CyberZahm

Sometimes things just seem to go so easy. Like the time that the ZOOKEEPER found an old x-ray crystallography machine in the back of the VAN and in a few hours figured out how to generate three dimensional models to show the way that different antibiotics bind to ribosomes. Or the time ...

...that he aced that scholarship exam to esthetician school. Or that other time when he gave Lenny Dykstra the tip to get bullish on deep-in-the-money call options four to six months from expiration. There is great value in simplicity - a true first cousin to genius - and WEEK FOUR was a simple gimmee for just about all of the animals in THE WORLD'S GREATEST FOOTBALL POOL.

In such simple fashion, aspiring football genius animals continued their impressive performances in WEEK FOUR with only a few deserving simpletons getting evicted from their cages. Dave Barrett's hotel peep holes showed more action than the NFL's Sunday games last week. What were those few animals who got tossed thinking? Did they really pick the Bills as their best bet from that schedule? That might have been the worst decision since Brooke Astor told her little boy, Tony, to go get her check book from the desk drawer. WEEK FIVE looks just as simply inviting to the still too many remaining cage dwellers, but, hey, might as well play the games anyway.....

Sadly, once again, the Nobel Prize people passed over THE ZOOKEEPER for the literature award in favor of some Romanian born German writer who lived under the Ceausescu regime (don't bother looking it up, animals, it's just some guy with a funny name that you can't pronounce). Big deal. She should try living with over 6,000 animals who refuse to go quietly to their cages each week when Muscatel stocks are low. She would be shown the true landscape of the dispossessed. 10 million kronor could have purchased a lot of grape. In a bid for next year's award, THE ZOOKEEPER is considering publishing future weekly reports in Romanian and German text. Somehow that makes titles like "Life is a fart in a lantern" more poignant. Alles zu seiner Zeit. Die richtige Zeit, es zu tun. Die Zahlen sind hier:

3584 IN. 3108 OUT. 5 DQ'D. 1186 EGGLES, 1122 NEW YORK FOOTBALL GIANTS, 574 MIGHTY MIGHTY STEELERS (bastards), 283 FARVELOUS VIKINGS, 244 COWBOYS, 55 RAVENS, 51 BILLS (here we go again?), 22 PANTHERS, 16 COLTS, 15 CARDINALS, 7 JAGUARS, 5 J-E-T-S JETS JETS JETS, 2 PATRIOTS, and two lone wolf selections, 1 FALCON, 1 TITAN.

STUPID ANIMAL OF THE WEEK award goes to RANGER who brilliantly sent his pick in this week as "The Birds". Eagles? Cardinals? Falcons? Seahawks? We decided to give him the Blue Jays.

PICK OF THE WEEK honors comes down to two lone wolves. GREENBAY 9 is looking for the Titans (3 1/2 home dogs) to get off the schneid against MVP Peyton and the Colts, while SPORTINWOODY likes the visiting Falcons (2 1/2 road dogs) in San Francisco. Gutsy picks to be sure, but a little like picking out a nice rental unit in Abuja. Real estate market a little tough in Sierra Leone, guys?

That's it for this week. ND has the week off to get ready for THE BIG GAME. Remember: Cough into your sleeve. Peace. Out.