there's a playoff team here somewhere

four of my five teams made the playoffs, and in the two leagues with 4-team formats i am in the championship. one has a two-week playoff system, with semifinals from wk 14-15 and finals from wk 16-17. Personally, I could see some value in completing all playoff games by week 15.

The other two leagues offer a ridiculous format in which 8 of 10 teams made the playoffs. One of these was edited by the commissioner late in the season, with no warning. Confusing that league with the other 8 playoff team league, I initially thought I was misreading things and that the playoff format had not actually changed. Thus, I kept quiet, as no one else said anything. That is shocking to me; most of these guys know each other, from what I understand. I started playing with them last year via a friend who knew last year's commish. Maybe they were all as confused as I was. My 3rd-seeded team made the semifinal round, but if that hadn't happened, how lame would it have been? Playing a #6 team that shouldn't have been in the playoffs at all and losing? Wow.

The other thing that bothers me is divisions in fantasy leagues. If there are divisions, which serve absolutely no justifiable purpose, the playoffs should be straight seeded tournaments. We hear sports pundits talking about seeding as the best way to do real sports playoffs. However, in the real sports world you have some great geographic rivalries preserved and fostered by divisional groupings. Taking away the division champions' automatic playoff bid would take some of the fun out of those rivalries. Is there any reason at all to grant automatic playoff bids to division champions in fantasy? No, especially not in a public standard configuration league where you're playing with strangers and the arrangement is certain to be a one-year thing. The problems grow with the size of the league, a real tragedy since larger fantasy leagues are more challenging. How would you like to miss out on the playoffs despite having one of the best records in your hyper-competitive tough league just because you're unluckily in the strongest division? That just shouldn't happen.

keep it irrelevant

you gotta hate thursday games when your opponent puts up 101 points on you thanksgiving day and still has 2 WRs, an RB, and his TE going. that's right, i have the privilege of playing this week against someone who had westbrook and also got 41 points out of Bironas and the Tennessee defense. usually, i have no idea what happened with my fantasy teams until i wake up monday morning. it's a lot worse having to thing about the fact that you'll need to score a hundred thirty points or so in order to win. i've already lost twice in a row and fallen from first to third in the past two weeks; i'll be fourth if this guy beats me. i'll have a lot more time to wish that wasn't inevitable thanks to those thursday games.

roscoe

a guy i play with in several leagues added roscoe parrish for this weekend's game. this is in a twelve team league where we play 3 receivers. i feel like he just pulled this move out of nowhere, which seems to make little sense. it's impressive though, just because no one would really think of doing it. it's like when i made some trade for hunter pence early in the baseball season, and people in my league thought i was just throwing in the towel or something. i gave up greinke and hawpe, having picked hawpe up off of waivers. one guy was a little heated and posted a note to the entire league complaining that i was apparently giving up. hunter pence was ranked in the top 50 players going into the season; he never performed at that level, but this was too early to give up on that. i figured greinke was overachieving; he was, but not as much as i'd thought. hawpe really isn't that great in a 10 team league, and i just loved the power/speed/average of...hunter pence. a coworker in that league was annoyed but more taciturn on the subject of the trade. he just didn't understand the logic behind a trade involving three players he considered irrelevant. picking up roscoe parrish feels like that. it just doesn't seem like there's a reason to do it.

the pats defense erased my ipod

a couple of awful things happened in the past 24 hours. the ipod touch died on the way to work, preventing me from reading up on fantasy football. all the music disappeared this afternoon. oh, and the patriots defense tried repeatedly to give away the game at home against the jets, only succeeding in overtime.

clue me in

some kids on the street called me steve kerr last night. steve kerr? really? that would have been more relevant 10 years ago, or maybe there's a reason it's relevant now and i don't even know. i look nothing like steve kerr.

i finally traded for a tight end in that league where i have cutler and brees. of course i didn't give up one of those guys. i traded my 4th wr (chambers) and 4th rb (graham) for him, which was certainly too much, but when you're getting a starter, dealing some bench guys doesn't hurt. i've got ray rice now, for whatever that's worth. graham's biggest problem seems to have been the time share with dunn, but at least he gets consistent time. rice is a mystery. chambers was hurt so long no one seemed to think he had value; i have anthony gonzalez as my 4th wr now. considering wayne is in my starting lineup, i really like having gonzalez around. maybe i should get brandon stokely just in case...is that really going to happen? no.

the problem with this team, really, is that brandon marshall and reggie wayne have been disappointing. last week, i scored less than 70, and 35 of those points were from cutler, my defense, and my kicker. this team should be fine in the playoffs if i can still make it. seriously, with steven jackson hurt now, it's anyone's guess whether i can get that far. such a good team on paper.

convergence

i supppose this is what i get for detailing the successes of my 'best' team. all of a sudden, i wake up and realize that roster has only exceeded 85 points once in the past 5 weeks. the dreadfully embarrassing team in the work league has exceeded 85 points once in the past 5 weeks. granted, that was the first time that team made it even as high as 85 all year long, and i'm not getting 21 points out of dallas clark every week. still, this is the moment in the season when i look at everything and realize i'm a lot more vulnerable than i'd thought, even where there's the perception of strength. another big surprise has been the emergence of valuable depth on the team that drafted 8 backup qbs in the auto-draft. at the time, my starting lineup looked fine and i had no bench at all. in this league, with some odd qb scoring, ppr, and 7 pts per touchdown (including passing), my bench now consists of:

rb - chris johnson, steve slaton, dominic rhodes

wr - desean jackson, devin hester

qb - kurt warner

truthfully, some of those guys are not 'bench' guys; i sat adrian peterson one week, which is easier to do in a ppr format. rhodes' value may have dipped significantly already, but the lesson here is that need can create some interesting opportunities. warner wasn't necessarily being touted as arizona's potential starter by aug 21, when our autodraft was held, and he didn't even make it to my first round of waiver picks. this is one league where i hated waiting for the post-draft waiver period to end. thanks to that weird autodraft glitch, i had jim sorgi and billy volek, among many others, sitting on my bench. most of my first round of pickups didn't yield long-term or even short-term results, but i knew i was vulnerable and i kept looking. to some extent, i was lucky; the bench guys i picked up here are better than people i start in that work league. such a sad statement. still, i think i might break 90 another couple times with that awful team, and i could even get back over 100 one week. i've got donnie avery now, darn it.

last minute changes

i knew i was leaving town friday and unlikely to be able to check my team over the weekend. i still took my computer and ipod, basically only to make sure that i could check my team if necessary. well, it was necessary. some am espn-watching revealed that santonio holmes got busted with marijuana. picked up nate washington where i could. actually dropped holmes where i had him; he'd been dropped before in that league, and i figure there's little room on my roster for a guy who's not playing this week. i was lucky to have him as a 4th receiver there, and i figured it should be nate washington and not holmes that gets that spot for now. fortunately, i also have desean jackson.

the one thing i can't figure out this week is what to do with steven jackson. i think i'm going to start earnest graham and jamal lewis instead. those guys are good enough, i hope.

it smells like pumpkins

I've been concerned with improving my best team for the playoff run, but the one big trade I did make (Romo/Hines Ward for Brees/SJax) has proven that you can't really plan ahead. I always thought that was a good deal, since I liked Bowe nearly as much as Ward for a 3rd receiver and Brees had better fantasy playoff potential than Romo based on matchups. What I didn't expect was that Romo would get injured. It could just as easily have been one of my guys who'd gone down, and made the trade look foolish or, more accurately, unlucky.

We start QB/RBx2/WRx3/TE/K/Def in this league. Playoffs for 4 teams; wk 15&16

My roster:

QB - Brees, Cutler

Two top-5 QBs...I can still deal one for value, though I want to stick with Brees and Cutler has been less amazing of late

RB - Barber, SJax, Forte, Earnest Graham

3 top 10 RBs is a bit much, but I would want insurance if I dealt one of them. Graham's a great 4th option to have at RB, but I haven't been able to deal him for anything. I may have been trying too hard to be cute and package him, but no one in the league seems interested in this guy.

WR - Wayne, Marshall, Bowe, Chambers, Antonio Bryant

Apparently two top-5 WRs is enough to get you somewhere if the rest of your team is good. Bowe's got QB problems but is solid, Chambers' injury has lingered, and Bryant is not that amazing. The lack of droppable RBs means Bryant is the first to hit waivers if something goes wrong, even though my depth here isn't great.

TE - Anthony Fasano

I avoided burning #2 waiver priority for Kevin Walter. I'd rather deal for a TE, but that's not necessarily likely at this point. Fasano obviously looked real good at the start of the season, but he was always splitting catches a bit with Martin. I think he can post a few big games still, but I'm not holding out for much here.

K - Prater, Gostkowski

Ok, so my #1 drop after this week will be a kicker. I don't know if Prater's going to be worth keeping around or not, but I had room to try it here.

DEF - Tennessee

Amazing how I'm not at all afraid of their matchup with the Colts. Remember when you used to think you'd need to pick up a different D when Indianapolis loomed on the schedule. That being said, Titans are the premiere fantasy defense thus far, so you have to stick with them against just about anyone.

new life

the undefeated team is once again undefeated, thanks to a mid-week stat correction that took 11 rushing yards away from marshawn lynch. my wk 5 opponent's score was thus reduced by a point, and we ended in a tie.

i somehow managed to breathe 'life' into my embarrassingly bad work league team, trading leron mcclain, deshaun jackson, and kellen winslow for jay cutler, dallas clark, and greg lewis. lewis is already back on waivers, as massive modifications to my team roster were necessary in order to attempt to make this trade work. jackson had been my highest-scoring receiver. i of course lost my week 6 matchup in typically awful fashion, falling to one and five. i've now anchored my lousy team to the same qb - cutler - who had brought 3 other teams to promising starts. it's a bit lame when your fortunes are linked so strongly to one guy, but cutler's owner had peyton, and preferred the colts qb.

ouch

sigh. i lost my undefeated streak and a matchup i thought i'd won. in one case, i lost by a point when i'd been up 17 with drew brees playing monday. the other guy had...minnesota's defense and kicker. they got him 31, brees got me 30, i lost by a point. that last-second interception he threw cost me the matchup.

i am glad baseball is over

9/28/08 was a great day for me. i was just glad to be done with baseball and be able to focus on football. i finished 2nd and 3rd, having resigned myself to losing in funston's league. i am still a little annoyed that i lost carlos lee, then carlos quentin, and had bj upton injured the entire week of the semi-finals in the other league, but i guess i have adjusted to that reality.

i was pretty annoyed to see what a lousy night adrian peterson is having. i had about 35 points' cushion plus peterson going against an opponent who's starting bush, brees, and the new orleans defense. there's some weird rules in the scoring system; all touchdowns are 7 points, completions are awarded fractional points and incompletions and sacks lead to negative points. on top of that, it's a point per reception league, which makes bush absolutely deadly and peterson much less of a premiere back than he would otherwise be. there is still plenty of time for him to shape up, but i think at this point he has to outscore bush and brees combined as they've really had a nice night thus far. oh well, at least i'll remain undefeated in one league...where i have cutler and brees. i still love that trade...even though it was like week 2 how could i hvae been so lucky as to have traded hines ward and romo for brees and steven jackson? don't trust early returns, i guess.

close call

the world series hat has survived the spaghetti sauce i accidentally wiped on it. right move, wrong hat.

Derek Anderson is ruining my life

I had thought up this weird challenge before all the drafts I did - what if I drafted a team with JT O'Sullivan as the only quarterback and tried to make the fantasy playoffs. Well, in my most important league, he is now my starting QB for week 4. Derek Anderson rode the bench last week as I started Matt Cassell. I think I would have been a lot better off doing the O'Sullivan challenge, since I could have used my 4th round pick on a real player. Doesn't help that I drafted Ryan Grant in the second, but at least he has a chance of still working out. My team right now is Marion Barber and nothing. Oh, and who did I take in the third? Torry Holt. 12-team league, 6 teams make the playoffs, I'm 1 and 2. Yuck.

best practices

it seems like next time i want a bunch of trades to go through, i should head off for a few days. coming back from a work trip, i found that not one but two trades had gone through just as i'd proposed them. in a couple of leagues, i am building off what will hopefully be a breakout jay cutler year by trading other pieces in search of the right opportunities. i already knew i'd pulled off dallas clark/santana moss for jamal lewis and a player soon to be dropped (crumpler), but i was shocked to discover that my romo/hines ward for brees/stephen jackson trade went through. when you've got jay cutler and romo and then you switch to jay cutler and brees, you have nothing to complain about. ward i thought was expendable because i also have bowe and chambers. i am no chambers fan, but really there's a good chance we've seen the best of ward this year (he's been amazing) and i will gamble on trading a mid-round pick for a guy everyone took in round 1. i have 3 starting running backs on my bench in that league now - kevin smith, matt forte, and ernest graham. i might actually sit sjax this wk, but i'm pretty happy with that situation for now. incidentally, i have kevin smith as my third rb in at least 3 leagues, and it looks like i made the wrong call each time i took him instead of forte. oh well.

the hard choices

i tried to trade deshaun jackson for felix jones prior to wk 2, and the guy i would have traded with wants that trade now. he said he liked it from the start, but he wouldn't quite go through with it. my problem is, i don't have good receivers and one of my non-quality receivers is galloway, who now is hurt again. the question now is how important it is to get jones? kevin smith, sproles, brandon jackson, and chester taylor are my current backups to barber and grant. maybe i should just offer sproles for jones.

calculated risks

shaun marcum is attempting to salvage both my teams' seasons right now. at least in funston's league i have a good chance of finishing second and not falling to third. i figured when marcum made his last start that i needed a top-notch pitcher if i was going to make it back to first place, and that there wasn't some other guy who was going to appear out of nowhere and perform at an elite level. marcum would either save me or fail, but i needed saving.

my h2h league is showing me just how precarious yearlong dominance can be; i knew all along i was building for the long term, shooting for guys who would be there for me in the end. the problem was carlos lee and carlos quentin were lost for the season just before playoffs. i know have a bunch of andre ethiers and shin-soo choos in my outfield, trying to take the studs' places. i had felt so shrewd for so long having dealt bay and bruce for lee; bay had been performing at a carlos lee-like clip, but lee was the sure bet. i figured i was reducing my risk by going with a guy whose performance is documented solid and who has really even splits month to month. you could argue that keeping bruce and bay gave me two guys who could be studs (i traded bruce when his average was still above .400, at the peak of the hype). however, at the time i kinda feel like i had other plans for my roster spots, and that i needed the roster space as much as anything else. i made a real error in judgement, though, when dye was out there with 19 hrs (see why i'm mad about not winning this league) and i decided i didn't need him. i could have dropped pence, who i irrationally loved. i also had a chance at alexei ramirez long after he should have been rostered, and balked at that one. dunno. i guess i can't make every decision perfectly, but i just want to get to that championship game. they don't give out trophies for being the regular season winner.

octoberish

the summer was truly great in some ways and not so spectacular in others. i got to see a lot of cool stuff like touristy things i hadn't known about or done and free concerts and even some i paid money to see. i went to a baseball game and have tickets for another. i worked a lot, hated it at times and loved it during certain stretches too. there were some real interesting things i got to do at work, and although some doors closed, i ended up getting at least ten percent of what i had once hoped to gain from moving within the firm.

now that it's time to look forward to fall, i am totally excited again. i am particularly enthused about all the awesome trips i might take, although my longer term financial goals might be better served by sitting those out. one thing I plan to make a big part of my fall is attending institute classes. i somehow never went all summer, and i hope going back will bring some good experiences to light.

doom and gloom

my second fearful stretch of 2nd place status has dragged on long enough that it's for sure the real deal. my offense is not helping me at all; somehow i've fallen way behind in rbi's again, and it just doesn't make sense given how much ground i have lost this quickly. pitching has been fairly bad too. tonight, i lucked out completely when i forgot to start haren and he got shelled. if that guy's going to keep being like this, i am in real trouble. good news was jurrjens had a good start for once. lindstrom got his first save (for funston's team) and joe nelson had a perfect inning for my squad.

some things are so uncertain

i really just want to talk about my final football draft, where everything seemed to go my way yet only on my bench do i have anyone really exciting or full of potential. Instead, just baseball for now.

i swear no one really ever knows who the next in line is. when gregg went boom, i was the first to make a move, and figured nelson was the add since he had the numbers. Lindstrom seemed like the guy then nelson gets a save
but maybe that's just my consolation prize.

trying to surmount

i went away for the weekend, camping, and the only reason i made any effort to stay in touch with the world at large was to keep the fantasy teams going. well, my work somewhat paid off in the sense that i saw the note about gregg looking like he was about to lose his job, and i picked (apparently) the wrong horse in the race to replace him. that hasn't yet materially affected my team, but while i've maintained a high point total, my chief rival has surged to a level i'm unlikely to be able to match. i just don't have the starting pitching any more, and i'm not sure i have the relief pitching now that gregg's at least temporarily out. offense has been a bit up and down; the rbi's are down right now, although tonight i managed to record 4 steals. that taveras really is something.

on hold

due to some ego/teasing silliness that kept our league stuck at 11 teams, we lost our live draft time. the 12th team joined up before the actual scheduled draft, but it was too late. totally ruined my day, not in the sense that i'm unhappy, but i'm just thrown off by this.

beginning of bad things

cliff lee is now the 'cy young winner' or something like that. his effort was up against ghastly outings from moyer, who i nearly benched, and jurrjens, who i did bench. i've been worried about the rookie pitcher thing; they usually run out of gas towards the end of the year. i'd rather have had him than not have had him, but who else is out there? the league's too deep to find anyone useful. the worst part of this is, shields had a terrible home start and gregg gave up something like 4 runs on a night when everyone else was pitching terribly. oh well; staying at the top for most of the first two thirds of the season was fun.

bring back somebody

in the end, when you're playing in a h2h league, you can never have enough anything. pitchers have either gotten injured, gone sour, or both. i've got melvin mora starting at 3rd, which is great in roto but won't necessarily help me come playoff time. there will be playoffs - i clinched at the end of last week, but my entire offensive bench right now is named hunter pence. i got complacent in this league. i didn't pick up dye when he had 19 hrs and a .300 avg, because i figured i didn't really need him. i didn't pick up alexei ramirez because i figured everyone knew he was good and had already passed on him.

so far, the most important decision (i think) was to trade kevin gregg and carl crawford for bj upton. if i hadn't done that, i wouldn't have carlos quentin, who i picked up after the trade was done. the key is, though, that i didn't have to make the trade to do that deal. i could have dropped a reliever. i could have even dropped pence. maybe that was back when he looked like he'd be great. i'd take him late next year, but definitely not early.

whither grant balfour

all the notes floating around said balfour was supposed to be the guy while percival was on the dl. well, having held on to wheeler this whole time as my insurance policy, and having decided i shouldn't grab balfour when he was briefly available, it's surprising and pleasant to see wheeler's now nailed down the second save of this dl stint. i guess bailing balfour out and earning that first save made an impression.

jensen something

i had plenty of opportunity to pick up jensen lewis, and i did not do it. dotel and wheeler have been the least valuable members of my fantasy bullpen, but dotel definitely is striking them out and keeping down the whip. i'm not worried about him. if there's anyone i should have grabbed, it probably wasn't lewis; it would have been balfour. i already have percival and wheeler's been my percival insurance, but when balfour was dropped, i should have jumped at the chance to grab him. he's been excellent; both he and wheeler are ownable middle relief guys in this 15-team league. i didn't want 3/5 of my bullpen to be rays, but at least i would have gotten all the saves. i consider myself lucky to be up 11 points today; this is dangerous, but i'm starting to think about what it would feel like to win the league. i hadn't really considered that as a real possiblity, and now...i have to keep hoping carlos guillen gets healthy so that my geoff blum or omar infante can get out of my middle infield. i feel like such a bottom feeder. speaking of which, heilman just made his way onto my team.

hanging around

i've made up some ground in rbis, where i'd oddly slipped to third-to-last. it seems weird that i've outpaced anyone in this category, but then i actually am in the top third of the league in terms of home runs. too many solo shots, guys. i think encarnacion is the main offender there, but who knows.

injuries are starting to be a problem; losing orlando hudson is tough just with the dearth of good options out there, and now guillen is sitting out a few because of back issues. i picked up geoff blum and omar infante. nothing to get excited about. earlier this week i debated grabbing jensen lewis, who would have given me a valuable save, but then i'd have had to drop him or someone in order to get a full starting lineup going again.

downhill

i considered myself lucky to sit on top of the league one solitary day after those first few days had gone by. much to my surprise, my team finished at the top nearly every single day since then, and only this past week have i slipped into what seems an inevitable non-winning position. haren had a terrible start tonight, and i'm starting to wonder if berkman's going to hit a home run again. of course he'll hit some, but maybe he won't hit 5 the rest of the year. oddly, right after i tried to deal fielder, he went on a spree of long balls, and made up some ground for me in the process. the strange thing about my team is how few rbis it's racked up through now. taveras hurts, but there's somebody on most rosters who is a low rbi guy, and i'm not one taveras away from contention in the category.

success

i had to wake up early to do something i should have done last weekend, but i got taylor buckholz after a league mate dropped him for the second time in a week. personally, i care that an extremely good middle reliever with sp eligibility has a decent shot at the closer's job come trade time. i care even more since fuentes is one of my 5 closers, and one of my 3 'legit' guys. franklin and torres' status remains iffy in my book - they're nice to have, but this is h2h.

i have buckholz in both leagues now.

why bother

i'm not sure there's much logic in trading both prince fielder and vladimir guerrero for utley. despite the fact that utley's in the midst of a terrible slump, he came charging out of a similar funk in 2006 and was more than useful the remainder of the year. it's just that two elite players, both of whom have 'low' value right now due to mixed performance results these past few months, are a lot to give up. i'm not getting anyone decent in return; hawpe and delmon young are the remaining pieces to this puzzle, and they don't fit on my team.

to utley or not

this chase utley thing has run its way into a 4 for 4 deal. there's no reason that is a good idea.

Catch me one

I've survived the indignity this week of having two catchers who were sharing time and never seemed to be in the lineup. Dropped Olivo for Laird, and maybe it's time to drop Napoli. I just don't have an idea who to pick up instead. Once I do, he should be on his way out the door.

First place is fun

3 days into it, I'm in first. I'm glad I can say I was in first at least at one point. Now, I don't really care. Apparently the Utley owner is trying to trade him, or thinking about it. I'd take that action if I can just figure out who to offer. Prince Fielder plus somebody else really good?

Trade time begins?

Having just drafted Saturday, I'm not sure it's really time to trade anyone. I could probably use some power at the outfield positions, but I'm not sure I have a surplus of anything else to trade for that. Someone wanted to give me David Dejesus, AJ Burnett, and Brett Myers for Carlos Gomez, James Shields, and Taylor Buckholtz. I don't want any of the players he offered, and I want to keep all of the players he wanted. I wanted to try making a counter-offer, but I don't even know which of my guys is his real target. Assuming it's Gomez, I can't see trading the guy when he and Crisp are my only real speed threats not named Willy Taveras. Berkman and Carlos Guillen will get a couple steals, but not enough to get me anywhere if I trade Gomez.

Incidentally, I actually drafted Taveras in my original league, barely ever played him, and did fine in steals. That's H2H, though; Taveras was like a secret weapon in case I was getting desperate for a category win in steals any particular week. I wasn't, and with 5 other OFs (Carlos Quentin, Hart, Carlos Lee, Granderson, and Pence), I finally made a lousy trade and got Daniel Cabrera for him. No one in that leagure seemed to want Taveras, but his SB prowess this year is definitely worth something...especially if he starts hitting for real.

first official day

stats for today actually count. unfortunate the cliff lee's decent start against san diego so far, no one has a hit for my squad, and jair jurrjens has gone 6 innings without giving up a run. willy taveras (0 for 2) has the only actual at bats for my team, so it's not like i'm running up a huge string of o-fers. taveras is a guy i had to take based on the hope he'll hit .270 the rest of the way and the reality that he's a monstrous source of steals. coming in as my 15th round pick, he was a lot cheaper than ellsbury, who went at pick 74. incidentally, i really didn't mind getting coco crisp with the 311th pick either.

waivers clear tomorrow, so it'll be interesting to see who was willing to give up their waiver priority to make a move on an undrafted player. i made the possibly dubious move of picking miguel olivo after investing in mike napoli (i waited a while to draft a catcher, ok?) when i probably coulda gotten him as a free agent later.

post-draft

didn't get hart or pence, but i wasn't going to make any stupid moves just to take my favorite players. instead, i took cliff lee when i got into this panic mode and didn't know who to pick. that was round 6. usually, i do something i totally regret, and in any case you're not going to get awesome performance out of all your top picks. i got santiago casilla late, and he's due back from the dl soon. i'm hoping he continues to be a strikeout-per-inning type guy.

pre-draft day

i'm getting ready for the draft in funston's blog league, and i really have everything nailed. i've got the jamba juice, yesterday's unfinished coke, a package of english muffins, and some tasty veggies in the fridge. i brought the itouch, the headphones, the sweatshirt to deal with the crazy ac (even on saturday), and the fading nationals cap. now i have half an hour to actually do my homework on players i want to avoid drafting, figure out if there are clever picks i can make, etc.