Don't worry, everyone. If the pigs don't get you, the leaping carp will.

Market Update
Home values in Lakeview showed a staggering increase this week. Well, you know, relatively speaking anyway.

Try putting yourself in the Bears shoes. Why would you want to talk to Bob Costas? Why would you want him to grill Jerry Angelo on the warts of his football organization? Why would you want him to probe Lovie Smith about some of the decisions he's made? Why would you want him to have access to Jay Cutler only to undress him about all those interceptions?

Can you blame the Bears for being arrogant and stupid?

Yes!

America has an obsessions with awards.

I've always thought the Hollywood people stepping all over each other to win the three dozen or so different awards they bestow upon themselves was quite unseemly. Yet, they can't get it right.

Jackie Gleason never won an Emmy, one of the most heinous crimes in the annals of showbiz. Andy Griffith never won an Emmy for The Andy Griffith Show! More recently, Jason Alexander never won an Emmy for Seinfeld. Unbelievable. Was the Academy just doing the opposite?

This week, the Bears return to what was their happy home. After losing in yet another creative way, Soldier Field will feel like a home - a home that is on the brink of a bitter divorce. Here, Bears fans will split, warming up their baseball rivalries for the 2010 season.

I caution Bears fans to stick together by attacking the real problem: the Chicago Bears. Frankly, the Bears fans' effort has been downright disappointing. Sure, some made posts to forums and friends' Facebook pages (which were totally entertaining!), but if you really want change, you have to make it happen. Let's face it, voting for change but doing nothing about it is so 2008.

NFL coaches have had a tough year, and I'm not just talking about the assistant who was allegedly beaten and threatened by his own head coach in Oakland. Of course, here in Chicago, there's poor Lovie Smith and his embarrassing lack of facial expressions - he's only got that one open-mouthed, dumb-founded languorous look that TV cameras tend to dwell upon.

Meanwhile, it seems like a larger number of coaches than usual may be on the firing line this off-season, with former Bears coach Dick Jauron already a goner in Buffalo. Even the good coaches are seeing their decisions questioned. This past Sunday night, New England's Bill Belichick, the coach who formerly could do no wrong, was lambasted for going for it on fourth down and short yardage deep in his own territory with little time left, up by less than a touchdown, and with a guy named Peyton Manning leading the other team's offense. The Patriots didn't make the first down, and lost. The move was pure Belichick: A first down would have won the game, and to punt it was to unquestionably put it in the hands of the best quarterback of the decade (sorry, Tom Brady) and possibly this year's MVP (that would be Manning). A gutsy move, and I liked it.

Ugh. This is brutal. "Got the pig bug?" one friend asked via Facebook. I doubt it, probably just regular flu. But how can you tell? All I know is it's like a sanitarium in here. I don't know how people persevere through serious illness because the misery of this one is just about all I can take. Fever, chills, headache, a cough that seizes every muscle in my body . . . just brutal. And yet, I think I'm on the upswing! I'm planning to return to Beachwood full-force tomorrow, but we'll see. I kinda thought I'd be back today but I have a blinding headache and I'm still drenched in my own sweat.

A note to our readers: first, our apologies for the late release of this week's review; and second, we will use the terms Football Championship Subdivision (FCS) and Division I-AA interchangeably from this point forward. The same goes for Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) and Division I-A. We have complained about this cosmetic change to the long-standing I-A/I-AA naming convention before, and now we'll choose to ignore it as we see fit. So there.

Note that not all of these teams will automatically play in a post-season bowl, although the odds are good. Most BCS conferences have at least six bowl tie-ins and some (the SEC, for example) have as many as nine. (This does not mean that the SEC sends nine teams to bowl games every season but instead that up to nine bowls will invite a team from the conference should that many be bowl eligible.)

All the same, six is usually the magic number. Only four teams (Arkansas State, Bowling Green, Louisiana-Lafayette and San Jose State, all at 6-6) finished with six wins and remained home at the end of the regular season last year. At least one team (6-5 Kansas State, with two Ws against FCS schools) already has six wins in 2009 but must record at least seven for eligibility - teams from the former Division I-A can only count one win against I-AA programs toward their total. I'm not bothered by this rule. Let's face it - the Iowa States of the world need a little help padding the win total, but piling on Ws against Directional Creampuffs seems a bit unfair.

So today, we tip our hat to:

It's time to send in the clowns, elephants and jugglers. It's also time to send the Bulls on a trip only a magician can envy. You see, ever since Michael Jordan left for more golf and less work, the Bulls have usually disappeared from the win column during their lengthy November sojourn known as the Circus Trip. As Ringling Bros. takes over the United Center, the Bulls tend to fall off their high-wire act. Matter of fact, since the 1999-2000 season, the Bulls have become steady bedfellows with futility on their circus tours. They went five straight years without winning a single game on the trip until winning for the first time in 39 tries in Utah on Wednesday, November 24, 2004. Thanksgiving turkey never tasted as good.

So much more satisfying to see a hockey game end in overtime isn't it? Shootouts are dramatic and they beat a tie, that's for sure, but they are contrived. I love the regular season NHL overtime with the four-on-four format that almost always produces end-to-end excitement. And sure enough the Blackhawks' impressive early Sunday evening victory (love those 6 p.m. starts!) over the team with the best record in the league, the San Jose Sharks, benefited greatly from a thrilling overtime finish.

Only about 30 seconds had elapsed in the five-minute extra period when the Hawks gathered themselves in their own end and then busted out toward and then through center ice. A moment or two after entering the Shark zone, Jonathan Toews slipped the puck toward the goal knowing that Troy Brouwer was rushing up the slot and had a great shot at a redirection. Sure enough, Brouwer did tip the puck on net but Shark goalie Evgeni Nabokov stopped it and the rebound ended up behind the net in the possession of a Shark defenseman.

Here's the note I sent to my NBCChicago.com minders this morning:

"i'm so sorry, i think i've got the flu, and unfortunately i'm not joking. i've been staving off symptoms for the better part of the week and it hit me full force the last 24 hours. i'm going to go back to sleep and hope i either wake up cured or don't wake up at all. and i had a bunch of story ideas lined up from the weekend. michael scott, whoa! abdon's sun-times story about new trier endorsement was one, death penalty moratorium and gitmo prisoners entering governor's race was one (is jim ryan now the moderate) . . . please use if you want . . . or not . . . ugh, i've used up as many brain cells as are working right now. if i don't make it, i want pink floyd's "wish you were here" played at my funeral . . . i'm sorry."

Look on the bright side, Bears fans. At least it's safe to watch football this weekend.

Market Update
Illinois' battered economy looks set to receive an unexpected boost as the state is poised to post significant gains in the import market for other people's problems.

1. "You could say that the Bears left their season right here, in San Francisco with Thursday's ugly 10-6 loss, but that would ignore the failings by this team that have been spread across the country," Brad Biggs writes in the Sun-Times.

2. "I think he realizes he can't be elected governor unless he apologizes," Rob Warden says of Jim Ryan's apology in the Jeanine Nicarico prosecutions. "He is no more sincere than Dugan. I don't mean to equate what Ryan did with what Dugan did because Dugan committed three murders, Ryan only committed three attempted murders: Rolando Cruz; Alejandro Hernandez and Stephen Buckley. I think he should pull out of the race and turn his campaign fund into a benevolent fund for Cruz, Hernandez and Buckley."

As I checked in on a Sunday night, the Head Guard sat in the office. He said he'd work at the store during half my shift. That would be much longer than usual. The news concerned me. Perhaps he planned to watch me in action.

About 30 minutes later, a young African-American male stepped past me. His frown and black leather jacket gave him a thuggish appearance.

The Head Guard looked at me and tilted his head toward the visitor. We followed as he walked toward the food section. He stopped and grabbed a box of cookies. I figured we did not have to worry. He could not hide it in his jacket. I walked back to my post. A few minutes later, he paid for the snacks.

I stood by the door and thought about the false alarm. What if the customer had accused the store of racial profiling?

I hope Jay Cutler doesn't throw a fit after watching films of his performance in San Francisco. I'm sure it would intercepted.

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LeBron James suggests Michael Jordan's No. 23 should be retired for all NBA players to honor the recent Hall of Fame inductee. Say LeBron, Michael's not dead so keep wearing your 23 when you sign with the Knicks next season. As much as Michael did, the guys who brought the league back from the dead are Larry Bird and Magic Johnson. How about retiring their numbers first?

The Week 11 Preview: You Can't Spell Stickup Without "UT."

Steve Spurrier, now the wise old man of SEC coaches, famously needled rival Tennessee by saying "You can't spell Citrus without UT." In light of the news coming out of Knoxville, I wonder if current top Gator Urban Meyer might be tempted to revise his predecessor's legendary zinger.