Red Renee wishes you and your family a very Merry Christmas. Red’s taking the day off to hang with the family but will be back on the 26th. We hope the holiday finds you healthy and happy.

ESPN has something called the “Bowl Challenge” where they award a title to whichever conference finishes with the best bowl record. Considering that bowl matchups are rarely even, with bizarre tie-ins and lots of coaching fluctuation, we think this is a little too simple of a way to determine which conference had the best bowl season. Instead, we’ve come up with a points system that much more accurately assesses how each conference performs. We did this last year and will track the games again this year.

Rather than just look at wins and losses, we’re using the vegas line to draw a finer point. It goes a lil’ something like this:

* Lose as the favorite or lose and not cover the spread: 0 points
* Lose but cover the spread: 1 point
* Win but don’t cover the spread: 2 points
* Win and cover the spread: 3 points

Once we’ve tallied the above points, we’re going to divide each conferences point total by the total number of games they played in. The highest final score wins the challenge. We’ll report back with the final standings and provide a comparison to the ESPN figures as well.

Not surprisingly, the SEC was the winner last year with a final score of 2.33, just edging the Pac-Ten at 2.17.

2007 Results:

You’re welcome.

End of the year and catching up on a few odds and ends. You may recall back in early October I invested $50,000 of virtual dollars in some undervalued blue chip stocks. I did so according to the principles of buy low, sell high, or more to the point- “when there’s blood in the street, invest”. The market was imploding and it made sense to snatch up some stocks.

So far the investment hasn’t paid off (shocker). Thanks to Co-Presidents George Bush and Barack Obama, the market still hasn’t fully recovered, and my virtual portfolio reflects that. My original $50,000 is down to about $46,796 for about a 6.5% loss. Just for fun, I’ll continue to keep tabs on it throughout the next year.

You’re welcome.