Reverse Jinx

Nice reverse jinx by me with the worst team ever post. Of course the Texans come out and whip up on the jags last week. DET lost - so they are officially even for worst team over the texan era. The march is on to see who can lose more.

And for any others who are into uniform stylings...check out the uniwatch espn column about the detroit old english D. Apparantly there are different versions on the hat and uni - I hadn't noticed. Either way I still think it is one of the coolest logos. And for what it is worth I like the jersey D better.

Worst Team Ever

Who is the worst team of all time? I am going to throw out that it is the Houston Texans. Don't think this is just some knee jerk reaction because they got throttled by the hated cowboys yesterday, I fully expected that,...let's just look at some numbers shall we.

Houston's inaugural season in 2002 started out with a bang...winning their first ever game against the Q-Car led Cowboys. At that point they were 1-0 and let's just say that looks like the high point of their short existence. Since that game (and through Sunday's) the Texans are 18-50. Yep, you saw that right...they win games at a .275 rate. So slightly more than 1 out of 4.

Now you might be saying to yourself surely there are other teams just as bad...well you would be wrong. The tampa bay bucs - widely considered the worst expansion team of all time - actually had a better overall winning percentage after their first 4 years than do the Texans. Even though they started out with a winless first year and only 2 wins their second campaign, in their first four years they won .283 of their games. The kicker is they actually went to the post season in year 4 with a 10-6 record. Where were the texans after year four? 2-14, first pick in the draft - which they screwed up.

I read an article today saying that over 1/2 of the draft picks from the first four rounds from the four years they have been around aren't even on the texans roster today. That sucks. This team even had a start from scratch with the salary cap and screwed that up by signing horrible players.

So maybe you are thinking that come on, Tampa was long ago. There are teams now that are horrible, the texans must be better than them. Well, there is a slight argument here...but only slightly. If you throw in year 2001 through 2005 the Detroit Lions actually only won .263 percent of their games during those five years. Bug since 2002 when the Texans came to be, the great Detroit Lions are one game better than the Texans: 19-45 compared to 18-46. So far this year they each have 1 win so depending on how this year turns out the Lions may actually be the worst team ever of the Texans' era.

But if you back up ten years (96-05 seasons) the lions have a very ugly but still better than the texans winning percentage of .352. Let's see the texans get to this first before throwing Det under the bus. The cardinals are hanging tough with the lions at .352 and The new Cleveland browns are a little worse than that at .319 (99-05 seasons).

Based on the current performance of the Texans and the fact that of their 4 losses this year they are averaging getting beat by 19 points, I see it being a very hard time for them to even get to their average by winning 4 games. This team is set up to be a colossal disaster for the ages and to throw on top of that the next potential "bowie over jordan" reference that will be repeated over and over.

Add to all of this that I really want to root for this team, but given the opportunity for a new fresh start they choose a bland name, a been there done that color scheme, and can't pick a player in the draft that fans can just get behind and root for (ala reggie bush). Sometimes being a fan just sucks.

More Trouble for Harry

According to this someone actually does think Harry Potter is trying to make an army of occultists - specifically Wiccans. Why are parents so paranoid that a book is going to teach their children more than they can? Why are we all so paranoid?

On a funny note...yesterday I took my car to get washed during lunch. There was a old guy who wanted to shine my shoes. He said that "he was the man" and "I would have a new pair of shoes". So looking up at the posted price of $6 I said sure.

So he finishes up...my shoes did look good...and says, "10 dollars". So somewhere in my sitting there the price had gone up a bit. So I hand him a 20. "how much you want back?" Ok, so the guy is entertaining enough and my shoes did look good so I say, "why don't you give me $8 back". Reaches in his wallet...packed with money by the way...pulls out a $5. Pauses..."what's your name?"...pauses a little more, pulls out $1..."if you need more shoes shined you just come back here alright...pauses...pulls out $1...wallet back in his pants and off he goes to get another customer. So I only get $7 back.

You know what they say, there is a sucker born every minute...

Amazing Race Update - Episode 3

This time the racers were off to Vietnam. One of the tasks had the racers going to the infamous Hanoi Hilton where hundreds of US service men were held as prisoners of war.

The task was to find John McCain's flight suit which was on display somewhere in the prison (which is now apparently a museum). It was a little surreal to see the teams basically just rushing through a place that symbolized so much misery and just searching for the next clue so they could go on and win $1 million.

But a couple of teams stopped for a moment, with the notable exception being the team of the two brothers. They went back in after all the chaos of the other teams had left to take a minute to pay tribute to McCain and the other soldiers. It was good karma because they ended up wining this leg of the challenge.

And from my last update you can see why I don't handicap or gamble on anything. The team I thought would be right there to the end - the dad and daughter - ended up getting the boot.

All in all, not a super exciting episode...but still entertaining.

And since I don't have any more to say on AR....

Last night was the first episode of the bachelor. (I didn't get the channel turned fast enough once I turned on the tv so it was claimed to be watched - but it is not a total loss and I didn't fight as I will explain).

This show is a 99 on a 1 to 10 scale of Melrose Place effect. Hot girls being extremely petty and catty (the Project Runway Corollary with the Attractive Addendum). Throw in unlimited alcohol and girls in evening gowns and you have a dynamite display of unintentional comedy on your hands.

The best episode of any bachelor is the first one, when it hasn't gotten all sappy and people actually start thinking they like each other instead of realizing they just like the fancy dates and locales that the producers have put them in. The first episode is basically a meat market. It is funny to watch these women interact with each other and with this prized side of beef (apparently this one is USDA prime since he is somehow a prince).

I always joke with the better half that this show sets back women hundreds of years...and she agrees, but yet it still entertains. I mean if you are going to kill two hours why not watch attractive women trying to assert themselves, some in rather odd (singing from the balcony) or shall we say bordering on sluty (showing off their dance moves) ways.

I also have a theory on how the bachelor decides between girls if he really hasn't any idea who to pick. Since I do have mixed readership I will save the details of the theory (you can ask my wife - I have told her in the past) but let's just say it played out when he choose the italian girl that can't even speak english. Double good times!

I'll check back in next week with another AR update!