positions than they’d like.  I’m very hopeful, particularly with the schedule the Bears have (particularly remembering that ASU has a soft spot for flopping in Memorial Stadium) that the team will have the time they need to mature as the season progresses while still keeping the Bears in contention for a Rose Bowl bid.  The key games on the schedule still remain Oregon on October 7th at home and USC on the road on November 18th.

Well another week is done with in the Pac-10 and we’ve learned quite a lot.  We’ve learned that Stanford must be worse than Washington, being unable to beat lowly San Jose St..  (On a side note, we need to start a pool on just how many public California Universities Stanford can schedule before they win one.  You’d think after the UC Davis debacle last year, they’d be ready… so it looks like another year where they’ll likely lose to 3 public California Universities.  We know what would happen if they scheduled Fresno next year… what about Humboldt guys?  You might be able to beat them…)  But enough with what we learned, on to how good of a prediction guy I am:

If it weren’t for the rest of my predictions I would be dolling out a big dose of “I told you so” because of just how well I predicted the Cal game.  Was it not a game that the Bears stuck it to the Gophers?  The defense definitely stepped up as I suggested.  But I shouldn’t get ahead of myself.  I’ll save the review for another entry.

For the rest of the games, I did a pretty good job with TPD, but not so much with margin of victory:

• TPD: 12.0 (down from 13.1 with scores of 18, 4, 5, 4, 24, 11, 9, 18 and 7)
• MVD: 19.3 (down from 19.7 with scores of 4, 32, 7, 35, 10, 25, 29, 24 and 7)
• Winning percentage: 75.0% (up from 71.4%)

So we can see why I suck at the Cal pick’em, because I’m having a bad year at guessing the margin of victory and hence can’t guess if the spread will be covered or not.  I’d be doing great if I was just picking the victor.

Tune in later today or tomorrow for the Bears Game Wrap up.

OK, after a mediocre first week, I think I’ll be back on my game this week:

Cal 31, Minn. 10:  I know people will think I’ve been eating some of the nasty pot brownies in Berkeley this week but bare with me.  This game is either going to be a statement week for the Bears or a nightmare.  The Bears have too much talent for anything in-between.  And I’m firmly on the Bears side.  Last week was a tough one in a tough environment.  At home against a less fierce opponent, I think they’re going to make a statement.  Longshore is going to get his act together and while I expect a few mistakes, he’ll abuse their defense for enough long plays to open up the running lanes for Lynch who’ll finish off whatever is left of the burrowing Gophers.  Add that to the fact that UM is supposedly an all ground-game team and the best part of the Bears game last week was their run-control (minus one play) and I think this is going to be a romp.  Heck, I’ve even scaled my official prediction back from the 42-3 game my heart tells me we’re in for.  So to recap: on Monday you’ll think I’m either a genious or a complete fraud.

OSU 28, BS-U 24: Good ol’ Boise St… this is a tough game for me.  The Boise boys play pretty well on their blue turf and I’m not sure what I think of OSU even though they took E. Wash. to the woodshack last week.  In the end, I’ve got to go with OSU.  I think they’re stronger than people give them credit for and Boise St. is on a down-trend.

Stanford 35, SJ St. 29: The question that’ll be on most Cal fans mind when seeing this match-up will be: who’s better UC Davis or SJ St.?  And while that is a valid question (SJ is the answer) I think the more appropriate question is who is going to take the doghouse position in the Pac-10 this year Stanford or Washington?  I think it’s a toss-up and their scores vs SJ St. will be the same.

WaZoo 38, Idaho 24: Ah, good ol’ WaZoo.  Fresh from their expected roll-over to Auburn, they get back to their normal ways to take on Idaho.  This game is the same every year: Idaho comes out and makes a statement to the overly-lax WaZoo “football” players.  But in the end, a Pac-10 team is just too good to lose to Idaho and WaZoo comes roaring back to win.

UDub 13, OK 20: I think people are expecting OK to blow away Washington and in a sense they’re right.  But this game is going to be slow with all of the stunted drives.  In the end, I think OK will slowly grind out a decisive victory, but a couple lucky drives by UW and a self-defeating OK offense will keep the score closer than the actual game.

UA 21, LSU 38: Arizona will do a pretty good job on defense in this game… in the first half.  In the end, they just won’t have the offense necessary to keep LSU off the field and no defense will keep LSU out of the endzone forever.

UCLA 45, Cream-of-Wheat… er Rice 6: Man, how did UCLA get the joy of scheduling these powder-puffs?  Did the WaZoo AD take a job at UCLA?  Particularly considering how UCLA stuck it to Utah and that Rice lost to Houston last week, this one is going to be a walk in the park.

ASU 31, Nevada 24: ASU had better be careful in this one.  Nevada may be just south of Idaho and you’d expect their two football teams to perform similarly, but you’d be mistaken.  Nevada won the WAC last year and challenged Fresno St. last week.  In the end I think ASU will win this one, but if they come in as rusty as they did against N. Arizona, this could be the upset of the week.

Oregon 38, Fresno St. 24: Fresno St. is one of those teams that lives off of Pac-10 upsets.  They always seem to be better in September when playing the Pac-10 than in October when they get to the heart of their WAC schedule.  Don’t forget that this is the same team that gave USC a scare last year.  That said, Oregon is just too strong this year and they are always immaculately prepared.  Bulldog stadium will have no effect on them and they’ll walk away with this one pretty easily.

OK, that’s all folks!  USC is on a bye this week.  Tune in on Monday for an update on on the Cal game and my prediction metrics.

A recent story has broke that HP spied on its board members to find who was leaking info to the press.  I’m very disappointed that it has come to this, but I think the story is being spun the wrong way by the very press that enjoyed the information it was getting leaked.

First of all, there is no excuse for “leaking” news.  If a board member thinks the news media should get some piece of information, then he/she should come right out and tell them.  And if he can’t because of non-disclosure rules and the board won’t let him, he should go to the press and make an announcement that the board is refusing to release important information to the press that he is unfortunately unable to tell them.

So in that sense statments in the article like:

“Speaking out is a time honored tradition in the age of ornamental boards,” McGurn said. “It’s something that management, and CEOs in particular, have hated — but they usually let it slide.” 

are complete bogus.  They have nothing to do with the situation at hand.  This was secretly leaking information not “speaking out”.  As such, I have sympathy for the HP board and none for the press.  But there is another half of the story: spying.

Just as similarly, the board should not have been spying on anyone in the company, board members included.  If they suspected that someone was leaking inappropriate information, they should go to the person, make the accusation, and go through whatever formal steps necessary to make a determination whether that person was indeed leaking information.

What this article and so much of the discussion surrounding corporate America seem to forget is that there is a HUGE difference between honesty and transparency.  The real goal should be honesty.  Transparency is only a substitute for honesty.  It’s a way to ensure that people are telling the truth because one can see the behind the scenes stuff to verify the information.

So the difficulty becomes, where does the stock market need to “force” honesty by requiring transparency.  I don’t have the answer to these questions as I’m not a financial guy.  But what I do know is that the fundamental problem is a lack of character that is most manifest in a lack of honesty.

And it bugs me that the company I work for, once a proud example of honesty and integrity, has a management team that with the exception of Perkins (who quit over the issue months ago) no longer appreciates those values on both sides of this dispute.

Well it’s official: Tedford is going to stick with Longshore for next week and will likely give Ayoob time late in the game, similar to Tennessee.

I think this is a good decision, although I’d like to see Levy replace Ayoob as the backup, although I guess it is reasonable to give Ayoob one more week.

My feeling, as I expressed in my Tenn. game review, is that Longshore is just young and at least has the potential to grow into a good solid QB.  Tennessee is a TOUGH place to start that growth process (and let’s not kid ourselves that last year’s 3/8ths of a game vs Sac. St. counts for anything).  I’m hopeful that he’ll do a lot better this week.

Ayoob on the other hand has gone through that growth process and isn’t going to improve dramatically at this point.  I was willing to believe that he could have made a dramatic improvement over the off-season.  I’ve seen it before, a weak QB figures it out once he has time to reflect on his mistakes.  But not Ayoob, not after Tennessee.  He was the same old Ayoob and I don’t think he’s improved any.

Which brings us to Levy.  Levy is our safe guy, he’s already proved it.  Safe however is not going to get us to the Rose Bowl.  So we have to look elsewhere until we have nothing better.  Elsewhere for right now is Longshore.

Taking a worst case scenario (both Longshore and Ayoob stink it up indefinitely), I suspect that Tedford will insert Levy into the mix after Minnesota.  Likely he gives Longshore one more start to get his act in gear vs. Portland St. but Levy will be up to taking snaps in practice over Ayoob and will mop up for Longshore.  If Longshore doesn’t turn the corner by then, Levy will get the start by the ASU game.

That’s what I’d do… and I’m betting that’s about what Tedford will do if we have to go down that road.  But here’s to hoping that Longshore is just young.  I’m pretty hopeful that by the time we meet ASU, he’ll be confident and in control.

Jason Kendall took his 10th plunking of the season last night in the A’s game vs. the Texas Rangers.  He was hit by a glancing blow just inside his arm on his back by an errant fastball.  That brings his career total up to 207 only 66 short of the career record.

That puts his current estimate for breaking the record at the 50th game of the 2010 season.

Way to go Kendall!