This is by far the worst I've done in a season so far. I'll throw out a spoiler. After this week, I'm 60-66. For comparison, last year, after week 9, I picked 72 games right. That's an average of picking 1.33 games per week right. Ouch. Anyway, here we go.

• New York Jets 17 (-3), Buffalo 22: This was a shock to me, but looking over the schedule this week, only five favorites covered, and only six won. Parody at it's finest! Oh wait. It's parity. Not parody.
• Philadelphia 3 (-1), Pittsburgh 27: The Steelers rocked the Eagles. I said it a while ago - I'm on the Steeler bandwagon, and I meant it. I just didn't think they were that good - beat two undefeateds in a row. Very nice. The '72 Dolfins say thank you.
• Washington 17, Detroit 10 (-3): The talk on the local shows is that Harrington can't handle the crowd at home. Detroit is really hard on quarterbacks, but he needs to have thicker skin than that. But this would explain why Detroit is better on the road than at home, though.
• Dallas 3 (-1), Cincinnati 26: The Bengals dominated the Cowboys. Seven turnovers? Seriously? Isn't this the second time Dallas has had a very high turnover number?
• Oakland 27, Carolina 24 (-6.5): I still can't get over how far these two teams have fallen. Well, Carolina, maybe. They were a flash in the pan (just like the Hurricanes in hockey), but I thought Oakland would be better than this.
• Arizona 24, Miami 23 (-3): Miami becomes the first team to fire a coach during the season after winning 10 or more games in the previous season. Now, the only remaining question is when Steve Spurrier is announced as the new coach.
• Kansas City 31 (-3), Tampa Bay 34: KC goes from on track to losing to the Bucs in one week. What a rollercoaster season they are having.
• Chicago 28, New York Giants 21 (-9): The Giants' trip through the NFC North hasn't been the best. They won a game they shouldn't have, and then lost two they should have won. And I should have known - Chicago as a nine point dog is now 3-1 against the spread. Pretty good. And they've won two of those three.
• Seattle 42 (-7), San Francisco 27: Seattle is back on track. Maybe. It was the 49ers after all. I guess we'll see next week.
• New Orleans 17, San Diego 43 (-6): Drew Brees for league MVP? Doesn't sound possible, but it could be the case if he continues. Given the Vikings / Colts match up, who picked San Diego to score the most points this week?
• New England 40 (-2.5), St. Louis 22: I watched some of this one. Apparently Tom Brady relayed an experience he had in college to the Patriots coaching staff. You see, the play where Vinatieri through the touchdown pass - you know, when Troy Brown (why was he playing defense, too?) acted like he was leaveing the field and then caught a TD? Well MSU ran that same play against Michigan, and scored then too. At least he's not bitter!
• Houston 13, Denver 31 (-5.5): Denver stomped on Houston. Was this an anomoly for Houston, or are they coming back down to earth?
• Cleveland 13, Baltimore 27 (-6): Baltimore was all over Cleveland, and in my mind, Cleveland wasn't really in this one (at least the part I saw).
• Minnesota 28, Indianapolis 31 (-6): This didn't live up to the hype in my mind. But they rarely do. Don't get me wrong - it was a good game to watch, but it wasn't the offensive shoot out it was made out to be. Yeah, Manning had four TDs, but I was hoping for a combined point total of over 80. Instead, we barely hit 60.

I already stated I did poorly, so let's just show the results and get out of here. Maybe a little XBox to relax? No Halo 2, but it's still fun to play!

Does anyone have any recommendations for an open source license? I'm thinking of releasing my blogging tool and b2 blogging extension as open source, and would like to get some advice about what license would be the best.

I've heard Microsoft isn't allowed to install GPLed software, so I would rather stay away from that - who knows, a 'softie might want to try it out! I know WiX was released under the CPL, and am going to read that to see if it might be a good fit. I should also check what license the AdServer eventually went with, as that might be a good choice.

Next question - I am using a component listed on WindowsForms.net that says it has no license. It was written by someone from Microsoft, but his email address is bouncing. What are the implications of using his software? Should I include his source, or just his redist? Obviously, if I go forward, he'll get credit for his peice, but I also don't want to get in trouble with him.

Next. Is there any interest in this at all? There's two parts to it: One is a blogging tool. It's a windows app that supports blogging to multiple blog plug-ins. I blog regularly to two .Text sites and a b2-based site, so I wanted to be able to do that all at once - no more posting to one, and copying to the others. Mike Swanson pointed out this extension, which posts to multiple .Text blogs, so I've been using that. But the b2 extension provided by Newsgator had some limitations - mainly, how to support categories independantly of the other plugins. Basically it needed to handle categories like the DotText Mult Plugin does - you select after you post, and you get a list of categories from each blog to choose from.

And that's the second peice of this. I have a b2 blog extension that supports posting to mutliple b2-based blogs and allows categories to be selected at post time.

So the two pieces - a blogging tool to post to mutliple IBlogExtensions, and a b2 extension that supports categories reliably. Any interest?

Of course, if I go forward, I'll have many more questions about how to build a good team and a solid foundation to take this forward and add new features over time. But there has to be interest first. If I see some, I'll create a page for it with some features and information about it, and probably start a Sourceforge site to host the code (no GDN workspaces - too much instability for me right now).

And, in case you're wondering, I'm dogfooding it right now. I have been for about a week now. And it still needs a name. It's called Ross Blogger right now, but that's not "sexy" so it needs a new name too. And an icon.

The final version of CruiseControl.NET 0.7 has been released, just under a week after RC1 was released. I never did get a chance to install the update, but here's a few reasons I might:

• The web app now supports multiple CCNET projects - now I can uninstall the two extra web apps we have.
• The state manager supports multiple projects - no more having to worry about making sure you have a different state file for each  project.
• Built-in support for Vault.

I'm sure I'll be taking a look at this after the first of the year, if not sooner.

We may be soon. What we've been using is...flaky, at best. So it's timely that Ryan Rinaldi posted a review of Axosoft's OnTime 2004 software.

I downloaded it, checked it out, and then stuck with what we're currently using, mainly because the pricing is much more favorable. Axosoft is $149 per user (ours was $99 for an unlimited number of users), but, like Vault, you can use it as a single user for free.

I have to agree with Ryan about the VS.NET plug-in - it's the killer feature in my mind. Being able to track and manage bugs inside of Visual Studio would be nice. It would be much easier to do than a seperate app (even if it is just a browser). I spend all day in VS.NET - why not track my bugs there too?

On another note, it looks like SourceGear is gearing up for a new release of Vault, and their own bug-tracking software, called Dragnet. (download links) Eric Sink has the details here. I've used both Source OffSite and Vault, and both are very solid products. I look forward to trying out his bug tracking software, as I'm sure it will be top notch. Eric also has a series of articles about source control that are all very good reads.

On Friday, I listened to Thursday night's DotNetRocks with Kate Gregory, which was very interesting. It was odd to listen to the show with no one but Carl Franklin (and Kate), and only an interview. Anyway, Kate had a great quote: "I'm a device for turning caffeine into code." I need to add that to my business card.

I actually like the shorter version of the show. I find it hard to find a two hour block to listen to something, and would usually end up listening to it over two days. That means I had to remember where I was in the broadcast, and then try to pick it back up. It took me three days to get through the Fritz Onion show - I listened to that one in my car on my pocket pc.

Friday was odd. At 11:00 AM I was completely caught up on Podcasts, and too busy to find any more. So what did I do? Listened to music - something I haven't done since I started pulling down podcats!

Rob Howard wrote a great article about Database Cache Invalidation. Implementing a cache invalidation strategy was a task for next week, and now we have a much better solution than we were going to have.

He even gives us arguments about why the approach we were going to use (a file watcher, with triggers to update the file) is not viable.

We got a sample up and running (based on Rob's sample code) within an hour, and implementing it should be fairly straightforward next week. The sample is also a good sample of one of the ways that HttpModules can be used.

VOIPail is currently looking for beta testers, so I signed up. Hopefully I'll get picked, and get a chance to see what it's like.

It's not just voicemail for Skype - it's intended to be for any VOIP apps.

So now, you can call other computers, you can call "real" phones, and you can have voicemail. The only thing left to do is to call a computer from a "real" phone! One day, I'm sure that will happen. And when that day comes, we can get rid of our phone systems altogether. I know I'm ready for that now!

And, by the way, Skype works pretty well on my Pocket PC too - although with the position of the speaker and microphone, I have to hold it upside down.

I had a thought today about Scoble's Link Blog, and why he changed it from a full content feed to a partial content feed. I know a lot of people have said things like my content is under copyright. But what are they doing about Google? How is a full content feed that gives you credit for your content any different that Googles cached pages?

I like the roman numerals, so I think I'll stay with them from here on out. I have to do something to make it interesting, since my picks obviously aren't! I've only been able to pick 10 of 27 games in the past two weeks! Let's try again

• New York Jets (-3) vs. Buffalo: It must be nice to play Miami and Buffalo twice this year. Pretty much two guaranteed wins!
• Philadelphia (-1) vs. Pittsburgh: This is one of two premiere match ups this week. Pittsburgh is coming off a huge win over New England, and Philadelphia wants to remain undefeated. Add in that these teams are so close, and you have the making for a very good game. I picked Philly because no team has ever done what Pittsburgh is trying to do.
• Washington vs. Detroit (-3): Washington has not been playing very well this year. Detroit is very up and down. Hopefully Williams will suit up for this one. It's still odd to see Detroit as a favorite.
• Dallas (-1) vs. Cincinnati: Dallas should be able to take this one. Cincy is too inconsistent.
• Oakland vs. Carolina (-6.5): A match up of the last two Super Bowl losers. It's amazing to see how far they've both fallen. But Oakland has fallen farther.
• Arizona vs. Miami (-3): Arizona has beaten a couple of good teams.Of course, they lost to San Fran and Buffalo. I think after getting embarassed on national TV, the Dolfins will respond.
• Kansas City (-3) vs. Tampa Bay: Only favored by three after putting up 45 points against Indy? Unreal. Tampa Bay isn't that good. Kansas City should run all over them. Who needs defense when you can score at will?
• Chicago vs. New York Giants (-9): I've been here before. Chicago a nine point dog. I usually pick the favorite. And I usually lose. So I'll take da Bears.
• Seattle (-7) vs. San Francisco: Seattle will prove they are the best team in the NFC West, and part of that will be a sound beating of the 49ers.
• New Orleans vs. San Diego (-6): San Diego has the most prolific offense so far this season. That should continue against New Orleans, resulting in a much larger spread than 6 points.
• New England (-2.5) vs. St. Louis: St. Louis better be prepared. New England should come out hot. Or will they feel a let down after going so long without a loss? Do they remember what it's like to lose? That feeling won't last long.
• Houston vs. Denver (-5.5): I'm still not sold on Houston as a good team. Yeah, they beat Jacksonville last week, but that won't help them this week against Denver.
• Cleveland vs. Baltimore (-6): Call it a hunch, but I think Cleveland will win this one.
• Minnesota vs. Indianapolis (-6): Word is the defenses on each team will wear flame-retardant jerseys for this one. Why? They're going to get burned all night. Now this is a monday night match up! Yeah, for the purists, it won't be the best game, but from a pure fun standpoint, this'll be a good one.

Still here? Why? I'm wrong more than I'm right. Maybe next week, that won't be the case!

Wow. Sam Gentile ripped into the VB.NET team for leaving out refactoring in VB.NET 2005.

Someone told me they would switch back to VB (from C#) now that it had some new features available in 2005, like the My namespace. I wonder if this would change his mind. Personally, I'll stay with C#, even without My. It's all available elsewhere anyway, right?