We don’t have to tell you that football season has arrived. We’re less than a week away from the start of the NFL regular season, so it’s prime time to launch our new Pigskin Pick’em contest.

This year, our contest will focus on NFL games. The game is simple: Register, submit your weekly picks, and be eligible for weekly or season-ending prizes. You can place your picks here at bakersfield.com (also, coming soon, to your phone via our mobile site,  661411.com). You can also sign up to receive weekly reminders to make your picks.

In addition to picking the weekly winners for each game, there’s a separate contest called the “Survivor Game.” Each week, you pick a team you think will win, players are eliminated if their choice loses. You can only pick a team once, so it’s a contest that will require a bit of planning.

Pigskin Pick’em is free to play, although if you consistently pick losers, your friends may make you pay with all kinds of grief. But we know YOU know what you’re doing. Jump in and give the game a try.

P.S. Here’s an Insider tip from your friends at BdotCOM: Green Bay is flying under the radar amid all the hullabaloo over Favre and Cutler in the NFC North.
 

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(NOTE from BdotCOM: I screwed up the dates in the original post, so have updated to fix. Sorry for any confusion).

Sept. 7 is the deadline to submit your pets for Tails of Bakersfield and our Pet Idol competition, for which voting begins Sept. 8.

Tails of Bakersfield, which is in its second year, benefits local animal-welfare organizations. For $10, you can submit your pet photos. They’ll appear on bakersfield.com (here are the 292 submitted so far) and we’re printing as many as possible in The Bakersfield Californian. So far this year, those submissions have raised nearly $3,500 for local animal organizations.

For an extra $5, you can enter your pet in the “Pet Idol” contest. The 12 highest vote-getters will quality for a 2010 calendar, sales of which will also benefit local animal organizations.

So, you have through Sunday to get your photos posted, and rally support for your favorite Pet Idol nominee. It’s not too early to check out the submissions so far, and start to finalize your choices.

On behalf of local animal-welfare organizations, thanks for your support.

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We know the housing market is on fire, but so is the farm and ranchland business, where great deals abound in Kern County.

That’s why we’ve launched a new section on bakersfield.com that focuses on just that sector of the real estate market.

Features include:

• Search by price, acreage, property type and location.
• Mapped search, both local and nationally
• Listing of properties up for auction
• Self-serve advertising tools if you’re interested in selling your own farm or ranch property.

Happy hunting.