The Quinn Spin

The Rock says this: Quinn is like Obi Wan Kenobi-- by striking him down, you only make him stronger. Money quote:

Here's the delicious irony: they've (the Quinn Spin group) made him more
popular and a bigger name than if they just ignored him. In the quest to harpoon
Quinn, they've given him an exponentially large platform proving his endorsement
worth and making him rich long before the draft and Quinn has shined in the
spotlight . In other words, all of that hard work to tear Quinn down has made
him so much bigger than he would have been to this point and actually created a
undercurrent of support for him.

Trend Watching: is Starbucks falling out of favor

Witness this Twitter post from John Gruber... it seems to echo a sentiment I've been hearing from various corners..
As an enjoyer of Starbucks-- I probably stop by there twice a week, at most-- and not someone who claims to be some kind of coffee afficianado-- but I know some who would make that claim for themselves... and they must think this is heresy. I'm not with them.

Starbucks is, for me, a good, if expensive, alternative to the pretty crappy office coffee that's brewed here at work.

Frankly, I'm hoping Dunkin' Donuts puts a location back in downtown...

Corwin Brown: A teacher and a student..

A nice piece here posted on Blue Gray Sky from a guy who attended the recent ND Coaches Clinic about Corwin Brown.

"Who you say you are: that's your philosophy; who we see on film: that's your identity."

The Landlord..

Macs making inroads in the corporate sphere

Came across this article on Digg.I've been developing this sense in recent months-- after seeing a few of the displays on the tradeshow floor at OracleWorld last year, and looking at companies like www.joyent.com.. not to mention all the developers I've worked with who have adopted Macs for their own work...Slowly, slowly.. things are changing...



read more | digg story

Calacanis Rants

Jason Calacanis has an interesting rant here about the evolution (or is it the extinction) of the newspaper trade..

Nice work here..

See here for Ryan Williams' secret to domestic tranquility.. nice work, Ryan.

Last Day of Sweetlessness

It's the Saturday before Easter.
Bryce says he wants Easter to be today. He wants to write the Pope.
"Dear Benedict... for the first time in 2000 years, what do you say we celebrate Easter on a Saturday?..."

So it's the last day of mandated sweetlessness for me.
Haven't looked back to see if I can quantify the affect this Lent has had, but I can tell you this.. although I've had the occasional craving for a bowl of ice cream, I haven't really missed the candy, donuts.. etc. The one hard moment of this whole experience was little Blaine's third birthday party across the street a few weeks ago. Big ole pieces of Lightning McQueen cake being passed around... Cake from Publix is so good and it was hard to pass up.

So here's what worries me: that I'll go back to my old habits. That one thing will lead to another and I'll be eating cookies and ice cream like I always used to. I'm down to ~240 (from somewhere in the mid-260's around the Holidays) and I think I've got something sustainable going here.

220 is the goal. 210 is the "stretch goal" (abhorrent corp-speech). How can I modify my approach to keep this up? Remains to be seen.

Pancakes this morning. Everyone's eaten their share but me. Now Bryce tells me I can "never ever eat [my] pancakes." What a coach.

Joe listens to Rap

Thinking about Prof O'Rourke a while ago took me back to O'Rourke's links on the ND page..and
this article he wrote about his son, Joe's musical taste. When I was around the O'Rourke house, Joe was a pre-schooler, if that-- so it's amusing to me now to read this.. but it's also just a nice piece of writing about being a Dad.. and it teaches me that there are plenty of challenges still ahead of me.. even once I can get my boys to sleep through the night.

43 Folders

Still up... banging away on my work laptop... so late now the thing is trying to phone home for whatever middle-of-the-night updates/eavesdropping data exchange it normally does, I suppose. Frigging thing keeps chiming in with a dialog box, complaining that it can't find it's desired network path...

Reading this note about Google Desktop from Merlin Mann on 43Folders.com does my heart good. It's so nice to read a tech pundit who can use the English Language-- has fun with it, even.


I can remember, during a seminar in graduate school--back in the bad old dial-up days of the mid-90's-- William O'Rourke lamenting the affect he perceived email to be having on the average American's already insufficient proofreading habits: "It's all too easy to just hit Send," he said.

And sadly, with the advent of text messaging, and all the ascii short-hand that all the kids seem to be doing these days [insert basic example here]-- and my own sad examples of often downright poor usage here in this space, I fear curmudgeonly O'Rourke was right.

So while I think my friend, Dr. Funkhole, could give him a run for his money, all the same, it's a refreshing read, whenever I get the chance.

Also-- the more I read from Merlin about Quicksilver, the more I think I may need to look into it.
The thing to do the last couple of days-- following Merlin and John Gruber's example-- has been to install the new Google Desktop for Mac OS X.
I've always thought, much as I like Google's other offerings, that Google Desktop didn't present itself as anything much better than what I already get with Spotlight on my Mac. Of course, on a Windows machine (like this work laptop-- which is STILL trying to phone home, BTW), a better, more intuitive local search utility is MOST desired. But on my Mac? Thanks, but I think I've already got that.
And the reviews so far from both these guys seem to bear that out.
In fact, Gruber's latest note is more severe:

I don't think I could cover all the bets that would be placed on "Uninstalls Google Desktop before it finishes indexing"

But as I said, Merlin's thing is QuickSilver-- and as he says in his note-- if you think you've got everything you need in Spotlight, you haven't been exposed enough to QS.
So put it on the list of things to consider...
after wiping the drive and a cleain reinstall..
which will come after I buy a new, 320+ gig external hard drive so I can store at least one complete image of the hard drive...
which will probably come sometime after Leopard is release...
which may not happen until after the June WWDC... hmmm....

Up late...

Up late tonight.
I had the kids tonight while SleepyMom went out with some of the other Moms in our neighborhood (BTW, every day I love our new neighborhood a little bit more!). The boys were good as gold-- although I wish we could get Bryce to eat more lately. Aidan must be going through a growth spurt, but Bryce seems to be in a lull.. based on his appetite.

So we ate dinner, the boys played, and then put them in bath and bed-- finally around 9:00. I fell asleep with them after storytime (Charlie and Lola and Where the Wild Things Are) and just woke up around midnight, around the time that she came home.

Tried to go back to sleep, but to no avail.. so here I am, reading more about:

• the EMI/DRM story
• Leo LaPorte left Twitter today-- something to do with concerns over the name? Conflict or confusion with his TWiT network of Podcasts? Strange move. But then again, I don't own any trademarks.
• Took a look at Jaiku and I'm just not digging it. Doesn't have the same old-school, clunky feel to it that Twitter does.

When Reporters Set the Agenda

See this note from Michael Gartenberg and then tell me if you still think there's no bias in the media.

(Hat Tip: Merlin Mann)

ND Student Ticket System to Change

According to this story in the Observer, They're putting the student ticket lottery system on-line.. students can register themselves, singly or in groups, and tickets will be distributed accordingly.

This is all well and good and is, I'm sure, a modest cost-savings for the University.
But it's a little sad to see that ND kids will no longer have to sit out on the sidewalk outside the JACC (or I guess they sit outside the Stadium these days), getting there at some unGodly early hour of the morning.. so that Lou Holtz can come out and deliver coffee and donuts... those were some good times waiting on line..

More Apple/EMI DRM Comment

John Gruber this morning, in response to an article by Bill Thompson of the BBC:

When you’re wrong, just admit it. It’s easy, and it adds, not detracts, to your credibility.

Gruber also links to this note by David Weiss making the point I was working toward yesterday so much more elegantly and succinctly.. I really need to get my writing chops back...

Apple has decided that the enormous moat it has in DRM is not as valuable as making customers feel unlimited by their technology....

So what of Buffet’s moats and competitive advantage analysis? I think it
still holds, it’s just that Apple’s sustainable competitive advantage is their
deep trust in the inherent value of their products and the experiences they
provide. Almost no one has that these days.

Is the wall coming down?

Great post here by John Gruber about the announcement by EMI that, beginning in May, they'll be selling DRM-free versions of their licensed music on iTunes.

$1.29 USD for drm-free music with twice the encoding quality. And full albums stay the same price. And iTunes offers upgrades of existing purchased music.

The cracks in the wall really started back in February when Jobs wrote his (maligned in some corners) position paper on DRM and posted it to the Apple website. There were lots of people (Cory Doctorow chief among them) who questioned Jobs' sincerity in that move-- surely this was just another way for apple to increase it's monopoly.

So much for that conspiracy theory. Doctorow doesn't seem to understand that if you make things easy and high-quality, people are willing to pay for that-- not everyone, but a large-enough segment of the population to run a thriving business on. Leave the pirates be-- as Jobs pointed out, for every DRM scheme, there will be a 12-year-old kid who can break it in under 30 minutes. But making music cheap and easily available and easily manageable, once purchased-- not limiting the number of times you can burn your own music to CD, or laborious 'authorization' processes for your different devices-- wipe away all of that and let people pay for their music, and then leave them alone... the services that allow this to happen will be the big winners... Hopefully, Apple continues on this course.

Battlestar Office-ica

Sleepydad West Si'ee comes thru with another Youtube Winner...

Ferrell and a Ninja

I don't think I've ever seen Will Ferrell actually back on his heels.. this guy takes the comic initiative right away from him and I don't think he ever quite gets it back...

Must See Youtube

Hat Tip to Daddy Galindo (a fellow SleepyDad on the West Coast) for pointing me toward this great piece of TV nostalgia..

Soggy SleepyDad Workfromhome Wednesday

Rainy today. Good soaking rain.
But a pretty pleasant, working-from-home, day all the same.
Watched Bryce this morning while Mama gave her class and met with some students.
A couple of the neighbor kids came over (Blaine and Madison-- both right about Bryce's age) for a few hours and they all played great together.. it was incredible. Admittedly, Blaine's nanny (yes, nanny-- though so far as I've seen she doesn't fly on an umbrella-- har har) came with them and kept a good eye on them.. but they all really were on good terms today, despite the ugly weather. Lunched on grapes, PB&J's, and American cheese.. then everyone went home and had a nap.. including Bryce and Daddy!

Outstanding!

The boys are both still pretty tired-- catching up (or I wish they would) on all the sleep they lost the last 5 days or so while we worked our way through the latest cough/sniffle/sneeze bug that made it's way through our house... the turn of season allergies are making sure that those sniffles stick around a while longer-- Bryce has developed quite a little cough; good thing he loves his cough medicine... but suffice it to say, it's been a series of pretty groggy mornings around here while the boys have been waking 2 or 3 times a night each for one reason or another...

And yeah, while you're wondering, I did actually get some work done during all this activity today-- had the laptop setup in the kitchen while the kids were playing upstairs and was actually able to get quite a bit done. Not such a bad gig.

Just finished watching Monday's 24 on TIVO.. this season is faultering, I'm afraid. Not even the addition of Rick(y) Schroder seems to be saving the day here... did anyone really think it would? Powers Booth's Vice President is becoming entirely too over the top. Monomaniacal to the point, I expect they'll reveal next week that he's got a peg leg and likes to walk the deck...

Similarly puzzled by the Battlestar Galactica season finale-- watched that on Sunday night. It was trippy.. unlike 24, I think the last couple of BSG's may have saved an otherwise terribly plodding and ponderous season.. and yet I'm still just not sure what to make of this "All Along the Watchtower" business... I want to like it. But I'm a little annoyed with this manipulation they're playing with Starbuck.... and the 'we're all cylons' contrivance seemed pretty forced...

Wheelie Ban

Oh Lord help us.. a wheelie ban..

Moment of Coolness: The Unit

I'm slowly making my way through Season Two of the Unit.
And, as much as I've been enjoying it-- I think I mentioned that it gives me enough of a cloak-and-dagger dose to keep me reasonably happy-- I've been worried about it. The writing can be pretty uneven in places... and some of the plot-lines (as well as some of the script-lines) surrounding the Unit wives can be pretty forgettable.

But tonight, watching episode 12-- the opening scene has our fearless leader, Jonas Blane (Dennis Haysbert is a bad bad man!), being ushered into an apparently secret meeting-- in a basement closet-- with a White House 'undersecretary'.

Then William H. Macy shows up and things really get interesting...
Macy arrives, Haysbert is surprised (as are we).. and a few moments later we learn Macy is taking a turn as the President in this episode...

This scene may have just saved this show for me...

it's all over

ZeFrank has ended his show-- The Show.
I caught onto a link to one of the episodes-- his rant about procrastination-- a month or two ago.. but I have to admit, I didn't recognize the thorough coolness of this thing ZeFrank was doing..

And now he's ended it.

Is this just a case of absence making the heart grow fonder? constraining supply to generate demand? Like Beanie Babies?

And then, as Crash Davis would say, he hit his dinger and then he hung 'em up.

Hey Manundso.. speaking of in-jokes.. this guy uses them perfectly.. creating a little in-community... his sportracers...

I guess I'll need a few more readers before I'll get sponsorships from whiskey distillers...

Happy Saint Patrick's Day!

Ed Holden has this very nice picture of Guinness on his Blog

"Can I at least get a clean goodbye?"

Give a listen as Bill Gates gets pissy after an interviewer asks him about the "Hi I'm a PC" Mac ads...

Zeroes

Watched the latest episode of 'Heroes' with my wife on Tivo last night.
It was an especially dark episode as they come down toward the end of Season 1.. introduced Malcom McDowell as 'Mr. Linderman'-- doing his usual menacing.. and Sylar getting the best of Suresh.. and Peter?? Oooh Cliffhanger.. and a grim one at that.

When it was over, my wife, who'd never seen the show, looked at me and said "I hate you. I'm never watching another show with you again."

This morning, the kids on Digg.com reveal that this Youtube video was actually created by NBC... good marketing, if you ask me.. is NBC on the Cluetrain?

Shocking!

This story from CNN this morning:

ATLANTA, Georgia (CNN) -- Parents of an alleged teenage bank robbing duo said on
national television this week they couldn't comprehend how their daughters could
have, as police and surveillance tape suggest, giggled behind fashionable
sunglasses as they robbed a Bank of America branch last week.
There also was shock at Shooter Alley, a nude dance club outside Atlanta, where co-workers say Ashley Miller and Heather Johnston, both 19, worked the afternoon shift.

Well, that tells me just about everything I need to know.

umm.. okay, Bill..

Nashville is #1...

Yes, the Predators are best in the NHL.. and that's a big deal here.
But almost more significant is that, according to Kiplinger's Personal Finance, Nashville is their #1 pick for 'Smart Places to Live'...

the sun is up!

Daylight Savings Time cannot get here fast enough!
The boys are getting up these mornings with the early sun.. which means that at 5:30am, we're getting "but the sun is up! it's day-time now! time to get up!!"

Notes Toward a Unified Theory of the Internet, Part I

The other day on the TWIT podcast, Leo LaPorte and his crew were griping about how all the latest start-ups are cutting the vowels from their company names-- Flickr, loopt, SoonR, Tumblr, just to name a few. John C. Dvorak blamed Flickr for beginning this trend. He's not going back nearly far enough. Look to James Gleick's book, Faster-- the book with the thesis (published in 1999) that we're all so busy, we can't help but multi-task all the time.. attention spans are getting smaller and we're packing more and more activity into each day. And judging by the cover, we're all packing more and more consonants into our book jackets..

SleepyDad definitely concurs with that.. but I always attributed that to the birth of my kids and all the attendant chaos that came with them.

And since we all have to pack more and more into the same 24 hour day, what better to do than to join all the latest social networking sites-- social networking, that thing basically invented by the guys at Amazon with their user comments and recommendations features-- so enter DIGG, MySpace, Technorati, Facebook, etc, etc.

This is the stuff of Web 2.0.
Blogging, Podcasting, RSS feeds, Pipes, mash-ups. We all cease to be readers or receivers. Now we're all producers of content. Bloggers. Podcasters, Parentographers. (Hey, I've done all three of those.) Taking in information, re-formulating, recombining, and then republishing on our own sites and feeds. Three billion little broadcast stations spread out over the globe, chatting about.. about.. whatever's on our minds-- or whatever we're reading about, or whoever we're listening to... and don't worry, the irony's not lost on me. I'm right in there with them.. "Hey Leo Laporte was just talking about this.."

Enter Twitter.. this beautifully simplistic little social web app that asks an easy, and oddly compelling question: What are you doing right now? Why do I want to answer? Why did I sign up and start putting silly notes in there about the cereal I ate the other morning? Micro-blogging. Where do I think it's going? Where is any of this really going? (is there anyone out ther?) What is this thing really for?

The ClueTrain Manifesto guys (click here to read the book), said years ago (I can't believe how many now) that the internet is a marketplace of ideas-- a cacophanous conversation. So is it just enough to get your voice out there in the wilderness? To say, "Hey I'm here andd this is what I'm up to." Does it matter if anyone's reading, listening, subscribing, downloading, mashing-up, piping...

Maybe it will all add up to something. The internet becomes, at worst, a hive mind-- and endless series of Top Ten lists and 'most popular stories'-- at best, it's an incoherent stream of collective consciousness.

The power of Weis

Behold, the power of Weis-- talking about the passing drills he ran for Quinn during yesterday's pro-day 'with representatives from every NFL team in attendance':

''We put him through every throw that any NFL organization would want to see,'' Irish coach Charlie Weis said. ''Now they have enough information to make a critical evaluation, if they didn't have enough on tape already.''

When the man talks about what 'any NFL organization would want to see', does it not just carry such weight? Who wouldn't want to play for a guy who can give you that at the end of your college career?

Yazoo-hoo! "Defy Mediocrity"

Finally.... finally..
I have been trying to find my way to the Yazoo Taproom for more than a year now, but circumstances never seemed to conspire in my favor.

But finally, finally, I managed to coordinate getting a couple of co-workers (my boss and another colleague) to head over there after work on Friday.

And Yazoo did not disappoint.
The taproom is squeezed into a corner at one end of a massive Industrial Revolution-era brick factory-- the old Marathon Motors plant. Accomodations are modest-- this ain't some restaurant-- the place is only open for a few hours, three days a week. This is about the BEER! Room for about 5 tables, a bar to handle 6-7 patrons, and standing room for those who can't find a seat.

Enough about the decor
On tap, they had:

• Hefeweizen
• Amarillo Pale Ale
• Dos Perros
• Roggen
• Onward Stout

Of these, I had pints of the Hefe, Pale Ale, and the Roggen. Here are my notes:

• Hefe: pure, honey golden, cloudy goodness. Yeasty and smooth-- Based on a very unscientific, eavesdropping survey of patrons that afternoon, this clearly the most popular. They serve it with a lemon-- screw the 'Man-law commercial'.
• Pale Ale: Dark and rich, with that tart, hoppy flavor. Better than the bottled Yazoo that's available locally.
• Roggen: like the Pale Ale, but with the knobs on the Hoppy Ale flavor turned up a few clicks.. maybe a few too many. Not my favorite.

As for snacks, one of the guys at the table ordered up the Cows Milk sampler-- an assortment of cheeses, fruit, and bread, served with a sampling of 4 or 5 different brews. Again, this isn't a restaurant, and we weren't a group that was too concerned with how 'each cheese is matched to a different beer'. So while the cheese and bread was good, I'll make dinner plans next time I go.

Back to the beer. On the way out, I ordered up two growlers, one of the Onward Stout-- which will wait til next weekend to crack open-- and one of the Sly Rye Porter, a brew they had just added to the chalk-board menu while I was in line to pay. On Saturday night, good friend John (a fellow sleepydad) and I opened the Porter and I have to say, it may be the best of the bunch. Dark as the stout, but smooth and delicious.

Good Morning, Sun!

Well, when I brought the boys home yesterday evening from Mom and Dad's, they were both asleep. It was 5:30 and they'd had a full weekend of a) playing waaaaay past bedtime with friends on Saturday, and; b) eating breakfast, playing boardgames, throwing a ball in the backyard, and generally just having a grand time (as we do most Sundays) with Gramma and Grampa on Sunday.

So I figured-- let 'em sleep a bit. Figured, based on past experience, they'd probably wake up around 6:30pm or so, have something to eat, then want to read some stories and go back to bed.

Well, I'm some kind of fool, I guess, because not only did they not wake up-- they let me change them fully into PJs, in the dark, still snoozing away the whole time.. and they slept through, with a waking spell or two, straight through to 5:00 this morning.

My wife, who slept with them most of the early part of the night, got up and got them breakfast.. but by the time I got up at 6:00, Bryce had already had two breakfasts more or less, and was practically ready to go back to bed!

So suffice it to say, it was a long, busy, but fun weekend.. and far too early a Monday morning for any of us.

I am, I must say though, very grateful to my wife, SleepyMom, for letting me get that extra hour of sleep this morning.

The end of analog..

Interesting post on Engadget today about 'The beginning of the end of Analog TV'.

Got a chance to watch most of an episode of Firefly on our neighbor's gi-normous HDTV last night.. and I have to say, it got the wheels turning.

I've been in awe of HD before, obviously.. but it's never been so attainable.. and it's getting more so, by the week it seems. Samsung 42" Plasmas are going for $1200 or so..

Ahh, maybe next year..

Gym Stat

33 minutes on the eliptical this afternoon and down to 246.

Quinn is STRONG.

Wrapping up the NFL Combine in Indianapolis, and all the buzz around Brady Quinn has been negative. How the media does lash back. And so Quinn, to hear the pundits tell it, is dropping in the draft.. Kiper thinks he should be happy if he goes at 9.

If anyone doubts his competitiveness or just raw strength, though, they should pay heed to his performance on the bench-press on Sunday (from Eric Hansen's article in today's SBT):

He vowed he would leave the physical testing for later, but then Brady Quinn's
competitive juices got the best of him Sunday.

The former Notre Dame quarterback, who has yet to throw for pro scouts, gave them a little bit to chew on at the NFL Scouting Combine in Indianapolis, ripping off 24 reps at 225 pounds in the bench press.

That's better than more than half the linebackers at the combine,
better than nine of the defensive linemen who lifted, better than top tight end
prospect Greg Olsen of Miami (originally in Quinn's recruiting class at ND),
better than offensive line teammates Ryan Harris (22) and Dan Santucci (23) and
just four fewer than Wisconsin offensive lineman Joe Thomas, the workout darling
of the combine to date.

Sweet-less, Day 7

I'm a little surprised, honestly. I never thought of myself as being one of those guys who ate a lot of sweets. But I'm finding-- and perhaps this is just a case of absence making the heart grow fonder-- that I'm really craving them. Or perhaps it's just that box of left-over Valentine's candy on top of the refrigerator being in plain view whenever I go to get the Gatorade and cheese for the boys.

Heading to the gym today, so we'll see where I weigh in. I was around 248-250 about a week or so. I'll be interested to see what happens over these next 6 weeks.

Sweet-less Lent, Day 3

Still hanging tough. Had a near miss with some m&m's lurking in a bag of trail mix at the office this afternoon, but managed to avert disaster on that one.

Ash Wednesday

Lent, Day 1 with no sweets. Not 10 minutes after getting back to the office from Mass, a co-worker offered me a Girl Scout Cookie. Oh, this is going to be much harder than I expected.

Memo to the Girl Scouts-- either deliver the cookies in January, or push back the shipment to sometime in late April. Every year, the cookies arrive right at the start of Lent. What's up with that?

Freakin' brilliant!

Every now and then, you come across something so simple, yet so smart..



courtesy of Lifehacker

Updates, Updates, Updates!

A few Sleepydad updates, since I haven't done any in a while, and some random notes:

First-- Snow Day! We got about an inch and a half of snow here at the house on Friday and both boys' schools were called off for the day, so we all stayed home and made a snowman out in the front yard. Here's a link to a slideshow of some pictures we took during the day.

Second, mine is the house of Pestilence! My wife and the boys have all been fighting one kind of bug or another for a week now. Aidan spiked a 103 degree fever on Sunday night, stayed home from school Monday and Tuesday, then Bryce started coming down with symptoms. Took them both to the doctor on Monday and they've both got raging ear infections... so it's a round of Amoxicillin for everyone! Now today, Aidan was sent home early from school-- the fever has returned. So it'll be back on the phone with the Ped tomorrow to see what they think the next step should be-- "Boys, remember not to leave the house without your surgical masks!"

Next, the Cold! It's been FREAKIN' cold here the last week or so. And given that I grew up far north of here, that's going some for me to say that. The thermometer may read 25 degrees, but I'm not always sure it's even that warm!

Yesterday was National Signing Day for College Football programs. The Irish got 18 signed commitments-- a great class, by any measure. But as always, it's always about the ones that got away: Aurelious Benn, Chris Little (the guy who's Mama told him to commit to ND after he verballed to FSU a few weeks ago-- the had a "conversion by the fax machine light" yesterday morning and decided to send his letter to Georgia), Greg Little... 11th hour de-commits. So Charlie's points of emphasis for next year's recruiting effort (which began this morning at 6am)-- focus on the meaning of the word 'Commitment'. In his press conference yesterday, he said "If they're looking, we're looking."

For any parents of young kids out there who might be reading this (heellllloooo?)-- found a pretty cool little website a week or so ago called Parentography.com. It only launched a couple of weeks ago, so it's low on content at the moment-- but the idea driving the site is one of those excellent "why the hell didn't I think of that" kind of ideas-- an online community/social networking site for parents to write reviews of local places that are good for their kids-- caregivers, schools, playgrounds, restaurants, the works. Users can also wrap those places up into 'excursions'-- linking different places into little sequences, as suggestions to other users for things like day-trips, etc. And they've got (right now) Yahoo maps running through an API displaying the lay of the land for all of the places on a map. I just think it's a great idea. But it's just in the offing now-- definitely at the 'get out of it only what you put into it' stage... but as more users sign on and start contributing content (hello-- I'm talking to you again, you parents, aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents, friends, etc etc), I think it could become a really useful online tool for parents... plus it's just kind of fun to blog, in a way, through reviews about places to take the kiddos.

Next: TV. Ah yes, the guilty pleasure. It's the dead of winter, so it's a good time for TV.. and I'm definitely keeping my TIVO warmed up. Guilty pleasures of the moment include
24-- but of course! A few weeks ago, Islamic groups were protesting the content of the recently started season, arguing that the show was confirming all kinds of negative stereotypes about Muslims-- your basic Italian-American argument against the Sopranos. Haha, well, I wonder if we'll be hearing from those folks anymore now that the last two weeks' episodes have revealed (yet again!) that the real villains of the story are just rich white guys from Orange County-- members of Jack Bauer's family, in fact! As Fox rebutted in a statement a few weeks ago, we should not forget that

Over the past several seasons, the villains have included shadowy Anglo businessmen, Baltic Europeans, Germans, Russians, Islamic fundamentalists, and even the (Anglo-American) president of the United States...

to say nothing of "Day 2" when the blonde cutie from SoCal turned out to be the bad guy.

Other guilty TV pleasures include Battlestar Galactica (a decent 3rd season so far, but a bit plodding and ponderous), Boston Legal (also a bit of a meandering season, but still appointment television) and a new one-- The Unit. I've been lacking, it turns out, my quotient of spy-thriller recently and so far, of the two episodes I've seen so far, The Unit just might fit the bill for that. I'm going to slowly start working my way through Season One, hopefully this weekend.

And lastly-- Pooh! we have a reluctant guest in our midst-- a little kitty named Pooh. Brought here by my brother-in-law, Ross, Pooh's staying with us temporarily while Ross relocates to Austin. So far, Pooh and our 13-year old cranky tabby, Sylvie have NOT been getting along.. but in recent days, the war seems to have gone from hot to Cold... as in, cats issuing long, declaritive stares across great expanses of the house, with the occasional hissing and spitting... but no hairy furball fights of late. So we're taking it one day at a time.

Best of luck, Jeff

Best wishes to Jeff Samardzija in the Big Leagues next year-- he announced earlier this week that he'll play pro baseball exclusively from here on out, forsaking any chance of riding that projected first-round draft status into the NFL..

Well, remember this?

As expected..

So the press conference yesterday had one big unexpected announcement-- Darius is gone.

The announcement that was never made-- the one everyone was expecting, however-- was that Rick Minter, the Defensive Coordinator, is gone.

No word, no announcement about changes in the staff, nothing. Lots of rumors flying, lots of conjecture. But nothing concrete.

And then, all of a sudden, up pops the rumor-- supported by a published article in the South Bend Tribune, citing reliable sources, late this afternoon-- that Corwin Brown, secondary coach of the New York Jets, is about to be hired as the DC.

Wait a minute.. has Minter been fired yet?

Then I read this in the Daily News tonight--

Eric Mangini suffered six losses during the regular season, one in the playoffs and now he appears to be on the verge of suffering his first loss of the offseason.

Highly respected secondary coach Corwin Brown has interviewed for the defensive-coordinator vacancy at Notre Dame, the Daily News has learned. Nothing is official, but Brown is in South Bend, Ind., today - a strong indication that his hiring is imminent.

Brown, 36, who joined the Jets in 2004 as a member of Herm Edwards’ staff, did a terrific job with the Jets’ defensive backs, especially Kerry Rhodes. This had to be a tough decision for Brown, who is close to Mangini.

But Brown also has a relationship with Notre Dame coach Charlie Weis. Brown played for the Patriots and Jets from 1993 to 1998, when Weis was an assistant in those places.

Obviously, Weis is looking for a bright, young coach who can rebuild the Notre Dame defense, which allowed 41 points to Louisiana State in the Sugar Bowl.

the Defensive Coordinator spot is vacant?
Have I missed something here?

That said, from everything I've read, if this hire happens, it's a good and exciting choice by coach Weis. Bright, young, aggressive coaches.

Rumor also has it that Ron Powlus will be promoted to Quarterbacks coach. Word is that young Powlus is a masterful recruiter.

With Darius departing and prospects for a down year next year, I guess we need a few developments like this to look forward to.

Carroll is gone!

You heard it here first.. or maybe second.
Pete Carroll is as good as gone. He's going to take the Miami job, I guaran-damn-tee it!

"I'm thrilled to be here," he said. "As I've been the whole time, I haven't
wavered. I know that being curious about it has helped me appreciate what we
have here.
"I absolutely expect to be here."

He's thrilled to be there, but...

"It was a major statement he made finding me out there," Carroll said regarding
the meeting. "In a situation where you have an alternative, it's worth finding
out what it is.
"This was the only time I've even thought about talking with
anybody [from the NFL]. Here's a situation where a guy would give a head coach
the opportunity to do anything he wanted to do. He's an awesome guy."

Huizenga is an awesome guy?
Oh, Carroll is so totally gone!

Done deal...

It's official.. Walker is gone...
But this line at the tail-end of the story on WNDU should have some ominous soundtrack playing behind it..

An NFL executive expressed surprise at Walker's decision saying that few,
if any, teams in the league had any idea that Walker was contemplating such a
move.

Is now the right time for Walker to be heading to the NFL?
Was last season really the best showcase of his talents??
Seems to me-- not like I'm an NFL scout or anything-- that Walker still has some learning and developing to do.
This all just seems a shade premature.
Is there something else going on here?

Walker to the NFL?

Well, now this was unexpected...

According to Jeff Jeffers, our old buddy (well, Galindo used to shout at him from the Student Section) at WNDU: NewsCenter 16’s Jeff Jeffers spoke to a source very close to Darius Walker.

“That source told me Darius will very likely test the NFL waters, and enter
April's draft,” Jeff Jeffers explains.

When news of a press conference being scheduled came out earlier this week, everyone in the ND Blogosphere naturally presumed (esp. since the Giants coaching deal appears to have sealed up) this would be the announcement of some coaching changes..
And those announcements may well be coming as well-- Jeffers makes reference to other items about the future of ND Football being on the agenda-- but now it appears the lead story may something different and considerably more surprising...

Press conference is at 4:00 ET...

Sour Grapes.. and renewed Playoff jibber-jabber..

Good post here from the Extra Point about the outcome of the National Championship game-- the most unlikely Florida blow-out. Just what I was wishing for-- though I have no great love for the Gators, of course. Any misgivings I have about them are far outweighed by my grave dislike for the Buckeyes...

He also makes some notes about how problematic this is for the promoters of the 'be-all end-all' Plus-One system.. and other easy fixes. So who exactly would Florida play in a Plus-one scenario? Well said.

Of course, I also throw the great elixir of the Playoff system into that category of 'Easy Fix'... it's so fashionable these days around college football to argue that a playoff system would cure all these ills. I'd disagree..

For one-- if not for the arguing, what would college football have? What would owners of sports bars do for money in the Fall?

For another-- everyone points to the NCAA basketball tournament.. does anyone actually watch regular season college basketball? and besides, college basketball is entirely too button-down, quiet, white-collar for my taste. I'll take no lesson from that sport on this question.

And finally, a distinction to draw-- are we looking for a champion? or are we looking for the best team? If we're looking for a champion-- well, by golly, the BCS gives us that. In fact, back when the Schedule Strength was a larger component of the calculation.. I think the BCS even came close to giving us the Best Team, as well. But is anyone going to argue that the 'best team' wins March Madness every year? Surely not. Any college football playoff would be rife with very familiar controversy-- arbitrary rankings, spiteful 'Top Ten teams' (albeit #'s 9 and 10) teams left out of the 'big dance'.. and of course, there's always the chance for game-changing officiating...

So what have we got?
Still the most compelling distraction for a Saturday afternoon in the Fall. So compelling, in fact, that I can't wait for next season to start.

Say it ain't so!

Coach Weis has said he won't leave.
He's built a big beautiful house.
He told Chris Myers there would be nothing to lure him to the NFL..

And yet, this morning, this little item appeared in the Newark Star-Journal, at the tail-end of an article about the NY Giants' pursuit of Scott Pioli for their GM opening..

If the Giants hire Pioli, it would add life to the rumors Notre Dame coach Charlie Weis will be the team's next head coach. Weis was the Patriots' offensive coordinator from 2000-04.

Recently, Weis has publicly stated he would not leave Notre Dame anytime soon, but the same source who discussed Pioli said the Giants have been told Weis would be interested in the job. Weis might simply be taking his public stance because he doesn't want to hurt his recruiting if he stays in South Bend.

Now, consider the source. There have been articles all over the NY papers talking about Charlie and the Giants job, as though to try to recruit him to it-- imagine that, the papers recruiting a guy to a job so they can no doubt start trashing him next season. As we all trash on coaches like Bobby Petrino (who just ran out on a 10 year contract with Louisville to take the Atlanta Falcons job), how terribly disheartening it is to read crap like this. So is this guy just trying to give Giants fans up in Jersey something to talk about around the water-cooler?

Can this be real?

Welcome Golden and Harrison to the fold..

One of the biggest hurdles ND has to overcome every year in recruiting is the fact that South Bend is not the hometown-- or in the home-state-- of many of the top recruits in the country. So kids are often faced with the dilemma of staying close to home (and Mom) at the nearby, often state-affiliated school, or travelling way up north to the cold-weather climate of South Bend.

I don't mean to diminish in any way the significance of this decision for these young men. It's not a trivial thing to consider at 17 or 18 (or 19 in Jimmy Clausen's case) years old.

As a kid growing up in the Northeast, it was a big deal for me (NOT a college football recruit in any way) to choose to go to a school as far south as Kentucky. I got a lot of looks from people-- basically asking-- why would you want to go there? Everything you could ask for academically is available here... so why go anywhere else?

But for whatever reason, I felt it in me to go out and try living in another part of the country-- strike out on my own, in a sense, I guess.

So it gives me all the more respect for these guys from places like Florida, California, and (lately) here in Tennessee who have been choosing to attend Notre Dame. The climate, the academics, the football schedule-- none of them are soft. So to leave the comforts of home and move up to a place like ND-- even as amazing a place as it is-- I applaud these kids for striking out on their own and taking the chance on themselves. I don't think they'll regret it, whatever their football careers may hold.

Just watched Harrison Smith's press conference (hat tip: BlueGraySky)-- which comes hot on the heels of another great Tennessee Catholic High school product, Golden Tate, going Irish. Now here's a kid who lives in Knoxville, within sight of Neyland Stadium, says he's been a Volunteer fan his whole life, and is the son of two Tennessee alums (who were flanking him while he made his announcement)... and he chooses Notre Dame. It's just so good to see a kid that age make a bold, independent move like that. And I'm sure the Vol Nation is shocked-- imagine a kid wanting to leave the comforts of home for a Charlie Weis training camp.

Ah but there were those two magic words-- Charlie Weis.

And so the Irish have (verbally anyway-- always remember CJ Leak) two of three of the top Tennessee recruits-- with, as BGS points out, the third getting set to announce his commitment to either ND or Tennessee on January 6.

So does anyone really think Charlie would take the Giants job? The New York tabloids are all over it, practically begging for Charlie to consider it. And being a Giants fan, I would be even slightly conflicted if it were any other Irish coach, at any other time.

But with the way things are coming together in South Bend-- and more significantly, with the way they're falling apart in New York-- it's hard to imagine for me that Charlie would heed the call to come home to Jersey.

Midnight Drum Circle

You know, one of the best things about being a student at ND in the student section at games (in the first row our second year there) was getting a chance to be so close to the ND drums down on the sidelines.. just came across this video of the midnight drum circle before the Stanford game this year. It's seven and a half minutes long and it just totally takes me back...

Memo to ESPN: you better start getting this straight..

Okay, listen... when you're writing about the whole Charlie Weis/Tom Brady/Brady Quinn angle, it's one thing to make the Brady-play on names... but seriously guys...

I mean, has anyone else spotted this?

The case for Quinn

Brady Quinn will not win the Heisman and it's a shame.

Allen Barra at the New York Sun makes the most compelling argument I've seen in print for why Brady Quinn should win the Heisman.

Here's the money quote:

The uncritical acceptance by so many writers and commentators of Troy
Smith's Heisman worthiness reflects an attitude that has become popular in
college football over the last couple of decades, namely that "the best player
on the best team" — or at least the player on the best team with the gaudiest
stats — is automatically the best player in the nation. This has resulted in
some relatively undistinguished quarterbacks winning the Heisman, most notably
Charlie Ward in '93, Florida's Danny Wuerffel in 1996, Florida State's Chris
Wenke in 2000, and Oklahoma's Jason White in 2003. All of them played for teams that were ranked at or near the top at the time they won the award.

A careful look at the record convinces me that Troy
Smith is destined to join their number. But whatever happens to Smith in the
NFL, Brady Quinn put up numbers this year that were at least the equal of Troy
Smith's, and he did it against tougher opposition and with far less help from
his teammates. By any objective yardstick, he deserves the nod over Troy Smith
as the outstanding college football player of the 2006 season.

Going for it..

According to Len Pasquarelli this morning, more and more NFL head coaches are going for it on 4th down-- and aggressive offensive linemen are loving it, apparently...

It's a regular trend. A phenomenon.
And yet there's not one mention of Charlie Weis in this article. How can that be possible?
I have nothing scientific to back this up, but I'm fairly certain that going for it on 4th and 6 wasn't nearly so popular until sometime last year, after Charlie had done it 8 or 9 times.

Welcome home, Andy.

I know, I know. New York isn't Andy Pettitte's home. Houston is. It's where he's from biologically.
But can anyone deny that New York is where his baseball family lives? It'll just feel right to have him back in pinstripes.
Welcome back, Andy.
Let's just hope that he's still as clutch in September and October as he used to be.
And nevermind my misgivings about the Yanks continuing to pursue over-the-hill veteran pitchers while neglecting youth. The Yanks got Pettitte back without having to sacrifice prospects-- unlike the deal they made for the so-far-disappointing Randy Johnson-- and so far this off-season, the Yanks appear to be learning their lesson that front. We'll see what the rest of the winter holds.

Fly away home..

Sunday afternoon-- On the plane flying back home to Nashville now, after a good morning breakfast with Steve and his family. Thanks again to Steve and his family—especially his wife Melissa, nephew Isaac, and brother-in-law, Todd— for their warm welcome and inviting me into their homes during this trip. It was a good time—despite the outcome of the game—and I was really glad to get to catch up with Steve meet his little 7-month old son, and share Thanksgiving with the whole family. Good times. We’ll have to do it again sometime.

Notes from Game Day

8:30am Saturday-- breakfast: a bagel and a cup of coffee in San Juan Capistrano.

9:30am —first beer of the day, courtesy of the family (mother, father, and what seemed like about 5 sisters) of Casey Cullen on the bus at Anaheim Marriott, waiting to head to the Coliseum.

The bus ride itself was a whole adventure unto itself. We got on the bus right at 9:00—the shuttles were supposed to be running all morning. When we got onboard, the guy who seemed to be in charge indicated that this first bus would leave as soon as it was full.. and it already looked pretty close to full, so we figured we’d be off in no time. But apparently, other alumni in the Orange County area didn’t have plans to tailgate quite as early as we did.. it took nearly an hour for the powers that be to finally decide the bus was full enough to embark on the hour-long trip up to LA.

After the first few minutes of this long wait, it became evident that we were sharing this ride (or rather this wait for a ride) with some family members of one of the ND players. A whole crew of folks on the bus, all wearing ND gear with the #60. Turns out these were all the sisters (and maybe a brother or two) and Mother and Father of Casey Cullen. And they were prepared to tailgate. Not long after everyone realized we’d be on the bus for some time, the Cullens broke out the beer, someone ran to get some extra ice.. and so the long day began with a toast to the family Cullen.

10:50am—our bus arrives in LA, within sight of the Coliseum.. but nowhere to park. Again, apparently the powers that be in the OC Alumni club didn’t think it would be necessary to call ahead—perhaps a week in advance, a day, even an hour in advance to ensure that there would be ample parking to handle 14 buses. So more waiting. About 30 minutes of waiting and circling the block around the stadium. Finally, they decided that the buses would have to drop us off and park elsewhere, then return to pick us up an hour after the game ended.

So finally, by 11:30am, or so, we make it into IrishFest, the official LA Alumni club’s tailgater at Exposition park, about a block from the Coliseum. We buy ourselves tickets for In-N-Out burgers and four beers-a-piece. And they’re serving Guinness. Nice touch.

Lunch and two Guinnesses later, this is where the time-line begins to get a little hazy.
We ate and wandered around the park a bit—lots of Irish fans out for the festivities.. and we bumped into a few members of the band who arrived on their 6:30am flight from South Bend.

So then we decide to take a walk out around the stadium. Being not afraid, we head straight into the belly of USC tailgate country. And for the most part, everyone was quite civil. As is common in most scenes like this I’ve seen, there are very often mixed groups of ND and opposing fans tailgating together—or at least visting together, talking some good humored trash. Nothing too different here.

Lots of “Go Irish” being exchanged between roving bands of ND fans. We are not alone.

There was one amusing moment when, as we were walking along one of the access roads along-side the stadium, toward the ESPN Radio setup, some guy driving a big super-cab pick-up truck slowly through the crowd past us, hangs his head out the window and starts jawing at us—some forgettable crap about how ND was going down, USC was going to whip our tails, yadda yadda yadda… and as he’s doing this, from the other side of the truck, there’s this gnashing, crashing sound. The guy was so taken us and getting in our grills about what losers we were, he wound up scratching the whole passenger side of his nice big new Trojan red truck on some steel barriers that were setup along the curbside. Nice.

So we continue wandering.. make our way over to the front of the Coliseum and take the requisite photo with the famous Olympic façade behind us. We listen to a little of the local 710am ESPN radio broadcast—we were really hoping to catch sight of Colin Cowherd, but no luck there. So we start heading back the way we came when we come across an ND tailgate—and these guys have what appears to be four kegs of beer—right at the base of the wall of the stadium (outside section 28 as I found out later). Not sure exactly who the guy was who was sponsoring it—a guy who goes by ChrisB mentioned something about the board at UHND, which is a site I’ve looked at from time to time. And at some point during the thing, the guy running the tailgate handed me a card for some online sports business.. I’ll check that out and see if it’s worth anything before I mention it here. So we have one beer at this tailgate—pitch a little cash to the guy running the show—with that he says “it’s drink all you want, fellas”…

1:30pm—beers 4 & 5. I remember this because this is when Steve pointed out that Last Call back at the official IrishFest was at 3:30—at which point I check my watch—and suggested we should head back there to use up our remaining beer tickets, then head back here to the UHND tailgate. So we do that.

Somewhere between 2:30 and 4:00pm—back at the UHND tailgate. Jaeger shots (two rounds, and Todd, Steve’s brother-in-law does the first keg-stand of the day. At the USC tailgate next door, someone notices that they’re serving wine and Shrimp cocktail.

Met a nice young woman from Chicago—she and her husband (well, really her husband) are huge subway alum ND fans. Also talked for a long while with a guy from New York who’s another subway alum.. and today was his first college football game (wish it could have turned out better for him). Things got a little out of hand when someone grabbed an SC t-shirt, tore it to shreds and then tried to get people to set the thing on fire. Not too cool—though I do find it a bit unsettling that USC appears to sell flame-retardant apparel.

4:00pm—one last potty break and then we head into the stadium for the 5:00 kick-off.

Various notes from the game:

1) Wow, USC really puts the opposing fans in the crappiest seats in the building. And they position us so the band and cheerleaders couldn’t get anywhere near us for all the barricades that are setup to keep (I guess, though I’m not sure why) people from getting under the USC band bleachers).
2) The coliseum is picturesque (unlike the surrounding several square miles)—but this is a crummy building to see a ballgame in. The field is on one end of the infield and they put the Irish fans in the stands above and behind the big blocks of seats that are cut-off from the rest of the field.
3) 1st play from scrimmage for the Irish—deep pass to Rhema. Nice call, Charlie. Not sure where that play-calling went for the rest of that drive—or the game for that matter.
4) This team is still hounded by penalties. False starts and holding are killing us.
5) That said, USC only had two penalties called against them going into the 4th Quarter. Does anyone really believe USC didn’t commit more than two holds all game long?
6) Memo to the lady sitting a couple of rows behind me who kept yelling at me to sit down—may I remind you that you are attending a NOTRE DAME FOOTBALL game.. not the opera, a film, or the Ice Capades. Stand up and get loud. That’s what we’re there for.
7) Otherwise a good crowd of fans around us—with a few SC fans sprinkled in for spice. Met a guy from Franklin Mass—recognized him by his accent. He’s living now in San Diego and was at ND during the “Oust Faust” years, as he put it. And yes, he does remember Pete Carroll when he was coaching the Patriots.
8) Two high-school girl SC fans in the seats behind us. When I asked one of them how they came to get such sucky seats—being USC faithful, surely they should get better, no?—her reply (and I am not making this up) was “I don’t know; my Daddy got them for me.”
9) I hate that damn USC fight song.

We Are N.D.

Highlights from the Pep Rally-

Lots of Rah-Rah at the Pep Rally in Anaheim tonight..
speakers included Joey Getherall (now working as an LA Cop), Derrick Mayes, and Tim Brown.

"SC has a good team.. but WE ARE BETTER" was the theme from Chuck Lennon, the head of the Alumni association.


Go Irish! Beat Trojans!

Only in SoCal

I've only had the opportunity to come to Southern California twice now, and I must say, is this place always this freakin' beautiful!?
Went for a drive with my old roommate Steve, who lives out here, to the Mission at San Juan Capistrano, up to Laguna Beach, just to see the ocean.. and, as Steve put it, "There you go-- on the day after Thanksgiving-- people surfing. Only in Southern California."
Plans for the next two days look something like this..
Heading to the Pep Rally in Anaheim tonight. Then tomorrow, take a shuttle bus to the Coliseum in the morning sometime to hook up with the LA Alumni and the big tailgate they're throwing before the game.

Then it's gametime.. and honestly, who knows where it goes from there.. but I'll try to snap a few pictures along the way for later reconstruction..

Going back to Cali

Happy Thanksgiving from the Mountain timezone.

I'm sitting in the Fox Sports Bar in the Phoenix airport, waiting on my flight to Orange County.

The flight in from Nashville got here almost 40 minutes early.. When was the last time you heard of that happening. Frontier was nice last month, but I still love Southwest.

Media buzz last few days seems to be swinging against the Irish.. And I have to say my own feelings have turned a bit that way as I think about how this game is really going to go. I don't know that an Irish win is likely.. But maybe, just maybe.. they can pull it off...

For this senior class..
For Charlie..

I believe.

Film Review

Nevin O'Donnell gives us chills again...

Vote for Brady!

Click here to vote Brady Quinn for the Heisman!

It's SC week...

What better way to start off the week than to remember why Notre Dame is such a special place..

You go in the Silly category

You can usually count on Colin Cowherd for an interesting take on things.
He's like Jim Rome without all the super-guy SoCal "I'm out" clones posturing..

Click here for a recent segment he did on the Irish, Weis-- and the people who claim the Irish are overrated... good stuff.

(Thanks to the Irish Round Table for the link)

Pimping Linux

Larry Ellison's keynote today was the highlight of the day, as usual..

He announced Oracle's offering of 'premiere, enterprise-level support' for Red Hat Linux.
He claims Oracle will be able to offer the same level of support that Red Hat currently offers at half the cost, as well as providing 'premiere level' support not offered by any Linux Vendor.
In addition, Oracle will indemnify clients on the Linux platform against Intellectual Property liability-- an uncertainty brought on in the market, he argued, by litigation brought by SCO.

Oracle's new program is aimed at promoting adoption of Linux in the enterprise business sector-- overcoming the uncertainty surrounding Linux in the market.

It occurs to me to wonder why he didn't just buy Red Hat. He's certainly not been shy about making acquisitions in the last 18 months.

Of course, this isn't a move aimed at Red Hat.
This is all about Microsoft.

One of the audience members asked him if he thought this meant the end of Red Hat-- and he indicated he felt confident that Red Hat would respond in some manner.

Asked by another questioner if this would mean the end of Windows, Larry replied to great applause "Oh, we should all be so lucky."

"Our company is cooler than your company"

Camera-phone pics from last night's Appreciation Event..

Elton John..


Joan Jett..Devo..

on the show floor

Okay.. so here's the deal about the exhibition hall here at the Oracle show... and it should come as no great surprise..

Macs and iPods are everywhere!

Vendors are giving them away.. people are carrying them around and using them for whatever they're doing.. it's stunning.

I talked to the girl at the FiveRuns.com booth (see the picture at left) for a few minutes. They're giving away a MacBook Pro at the show, and based on their display, the Mac OS would appear to be one of their core platforms. The company is a little over a year old-- selling system management tools... and based on the glimpse I got of their stuff, clearly the Mac UI look, feel, usability principles are taken to heart by these guys..

Dell and HP have big sponsor presences here-- and both CEOs have given keynotes so far-- but the underlying theme here, as I see it, is that the Mac laptops are making a big push into the corporate environment.

In fact, while Oracle's Development head was having one of his guys give a product demo, showing off some integrated Order management and tracking process (BPEL in the background), the item he 'ordered' for the demo was an iMac! This is minutes after the HP CEO had just left the stage..

I'm not surprised that so many vendors are giving away iPods... that's only natural.. but the more I see Apple hardware floating around here, the more I believe there is a trend here.

The Streets of San Francisco

I'm in San Francisco this week for Oracle's OpenWorld Conference.
Flew out yesterday afternoon.. or was it the evening. I don't know.. Stopped over in Denver on the way and I think that hour in the Mountain time-zone really messed me up on what time it was where I left, where I was going. Who knows?

Flew on Frontier Airlines, which I have to say-- I had never heard of before. They appear to be a burgeoning competitor to SouthWest for the low-rate fare market. Based in Denver, they have a pretty good service going, with flights reaching as far as New York.. but their specialty is obviously points in the West and Southwest.

The best part was the in-flight entertainment.
I had basically conceded that I'd have to watch highlights of the ND-UCLA game at the hotel when I got here last night. My plane left at 2:55-- so when we took off, according to my Blackberry, the game was just at the end of the first quarter-- the Irish up 7-0. Not bad. We'll see how it looks when I land in Denver in a few hours, I thought.

So I sit in my seat and notice a little flat-screen TV embedded in the back of the seat in front of me. And as the flight attendants are talking, I realize that they're delivering 24 channels of DirectTV to that little screen.. so then I start really hammering the channel button to see if one of those channels is NBC.. and sure enough...!
For $5 I was able to watch the game, while also flipping back and forth to ESPN and ESPNNews.
And that little surcharge for the TV is, I'm sure, one of the ways they're able to offer the cheaper flights.
I didn't pay for the TV on the second leg of the trip from Denver to SFO, and as a result, that felt like a much longer flight.
Then again, perhaps that had something to do with the nature of that game and how the Irish struggled and hung in there, but were never able to get an offensive rhythm, honestly until the very last drive of the game.

I am SO glad to see that this team can put together a 1 minute drill, though. No more of the ridiculous play-calling fiasco's of the past 10 years where the coaching staff couldn't get the play call into the QB in time. Before the end of this play, Charlie has already get the next play call in the queue. And Brady-- for all his flaws-- really does step up when time is of the essence.

Don't think, just throw, Meat.

So as the captain comes on over the PA to announce that we're making our final descent into Denver, the TV gets muted and I watch as Brady makes that pass to Samardzija.. the cabin is quiet, except for me, muttering under my breath "Go, go, go!" And when he hits the end-zone, I had to throw my arms up in the air and shout (well, not exactly shout) "YES!" Guy behind me was an Alabama fan, also watching the game, so he and I had a chuckle about that as we were filing off the plane.

I started to feel like I was a commercial for this little airline.. and I realize I'm sounding like a similar ad now. So before anyone (who actually reads this) accuses me of being a schill, I'll cut this short for now.

Conference starts this evening.. and based on what I've already seen, there's an interesting trend here among the vendors.. more later.

Someone must be listening..

Well, just to bring closure to this little intrigue around Torre and Piniella.. thank goodness, it appears that George SteinBrenner reads this blog and has come to understand what a terrible mistake it would have been to fire Joe Torre.

I have no idea what this means for A-Rod.. I can't think, nor have I heard anyone else who can, of a trade scenario that would send A-Rod to another team..

The Yanks need pitching. That's the bottom line. Some good, strong, and hopefully young arms. And hopefully Cashman and the Boss can figure out where to get some (please, without gutting the farm system all over again)...

A foregone conclusion...

Well, this morning, it would appear to be a Foregone conclusion-- based on the papers (see Mike Lupica's column in the Daily News)and ESPN.com-- that Torre is gone and that Lou Piniella will be the new guy...
From this morning's story on ESPN:

Hall of Famer Reggie Jackson, a special adviser to the Yankees who watched the
final two games in Detroit while sitting next to Cashman, told The New York
Times that while he was not surprised that Torre's job status was in question,
he didn't know what Torre could have realisitically done differently.
"It
seems like the great job he was doing all year, all that's forgotten," Jackson
told the newspaper.

The story goes on to cite players like Damon and others who think Torre's been too good for the majority of the season for his job to be at risk.

Obviously, these guys don't know who they're dealing with.

Change for change's sake shouldn't mean anything... it doesn't make sense to fire Torre over the inability of this lineup (largely constructed at the behest of Steinbrenner, himself) to score runs.
Torre can't hit for them.

But it would appear that, unless Brian Cashman or someone (Reggie!) can talk some sense into the Boss, that Torre's time in pinstripes is at an end..

And I, for one, am sorry more than I can say, to see it come to this.

Stunned Silence

From the cover of this morning's Daily News.

Okay.. I have been a TERRIBLE baseball blogger.
So consumed with college football, I haven't spent a single word on the Yankees' late season surge.

And now this morning (and last night), following the Irish domination of Stanford (I couldn't get enough.. I wanted to see more touchdowns; drop 50 on those smug Palo Alto jerks)...

But by yesterday, after watching the way the Yanks got shut out by the Tigers in Game Three.. I didn't have much hope. And this much bally-hoo'ed lineup looked simply impotent.

That said, in the wake of yesterday's embarassing end to the 2006 season, I still don't feel like the rumblings of big changes are headed in the right direction.

See stories here:
The Daily News,
The New York Times
The Post
NewsDay

But the most outrageous report-- the one that, when I heard the headline read over the radio, made me audibly gasp "Oh no!".. so much that my boys, both from their car-seats, were left asking "What? What is it, Daddy?".. is this story, also from the Post, that indicates that Torre will be fired and that Big George wants to re-hire... are you ready for this?.. Lou Piniella...

Let me just say.. if George does this, I'm seriously going ot have to reconsider my support for this team until Steinbrenner is (back) out of the picture..

The "L" is for Looney-Tunes!

Forgive me for the Springer-esque overtones here.. this is like a train wreck.. I just can't look away..

Does anyone have to wonder why the Spartans took the loss this week to lowly Illinois?
What with their coach still wrapped up in the meaningless controversy of last week's mini-brawl with the Irish and Coach Weis' contention that he got slapped somewhere in the mele...

If your coach is still thinking about LAST week, how much hope can you really have?
The man has clearly lost it.. but then again, he's 'lost it' before, hasn't he? (witness: last year's outburts during his half-time trot to the locker room during the MSU-OSU game-- "the coaches are ruining it!")

What's the over/under on John L remaining in East Lansing?

Boiled!

I really don't have much to say about this win over Purdue...

After some of the drubbings we took a few years back at the hands of Joe Tiller, I just can't get enough of watching the Irish beat the Boilers over and over again.

Like Weis, though, I'm pissed about the defensive breakdown at the end of the first half that led to the 80+ yard passing TD-- and meant we could only go into half-time with a two-touchdown lead.

42-14 just had such a ring to it..

But alas, I'll have to settle for 35-21... it's just not as impressive in the paper the next morning.

Well.. now my wife's a fan

ND 40
Michigan State 37

Please, guys.. let's not have many more like this one.
By the third quarter there were signs of life-- though I freely admit, I'm not able to recall anything more specific than that rough impression as the game wore on. For a while there, I was having to contemplate how I'd be spending the rest of the Fall weekends, since the Irish were sure to fall out of the Top 25 with this loss and there would be little hope of salvaging the season from this point on.

But ND managed to score just enough to keep it within two touchdowns.. and unlike Michigan last week, MSU didn't ever seem to have their hand on the 'Shut down' switch... and gradually, gradually, as the Irish went more and more with the No-Huddle (Weis to Brady-- "Hey Meat, Don't think, just throw!")-- belief started to creep in.

I can confirm this only because it was at about this time, with the Irish down by a couple of scores, that I went to my wife, who was sitting at the computer in the next room, and I apologized in advance for my behavior upcoming. I knew. Something momentous was going to happen. I could just feel it.

This isn't to say that my behavior throughout the previous three quarters had been exemplary. I was generally slouching and moping around the house during commercials, pacing the living room floor and muttering at Brady as he overthrew wide open receivers. Even Samarzidja could be seen shaking his head and smiling wryly as he looked at the bench-- "You expect me to catch this shit?"

But then, right when we needed them, came the turnovers.
First Ndukwe's beautiful rip-n-strip.
ND scores and now we're within a touchdown of taking the lead. With 5 minutes or so on the clock, there's still a world of time.
Hope is alive and well and by now my wife has entered the living room and is standing in front of the TV with me..
And then Terrail Lambert's shoe-string interception.. takes it to the house.. and now I'm on the floor, pounding the carpet with my fist-- and my wife is having to run upstairs because I think I just woke the kids.

She said: "This is why I hate sports."
I said: "This is why I love sports!"

Weis' Bowl of Cherries

Perhaps the hardest thing to think about while the game was falling to pieces yesterday was the affect that game could have on recruiting.. Who knows how the next batch of 17 year-olds could react to watching this prospective team go down in flames like that.. You can hardly imagine any way that even a master coach like Charlie Weis could turn a 47-21 drubbing into any kind of a positive sales pitch...

But this afternoon, I noticed this comment from Weis in his press conference... and I can almost believe that he could pull it off-- letting the boys see how you handle adversity, how you face it.

Q. You talked about how you have to think about what you're going to say to the team going into the locker room after the game. With a large number of recruits here, do you have to talk differently to them?

COACH WEIS: No, we don't let the recruits in the locker room until after we're done with our talk. We have a private locker room. There's very few people in this locker room now other than the team. The only three people other than the team are that allowed in there are the president, the AD and the associate AD, deputy AD, who football under his jurisdiction. Other than that, we have no one in there. There's no other people in that locker room.

When I talk to the team, I'm just talking to the team, okay? When I talk to the recruits, we had a bunch of recruits that we had a big dinner for last night, that was really a bowl of cherries having to do (laughter). I had to talk to them. I had to talk to all of them last night. I talked to them very matter?of?factly just like I'm talking to you. You can't hide the fact of what just happened. To be honest with you, having gone through appointments with a lot of these guys today, I was very encouraged at the positive response. They like the fact when you don't sugar coat it. You just be brutally honest with them.

On to next week..

A little tidbit from the Weis Press conference that makes me think Coach is planning to take out some frustration and get some back from Michigan State for their flag-planting at ND Stadium last year:

Q. You mentioned State a little bit. Do you use the struggles your team had the past few years with them or is this game all the motivation you need?

COACH WEIS: There's one incident in particular that I'll use as motivation.

47-21

As I mentioned, I was fearful going into that game.. but I had no idea just how fearful I should be.
We did manage to cover Breaston-- but apparently we couldn't cover Manningham, as well.

Samardzija was invisible behind double and triple-teams...
But as I feared, Brady had trouble hitting the open guys as well..
Had McKnight open on a go-route and over threw him.

I'm exhausted this morning.
I hate losing to Michigan!
I literally had to take a shower after that game, trying to wash it off of me..

At the Post-game press conference, Weis gave due credit to Carr and the Wolverines:
"it's really only right to give just due to your opponent who just kicked your butt."

And I don't think I'd want to be a member of that team right now. Asked if he's concerned about the secondary, Weis replied:
"I got concerns with everything right now... We have a lot of work ahead of us here in the next 48 hours."

The next 48 hours.
No taking the night off.. no rest or reflection..
Just get back to work..

Get ready to sweat, kids.

It's a landslide!

No question which is the real game of the week, despite ESPN's best attempts to promote the Auburn-LSU game.

Week 3: the Wolverines come to South Bend

The media has been all over this one this week. They're calling this 'Separation Saturday' over at ESPN. The Irish are back to #2, Michigan #11 in the AP. And Michigan hasn't won in South Bend since 1994... hasn't won a road-opener since 1999... and, as every pundit has been saying all week-- the Irish "just have too many weapons on offense."

Going into this game, I am primarily fearful of two things for the Irish:

1) Mike Hart. I think our DBs can cover Breaston. But I'm not so sure that our Linebackers can keep up with Hart.

2) Michigan's D, and Brady and the Amazing Floating Ball. Last week, especially in the first half, we still saw Brady throwing passes that just seemed to float on him.. over throwing open receivers (or not seeing them at all) and missing guys streaking across the back of the end-zone. Samardzija and McKnight can often go get the ball wherever it is (and now we've seen Carlson has some good hands as well).. but depending on what Michigan brings on Defense, I don't want to see Brady get rattled. He needs to settle in early and get confident, get his touch on the ball, whatever..

Go Irish!

For the Record: After Week 2

Real quick, the Irish rankings after the week 2 win over Penn State:

AP: #2 (up from #4) behind Ohio State
Coaches: #3 (up from #5) behind Ohio State and Southern Cal.

My 'As if Anyone's even reading this' Top 5:

1. Ohio State
2. Notre Dame
3. Auburn
4. USC
5. Alabama/Rutgers (tie)

Man, it's hard to find 5 teams that have played two decent opponents!

ND 41 PSU 17

Went to dinner with friends about midway through the third quarter with the score 34-3. Well in hand, so I don't feel so bad about heading for some dinner..

But from the bar TV in the restaurant, I spotted the final score: 41-17... and all I could think was "17?" I've got to hit the Tivo to see how those two Penn State touchdowns happened...

Quinn to Shark.. a little something for the ladies..

Another post from the Extra Point.. he's getting clips posted in-game...
This one of the Quinn to Samardzija touchdown at the back of the end-zone..