No Dr. Phil hockey
Apparently there is some whining going on regarding the fact that hockey is the only sport which actually has rules for fighting, and Razor explains, as only Razor can, why this is such a good thing:
Baseball would have more fights than it already does (which by the way is on par if not exceeding the number in hockey) if the runner had to face a base guarded by a player with a bat. And since I'm on the subject, just stop with the bench-emptying stare downs when a pitcher throws a ball near a batters noggin'. Either throw-down or sit-down.
Football would be a fight-filled extravaganza if each guy packed a club and the game was played in an arena (Hey, wait a minute. They do play in arenas in the appropriately named Arena League. Oh, that's right, they pad the boards for the big tough footballers.)
Basketball? Well we saw last year that it doesn't take more than a flagrant foul and a cup of beer to send players into fight club mode. At least hockey has the brains to thank its fans and beat each other up rather than the other way around. Again, give the players a foreign object, a cage around the court and a 'no blood no foul' governance, and I'll show you some lanky, bomb-throwing fisticuffs. [Emphasis added. --R]
War has solved <i>plenty</i>
The last major war the United States was involved in was Vietnam. The modern Democratic Party leadership all came of age during that war, as did most of the editorial staff in the manistream media. It wasn’t just a defining moment in the modern American left, it was the defining moment, the prism through which the left would view the world from that moment on. Vietnam was justification for every pacifist tendency that every liberal has ever had. When they said that war didn’t solve anything, they could point to Vietnam. When they wanted to show the consequences of war, they could point to Vietnam. When they wanted to show the failure of military force as a tool for political change, they could point to Vietnam. It was the last major war this country was ever involved in. Sure we’ve had military operations, from Grenada to the Gulf War to the Balkans, but Vietnam our last big one, and it was a war we ended up losing. Vietnam has been their de facto answer for everything for the past 30 years.
Iraq threatens their entire belief system. [Emphasis added. --R]
<i>The Broker</i>
The last John Grisham book I read was The Summons, and it was a decent read. Before that, the last Grisham book I had tackled was The Chamber, but I got bored and put it down before I was even a fourth of the way through, and have never picked it up again. Now, as far as decent fiction you don't have to really think about, the kind of books perfect for waiting around in airports, flying, or while on your daily bus or train commute, Grisham's work is usually perfect. I adore The Pelican Brief, not only because of the the writing, but also because my wife went to Tulane Law, and we were living in New Orleans when I read the book and when the movie came out. It's the only Grisham novel I have in hardcover. However, like I said, with one exception, it's been awhile since I picked up a Grisham book. That changed two weeks ago. On Sunday, December 18th, while browsing the books at Costco, I happened upon The Broker. I read the synopsis on the back cover. It sounded intriguing. Certainly more intriguing than the synopses for the other Grisham books I'd picked up and not purchased for the past decade or so. It went in to the cart, and I started reading it a couple of hours after we got home. I finished it Monday night. Yes, that Monday, as in the very next day, the 19th. I told my wife how good I thought it was, and she started it three days ago, and finished it off last night. It's as if after a long dry spell of just churning out books because that was what was expected of him, Grisham decided to write a book he would enjoy writing (which it sounds like he did, based on the acknowledgments) as well as one he would enjoy reading, and it shows. Most of the book takes place in Italy, which Grisham traveled through as part of his research. This could very well have a lot to do with why I enjoyed the book, as the author transports you to the cities and towns of Italy, and it gave my imagination a workout. Yet it has to be more than that, and I believe it's because it has the Grisham flow that made his early works so popular. The Broker is not going to win any literary awards, but let's face it: as with the Academy Awards, awards don't often reflect the reality of the marketplace. It's a fun book, and Retrophisch™ Recommended.
Smooth Guy
Do you want to know why Guy Kawasaki was made the head evangelist by Apple in the mid-1990s? Because Guy's so smooth:
You should give your ten slides in twenty minutes. Sure, you have an hour time slot, but you’re using a Windows laptop, so it will take forty minutes to make it work with the projector. Actually, the entire post is about Guy's optimal PowerPoint presentation. (He sees a lot of them as a venture capitalist.) If you give presentations, it's a worthwhile read.
ATPM 12.01
About This Particular Macintosh begins its twelfth year of publishing with the release of the January 2006 issue. Ellyn starts things off by noting something is rotten in the state of Wikipedia. Personally, I try to avoid linking to Wikipedia, and encourage fellow bloggers to do the same. Wes has a round-up of the latest Macworld Expo/Intel-based Mac rumor-mongering, something I simply cannot condone. (The rumor-mongering, not the gathering thereof. I believe it's important to know, and point out, how badly these rumor sites hurt Apple and rarely help consumers.) Sylvester ponders how even long-time Mac users can encounter newbie moments. A rare treat for the ATPM readership: publisher Michael Tsai returns with a Personal Computing Paradigm column on coping with Mac OS X's font rendering. Michael and I share a common Microsoft love: Verdana. It's my main screen font, too, and the first one I specify in the stylesheets for my blogs. I also like Microsoft's Georgia, and use it as my main serif font. Look for Georgia to make an appearance in an upcoming redesign I'm working on. Your humble author again submits some photos from Wyoming as this month's desktop pictures. These feature the Jenny Lake area of Grand Teton National Park, the part of the vacation I believe I enjoyed more than our time in Yellowstone. This could largely be due to the differences in weather we had between the two parks. This month's Cortland, rated PG-13 for violence, attempts to allude to as many science fiction motion pictures as possible, as several plotlines converge. Tom kicks the reviews off with the software I wish I had the hardware to handle, and that's turning the digital photography world on its ear, Aperture. Ellyn listens different with Griffin Technology's EarThumps, while Matthew examines Quicken alternative iCash. Tom continues to make me jealous with a review of the hardware I hope to be able to run Aperture on in the future, the 20-inch iMac G5. Yours truly got to make a few other staffers jealous with my own product review, that of Tivoli Audio's iSongBook. While the review was turned in before the Christmas holiday, we did take the iSongBook on the road with us, and it proved its worth for us during our stay at my grandmother's. It pulled double duty as bedtime lullaby player for our toddler, and alarm clock for us. Lee, who got plenty of experience with virtual tours last year during his house hunt, looks at an alternative to QuickTime VR for creating virtual tours, Mapwing Creator Pro. Chuck wraps the first reviews of the year up with an examination of the latest version of REALbasic. Our thanks to our readers who have stuck with us for the past eleven years, and we're looking forward to the next eleven!
Happy New Year
For New Year's Eve, my wife and I went out to dinner, toddler in tow. Over our meal we toasted the new year, praying it would be better than 2005, which was better than 2004, which was only slightly worse than 2003. My prayer for my family, my friends, and you, dear reader, is that 2006 is a better year for you as well. God bless, and be God's.
On knowing when to get the job done
Jeff takes the Seattle Post-Intelligencer's ("Intelligencer"? Granted, I know it's a real word, but come one. Couldn't you have just said "Reporter"?) Thomas Shapley--hereafter referred to as "Tom"--to task for the latter's confusing of the Valerie Plame non-event and the recent leak on NSA surveillance:
How peculiar indeed that the President and his administration should respond differently to these two situations. How very odd that when something right out of the pages of a movie of the week crops up and administration opponents do their level best to capitalize on it in order to harm the President and obstruct his second-term agenda, that the administration should respond one way, but when a loose-lipped grudge-bearer calls up a reporter and blows the lid on an operation that saves American lives, the administration does something else entirely.
If I didn’t know better, I’d say the White House is doing its job, Tom.
On the cookie idiocy
From the level-headed responses I've read regarding the NSA's web cookie whoopsie, Captain Ed has to have the best analysis:
In the great spectrum of Internet privacy dangers, "persistent cookies" sits on the weakest end. Spyware from free downloads cause more security problems than cookies, and even the ones used by the NSA can be blocked by any browser on the market. The AP uses the mistake to make cookies sound vaguely sinister when they're almost as ubiquitous on the Internet as pop-up ads, if not more so. The Guardian gets even more hysterical, in all senses of the word, when it says that the "[e]xposure adds to pressure over White House powers".
The silliest part of the story is that no one can understand why the cookies would present any danger to visitors to the NSA website. Both versions of the story call the risk to surfers "uncertain", but a more accurate description would be "irrelevant". Even if the NSA used it to track where casual visitors to its site surfed afterwards, it would discover nothing that any casual surfer wouldn't already be able to access on their own with Google or a quick check on Free Republic. Now imagine who stops to check on the NSA website and try very hard to come up with any good reason to spend precious resources on scouring the web preferences of bloggers and privacy groups instead of focusing on real signal intelligence, which already comes in such volume that the agency has trouble keeping up with their primary task. [Emphasis in the original.]
Kelly's Dump Soup
My wife found this dump soup recipe somewhere online, and neither of us can remember where nor find the bookmark for it. As the name implies, it's a soup made up of whatever you dump in the pot. Here's what we had for lunch:
1 can, Campbell's Healthy Request Minestrone
1 can, pinto beans (15 oz)
1 can, Ro-Tel Original diced tomatoes and green chilies (10 oz)
1 can, whole kernel corn (15 oz)
1 can, cut green beans, no salt added (14.5 oz)
In the past, we've also added a can of red beans, and a can of black beans to the mix, each of those a 15-ounce can like the pinto beans listed above. You'll need a good-sized pot to heat it on the stovetop with, and some Tupperware™ or other storage of your choice for the leftovers. Because there will be plenty of leftovers. It's very hearty, especially if you go with all three types of beans.Today's fixing fed both of us for lunch, and will give us at least one more meal, possibly two, depending upon how many bowls each of us has.
If you're on Weight Watchers™, this soup is extremely low in points; two to three per bowl.
Thanks to the Ro-Tel, I should have skipped taking some decongestant earlier. The green chilies cleared out my sinuses just fine.
Razor's New Year's words of wisdom
The most common eye injury in France is damage done by flying champagne corks. (It's true.) Apparently they don't retreat fast enough when it comes to avoiding bubble propelled projectiles.
Razor says, 'Let's be careful out there, and wear a visor.' And this is from a guy with French ancestry.
Thanks for nothing, Coach
Unlike the Tigers, the other SEC team that played yesterday apparently didn't show up to play the whole game. South Carolina put up 21 unanswered points, then it was nearly all-Missouri the rest of the way. The Gamecocks managed to wake up in the fourth quarter, and tied the game at 31 aside before succumbing to Mizzou. Steve Spurrier becomes the first SEC coach to lose at the Independence Bowl in thirteen straight appearances, ending the conference's streak. As if we needed another reason to dislike Spurrier.
Domination
A new head coach. A devastating hurricane. Opening season games rescheduled. A heartbreaking overtime loss in what became the home opener, played on a Monday night rather than the traditional Saturday night due to another hurricane. Then ten straight weeks of games. Ten straight wins. Then the eleventh game, in the eleventh week. For the conference championship. For a trip to the Sugar Bowl. For a chance to contend for the BCS National Championship crown, should one of the other favorites stumble. But the hurricanes and the eleven weeks of practice, preparation, and playing take their toll, and the worst loss of the season is suffered. Adding injury to insult, the star quarterback is lost. Cast down, sentenced to the next rung below the hallowed Bowl Championship Series. Ranked number ten, facing number nine. The second-team quarterback is at the helm, in his first college career start. All of the pundits pick the number nine opponent. The fans pick the number nine opponent. On the same turf as the crushing loss three weeks before... Oh, there were a few souls outside of Louisiana who picked the Tigers to beat Miami. Lou Holtz, God bless him, appears to be the only soul inside the USC-crazed ESPN crew without Trojan-emblazoned blinders on; he picks LSU as the winner of the 2005 Chick-Fil-A Peach Bowl. By the end of the night, Lou is vindicated. Things went great for the Miami Hurricanes. For about five minutes. On their first possession, they drove solidly down the field. The LSU defense, which collapsed against Georgia in the SEC Championship, held the Hurricanes to a field goal. It would be the only points Miami would score for the entire game. It would be a game of few penalties, and fewer turnovers. Only one, an interception by the LSU defense against Miami's freshman quarterback, put in the last four minutes of the game. It would be a game where many different words would be used to describe the play of the Fighting Tigers, of what happened to Miami, but it all keeps coming back to one word in particular. Domination. LSU dominated the line of scrimmage, on both sides, from their first offensive series onward. The Tigers would score on eight straight possessions, beginning with the series that tied the game at three apiece. Miami managed a mere 153 yards of total offense. Three of those yards was their total for the second half. The number-one pass defense in the country would give up 196 airborne yards and two touchdowns, without netting a single interception. The third-ranked overall Miami defense would give up a total of 468 yards, the most it has given up all season. The Miami offense would manage only six first downs. None of those were in the second half. The 37-point loss would be their worst bowl loss in school history. This was the LSU team many expected to see this season. The team was disciplined, poised. The team was supportive of their new quarterback, and bent over backwards to take as much burden off of him as possible. The team was confident with Matt Flynn at the helm. JaMarcus Russell is an incredible athlete. His play this year has been light-years better than last season. Yet Coach Les Miles may have to take a serious look at the position in the off-season. The better man for the job may have just led his team to a 40-3 victory over the last Hurricanes of the year.
Sign your politically-motivated movie is tanking
I find it amusing the producers of Syriana are touting the fact of their whopping two Golden Globe nominations. The movie cost $50 million, and has only made $33.6 million after being in theaters a month, a third of that made on its opening weekend. Then there are all of those marketing costs, such as commercials touting your two Golden Globe nominations. [Figures courtesy of Box Office Mojo.]
When you have nothing to offer...
Mary Katharine Ham notes a Boston Globe piece on how, just under three years away from the next presidential election, the Democratic Party is already seeking dirt on a potential Republican contender. This is yet further proof that the Democrats are out of ideas. Their only platform continues to be "We're everything the Republicans aren't." That may work with the lunatic fringe of the Left, but in mainstream America, voters like to hear about plans and ideas for moving the country forward.
Bowls lock arms
Speaking of college football, I have the Music City Bowl on in the background, and I noticed a few moments ago a commercial on behalf of the Football Bowl Association. Clearly, this is an opening salvo to maintain the status quo and not allow a playoff system for NCAA Division I-A football, the only level of any major college sport to not have a playoff system.
It's nice to know I'm not alone
Jonathan Chait weighs in on why USC is overrated, noting how ESPN is leading the sports media in a frothing charge to bestow on the Trojans their--ahem--"third-straight" national championship. [Thanks to my sweet for the Slate link.]
But we're just as bad as the terrorists, right?
By now, most people have heard John Kerry's slanderous comments about our servicemen terrorizing women and children in Iraq. James Taranto turns the table on the man who would be President, noting a CNN story about what a handful of our servicemen are really up to: doing everything possible, with help from folks stateside, to see that a little Iraqi girl doesn't die from spina bifida.
iCalFix
Like Merlin, I have longed for the ability in iCal to have alarms automatically created for new events. Now, thanks to Robert Blum gives us iCalFix, which does exactly that. Robert notes version 0.2 will be out some time in January, but I've been using today with no issues. (Note: iCalFix requires the installation of SIMBL.)
What's in your Backpack?
So the gang at 37signals have launched an affiliate program for Backpack, and, of course, I've signed up. You will note the link graphic in the side bar, under the "Support" heading. 37signals is doing something a bit differently with the Backpack affiliate program: you don't actually receive cash, but rather credit toward your own Backpack account. Theoretically, your own Backpack usage could be completely free if enough people sign up for a paid plan through your referral link. You can use this link to sign up for and use the Backpack web service. The default plan is free, so it doesn't cost you a thing to try the service out. Backpack affiliates don't make a dime unless you upgrade from the free plan to one of the paid plans, which start at a mere five dollars a month. (This is the plan I am currently on.) Continued use of Backpack is one more reason I will likely not renew my .Mac subscription next year. I just wish the affiliate program had been up and running last month, when I upgraded. Then Tom, who got me hooked on Backpack to begin with, could have earned some coin. Backpack won't be for everyone, just as with any other tool, but as with any other tool, you won't know if you'll like it unless you try it.