Merry Christmas

Thought I'd share a few fun snowman jokes to the PEOPLE. Doubtful I'll be blogging the next few days, so Merry Christmas meatballers.





-Jesse

RIP Dolphins Playoff Hopes

Ohhhhhh snap, look who just found out how to put videos on the blog! This probably has little interest to the readers, but, it's a big family tradition back in NY. Why is that? Because my uncle works for NBC and always sneaks into their annual Christmas commercial. This year though, Unc Jeff went big and got his face time in there early (upper left corner in the beard and denim jacket during the :02 to :05 mark). Way to go!

Christmas is four days away, there's a few inches of snow on the ground in Ohio and I'm double-fisting hot chocolate and tea. I love the holidays.

I was unsure about the Yankees basically swapping 2009 World Series heroes Johnny 'Double Steal' Damon and Hideki 'Six RBI' Matsui for Curtis Granderson and Nick Johnson for a while until I found this site. I had a teacher in college who had a little saying about a PR or marketing plan. "You can have it good, fast or cheap. Pick two." What the Yankees effectively did with these moves were get better, younger and cheaper, LOVE IT. For more baseball talk, peep another blog I write for: Deadbeats.

Still looking for something to get your GF/BF for Christmas? Tony Gonzalez is selling his house and if you lock it up today, he'll toss in a Porsche.

Here's a list of what each bowl (save the Cotton Bowl) is giving to everyone playing in their game. You know your boy is going to pick the Texas Bowl as his favorite: $300 Best Buy gift card, Fossil watch, Under Armor shirt, hat and backpack and a belt buckle!

-Jesse

Week 15 and Playoff Picks

Last week:
Cleveland (+10) over Pittsburgh--> RIGHT
Cincinnati (+6.5) over Minnesota--> WRONG
Miami (+3) over Jacksonville--> RIGHT
Oakland (+1) over Washington--> WRONG

This Week:
New Orleans (-7) over Dallas- The 'Boys beat who they're supposed to beat, going 7-0 vs. teams currently under .500. The flip side of that coin is they get beat when they are supposed to, with just a 1-5 record vs. winning teams this year. Last I checked NO hasn't lost since Cliff Lee was on the Indians, so look for them to win big here and tempt Jerry Jones to pull the 'FIRE WADE' trigger.

Green Bay (pk) over Pittsburgh- Pelle's going to hate this if he still reads MITM, but I haven't seen anything lately that would make me pick the Steelers here. What happened to the Heinz Field advantage? The only good team they've beaten at home this year is Minnesota.

Minnesota (-7) over Carolina- Minny proved that they may not be on the Indy/NO echelon, but there is a step between themselves and the next tier of good teams by taking it to Who Dey in the dome.

Cincinnati @ San Diego (over 44)- San Diego has put up 30+ five times on this seven-game winning streak they are currently embroiled on and I trust Cinci to get at least two or three scores to make the over.

Playoffs:
Back in September, I picked these 12 teams to continue playing in January: Pittsburgh, New England, San Diego, Indianapolis, Baltimore, Miami...Chicago, Philadelphia, Atlanta, Arizona, New York, Green Bay. If the season were to end today, I'd have weak six teams in, but at least Miami, Baltimore and New York are in the conversation, so I could get up to nine.

With NO, Minny, 'Zona, Indy and San Diego all virtual (or actual) locks to make it, I'll revise me last couple of spots and see how I do with just three weeks to predict instead of 17.


A few links:
Cinci hoping for a case of Deja Vu?
And I'll leave you with an awesome Christmas decoration.

-Jesse

Jersey Shore Fantasy League (UPDATED)

Jersey Shore is clearly my new go-to show and The Lube Tube is on the bandwagon with me. He pitched the idea and we came up with a fantasy league based on this cast of characters. We assigned a point value to virtually everything this freaks could do over the next 6-8 episodes and then drafted our teams. Scoring is head to head each week and rosters and point values are below. Stay tuned for a game recap and live blog on Thursday at 10 pm!

UPDATE: The stakes. Loser has to get a fake spray tan, do his hair in a blowout, go sleeveless at bars and make a kissy face in every photo taken of him during Miami's homecoming weekend in 2010.

The Blowouts (Jesse): J-WOWW, Snooki, Ronnie and Vinny

The Situations (Lube Tube): The Situation, DJ Pauly D, Sweetheart and Angelina

And now for points:

Work

1-Being late

2-Yelled at by boss

3-Inappropriate conduct (drinking, hooking up, etc.)

5-No show

25-Fired

Law

3-Kicked out of bar

5-Cops talk to you

50-Arrested

Hook up

5-Make Out

5-Public indecency (hot tub/patio included)

7-Girl making out with girl

15-Hook up

x3-Threesome

Fight

10-Same Sex

15-Girl hitting guy

100-Guy hitting girl (slaps, hard shoves, tosses, etc.)

Infidelity

5-Excessive grinding

10-Making out

20-BF/GF cheats on you during visit

25-Hook up

Miscellaneous

1-Call BF/GF

1-Saying Guido, Guidette, or The Situation

2-BF/GF crying

4-Crying

5-Puking

5-Bring home random (per person)

10-Getting a tattoo or piercing

20-Break up with BF/GF

25-STD scare

50-Pregnancy scare

x1.5-Anything with a roommate

-Jesse

"Everybody loves me, babies, dogs, hot girls, cougars." -The Situation

If you're not watching MTV's Jersey Shore, make sure you start. It might be the most amazing series premiere I've ever seen. Like a car crash, it's tough to watch, but I can't pull myself away from it. Lube Tube and I are absolutely live blogging the next episode. J-WOWW, Snooki, The Situation, Ronnie, EPIC CHARACTERS. If this show was on HBO or Shotime, it would be the best show of all time. Scratch that, I wish this had it's own U-Stream, so we could watch every single thing these kids do. Thanks Ally for the BBM telling me to watch this classic.

More on that on Thursday, now it's time for this week's NFL picks.

CLEVELAND (+10) over Pittsburgh

The Browns are bad, but that's worse than awful, which is what they were earlier in the year. They've been in the game the last three weeks (@ Detroit, @ Cincinnati, vs. San Diego) and are starting to look like a bottom-5 team in the league - as opposed to a bottom-2 team. The Steelers have been sliding for a month and The Clocktower's unbeaten record in Ohio fell earlier this year, so it's no longer a guarantee he's going to win when in his home state. I like the Steelers to win, but not in a blowout.

Cincinnati (+6.5) over MINNESOTA

Who Dey has only lost one game by more than a score all season (Week 6 vs. Houston) and I don't see them losing to Minny by more than that. Favre threw two picks last week after throwing just three all season before that. The Bengals are top-10 in both INTs and sacks, and they should put enough pressure on the ol gunslinger to force a couple turnovers and keep this one close, if not winning outright.

Miami (+3) over JACKSONVILLE

The Jaguars had around 42,000 people in attendance during last week's win vs. the Texans. That's just over half capacity (78k and change) and with Dolphins fans all over Florida, expect some (lighter) teal and orange to fill up a few seats in Jacksonville Municipal this Sunday. The Fins have boatloads of confidence after beating NE and winning six of their last nine. They could sneak into the final wildcard position with a win vs. the Jags this Sunday.

OAKLAND (+1) over Washington

Oakland has beaten two good teams in the last few weeks (vs. Cinci and @ Pittsburgh) and the 'Skins can't even squeeze out a win when they're up late (see: @ Dallas and vs. New Orleans). Gradkowski has been playing well since taking over for good from Jamarcus Russell with a 2-1 record and six TDs while tossing just one ball to the guys in the other colored jerseys.

-Jesse