What the heck

Ok, so the Mayor of Mobile Sam Jones and the city council decided that it would be best for downtown to turn certain roads back from one-way streets to two-way streets. Their reasoning was it would slow traffic down because vehicles would be traveling in both directions and not just one. Whereas, the one way streets allow for fast moving of traffic. The cost of this change for one street, Royal Street, was $800,000. Yes, eight-hundred thousand dollars.

Also, to enlighten those of you out there. A California state congressman has introduced a bill for consideration that would ban incandescent light bulbs forcing people to use the Compact Fluorescent bulbs. They are doing this to help conserve energy and improve the environment. The majority of pollution comes from power production. Most power production uses coal to produce power. It would depend on the wording of the bill but I think this would be good. There are certain bulbs which are not good for compact fluorescent. I placed a CF bulb outside and it took several minutes for it to warm up to produce full light. There are other examples but I will not bore you with them.

Recycling one can will save enough energy to power a television for three (3) hours. Thats your thought of the day.

B

unbelievable

I heard today that stores like Best Buy, Comp USA, and Staples were going to be open at midnight tonight for the release of Windows Crap.....I mean Windows Vista. Then I started thinking, who wants to be out there at midnight to get their copy of Vista? M$ claims its the most secure OS they have ever released, but this isn't saying much considering they are already working on Service Pack 1. Microsoft has already tipped their hat that Vista has some 'high impact issues.'

However, the Redmond clarion call declares that "regressions from Windows Vista and Windows XP, security, deployment blockers and other high impact issues as are the primary focus for the Service Pack."

But for you out there that are considering upgrading from Windows XP to Vista you may want to reconsider that notion.

If you choose to purchase an upgrade version of Windows Vista to upgrade XP, you will no longer be able to use that version of XP. Either on another system, or as a dual-boot option. The key will be invalidated, preventing activation.

Well, some digging through the EULA by Micheal Geist, found some interesting stuff like the following:

Vista's legal fine print includes extensive provisions granting Microsoft the right to regularly check the legitimacy of the software and holds the prospect of deleting certain programs without the user's knowledge.

Vista also incorporates Windows Defender, an anti-virus program that actively scans computers for "spyware, adware, and other potentially unwanted software." The agreement does not define any of these terms, leaving it to Microsoft to determine what constitutes unwanted software...

Vista intentionally degrades the picture quality of premium content when played on most computer monitors.

So, keep those keep this information in mind as possible problems if you decide to go to Vista. I guarantee you that I will not be out at midnight to get this slow piece of crap. Like I want to go out and get a huge piece of software that is going to make my favorite games (OpenGL based games) run up to 50% slower. Going to stuff DRM crap all up my junk and degrade my computing experience. Thanks M$, now I have more of a reason to learn to use Linux.

For those of you who might be interested, South Alabama Linux Users Group (SALUG) is going to be having an installfest. If you are interested in learning more about the linux or maybe you have an extra machine or even an extra hard drive, come on and join us. Information can be found at their website: www.salug.org

Weekend

Yesterday we had the ACM Welcome back pizza event. All 15 pizzas from Papa John's were devoured in about 35 minutes. Then last night we had Who-a-thon 2.0 combined with Munchkin. It was quite fun.

The ACM is sending some people to Hattisburg to participate in the Bearing Point programming contest which is being co-sponsored by Microsoft. After talking Jeremy into participating, we found out yesterday what the environment and text editors will be allowed during the competition. It is going to be hosted in Knoppix 5.1 with the following text editors: Joe, Kate, GVim, Nano, and Zile. When a few people were told about this, they looked at me and said 'who?'

It looks like I have more motivation to learn my way around Linux now. My thesis work will be much easier to continue under Linux than to do it within Windows. So, I guess I shall break out my trusty book and start back reading again.

B

My first Digg post

Nothing special. Just my first story posted to Digg and I thought I would share it with you. Maybe you will digg it so it won't be stuck at 1 LOL.

The paragraph at the end of the article sealed it for me though:

The animal control officer says in Florida, it's not a crime to commit a sex act with an animal, but it is a felony to torture or kill them. While no exact "cause of death" has been yet determined, the vet believes the goat may have died of a stress-related heart attack and that would make this a felony crime.

Link

My complaint about Jeremy Blair

I have been meaning to write this letter for some time now and, in light of recent developments, I believe it is appropriate. It is requisite, even in this summary sketch, to go back a few years to see how there is no place in this country where we are safe from Jeremy Blair's drones, no place where we are not targeted for hatred and attack. Prodigal allotheism is Jeremy's quiddity. But you knew that already. So let me add that Jeremy's opuscula need to be reassessed with Jeremy's ulterior motives in mind. To cap that off, I respect the English language and believe in the use of words as a means of communication. Spiteful blood-stained criminals like Jeremy, however, consider spoken communication as merely a set of noises uttered to excite emotions in hopeless scum in order to convince them to set the hoops through which we all must jump.

There is no such thing as evil in the abstract. It exists only in the evil deeds of evil people like Jeremy. He isn't as smart as he thinks he is. That, in itself, will condemn us to live with uncouth, impractical devil-worshippers faster than you can say "ultrastandardization". If spineless manipulators of the public mind really believed in equality, they wouldn't contaminate clear thinking with Jeremy Blair's evil shenanigans. So I give you this letter. I hope it helps.

Fun stuff...

So, a friend sent me something funny to do involving our names and google. It consisted of inserting your name into this phrase in parethesis and seeing what comes up in the search results. This phrase is " was arrested for".

The following are fictional....but are they....yeah, they are.

Brian: "In a sudden midnight police operation, Brian was arrested for failing to leave a cordoned area during a security operation"

Jeremy: "Backpacking across Europe during the spring of 1994, Jeremy was arrested for lewd conduct with a sheep in France"

Craig: "was arrested for public intoxication and for having an open container violation and was transported to the county jail"

Kacey: "was arrested for trespassing and taken to a psychiatric ward."

Kenny: "was arrested for dating a 12 year-old once."

BJD: "Joe was arrested for arson in nearby Lakeland."

LOL

16 seconds...

Well, I was about to post about the National Championship game just starting but as I was starting to write Ohio State ran the kickoff back for a touchdown on the first kickoff. I think the game will be all Ohio State.

Nick Saban is coming to Alabama

Breaking news on ESPN this morning is that Nick Saban is no longer the coach at Miami Dolphins and is coming to the capstone in Tuscaloosa. After several weeks of speculation, denials, and courting he decided his heart is in college football and ultimately that he wanted to return to the game that he loved. I'm certain the money helped too. Its being reported that the contract that was being proposed is an 8 year $30 million dollar deal.

Now, none of this comes out of academic or tax dollars. The University of Alabama football team brought in over $43 million dollars in revenue, over $21 million in donations directly to the football program, and about $23 million in ticket sales for quite a large amount of money. So, Alabama can afford to finish paying off Shula and being able to afford Saban.

What is getting under my skin is the continued sayings by ESPN about Alabama. Yes, this will be our 5th coach in 10 years, but they don't say anything about the reason for this. Mike DuBose had an affair with is secretary, was losing control of his team, and had been implicated in NCAA rules violations. So, DuBose was out and they hired Dennis Franchione from TCU at the time. He came in and had two good seasons with Alabama and he resigned and left for Texas A&M. It may never be known for certain, but probably part of his decision was the looming sanctions from the NCAA rules violation under DuBose.

Alabama then hires Mike Price from Washington State but before he even had the chance to coach a game he was fired after 'stripper-gate' in Pensacola. Again, we may never know what really happened but either way he was fired for this incident.

Mike Shula was hired as coach in May 2003, mere months before the season was to start for the 2003 season. It was between Shula and Sylvester Croom and I think for the time, we got the better coach. Unfortunately, Shula was not ready for a head coaching job at such a high profile club like Alabama. He seemed to be a good recruiter but he made the same mistakes over and over again and made bad decisions. I think his firing was a good thing, it would take an idiot to lose with the talent he had in 2005. He still had a lot of talent this season but squandered it. The Independence bowl against Oklahoma State was a totally different team doing things that the team did not do under Shula. They came back in the second half to tie the game and moved the ball.

Then Bill Curry comes on talking about Alabama too. He was fired because he was a crappy coach and was talking to another school to be their coach. He's still sore about being canned. He didn't do anything good at Kentucky and was fired by them too. I hate watching any football game he is broadcasting for ESPN at because he is full of hullaballoo.

Peace

My bowl review

So, I got some right and some wrong. I picked West Virginia correctly. Auburn stopped Nebraska in the second half to preserve their win. Shockingly, Penn State pulled it out against Tennessee which made me quite happy. I just noticed that I wrote the wrong win loss record for Arkansas yesterday. It was supposed to be 10-2 but I guess I predicted Arkansas to lose and typed 10-3 instead, so I give myself a 1/2 for that one. USC pretty much manhandled Michigan in the Rose Bowl, not close like I thought but I did pick USC.

Finally, Boise State and Oklahoma last night was very exciting. In the last 88 seconds or 1:28 the two teams combined for 22 points to send the game into overtime. In overtime, Oklahoma scored first and kicked their extra point. Boise converted a 4th down to score a TD but instead of trying to go punch for punch with a big school they, smartly, went for a 2-pt conversion. Utilizing the good ole Statue of Liberty play, they stun Oklahoma, Bob Stoops, and everyone but the Boise loyalists in pulling out a stunning win against OU 43-42.

So, my record for the games yesterday was 2.5 for 3.5. Almost .500 but not quite. Tonight, Louisville vs Wake Forrest in which I like Louisville in this game.

Also, Alabama has given Nick Saban an offer to coach Alabama. Reports say its between 8 to 10 years for $40 Million. Hopefully, we will soon hear his decision.

First Post of 2007

Well, I rang in the new year last night in a rather quiet and humble way. I merely sat in my room watching an episode of Robin Hood. Nothing spectacular I admit, but it wasn't bad nonetheless.

So, now its time for my Bowl review of the games I have seen and a preview of the ones yet to come.

Lets start with Alabama. It hasn't gone under the radar that Shula was fired several weeks ago. Since he was calling the offensive plays, that job fell to Dave Radar the offensive coordinator. Joe Kines served as head coach and defensive coordinator. The team came out and played pretty well, although they fell behind by halftime they didn't roll over and give up (a la the Shula era). They did come back to tie the game at 31. Unfortunately, the defense couldn't get a turnover when they needed it most. I was a little confused at the poor time management Kines exerted near the end of the game. With three time outs left and OSU clearly in field goal range, he opted not to conserve time for the offense to try and run a play or two. Rather, he opted to call all three time outs consecutively to try and ice the kicker. This didn't work and only left a few seconds to try and run back the kickoff with some laterals which didn't work. Thus 'bama fell 34-31 to Oklahoma State.

Kentucky vs. Clemson in the Music City bowl was a big surprise to me. Kentucky is not a power house by any means and Clemson is good team. Which is why I was so surprised to tune in and see Kentucky leading Clemson 28-6. While Clemson came back to make it a closer game, it would still should be an embarrassment to Tommy Bowden that he lost to Kentucky 28-20.

I didn't watch Oregon State but I saw the recap and I am impressed by the gutsy call by their coach going for the 2-point conversion at the end of the game to win instead of playing it safe and kicking the extra point to tie and force overtime. Maybe if Shula didn't coach so utterly conservative he just might have kept his job.....maybe not.

Again, I didn't watch Insight bowl with Texas Tech vs. Minnesota, I again watched the recap. I saw the score at 38-7 and wrote the game off and went to bed. Boy, was I surprised the next day when I learned that TT actually won the game 44-41. This is the largest Bowl comeback in history to win and I applaud TT. They took on one of the more traditional teams 'good teams', fell way behind but showed the heart of a champion in coming back to win.

I did watch Texas vs Iowa and was surprised when Iowa jumped on them early with a 14-0 start on their first two drives. Unfortunatly, they couldn't keep the momentum going and fell to Texas.

Miami vs Nevada last night up in Boise Idaho on the blue turf wasn't much of a surprise. Miami won a close one, I was rooting for Nevada.

I didn't watch or even see the recap for the South Carolina vs Houston game but I felt that USC was going to pull out the win.

Then came a series of good games that I watched on Saturday. Navy vs Boston College was a good game. Paul Johnson's team was ready to play. They took the lead and held it most of the game with a great running and option attack that utilized enough pass to keep the BC defense honest at times. They ripped of some big 20+ yard runs. But when the game was in hand, a fumbled option pitch became a turnover giving life back to BC. BC then moved the ball down into field goal range for their kicker who, before this season, had never played football (only soccer). BC made the FG and on the ensuing kickoff, Navy tried the lateral game but didn't make it and falls 25-24.

The Chick-fil-a (Peach) bowl pitted Georgia vs Virginia Tech. While Tech was the ranked team, Georgia is a good team with a freshman quarterback. The inexperience at QB lead to a few deceptive losses during the season. Georgia scored first with a field goal but Tech lit it up in the second quarter scoring 21 points in about a 10 minute span. At the half, it looked like Tech with its offense moving the ball pretty well and defense which was shutting down the Georgia offense looked like they had the game in hand. The second half was totally different from the first. Georgia came out with a fire under their rears and played some smash mouth SEC football. Exploding for 28 second half points and their defense only allowing 3 second half points and forcing turnover after turnover. Georgia really showed how good they can be.

Now, my predictions for some of the games today.

Georgia Tech vs West Virginia in the Gator Bowl. My edge goes to WV, they have bowl experience with a win in the Sugar Bowl last year and GT just not playing very consistent. Plus, their experienced QB is suspended so I think it will be close to begin with and WV pulls away for the win.

The cotton bowl pits Nebraska vs Auburn. While I don't have much love for the cow college, this game is a pretty good match. Nebraska has overhauled its offense under their new coach to the spread offense from the option wishbone of old (which I still like btw). The Nebraska defense is pretty good year in and year out. If they can stop the Auburn run game and force them to pass, its going to be a long day. Georgia did this and came up with four interception. Additionally, Auburn has a couple linebackers out for different reasons, so the defensive rush will depend on Groves up front to get pressure on the QB. The secondary will have to come up and help the inexperienced linebacker cover the short to intermediate routes, which the Nebraska QB is very accurate with. I think this will be a close game but I give the edge to the Cornhuskers in a close game.

The outback bowl has Penn State vs Tennessee. Again, I have no love for the Vols but this could prove to be a one sided game in the Vols favor. Paterno is going to try to be on the sidelines for the game but his knee may prevent him from being there the whole game. The nittany lions will have to come out ready to play with lots of pressure on the Vol offense and ball control. Unfortunately, I think the Vols win by 10 or more.

The capital one bowl has Wisconsin (11-1) and Arkansas (10-3). While Wisconsin hasn't really played anyone of note other than Michigan, their record speaks for itself. Arkansas lost to early to USC, which I think made them a better team this season. Then late losses to LSU in the final season game and a loss to Florida in the SEC championship. I think Arkansas will come out with something to prove and win a close game.

Boise State vs Oklahoma in the Fiesta bowl. Boise State plays in a weak conference but could be the little engine that could for all those non-BCS schools. Oklahoma has had problem after problem this year, but still proved that Stoops is a great coach and the team has heart (and talent). Before the season they dismissed their star QB then later lost their Heisman caliber running back to a broken collar bone. Watch out for a possible upset here, but I give Oklahoma the edge in a close game.

So, now the 'granddaddy of them all' with USC vs Michigan. Many believe that Michigan and Ohio State should have played in the National Championship game in a rematch. My feelings is, too bad. You had your chance and couldn't win. You didn't win your conference championship. Back to this game, USC needs to protect their QB and defend against the Michigan keep pass. Pete Carroll is great at getting his team up for big games. I give USC the edge.

Tune in tomorrow for my Orange Bowl pick.