Category Archives: Personal

SCA

A Full KWCB Report

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I’m in an Old Chicago eating Italian Nachos recovering from Knowne World Cooks & Bards Symposium.

Lots of neat stuff happened. I met some people like Galeran of An Tir who is very impressive and I’d like to learn more from. I had a chance to get to know some acquaintances better, especially Fridrikr, Orilee, and Fiana. We ate an amazingly really epically huge feast. Or at least we tried to. Innumerable excellent performances in a wide variety of styles.

I entered a challenge, which I misunderstood but prefer my misunderstanding. I thought the challenge was to write a new piece relating to cooking or food at site during the event. So I did. It’s still raw, and Dolan and I will be smoothing the edges. I’m posting the lyrics on Facebook.

The challenge was actually just to prepare a piece related to cooking, not necessarily a new one and not at all necessarily written on site. Oh well. I’ve spent worse afternoons and it was a fun challenge my way.

I, of course, spent a goodly amount of time pushing Lilies 2015. Many thanks for HRM Elizabeth of Northshield to allow me the opportunity to speak in court about it. I think between HRM Gwen and I we put Lilies at least on the list of events to contemplate for a number of people.

The most interesting of these people was the gentleman who brought a Food Lab to the event. Basically, it’s a portable medieval cooking playground that would make a great addition, I think, to the A&S area. At some point, I might oughta tell Thora, who’s running A&S about this 🙂

There was also some Inter-kingdom Anthropology that was very striking to HRM Gwen and I that we discussed on the way home. I’ve got a couple of ideas I might see if I can’t sneak into the SCA 50th event.

Mostly though, it was a weekend of friends, writing, top-notch bardic circles, and cool medieval food. Not too shabby.

SCA

A Quick Post From KWCB

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For those who don’t know, KWCB stands for Knowne World Cooks & Bards Symposium.

Basically, it’s an event that happens every year somewhere in the SCA that encourages cooks and bards to come learn, teach, and strut their stuff.

For me, I’ve spent most of the time writing a song. We’ll see how it goes.

Oh, and the final score at the feast:
Cooks: 10 kajillion and one
Feasters: Retired from the field in awe

Sports

A New Season

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Tonight is the final night of the NFL preseason, and next Thursday the lights come on for real.

There’s a certain Schrodinger’s Cat-ness about the start of every sports season, but it especially true for football and the NFL in particular. By this, I mean that no one actually knows what will happen in the upcoming season. Right now, it’s a cat in a box.

I said that the NFL is more so than other sports, and two reasons are the small sample size and schedule strength.

The NFL plays 16 games. That’s it. The difference between the playoffs and a Super Bowl win or a losing season can be miniscule. An inch or less at the right or wrong time. A freak snow storm.  Rain. Fog. A poorly wiped down football. I can give examples of each of these things changing the result of a game, and each game is 6.25% of a season, not to mention luck in the single-game elimination format of the playoffs.

Luck plays more of a part in the NFL than in any other team sport. Take, for example, David Tyree’s catch in the first of two Super Bowl victories by the New York Giants over the New England Patriots. A desperation heave and a catch that just barely missed touching the ground, but it was enough to give the Giants a chance that they ultimately took advantage of.

I can give you a long list of plays that were just as close even closer. The Immaculate Reception. The Catch. Wide Right. The Music City Miracle.

Statisticians have proven that in games decided by less than one score, which in the NFL is 8 points, the records and quality of the teams involved are irrelevant. The 13-3 Seahawks beat the 2-14 Texans 23-20 in overtime in 2013. This game was decided on a few plays here or there that could quite easily have gone the other way. We know the Seahawks won now because the cat has been released from the box, but when the two teams went out to the overtime coin flip the odds were 50-50 as to which team would win.

Part of this is that the actual qualitative difference between the best teams in the NFL and the worst teams is actually very small. In college, of course, this is not true, and high school football even less so.

Because the talent difference is so small, injuries can make an extraordinary impact. Sometimes, a team suffers a huge number of injuries and their year is just gone. Sometimes, a single injury, such as the one that knocked Tom Brady out for the year a while ago can end a season. With one exception, injuries are actually a function more of luck than anything else. The exception is age. Older players get hurt more than younger ones, so if you see a team relying on veterans do not be surprised if they have more injuries than a younger team.

Another aspect of luck involves the schedule. The NFL has 32 teams. Clearly, there’s no way in a 16-game season a team can play all the others, especially since each team plays the three other teams in its division twice.

The NFL actually has an intricate schedule that is essentially laid out in perpetuity. Each team plays six games in its division, four games against another division in the NFC, four games against another division in the AFC, and then two games against teams who finished at the same spot in their respective divisions (2013 3rd place team in one division will play two games against teams that finished 3rd in their division as well). The other divisions and extra games rotate each year.

Yet not every division is created equal. For example, AFC South had the unfortunate luck to play the NFC West in 2013. The NFC West was loaded, with records of 13-3, 12-4, 10-6, and 7-9. By contrast, the NFC North in 2013 was very weak, and that gave the AFC North an advantage.

Probably every year there is at least one team that plays better than some others but because of their challenging schedule they don’t even make the playoffs. Arizona, who went 10-6 in 2013 but 8-7-1 Green Bay and 9-7 San Diego made the playoffs instead of them. Bad luck for the Cardinals that they played in the best division in football in 2013.

If you pay attention to football prognosticators, the smart ones will reference schedule strength. However, because of the fluid nature of the NFL no one really knows who will be strong in the upcoming year. The NFL currently admits 12 teams to the playoffs each year. On average, 5.7 of those teams did not make the playoffs the year before.

Yes, you read that right. Half of the playoff teams are different each year, and they are not necessarily the weaker of the playoff teams.

The easy safe route is to predict a team that was bad in one year will be bad and a team that was good will be good. Hence, most of your big name prognosticators will fall into this trap. If you see a prognostication that has nearly all of the previous season’s playoff teams returning recognize that either the author was lazy, doesn’t know the facts, doesn’t care, or some combination of these.

But the facts show this to be a lie. Some teams will have long stretches of excellence or failure. The New England Patriots are an example. However, they are the exception no the rule.

This makes prognostication even harder. If schedule strength matters, and it does, how can one predict it when we know that half of the playoff teams won’t be there? And hence, how can one predict which teams will benefit and which will suffer?

One can’t.

Wyrd will have her say.

Yet, despite knowing all of this, it remains irresistible that we must make our best guesses at what the upcoming year will hold. In this, I am no different.

So, next week, either Wednesday or Thursday. I will release my bold predictions and team capsules for each team. I’m sure you are all waiting with bated breath.

I’ll give you two hints. One, I will pick somewhere between 4 and 8 new playoff teams. Two, the Seahawks will not be one of the teams that I predict to fall out of the playoffs. Obviously, they were good enough to win last year, and not in a flukey manner, but just as importantly they are one of the younger teams in the league.

In fact, history tells us that Seattle is more likely to win a couple more Super Bowls in the next few years than to miss the playoffs because of that youth. The other teams that have won Super Bowls with about their age profile were the 1974 Steelers, 1981 49ers, and 1992 Cowboys, all of whom became dynasties. If you want the statistical breakdown, look here: http://fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/seattle-seahawks-youth-could-portend-a-dynasty-yes-really/.

In any case, come back in a week and see what I think will happen in the 2014 NFL season.

 

 

 

Personal

Hwæt!!!

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Well, now that I have your attention, let’s get this epic show on the road.

My name is Rob Howell. I even filled out my About page, which actually has more information about me. What will become clear even without visiting that page is that I am just too opinionated not to express that opinion on the interwebz so now I stake my claim to a little slice of cyberspace.

You will find my opinions cover quite a few things, sports, politics, philosophy, music, and lots of history. Stuff. I like talking about stuff.

However, I don’t like talking about many of these things on Facebook, because what I want from my friends on Facebook are how their lives are going, not their politics or axes to grind. Since I figure my Facebook friends don’t really want to hear my opinions in their news feed either, I tend to avoid touchy topics and simply post cat pictures, song lyrics, and random whimsies. Here will be the crunchy stuff.

This will also be a venue for me to publish some of my fiction. Mostly what I will publish here will be stuff about my worlds and my characters. We all know exposition gets in the way of stories, but here I can toss out random small expositional bits that you can read, ignore, or come back to when you feel the need.

I will publish something at least once every weekday. We will all see whatever it is that inspires me on a given day.

Now, I will conclude my first post by quoting Walt Whitman:
“Afoot and lighthearted I take to the open road, healthy, free, the world before me.”

Hello, world.

SCA, Uncategorized

Twelfth Night

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I don’t often preen, but I am going to now because there’s quite I bit of things worthy of preening from Twelfth Night.

At the risk of sounding immodest, I was an A&S god at Twelfth Night (as if there’s a way that sentence could be anything but immodest).

I judged the bardic contest, and did some teaching related to that.

I entered and won the Requiem for a Huscarl-inspired A&S contest. I entered my attempt to re-write the song as if I had lived in 1067 and wanted to remember the battle. My version was in Old English, in the Anglo-Saxon alliterative poetic style, and I’m pretty pleased with it. I learned a ton about actually writing in Old English, and had a great deal of fun playing with words and word choices. It was a fun exercise in re-creation archaeology.

I wrote a pretty spiffy scroll text for Damien’s knighting. I thought it was pretty good, but the number of people that came up and said it was great has made me revise my opinion upwards. Damien said it was the best scroll text evah, though I still lean towards Maerwynn’s county scroll on that 🙂

I also performed a portion of Beowulf at feast for Maerwynn. This was the portion where Wealhtheow comes into the mead-hall and offers the cup in proper order to Hrothgar, Beowulf, and the lords in the hall. I did it in both Old and Modern English. I did not have time to properly memorize it, but I had gone over it enough that I was told it did not sound like I was simply reciting it. Several people told me they thought it was a great touch to feast, and that makes me preen a wee bit more. Maerwynn, however, chastised me, because she says she’s not perfect, as I said in the performance. In this one thing, Your Majesty, I am forced to disagree 🙂

For an Anglo-Saxon word-smith type, there’s not much more I could have done in one weekend. I worked in Old English, taking me one step closer to understanding what it is to be a scop, and I really think I made the event better for not just me, but for a number of others as well. For all of that, I think that this one time, I get some justifiable preening.

Politics, Uncategorized

Philosophical Discussions

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Howdy all

I’ve been contemplating a bunch of political things for a while now, and I’d like to discuss them. I think this is a good forum for that sort of thing because I have a lot of friends with a large variety of opinions, hence I’m going to start putting up a question for discussion every now and then.

Since I’m going to touch upon some topics that will likely prompt heated discussion, here are some ground rules. First, I’m going to hide the question behind a cut. If you’re not interested in politics, don’t look. Second, I will chastise anyone who uses ad hominem attacks. Attack someone else’s argument all you want, but don’t attack them as individuals.

OK, time for the first topic.

Continue reading Philosophical Discussions →

Sports, Uncategorized

USA-Algeria 1st Half

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Well, I’m going to live blog USA-Algeria here.

Things are fairly clear if the US wins this match, as they will definitely advance. If they draw, they might advance, if England loses or draws and does not score more than 2 goals more than the US did.

Big storylines:
Can the US score first
Can Algeria score at all
How will a back 4 that has not played together work for the US
How will Algeria adjust to the need to attack

1st And we’re off with an early run by Algeria.

1st Mediocre cross on nice early run

4th Nice run by Algeria, who has been slightly more aggressive thus far

6th Wow, defensive mistake and the US is lucky to have an Algerian shot hit off the post, really nice feed but mostly because the defense did not work together

7th And the US counter-attack from Gomez is dangerous

9th Dempsey is high with a free kick and I wonder how they are adjusting to the special World Cup ball

9th Another opening and mistake on the back line

10th Long but ineffective run by Altidore against nice collapsing defense from Algeria

11th Corner well-earned by Algeria

12th Early well-earned yellow card from cynical tackle by Algerian, Altidore had a lot of space, though it was deep in the US end

13th Bad header for Edu gave up a worthless shot to Algeria

15th Nice stretch of possession with a fairly decent cross but a nice play by the Algerian keeper

15th Another long, errant shot from Algeria

16th Bleah, mediocre pass in US end gave easy possession to Algeria, but they squandered it, got it back, but the shot was blocked and the US has a nice counter

17th Nice attack and aggressive attempt by Gomez

18th Donovan has a nice opportunity that he boots high, might have been wiser to slide it to his left for a wide open Dempsey in the box

19th Mediocre free kick by Algeria leading to an American attack

19th Algeria defends the box really really well, in part by allowing some space on the wings and the midfield portion of their side

20th A great great flurry but the US ending in a disallowed goal which looks to be a bad call… great work by Bradley and great US persistence

22nd Altidore is very nifty at times

23rd England leading against Slovenia, bad news there

23rd Replay of the disallowed goal and it was clearly not offsides. If the US does not advance, there’s going to be some justified screaming, and they just mentioned about the referee not being in place… I wonder if their replays can show where he was 🙂

24th Great defense by the US this time

26th Dempsey is down

27th Nice little attack by Algeria

29th US has a long stretch of possession but cannot convert that to an opportunity

30th Corner to Algeria and the rebound gave Altidore a slim chance but Algeria shut that down quickly

31st Really nice work on the right side by Algeria provided a solid opportunity

33rd Cherundolo with a great cross, but nothing out of it, in part because of Donovan’s whiff of the rebound

34th Nice work in the midfield, but the crowding of Algeria deep stopped the attack

35th Really nice defense by Bocanegra, though shoddy defense elsewhere gave Algeria a opportunity

35th Great great counter-attack leading to a magnificent opportunity and a what looked at first glance to be an amazing save against a beautiful opportunity by Dempsey

36th Another missed opportunity with an open net for Altidore as he and Donovan get in each other’s way, provided by really nice work at the edge of the box

38th Nice attack by Matmoor of Algeria, who has created some dangerous chances

40th Another close offsides call, this time in the US’s favor

41st Long cross from Cherundolo, I think he needed to be more aggressive to gather the pass to him, which took a moment to get to him slowing the attack

42nd Good defense by Algeria stopped a beautiful attack by the US

42nd Odd little knuckler by Dempsey almost caused some problems

43rd Algerian counter-attack provides a decent opportunity for Ziani

44th Bradley and Donovan are making some intricate and nifty and productive moves at the top of the box

45th Nice work from Edu but the attack fizzled

ET Wow, really nice cross from Algeria to end the half

The US played a really nice half but could not finish. It was a fairly open game, showing off much of the beauty of soccer. Only one tetchy moment and it earned an early yellow card.

Right now Algeria is dangerous on counters, but only had one or two build-up attacks that I recall. The US, on the other hand, is really doing nice work in the Algerian half. Now they just need a bit of good fortune.

SCA, Uncategorized

Lilies

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Well, mostly recovered from another Lilies.

Apparently, I needed a vacation. I only fought once, and spent most of the mornings in bed asleep or reading. Part of it was undoubtedly not being next to the battlefield, as I can’t resist fighting when I see it going on, but some of it was the need for a rest.

The weather did not help either, as it was either rainy or hot. One of the least comfortable Lilies I’ve attended. Bleah.

Nevertheless, I had a great time, especially singing and performing. I really think that once I perform it a number of times the Curse of a Brother’s Love will be a really nice piece. I’ll do it at Trillies and possibly a number of times at Pennsic so hopefully it will have its rough edges smoothed a bit soon.

And I’m going to need it, given that I’ll have to perform more often than I already do. Their Majesties have seen fit to name me their Ollamh (Ollave), or Royal Bard. I’m excited and I hope that I can make it into a position that will continue and be a standard and expected retinue post. To that end, I’d like any of my readers who perform to send me their pieces that they are comfortable performing in a challenging environment like a feast hall, before court, or on the field. These are not easy environments, but the idea is to fill empty spaces whenever they crop up and add to the fun.

With that, I’ll merely make one other comment. This was definitely the Bacon Lilies.