Election Results, Coffee, Palladia, NFL Picks Week 10

Appropo of nothing: I had Dunkin’ Donuts coffee for the first time this week, and it really is pretty good. I barely like coffee, but I like theirs better than hella bitter Starbucks anyday.

• In the way I was hoping, we relived the election of 2004 with a role reversal in incumbent-challenger parties, so now everyone on the right feels the same despair the left did back then. (Sidebar: this current despair confuses me because rightists are despairing of things that aren’t even happening. The country has not moved towards socialism, guns aren’t being seized (quite the contrary), and companies aren’t being nationalized, nor is anyone even suggesting any of those things in a serious way. At least when leftists called Bush a warmonger in 2004 it was after he had actually started two wars.)

  The President won decisively, Democrats actually gained seats in the Senate, and even the House would have flipped if it weren’t for the outrageous gerrymandering that occurred after the 2010 census. I keep reading a lot of stuff about the problems with the Republican party, but when the GOP has a strong midterm in 2014, shouldn’t writers at the moment be puzzling over how the Democrats can maintain their supposed dominance in years when they don’t have an exciting Presidential candidate at the top of the ticket?

• It only seems to be airing at random times, and I know nothing about it besides its having something to do with televising music, but Palladia is one of the coolest cable channels on the air. As far as I can tell, 90 percent of its programming is HD full-concert footage, which is amazing. The wider HDTV aspect ratio feels way more epic than a regular TV in a way that fits well with the grandiose feeling of a live show, so this is one of the simplest yet greatest ideas for TV ever. Right now I’m watching a Jane’s Addiction live show from New York City from earlier this year; I have shows from Soundgarden, Nirvana and the Chili Peppers queued up on the DVR after this one. Great way to spend TV time and make me feel justified in purchasing an HD TV.



• And the NFL picks: I’m back on track, homies. Last week I picked up 12 points and tied for first only to lose the tiebreaker and thus the weekly payout. So here’s hoping I’m finally learning what teams are doing to make a strong end run:

  Last week: 12-2; Overall: 57-73
  Indianapolis -3 at Jacksonville
  New York Giants -4 at Cincinnati
  At Miami -6 Tennessee
  Detroit -2 at Minnesota
  At New England -11 Buffalo
  Atlanta -2.5 at New Orleans
  At Tampa Bay -3 San Diego
  Denver -4 at Carolina
  At Baltimore -7.5 Oakland
  At Seattle -6 New York Jets
  Dallas -1.5 at Philadelphia
  At San Francisco -11.5 St. Louis
  At Chicago -1 Houston
  At Pittsburgh -12.5 Kansas City