Why we shouldn't get too excited

OK, it was fun to see Joe Gibbs and the Redskins (which would be a pretty fair name for a rock band) win yesterday. Let's not fire up the bandwagon quite yet, though:

• Subtracting off the Portis outlier, he averaged exactly 3 yard per carry: (28 for 84). Adequate if you've got a decent passing game, but not great.
• Subtract that run, we get beat 10-9.
• In addition to the two fumbles (one lost for a TD), Brunell threw three balls in the first half that could have easily been intercepted.
• His QB rating is 68.9

OK, there were some good things:

• Clinton Portis saw everyone to his left, realized the right side was open, and did run 64 yards, unmolested. That was a great run, and I don't want to deny that. If he can do this regularly, he can average 1 yard per carry the rest of the time for all I care.
• The offensive line actually looked as though they knew what they were doing, and there weren't a lot of penalties. There was a delay of game call, but that looked to be Brunell's doing, not the O-line's. Jones was a little shaky at RT, but he didn't get his quarterback killed, and Brunell didn't have to run around a lot.
• The defense looked solid. Of course, this is Tampa Bay, but last year Brad Johnson lit up the defense. (Champ Bailey looked good in Denver, though.)
• The Giants are pitiful.

Curse? What Curse?

A strange thing happened while I was gone: a pennant race developed in the AL East. I probably won't last after the Yanks-Sox series this month, but it's fun to see now. Sorry about Kevin Brown's hand, though. Not sorry NYY is loosing.

Funny how a 22-run loss will skew numbers. That Yankees are now officially luckier than they were last month, though they are in dire straits:

Year	W	L	Pct.	GB	RS	RA	Pythg%	PredtW	PredtL	PGB
New York	83	51	0.619	----	737	670	0.548	73.37	60.63	7.78
Boston	80	53	0.602	2.50	767	618	0.606	80.64	52.36	----

Where PredtW, PredtL, and PGB are the Pythagorean predictions for wins, losses, and games behind. That's right, if there were any justice in the world Boston would be 8 games ahead of the Yankees and we'd be talking about how Pedro would hold up in the playoffs.

And at the end of the month, we've got six games between the Red Sox and the Yankees. Come on, you know what's going to happen. The only thing we don't know is which Yankee gets to add f***in' as a new middle name.

Back From Trip

OK, back from Cancun ... it was a business trip ... really ... see, ``Simulation of materials properties using the tight-binding method'' ... That's me

Writing like Larry King is hard work ... Cancun is not Mexico ... it's not the US, either ... even though English language television comes from Detroit ... Washingtonians will be please to know that Bernie Smilovitz is alive, and well, though his hair may not be ... no sign of Harvey that I could see ... Anyway, Cancun is not Mexico ... at least not the hotel district part, which isn't even Cancun ... it's just a barrier island with hotels on the ocean side and restaurants on the lagoon side ... sort of like Ocean City, Maryland, with out the miniature golf, and with crocodiles included in the lagoon

Meeting is held in August 'cause it's cheaper that way .. hot most all the time, even on the beach, though winds kept you reasonably cool ... also if you got too thirsty any of the poolside hotel bars were willing to sell you a Corona for about $4.50 US ... maybe 50 pesos ... even with the heat and the week before many places start school, hotels were 80% full ... beaches not nearly as wild as some places in Europe ... only one topless swimmer, and she might have lost her top in the ocean ... only a few seagulls, which is really strange ... this place has McDonald's, isn't that a gull's basic lunch? ... Have no idea how they keep them down ... use Gil's for trap shooting? ... feed them to the crocs? ... Didn't ask

Let's see ... food good, somewhat expensive ... beach very nice ... friends when snorkeling down by the ClubMed ... must do that next time ... the water's clear enough that you can see the reefs from the plane as you come over the coast ... on flight back was on left side of plane, so missed the most impressive site ... last time I flew back, I got to look at almost the entire coast of Cuba ... miles and miles of undeveloped beaches ... when Castro goes, that island is going to open up wide ... will probably mean that Cancun's business goes down substantially

Next time will try to take family, if they're still young enough to want to hang with parents ... lots of things to see that aren't that much fun by oneself ... Mayan pyramids, jungle, etc. ... Won't be able to go for a couple of years, but would be fun.