Ever want to see me half-naked?

Of course you have. Behold the bronzed splendor that is me in a bathing suit. (Click on pics for bigger versions.)

Archaeology is in the blood.
(Our house is behind me.)

I mentioned that I was at the beach a couple weeks ago. Duck, N.C. Looks a lot nicer than the last time I was there. Still pretty much suburbia, though ... with sand and ocean.

And sand means ... sand castle time.

I am a drip castle architect.

Castle Wayne, in its monumental glory.
(Our house is to the right.)

Mostly, we did a lot of this:

Good Christ I wish I didn't have to work for a living.
(From left: Jen (obscured), Dan's back, Mark B., Kristin, Kimberly, Elisa, Fiona, Mark Y.)

Here's down the beach in the other direction:

Hurricane bait.

On the way home, we stopped here:

Kimberly on the Wright brothers monument, Kill Devil Hills.

And at a farmer's market / tourist trap:

I'd have made a GREAT redneck.

And now we're back here:

Not all of D.C. is terrible.

Are you ready to talk at length about some football?

Fantasy football, to be precise.

It's the most wonderful time of the year again, and I've got two fantasy football teams about to kick off on Thursday. In an almost certainly erroneous assumption that someone else might be even faintly interested in my teams, here are the rosters. If you slog through to the end, or just scroll down, I'll tell you who I think the 10 best players in fantasy football will be this year.

To say I'm excited is an understatement. To say I'm a giant nerd is also an understatement.

League One

My first league is mostly co-workers; I'm the commissioner. Twelve teams, each starting one quarterback, two wide receivers, two running backs, a tight end, a "flex" position (either a running back or a wide receiver), a kicker, a defense and five bench spots. Here's my team, Fred Taylor's Groin; the number in parentheses indicates the pick where I took them in our draft:

QB: Phillip Rivers, San Diego (67)
WR1: Donald Driver, Green Bay (43)
WR2: Calvin Johnson, Detroit (78)
RB1: Joseph Addai, Indianapolis (6)
RB2: Thomas Jones, New York Jets (30)
TE: Antonio Gates, San Diego (19)
Flex: Marion Barber III, RB, Dallas (54)
K: None, yet
Defense: Jacksonville (150)
Bench: Tatum Bell, RB, Detroit (91); Bernard Berrian, WR, Chicago (102); Michael Turner, RB, San Diego (115); Leon Washington, RB, NY Jets (126); Rex Grossman; QB, Chicago (139); Dennis Northcutt, WR, Jacksonville (free agent).

I liked this team better when I drafted it, on Aug. 19 (nearly three weeks before the season begins, something I'll try to avoid in the future).

Indianapolis and San Diego will be two of the highest-scoring offenses in the league, again, so I like Addai, Rivers and Gates. Beyond that, there's a lot of uncertainty.

Driver historically has been undervalued, but he's like 33 years old and already nursing an injury. Calvin Johnson is the hotshot from Georgia Tech that Detroit drafted second overall this year, but he hasn't cracked the starting lineup yet. Thomas Jones is also nursing an injury; glad I have his backup, Washington. Marion Barber III gets goal-line carries in Dallas and so scores a lot of touchdowns, but even though he's more talented than the starting running back on that team (Julius Jones), he's officially the backup. So annoying.

On my bench, I don't have much faith in Tatum Bell, who's probably going to lose his job sooner than later. Bernard Berrian might be great or pretty mediocre, probably depending on how awful "Sexy Rexy" Grossman plays this year. I picked up Northcutt after drafting a wastrel, Reggie Williams, who was supposed to be the starting wide receiver in Jacksonville but nearly got his ass cut in training camp for being lazy.

I didn't draft a kicker. Kickers are all pretty much the same -- except for one or two guys each year who manage to kick a bunch of field goals. Problem is, you can never predict who those guys are going to be; in each of the last two years, it's been someone who went undrafted in my leagues. So I'm going to pick someone up off the waiver wire on Thursday, who probably will replace either Northcutt or Bell (I was hoping someone would break his leg before the season started, to make that choice easier).

League Two

My second league is a bunch of friends, mostly from D.C. There's only eight of us, meaning it's a stacked league -- all the teams are very good. We start two QBs, three WRs, two RBs, a TE, a kicker and a defense, with five on the bench. Here's my team, Noodly Appendages:

QB1: Matt Hasselbeck, Seattle (37)
QB2: Eli Manning, New York Giants (60)
WR1: Larry Fitzgerald, Arizona (28)
WR2: Donald Driver, Green Bay (44)
WR3: Santana Moss, Washington (53)
RB1: Joseph Addai, Indianapolis (5)
RB2: Brian Westbrook, Philadelphia (12)
TE: Antonio Gates, San Diego (21)
Kicker: None, yet
Defense: Dallas (108)
Bench: Adrian Peterson, RB, Minnesota (69); Edgerrin James, RB, Arizona (76); Joey Galloway, WR, Tampa (85); Ronnie Brown, RB, Miami (92); Rex Grossman, QB, Chicago (101); Tatum Bell, RB, Detroit (117).

This is a weird league. In most leagues, including my work league, running backs are considered far and away to be the most important players to draft. They touch the ball the most of any position, after the quarterback, meaning more opportunities to score fantasy points. But unlike quarterbacks, who pretty much all score a lot of fantasy points in every game -- unless they're simply awful, like Grossman last year -- there is an elite cadre of running backs who score way more points than their peers. Plus, in most leagues you have to start two running backs and just one quarterback, further reducing the relative value of QBs.

Not in this league. Not only do we start two quarterbacks -- unheard of in most fantasy leagues, and of course something you would never see on any real football field -- we have to start three wide receivers, as well. I hate wide receivers; they're horribly inconsistent. Consider Santana Moss, my third wide receiver. In three games last year, he caught 17 passes for 364 yards and five touchdowns, including a three-touchdown game. But he had less than 50 yards receiving in nine different games, and caught just six touchdowns all year. He was my top receiver last year in this league, and he killed me. I'm not totally certain why I drafted him again, except that he's far and away the best receiver on his team and I expect Washington will be improved this year.

So anyway, what happens in this league is that quarterbacks and wide receivers are valued far more highly than in most fantasy leagues. The result is that many top running backs -- guys like Adrian Peterson, Edgerrin James, and Ronnie Brown -- slide to the end of the draft. I've seen all of those guys go as high as the second round in other leagues, including my work league. I'm happy to have gotten them so late in this league, although I don't have anywhere to play them, and if they wind up sucking -- highly possible, especially for Brown -- they'll have little trade value.

My only real holes on this team are my quarterbacks. Hasselbeck is old, as is the rest of his team, and Eli Manning is the crappy Manning brother. I'm hoping one or two of my reserve running backs is awesome enough to draw a better quarterback in a trade; if they aren't, I'm probably going to have a bad season.

The 10 best players in fantasy football

Keep in mind that fantasy football is a weird game, where guys who have tremendous value in real life (like offensive linemen) have zero value, and the guy who's clearly the best player in the NFL (Peyton Manning) is drafted, like, 10th or later in a lot of fantasy leagues.

1. LaDainian Tomlinson, RB, San Diego. A no-brainer; he likely set all-time fantasy football scoring records last year and could approach them again.

2. Steven Jackson, RB, St. Louis. Second to Tomlinson in running back scoring last year, but scored a lot of his points late in the season, perhaps too late to save some of his fantasy owners.

3. Larry Johnson, RB, Kansas City. Third in running back scoring last year, but is thought to have been a bit overworked and might wear out this year. He might also be awesome.

4. Joseph Addai, RB, Indianapolis. Splitting carries with another guy last year, he was the eleventh-highest scoring running back. He's got the Indy backfield all to himself this year and I expect him to be awesome.

5. Frank Gore, RB, San Francisco. In his first full (uninjured) year in the pros last year, he was the sixth-highest scoring running back. He's young and only getting better, but has a scary injury history.

6. Peyton Manning, QB, Indianapolis. The only player other than Tomlinson to score more than 400 fantasy points last year. The reason he's not ranked higher is because if you take him in round one, you're getting a subpar running back in round two.

7. Brian Westbrook, RB, Philadelphia. Twelfth-highest scoring player in all of fantasy football last year. If both he and Philly's QB, Donovan McNabb, stay healthy all year (a longshot), they will both put up tremendous numbers.

8. Willie Parker, RB, Pittsburgh. I drafted this guy in my second league last year, then stupidly traded him for a lesser running back and a receiver who ended up a total bust. (Burn in hell, Chris Chambers.) He's great.

9. Shaun Alexander, RB, Seattle. Two years ago, he was better than Tomlinson. Last year, he was hurt most of the year and killed any fantasy owner who drafted him (except for the guy who won my second league; I'm still scratching my head over that one).

10. Drew Brees, QB, New Orleans. Others might put Reggie Bush, RB, New Orleans, in this spot. They're crazy. Bush is sharing playing time with another excellent running back, Deuce McAllister. Brees, on the other hand, was the fourth-highest scoring player in all of fantasy football last year, and has a shot, I think, at surpassing Peyton Manning as the best quarterback in the game this year.

Administrative thing

I got a very weird (and long!) spam-like comment on the last post (now deleted), so I changed my settings so that you now have to go through a word verification thingamajig before you can post comments. Sorry 'bout that, but spam sucks.

We now return to our regular, irregular programming.