It’s fall. It’s time for the Cougs and the Giants (San Francisco) to start The Swoon.

The Swoon is the traditional fall from grace, what some call “Couging It” and not in a good way. That whole “Couging it in a good way” was lame. The Swoon is when there appears to be some hope, some small light at the end of the tunnel, som possibility, and then it is snuffed out with pure hopelessness and the same level of mediocrity as you’e used to over the years.

When your teams are the SF Giants, Forty Niners, Golden State Warriors, Cougs, and your backup teams are Seattle Mariners and Seahawks, you’re very much someone who knows the Swoon. So as the weather turns, embrace the cool weather and the sheer sense of sports hopelessness that will chill you until the optimism next spring. Of course, I hope I’m wrong.

Well it wasn’t a great week for State v. AllYouMofos. A 50 point slide in points, Philly D having yet another off week (this is a peril of having to expect big points from your D) and Steve Smith not stepping up on Monday night and getting a big bunch of catches. Of course, having one of the leagues premiere receivers hitched to the Jake Delhomme wagon is not a receipe for great points, but be that as it may. I lost the weekly matchup and fell to second in the overall points standaings. Let’s hope next week is better, or it’s going to be a long slide from here on out.

I was surfing around for some Spokane area art, and I stumbled across some great painting as Jessie’s Fine Art Painting a Day Blog.  I like the sharp brush strokes, the qucik emotion that gives you a fun first impression in the great impressionistitc style: light, form, geometry, emotion. But what really hit me a bit was how there is something a bit deeper in the paintings, even ones which the artist kind of puts to the sidelines.

Take a look at Plums or Blue, two paintings the artist describes as lacking something, missing the mark, or just being a fun color study. If you look at the images, open them in a new tab, then come back to them in 5 or 10 minutes or in an hour. Notice how you’ll have some new feelings with the images after that time. They are a touch more familiar, but you’ll start to see a bit of depth in the blue, an emotion that isn’t just a sideline depression or “blue” feeling, but something a bit optimistic in a color that is normally somewhat sad or subdued.

And I’m suprised by my reaction to Plums. The edge of the table on the right creates a kind of movement, as if the plums, which are clearly still and fine, are moving to fall off. The shadows indicate a nearby window, but the colors are kind of dusty or kind of lived in a bit.  It’s great to find local art, and moving images in the most unlikely of places.

Take a video of the symptoms of swine flu, and then open in another tab a fun jazz track like Courtney Pines “Underground”. Mix them up and watch what happens to your experience of these diverse sources.

Try again with something like this phone interview with eccentric NYC resturant owner on this Amazon product page.  Then open another tab with a classic streaming jazz track like Sonny Rollins St. Thomas on lastfm.com.

Start both audio streams, adjust the volume to your liking, and see how the two are soundtracking each other and kind of making a new and interesting whole. They are different lengths, so fast forward the interview if you want to get to something you like. Try it with a jazz CD and an audio book and get the same effect. You’ll enjoy it.

Notice the little “S” icon in the web address or browser tab? It took about half an hour to do that, not too shabby. I couldn’t think of anything better for a SpoVegas favicon.

 Oh my goodness! Ronnie Brown rips off a 25 point Monday night and I’m crying into my beer. Fantasy Football has turned me into a smack talk monster (and most of my smack isn’t even very funny, which makes it hurt all the more). I can’t stop, I’m having too much fun, and even though Kibbles kicked my butt I can still hold my head high and know that I’m having a great time.

Watch out Dewey, Cheatem and Howe! Drew Brees is going to have an off night one of these days!

Side note: I’ve realized that you can post smack talk on other people’s matchups and get them a message. It opens up a whole new world…

Oh, The Temptation from Steve V on Vimeo.

Video of traditional experiment with kids and marshmallows. Hopefully this will make you smile.

Read it and weep sucker!

Even after drafting an injured quarterback and a suspended kicker, I managed to pull it out. And when the only guy I can get, Kyle Orton of the Broncos, manages a hail mary final with an amazing reception run for a TD, and I get a huge production out of the Philly defense, you have to know it was meant to be.

Next up: Kibbles and Vicks, where even with my sucky team I’m a projected 17 point winner. I’m not sayin’, I’m just sayin’.

Even after reading a Fox New’s article on why “conservatives” were objecting to President Obama’s speech to the schools last week, I was left with only one question: Are you kidding me?

Okay, let’s take a look at the speech itself, and then the provided school materials for grade school and high school. This is what has everyone upset?

If having President Obama challenge students to stay in school, work hard and achieve their goals is “socilaist indoctrination” then I’m at a loss at what to do with our country. When lesson plans, even if they asked for students to help the president directly achieve better schools and better educations, are this blandly optimistic and supportive, I”m having trouble understanding those on the right.

And I voted for George Bush the first time around. I also voted for Dole against Clinton (though I did support Jerry “Gov Moonbeam” Brown against George HW Bush in high school, for full discolsure). I don’t consider myself a left wing liberal or a conservative. I believe to think that I vote for the best person for the job regardless of party and ideology.

But this mess about a president asking for help means having indocrination is just gibberish. Read the speech and tell me if that isn’t something you want any president to repeat each year to your kids. It’s great and helpful and I hope it gets results. The speech itself and the accompanying materials defy the “socialist indoctrination” critique pretty strongly. Looking at the basic ideas, you can see the essential conservatism of President Obama. Even when he was handed legislative power, striking mandate, and other situations which could have lead him to taking off toward the left, Obama (much to the dismay of his leftist allies) has demanded a debate at the center of politics even when it hurts him.

Here, he doens’t just ask kids to help him, he asks kids to help themselves do better. He issues coded phrases which would have been unthinkable from an African American polititian even a few years ago, such as:

But at the end of the day, the circumstances of your life — what you look like, where you come from, how much money you have, what you’ve got going on at home — none of that is an excuse for neglecting your homework or having a bad attitude in school. That’s no excuse for talking back to your teacher, or cutting class, or dropping out of school. There is no excuse for not trying.

Essentially President Obama is telling kids that the politics of victimization isn’t going to be an excuse for poor performance. And he takes this “no excuses” exercise of “tough love” to the next logical level, telling kids that:

I know that sometimes you get that sense from TV that you can be rich and successful without any hard work — that your ticket to success is through rapping or basketball or being a reality TV star. Chances are you’re not going to be any of those things.

That’s a hard truth for many people of color, where entire communities are built around the pro sports dreamology (watch Hoop Dreams again if you need some proof).

You might think I’m crazy to say that Obama is showing himself as a true conservative, but take a look at articles like this and this from the election, and you’ll see where I’m coming from. There is even a story about how Obama is the new Reagan. When you think about how much President Obama talks about responsibility, you can get what I mean. Those who now occupy the far right fringe have set themselves in opposition to anything Obama does, but the increasing criticism of Obama from the left should let you know where he really stands: at the center of politics in America.

When you call your budget “A New Era of Responsibility” you’re sending a signal that you aren’t about giveaways and freeloading. When you tell kids to study because they aren’t going to be a star, you’re a small “c” conservative. When was the last time you heard a Republican adivising parents to get kids to study more and play less videogames? Probably not as much as you’ve seen Republicans trying to outlaw certain video games, along with records and such. The kind of conservatism Obama speaks of requires personal accountability and effort, it isn’t accomplished with government regulation. Obama has proposed no new grand effort of liberal anti-freedom initiatives, and the regulations are aimed squarely at corporations and large assemblages of wealth and power.

The now famous fear that Obama is going to start taking away our guns remains unfounded. While there are whispers and talk of various fearful Obama things, it is refreshing to see a president take the stage and argue forcefully for discussion and cooperation. We’re talking about a conservative president schooled on Sesame Street and not far left radical craziness. If calls for taking care of each other, everyone paying their fair share, and being responsibile for yourself are what passes for the radical left wing, I have only one thing left to say: Are you kidding me?

I was taking a look at old SpoVegas stuff  (the pre-hyphen era) and realized that one of my last big columns was an explication of how there wasn’t really anything to this whole “subprime mortgage” problem. Even with all the foreclosures out there, the direct economic impact of foreclosures alone would not have had the current effect on our economy without the disastorous bets of wall street hedgers. It was the bundling and insurance and hedging on top of bundling and insurance that put us where we are. Looking at the fundamentals, the fall of investment banks and major insurers due to a fairly minor rise in foreclosures makes no sense.

But when you start to look at the life of sophisticated financial instruments that require various bets to be paid, or should I say insurance contracts to be covered with cash, when housing prices rise or fall, then you can begin to understand the crumble of AIG or Lehman Brothers or our entire country.

When John McCain said that the fundamentals of the economy are strong he sounded like a tone deaf idiot. But he was just looking at the fundamentals, and failed to notice that half of our economic paper money was being bet on a casino table and was about to bring us to a serious situation. Perhaps we did what we needed to do. But now we need to just label most “investments” as the gambling they really are and go about our lives. We should outlaw secondary betting (beyond the holders of the original asset) in the same way we outlaw life insurance purchases or payments by those outside of a certain circle (to prevent controlled killing collections I’d assume).

Also known as common sense. My old analysis sounds irresonsible, stupid, and tone deaf. But I was right on, I just didn’t know that the future of our country was being bet on splitting  pair of 8′s against a dealers ten.