CyberZahm

In a special report prepared for THE ZOOKEEPER, Professor Nalini Nadkari has taken the time to calculate for the animals the amount of trees per person that exist on the earth in order to help them with their weekly prognostication tasks, and assess their chances of reaching true FOOTBALL GENIUS. I'll explain:

The good professor, using NASA's latest capabilities to have satellites snap photos of the earth which collect the reflection of sunshine off leafy objects (evergreens too) has mapped such images to count the strips of land where trees exist. With this information, kind of like Mark Foley perusing Face Book entries, and an assumed tree density per area multiplied by acres or hectares (your preference), NALIN NADDY (as she is known in the LMS pool) has calculated that there are 400,246,300, 201 trees, give or take a few big bushes, on the planet. For those animals who have trouble with big numbers and commas, that's over 400 billion, almost as much as the world's American Express bill.

Taking this information further, NADDY calculates that as of December 31, 2007, there were 6,456,789,877 people on the planet (again, give or take a few, that's about 6.5 billion for you animals trying to follow here who are being forced to use all of your big brain assets to concentrate on football genius. This is roughly equivalent to the number of exclusive interviews Sarah Palin will give over the next twelve months). Taking the dividend of trees, utilizing the divisor of people, the resultant quotient of trees per people is easily proven to be 61 (please don't attempt this math at home, animals, Professor Nadkari is a trained professional).

How does that help you animals? Read on:

In WEEK TEN there were three unbelievable, nail-biting, miracle finishes that enabled the Cardinals, Chargers, and Dolphins to all continue. You know it, animals. Don't argue it. Additionally, there have been several miracle finishes, overtime saves, last minute heroics, and just plain dumb luck, as well as rumors of corruption in the replay booth, that have enabled many of the remaining cages to stay recorded in the realm of FOOTBALL GENIUS, when the second place animals know that you really don't know JACK SCHITT about football, you are just living off DUMB LUCK (you know who you are). Taking the number of DUMB LUCK chances any given animal is likely to have over the course of a seventeen week season, which has long been known to be the inverse of the number of trees per person, and factoring that into a relationship equal to the number of weeks and cages remaining should give even the dimmest of animals remaining their true odds of continuing much further. Seven weeks to go, caged ones. Be careful. We wouldn't want to see you slip up now.

Meanwhile, DOWN BY THE RIVER, THE ZOOKEEPER was raking in pot after pot with the usual donkeys assembled at the weekly VAN poker game. Paulson had already tapped into his credit line several times before taking his walk of shame, mumbling something about bad Beaver Moon luck. Tony Dow had hocked some twisted sculpture and a couple of airline tickets to Paris earlier to maintain a stash, but he was now completely busted. Kenny Chesney smashed a few flops and had his brief moment in the sun, like the promise of a White House puppy, and then he was gone. And when THE ZOOKEEPER cracked Demidov's aces it came down to him and Peter Eastgate for all of the money.

ZK was dealt an A-3 diamonds in the small blind. Eastgate pushed to $1 million plus and ZK shoved all in. Eastgate snap called and showed a pair of sixes. The race was on. Flop came A-Q-4 diamond. ZOOKEEPER's pair was big, very big. Turn showed another A. ZK was now a huge favorite. In fact, Eastgate had a one outer, six of diamonds, case six, as the fourth six had been exposed earlier. Then the dealer turned the river.

But you don't care about these numbers, you just want THEE numbers. And here they are, :

6201 OUT, 1 DQ'D, 427 IN. 138 DOLPHINS, 129 PANTHERS, 89 COLTS, 44 EGGLES, 7 FALCONS, 7 49ERS, 6 NEW YORK FOOTBALL GIANTS, 3 CARDINALS, AND FOUR LONE WOLF SELECTIONS - 1 MIGHTY MIGHTY STEELER, 1 BUC, 1 BILL, AND 1 SAINT.

PICK OF THE WEEK HONOR - Condolences to SNOWMAN and RUBY who both went down on their Texan picks from the hurricane delayed WEEK TWO game, while both hitting their picks in WEEK ELEVEN. For the record guys, you were officially OUT in WEEK TWO. Pay up on any bets you had. This week's POW nominees include CHILI PROVIDENCE on the Monday Night home Bills over the now Brady led Browns, MIZUNO on the rested Bucs at home against the Vikings, ATL 2 with the Mighty Mighty Steelers home against the traveling to the east coast Lightning Bolts, and G'S NUTZ on the road with the Saints in KC. Tough one to call. All four are solid possibilities to take it all down. Nod goes to the CHILI PROVIDENCE for taking the Monday Nighter to make it exciting for somebody.

That's all for this week. Special shout out to BUZZMAN - now a believer. Irish take on the Midshipmen trying to end Navy's streak against them on Saturday. Faithful fans are confident that Charley's' offensive play calling talents will be the difference maker. Others are mumbling mutiny. RIP Herb Score, Preacher Roe, and Mitch Mitchell. Peace. Out.