WEEK 1

Week One matchups include

New Orleans at Indianapolis


IND: Crawfish.
NWO: Insect.

"Black Gold" and a white town --- "black gold" is a central issue in Taiwan, it's the term used for "drug and sex related urban unrest". Block parties are great, but there is nothing quite like opening a new factory to make the people happy. The New Orleans District Attorney went to my school, I have been reading about the city in my alumni magazine, it says that "monunental changes are taking place". Laissez bon temps roulez. 2007's New Orleans is a young team in terms of its current incarnation.

Result: Indy 41 NWO 10

New England at New York Jets


NYJ: Mao money, mao money!
NWE: Calm down.
NYJ: Okay, Plankton, what is up?
NWE: I've just washed these blankets.
NYJ: Blankets? Of what?
NWE: Never mind. Mets suck.
NYJ: Right. Pats suck too.
NWE: How about we...
NYJ: We what?
NWE: Meet on Sunday.
NYJ: That's nice, Plankton.
NWE: You jerk

Sometimes, being a successful Manhattanite involves loading up a lot of attitude into one's ego, dumping it into one's psyche and then unloading all day the most interesting talk soup all the while taking each turn in the conversation to redefine oneself as being more and more beyond the shadow of suspicion of political incorrectness than one was a moment before. It's a process. Of course, "being politically correct" is a shallow term compared to the actual task of sorting through the thoughtful junk and debris that occupy our political talkspace. Let's be careful out there!

NYC sucks up so much attention and bandwidth, especially due to its position as home of the communications industry, that it seems ridiculous sometimes to even try to define oneself as a worth-it person if one is from a different town or area. Or country. The bigggest issue by far facing us in the Western world is the aftermath of the Holocaust and World War 2, meaning a lot of grief and angst that it sometimes pays to nap through. Napping is not a New York method in the first place, and avoiding lots of LA-NY prime time tv is a healthy, sane way to organize one's thoughts. This line of reasoning may not make sense to a yuppie. So be it. The point is that New York needs assistance with its deeply caffeinated witty life, and now you've got the Jets at a disadvantage, because according to The Art of War and Machiavelli, once one decides to provide fake assistance to the enemy, in this case the Jets, the psychological battle is won. Since everybody in America watches TV, this concept is in play not only against New York but against any team that eats a lot of food at the media buffet.

Staleness and cliche are a huge problem for media gluttons on both sides of the camera, so it pays to say things that aren't interesting, like "That's great" and "You got it". To city people and media people who are up to their necks in sorting through mountains of valid viewpoints and empty rhetoric, it works like an aspirin, and at that point one is not only cleverly trying to fake-rescue people from a media migraine, one is also getting the job done by actually feeding them some pain relief. It may seem like I have spent a lot of time thinking about this, but this philosophy is drastically underdeveloped as presented here. It sounds ridiculous to boot.

Tennessee at Jacksonville


Chicago at San Diego


SDG: That's a big bag of rice.
CHI: ty
SDG: How about some chicken w/that rice?
CHI: Comin' at you.
SDG: Mm delicious. What kind of chicken is this?
CHI: Dis chicken?
SDG: Yeah, dis chicken.
CHI: You talking about dis chicken?
SDG: Screw you.
CHI: LOL


With the exception of the free-standing simplified gold radical in the NWO crayfish, "Mao Money" on the Jets side and the partial "6 soap" on the NWE side, all words used in these plates are actual words. As far as dialog is concerned, I don't have an 11 year old son, but if I did, that's what he would write.

Video Break

Sun by John Lydon

The Indian dance - to be danced..
The Indian dance - to be danced..
The Indian dance - to be danced..
The Indian dance - to be danced..



No Diggity by Blackstreet



Cappucino by MC Lyte

YouTube link Pony Ride by Bumblebeez (no embed available)

NFC EAST

Dallas Cowboys - The men symbolize the mirrors of a solar tower. The yellow thing is the sun. The funny thing about Australian/American solar tower technology is that the unit on the top of the tower gets as hot as the sun. Please see picture on right.

Philadelphia Eagles - Sort of a simplified form of the word "Eagle". There is a paired element in the actual word for eagle which has been removed, reflecting Phila management's 2007 quarterback decisioning.>

New York Giants - In trying to think about how high Gothamites are, in general, it doesn't really pay to spend time wondering about it. It will suffice to merely note that they are high on life, and to then move on. And by Gothamites I mean Superman, Batman, Blue Man Group, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, John and Suzyn at WCBS, et cetera. The thing about this one is that the major right-hand element is the "NAI" in "Nigeria", which resembles "NYG" phonetically. And, one could picture it as a very happy person riding a bicycle with both legs out to the side, meaning a kind of happiness that might be de rigeur in both Gotham and in Lagos. SW Nigeria is a very Yoruba place, and one can sense the tension between Yoruba happiness and Yoruba grittiness in the career of Wanda Sykes, to name one person. Unfortunately this is as far as my African Studies scholarship can currently take me. This word looks like a normal Chinese word.

Washington Redskins - A commentary on Hollywood's strange effect on US politics, including elections. The weakest offering on this page so far. This word is from the dictionary, unlike most of the words on this blog, which have the status of words like "Panasonic", "Dischord", "Dorito", "Aqua Velva", "Blackalicious", "Krunk" and the like. Actually, "Krunk" is now in the dictionary. At any rate, the word here is "Woman", and I am specifically thinking of Washington's lack of involvement in the ongoing affairs of the country of Myanmar, which involvement should be a priority as Britain has had a very difficult time speaking sanguinely to this nation, of which it is the primary agent to the West, especially in regards to the career of Aung San Kyuu Kyi, a Londoner/Myanmarese who has not benefited from Britain's inability to bring Myanmar into the modern diplomatic world. Phew. For the fast track on what this word "really means" picture the horizontal element as a tabletop, think of a man's lap on the left and a woman's arm on the right and think of Jethro Tull's immortal line from "Locomotive Breath": "...and the all-time winner's..got him by the balls...". Can you see it? Can you? Chinese is so amazing. I suppose if this team was going somewhere it would behoove me to talk more about the onfield talent, but as it is, one shouldn't miss an opportunity to move the Chinese Curriculum along. My original concept for WAS was "OLD MAN TAKE A LOOK AT MY LIFE".

NFC NORTH

Found it hard to get inspired about this division, each one is similar.
Each has the Standing Hand Radical on the left. And on the right:

Chicago Bears: Talent. Rex Grossman reminds me of Fat Mike from NOFX; he is a talented singer songwriter.

Minnesota Vikings: Color. The color purple.

Green Bay Packers: Something about "Little old me", in reference to Favre and the franchise's history.

Detroit Lions: Work, as in "Now it is time for the Detroit Lions to get to work." If one refers back to Washington Redskins, one can see the woman radical at work in Canada's mappitological relationship to the city of Detroit.

NFC SOUTH

New Orleans Saints: "Talent" on the top, and "inch" on the bottom, as though the word is saying "This Shorty's definitely on the rise in this league". "Three Drops of Water" radical is on the left.

Carolina Panthers: I didn't really know what I was doing when I was writing this, I started thinking of the band Caroliner, whose album titles always remind me of airports and airlines. The Chinese word has something to do with blobs of blue ice landing somewhere in the woods.

Atlanta Falcons: In the history of the American South, how difficult was it for African Americans to organize and form a beaurocracy? The current Michael Vick story is all about how dog fighting has served as a vehicle for society in the South. It is a harsh vehicle, and there of course are reasons for it to be there, and for it to be the way that it is.

Tampa Bay Buccaneers: The giant plastic ship and the dozens of rusted servo motors that are supposed to raise the Tampa flag when the team scores a touchdown were inspirations for this word.

NFC WEST

Seattle Seahawks: A nice word that is something like "Marching Plastic Men". It includes a trident visual element.

San Francisco 49ers: When I visited San Fran, I ate a lot of Mexican food; hence, the red and yellow color. This is a pretty good word that helps resolve a lot of San Francisco issues for me.

St Louis Rams: After thinking of this word, it struck me that it looked like the last play of St Louis' Super Bowl victory, as time ran out, which was supposedly the most exciting Super Bowl - before the New England era began. The right hand element looks like the goal line, the left hand element looks like the 2 or 3 yard line and the middle element, "short tailed bird", looks like the laces of a football or a hand reaching forward to put the ball past the goal line. The word "short tailed bird" is used in the word "Cardinals" and the word "chicken", like the word "Gai" in "Moo Goo Gai Pan".

Arizona Cardinals: The Big Host of the Super Bowl. As far as information about China is concerned, two West Coast cities with ethnic Chinese pluralities are Victoria, Canada and Calexico, which is near the Southwest corner of Arizona. The colors were chosen from the Arizona Cardinals' website.

AFC EAST

New England Patriots and New York Jets - Originally this was to be "Company 1" and "Company 2" but I got inspired. The two numbers used as the left hand elements correspond not to one and two but to the Grecoroman numbers used in words like pentagon, hexagram, September, octane, November, Dewey Decimal, dodecahedron, sesquicentennial, et cetera.

Buffalo Bills - Toronto is just across the lake, and Rush's "Invisible Airwaves" gets a lot of play on the radio.

Miami Dolphins - A literal translation of the actual word for Dolphin and a Chinese word that has to do with "Thailand of the West", maybe.

AFC NORTH

Baltimore Ravens - Ravens look great. Ravens and crows emit a "lively, deathly sound", to be an idiot poet about it.

Cincinnati Bengals - I haven't been to Cincy lateley, but an amateur's diagnosis would point to lack of integration of rap and metal. Too much Metallica? No such thing. Not enough Metallica? Hardly likely.

Pittsburgh Steelers - Ben seems to be an old player at this time.

Cleveland Browns - It's not too difficult to be funny about this team's name.

AFC SOUTH

Indianapolis Colts - As a New England supporter, sitting through 8 or 9 Sundays getting "hoosed" just by being in contact with the Indianapolis team, thinking about farming, RCA, Letterman, Quayle; it's a dim experience. I have visited many American cities, Indianapolis isn't one of them. The thing on the left is "farm" and it looks like a farmer who is stepping out in an awkward manner. I really have to think about what I write about this team, they are pretty good, it's not a good idea to write something dumb. The thing on the right is a giant pair of grandma panties. This is not actually a Chinese word as far as I know.

Jacksonville Jaguars - It always seems to me that one is always in attendance at a nice KOA evening celebration here in Jacksonville. I like cheesy Jax, the Chinese word is like "plastic food". KOA stands for "Campgrounds of America", like AOL stands for "America Online". The thing on the right is like plastic and is part of the word "Clinton". "Clinton" is a word that appeared everyday in the Chinese newspaper for years, this is a word element that is very familiar to the reading public. It looks kind of smarmy and excited. Getting back to real life for a moment, plastic is so important to Taiwan's economy and the toy industry. All that stuff at Walmart is made of plastic originating in Taiwan venture capital, in Fujian, Taiwan and the Hong Kong area. If one thinks that the development of industry in Taiwan was some kind of easy task, think again. I will have to find the story of the big petroleum ---> methyl alcohol plant in the 60s in Taiwan that had to be located on an island because no one would have it in their backyard. I should stop telling this story now, I believe in generating confidence in the economy, no sense in comparing Taiwan to America or Europe here. There are so many paychecks to print, there is so much tuition to pay, there is so much physics to do. Suffice it to say that some of the plastic in my computer, some of the plastic in your computer, no doubt comes from this facility.

Tennessee Titans : In writing about football here, I learned something about the coming season, mainly, that Tennessee and Baltimore seem strong. That is my impression. In South and Southwest Africa there is an escarpment, like Old Rockytop, that bars inland trade via most of the rivers. At places it is over 800 meters high. That's half a mile. In South Africa there is a water project that involves lifting water from the Milk River and the Sunday River up the escarpment for the Gauteng Province water supply, which includes Pretoria and Johannesburg. One can read about this infrastructure project at the Wikipedia. The word I wrote for this means "Work your balls off getting to the top." The light blue element (the Heart Radical) would represent one's balls.

Houston Texans: Two agricultural products that use a lot of water are beef and alfalfa sprouts. I thought the word "sprouts" (in white) looked kind of like the franchise logo. The red thing is an actual escarpment with a person standing at the top (see Tennessee). The blue thing in this case is "clear blue vison". Nothing like going up to the heights and looking out over the valley and clearing one's mind before returning home down to the house. I believe there is a post-conversion Bob Dylan song about this.

AFC WEST

San Diego Chargers - Boat plus 2 stones. Thing about San Diego, Norv Turner's pretty good.

Denver Broncos - Some kind of play on the word west and the word sweet and the word prarie wind. And the non-word "Dingin in the Wind". Ok, I am getting a little wiped, let's say that Jack Kerouac was up to it the same in Lowell Mass as he was in Denver and points west - hittin' the wind and keeping an eye on the bohemian nickels and dimes. Good luck in the new Cutler era, Denver.

Kansas City Chiefs - Something to do with this city's role in food production, maybe translated as "I noticed you were hungry."

Oakland Raiders - This one came out scary looking, like 7th graders "writing" on a the ceiling of a school lavatory with a Bic lighter. The two little words at the top are "hearts" and the two little words at the bottom are "little". "Little heart" is "danger" in the Chinese dictionary. Abunai desyo! The big thing is history. Picture that thing under the cliff as like one of those babes on the mudflaps of an 18 wheeler, except this time on her hands and knees, and you've got the word "history". That's right, it's Motley Crue's Girls, Girls Girls. Apparently babes with nothing to do but to crawl around on their hands and knees have a lot to do with major historical developments. Raiders are one of the most storied teams, with John Madden keeping a close watch over the big game every week. Will JaMarcus be on top of San Diego and Denver in 3 years? One doesn't know.

'''''''''''''''

What do I think?

New Orleans and Carolina should eat Atlanta and Jeff Garcia, giving them 4-0's in division. Same for New England/New York and Buffalo/Miami. What really sucks for the competition is that Chicago Bears guy who moved to the Jets.

If one watches South Park and South Park-produced movies, the gestalt in the West is Utah vs the Coast. San Fran is there, DeBartolo's family is there. Oik. If Seattle is owned by Microsoft, who represents Red Hat/Linux (St Louis?) and who represents Mozilla Firefox? (Arizona?) Hmm.

And maybe Philly beats Dallas anyway. We'll see.

Seattle
Chicago
Dallas
New Orleans
----------
Philadelphia
Carolina
San Francisco

NFC Game = New Orleans

&

New England
Baltimore
San Diego
Indianapolis
----------
New York
Tennessee

AFC Game = New England and New York

Be sure to find an online sports site and bet on New York Jets to win more than 8 games this season. Payout is ~ 1.20 won for every 1.00 spent.