Notes, quotes and anecdotes:

• Smart phones are amazing devices that allow users to do some mind-boggling things (boggling this mind, anyway) from finding driving directions to watching movies.

With a smart phone — and we figure 100,000 of you in Lancaster County have them — you can also keep up with your local news, weather, sports, entertainment and business news, and obituaries wherever you go.

To get all of this, we offer a nifty app for iPhones, Androids and Blackberries.

The apps are available free in the iPhone store, Droid Market and Blackberry online store.

You can also get the apps by using the "Mobile" link in the gray bar at the top of the LancasterOnline.com home page.

Still another way is to go to this column on LancasterOnline and click on this link — LancasterOnline app — and have it delivered to your phone by text message or e-mail.

The app also gives you state, national and world news, and lottery numbers. And it has a button for sharing stories on Facebook and Twitter, or as a text message or e-mail.

Folks with iPads or other tablets can use their browser to go directly to LancasterOnline. The news site has been optimized for them.

Amazing stuff, and it's news gathered, written and edited by real reporters and editors.

• Truth really is stranger than fiction. Check out the "News of the Weird" column that we added to our "A" section news a few weeks ago.

• Once a sports editor (and I was), always a sports editor:

The NFL, now into its playoffs, has managed to turn a myth into "fact." The myth? "On any given Sunday," any team can beat any other team.

Can a last-place team beat a powerhouse? Sure, and there will be upsets in the playoffs. But it doesn't happen as often as the NFL would have you believe.

The New England Patriots won 14 games in a 16-game season this year. That would translate in baseball's 162-game season to roughly a 140-win season. (Multiply the football records by 10.) That just doesn't happen. There were also teams that won 11, 12 and 13 games. The most games ever won by an NFL team in a regular season was 16.

The worst NFL record belonged to the Carolina Panthers, who won only two games and lost 14. That translates in baseball to 20 wins and 140 losses. The 1962 Mets won 40 games.

Four teams in the NFL won four games. Seven teams won six. Those figures compare to 100-plus losses in baseball. The worst record in baseball last year? The Pirates limped home with with 57 wins and 105 losses.

The Phillies had the top record last year with 97 wins, which roughly corresponds to the 10-win season the Eagles had. Yet the Pirates beat the Phillies four times in six games last season.

On any given Sunday in the NFL? Don't bet too much on it.

• About our language:

Is there any reason for the word "pre-existing" to exist? Isn't "exist" enough.

Why is "havoc" always "wreaked"?

Why do we say a car failed to "negotiate" a curve.

And how can a building burn "up" and "down"?

Double disbelief
On her recent birthday, I exclaimed to daughter Abigail:

"I can't believe I have a 15-year-old daughter!"

Her reply:

"I can't believe I have a 60-year-old father."

Marv Adams can be reached by e-mail at madams@lnpnews.com or mail: Sunday News, P.O. Box 1328, Lancaster, PA 17608-1328.