Well, thanks to a heavy dose of frustration with Greyhound, I have bowed to sanity and decided to fly to Phoenix instead of taking the bus. My pilgrimage to Oklahoma — the only one of the Lower 48 states that I haven’t yet set foot in — will have to wait. I’ll be flying on Frontier Airlines from LaGuardia to Sky Harbor on Nov. 11.

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I’ve made some changes to the left-hand column of this homepage, as you may notice. Among other things, I’ve updated the “Who am I, anyway?” section to more accurately reflect current realities: my recently advanced age, my changing place of residence, my near-decision on law school, and my latest ideological musings; instead of “disaffected liberal leaning right,” I am now describing myself as “Too realistic to be a liberal, too idealistic to be a conservative, too cynical to have much faith in either ’side,’ but too passionate to stop caring.” Clunky, perhaps, but pretty accurate for where I am right now. (Perhaps I should add, “But if you really want to know where I stand on an issue, read The Economist. I always agree with them.” :)

Other changes include additional names on my list of “frequently referenced friends” and additional cats under “pets” (Sasha and Butter, of course). Also, as you can see, I moved the nycbloggers.com icon down a bit, since I’m leaving New York for the moment, and I darkened the quote box to make it stand out more.

I also added a new quote, one that I’m rather fond of. It comes from an IM conversation the other day with Andrew’s girlfriend Bea, who I took to a play in New York this summer, and who is apparently a frequent (if rather quiet) reader of BrendanLoy.com. The quote: “Quitting for Lord of the Rings, libel, solar attacks. I’ve read it all. You’re crazy, basically.” Hee hee.

What does USC head coach Pete Carroll think about the BCS? Will he lobby for the Trojans to reach the Sugar Bowl?

“I have absolutely no energy for that. None. Zero. And I won’t,” he said. “We go and play football and see what happens at the end. Then somebody will have to tell me how it works because I have no idea how it works.”

Hee hee. Well, thankfully for Pete and the rest of us, Rich Tellshow has some idea how it works, and here’s his estimate of how the Top 10 will look when the new BCS standings come out tomorrow at 6:00 PM Eastern. (Remember, like in golf, lower is better in the BCS.)

1. Oklahoma: 2.24
2. USC: 6.85
3. Florida State: 9.35
4. Miami: 9.92
5. Ohio State: 12.03
6. LSU: 14.82
7. Virginia Tech: 17.30
8. Michigan: 20.29
9. Georgia: 24.32
10. Iowa: 24.60

ESPN’s Brad Edwards seems to have a pretty good idea how the BCS works, too, and he spins so many scenarios in his “Road to the BCS” article that it makes even my scenario-saturated head spin. For USC, though, the bottom line seems to be this: a Florida State loss would be good (because it would hurt both the Seminoles and Miami), and another Miami loss would be good, but losses by Virginia Tech, LSU and Ohio State would be bad (because, if Miami and Florida State win out, those losses could allow Miami to rise to #3 in the polls, and perhaps leapfrog the Trojans in the BCS).

Meanwhile, ESPN has a good article about USC’s reaction to its new status as a Sugar Bowl front-runner.

I don’t want to get ahead of myself or anything… but I was just casually checking airfares on southwest.com, and it looks like I could fly from the Washington, D.C. area (where Becky and I will be in early January, for a Zak family wedding) to New Orleans on Jan. 3, and then fly from there to Phoenix on Jan. 6 (the 5th is booked up), for a little over $200 total. Hmm…

But wait, I think the wedding itself is on Jan. 3… darn it. (Don’t you hate it when you go someplace for a wedding, and then the wedding interferes with your football plans? Hehe… just kidding, Becky. :) But somebody must have cheap morning flights on Jan. 4… this calls for further investigation…

UPDATE: Well, Delta Airlines has a cheap morning flight on Jan. 4. But the tickets to the game, oh no, they’re not cheap… I didn’t think about that little detail… hmm… well, maybe I’ll just find out where the D.C. alumni club is watching the game, and see if I can convince Becky to go there with me… :)

The new coaches’ poll is out, and as everyone expected, Oklahoma and USC are #1 and #2. Florida State and LSU are #3 and #4, as I predicted. After that, it gets a little crazy:

5. Virginia Tech (I said #7)
6. Ohio State (I said #8)
7. Miami (I said #5)
8. Michigan (I said #6)
9. Georgia (I said #11)
10. Iowa (I said #9)

Okay, so I’m not perfect. :) But there’s still the AP poll, and I think maybe I’ll be closer to right with that one. I bet the sportswriters — who are generally slightly less reactionary than the coaches — will rank Virginia Tech and Ohio State lower, and Miami higher. But we’ll see. That poll is due out later today.

Not that I’m disappointed in my failed predictions, at least with regard to Miami. The Hurricanes’ fall from #2 to #7, whether fair or not, substantially reduces the chance that they will be ahead of the Trojans in the new BCS standings, which come out Monday. If the AP top 3 is the same as the coaches’ top 3, the BCS will probably go #1 Oklahoma, #2 Florida State, #3 USC. In which case: Gooooo Clemson! :)

NO WAIT, I’M WRONG: BCS analyst Rich Tellshow, who actually bases his statements on raw data instead of hunches, says I’m wrong, which would be wonderful: “It looks like USC will have a decent margin over FSU” in the BCS, he declares. WOOHOO!!! If that’s the case, the Trojans probably don’t need any more “help” to reach the Sugar Bowl. They just need to win out! Wouldn’t that be something?

NO WAIT, I’M RIGHT: But on the other hand… Tellshow’s projections show that Florida State will gain substantial ground on USC in the strength of schedule ratings during the final month of the season, so that if both teams win out, the ‘Noles will creep ever closer to the Trojans in the BCS ratings. Too close for comfort, says I. So I revert to my previous refrain: Gooooo Clemson! (Or N.C. State. Or Florida. Yeah, that’s the one — Florida. They got Georgia for us yesterday, they can get Florida State for us on Nov. 29. Let’s hear it for Trojan fans’ new favorite team: GO GATORS!!!)

Meanwhile, here is the Trojans-Cougars game article from USCTrojans.com. Lead paragraph:

Matt Leinart, LenDale White and the rest of the Southern California Trojans showed there’s no doubt who is the best team in the West. Now they hope to have a chance to show they’re tops in the nation as well.

Damn straight!

Check out what happens when you do a Google search for bcs analysis. :)

USC 43, Washington State 16, final!

Virginia Tech 31, Miami 0, 10:39 to go.

YAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

UPDATE: The USC radio announcers pointed out that today was a “perfect day” — the Trojans won, UCLA lost, and Notre Dame lost, all on the same day. The announcers said this is the first “perfect day” since Nov. 3, 2001, and the 35th in history.

What made the day really perfect, though, was Virginia Tech’s 31-7 blowout upset of previously undefeated Miami. (Did I call it or what?) That’s right — a Sugar Bowl spot is now officially open to a one-loss team! And like I said below, USC is now a bona fide national-championship contender!

So what now? The USC radio announcer had this opinion: “If this holds up, the Trojans and Florida State are the only real threats to go to the Sugar Bowl against Oklahoma.” Um, hello — there’s at least one other one-loss team you’re forgetting about: Miami.

Yeah, they lost today, but the Hurricanes are not out of it. As I explained below, I think it’s even possible they could stay #2 in next week’s BCS standings. But now that we know the final score of the Miami-VT game, I think probably not. Yeah, the ‘Canes beat Florida State on Oct. 11, but I don’t think there’s any way the poll voters are going to keep Miami as high as #3 after that embarassing blowout loss. So, fair or not, I predict Miami falls below Florida State — and one or two others — in the polls. Here is my new predicted poll order:

1. Oklahoma
2. USC
3. Florida State
4. LSU
5. Miami
6. Michigan
7. Virginia Tech
8. Ohio State (”Not fair!” cry the Buckeye fans. “You suck!” cries the nation in reply.)
9. Iowa
10. Texas

The Hurricanes still have the quality-win points from their victory over the Seminoles, and they have a strong strength-of-schedule to boot, but after the blowout loss, it’s at least possible they’ll be third or fourth in the BCS, rather than second as I initially feared. The math will be very complicated, so this time I’ll have to rely on Rich Tellshow to figure out it. :) My instinct, though, says it will be very close between USC, Florida State, and Miami. LSU and Ohio State may also be players, but I suspect they won’t be on the same level. I think the Trojans, ‘Noles, and ‘Canes are now the chief contenders.

ANOTHER UPDATE: I just thought of something. Looking really far ahead, if USC wins out but finishes behind another one-loss team in the BCS, and if the Trojans win the Rose Bowl and that “other” one-loss team upsets Oklahoma in the Sugar Bowl, there will be a split championship: the Sugar Bowl victor wins the coaches’ poll, the Trojans win the AP poll. Wait, isn’t that precisely what the BCS was supposed to prevent? Yeah, well, it could happen.

Georgia lost, Miami’s losing, and the Trojans are winning. If this keeps up, USC could be a bona fide national-championship contender a couple of hours from now.

UPDATE: USC just scored a touchdown!!! (I’m listening to the game over Internet radio.) It’s 22-10!

Okay, let’s say the current scores hold. Trojans win, ‘Canes lose. USC jumps from #3 to #2 in both polls… but do we jump from #4 to #2 in the BCS? Or do we only jump to #3? Or, horror of horrors, do we stay #4?!?

Currently, both polls go #1 Oklahoma, #2 Miami, #3 USC, #4 Georgia, #5 Florida State. Clearly Georgia will fall out of the picture. And clearly, Miami would fall too… but how far? I’m guessing the poll voters might want to keep them ahead of Florida State, since the Hurricanes beat the Seminoles head-to-head earlier in the season. In that case, it would be #1 Oklahoma, #2 USC, #3 Miami, #4 Florida State in the polls.

That means Florida State improves by one poll point, from 5 to 4, and USC improves by a poll point too, from 3 to 2. So that’s awash — the polls would effect no change between the Trojans and ‘Noles in the BCS standings. But USC will gain on Florida State in strength of schedule, and presumably in the computer rankings, since we played Washington State while they played Notre Dame. We were .73 behind Florida State last week, so we might gain enough to overtake them, or we might not. It would probably be close.

Regardless of whether we overtake Florida State, here’s a question: would we even overtake the newly once-beaten Miami? It’s impossible to predict without seeing the new computer standings, but my instinct is, probably not. Miami’s point total will inevitably be substantially boosted by quality-win points because of the Hurricanes’ win over Florida State, so it seems entirely plausible that if Miami is #3 in the polls, as I predicted above, they will remain #2 in the BCS.

In other words, even with a Miami loss, it’s possible that the BCS Top Four could remain exactly the same: #1 Oklahoma, #2 Miami, #3 Florida State, #4 USC. Or the Trojans and ‘Noles could switch places, with Miami still #2. Or my poll predictions could be totally off, and who knows what the BCS might look like?

Of course, first, Miami needs to lose, and USC needs to win. Go Trojans! Go Hokies!

USC just scored again, while I was typing the above. It’s 28-10 Trojans!!! Woohoo!!!

ANOTHER UPDATE: On the other hand, if Miami gets blown out, maybe the polls will penalize them more, and move them behind Florida State despite the inevitable outcry. And right now, Virginia Tech is leading, 17-0! Go Hokies! Pile it on!

Chris is quite right in pointing out that I have been lax in failing to note UConn’s #1 preseason basketball ranking. Frankly, between solar storms and Survival Saturday and sufferin’ succotash (huh?), I just haven’t been paying much attention to basketball news.

But here’s the link for y’all. UConn is #1 in the coaches’ poll with 25 first-place votes, followed by #2 Duke (3 first-place votes), #3 Michigan State (1 first-place vote), #4 Arizona, #5 Kansas, #6 Missouri, #7 Syracuse (1 first-place vote), #8 Florida, #9 Kentucky, and #10 North Carolina (1 first-place vote). My third-favorite college hoops team (behind USC and UConn), Gonzaga, is ranked #12. Oh, and USC, having finished seventh in the Pac-10 last year, is unranked, duh. :)

In other UConn news, the Husky football team survived Saturday with a 17-point comeback leading to a 41-27 win over Western Michigan. UConn is now officially bowl-eligible.

Check out The One Pumpkin. Hehe. Very cool.

By the way, a new teaser trailer for Return of the King — reportedly one minute, one second long — will debut with The Matrix: Revolutions on Wednesday. Finally, a LOTR trailer with a movie I actually wanted to see anyway!

In other Lord of the Rings news, the official website released some new images yesterday of LOTR’s ugly monsters (no, Becky, Viggo Mortensen is not included in this category), in honor of Halloween.

Countdown update: 17 days till The Two Towers Extended Edition … 45 days till Trilogy Tuesday … 46 days till The Return of the King!!!

“Survival Saturday” is underway, and so far, so bad for Trojan fans. Huh? Well, USC’s game is almost four hours away, but Florida State is easily beating Notre Dame, which simultaneously boosts the standing of the BCS #3 Seminoles and hurts the BCS #4 Trojans’ strength of schedule. Oh, well. There are more important games today.

Like BCS #1 Oklahoma vs. Oklahoma State, about to get underway on ABC. Or BCS #5 Georgia vs. Florida, starting now on CBS. Or later, at 7:45 PM on ESPN, BCS #2 Miami vs. Virginia Tech. The Trojans could really use losses by any (or all!) of those Top 5 teams, especially Oklahoma and/or Miami. (A loss by BCS #6 Ohio State, which is playing Penn State right now, would also be nice.)

Most important, of course, is USC’s 7:00 PM Eastern time showdown with Washington State. Regardless of what happens elsewhere in the country, the winner of this game will at least have the inside track to Pac-10 championship and thus the Rose Bowl. A potential Sugar Bowl berth would just be icing on the cake (so to speak).

But that game isn’t televised on the East Coast!!! Ack!!! So I may be heading over to a sports bar later, if I can find one that has the game. We shall see.

My dad and I thought our aurora borealis view was pretty good, but check out this shot of the Northern lights in LaOtto, Indiana:

Photo by Robert B. Slobins, from SpaceWeather.com

That picture was taken during the previous night’s aurora storm, on Oct. 29, which we couldn’t see here in Connecticut because of the cloudy skies. But this one, from Sherbrooke, Quebec, was taken around the same time that my dad and I were watching auroras in Burlington, CT:

Photo by Remi Boucher, from SpaceWeather.com

Sherbrooke is almost due north of Burlington. It’s about 300 miles away, but because auroras are so high up in the atmosphere, it’s entirely possible that those lights are essentially the same lights that we were seeing on the low horizon from a much greater distance. They even look alike: green lights below, red lights above. Interesting.

There are more great aurora photos were these came from, on SpaceWeather.com’s aurora gallery pages!

Here I am, as a Ringwraith, with fellow trick-or-treater-greeters in Wethersfield, including “Queen” Vicki Huffman, right:

The best part about being a Nazgul was watching the kids’ reactions. Some thought my costume was “cool” (the kid in the Frodo costume thought this), some of the younger ones were a bit scared (they had a tendency to steer a wide berth around me and reach for the candy from the other side), while some kids simply looked at me quizzically, trying to figure out who the tall guy under the costume was!

Occasionally, I did show my face:

Afterward, when I went to the Newington-New Britain football game (which Newington lost, 63-6), I felt rather silly walking around in my frilly Nazgul garb. :) But as Mike Wiser e-mailed me this evening, “I have to say, I admire your nerdiness with the Nazgul costume. However, I may be able to trump you: long brown robe, brown hood, sandals, copy of the Bible, and copy of Experimental Hybridization in Plants. Look out, it’s Gregor Mendel!” Heh. Yup, you win, Mike. :)

Anyway… here is a photo of the Halloween display at our house:

My dad said we got only one group of trick-or-treaters (we rarely get many, since we live on a busy street without many kids), but there were seven of them, and one took two pieces of candy (”one for my aunt!”).