Weekend football recap

I do these on Tuesday enough to call the post 'Tuesday Morning Quarterback', but someone already took that... [And it's not posting 'til Wednesday!]

I turned on the Texas game and couldn't believe my eyes: 70-3 mid-3rd quarter! Then USC did about the same thing to a decent, 1-loss UCLA team. We might be looking at a good Rose Bowl. Main takeaway from watching USC: Reggie Bush is a freak. It's a hackneyed phrase, but how else do you describe it: It's like he's playing at a different speed. I don't know how you don't vote him the Heisman Trophy winner.

Iowa earned itself another Outback Bowl and we're psyched about that. Hoping that the university will support the football team's success to reap further benefits.

The Vikings won again. Crazy.

Disappointingly, my run at our fantasy football playoffs has ended. I'd been winning games, putting up enough points, and had favorable matchups. I was ahead going into last night. But Ryan had the Seattle defense and they scored 44 fantasy points. A total fluke. The craziest score of the year, easily. And it happened to me. That's about how my fantasy year has gone. Oh well. 4 championships in 4 years (4 out of 7 league-seasons, including my own World Bragging Rights League 2 out of 3 years) isn't bad.

Big Game tonight

Iowa at UNI. SI even had UNI ranked higher than Iowa in the preseason, like 17 and 18. Allow me to employ a Southernism: 'Do what?'

Winners of four straight, the 12th-ranked Hawkeyes seek their first road win over Northern Iowa in six years when the rivals meet at the McLeod Center on Tuesday.

Maybe more importantly: I hope you're going to be there, Jason!

Things that only I think (latest in a series)

When thinking about the song Milkshake by Kelis, and the line:

you want me to teach the
techniques that freaks these boys

where 'the' has a long 'e', I think it could be:

you want me to teach thee
techniques that freaks these boys

you know, like the archaic accusative case, like Kelis is being really polite or reverent, with the whole I-Thou thing.

Of course, if she's being so polite, why does she go on to say:

My milkshake brings all the boys to the yard and they're like 'It's better than yours.' Damn right, it's better than yours. I could teach you, but I'd have to charge.

That's not so reverent ;-)

I'm the only person who thinks these things, right? You're saner than that, right? I'm mashing up a classical education with pop culture... and selling welding supplies. Truth is stranger than fiction.

Stream of consciousness log

[trying to fall asleep, having read some 'Jarhead', stream of consciousness 60s songs mashup:]

don't ya know, we're on the eve of destruction?

eveybody stop hey what's that sound everybody look what's goin down? [complete with flashes from use in 'Forrest Gump']

there must be some way outta here said the joker to the thief. [Dylan or Hendrix or U2 version?] there's too much confusion here. i can't get not relief. but you and i we've been through that. and this is not our fate. so let us not talk falsely now, because the hour is getting late...

Alliteration day at interact

+ Here's some fun for you: The Forbes Fictional 15 : ranked richest fictional characters.

+ Interesting reading: a Google employee management manifesto.

Freakonomics, music subscriptions (and more)

+ I see there's a 'people information summarizing' site called ZoomInfo. I am result numbers 3, 6, 9, and 13 out of 13 for 'Sean Meade'. No job offer yet ;-)

+ Mark has a post about Dan's post on Freakonomics (which links Mark's earlier post ) which drew comments from both authors and others. Great book. Highly recommended. Of course, I highly value  'counterintuitive' ;-)

+ Matt has an interesting post on the relative value of owning your own music v. subscribing. His take is particularly interesting since he's on the forefront of the copyleft movement, being the webmaster at Creative Commons.

+ Oh wow. That Paul Ford is so great. Business 2.0 used one of his pictures without asking, linking to it on his site. So he proceeded to vandalize their site by changing the image to various humorous things (including an ad for his new book). They came around, though, and all is well.

Wil's hit points

Wil and I have been playing some Battle for Wesnoth (as I mentioned before). Wednesday he asked me from the other room what 6+9 was. I told him and didn't think much about it. Then I heard him saying he had 15 hit points. I wondered where he came up with that number. He had put on his soccer shirt, which was #6, and added 9 (6 upside down, naturally). Fun...

BradFilter, Blowfish and GrammarHammer.com

+ Brad notes in a recent post that, according to the NYT, an inordinate number of the sales reps for drug companies are former cheerleaders. Brad's got one conclusion. And you can draw your own...

+ Say it ain't so: We in Columbia are already the butt of many jokes for having the 'Gamecocks' as a mascot. But we wear it with pride, and there's tradition and history there at least. I don't think I'll be able to do that with our new minor league baseball team, the Blowfish. I'm hoping this is a joke, but fearing it's not.

+ More Brad (in the felt I should link it but not going to read it right now department):

Jason Furman has written an article (.pdf) which shows how Wal-Mart's pricing and employment policies save American consumers an estimated $268 billion per year, provide more and better paying jobs than they eliminate, and benefit the poor. BTW, Furman, currently visiting scholar at New York University, was a former advisor to President Clinton and Sen. John Kerry (IOW, not the poster child for conservative economics and big business).

+ When headlines go bad: Allthatscool.com: Why you should start a internet company today. I'm going to start one called GrammarHammer.com where people can subscribe to automagically have their misplaced 'a's corrected to 'an's ;-)

Rest in peace, Mighty Quinn

Jaq's young son, Quinn, whose health was so troubled, passed away yesterday.

My deepest sympathy and condolences to their family. Words do not suffice...

'You've not seen nothin' like the Mighty Quinn.'

Today's tagline

'interact': Where we do more logging before 9 am than most people do all day.' ;-)

(Bolded) Google Menu

Ooh! Did you see that (working on being) complete list of Google services? I like. And as I read the comments I saw some German-speaking herr made himself a condensed list. I liked that, too. But when I tried to crib his, I couldn't get his bolds off. Had to make my own. Decided to add a separate menu for the Features page. I was just going to keep it in my own Gmail, but thought 'Why not send it out into the world?' And when I looked back at the original site this morning, I saw in Update 5 that he'd taken my humble suggestions to heart.

So, anyway, without further ado, my (bolded) Google Menu - the services I like and use the most. Want to do one of your own?

Add to Google Blogger Froogle GMail AdSense AdWords Alerts Analytics Answers Base Blog Search Book Search Catalogs Code Deskbar Desktop Directory Earth Groups Homepage Image Search Labs Local Maps Mobile Movie Showtimes News Reader Ridefinder Scholar Send to Phone Sitemap SMS Store Suggest Talk Toolbar Video Video Upload Web Accelerator Web Search Hello Orkut Picasa Search History Advanced Search Language Tools

Features
Calculator Currency Conversion Definitions File Types I'm Feeling Lucky PhoneBook Q&A Search By Number Site Search Spell Checker Stock Quotes Travel Information Weather Who Links To You?

Battle for Wesnoth

Oh. My. Where have you been all my life?

I consider myself pretty well-informed about cool stuff on the internets. Then I follow an innocent-looking link, Battle for Wesnoth, and find a turn-based, fantasy-themed, mulit-campaign, free computer game! Wil and I started playing it last night and really like it already. If it wasn't for dead, preThanksgiving time at work, you probably wouldn't get any weblogging at all. ;-) Now if I can just get it to run on my >7 year-old Fujitsu Lifebook for our Thanksgiving jaunt to Christine's folks...

(Latest) Million Dollar Idea!

I thought of this while driving to work this morning, listening to some fun music I really love: I'll form a Trip Shakespeare cover band! We can start out of the Southeast, than make a move to cover the entire nation proper, with special shows in the Twin Cities, maybe even the Metrodome!

Football and basketball

+ Good football weekend for me, just completed last night with the Vikes eeking one out over the Packers at Lambeau. 3-1 since I saw them stink up Charlotte and Daunte get injured. Go figure. The Hawks dropped the hammer on Minnesota leaving me wishing they'd walked away with either the Northwestern or Michigan game to sit alone at 3rd place in the Big Ten and probably be in the top 25. Oh well. Plus, my Fantasy Football team finally won another game. Those are the big 3 for me. My next two favorite teams lost: both Carolinas - the Panthers and Gamecocks. Oh well.

+ In other sports news I see that the Hawkeye basketball team beat Kentucky last night . Hot dog! Who's Mike Henderson?

Ode to my professors

Paul's got a nice post on literary crushes, memorable books from college. I wanted to participate, but realized my professors at Wartburg were even more memorable than the books they had me read.

Dr Greg Scholtz taught Brit Lit and I took almost every class he taught: 3 semesters of survey, one of Shakespeare, and one of Jane Austen. He really challenged us. And he was funny. Lots of good marginalia in those books...

Dr Heimir Geirsson taught Analytic Philosophy. I remember my brain changing in that class, after being broken down. I think we spent the first month on the word 'the'. Also read Saul Kripke's 'Naming and Necessity'. After working on the paper for that class, I could process in a new way.

Pastor Larry Trachte was, and is, the college chaplain. I never got to take one of his classes, but he was a very good friend to me in my service in the ministry there. We met once a week for a couple years.

Dr Paul Torkelson directed Choir. The Wartburg Choir is the most excellent team I've ever been a part of. We practiced for an hour every school day and toured the country and Europe. Some people have the experience of being part of something like this in athletics or work. I never did. For me, it was choir and I'll always remember it.

And finally, adding one from Seminary, Dr Rollin Grams, a student of Dr Gordon Fee, taught me to look at Scripture is a qualitiatively more rigorous way.

Top Geek Novels bolded!

Dude! Jaq misunderstood me. I wasn't dissing bolding. Bolding is good. And just to show I mean it, and that I don't feel so lazy today, here's that list again, copied and bolded!

1. The HitchHiker's Guide to the Galaxy -- Douglas Adams
2. Nineteen Eighty-Four -- George Orwell
3. Brave New World -- Aldous Huxley 4. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? -- Philip Dick 5. Neuromancer -- William Gibson
6. Dune -- Frank Herbert 7. I, Robot -- Isaac Asimov 8. Foundation -- Isaac Asimov
9. The Colour of Magic -- Terry Pratchett
10. Microserfs -- Douglas Coupland 11. Snow Crash -- Neal Stephenson
12. Watchmen -- Alan Moore & Dave Gibbons
13. Cryptonomicon -- Neal Stephenson
14. Consider Phlebas -- Iain M Banks
15. Stranger in a Strange Land -- Robert Heinlein
16. The Man in the High Castle -- Philip K Dick
17. American Gods -- Neil Gaiman
18. The Diamond Age -- Neal Stephenson 19. The Illuminatus! Trilogy -- Robert Shea & Robert Anton Wilson
20. Trouble with Lichen - John Wyndham

Breaking the silence

+ Sorry for the extended absence over here. I just haven't been motivated, somehow. And I've been pretty busy. When I get Wil down between 8 and 9 pm I often don't feel like sitting at the computer. This is probably a good thing. I've been reading a little more: First, The Moviegoer, which was a little disturbing to me, and now The Napoleon of Crime, which is ok.

+ Do you know that RFID will probably change everything?

+ You are obviously not hip. Neither am I. Check your playlists against The Top 40 Bands in America Today. Whatchoo got? Do I hear 'bupkis'? Fortunately for you, dude links some legal mp3s and videos so you can hear/see what you're missing. Plenty I've never/barely heard of. I do like Death Cab for Cutie quite a bit (via The Postal Service), and I've always felt I should like Wilco but somehow have never stopped to listen to them.
+ Easing back in with 'Top n...' posts. Here's a Top 20 geek novels. I have read 14, including the first 8. Maybe I should read the rest...

If I were Jaq, I'd bold the ones I've read. That would be a good thing to do. Too lazy today...

+ Cringeley had a really, extra interesting article about what he sees in Google's future. Teaser: it's not what you think.

Just a few, little things (nothing major)

+ On to glory: Peter Drucker (via Brad)

+ Matt posts a cool picture of the Toronto Stock Exchange: and old building surrounded by a skyscraper. Cool.

+ The map from which the name of Tom's New York Times Bestselling book, The Pentagon's New Map, took it's name.

Zenpundit roundtable

Mark has a very ambitious roundtable going on over at Zenpundit. He's signed on some big names to post over the course of a number of days. I highly recommend that you check it out.

Zenpundit Roundtable introductory post

World wealth, words, and anti-Westernism

+ Since I have some guilty liberal tendencies, I have to link my ranking on the Global Rich List:

I'm loaded. It's official. I'm the 277,391,305 richest person on earth! How rich are you? >>

+ AllYourWords.com looks interesting, especially since I'm so into... words. Now, what word should I associate with your site...

+ While Macon and I agree that Tom's economic determinism is a little overdone for us, and that ideology does matter, I found this quote from Tom to be pretty interesting:

It ain't about religion, but about economic connectivity. The 'new proletariat' can't turn to Marxism, because that's too discredited. So when you're radicalized today, the one package that's both anti-capitalist and anti-Western is jihadist Islam.

Elections, big oil (and more)

+ What to make of the Democratic victories tuesday? Is this a reflection on the President's low approval rating and Republican scandals or just Democratic wins where Democrats were already governors? Did the president's campaigning for the Republican candidate in VA hurt that candidate? And let's not forget Schwarzenegger's losses, either.

+ Big oil execs testified yesterday about their huge profits. They argue that those profits are in line given revenues. Since I'm leaning free market these days, I would say that Congressional action is probably not the way to go. Consumers should act beyond just complaining.

Of course, I reiterate my opinion that we shouldn't use tax dollars to subsidize gasoline (and, to some extent, roads).

It'd be nice to wean ourselves off of subsidies for gas, roads, agriculture, coastal insurance... What else can we add to the list?

+ Just when you thought the TO show was totally crazy, you get the apology (yeah, right) and the antics of his agent (who's behind him, you guessed it, 110%).

+ Thing that makes me go hmmm: When will Gmail emerge from beta? What's the hold up?

+ Get a load of this: someone thinks Iowa City needs another hospital.

+ Hello Trooper. Hello Kitty and Imperial Stormtrooper mashup.

Miscellany

+ Underworld: Evolution. There's a sequel? Saw the first one at Macon's. It was entertaining, but...

+ Just a reminder: Terrell Owens is a punk. The Eagles did the right thing. The sad thing is, someone will sign him.

+ I can sure appreciate Matthew's proudest moment:

I brought The Squirrelly to a Halloween party. He saw a child dressed as a pirate and, unpromped, said "Arrrr!"

+ Tom today:

The key reason why we lost Vietnam was because the other side had some very serious backing from the Sovs and Chinese, plus a regional environment that was conducive to the dual strategy of civil war and insurgency from within. The analogies to Vietnam now being employed work only to the extent that the regional environment is permissive, with some states obviously lending some support (Syria, Iran).

+ NPR had a piece on this morning about a Dr Robert Young, a professor at Western Carolina University who says we should pull back some of our subsidization of coastal communities. Can't find anything else on the web except the actual sound file. Sounds about right to me. What do you think?

Some comedies

Jaq's got a new comedy movie post. I'm bolding the one's I've seen, underlining my favorites, deleting the ones I don't care about or don't think belong on the list, italicizing ones I want to see, and adding a few (cross referencing with AFI, which takes care of some of Jaq's objections).

9 to 5
Airplane!
Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery
Being There
Blazing Saddles
Bringing Up Baby
Broadcast News
Caddyshack
Cat Ballou
Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story
Duck Soup
Ferris Bueller's Day Off
A Fish Called Wanda
Four Weddings and a Funeral
The General
Ghostbusters
The Gold Rush
Groundhog Day
A Hard Day's Night
His Girl Friday
It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World
Kind Hearts and Coronets
The Lady Killers
Local Hero
Monty Python's Life of Brian (blasphemously funny)
Monty Python's Quest for the Holy Grail
National Lampoon's Animal House
The Odd Couple
The Producers
Raising Arizona (one of my favorites)
Roxanne
Rushmore
Shaun of the Dead
A Shot in the Dark
Singin' in the Rain
Some Like it Hot
Strictly Ballroom
Sullivan's Travels
There's Something About Mary
This is Spinal Tap
To Be or Not to Be
Tootsie
When Harry Met Sally...
Young Frankenstein

The Order of Civilization, Windows, Live? (and more)

Sorry I've been out of commission: out of town this weekend and now studying for my CDL test tomorrow. More later.

+ New Orleans Police Fire 51 for Desertion. A pure, cryin' shame.

+ Brad points me to Windows Live [PC World article ]. Cool URL. Wonder what it cost them? But Live is basically a poor copy of Google's customized homepage. Now, if they get (at least some rudimentary) Office functions online, that'll be useful.

+ Critt has an interesting diagram called The Order of Civilization, from The Clock of the Long Now.

Tests

+ I took the BBC Sex ID test (insert 'yes, please' standard joke here). I scored right in the middle (0) where men average male 50 and women average female 50.

100----50----0----50----100
female male

That fits. I'm a sensitive, androgynous, 21st century kind of guy. Just ask my wife ;-)

I was: good at angles, bad at spotting the differences, systemizing over empathizing, good at emotions, preferred feminine faces, bad at shapes (didn't try very hard), and good at words.

+ While I was at it, I also passed 8th grade math:

You Passed 8th Grade Math

Congratulations, you got 9/10 correct!

Could You Pass 8th Grade Math?

Cleaning out saved posts in my kottke (Bloglines) subscription

So 3 from him.

+ Interesting map project from CommonCensus. What city do you most identify with? The've got a sports side project, too. Most interesting thing about the NFL map? The swath of Green Bay fans near Brett Favre's home town in Mississippi.

+ Congress, insider trading (quoting the whole post):

James Surowiecki on insider trading and members of Congress . From 1993-1998, "senators beat the market, on average, by twelve per cent annually". Here's a piece on the same study from the FT early last year.

Sounds pretty fishy to me

+ The social responsibility of business is to increase profits:

Debate between economist Milton Friedman, John Mackey (CEO of Whole Foods) and T.J. Rodgers (CEO of Cypress Semiconductor). (via mr)

This epitomizes my uneasy conscience with capitalism. On the one hand, the market is the most efficient way to organize the exhange of goods and services. It makes planned economies look like a Kindergarten science project.

But, on the other hand, I'm very uncomfortable with the idea that the best business can do is increase profits. In addition to being uncomfortable, I don't believe it. Our current economic millieu here in the US has companies maximizing stock market price (same thing as maximizing profits?), which often leads to dumb decisions.

[I was going to add musings about corporations and LLCs here, but haven't gotten to it yet, so... maybe later...

Miers, Mubarak, music and Midwestern baseball

+ Miers withdraws nomination. I'm a little disappointed for Ms Miers, but not surprised. Plus, I hate to see the President have to cave in to the archconservatives.

+ Disarming Palestinians may mean civil war: Mubarak. Alright - so long as Israel does its part...

+ White Sox End World Series Drought. Congrats to the White Sox and the city of Chicago. Wish it was the Cubs. Following the trends, maybe if they changed to the AL and called themselves the Blue Sox...

+ Jason came back to life and posted about pop songs. We have some of the same favorites and they almost always came to me from him. Blame my taste in music thereon ;-)

Tom today

+ Morning Edition for about 7 minutes (taped a few days ago).

+ 'In Brazil, if you no vote, you pay fine, so people turn out (a new rule we should adopt)' [link]

Makes sense to me. What say you?

+ Though our relationship with China is hypocritical, the relationship grows (sound like any family relationships you've seen?)

+ 'We'll soon have a lame-duck president crippled by scandals (that makes four in a row for two-termers: Nixon with Watergate, Reagan with Irangate, Clinton with Monicagate, and now Bush with whatever we're calling this latest one).'

Favorite songs (via Jaq)

Jaq had a music post a while back that I wanted to do (check out the fun comments, too). When I looked at it again, I realized I only wanted to some of it. So here it is:

Favorite Beatles song: How does one pick? I think 'Baby you can drive my car' is the Platonic ideal of a pop song. How's that?

Favorite solo song by a former Beatle: Probably 'Silly love songs'

Favorite Bob Dylan song: Let's say 'Shelter from the storm' with a nod to the end of 'Jerry Maguire'.

Favorite Pixies song: Easy: 'Wave of mutilation'

Favorite Metallica song: Yep: 'Enter Sandman'

Favorite Depeche Mode song: 'Enjoy the silence'?

Favorite Cure song: 'Friday I'm in love'

Favorite song that most of your friends haven?t heard: 'God believes in you'

Favorite Beastie Boys song: 'Sabotage'

Favorite Police song: 'Can't stand losin' you'

Favorite Blondie song: 'Call me'

Favorite Led Zeppelin song: 'Kashmere'

Favorite Weird Al song: Kyle and I owned In 3D and I pretty well liked that whole album (cute Yahoo parody over there on that website).

Favorite Pink Floyd song: 'Wish you were here'

Favorite cover song: Lickin the Tins: 'Can't help falling in love'

Favorite dance song: 3 tied (from my college days): 'Bizarre love triangle', 'A little respect', 'Living in oblivion'

Favorite U2 song: 'Beautiful day'

Favorite disco song: 'Stayin' alive'?

Favorite The Who song: 'Pinball wizard'

Favorite Elton John song: 'Crocodile rock'?

Favorite Clash song: 'Should I stay or should I go?'

Favorite David Bowie song: (with Queen) 'Under Pressure'

Favorite Nirvana song: 'Smells like Teen Spirit'

Favorite Johnny Cash song: 'Ring of fire'

Favorite R.E.M. song: 'Gardening at night'

Favorite (skinny) Elvis song: 'Jailhouse Rock'

Favorite cheesy-ass country song: 'Pancho and Lefty' - Willie Nelson.

Favorite Billy Joel song: Somethin' old: 'You may be right'

Favorite Bruce Springsteen song: 'Dancin' in the dark' (cheeseball alert)

Favorite Big Audio Dynamite song: 'Free'

Favorite New Order song: 'Bizarre love triangle'

Favorite Neil Diamond song: 'Forever in blue jeans'

Favorite Smiths song: How do you pick? 'Girlfriend in a coma'

Sleep-cycles, spam, Odeo and retirement

+ Because I'm a total geek, I took to heart this post by Vincent Cheung on how to wake up in sync with your body's sleep cycles on the cheep . Both of out clock radios are Christine's from before we got married. The one in our room has the Klaxon of Death that goes off 9 minutes after the radio starts. Does that one in Elizabeth's room have 2 alarms? Sure enough. *switch* Now I'm into this system with the radio set to go off a half hour before the buzzer.

Of course, it's not working for me yet because Wil's been in bed with me with allergy problems, but it might work someday :-)

+ Speaking of spam (it was spamblogs the other day), my Gmail's been getting a lot more spam lately from 'info'. And, now that I mention it, those spamblogs were 'good-information-source'. Very suspicious...

+ Woo-hoo! Yippy-skippy! The Odeo Studio is finally out in beta. Can't wait to try it. Especially can't wait to host sound files there and start my own (twin) channel. But not tonight. I've got those little sweeties by myself while Christine works.

+ In my continuing role as the top weblogger of Iowa City's virtues, Money magazine rates IC the 3rd best city to retire to .