What's Wrong With The Bears?

Exactly what everyone predicted. The offensive line is pretty bad, the receivers show promise on occasion but aren't savvy enough to fight for a badly thrown ball, and Cutler is clearly not enjoying the Mike Martz offensive scheme.

The worst part of the messy, sloppy game against Washington was seeing Rex Grossman on the opposing sideline. He could have gotten sacked and thrown interceptions just as well as Cutler. He had similar streaks of brilliance followed by record-setting bed wetting. Who could blame either of them when they both have been crushed by an uncontested blitzer on multiple occasions?

After the 4-0 start, I was thinking we might be looking at a repeat of the Super Bowl season where the defense shut down opposing offenses and the QB started out red hot, then settled down and let the running game do the heavy lifting. In fact, when Grossman started looking like a full-on bust, Thomas Jones really came to life.

I was prepared to eat crow and admit to being wrong about Lovie, Martz, Tice, and Marinelli. I hate that they're making me right again. Actually, I'll even take Marinelli off the hot seat for the moment since the defense is currently ranked 5th in the league; very similar to '05.

Unlike '05, the offense is ranked 30th overall. Terrible. The other similarity, but even more pronounced, is the feeling that even if the defense steamrolls every team left on the schedule, we could still lose all of those games. And while I won't turn into a fan who roots for his team to lose, I might pay more attention to the Steelers or something while I wait for the Lovie Smith/Jerry Angelo era to finally come to an end.

If you're on Twitter, I recommend checking out the following feeds for up-to-the-minute Bears info:
Zach Zaidman
Peggy Kuszinski
Adam Schefter
Chris Harris

A Bad Omen

We've been ruminating that the little Bears shirt Eli has worn on the days when the Bears won was their lucky charm. Yesterday, at lunch, my mom handed the boy to my wife, and in the transition, I noticed a brown stain forming on the back of his shirt - just about where the top of the diaper would be. Yep - he shit his lucky shirt, and then the Bears shit the bed.

Ignoring the rest of the game, the rest of the day went pretty well. We had a few great meals, saw a lot of our extended family, and I somehow still lost four pounds. Not bad.

Tools Tools Tools

So, I just got a new computer, and trying to remember all of the software that I use on a regular basis (mostly free, open-sourced packages) was daunting. Then I remembered that I have created my own personal software installer over at Ninite.com.

Here's the link. (It should ask you to download the file.)

I went to their site, selected all of the freeware I use from their lists, then they assembled the file linked above. That file opens an installer which determines the best version of each software package for your particular operating system.

My file contains the stuff I use regularly:

7zip (zip utility)
Audacity (WAV recorder/editor)
Auslogics (better defragger)
Avast (excellent antivirus)
Ccleaner (cleans browser cache, registry, startup processes, etc.)
CDBurnerXP (burns audio, data, ISO, DVD, etc.)
Chrome (quick browser)
Dropbox (file sync tool)
Filezilla (FTP client)
Firefox (complete browser)
Foxit (PDF reader)
GIMP (image editor)
Irfanview (image converter)
MediaMonkey (media player)
OpenOffice (MS Office replacement - saves as PDF!)
Picasa (photo organizer, basic editor)
Skype (video calling)
Steam (game aggregator/ gaming friend tracker)
Thunderbird (email client)
uTorrent (torrent client)

Notable omission is an instant messaging client. I use Meebo inside of Firefox because it runs over HTTP, which means the IM traffic looks like normal web traffic to my corporate firewall. It also allows me to be online in my Yahoo, Gtalk, jabber, facebook, and other clients at the same time. I'm pretty surprised Meebo hasn't either gotten super popular or killed, since that's what happens to the stuff I love.

The Plan is in Effect

So far this morning, I have eaten 1 banana and twelve almonds. I have a piece of mahi mahi that's the size of a deck of cards, a container of greek yogurt, and a bunch of mini carrots for later.

I started out by doing a mile and a half on the treadmill. It was harder than it has been before and I'm a little embarrassed. I need to take some before pictures this evening to mark the worst shape I've been in for the past 40 years. I'm hoping to see some tangible results by Christmas.

To reiterate, the plan is to lose 40 lbs. this year. Doesn't have to happen right away, and I want to do it so that it stays off, not just to say I did it. So, I'm going to start out by kind of shocking my system with a lean, healthy diet and more exercise each day.

If you see me in a dark alley with a box of day-old donuts - stop me!

Read This Tomorrow

This article in the New Yorker actually describes the feeling I've had for most of my life. I've often wondered if I have ADHD (ADD) but never pressed it with a doctor for a diagnosis. I have put off assignments or work until the last minute for as long as I can remember. Trying to do stuff ahead of the deadline is like trying to push my car up a hill - it's just not possible.

Maybe it's not such abnormal behavior after all. On the other hand, maybe science is an enabler. If I choose the articles properly, I'm healthy being fat, I'm a genius because I keep piles of stuff everywhere, and now I'm learning that procrastinating has been a "live for today" response to stuff I don't want to do.

Go science!