(Written by kencraw)

I bet just about everyone is wondering what in #$@@$@#! has been keeping me from posting lately. Well, in truth, there’s been a lot of behind the scenes work going on.

Today you’ll notice a new banner for the blog thanks to Jason, and you may also notice that the blog software was upgraded. But those both pale in comparision to the amount of work that has gone into getting the new Pick’Em league ready.

The new Pick’Em league is a lot like last years but a number of changes have been made. First and foremost, the scoring has been simplified. When two electrical engineers walked away with the contest last year, it was a clue to me that perhaps things like logrhythmic bonus points for picking games early in addition to the additional complexity of forcing people to pick scores not winners and a formula associated to how those scores were translated into points, was just too much.

So things are simplified. Now notice that I didn’t say they were simple. While the bonus points system is gone, you’ll still have to pick the score for the game and there’s still formulas to determine who did the best job of predicting the score. That said, picking the winner is now 50% of the score and that’ll make things simplier on their own.

Also added this year is automated e-mail sending that’ll remind you if you haven’t made your picks yet and will give you updates on the league if you so desire. Finally there’s now a method to have your password reset if you forget it and don’t want to be at my mercy to get back in.

In any case, this is your chance to prove that you’re better at predicting games than all the most sophisticated Cal fans out there, and me too. Sign-up on the Pick’Em tab.