Styb is DIGITAL!

You'd think this wouldn't be news, but Rome was not built by small acorns… or something like that…

We are pleased to announce that there is a new option available for STYB: Curious Photo-Graphics!! In addition to our $9 print and free i-Pad options, STYB is now available as a PDF download! Current issues will be priced at a low $1.43 and back-issues at $3. Plus, if you purchase a print copy, you get a FREE PDF included should you want one!

STYB has a long history of providing the public with curious photo-graphics over the last 194 days and with this new option available we hope to fill our coffers… uh, that is, to provide you with curious photo-graphics for at least the next 194 days!!

King & Goodell: Douchebags

In a recent Peter King hodgepodge of minutiae from Sports Illustrated, King inserted a parenthetical "Steelers" inside a quote by NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell making it appear as if a dozen Steelers lacked support in the beleaguered quarterback. Now, the King of Sports Hacks is backpedalling.

King's quote now reads, "Regarding Roethlisberger, Goodell said when he was investigating what to do with the quarterback, he talked to "I bet two dozen players ... Not one, not a single player, went to his defense. It wasn't personal in a sense, but all kinds of stories like, 'He won't sign my jersey.'"

That is a huge difference. By inserting the parenthetical, King made it appear that twelve of fifty-three teammates had issues with Roethlisberger. That's 22%. Instead, Goodell was referring to the entire 1696-man roster of the NFL. That's less than 1%. Not only that, but the mainstream media picked up the story and ran with it, painting their own sordid picture of a team that no longer trusted their quarterback because of his off-field behaviour. Some "reporters" and bloggers even took the word "Steelers" out of the parentheses! Clearly they didn't read to the end of the quote. Goodell was referring to players who didn't like Ben because of silly shit like not signing a jersey. I wonder how many of those players came from the AFC North? Seems like badmouthing Ben would be the perfect opportunity to rid your division of one of it's most talented players for a few weeks…

Now I'm not defending Roethlisberger's alleged actions in Milledgeville because I don't really need to. There are no charges and there is no case. He spent his first four games of the season at home twiddling his thumbs so the matter is closed. But King's irresponsible sensationalism has no defense and it's simply another notch in Sports Illustrated's decline over the last decade. (The only enjoyment I got out of my last few issues was counting the typos and grammatical errors, and yes, I know my own writing is filled with these, but I'm not a multi-million dollar entity with a dozen "professional" editors  behind me.) 

Oh, sure, King was Peter-On-The-Spot with his "apology," as if he had expected the eventual blowback and written it in advance, but to release this "story" during Superbowl Media Week was nothing short of a personal attack. Hey, I'm all for opinions, but if you're going to try to start some shit, at least have the balls to do it as a full story and not as a casual aside in a monday morning trivia dump. 

Oh, and King is not alone in this. Fingers are pointed at NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell for breathing life back into a dying story. During the investigation, no one was more transparent than Godell about just how closed the doors would be. So why, months later and just before Ben's team takes the field in Superbowl 45, would Goodell unlock the door and destroy the credibility of his word by releasing information revealed to him in confidence regardless of whether it was germane to the issue?

I'm sure Goodell related that little tidbit to King "off the record" but how smart is that? I understand Goodell wants to gossip about the League's dirty little secrets –what's the point in having secrets if you can't tell them to someone– but to gossip with Sports Illustrated's most well known scribbler? This does not bode well for the CBA agreement.

This whole thing seems like it was a tandem act meant to sell magazines, malign the Steelers organization and assassinate the character of Ben Roethlisberger which he has worked hard to rebuild. I guess Goodell wasn't happy with the little doghouse that he put Ben Roethlisberger in and decided to add on an addition, and he got his little dog-walker Peter King to yank the chain.

The Best Post-Season Team In The Superbowl Era!

Well, another NFL Season has come and gone and save for the Superbowl there's not much to do this week. But fear not turf-loving brothers and sisters!! Our Boredom = Your Knowledge! We got to wondering, "Who is the greatest post-season NFL team of the Superbowl Era?" Of course, while millions of armchair coaches have contemplated this question, none have ever bothered to answer it with more than a beery, "MY TEAM!!" So we got out our trusty slide rule, a piece of string and a box of paperclips and set ourselves to task! (Hold onto your vodka kids, this is gonna be a long one!)

After some thought we came to the conclusion that the laurels would rest on three statistics:
1 - percentage of post-season games played
2 - post-season depth
3 - post-season win/loss record.

Post Season Appearance Percentage:
This is simply a percentage of how many post-season games a team has played versus the amount of post-season games they could have actually played in. Most NFL teams have been around since Superbowl I and could have played in 167 post-season games. This includes all wildcard, divisional and conference championship rounds, and of course, the Superbowls. The Following table uses the following abbreviations:

PPSG = possible post-season games
APSG = actual post-season games played
PSG% = percentage of post-season games played
Rnk = Ranking of teams by percentage

Note: Some teams have bounced around the league a bit so I used the NFL's rule of thumb for stats. The Raiders, Rams, Cardinals and Colts retain all stats played under their respective team name regardless of city. The Browns retain all stats from Cleveland and the Titans retain all stats from the Houston Oilers. The Ravens and Texans start fresh from when they entered the league. Also, the Packers and Steelers have not yet played in SB 45, so each teams stats includes a loss for that game. I checked the numbers, giving each team a preliminary win, and it doesn't really move them up or down in any category. After the game, I'll edit the stats to reflect the winner.

Team	Seasons	PPSG	APSG	PSG%	Rnk
DAL Cowboys	45	167	58	34.73%	1
PIT Steelers	45	167	52	31.14%	2
MIN Vikings	45	167	45	26.95%	3
OAK Raiders	45	167	43	25.60%	4
SF 49ers	45	167	42	25.15%	5
BAL Ravens	15	60	15	25.00%	6
MIA Dolphins	45	167	39	23.40%	7
STL Rams	45	167	36	21.56%	8
IND Colts	45	167	36	21.56%	8
GB Packers	45	167	35	20.96%	10
PHI Eagles	45	167	34	20.36%	11
NE Patriots	45	167	34	20.36%	11
WAS Redskins	45	167	33	19.76%	13
DEN Broncos	45	167	32	19.16%	14
TEN Titans	45	167	30	17.96%	15
JAC Jaguars	16	64	11	17.19%	16
NY Giants	45	167	27	16.17%	17
CAR Panthers	16	64	10	15.63%	18
BUF Bills	45	167	26	15.57%	19
NY Jets	45	167	25	14.97%	20
CHI Bears	45	167	23	13.77%	21
SEA Seahawks	35	138	19	13.76%	22
CLE Browns	42	155	20	12.90%	23
SD Chargers	45	167	21	12.58%	24
KC Chiefs	45	167	21	12.50%	25
TB Buccaneers	35	138	15	10.87%	26
ATL Falcons	45	167	16	09.58%	27
CIN Bengals	43	162	14	08.64%	28
NO Saints	44	165	12	07.27%	29
DET Lions	45	167	10	05.99%	30
ARI Cardinals	45	167	10	05.99%	30
HOU Texans	9	36	0	00.00%	32

Who's amazing? Well, clearly Dallas and Pittsburgh shine here with over 50 post-season appearances apiece but what really caught my eye was the Baltimore Ravens… while they only have 15 appearances, that's out of 60 possible games!! That's a better percentage than New England or Green Bay! But then look at San Francisco in fifth place… behind Minnesota and Oakland? Seriously? Well, that's why we have the other categories…

Depth:
Depth is calculated by adding the points for each post-season win or loss, by round, and dividing that number by the total post-season games played. Essentially, depth reflects how far a team goes once it makes the playoffs. For teams with a full 45 seasons, the depth score tops out at around 3.61. This is due to the first 12 years of the NFL having less than four post-season rounds.

The following table shows post-season games played, (PSPG), depth score, number of byes, wildcard wins, divisional wins, conference championship wins, superbowl wins, post-season losses and depth ranking. Points are scored as follows: bye (2), wilcard (2), divisional (3), conference (4), Superbowl (5) and loss (1). Byes score the same as wildcard wins because that's essentially what they are.

Team	PSGP	Depth	Bye	Wild	Div	CC	SB	Loss	Rnk
SF 49ers	42	3.07	12	4	12	5	5	16	1
PIT Steelers	52	3.04	12	4	15	8	6	19	2
DEN Broncos	32	2.91	9	1	8	6	2	15	3
NE Patriots	34	2.85	8	3	7	6	3	15	4
NY Giants	27	2.74	5	5	4	4	3	11	5
CHI Bears	23	2.74	9	2	5	2	1	13	5
DAL Cowboys	58	2.67	9	5	15	8	5	25	7
WAS Redskins	33	2.61	4	6	6	5	3	13	8
OAK Raiders	43	2.53	5	5	12	5	3	18	9
CAR Panthers	10	2.50	2	2	3	1	0	4	10
GB Packers	35	2.49	3	7	6	5	3	14	11
TB Buccaneers	15	2.47	4	1	3	1	1	9	12
BUF Bills	26	2.42	6	3	5	4	0	14	13
MIA Dolphins	39	2.41	6	6	7	5	2	19	14
NO Saints	12	2.33	2	1	2	1	1	7	15
BAL Ravens	15	2.33	1	5	3	1	1	5	15
STL Rams	36	2.31	7	2	9	3	1	21	17
SD Chargers	21	2.29	6	4	4	1	0	12	18
IND Colts	36	2.28	5	4	6	4	2	20	19
ATL Falcons	16	2.12	4	3	2	1	0	10	20
CIN Bengals	14	2.07	2	1	2	2	0	9	21
MIN Vikings	45	2.07	6	6	9	4	0	26	21
CLE Browns	20	2.05	5	1	5	0	0	14	23
KC Chiefs	21	2.05	3	2	2	2	1	14	23
PHI Eagles	34	2.03	5	7	6	2	0	19	25
NY Jets	25	1.92	1	6	4	1	1	13	26
JAC Jaguars	11	1.91	1	4	2	0	0	5	27
TEN Titans	30	1.87	4	7	4	1	0	18	28
SEA Seahawks	19	1.84	2	5	2	1	0	11	29
ARI Cardinals	10	1.80	0	3	1	1	0	5	30
DET Lions	10	1.60	2	0	1	0	0	9	31
Hou Texans	0	0.00	0	0	0	0	0	0	32

Now that looks a little more like a list of World Champions. Granted Dallas falls to seventh because even though they have five Rings, they also have 25 post-season losses which really hurts their depth score. But don't worry, we still have one more category…

Wins and Losses:
The last category is a simple percentage of post-season wins and losses. I don't think that needs much more explanation, so here we go…

Team	PSGP	PSGW	PSGW%	Rnk
BAL Ravens	15	10	66.67%	1
PIT Steelers	52	33	63.46%	2
SF 49ers	42	26	61.90%	3
WAS Redskins	33	20	60.61%	4
CAR Panthers	10	6	60.00%	5
GB Packers	35	21	60.00%	5
NY Giants	27	16	59.26%	7
OAK Raiders	43	25	58.14%	8
DAL Cowboys	58	33	56.90%	9
NE Patriots	34	19	55.88%	10
JAC Jaguars	11	6	54.55%	11
DEN Broncos	32	17	53.12%	12
MIA Dolphins	39	20	51.28%	13
ARI Cardinals	10	5	50.00%	14
NY Jets	25	12	48.00%	15
BUF Bills	26	12	46.15%	16
IND Colts	36	16	44.44%	17
PHI Eagles	34	15	44.12%	18
CHI Bears	23	10	43.48%	19
SD Chargers	21	9	42.86%	20
MIN Vikings	45	19	42.22%	21
SEA Seahawks	19	8	42.11%	22
NO Saints	12	5	41.67%	23
STL Rams	36	15	41.67%	23
TB Buccaneers	15	6	40.00%	25
TEN Titans	30	12	40.00%	25
ATL Falcons	16	6	37.50%	27
CIN Bengals	14	5	35.71%	28
KC Chiefs	21	7	33.33%	29
CLE Browns	20	6	30.00%	30
DET Lions	10	1	10.00%	31
HOU Texans	0	0	00.00%	32

So, now that we've ranked our teams by categories, all we need to do is average those rankings for an overall score and see just who is the best post-season NFL team in the Superbowl Era!

OA	Avg	Team	PSA	Depth	W/L
1	02.00	PIT Steelers	2	2	2
2	03.00	SF 49ers	5	1	3
3	05.67	DAL Cowboys	1	7	9
4	07.00	OAK Raiders	4	9	8
5	07.33	BAL Ravens	6	15	1
6	08.33	NE Patriots	11	4	10
	08.33	WAS Redskins	13	8	4
8	08.67	GB Packers	10	11	5
9	09.67	DEN Broncos	14	3	12
	09.67	NY Giants	17	5	7
11	11.00	CAR Panthers	18	10	5
12	11.33	MIA Dolphins	7	14	13
13	14.67	IND Colts	8	19	17
14	15.00	CHI Bears	21	5	19
	15.00	MIN Vikings	3	21	21
16	16.00	BUF Bills	19	13	16
	16.00	STL Rams	8	17	23
18	18.00	JAC Jaguars	16	27	11
	18.00	PHI Eagles	11	25	18
20	20.33	NY Jets	20	26	15
21	20.67	SD Chargers	24	18	20
22	21.00	TB Buccaneers	26	12	25
23	22.33	NO Saints	29	15	23
24	22.67	TEN Titans	15	28	25
25	24.33	SEA Seahawks	22	29	22
26	24.67	ARI Cardinals	30	30	14
	24.67	ATL Falcons	27	20	27
28	25.33	CLE Browns	23	23	30
29	25.67	CIN Bengals	28	21	28
	25.67	KC Chiefs	25	23	29
31	30.67	DET Lions	30	31	31
32	32.00	HOU Texans	32	32	32

And there you have it! Is our reasoning sound? Pittsburgh, with six World Championships and another possibly on the way, places at the top followed by the two teams with five WC's. San Fran over Dallas? Yep, they're undefeated in the Superbowl and they got their five rings in less games than the Cowboys. The Raiders in fourth? Damn right! They have three rings and have been to a quarter of the post-season games they could have played in and they won 58% of those! Baltimore in fifth? One ring and an amazing 67% W/L record in the playoffs in just 15 years!

About the only surprise we found was that the Detroit Lions were not the team in last place. That spot goes to the Houston Texans who have never made a post-season appearance, but take heart Texans fans… it took some teams over twenty years to reach the post season, (SF and NO come to mind,) and you guys have only been at it for nine!

So, questions? Comments? Advice on the numbers? Be our guest and rattle off a comment! We'd love to hear from you!

-M Styborski

…And We're Back!

I know, I know… "Bad Nation!!"

But honest, we've been awfully busy since the BP Oil Hemorrhage, really, we have! How busy? Well, we've begun Styb: Curious Photo-Graphics, a bi-monthly photography magazine showcasing the camerawork of M Styborski! Print issues are on sale at MagCloud and we also offer FREE, full issue downloads for the Apple I-Pad!

In conjunction with Styb, we've also rolled out a new M Styborski gallery space at RedBubble where ten works from each issue of Styb will be offered for sale to the public as postcards, prints and posters!

Also available through RedBubble, in our gallery Gift Shop, are a select number of propaganda items in the form of posters, t-shirts and stickers! No self-respecting Modern Rebel should be without these items! There may even be generous discounts on bulk orders, so order by the case and let me know!!

We've also been sub-contracted for another year at HumidCity, (which is where we've been hiding the last few months,) for a number of reasons –not the least of which is that we work incredibly cheap– so if you don't see anything new here, click on over there and see what you're missing! And we promise to be here more often for you!

-M Styborski

Simple Math

BP finally got its "top kill" act together Wednesday and began pumping drilling "mud" into the hole near the frog on the bump on the log at the bottom of the deep dark well. There were periodic stops and starts as pressure tests were done to evaluate the stability of the BOP. Understandable.

But last night on CNN, LSU's... See More... See More Ed Overton theorized that pressure tests were not the only reason the TK was supended. I confess I was distracted for the first part of Overton's theory, but the gist of it was that BP had run out of mud. Well, that would certainly be embarrassing, wouldn't it? I mean, these guys are engineers, right? Good with numbers and all that, right?

Well…

BP has reported that the initial "mud" pumping started out slowly (making sure the lines and BOP could handle the pressure) and was gradually increased to 65 barrels/minute. Over the past two days there has been about 16 hours of pumping at which point BP claimed they needed to suspend operations and "see what happens."

Except…

16 hours = 960 minutes.
65 barrels/minute x 960 minutes = 62,400 barrels.

According to NOLA.com:
"The company has also ordered 15,000 more barrels of mud to add to the 50,000 barrels initially onsite. Suttles said he did not know how much mud had been pumped into the well or how much had escaped."

50,000 + 15,000 = 65,000.

Sad but obvious fact = the dummies ran out of mud.

And yesterday they clamored for the cameras in order to explain that this temporary suspension stuff is all according to plan. Really? And they didn't think this would look awkward? No one at BP HQ thought "Hey, this plan to stop pumping in the middle of the night might look bad, y'now, since we been gaming these Cajun dinks for the last month. Shouldn't we mention this before hand so they don't think we're screwing something up?"

My other thought of the morning is that if they can pump 65 barrels/MINUTE in through two 3" hoses how is it that a 21" pipeline is spewing just 12-19,000 barrels/DAY?

Of course this is mere speculation on my part. What the hell do I know.

Bone Smuggler

Ha-Ha you big twat!

YOU HAVE BEEN HOSED!!

Try not to be so gullible in the future!

Luv ya though!

-M

Blurb, Widgets and K+36

I have been asked by Blurb to help beta-test their new BookShow widget which embeds book previews into blogs and web pages, so without further ado, here we go with my first book, the lower ninth: K+36. Note, this is a full preview of the book from cover to cover.

the lower ninth: K+36 by M Styborski

The first thing I notice is the ugly gray background and the inability to fit the opened book in the space allocated by the blog but the full-screen preview looks OK. Test it out and let me know if your browser has any difficulties displaying the preview. Thanks in advance for your time!

UPDATE: Blurb has also bestowed upon me a code for free shipping on orders placed by March 22! If you order your book before the 22nd, enter the promo code WESHIP for free shipping!