Gas prices

In May, just six months ago, I blogged about gas crossing the $4 mark. Last week, I paid $2.41 and it looks like prices are down a few pennies since then.

That means gas prices have dropped 40% in 6 months. I sure crude oil is down, but that's an amazing price drop. Has any good dropped 20% or even 10% in the last six months (stocks aren't really goods)? My gut is everything is MORE expensive now. Seems like a fake scarcity to me.

Here at Last

Finally the last day before the election. Likely tomorrow, we'll know who the next President of the United States will be. In fact, it's likely the major networks will call it officially at 8 PM Pacific when polls close in California, Washington, and Oregon giving Senator Obama 73 additional electoral votes and pushing him over the top. However, since not much West of the Mississippi is up for grabs, we'll really know three hours earlier if they can call the "close" states shortly after the polls close. Actually, at 4:30 Pacific time, Ohio and North Carolina close their polls and Florida and Virginia will have been closed for a while, and it might be over.

My prediction is Obama 53-45 nationally and winning 379-159* in the electoral college. He takes all of the Kerry states plus NM, VA, CO, OH, FL, NV, MO, NC, IN, the second district in NE, and MT or ND. I'm pretty convinced that the national polls underrepresent cell phone users and African Americans and both groups will come out strongly in support of Obama.

Best place to follow the election is HDnet or CNN on TV or fivethirtyeight.com online.

* Originally I wrote 382-162 but that's inconsistent with my breakdown as that would mean Obama would win MT and ND.

NFL Update

At the start of the season, I remarked that the Bears could be pretty good if they got average play at QB and RB. Well Kyle Orton has actually been quite good this year. Not at Pro Bowl level but in the top 1/3 of QBs in the league, outperforming well-known names like Manning and Favre. Likewise Matt Forte has been an average running back. While that doesn't sound like much, last year Cedric Benson was so bad that his NFL career is over.

The Bears are 4-3 but if not for a fluky and poorly played final 30 seconds against the Falcons would be 5-2. And with some luck could have been 6-1! They aren't awesome, but they look like a playoff caliber team. As well, the league is pretty even with a lot of teams within a game of 500 so anything could happen in the playoffs.

World Series

Well, I came pretty close in the LCS. The AL indeed went 7 games, though the Rays won and the Phillies took care of the Dodgers in 5 not 6. Off by two total.

I see the Rays in 6 games. Quite frankly they're just a lot better than the Phillies.

This will probably be the least watched World Series in years with Chicago, Los Angeles, Boston, and New York all watching from home.

Playoff FIrst Round

Yuck, yuck, and more yuck.

I'm not sure whether I'm more sad, frustrated, or embarrassed by the Cubs performance. Monica's sister and brother-in-law attended game 1 in Chicago, Monica went to game 2, and I went to LA for the weekend for game 3 (and what I expected would be game 4). What a waste of a season. And a double-whammy for me on top of the Storm's post season.

On the other hand, I had the other three series pegged right. I actually had Phillies in 4 originally, but didn't like picking them all to be four game series.

Red Sox in 7 and Phillies in 6 in the LCS.