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Birthday Season"Birthday season", as I've been calling it, lasted longer this year, since I had my annual party yesterday, over a week since my actual birthday. But that's okay! It was not quite as well-attending as last year's party, but that's okay. Last year's party made for slightly cramped quarters; this time around, we had plenty of space. Attendees (besides myself and Debbi) included:
The usual complement of food was on hand. I can recommend the orange almond cake from The Prolific Oven (no surprise there), and John brought his "famous" onion dip, which famously disappeared by the end of the evening. I also made vanilla and mocha chip ice cream, which also went quickly. I still have a little of them left, though, unlike the dip. John gave me a copy of the Schoolhouse Rock DVD, which we threw on the player and watched off-and-on through the evening. Boy does that bring back some memories! Most of the room was able to sing along to "The Preamble", and of course "I'm Just a Bill" and "Conjunction Junction". Then again, there were a number of shorts on it that I don't remember at all. Still, a cool gift, and I'll have to sit down and watch it in more detail later. John observed that he's been giving me gifts which he'd like to have (he gave me the Sports Night collection for Christmas). I keep waffling about when to start the party, each year. 3 pm seems too early, but it's getting dark by 5 pm. Probably not a big deal, really. My birthdays the next two years fall on a Friday and a Sunday, so I'll have plenty of options. Anyway, I set 4 pm as the start time this year, Michel and Lisa showed up at 4:20, and it lasted until sometime after 9 pm. Not a bad deal at all! As always, a fun time. As always, I probably worried too much beforehand. But I think I should throw more parties. It's fun to have people over! Even if the cats don't entirely agree...
 Well, I promised I wouldn't talk football again until after the Super Bowl, and here we are, the evening of the Super Bowl. Debbi and I went over to Syd's to watch it, which was enjoyable. As you know by now, if you care, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers beat the Oakland Raiders to win their first Super Bowl. Looking back at my pre-postseason predictions, I did pretty well, picking 9 of 11 games correctly. I'm most proud of the Atlanta-over-Green Bay pick. And I don't really regret missing the San Francisco-over-NY Giants pick, since the Giants collapsed in a ridiculous (and possibly facilitated-by-the-officials) manner. Clearly the game turned out to be too close to call. Today's game... well, my spreadsheet said the game was also "too close to call", but the Bucs handled the Raiders with ease, shutting down the Raiders' powerful offense, and managing to move the ball against the Oakland defense. The two teams didn't meet during the season, so it's hard to tell just where my computations went wrong. Aside, of course, from the fact that sports prognostication is hardly straightforward... and I was far from alone from picking the favored Raiders to win. Subrata actually called one point of this well several weeks back: He observed that the Raiders didn't really have a great offense, despite having the second-best in the league. Pro Football Reference confirms that the Raiders had one of the worst best offenses in recent years, by total points scored (Oakland scored 450). Here are the points scored by the best offenses in the NFL over the last several years:
Without running a sophisticated study, it sure looks like the 2002 Raiders were not the powerhouse offense that the last several years' best offenses were. So maybe the Raiders weren't quite as good as they looked. By the way, I believe this extends the current streak of first-time Super Bowl winners: Tampa Bay in 2002, New England in 2001, the Baltimore Ravens in 2000 (who never won as the Cleveland Browns), and the St. Louis Rams in 1999 (who never won as the LA Rams). Anyway, enough football geekery. Despite today's game being a blowout, it was exciting to see the clinic the Bucs defense put on, running seemingly out of nowhere to intercept passes, and pass rushers who were clearly just plain faster than Oakland scrambling quarterback Rich Gannon. It was surprising what a mismatch it was, actually. And in the wake of the Ravens' 2000 win, it sure looks like a dominating defense is the key to winning the Super Bowl. What will 2003 bring? (By the way, I did even better in my 1997 predictions, which you can read about here, as well as reading about me crowing about it.)
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