Secondly, OfficialFantasyFootballNews.com has a great new article for anyone looking to land a surprise pick or two. There may be some surprises this year out of Green Bay and their Big D and from a certain backup in Kansas City.

Go take a look at the latest football news and commentary.

Today, Alabama is in Tennessee, and my spidey sense tells me that it will be another “darn close game” which we barely win / lose, possibly in overtime, the outcome decided by a kicker or by going for it on 4th and 10 or not going for it on 4th and inches or something like that. It’s on TV out here in LA; therefore, I won’t get as much done today as I need to get done.

• - “UCLA plays Alabama at 5 pm on Saturday, Live on CBS2!”
• - They never showed, on-screen, the final score of a game. They would say it in passing, but they’d show highlights until they tired of it — say, when Team A was up 52-49 at the half over Team B — and then Jim would mumble, “And Team B scored 10 unanswered at the end to win it by 3.”
• - “Steve, UConn’s struggle really points out what a great job UCLA did against Belmont.”
• - I should point out I’m not making this up: they misspelled “Madness.” The PowerPoint template they used to show tomorrow’s game schedule said “MARCH MADNES 2006″ at the top of each “slide.” You’d see “MARCH MADNES 2006: TEAM A vs. TEAM C” and then they’d have this awesome cyclonic Sports Central logo flash on the screen at the sound of a passing jet, dissolving to the next game — “MARCH MADNES 2006: TEAM E vs. TEAM G.”
• - We’re gonna have to see how Thursday’s bomb threat in San Diego before the early game will affect UCLA tomorrow in their 5 PM game LIVE HERE ON CBS 2 versus Alabama.

In downtown Dothan, there’s a clothing store that’s been there since the 70’s called SuperBad. In the 90’s, SuperBad had a secret meeting of all their top scientists, and they created a smooth robot who anchors Dothan’s news station. If you’re ever in Dothan, watch the news — you’ll see what I mean.

There are times when I’ve been at home and it’s clear that the SuperBad News Robot is the only entity at the station during the broadcast, controlling camera changes with his robotic stare. Did he eliminate the others on the news team? Is he holding morning show host Ann Varnum hostage in the WTVY basement? Is he reading our minds at home?

Anyway, the SuperBad news robot? Better than the pros here in my hometown of Los Angeles.

NINETY POINTS.

There have probably been 3-game spans when Alabama didn’t score 90 points. Jean Felix shot 8-of-11 from behind the 3-point line and scored 31 points. His previous 2 games, he was 2-for-15.

This year, we went to visit Anne’s family a little later in the year, and the weather cooperated and, for the first time in my life, I got to go ice fishing.

We didn’t catch anything — I am sure this disappointed the worms (“I got stabbed and semi-frozen for this?!”) — but we were cool with it. And nobody crashed through the ice, which, according to the alarmist TV movies I remember from growing up, happens about 90% of the time people venture out there.

We were also able to witness the announcement of the lineup for the U.S. Olympic Women’s Hockey Team. The announcement took place at the Mall of America, which, as I am sure you’ve heard, has a peanut butter specialty store. It’s also unfathomably huge and has roller coasters and other rides and more cafés than Dothan.

We even built snowmen while there (well, not at the mall, but in Minnesota). My favorite snowman: this moustache-having, hat-wearing, top-heavy creation. Due to his top-heavy status, he only lived about 15 minutes.

After getting back to LA, we immediately left again, driving to Ventura for a little New Year’s quiet. We stayed at the Inn on the Beach and took the surfboards, getting out into the water just in time to meet a vicious winter storm, which was like getting into a fistfight with the ocean. Of course, that made it fun. After all the rain, late afternoon New Year’s Eve was beautiful and the weather stayed clear long enough for a gorgeous night and morning. This photo is from the afternoon of the 31st: