Wasn’t this a team with a 4.73 staff ERA, a team that gave up 821 runs this year, a team everybody in the entire United States of America knew didn’t have enough pitching to win?
Wasn’t this a team that needed a trainer’s room the size of Fairmount Park, considering it just finished a season where it put five starting pitchers, two closers, the incumbent MVP and the guy who seemed destined to become this year’s MVP on the disabled list?
Wasn’t this a team managed by Charlie Manuel, a fellow whose city concluded, about 12 seconds after he came to town, that he couldn’t manage a car wash, let alone a division champion?
Wasn’t this a team that played in a football town, a town that long ago decided the local baseball team wasn’t ever going to win anything in the next 10 or 12 centuries?
First time since 1993. People are kind of excited about it.
# 2007 Sep 30
In what can only be described as perfect news for the weekend:
“There are human epidemiological data of others indicating that mild [to] moderate drinking may paradoxically improve cognition in people compared to abstention,” says Maggie Kalev, a research fellow in molecular medicine and pathology at the University of Auckland in New Zealand…
For those who aren’t three drinks into their Friday night yet, this translates as: Drinking helps you think.
And it’s not that “one-glass a day” nonsense, it says up to and including moderate drinking!
So grab some bottles, get chugging, and don’t stop until you’ve cured at least three kinds of cancer.
# 2007 Sep 28
I can’t believe they’re not doing this on purpose.
# 2007 Sep 28
The Shorter Oxford English Dictionary announced this month that it has committed punctuational genocide, eliminating 16,000 hyphens from its pages. Either by combining two words into one or simply uncoupling them—severing the corpus callosum between them—editors of the dictionary’s sixth edition have seen fit to knock hyphens from its pages like so many teeth from a hockey goaltender’s mouth. So, ice-cream becomes ice cream and chick-pea chickpea.
I always stumble over the “two words”, “hyphenated-word”, or “oneword” quandary.
Friday bonus-quote:
I feel like such a free spirit, and I’m really enjoying this so-called…iced-cream.
# 2007 Sep 28
The rules of physics say that distance cycling and distance running are for small people. Rowing and swimming are for people who are big. The physics is so exact that when Dr. Secher tried to predict how fast competitive rowers could go, based only on their sizes and the weights of their boats, he was accurate to within 1 percent.
Of course, physics has nothing on Bowerman:
“I always remember something the late Bill Bowerman said at a clinic I attended in the late 1970s,” he added, referring to the legendary distance running coach. “Sometimes what matters is not what dog is in the fight but how much fight is in the dog.”
# 2007 Sep 28
One of the more frustrating aspects of living in the Philadelphian suburbs is the lack of convenient non-car access to the city.
I estimate I make 4-5 evening trips downtown a month, so about once a week. These trips often involve imbibing, necessitating travel plans, and a designated driver.
The last train leaves Philly around 11:30p.m. There’s nights when I’m not even showered at 11:30, much less ready to come home. So I feel fairly confident stating it’s nearly impossible to use the regional rail system to recreationally enjoy the city in a manner suiting my lifestyle.
Now if my friends weren’t so lame, we could just stay out until 5 or 6 when the trains start back up in the morning, but unfortunately they are (and with the bars closing at 2 the city dies around 3).
There’s also the cost. It’s $3.50 a trip to take the train into town (ideally, more on this below), so $7 for a round trip. Parking ranges from $10-20, depending on the lot, so it only takes splitting the parking with one passenger to match all but the most expensive parking lots. So even in an imaginary world where the trains ran all night it’d still be quicker and cheaper to drive into the city.
My major contrast to the Philly mass-transit situation is Chicago. I know two things about Chicago mass-transit: 1) You have to buy a CTA card and 2) I’ve never not been able to get on a train whenever I wanted too. It’s ridiculous - the trains run everywhere, all the time. It’s like that want me to explore the city!
My friends and I attended Sippin’ On The River last Sunday afternoon. Being one of the rare times the trip times coincided with the trains operating, we took the trains down. The slightly longer travel time is almost entirely negated by none of us having to drive, or do much of anything other than talk or relax.
However, all was not perfect. I assumed a closed ticket window on Sunday, a non-operational automatic ticket machine and having to buy the ticket on the train. I was mostly correct - the ticket machine went from non-operational to non-existent. I was surprised on the train when the ticket-guy charged me $5 instead of $3.50.
Yesterday’s Inquirer solved the mystery yesterday, when they ran a story about SEPTA mandating the surcharge on all on-train ticket purchases:
SEPTA’s new policy requires passengers to pay a higher onboard fare, even if the station where they board has no ticket agent. Of SEPTA’s 153 rail stations, 75 - including Tacony - have no ticket sales, and very few booths are open afternoons and weekends.
Also, SEPTA took the last of its ticket vending machines out of service in January, citing their inability to accept newly designed U.S. currency.
Until six weeks ago, SEPTA had a $2 surcharge for onboard tickets if the passenger could have purchased a ticket at the station.
It’s like they don’t want me to take the train. What’s the solution here?
One of the more frustrating aspects of living in the Philadelphian suburbs is the lack of convenient non-car access to the city.
I estimate I make 4-5 evening trips downtown a month, so about once a week. These trips often involve imbibing, necessitating travel plans, and a designated driver.
The last train leaves Philly around 11:30p.m. There’s nights when I’m not even showered at 11:30, much less ready to come home. So I feel fairly confident stating it’s nearly impossible to use the regional rail system to recreationally enjoy the city in a manner suiting my lifestyle.
Now if my friends weren’t so lame, we could just stay out until 5 or 6 when the trains start back up in the morning, but unfortunately they are (and with the bars closing at 2 the city dies around 3).
There’s also the cost. It’s $3.50 a trip to take the train into town (ideally, more on this below), so $7 for a round trip. Parking ranges from $10-20, depending on the lot, so it only takes splitting the parking with one passenger to match all but the most expensive parking lots. So even in an imaginary world where the trains ran all night it’d still be quicker and cheaper to drive into the city.
My major contrast to the Philly mass-transit situation is Chicago. I know two things about Chicago mass-transit: 1) You have to buy a CTA card and 2) I’ve never not been able to get on a train whenever I wanted too. It’s ridiculous - the trains run everywhere, all the time. It’s like that want me to explore the city!
My friends and I attended Sippin’ On The River last Sunday afternoon. Being one of the rare times the trip times coincided with the trains operating, we took the trains down. The slightly longer travel time is almost entirely negated by none of us having to drive, or do much of anything other than talk or relax.
However, all was not perfect. I assumed a closed ticket window on Sunday, a non-operational automatic ticket machine and having to buy the ticket on the train. I was mostly correct - the ticket machine went from non-operational to non-existent. I was surprised on the train when the ticket-guy charged me $5 instead of $3.50.
Yesterday’s Inquirer solved the mystery yesterday, when they ran a story about SEPTA mandating the surcharge on all on-train ticket purchases:
SEPTA’s new policy requires passengers to pay a higher onboard fare, even if the station where they board has no ticket agent. Of SEPTA’s 153 rail stations, 75 - including Tacony - have no ticket sales, and very few booths are open afternoons and weekends.
Also, SEPTA took the last of its ticket vending machines out of service in January, citing their inability to accept newly designed U.S. currency.
Until six weeks ago, SEPTA had a $2 surcharge for onboard tickets if the passenger could have purchased a ticket at the station.
It’s like they don’t want me to take the train. What’s the solution here?
# 2007 Sep 27
Wired Q&A:
I read an article recently saying that one of the reasons the film has found an ongoing audience is that it was incomplete. That’s absolute horseshit. The film was very specifically designed and is totally complete.
# 2007 Sep 27
There’s much ado about the web regarding NBC’s Chuck and Journeyman selling on iTunes despite NBC withdrawing its content from the store.
It’s most likely because NBC doesn’t own Chuck and Journeyman, Warner Bros. and Fox (respectively) do.
Deals made between the broadcast networks and production companies would dictate who has control of the digital distribution. In these cases, it seems to be the production companies.
Shows like The Office and Battlestar Galactica are produced and aired by NBC properties and will not be available on iTunes.
There’s much ado about the web regarding NBC’s Chuck and Journeyman selling on iTunes despite NBC withdrawing its content from the store.
It’s most likely because NBC doesn’t own Chuck and Journeyman, Warner Bros. and Fox (respectively) do.
Deals made between the broadcast networks and production companies would dictate who has control of the digital distribution. In these cases, it seems to be the production companies.
Shows like The Office and Battlestar Galactica are produced and aired by NBC properties and will not be available on iTunes.
# 2007 Sep 27
Khoi Vinh on iconography:
By contrast, I like incredibly abstract and minimal graphical elements. For me, a simple, one-pixel straight line is practically a revival of the Rococo style. If I had my way, the only pictorial components of my design work would be the pictures: photographs or illustrations. Everything else would be simple and elementally native to the browser, or whatever other rendering mechanism I’m working with. Which is to say, you’d only ever see lines and boxes — and flat ones at that. No shading, please, and no three-dimensional modeling.
Whole-heated agreement from this front.
Rare is the design element I use that’s not typographic or photographic. Aside from the light use of my logo, my site is currently icon free.
This may be a direct result of my sucking at icons and other abstract elements.
# 2007 Sep 27
“Quite frankly, I didn’t think a black quarterback could put up those kinds of numbers, and I don’t think anyone else did either,” football analyst Peter King said during NBC’s Football Night In America.
# 2007 Sep 27
A few notes:
Chuck: “Working on my five year plan. Just need to choose a font.”
Apparently the secret government database is accessed through a souped-up Mac Classic.
Chuck’s sister is Gift Shop Girl!
Who doesn’t love Adam Baldwin?
Either NBC or the local affiliate dropped 10-40 seconds. Awesome. I’ll awesome Chuck saved the day seeing as he wasn’t blown up.
Looks like Chuck is on my schedule this season. There’s potential here, I tells ya’.
The new Nissan commercials sound like they’re ripping off “Pressure Drop”.
Time for Heroes. How long until Kristen Bell is on?
A few notes:
Chuck: “Working on my five year plan. Just need to choose a font.”
Apparently the secret government database is accessed through a souped-up Mac Classic.
Chuck’s sister is Gift Shop Girl!
Who doesn’t love Adam Baldwin?
Either NBC or the local affiliate dropped 10-40 seconds. Awesome. I’ll awesome Chuck saved the day seeing as he wasn’t blown up.
Looks like Chuck is on my schedule this season. There’s potential here, I tells ya’.
The new Nissan commercials sound like they’re ripping off “Pressure Drop”.
Time for Heroes. How long until Kristen Bell is on?
# 2007 Sep 24
Steven Frank, on running Windows on a Mac:
I won’t lie to you — I use Windows occasionally. It’s important for me as a Mac developer to use Windows once in a while, because it’s a fantastic lesson on how do absolutely everything wrong when designing software. (For example, one of my top ten favorite Windows XP features is the one where it asks you to confirm your wireless network password by entering it twice when you join a network.)
And it doesn’t even let you cut and paste from the first entry! You have to type it over again!
# 2007 Sep 21
Following up on their logging of air traveler’s reading habits, the Department of Homeland Security claims non-interest in your reading habbits:
“I flatly reject the premise that we care at all about the latest Tom Clancy novel a traveler is reading,” Knocke said.
“But the fact does remain that CBP officials are going to be mindful of whether there is anything that suggests there could be possible violations of a law associated with a traveler or items in possession of a traveler as they make an admissibility decision about that traveler,” Knocke said. “That is what they are charged by Congress to do.”
You probably should care about what Tom Clancy novel a traveler is reading, seeing as Tom Clancy novel contain more ideas for terrorist plots than the back of bin Laden’s cocktail napkin.
# 2007 Sep 21
If for no reason other than to make a liar out of me, The Daily Collegian no longer offers full text RSS feeds.
It is their choice, of course, just as it is my choice to whine about it on my website.
If for no reason other than to make a liar out of me, The Daily Collegian no longer offers full text RSS feeds.
It is their choice, of course, just as it is my choice to whine about it on my website.
# 2007 Sep 21
Khoi Vinh covers something I’ve whined about, the lack of preference preservation in software upgrades:
For instance: I’ve been using Adobe Photoshop, for better or worse, since the early 1990s. And yet for every new computer that I sit down in front of, for every time I start off with a freshly installed operating system, or for every new version of Photoshop that I install, it’s like starting with a brand new copy of the program. Each time, all of the settings for Photoshop’s myriad of tools are reverted to their defaults again, as if I had never touched the program before.
It really is silly that an application as popular and developed as Photoshop requires you to set preferences from scratch for each new version.
# 2007 Sep 21
International travelers concerned about being labeled a terrorist or drug runner by secret Homeland Security algorithms may want to be careful what books they read on the plane. Newly revealed records show the government is storing such information for years.
Privacy advocates obtained database records showing that the government routinely records the race of people pulled aside for extra screening as they enter the country, along with cursory answers given to U.S. border inspectors about their purpose in traveling. In one case, the records note Electronic Frontier Foundation co-founder John Gilmore’s choice of reading material, and worry over the number of small flashlights he’d packed for the trip.
Would the screeners appreciate the irony of logging that I’m carrying my copy of Fahrenheit 451 on the plane?
# 2007 Sep 20
What happens when your systems go belly-up, when all of that cutting-edge technology dies and you must rely on (gasp!) your own knowledge? It pays to have these basics in your head. They can get you out of a jam and help you get good shots when nothing else will.
Old article, still-good rules.
Via kottke.
# 2007 Sep 20
Black Shoe Diaries:
The Big Ten put themselves in this position by elevating Ohio State and Michigan above all the other teams. When Michigan and Ohio State do well the Big Ten is the greatest conference in the Milky Way Galaxy. When they lose it’s a down year for the conference. It’s always been like this and until it stops teams like Penn State and Wisconsin are going to pay for it. If any Big Ten team other than the big two goes undefeated they may very well get shut out of the championship game. We’ll end up watching an undefeated and untested West Virginia get slaughtered by USC or Florida in the National Championship game while we’re playing Hawaii in the Rose Bowl.
# 2007 Sep 20
Baton Rouge is still too hot for Louisiana State University’s new tiger mascot, so his heralded football debut will wait for a night game in two weeks.
…
But since then he has decided that Mike VI, which grew up at a sanctuary in northern Indiana about 90 miles southeast of Chicago, is having trouble with the steamy southern Louisiana heat.
Pussy.
# 2007 Sep 20
Flickr celebrated International Talk Like A Pirate Day, but some didn’t quite get it.
And by didn’t “get it”, I mean “hostilely responded to a mystery solved by a simple mouseover:
The skull and crossbones is an international symbol for poison and death. This is supposed to be funny?
I created an awesome image yesterday, which I felt was destined for Explore:
Instead, Explore today is filled with boring, bad, pirate images, with no views, faves, or future, beyond mothers of the photographers.
I think this was a mistake, and not very amusing.
Ummmmmmmm this is not what Flickr is suppose to be about and most of us don’t appreciate it; you have enough glitches in your software that keeps popping up all of the time!! Sooooooooo maybe I will be contacting Yahoo which allows you to operate and moving all of my stuff to Photobucket or Ringo; especially disappointed after I just deleted my Yahoo Photo Album and put it all over here!!
Seconded. Sense of humour failure alert - piracy still exists in some parts of the world to this this day, nothing strikes me as particularly amusing about present-day sailors being killed or injured by pirates or their cargo stolen at gunpoint. I don’t think it’s the business of a big corporation to impose a frat house joke that not everyone appreciates on all flickr members whether they like it or not.
Flickr celebrated International Talk Like A Pirate Day, but some didn’t quite get it.
And by didn’t “get it”, I mean “hostilely responded to a mystery solved by a simple mouseover:
The skull and crossbones is an international symbol for poison and death. This is supposed to be funny?
I created an awesome image yesterday, which I felt was destined for Explore:
Instead, Explore today is filled with boring, bad, pirate images, with no views, faves, or future, beyond mothers of the photographers.
I think this was a mistake, and not very amusing.
Ummmmmmmm this is not what Flickr is suppose to be about and most of us don’t appreciate it; you have enough glitches in your software that keeps popping up all of the time!! Sooooooooo maybe I will be contacting Yahoo which allows you to operate and moving all of my stuff to Photobucket or Ringo; especially disappointed after I just deleted my Yahoo Photo Album and put it all over here!!
Seconded. Sense of humour failure alert - piracy still exists in some parts of the world to this this day, nothing strikes me as particularly amusing about present-day sailors being killed or injured by pirates or their cargo stolen at gunpoint. I don’t think it’s the business of a big corporation to impose a frat house joke that not everyone appreciates on all flickr members whether they like it or not.
# 2007 Sep 19
Apparently, kids aren’t to blame for everything wrong with society:
What experts label “adolescent risk taking” is really baby boomer risk taking. It’s true that 30 years ago, the riskiest age group for violent death was 15 to 24. But those same boomers continue to suffer high rates of addiction and other ills throughout middle age, while later generations of teenagers are better behaved. Today, the age group most at risk for violent death is 40 to 49, including illegal-drug death rates five times higher than for teenagers.
# 2007 Sep 19
Just hours after he was officially crowned the victor in his much-hyped sales battle with 50 Cent, Kanye West turned up at GQ’s 50th anniversary party as the featured performer.
But the evening was more like a coronation for West, whose Graduation widely outsold 50 Cent’s Curtis in first week sales, according to Nielsen SoundScan: 957,000 copies to 691,000 copies.
Good for him. Graduation is a great album.
# 2007 Sep 19
Will Harris:
The winningest college football coach of all time is John Gagliardi. Entering this year — his 59th as a head coach and 55th with his current school — Gagliardi had won a whopping 443 games, 419 at St. John’s University in Minnesota.
What’s that? Only Division I games count? OK, then your leader is Eddie Robinson, who won 408 games at Grambling.
Oh, Division I-AA games don’t count either? Well, that rules out Robinson. It also rules out Bowden and his 31 I-AA wins and leaves us with Paterno and his 366 I-A victories.
This is really simple. Either we’re counting only I-A wins or we’re not. If not, then Paterno is way ahead of Bowden. If we are, then your leader is either Gagliardi or Robinson, depending on whether we’re recognizing anything below I-AA.
The only title Bobby Bowden holds is that of “Coach with most total wins who has at some point in his career coached a Division I-A team.”
# 2007 Sep 19
Talks between the network and Comcast, which supplies cable to most of the Centre Region, have “broken down,” network spokesman Mike Vest said yesterday. Penn State’s first game of the season was also broadcast on the Big Ten Network and at least one of its conference games will also air on the network.
I want to watch Big Ten sports. Most people don’t care about Big Ten sports. I realize this. Comcast realizes this.
WHY DOESN’T THE BIG TEN NETWORK REALIZE THIS.
NOTE: I’m ignoring greater issue of Comcast selectively pushing for consumer choice when it’s going to cost them money (the Big Ten Network) and ignoring it when it’d lose them money (universal a la carte programming) because I this is about me watching football, damn it.
Talks between the network and Comcast, which supplies cable to most of the Centre Region, have “broken down,” network spokesman Mike Vest said yesterday. Penn State’s first game of the season was also broadcast on the Big Ten Network and at least one of its conference games will also air on the network.
I want to watch Big Ten sports. Most people don’t care about Big Ten sports. I realize this. Comcast realizes this.
WHY DOESN’T THE BIG TEN NETWORK REALIZE THIS.
NOTE: I’m ignoring greater issue of Comcast selectively pushing for consumer choice when it’s going to cost them money (the Big Ten Network) and ignoring it when it’d lose them money (universal a la carte programming) because I this is about me watching football, damn it.
# 2007 Sep 14
Subway places the cheese in a pattern designed to force an extra-cheese order:
“Cheese triangles need to be placed [drawing of razorback formation] -> this will promote the need for customers to desire extra cheese - as it doesn’t cover whole sandwich. Double cheese [picture of double razorback] = 40 p extra!”
See also: An Open Letter to Subway.
# 2007 Sep 13
The Onion:
“Eagles fans are a passionate group who love their team,” said McNabb, “if not the actual players. It’s not like winning a Super Bowl before the first month of the season is the hardest thing they’ve ever asked of me. That’d be all those times they asked me to go kill myself.”
# 2007 Sep 13
Despite having the largest stadium, Michigan has one of the quietest crowds:
When I told him that actually, during big — or “key” — plays, Michigan fans whip out their key chains and “jangle” them, he thought I was joking. When I told him I wasn’t, first he laughed, then he called one of his fellow SEC buddies over and said, “Tell him what you just told me.”
After explaining Michigan’s key play “tradition” once more, the other Auburn alum asked, “Does it ever get loud there?”
“Truth is,” I said, “not really.”
# 2007 Sep 13
Notre Dame vs. Penn State. Things may get a bit crazy.
Notre Dame vs. Penn State. Things may get a bit crazy.
# 2007 Sep 07
Thud:
The final fallout from a disastrous opening weekend for Michigan came Tuesday, when the Wolverines dropped all the way out of The Associated Press Top 25, an unprecedented fall from No. 5 to unranked.
Since the AP poll expanded to 25 teams in 1989, no team has taken a bigger tumble in one week.
Complete AP and USA Today polls.
# 2007 Sep 04
Cal over Tennessee! Clemson over Florida State! Notre Dame never sets foot in the endzone! And Michigan WHO?
Paterno Victory Watch: 364. Two more to tie Bowden. And given Notre Dame’s performance against Georgia Tech, 365 should be a lock.
There’s a distinct bitterness floating around Ann Arbor today:
But this game with Appalachian State was halfway in between - and was therefore a lose-lose situation from the beginning. Even a win probably would have hurt a Wolverine bid to get to the National Championship game. The Wolverines would have beaten a Football Championship Subdivision team. I don’t know that any voters would have much respect for a win like that, certainly not more respect than for a win over an inferior Division I-A team.
Translation: Just because the girl I tried to make a move on kicked me in the balls and left me crying while everyone laughed at me doesn’t matter because she really wasn’t that pretty anyway and nobody would’ve respected me in the morning when I took her to my Big House, if you know what I mean.
In the immortal words of Amy Smart to a young James Van Der Beek, “Would you like some cheese with that whine?”
Can we also get over that Michigan was a “ranked” team? They hadn’t done anything yet! The shock that a mere 1-AA/FCS team could dare take down a team ranked fifth by people who worked so hard to cast their little votes and then somebody had to count them all and these kids just come from whatever state they come from and just mess up our perfect little system.
It’s all fun and cupcakes until someone’s national championship changes are dashed.
Cal over Tennessee! Clemson over Florida State! Notre Dame never sets foot in the endzone! And Michigan WHO?
Paterno Victory Watch: 364. Two more to tie Bowden. And given Notre Dame’s performance against Georgia Tech, 365 should be a lock.
There’s a distinct bitterness floating around Ann Arbor today:
But this game with Appalachian State was halfway in between - and was therefore a lose-lose situation from the beginning. Even a win probably would have hurt a Wolverine bid to get to the National Championship game. The Wolverines would have beaten a Football Championship Subdivision team. I don’t know that any voters would have much respect for a win like that, certainly not more respect than for a win over an inferior Division I-A team.
Translation: Just because the girl I tried to make a move on kicked me in the balls and left me crying while everyone laughed at me doesn’t matter because she really wasn’t that pretty anyway and nobody would’ve respected me in the morning when I took her to my Big House, if you know what I mean.
In the immortal words of Amy Smart to a young James Van Der Beek, “Would you like some cheese with that whine?”
Can we also get over that Michigan was a “ranked” team? They hadn’t done anything yet! The shock that a mere 1-AA/FCS team could dare take down a team ranked fifth by people who worked so hard to cast their little votes and then somebody had to count them all and these kids just come from whatever state they come from and just mess up our perfect little system.
It’s all fun and cupcakes until someone’s national championship changes are dashed.
# 2007 Sep 04
These are all the posts on scotttroyan.com during September 2007. Recent posts are listed here.
All contents copyright 1995-2008 by Scott Troyan unless differently noted.
