Last night’s game between the Vikings and the Buccaneers was uncharacteristic in so many different ways it was hard to wrap your head on what exactly just happened. It wasn’t exactly a crazy game, the most intense moment happened during an altercation between Jared Allen and Donald Penn. Was anyone surprised that Allen got a sack immediately following the scuffle? The visiting Buccaneers used a monster game from RB Doug Martin (135 rush yds, 1 TD; 79 rec yds, 1 TD) to lead them to a victory against a superior Vikings team 36-17. Or at least the general consensus was that the Vikings (now 5-3) were the better team coming into this game, especially on a Thursday night game where it seems like every home team is at an obvious advantage. How did these two teams find their way to this result? For Tampa Bay it was offensive efficiency, every time that I looked up at the TV it seemed like they were in the middle of a long drive. They used a strong game from Martin (pictured above) with the occasional big play to convert critical third downs. For the Vikings it was turnovers and the inability to stop 3rd downs when they needed most. Is this Vikings team a contender? They need to get a couple of victories before their bye week because after that, their schedule is absolutely brutal.

Normally i’d pick a game with a bigger line but this week i’m going slightly closer: I’m taking the Redskins visiting the Steelers (-4.5) to go into that hostile environment and surprise the Terrible Towel. Steelers have too many injuries and if RG3 (by far the most entertaining player in the league) can pull this off, we know for sure he’s the real deal.

On a side note, i’ll be attending this Sunday’s game between my Cowboys and the Giants. With all the injuries the Cowboys are facing and Eli Manning being 3-0 in the new Cowboys Stadium, let’s just say i’m a bit nervous going to this game. Still, it can’t stop me from having fun. Go Cowboys!

“You begin with the places that would have made a huge difference in his life. Kentucky, Indiana and Illinois, and the counties that he came from. There are some early recordings, but no contemporary recordings — lucky for me, so no one can say positively that it’s not what he sounded like.”[THR]

This year’s surest best for an Oscar nomination for Best Actor, Daniel Day-Leiws in Lincoln, revealed the method behind his legendary method acting skills at a press conference sponsored by TIME in which the star appeared alongside director Steven Spielberg. Day-Lewis went into great detail explaining how he arrived at the voice he used for Lincoln, saying, “”There are also a number of contemporary accounts about the quality of his voice, and I’m inclined to think that having had a voice that was intended to be in the higher register, tended to be placed more in the head tones, that helped him reach a greater number of people in his public speaking. Stump speaking was such a huge part of their lives, they spoke sometimes for two hours or more without notes, at that time regularly. And beyond that, I suppose it really was just an act of imagination.”

Check out the full article. It reveals a lot about the impetus for the film and what we can expect from this year’s early Oscar favorite. Really fascinating stuff about the man who is arguably Hollywood’s greatest living actor.