Hey, how is everyone doing today? I thought I would show you what the Ol'NickelNDime puts in his stomach to start his day. It's basically a white egg omlette with spinach, tomatoes and cheese. The reason I call it an Italian white egg omelette is because I use an Italian vinaigrette dressing to give it a little extra kick of extra. Don't worry, it's authentic Italian dressing; it said so on the bottle.

I like to imagine that this is where the garlic infused oil is from, as I take the bottle off the SuperCenter shelf and place it in my shopping cart.

The first step is to chop a handful of spinach up.

It doesn't have to be an exact amount. A great feature about spinach is that it's really, really low in calories. It took a couple of passes until I got the consistency I was looking for.

Next I diced up a tomato...

You might be wondering why the cutting board is turned. I forgot to put a towel underneath the cutting board. So I was cutting a tomato with a very sharp knife as the cutting board kept sliding. Not one of my better moments.

After all the dicing was done I separated three eggs. I've heard people tell me they have such a hard time separating the egg yolks from the egg whites. It's really not that hard but it does take some practice. You just need to go slow at first and make sure you don't puncture the yolk as you crack up the egg. I've seen videos where people use plastic bottles to suck the yolk out. To me, that seems like it would make the task even harder.

The wisk is a normal size wisk. I forgot to mention I'm a giant, and they don't make giant size wisks, the market is still too small.

The last step is to heat up a frying pan, and put the eggs in. What I like to do is watch the oil on the pan. Just as it's turning a dark color, I know the pan is hot enough to pour the eggs in. If you put the eggs in too early, there's a higher chance the eggs will stick to the pan causing your omelet to turn into a mess of scrambled egg whites. If you put them on when the pan is too hot, the egg whites will burn fairly quickly.

Once the eggs seem cooked enough, I flipped them. Immediately after I flipped them, I added the provolone cheese, spinach, and tomatoes.

Cheese

Spinach

Tomatoes

Once all the toppings were added, I folded the egg in half and moved it to a plate. I served this with a slightly bruised banana. I thought of throwing the banana out and using another banana, but I thought that would have been wasteful. So, for the final picture you get:

Italian White Egg Omelette with Slightly Bruised Banana

Believe or not, this meal usually keeps my satisfied until late afternoon. I don't have to worry about calories with this meal because everything in it is good for me.

Until next time.

Take it easy, but take it.

NickelNDime Out!

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It's been a while since I've written a music review, but every so often something musical really captures me. A couple of years back my wife showed me a video of a choir singing Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah. The choir had special guest, Rufus Wainwright, sing the lead part. Here it is, if you have a minute... Wait, what am I talking about? Of course you have a minute... you're reading my blog.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AGRfJ6-qkr4

Pretty good, isn't it? I thought it was a random one time performance organized by Rufus and that was the end of it. Turns out I was completely mistaken! It was actually organized by the guitarist (Daveed Goldman) and the composer (Nobu Adilman). What I soon discovered is that they do these choir sessions out of a tavern in Toronto and they have quite a few great covers.

While listening to them I realized that I really enjoy choir singing. There's something calming about it, almost meditative in a way. At least it is for me. The cool thing is that they go on tour and they are coming to MI (where I live)! However, when they come here they are performing at the Electronic Forest Festival which is in Rothbury, MI. This music festival is a multi-day event far from home and I don't think I can convince my wife that we should plan a family vacation there with our 3 year-old and 6 month old.

NickelNDime, four minutes after arriving at a music festival.

No worries if I don't get to the music festival to see them; they are based out of Toronto which isn't too far from us. Maybe I can convince the Mrs. we need a romantic getaway...

What I appreciate about Choir! Choir! Choir! the most is the vocal arrangements. I've listened to some choirs perform modern music and it is sometimes cringe worthy. Choir! Choir! Choir! has such an energy to it where it doesn't seem forced, instead it feels very organic.

If you're in the mood for something relaxing and inspiring I strongly suggest checking out Choir! Choir! Choir! They have many video performances available on Youtube. It's music you can put on while you're doing Chores! Chores! Chores!

Take it easy, but take it.

NickelNDime out!

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Stop being a mooch and join Coil today to see some videos of my favorite performances by Choir! Choir! Choir! below!

I'm Coding a Game – Part 1

I'm Coding a Game – Part 2

I'm Coding a Game – Part 3

I'm Coding a Game – Part 4

I'm Coding a Game – Part 5

I'm Coding a Game – Part 6

I'm Coding a Game – Part 7

I'm Coding a Game – Part 8

This week I created a menu system for my game. To get things started I created the “New,” “Continue,” and “Quit” categories in my menu. It required quite a bit of coding variables, as well as features I wasn't very familiar with, to achieve just a basic menu.

Let's dive into the creation process!

Creating a New Room:

Before I could write any code for the menu, I first had to make a new room for the menu. Try to think of rooms as scenes from a movie. Under the rooms tab, I created a new room and named it, rMenu.

Next, I imported the backgrounds I had already created for the game and pasted them on the menu screen. What's nice about GameMaker Studio 2 is that it allows you to have backgrounds scroll at a certain speed which is perfect for a menu screen.

In the picture above I set B2 (BackgroundLayer 2) to a horizontal speed of 1. Once I did this to all the layers and set them at different speeds, I have a room that looks like this:

After the room was setup it was time to get on with the code. I created a new object and named it oMenu. Next I created a Create Event in that object and wrote some code....

The Coding

The first group of variables were created to grab the screen's width and height. Functions display_get_gui_width, and display_get_gui_height operate better than setting a specific resolution. These functions allow the programmer the ability to change the resolution of the game and still have the menu be in the same relative spot.

*Quick Mental Break*

Is your mind blown yet? I know mine was as I was learning all about this 'gibberish'-looking code...Let's take a few seconds to breathe and pause before we continue.

Moving right along!

The next group of variables set properties of the menu. Variables menu_x, menu_y, and menu_x_target are used for the position of the menu. The variable menu_font uses a new resource, the font resource. GameMaker Studio 2 has a font feature that you can assign the programmer's system fonts:

“I've always found the HoloLens MDL2 Assets font to be one of the more erotic fonts. Wouldn't you agree?” NickelNDime's lamenting on fonts.

I named the font, fMenu and then assigned it to the variable, menu_font.

The last section to complete was to set the actual options for the menu. I used an array for this task. Arrays are good for using several variables within a variable. They are good for menus, health boxes, mana boxes...etc. This is were I coded:

menu[2] = “New Game”

menu[1] = “Continue”

menu[0] = “Quit”

After all the variables were created, I created a Draw GUI event in the oMenu object:

The first three lines of code select what font and the alignment of the text. The next set of code used a for loop. A for loop runs a series of actions, until a condition is no longer true. The for loops are useful if one variable is being altered every time the program goes through the for loop. The first line of codes states:

for (var i = 0; i < menu_items; i++)

this states:

Set 'i' to 0

Continue the loop as long as i is less than menu_items

Add one to 'i' every single loop.

The 'if' statement within the for loop states that if 'i' is equal to menu_cursor, place a '>' by the selected text and make that text white. If not, make the deselected text, grey.

With all these lines of code the menu was now created, however it didn't do anything yet. For that, I had to assign properties to that menu by creating a Step Event on the object.

This code takes in keyboard commands, and lets the user actually use the menu. If the up arrow is pressed the first routine happens. if the down arrow is pressed the second routine happens. Last is if the enter button is pressed it then hops down to the last bit of code.

The game now has a functioning menu when a player starts the game:

...aaaaaaaaaaaaand I'm done!

Take it easy, but take it.

NickNdime Out!

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I know what you're thinking, “Wait, wasn't NickelNDime supposed to start this last week?” Yes, yes I was, but there is so much to blog about that this got bumped until this week, okay?? I'M NOT PERFECT!!!

Moving right along.

Overview – FOOD! The past two weeks I've focused mostly on my diet!

I tried something I have never done before when losing weight. This time I've stopped counting calories. I've discovered that when I use an app and scan everything I scarf down my gullet, I don't even think about what I'm eating. In the past, when I had reached my total caloric intake for the day, I would just stop eating. This time around I'm trying a new approach.

This time I am focusing on what I am eating, and how big my portions are, instead of calorie counting. I already know about healthy eating from my past journeys in weight loss so why do I need to enter everything into an app? I previously spent more time scanning bar codes in, or looking up how many calories were in an apple. I was spending way too much time in the app instead of living life. That's when the next epiphany came to me...

Stick to an eating regimen!

I'm very efficient if I know what I have to make. I also have the advantage of being able to eat the same food day in and day out without getting tired of it. For example, every morning I make a white egg omelette. It consists of 3 egg whites, spinach, tomato and one slice of provolone cheese. Then, I drizzle 1 tsp of Italian dressing on it. I named it the, “Lanchia Special,” after this guy. If you don't listen or read his technical analysis you're missing out. This meal will tide me over until dinner, and I've gotten so fast at making it that my brain goes on autopilot in the morning. Dinner also consists of a healthy, balanced meal. Usually I have either salmon or chicken breast with a salad. Day after day.

Rinse and repeat

Day in and day out this is what I have been eating and my body has adjusted rather well. At first, I would get hunger pains and get all whinny. It was when one of these hunger pains hit that I turned to my wife and complained, “I'm starving.”

My loving wife who I've been with for almost 14 years looked me over and asked, “Are you really starving, Nick?” To which I responded with...

Source

She was of course just teasing but it did put things into perspective. My wife then shared a quote with me that really drives home this point:

One should eat to live, not live to eat.
-Moliere

This honed in on my two main problems with my eating habits. The first is that if I'm bored, I eat. At night time after the wife and kids are asleep, I'll find myself in the kitchen at 3:00am grazing or foraging for food. Like some lone wander after the apocalypse, I raid the fridge and cabinets for any substance I can find.

This leads to my second bad habit, portion control. Once I start the grazing process it doesn't stop until I've stored enough nutrients to get me through the rest of the winter. This wouldn't be so bad if I was a bear, and if I wasn't doing it every night.

“Better eat now, even thought there are three grocery stores within a mile of my house. Who knows when I'll be able to obtain nutrients again.” - NickelNDime's old way of thinking

Now, when I start to get bored, or hungry, I ask myself, Am I eating to live, or living to eat? A funny thing happens to the hunger pains. Most of the time they'll go away. If they don't then I'll get a snack. When I say snack, I mean something healthy, not potato chips. I do take a day off at least once a week, but that doesn't mean I lose my mind.

The Weigh In

So, after all the lifestyle changes, have I seen any difference? Well, see for yourself...

Starting weight = 205lb, 92.9864kg

Week 1 = 201lb, 91.1721kg

Week 2 = 198, 89.8113kg

I've lost a total of 7 pounds! That's not bad, but I know I can do better, so what else can I do? This is where I slowly tighten the belt and make small changes. Maybe no cheese on the white egg omelette. Maybe have ¾ of a chicken breast for dinner. As long as I'm going in the right direction, I don't get too terribly discouraged.

Until next time,

Take it easy, but take it.

NickelNDime out!

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Did you get anxious just reading my headline? Good, that was the point. If you're still reading, relax I'm not actually going to discuss either party... well not directly that is. This is not going to be an article on why one political philosophy is perfect in every sense of the word, and the other is worse than Ol' Beelzebub himself. It's going to be based off my observations and thoughts I've had. Some of them will be simple, while others a little more complex, but I think I can tie them all together to get my point across. If you disagree with me, that's great! I hope we can still be friends and have a beer, or coffee, but not tea...never tea...

Let's get started!

The Democrat and Republican Parties. Can't we agree that they are both dreadful?

Try to follow me on this one. First, separate your own political ideology with the political party that closest aligns with it. That's a mistake everybody makes; I'm guilty of it at times as well! Once a person assigns their personality to a party, they tend to see politics as a sport. It becomes an, Us vs. Them kind of mentality. Worse, a person that does this will run the danger of falling into a cult of personality. I find that when I talk to most people and we don't mention parties, and we don't mention candidates, we tend to agree more than we disagree. Do we agree on everything? No, but it would be awfully boring if we did. So then, why are people so venomous and angry towards the side they oppose?

And that's when it hit me.

Maybe both parties want us to argue with each other. That maybe the venomous is not a bug, but the feature!

Tinfoil Hat Time!

I remember a research paper that came out six years ago that really disheartened me. It was a research paper conducted by a professor from Princeton and a professor from Northwestern University. In it, it showed that the past 20 years of legislation favored the extremely wealthy as well as corporations. Ninety-five percent of the legislation that passed helped the top one percent, regardless of the political party in control. It didn't explain why, it was just cold, hard data. That's when I put my tinfoil hat on and started thinking...

Not all heroes wear capes.

Source

My Two XRPs

All this data lead me to a question. Why would the legislative branch not work on behalf of the people that got them there? I started to research any significant changes that happened to the American government around that general time period. I stumbled on a Supreme Court case from the 1970's that really caught my interest.

It was

In short, the ruling stated that money was essentially free speech, and therefore, a person could donate as much money as they want to a candidate. After this ruling, money started trickling into campaigns from very wealthy donors, to both political parties. Slowly but surely, the tax codes and laws were written to favor the ultra elite. These laws and tax codes were passed by both political parties. This was when the U.S. started its drift towards an oligarchy, a government that favors only the wealthy.

Then why give us two major political parties?

To give us the illusion of choice, you Silly Billy! If the citizens are unhappy, and there was only one political party, it would be pretty easy to identify the problem. That's why the donor class buys both parties, to give the illusion of choice, and to keep the average citizen arguing among each other. The donor class keeps the majority of the citizens divided by making the people argue over issues that they will never agree on. The parties use divisive topics such as gun control, abortion, or religious rights because they know half of the country feels one way on the topic, and the other half feels the exact opposite.

Here's a little test I want you to do, okay?

Take someone you know personally that shares different political views. It could be a family member, a co-worker, a friend, or whoever. Now, compare yourself financially with the person you've picked. Now, compare yourself financially with a lawmaker who shares your same political beliefs. Which one are you closer to financially? I'm going to wager it wasn't the lawmaker. I'd also wager that the person you picked probably has helped you on a personal level more times than the lawmaker has. Maybe they changed a flat tire, got your mail, bailed you out of the slammer. My point is, perspective is everything.

The donor class knows this and creates a narrative. The narrative delivers a very clear and concise message:

IF THE PARTY YOU OPPOSE GET'S IN, PREPARE FOR THE END OF TIMES!

Sadly, it works. The country is more divided now than it ever has been.

Citizens United made it even worse.

In 2010, money in politics got a shot of steroids when the Supreme Court ruled on Citizens United. In the ruling, they declared that the United States recognizes a corporation as living entity and therefore corporations may now donate to candidates.

Stop and think about that for a second.

In theory, a foreign company could form an LLC in the United States, and then donate to a candidate. Heck, why stop at a foreign company! Maybe a foreign country forms a corporation in the United States and donates to a candidate. It would all be legal.

So, we now have corporations essentially buying our politicians from both parties. If you still think your political party has your best interest in mind, here's a chart to drive my point home even more:

It's possible these companies' interests align with the common man's interest. I mean, when have the top banks, top social media, top pharmaceutical companies ever done something to lose the people's trust?

That's why it's all a dog and pony show, and main stream media does not help. Who do you think pays for the ads for corporate media? Other corporations! A news channel that receives ad revenue from a pharmaceutical company is not going to run a news story on how that pharmaceutical company is buying the politicians who write laws in its favor. If only there was a platform out there that didn't rely on advertisements to function...

So, that's the problem as I see it. Again, this is only my opinion, and I could be wrong. I'm sure the trolls will rip this article apart when I share it, calling me a political hack of some sort. All I ask is that you consider that maybe, just maybe, the problem could be bigger than this administration, or the last administration. We can't debate gun control, abortion, the budget, foreign policy, or any other topic unless we debate these topics in good faith. We're not going to have honest, productive debate if the people debating are disingenuous at best. How do you get people in office who care? Get the money out! I refuse to accept that the problem is too big to fix.

What can be done about it?

There are non-party affiliated causes that fight this very issue. However, I'm not going to share these groups or causes. Only because that wasn't the main point of this article. The point was to illustrate that it's not a one party problem. 2020 is an election year, which means the ads and political discourse is most likely going to be toxic at best. When all that noise is going on, try to remember what I said here. It's all nonsense until campaign finance is fixed, and try not to view your fellow countryman as the enemy. Do I think fixing campaign finance will solve all the problems in government? Absolutely not! I view democracy as a garden and corruption is the weeds. There is always going to be weeds; it takes constant upkeep and vigilance to have a thriving garden, or democracy.

Take it easy, but take it.

NickelNDime out!

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Wow those were some good games last weekend, huh? I got half of them right again! I am now 4 for 8 in picking. With numbers like that, I might cash out all my crypto and call my bookie. I'm just kidding, I don't have a bookie since he refused to take CSC. This week there are only two games, the AFC and NFC championships. Four teams, two games. The winner of each game will get their ticket punched for Super Bowl LIV(that's 54).

NFC Championship

The Green Bay Packers VS The San Francisco 49ers

Being a Detroit Lion fan, I must disclose that I despise Green Bay. Year after year, Detroit fans get to hear how great Aaron Rodgers is and how Green Bay is going to win the division again. This year was no different. With a rebuilt team Rodgers led his team to finish 13 – 3, taking the NFC North title yet again. As impressive as that record is, there was one team that finished with a better record.

San Francisco finished the year at 14-2, which is extremely impressive, as well as surprising. I don't believe anyone saw the 49ers finishing this strong and being this dominate of a team. Jimmy Garoppolo has quietly had himself a very impressive season. He finished the regular season with a QB rating of 102. For those who don't follow football, that is a pretty good QB rating. Although having a good QB never hurts, the strength of the 49'ers lay in it's defense.

That's what's going to make this game a exciting game to watch. The 49ers stout defense against an Aaron Rodgers offense. It takes more than a couple of sacks to discourage Aaron Rodgers. Aaron Rodgers has been sacked 38 times this season. He's a quarterback that will take a sack, but on the next play throw a 40 yard touchdown. There is no safe lead for San Fran, if they are to win, they must keep Rodgers contained.

NickelNDime's pick to win?

San Francisco will be the NFC team that goes to the Super Bowl. As much as sports talk claims that Green Bay has a good defense, they don't. I gotta feeling that Kyle Shanahan(49ers coach), hasdevised a scheme to shut down that Rodgers's offense by keeping them off balance the whole game.

I predict the final score will be: 49ers 24, Green Bay 21

AFC Championship

The Tennessee Titans VS The Kansas City Chiefs

I was in utter disbelief as Titans stomped the Ravens last week. Watching Tennessee's defense shutdown Lamar Jackson and that Baltimore offense was shocking to say the least. What has been more shocking has been Derrick Henry's running. We might be witnessing the emergence of the next great running back. He is averaging over 5.9 yards a carry in the playoffs. It's just so impressive knowing that the offer team knows they are going to give the ball to Henry, and they still can not stop it. Henry is going to need the game of his career if they are to beat the Chiefs

For only being in the league a couple years Patrick Mahomes shows the composure of a veteran quarterback. When his team was behind by 24 points last week against the Texans, he didn't get flustered. He did what great quarterbacks do, he led his team to victory. Just watching him throw perfect pass, after perfect pass just made me ask myself, How can a team stop this?

NickelNDime's pick to win?

This is a tough one to call! On one hand, the Titans have beat some solid teams in the Patriots and the Ravens. They don't beat these teams by a little bit, they dominate. On the other hand, Kansas City offense seems absolutely unstoppable. Mahomes has so many all stars to throw to. He's got Kelce, Watkins, and Hill. No matter how good a defense is, it's not going to be able to stop all those weapons. My gut says Titans, but my brain says Chiefs. I'm going with my brain, the Chiefs. However, I will be happy if either team wins. Either way, it's going to be good football to watch.

I predict the final score will be: The Chiefs 31, The Titans 17

Those are my picks, until next time,

Take it easy, but take it.

NickNDime Out!

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I'm Coding a Game – Part 1

I'm Coding a Game – Part 2

I'm Coding a Game – Part 3

I'm Coding a Game – Part 4

I'm Coding a Game – Part 5

I'm Coding a Game – Part 6

I'm Coding a Game – Part 7

I love when everything works the way it is supposed to! In this installment I added a camera shake effect and moving backgrounds. GameMaker Studio 2 is such a powerful programming language. I feel like I'm barley scratching the surface with it. Getting the camera to shake was relatively easy, and the backgrounds didn't take much as well. Let's get started, shall we?

CameraShake:

To get the camera to shake I needed to write code in the oCamera object. On the create tab of the object, I added these variables:

The variables created were, shake_length, shake_magnitude, shake_remain, and buff. So shake_length will be the duration of the shake, or how long it lasts. Shake_magnitude will be how intense it is. The shake_remain variable is used to reduce the magnitude, so that the shake dissipates. Buff stands for buffer. I created this variable to make sure when the camera shakes, it does not shake off the board so the player can see black. It would be like seeing a mic drop onto the screen in a movie. I'm trying to avoid that. Next I wrote some code in the step tab:

The first two lines are to get a random number for the X and Y coordinates for the variable, shake_remain. The third line is what diminishes the camera shake, so that it doesn't go on forever. This line states:

shake_remain = max(0, shake_remain-((1/shake_length)*shake_magnitude));

So this formula states to take 1/shake_length and times it by the shake_magnitude, and set that value to shake_remain. This will keep returning a smaller number to shake_remain. So every frame the shake is happening, it's becoming less, and less...etc. Next was to write a script to create a command that I could call upon when I needed a screen shake to happen. I named that script, ScreenShake:

Scripts if you recall, can be thought of as personalized commands. Now when I call ScreenShake anywhere else in the code, it will run this. The final step was to place this script in the gun code so when a player fires, the screen will shake. I opened up the gun object and placed this line of code.

All I had to do was place the script ScreenShake and set the magnitude and length in the gun fire sequence and BOOM, I got camera shake when I fire the gun! Pretty cool, huh? I thought it was pretty cool.

Chester is a man on fire!

Backgrounds:

Backgrounds are often overlooked when it comes to coding and in game programming. At least it does for me, I tend not to think about it. After doing this tutorial, I started to realize how much depth it adds to a game! The first step was to create or design two separate backgrounds. The first is closest to the character, the second is further away.

I named the one closest to me as. “Foreground.”

and

This one I named, “Background.”

If you noticed a building is cut in half on both sides. That's because I'm going to be tiling these backgrounds. Those two sides match up perfectly so it will look seamless.

Next, I loaded them in as sprites.

Then I created a new background, which I titled, “Foreground.” Then I loaded and placed the foreground picture on the layer.

Then, I clicked the horizontal tile button and...

Next I did the same process with the other background.

Now, I could of left it like this and had these buildings be a frozen background. There's nothing wrong with that, but I wanted to get a bit of depth to it. The further an object is, the less it appears to move compared to something close in distance. So I opened up the camera object and wrote this code:

This states that if “Background2 exists move it and half the speed as the camera is moving. The Foreground moves at ¼ of the speed as the camera. When I run the game we have something that looks like this:

Notice how the ground closest to the viewer moves the fastest?

That should do it for this installment. I covered a lot of ground and my brain is starting to feel like mashed potatoes. Until next time!

Take it easy, but take it.

NickeNDime Out!

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Playoff Pickems'

I love American Football! Now we are in the playoffs, which is the best kind of American Football. I'm going to give you my picks for which teams will stand victorious on the grid iron this weekend.

***Please don't bet off of my predictions!***

Last week I made predictions for the wildcard round in the NFL. I got half of them right. I was hoping for 50 percent, but what are you going to do? This week is going to be even harder to make picks, but I'm going to do my best with my predictions! Here we go...

NFC Divisional

Minnesota Vikings VS San Francisco 49ers

The Vikings surprised a lot of people last weekend in their upset win over New Orleans. Kirk Cousins took a big step forward as a QB and leader of the team. Many have criticized Cousins' play in the big games. Well, last week was a big game, and Cousins came through when it really mattered, and silenced a lot of those critics.

The Vikings are going to need Cousins to play that high caliber football if they have any chance beating the 1st seed team San Francisco. San Fran has been a dominating force. Both on offense and defense. Many experts have them picked to have their ticket punched for the Super Bowl.

NickelNDime's pick to win?

With all that said, I'm going with Minnesota. They took out the New Orleans and they did so with such dominance . What was even cooler was Kirk Cousins locker room speech to his team after the game. This team is fired up and ready to turn some heads.

I predict the final score will be: Vikings 24, 49ers 21

Seattle Seahawks VS Green Bay Packers

What's great about playoff football is every team is good. In this case both teams are great! This match up will feature two of the best quarterbacks in the league in Russell Wilson and Aaron Rodgers. As much as it pains me to say this being a lions fan, Aaron Rodgers has reached the elite quarterback status. His name belongs up there with Brady, Brees, and Manning. Rodgers can somehow extend plays and do some real damage with the long ball. Seattle must contain him if they have any hopes in winning.

On the other team Russell Wilson has had admirable season. While he is not at the elite level like Rodgers, he still falls in the great category when it comes to quarterbacks. Wilson may not have the long ball like Rodgers, but he does have a pair of legs that can pick up a first down if need be.

NickelNDime's pick to win?

This one could go either way, but if I have to pick one I'm going to go with the Packers. The defense the Packers put together in the off season is proving to be a wise investment. Another factor is Seattle had to pick up Marshawn Lynch due to all of their running backs being injured. While Marshawn still looks good, I don't believe he has the option to go into BEAST MODE anymore.

I predict the final score will be: Packers 31, Seahawks 21

AFC Divisional

Tennessee Titans VS Baltimore Ravens

I really enjoy watching the Titans play. Let me rephrase that. I really watch Derrick Henry playing! The Titans running back could be the next great running back with the way he has been running. Ryan Tannehill makes good use of the 'play action' pass because he can use Henry as a decoy. However, trick plays and decoys are not going to be enough to stop Baltimore's star player.

Lamar Jackson is thee funnest player to watch in football. He is the type of player that changes the way the game is played! If Lamar can keep this caliber of play up, I see a dynasty forming in Baltimore. A dynasty that could rival or even surpass what Tom Brady and Bill Belichick built in New England.

NickelNDime's pick to win?

As much as I like the Titans' Cinderella story, I got to go with the Ravens. They way Baltimore plays on offense and defense is lights out for anyone they go against. I'm picking them to go to the Super Bowl.

I predict the final score will be: Ravens 34, Titans 17

The Houston Texans VS The Kansas City Chiefs

This game features two up and coming quarterbacks in Deshaun Watson, and Patrick Mahomes. While Mahomes has had a better season with the Chiefs, you can not rule out Watson. These two met in the regular season, and the Texans walked away with a victory. But as they say in sports, “It's hard to beat the same team twice.” Add that to the fact that playoff games are on a whole different level of play, Kansas City is going to be much more prepared this time.

NickelNDime's pick to win?

Although Huston walked away with the victory in the regular season, It's going to be the Chiefs that walk away with the victory this weekend. Patrick Mahomes is playing just under the level of Lamar Jackson. I believe it will be the Chiefs and the Ravens in the AFC title match.

I predict the final score will be: Kansas City Chiefs 27, Texans 21

Those are my picks for this week! If you like the content, follow me here, or here:

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NickelNDime Out!