This "Letter to the NFL", by Mark Lorando, ran in today's The Times-Picayune:
To the NFL: New Orleans Saints victory means we're no longer league doormat
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  (despite hurricane Katrina exploits)
I have a lot of respect for both teams. Both are the cream of the crop this year and I can't say either of the teams don't deserve to be in the superbowl. As a Charger fan though, I have a place in my heart for Brees. As the game is going on though, it's lookin' like they gotta find other ways to score points.  There's been a lot of buzz lately about whether or not the demise of Flash is imminent, to be replaced with elements like Canvas and video for HTML 5 and h.264 video players. A few weeks ago, I wouldn't have thought so- but things seem to be changing quickly:
I'm now running YouTube's experimental HTML 5 video player- and like it just as well as the Flash one. I stumbled across this pretty nifty demo of a pure HTML 5 drawing program. And this canvas experiment with lots of moving graphics and sound had me saying "I can't believe it's not Flash!™".  #1 Video... more inside ...Top 15 Videos... more inside ...Top Comments... more inside ...Most Votes Cast... more inside ... The ipod shuffle 4th gen is a downgrade from the ipod shuffle 2nd gen because: * Half the battery life * It skips the last 5sec-5min of EVERY SINGLE FILE at random. * It's not interoperable with 3rd party headphones. * No manual control over podcast loading and ordering - bloated software does a shitty automatic job of it instead. It should at least employ a round robin policy instead of starting over at the A's every time you plug it in, which is virtually every day because of the shitty battery. * Can't select a block of files at once to mark them as old, because it insists on grouping the files by the name of the podcast, which is typically 1 file per folder on the ipod for my usage patterns. As a consequence it keeps reloading shit that I skipped before. * It gets into a state where you can't even load your own MP3s onto it manually as music. Try to drag and drop an audiobook into it and get the NO symbol. Try to restore it, in the middle of the restoration process, windows opens it up like you justp lugged in a thumb drive, causing iTunes to complain that another program is using the files and it can't complete the restoration process. Obviously apple didn't even test their shitty product on vista. * Still has the same crippleware bullshit of not letting you load stuff from two computers. * Still uses the same ridiculously laggy, bloated, crippleware, proprietary bullshit called iTunes for transferring files. I'll never buy another apple product again, because iTunes and Ipod shuffle 4th gen are such a steaming pile of shit. Google's new word definition feature is a downgrade from its old word definition feature because it provides a really dumb summary written by an intern somewhere instead of the variety of good sources that it used to combine. I received this in e-mail. Enjoy.
1. Every time they mention hurricane Katrina, drink 1. 2. If they show pictures of the City of New Orleans right after Katrina, drink 1. 3. Every time they say how much the Saints mean to the City of New Orleans , drink 1. 4. Every time the words "tragedy", "flood", or "devastation" are used, drink 1. 5. Every time they talk about how good Reggie Bush was in college, drink 3. 6. If they show Kim Kardashian in the stands, drink 5. 7. Every time they show a picture of Reggie Bush with a bat or say "bringing the wood" drink for 5 seconds. 8. Every time Reggie Bush gets negative yardage trying to run around in the backfield a bunch and outrun the defense, drink 1 and turn to the person next to you and say "I told you Vince Young should have won the Heisman." 9. Every time Reggie Bush gets up and flexes his arms in that pose he likes to do, drink 1. 10. If they mention Tim Tebow for any reason, funnel a beer. 11. Every time they say that "it's destiny for the Saints to win" drink 1. 12. If they show footage of Katrina survivors at the Superdome, take a shot of cheap liquor. 13. If they call Saints fans the most passionate fans in football, drink 1. 14. If they say that the Saints, Saints fans, or the City of New Orleans "deserve" a Superbowl victory, drink 1. 15. Every time they say how good of a story the Saints are, drink 1. 16. If Jeremy Shockey pretends to be hurt after dropping a pass, drink 2. 17. If they mention the Saints beating the Falcons in 2006 in the first game after Katrina in the Superdome, drink 5 and remember that we are still a better football team with better fans. 18. Every time they compare hurricane Katrina to the Haiti earthquake, funnel a beer and yell "bullshit!" 19. Every time they mention Drew Brees as the Mardi Gras king, drink 1. 20. Every time they show Archie Manning, drink 1, and mention how bad he sucked. If they show old footage of him on the Saints, drink 5. If they mention how tough of a decision it was for him as for whom to cheer for, drink 10. 21. Every time they show a saints fan yelling "Who dat!" or a sign/shirt saying the same, drink 1. 22. If they show Chris Paul at the game, drink 1 and mention to someone how much better he is than Devon Williams. 23. If they show former Mayor Ray Nagin, drink 5 and then punch someone in the face.  As you may know the 2010 Winter Olympics are about to start here in Vancouver (opening ceremonies are in five days). I've volunteered for the games and I'm working at the Olympic Family Hotel (AKA the Westin Bayshore) in Vancouver. The executive of the IOC and other big wigs will be staying here throughout the games. I'm working as a Help Desk Manager here, so I help deal with tickets and send techs off to fix things as needed. If all goes well we won't have a lot to do, but if there are problems we could be pretty busy. There are a couple thousand volunteers and workers assigned to this venue alone. It's quite busy here as the final touches are put on and areas are going operational. It's pretty well organized and there have been fairly few problems so far, it's amazing to think of the amount of planning and scheduling that went into getting everything ready. I was given the volunteer uniform so I have a snazzy blue outfit with navy blue pants, two blue shirts, a blue vest, blue jacket, and blue touque. I might post a picture later if I can. I'm sitting at my desk at the moment and I'm on my second of twelve shifts. I'm juggling those twelve shifts around my class schedule. My last shift is on March 1st so I'm going to be pretty busy this month to say the least.  Added this new t-shirt design to TeeVirus the other day:
 The idea hit me in an epiphany where the sun god Ra descended from the heavens and whispered sweet nothings in my ear. I imagine it'd come across as pretty... hardcore and borderline offensive to religious zealots of the Christian persuasion, but I'm pretty proud of the idea because it's slightly witty and Google tells me it's pretty unique as a slogan in general, not only as a t-shirt. Do you think it's over the line or all in good agnostic fun? If you like it, head on over to TeeVirus and vote on it.  Also, do you think you'd be brazen enough to actually wear it? Methinks I lack the testicular fortitude.  Actually, let me clarify: not as funny as it used to be. I've been watching the Daily Show pretty much since Jon Stewart took over. I was somewhat dismayed to see it slowly morph into an entirely political-centric show (since I have almost zero interest in politics), but the writing always remained sharp, and it was almost always very, very funny. But it seems like over the last year or so, Stewart et al have become more concerned with the politics than with the funny. Am I alone here? Obviously it's still funny, and it does make me chuckle every now and then, but it does seem like the focus is more on political commentary / newsmedia critiques, with humour being a secondary goal. It feels (to me, at least) like it used to be the other way around, with humour being the first priority and commentary being the second. Even the guests are less interesting than they used to be -- they used to have a good mix of political figures, authors, and actors/directors. Now it's pretty much all political people all the time, with a non-political guest maybe once every couple of weeks. They almost never have non-political authors on anymore. At one point I had a pretty interesting reading list thanks to recommendations from the Daily Show -- no longer. Maybe my tolerance for politics is going down, I don't know (though it was pretty low to start with) but I've been watching since the beginning, and I haven't missed an episode in something like five years, but now I'm thinking about just turning it off altogether. People who say X is the greatest country in the world are stupid bigots. Or at least, the 99.9999% of them who don't know enough about the other 250+ countries to justify such an assertion, are.
 I kinda wish I had found out about this a month ago when I reinstalled my system, but I'm definitely gonna keep a bookmark for next time. Ninite.com lets you choose from a list of popular apps and creates a customized installer that automatically installs all the apps you've selected. No more installing Firefox, Winamp, iTunes, Flash etc. one by one. Link: Ninite.com  ... and I have to say it was kind of a downer. Beautifully shot and solid performances- but it suffers from a Hobbesian idea that most humans are generally evil in nature. At least that's what I took from it- and honestly, it kind of bummed me the hell out. I hope the premise is wrong- and that if there was an epic, species threatening global catastrophe- people would band together to help each other instead of turning cannibal. Dawkins says that altruism is genetically evolved behavior to protect our family, tribe, town- expand that outwards and you'd think it would apply to the entire human race if it was threatened. #1 Video... more inside ...Top 15 Videos... more inside ...Top Comments... more inside ...Most Votes Cast... more inside ... Everyone is bagging the iPad for not having a camera, GPS or other "basic" hardware features - including me. I've had some time to think about it- and I'm recanting my disappointment. What needs to be understood is that a shopping list of hardware components is not what Apple products are about. When talking about the iPod, Apple makes sure to tell you that it can hold 2,000 songs in addition to the fact that it's a 8 GB iPod - the song information is more useful to the average user. Likewise, the lack of camera and GPS are not the important points for a consumer- it's that they can buy lots of books off a shelf and flip through them, page by page- just like a paper book. Expect the iPad to be marketed as "Can hold 10,000 books!" It's the practical user experience and utility to the average person that Apple cares about- and this is why they succeed. ...so first I saw this (sorry for the size)
Then I looked up "platinum tither" and found this bitch (the lady who posted) http://www.epicfail.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/logic-fail-nutjob-forum-post.jpg Read her story...it is CLASSIC It's Australia's equivalent of the 4th of July with a tinge of Thanksgiving. A time to give thanks for living in the "Lucky Country". I am happy to be an Australian and thankful for what it has to offer. Here's what I'm thankful for:
Of course I can't help but make a list of things that I'm not so crazy about.
 The boy running around Chris Burden’s "Urban Light" installation at LACMA  Still Serious after all these years. Four hundred, but I’m sure half of them are dead. Siftopia is still the best damn town on the internet. Thanks for all the votes!
... more inside ... Thanks again all you beautiful Sifters. #1 Video... more inside ...Top 15 Videos... more inside ...Top Comments... more inside ...Most Votes Cast... more inside ... Friday, 22 Jan 2010
Air America, a progressive radio network created in 2004, has announced it will be going off air permanently because of bankruptcy. From a statement on their website: "Through some 100 radio outlets nationwide, Air America helped build a new sense of purpose and determination among American progressives. With this revival, the progressive movement made major gains in the 2006 mid-term elections and, more recently, in the election of President Barack Obama and a strongly Democratic Congress. Laws have changed for the better thanks to this revival.....but all the same our company cannot escape the laws of economics." http://airamerica.com/ I am very happy over this. Now, if we can get the Conservative radio shows off the air, all will be better in the world. |
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