For the record, I just stopped listening to the Charger game on Internet radio. I turned it off with about two minutes to go in the third quarter, right after the Raiders intercepted.
The Chargers only score happened during a server timeout.
Follow-up:
Apparently it was at about one minute to go in the third quarter that the interception occurred, at which point the Raiders had the ball deep in San Diego territory. I turned off the game, deciding at that point that sleep would be more fun. I awoke the next morning to discover that soon after I turned off the game, San Diego had intercepted the ball right back. They went on to score two touchdowns (benefitting from a bizarre rules interpretation by the referees) and won the game.
I now attribute the server error that prevented me from hearing their first score to “curse interference” — it was such a slam dunk for them to score that the universe had to stop me from listening for a moment to allow it to happen without inviting untold destruction.
I would curse your computer server link but that would be wrong.
They won in spite of you!
Your web page almost works on Opera. Ever since my Norton Mis-adventures Firesfox just hasn’t worked right. There has been a horrible lag time in the pages. I’ve been using Explorer – but the guilt involved! So I am trying Opera, and I have to say, so far, so good. Of course it’s only been a couple of hours…
When you say, “almost works”, what doesn’t?
Jerry,
The Chargers are better than you think. I’m thinking SuperBowl XLI. They don’t suck anymore.
They might make it to the Super Bowl…unless Jerry goes to watch the Playoffs!
As for Opera… the ‘&’ looks fine, but the ‘Blog Explained’ is in the middle of the screen and runs over the ‘Phrases like..” I’ll email you a screen shot.
Unrecognized MOH pL
The Chargers are a great team this year, except when I’m watching them, which is frustrating. I think there are only two or three other teams that could compete with them right now.
Raiders would be over .500 if they were in any other division. Put them in the NFC and they might even make the playoffs.
As The Grand Muddler and acting MOH, I decree that the poem randomizer be fixed. It seems to be randomly choosing from a very small selection of Muddled Haikus.
There are two rotations: the new haikus and the big pile. (Pile o’ haiku — a popular roadside attraction on the highway between Tokyo and Kyoto,) I tweak the ratio inversely with the number of new entries, but I’m behind getting the latest work into the rotation. In fact, I’m way, way, behind. (The Muddleverse is not averse to the idea of a poetry editor, as long as the definition of poetry has nothing to do with ‘poetry’.)
That’s right Seeger. You stay away from the Chargers and no one gets hurt!
Latest ratio clogged
Verbal birthing floats farther
New ‘kus by fuego.
At what point are you going to declare the Mysterious Person from Far Away, whose nickname is Hope, the best post-apocalyptic superhero?
Sorry to hear about the flood. To your credit, it sounds like you knew where your towel was at. Something tells me that navigating the Czech insurance industry will spawn at least one post.
As it turns out, not such a bizarre rules interpretation by the referees, as it turns out. Two different places in the rulebook (reprinted by the SD Tribune) particularly call out any forward fumble as a forward pass. While this seems bizarre, one needs the context of why this rule exists in the first place: the Holy Roller Play, where in the Raiders, on the final play of a game against the Chargers, kept fumbling the ball forward (starting with Ken Stabler, as he was getting sacked) until they ultimately recovered the “fumble” in the end zone, winning the game. I remember watching that game 20+ years ago. Was it a playoff game, or just one with playoff implications?
So one Raider’s fan “bizarre rules interpretation” is a Charger’s fan “divine retribution righting an historical wrong.” You have got to love the irony.
The funny thing is, if you try to imagine how they might alter this rule in the off-season to punish bone headed celebrations like the one by Jackson (allowing “fumbles by celebration” while disallowing “fumbles to move the ball forward”) I can’t imagine how you’d do it. The rule, as it stands now, has minimal interpretation of player intent, and therefore probably won’t be changed.
The play was actually called correctly, and would be called the same in the future. Strange, but true.
Two “as it turns out” are often better than one.
The writer on ESPN’s site was considerably less on the ref’s side, saying something to the effect that intent was always relevant, as it is for any forward pass. But by then I had turned off the broadcast, so there was only one way the ruling could go.
The Chargers are getting more than 50% of the breaks from the refs, it’s clear. Happened again this week. And I’m not saying the refs are getting it wrong: how they saw that the ball touched a Bill player on that onside kick even before confirming it on instant reply was quite impressive. The Chargers are a good team, getting/earning some good breaks. That’s a powerful combination in sports. How often have you heard the losing team observer “the other team just seemed to get all the breaks.” Right now, the Chargers are rolling, KC and Denver are reeling, and Indy (whom the Chargers know they can beat from last year) is shaky.
Go Chargers! But don’t ask me to pay for a new stadium.