Week Eight NFL Picks

8-6 last week; 51-53 for the season

Denver at San Francisco (-2.5): Denver

Jacksonville at Dallas (-6.5): Jacksonville

Miami at Cincinnati (-1): Miami

Buffalo at Kansas City (-7): Kansas City

Washington at Detroit (-2.5): Washington

Carolina at St. Louis (-2.5): Carolina

Green Bay at New York Jets (-6): New York

Tennessee at San Diego (-5): San Diego

Minnesota at New England (-5.5): New England

Tampa Bay at Arizona (-3): Tampa Bay

Seattle at Oakland (-2.5): Oakland

Pittsburgh at New Orleans (-1.5): Pittsburgh

Houston at Indianapolis (-5.5): Indianapolis

Panel of the Week

From Bruce Wayne – The Road Home: Ra's al Ghul #1:

Commit to the bit

The Blue Line was incredibly packed this evening. It was one of those rides where the operator warns everyone not to overcrowd the train or else she'll stop it and force everyone to get off.

Which made it somewhat off-putting to see this guy draped across an entire seat while a few dozen riders were standing up. (Just in case people didn't get the message that he didn't want anyone sitting next to him, he had a bag on the seat for good measure.)

You know the type of chivalrous man (often seen in movies, but not real life) who would go up to a total stranger on a train and politely suggest he move over so a woman might sit, in a tone of voice that's pleasant, but at the same time has a distinct "Listen, friend, I'm smiling, but you really don't want to fuck with me" edge to it? That's not me. I'm more of the "I'm going to passively observe this so I can write about it on my blog" type of man. Which is to say, not really much of one.

The guy stayed like this for a few stops, as more and more people got on. Finally, someone asked if she could have the seat next to him. And...he moved over.

This annoyed me on two levels.

First, if he'd refused, this post would be so much better. Because while people on the Metro may be reluctant to risk a confrontation by asking someone to move over whose body language is absolutely screaming, "Go fuck yourself, I'm not moving over," if he'd been the one to make things ugly, I have no doubt that everyone on the train would have turned on him. Safety in numbers and all that. There would have been a lot of mocking and trash talking until he either relented or got off the train.

But also, if you're going to be the kind of asshole who goes to great lengths to make it clear you don't want to share your seat, be that asshole! Commit to the bit! Don't fold the second someone asks you to move. It makes no sense, what this guy did.

Consider your seating options when you sit down on the Metro:

1) You occupy one seat and make the other one available for someone else. Pro: No one thinks you're an asshole. Con: You only get one seat.

2) You occupy both seats by stretching out or putting something on the seat next to you. Someone asks you to move over. You refuse. Pro: You get both seats. Con: Everyone thinks you're an asshole.

3) You occupy both seats by stretching out or putting something on the seat next to you. Someone asks you to move over. You move over. Pro: None. Con: You only get one seat, but more importantly, everyone still thinks you're an asshole.

Look, be a seat hog or don't be a seat hog. But decide which one you are, and stick with it. Don't half-ass it. It doesn't do you or your fellow riders any good.

Paranormal Activity 2

When I saw Paranormal Activity, I thought it was a decent horror film whose hype got blown out of proportion. It was sort of clever, but it wasn't especially entertaining or scary.

A year later, Paranormal Activity 2 comes along, and I actually think this one might have lived up to the hype the first one got. Maybe not completely, given how people were raving about it like it was the greatest horror movie ever made. But close. And why? Because shit actually happens in this one.

Paranormal Activity is essentially just one long tease that leads up to a final moment that I thought was pretty underwhelming. Paranormal Activity 2 is somewhat similar, but it gives you enough creepy moments and one legitimately awesome "Gotcha! Moment" (as Roger Ebert derisively refers to it) that I don't think it's just better than the first one, but actually far superior.

Spoilers follow...

There were two things about this film that I hated. First, the card at the beginning, where Paramount thanks the "family of the deceased" for the footage in the film. Paranormal Activity did something similar, this is what I wrote, and it still holds true:

As far as other first-person camera horror films go, Cloverfield also ran such a disclaimer, and I'm pretty sure Quarantine did as well. Look, Hollywood, we know these films aren't actually real footage that you acquired, and decided to put up on the big screen. You don't need to let us know how they supposedly came to be in your possession.

I don't even understand why anyone thinks this is a good idea. Can you imagine how sick a movie studio would have to be to get their hands on footage of people being murdered--even by something supernatural--and release it as a film? Not even Disney would be that evil. Also, once again, they're telling us ahead of time that the main characters get killed. Why would I want to know this at the start of the film?

Second, I wasn't wild about the explanation that the demon was after Katie and Kristi because their grandmother made a deal to sacrifice their family's first born son for wealth and power. I guess it was nice to get some reason why all this was going on, but I'm not sure this really fits the tone of the films.

Everything else, though, is pretty good. I liked how the film seamlessly serves as both prequel and sequel, I liked that some annoying questions from the first one were answered (i.e., the photo in the attic), and I loved the fact that there were some genuinely creepy moments. The part where all the kitchen drawers open at once was the Gotcha! Moment I thought was really well done, and there were plenty of others, too. Especially the subtle ones, like the pool cleaner silently moving around or Kristi sitting next to Hunter's crib one moment, and disappearing the next.

The ending was much better than the first film's, although, it seemed like the filmmakers really wussed out by having Ali not be home for Katie to snap her neck or whatever. What, killing off annoying teenagers is no longer allowed in horror films?

It's pretty much a lock that there'll be a Paranormal Activity 3, but I hope they don't feel the need to follow up on Katie and Hunter. I'm perfectly satisfied with the idea that evil won this round. Move on to another family and another demon, ghost, etc. It seems like it'd be a good way to extend the life expectancy of a franchise that might otherwise get really stale, really fast.

Script: B-
Acting: B
Gore: D
Overall: B-

Week Seven NFL Picks

6-8 last week; 43-47 for the season

Cincinnati at Atlanta (-3.5): Atlanta

Washington at Chicago (-3): Washington

Philadelphia at Tennessee (-3): Tennessee

Jacksonville at Kansas City (-9.5): Kansas City

Pittsburgh at Miami (+3): Pittsburgh

Cleveland at New Orleans (-13): New Orleans

St. Louis at Tampa Bay (-3): Tampa Bay

San Francisco at Carolina (+3): Carolina

Buffalo at Baltimore (-13): Baltimore

Arizona at Seattle (-7): Arizona

New England at San Diego (-2.5): New England

Oakland at Denver (-7): Denver

Minnesota at Green Bay (-3): Green Bay

New York Giants at Dallas (-3): New York

Panel of the Week

From Superman/Batman #77:

My Soul To Take

I didn't actually realize this until I saw My Soul To Take, but one of the things I dig about Wes Craven's earlier films is that he never bothered to explain stuff. Shit just happened.

In Elm Street, he never established how Freddy Krueger came back to kill teenagers in their dreams. It just happened. In Shocker, he never explained the weird floating lips that let Horace Pinker jump into people's bodies. It just happened. In The People Under the Stairs...well, you get the point.

Conversely, in My Soul To Take (a truly horrible title for a film), there's so much information revealed about The Ripper (a truly horrible and unimaginative name for a horror movie slasher) and the hows and whys of his coming back, that it's impossible to ignore just how stupid the whole thing is. The fact it's all sort of dumped on you in the last five minutes doesn't help, either.

Throw in an irritating lead character, a completely by-the-numbers progression of dead teenagers, and a needless 3-D conversion, and it's a good thing Craven has Scream 4 coming out next year, otherwise he'd have to really search for redemption for this crap.

Spoilers follow...

I was actually in a good mood when the film started, mainly because it turns out the screening I went to wasn't in 3-D. I had the extra four bucks ready to hand over, but was relieved to find out it was in nice, old-fashioned 2-D. Which is great, because I wasn't able to find a single instance where 3-D would have been an improvement. There was one fake-looking blood splatter that was probably added in as an afterthought, and that was it.

The good mood continued through the first several minutes of the film, as Craven does a good job of introducing the Ripper, and I'm always a sucker for movies that feature small, lovely New England towns that just so happen to be hotbeds of evil.

Then we meet Bug.

Bug is maybe the worst horror movie hero ever. He's slow (like, slightly mentally retarded slow, not just dumb), he has a crush on the really annoying school slut while totally ignoring the smoking hot redhead that inexplicably seems to be into him, and he regularly has stupid exchanges like this:

Bug's friend: "Have you killed people, Bug?"
Bug (totally without sarcasm): "Not that I can remember."

As for the plot, I guess it made perfect sense to Craven when he came up with it, but it's hard to see how. Even breaking it down doesn't help.

1) The Ripper, a serial killer terrorizing a small town, is supposedly killed. That same night, seven babies are born prematurely.

2) Exactly eighteen years later, the seven kids are attending an annual "Keep the Ripper Away" ceremony, or whatever it was called. The ceremony is interrupted for the first time. Do you think this means the Ripper will come back?

Now, bear in mind, there is no such thing as a ceremony to keep a dead serial killer from coming back to life. The whole thing was completely made up by these kids. And since there's no way they were staying out late at night when they were little, they've only been doing this for a few years, at most. Even they don't believe in it. It's just an excuse to stay out late and light stuff on fire. So why is it such a big deal that the ceremony got interrupted? I don't know. At one point, one of the cops in the film muses that maybe they should have let the kids finish the ceremony. With cops that retarded, no wonder a serial killer was able to operate right under their noses.

3) The teenagers start dying off, as they tend to do in these kind of films. Unfortunately, the aforementioned smoking hot redhead is the second to die, which not-so-coincidentally, is when I knew this film was beyond redemption. Bug starts seeing them in mirrors and takes on aspects of their personalities, because it turns out they were actually reincarnations of the Ripper's victims the night he died and...whatever.

4) There's a ton of uninteresting filler until the last ten minutes. (Which are also uninteresting, but also needlessly confusing.)

5) It turns out, the killer (i.e., the teenager who the Ripper was reincarnated as) is Bug's best friend, who actually made himself an elaborate, heavy-looking Ripper costume in order to commit his murders. Why bother with this seemingly unnecessary step? I don't know. Why didn't he just kill Bug first and save us all a lot of hassle? I don't know that one, either.

I watch a fair amount of low-budget horror movies. And I've seen plenty that had strong enough scripts and acting, that if they'd had a bigger FX budget, could have been released in movie theaters instead of going straight to DVD. So it's really annoying to see a movie like My Soul To Take that was released in movie theaters that should have gone straight to DVD. I wouldn't excuse a movie this bad from someone like John Gulager. I'm sure as hell not going to excuse it from Wes Craven.

Script: D
Acting: C-
Gore: D+
Overall: D

Vote McMahon!

I'm not entirely happy about this or proud of it, but at some point recently, I became a wrestling fan. It started when I went to Survivor Series last year at the Verizon Center on a lark--my first time going to see wrestling live since I was 10--and had a surprisingly good time.

In my recap of that evening, I ended with the following:

But I think I'm set for the next 20 years. In the very least, it would take another big event like the Royal Rumble or Wrestlemania to get me back there. I don't really have any interest in just seeing Raw or SmackDown or some house show.

Yeah, about that. So last month, Monday Night Raw was filmed at Verizon. I went. There's going to be a non-televised house show there in December. I'm probably going to that, too. When it comes to flip-flopping, John Kerry has nothing on me.

But I don't feel bad about this, because the fact is, both of the WWE shows I've been to have been, dollar-for-dollar, the most entertaining sporting events I've been to in recent memory. The tickets cost less than decent seats for a Nationals game, much less than what I paid to go to my last Redskins game (and that's not even factoring in the emotional cost of the death march from the Metro station to FedEx Field), and even the Kastles couldn't wait to jack up ticket prices last season following their championship.

So, say what you will about the WWE, but they know how to put on a great live show. Even if you're not a wrestling fan, it's worth going to just for the experience.

I'm not nearly as enthusiastic about watching wrestling on TV. But I do it. Raw, anyway. SmackDown strikes me as dull and underwhelming, and I generally avoid it. With Raw, I know that on Monday nights I should probably be watching football or doing any one of roughly a thousand more productive things. Unfortunately, the show is oddly addictive, and every Monday at nine, I find myself flipping over to USA.

But Raw is far from perfect. Far, far, far from perfect. So when I got this email from the WWE, I saw an opportunity.

From: World Wrestling Entertainment
Date: Mon, Oct 18, 2010 at 5:05 PM
Subject: Stand Up For WWE

For many generations, families around the world have enjoyed WWE. Unfortunately, as a result of recent political events, some of the media have unfairly and inaccurately criticized the company. Therefore, we are calling on the WWE Universe to speak out and "Stand Up for WWE."

Please click here to see a special video from WWE Chairman & CEO Vince McMahon.

If you don't feel like seeing a special video from WWE Chairman & CEO Vince McMahon, the basic gist is: Vote Linda McMahon for Senate. Don't vote for the Democrat. The WWE's awesome. Anything bad you may have heard about the WWE are Democratic lies. (Dead wrestlers? What dead wrestlers?) Yay, social media. Yay, WWE. Vote McMahon.

Obviously, as a Democrat, I want Richard Blumenthal to win next month in Connecticut. BUT...I'm willing to set my ethics and political beliefs aside and put the full power and might of this blog (stop laughing) behind helping Linda McMahon win.

I just want one thing in return. And that is, for wrestling to stop sucking ass. The WWE has a ton of potential, but it's not being realized because this is a company that takes the path of least resistance at every possible turn. To that end, if Vince and Linda McMahon want my help in winning what's sure to be a tough election, I'd like to make the following suggestions to fix the WWE.

1) Stop with the constant hard sell of pay-per-views

Nine times out of ten, anything cool or worthwhile that happens in the WWE takes place on one of their pay-per-view events. When I was a kid, there were just a handful of these a year: WrestleMania, the Royal Rumble, Survivor Series, and maybe one or two others. This meant that the WWE (then the WWF) had to work to maintain viewers' interest the rest of the time. I'm not saying they necessarily succeeded--after all, I stopped watching for 20 years--but they had to try. These days, there's a PPV event every month, which means that the free programming essentially serves mainly as a way to entice people to buy them.

It wouldn't kill the WWE to throw the Raw/SmackDown audiences a bone every now and then. Why can't people see a title exchange hands without forking over $50 for the privilege? This wouldn't just be a benefit to viewers, either. It seems like the WWE's ratings would improve if people thought they might miss something by not watching.

(On a related note, there's absolutely no reason for non-title matches. If the WWE Champion has a match on Raw, it should always be a title match. There wouldn't be any down side to this. The whole thing is scripted! It's not like there could possibly be a shocking upset, Zack Ryder somehow ends up with the belt, and viewers tune out in droves.)

2) Either make the Divas earn their paychecks or get rid of them

There's an iPhone app called RunPee that lets you know the ideal places to take a bathroom break during movies, so you don't miss anything important. You don't need that with the WWE. You can just go whenever there's a Divas match.

I'm convinced that women wrestlers exist in the WWE for just two reasons: 1) To sell merchandise, and 2) Because without them, four hours a week of nothing but dudes in briefs groping one another, would be even more absurdly homoerotic than it already is. To justify their existence and give them just enough exposure to keep the merch moving, there's one Divas match each week. They usually last for two minutes and are always worthless.

Either commit to the idea of women wrestling or don't, but half-assing it doesn't seem like it's doing anyone any good.

3) Schtick has a shelf life

If you don't watch Raw (and if you don't and are somehow still reading, thank you for indulging me on this), for months, while Vince McMahon has been unable to appear on the show during his wife's campaign, there has been an "anonymous general manager" calling the shots via email. It's good schtick. I like it. Or at least I did for the first few weeks. Now it's just annoying. Ditto the Nexus angle.

Storylines are allowed to grow stale way too much. I'm not saying it's easy to write for the WWE, but it can't possibly be brain surgery, either.

4) The world can't revolve around John Cena, no matter how much the WWE wants it to

One gets the sense that if the WWE thought it could fire every other wrestler except for Cena, it would. I get that he's the face of the company, just like Hulk Hogan was when I was a kid, and Stone Cold and The Rock were during the period I wasn't watching, but enough already. It doesn't even feel like Randy Orton's the WWE champ, as much as it does that he's just keeping the belt warm for Cena. In the very least, during the opening for each WWE program, that last shot of Cena happily holding up the belt as a voice dramatically shouts, "The champ is here!" should be replaced with whoever actually happens to be the champ at the time.

To the WWE's credit, they've found an interesting angle with Cena being forced to join the Nexus, but they're not doing anything with it. Put him in a Nexus shirt, already, and have him turn heel.

5) Fire lots of people

There are your top-tier wrestlers (Cena, Orton, Edge, Undertaker, etc.) and your mid-tier wrestlers who have the potential to become top-tier ones (Miz, John Morrison, Jack Swagger, etc.). Then you have guys who will never, ever become top-tier or even mid-tier wrestlers, and are just taking up space. John Henry. R-Truth. Evan Bourne. Santino Marella. These people should be either mercilessly purged or given a gimmick that will make them more interesting. Seeing as how there are only so many interesting matches and feuds that can take place given the limited rosters, it seems like there should be a fair amount of regular turnover in order to keep things fresh. I guess that's why they have the annual draft between the two shows, but I'm not sure how exchanging crappy wrestlers from Raw to SmackDown and vice versa once a year, helps either brand.

Okay, look, to be totally honest, I'm not sure anyone in Connecticut actually reads this blog. So even if the McMahons acted on every single one of my ideas and I did indeed put the full power and might of this blog...which, you know, is considerable...behind Linda McMahon, I guess I can't actually guarantee her a victory. Or even a single extra vote. But it would make the WWE better. And since Linda McMahon isn't going to win anyway, she should probably focus on that.

Week Six NFL Picks

8-6 last week; 37-39 for the season

Miami at Green Bay (-3): Miami

San Diego at St. Louis (+8.5): San Diego

Baltimore at New England (-3): New England

Kansas City at Houston (-4.5): Kansas City

Atlanta at Philadelphia (-1.5): Atlanta

Cleveland at Pittsburgh (-14): Pittsburgh

Detroit at New York Giants (-10): New York

Seattle at Chicago (-6): Chicago

New Orleans at Tampa Bay (+5.5): Tampa Bay

New York Jets at Denver (+3.5): New York

Oakland at San Francisco (-7): Oakland

Dallas at Minnesota (-2): Dallas

Indianapolis at Washington (+3): Washington

Tennessee at Jacksonville (+3): Tennessee

Panel of the Week

From Batman: The Return of Bruce Wayne #5:

Geeky stuff I didn't buy in New York

I was in New York last week with a fair amount of down time. So rather than get some culture or sight see or do anything even remotely cool, I mostly just popped into various stores and didn't buy stuff.

One of the first places I went to was the Times Square Toys R Us, which I'd never been to before. I'm not sure there is such a thing as a great Toys R Us, but if so, this was it. It has a three-story Ferris wheel, lots of displays like an animatronic Jurassic Park T-Rex (I'm not sure why anyone's still making Jurassic Park toys, but whatever), and life-size statues of Superman and Spider-Man doing superheroish stuff.

Then I saw this guy:

You can't tell from the back, but this man had the full Santa look from the neck up, with white hair and a beard. He was also, as best I could tell, totally unaffiliated with the store. So it was just Santa in street clothes. Walking alone through a toy store at night. In October. It was a little creepy.

Also, when I went to use the restroom, there were two guys in there. Not using the facilities. Not waiting on someone else who was using the facilities. Not even talking to each other, although they clearly knew one another. Just hanging out.

Just out of curiosity, do children occasionally go missing in that store, never to be seen again? It wouldn't surprise me.

Because, God knows, there's nothing else to do in New York other than go to toy stores, I also went to FAO Schwarz. Last time I was there was several years ago, the day after Thanksgiving. That day, the whole place was filled with Christmas shoppers and there was a palpable holiday buzz. This time, the store was mostly empty and not nearly as fun, but there was still plenty of stuff to see.

The best was a new addition since the last time I was there: A make-your-own-Muppet area.

I want to say it was $100 for a Muppet. I'm not going to lie. I was a little tempted.

But not nearly as tempted as I was to get this! This is awesome. I wish Full Tilt had an option that allowed you to play with Batman cards. It would make losing at online poker so much more tolerable. It sucks to discover your flush has been beaten by a full house, but if that full house consisted of Ra's al Ghuls over Two-Faces? Not so much.

Jesus Christ, who knew they still made Smurfs?!?! For some reason, this discovery made me really, really happy.

Evidently, Gargamel and Azrael are no longer allowed to be evil, Smurf-eating bad guys, though. Note the party hats and happy expressions. And weep for the pussies today's kids will turn out to be because they didn't have proper toys.

Next, we move onto the NBC Experience Store. The clearance section consisted almost entirely of Heroes crap, which I guess they seriously over-ordered when the show was still popular. Can't NBC just send this stuff over to poor countries or something, like the NFL does when they make Super Bowl Champion shirts for both teams in advance, and then get rid of the ones for the losers? Then again, I guess just because kids live in poverty doesn't mean they should have Peter Petrelli action figures forced on them.

Also in the clearance section were Jim Cramer shirts, Jay Leno Show merchandise, and surprisingly, even a couple of Conan O'Brien items. I figured NBC would have burned those months ago.

But more impressively, they had these:

Dillon Panthers windbreakers! I actually got to the point where I was about to try one on, before I remembered that only about ten people in America actually watch Friday Night Lights and would get the reference.

There were also replica Panthers jerseys with the names of the characters on the back, but geez, I can't even conceive of how nerdy someone would have to be to wear one of those in public.

New York isn't known as a fashion mecca for nothing.

Finally, the geek tour ended at the legendary Jim Hanley's Universe, a comic book store I haven't been to in well over a decade. When I first visited it, I was amazed that a comic book store could afford to be located right next to the Empire State Building. These days, I'm even more amazed a comic book store can afford to be located right next to the Empire State Building.

It's a great store and well worth visiting, but there's a depressing sameness to comic book stores these days, and I ended up not being able to find anything to buy. Obviously, I've been spoiled by great local stores like Big Planet and Big Monkey, and might feel differently if I was visiting from some small town where the closest thing to a comic book store was the nearest Barnes & Noble. But it seems like every new comic book store I've been to over the past few years isn't all that different from any other comic book store. As the industry begins to shift over to digital comics, I think store identity is going to become more and more important.

Anyway, that was my trip. Maybe next time, I'll actually visit a museum or something. Or hell, maybe I'll just wander around in search of a woman wearing a Hello, Titty shirt, because I'm fairly certain that woman would be my soul mate.

Cash money heroes

Every year, people file suits alleging a litany of misdeeds by the D.C. government, including age discrimination, false arrest, improperly maintaining walkways, errantly tossing trash cans and driving over pedestrians.

Although some cases make it to trial, dozens and dozens of disputes are settled before they reach a courtroom... (Washington Post)

Thinking up get-rich-quick schemes is something of a hobby of mine. It beats doing work. Unfortunately, Jessica Cutler ruined my plans to get money for sex from people on the Hill, and Michael Vick pretty much ruined dog fighting for everyone. But after reading this article in today's Post, I've come to the conclusion that I've just been thinking too big. Rather than go for the huge payoffs, I should have been shooting for just a few thousand here and a few thousand there. Like these people!

A sixth-grader switches schools because she becomes overwhelmed by chronic allergies after her principal turns the cafeteria into a spay-and-neuter clinic for hundreds of cats. Transferring is only part of her cure: Her mother files a $100,000 lawsuit against the D.C. government and wins a $7,500 settlement.

I hate cats (hey, are cat fighting rings still okay? Surely, yes), so I can sympathize with the girl here. But rather than pay her off, wouldn't it have been easier for the government to just tell the principal to knock it the fuck off? I don't understand how Michelle Rhee has been firing teachers and principals for the past four years with impunity, for everything from poor test scores to apparently just looking at her funny, but she's okay with a principal turning the cafeteria into a spray-and-neuter clinic for cats? That doesn't even make any sense. That's a plot you'd see on The Office.

A visitor from Arizona trips and falls on a torn patch of Connecticut Avenue NW sidewalk. He needs surgery to repair his shoulder and a lawyer to sue the D.C. government for allowing the walkway to languish as a pedestrian hazard. The city settles the case for $60,000.

Now we're talking! $60,000? That must have been some fall. Whenever I encounter torn patches of sidewalk, like a sucker, I've been carefully walking over it to make sure I don't fall. From now on, I'm just going to haphazardly skip across it, and let whatever may happen, happen.

$5,500 to the family of an H.D. Woodson High School student purportedly struck by a coach

I was never struck by my PE teacher, but in tenth grade, he did once say I ran like a girl. Mental anguish! Mental anguish!

$650,000 to a St. Elizabeths Hospital psychiatric patient who gouged his eyes out after the staff failed to follow a doctor's warnings to monitor him.

Yeah, okay, that's...pretty hardcore. Even for $650,000, I'm not sure I'd be willing to make that leap. How about a torn-out fingernail? That's got to be worth at least ten grand, right? Actually, I'm cringing even just thinking about that. Never mind.

Other cases end in relatively small payouts yet still suggest confounding bureaucratic lapses, such as the family that happened to make an inquiry about a relative who was a prisoner in the D.C. jail and thereby learned that he had died of lung cancer four months earlier and had been cremated without notice to the relatives. Four family members split $11,500.

If you go more than four months without bothering to check in on a relative who's in prison, we're not talking about one who's especially close. Uncle. Second cousin. Family friend. As such, $11,500 seems like a lot of money for D.C. to pay, especially since the relatives also didn't have to shell out for the cost of a funeral.

One of my relatives has had legal problems in the past. It seems like it might be a worthwhile investment to see if I can get him locked up here.

Or there was Brian Sutherland, a bicyclist who was accidentally struck by a trash can that a sanitation worker threw as the cyclist rode past 22nd and P streets NW. Sutherland fell off the bike and suffered injuries to "all parts of his body, some of which were permanent, especially to his right elbow and right little finger," according to his claim. Sutherland, who also said he endured "anxiety" and "anguish," sued for $600,000. He got $25,000 from the city.

Conversely, this guy settled for way too little. Shoulder surgery gets you $60,000, and a distant relative's cremation gets you $11,500, and injuries to "all parts of your body" is only worth $25,000? He should sue his lawyer for malpractice. Having a D.C.-shaped slot machine that constantly pays out doesn't do you much good if you're not going even to pull the lever.

So basically, I think the ideal plan is this A) Get hurt, but not too hurt, B) Sue the city for a ridiculous amount of money, C) Graciously settle for an amount much lower than what you wanted, but enough to make the whole venture profitable. And then, who knows, maybe you can just do it again when you run out of cash.

I was going to go straight home tonight, but instead, I think I'll fall on the Metro tracks or jump in front of a motorcade or something. The holidays are coming up, after all, and I'm feeling pretty generous this year.

Week Five NFL Picks

6-8 last week; 29-33 for the season

Jacksonville at Buffalo (-2.5): Jacksonville

Denver at Baltimore (-7.5): Denver

Kansas City at Indianapolis (-7): Kansas City

Green Bay at Washington (+2.5): Washington

St. Louis at Detroit (-3): Detroit

Chicago at Carolina (+3): Chicago

Tampa Bay at Cincinnati (-6.5): Cincinnati

Atlanta at Cleveland (+3): Atlanta

New York Giants at Houston (-3): Houston

New Orleans at Arizona (+7): New Orleans

Tennessee at Dallas (-7): Tennessee

San Diego at Oakland (+6.5): San Diego

Philadelphia at San Francisco (-3): Philadelphia

Minnesota at New York Jets (-4): New York

Panel of the Week

From Secret Six #26:

Week Four NFL Picks

9-7 last week; 23-25 for the season

New York Jets at Buffalo (+6): New York Jets

Cincinnati at Cleveland (+3): Cincinnati

Baltimore at Pittsburgh (-2.5): Pittsburgh

Denver at Tennessee (-6.5): Tennessee

Detroit at Green Bay (-14.5): Green Bay

San Francisco at Atlanta (-6.5): Atlanta

Carolina at New Orleans (-13): Carolina

Seattle at St. Louis (+2): Seattle

Indianapolis at Jacksonville (+7): Indianapolis

Houston at Oakland (+3): Houston

Washington at Philadelphia (-2.5): Washington

Arizona at San Diego (-9): San Diego

Chicago at New York Giants (-3.5): Chicago

New England at Miami (+1): Miami

Panel of the Week

From Action Comics #893: