Droppin Knowledge

Most Important Meal of the Day!

2008-03-27T12:24:00.000-05:00

Tolkien Rules

2007-11-06T23:16:00.000-06:00

Seriously folks. And it's more than just The Lord of the Rings. Read The Silmarillion and read The Children of Hurin. You will not be disappointed!

back to school

2006-06-26T00:23:00.000-05:00

so i'm back in school. it had been 4 years since i had been in a class, but i finally made it to graduate school. school pretty much feels like it always did. it's weird to actually have to do something outside of work. aside from work you can pretty much let just about any activity slide and not feel too much ill effects. it's all good, though. at least now i get to walk around with a backpack and not feel like a goon. it's just like undergrad when walking around with a backpack makes you feel like you have a purpose. although, i must admit, after 4 years without one, i don't feel the same purposelessness when i am without a backpack.

one thing that has not changed at all is the textbooks. of course the editions have changed, so they can get you for more money every year, but the readability hasn't changed at all.they are lame as all get out. mind-wandering is inevitable. what would happen in the world if someone actually started writing textbooks that weren't completely dry and boring? i think it could be a revolution of knowledge. to paraphrase Jerry Seinfeld, "They can land a man on the moon, but they can't make a mildly interesting textbook?" what if there was a textbook that was a total page-turner?

Person A:"You read the first couple chapters yet? How are they?

Person B: "Oh yeah, and then some, I can't put it down! This textbook is completely habit forming, I'm totally addicted. I'm enjoying it so much I'm afraid the surgeon general will soon discover that it is hazardous to my health."

People wonder why the United States has lost intellectual credibility, why Japan and Europe are passing us up in Math and Science, and I'm certain it's because of the textbooks. If we start making interesting textbooks we will sure turn the tide on declining learning among our youth.

(also posted @ www.myspace.com/nerdyasafanclub )

When it happens, don't forget that you read it here first

2005-12-04T03:03:00.000-06:00

Rose Bowl:
Texas 52
USC 24

Common Sense On T.O.

2005-11-10T00:03:00.000-06:00

After the big fight between the various network anchor teams in the movie Anchorman, Ron Burgundy remarked "Boy that escalated quickly...I mean, that really got out of hand fast!" That's pretty much how I feel about the whole Terrell Owens situation. A week ago Owens was probably the best receiver in the NFL, who also happened to have the biggest mouth. As I write this the Eagles have decided that they don't want T.O. to play for them for the rest of the year.

Many have said that the Eagles knew what they were getting into when they signed Owens, but still just about everybody directs all the blame in Owens' direction. This just doesn't jibe with me. If you're the Eagles, you have to make sure that you keep T.O. happy. If you know what T.O. is all about, and that is just to say that he's a loudmouth who will say stupid stuff, why be so surprised and take it so seriously when he does that? When T.O. told Graham Bensinger that he agreed that the Eagles would be undefeated if they had Brett Favre at QB, he wasn't saying that the country of Israel should be destroyed. He was just T.O. being T.O. And the Eagles decided that they'd be better off saving face, taking the moral, and T-E-A-M high ground and LOSING the best playmaker that they have, than turning the other cheek and being a Super Bowl contender. Like Lauryn Hill says, "You might win some, but you just lost one."

The sports world is a fantasy world. We all work with jerks with big mouths, that will say stupid stuff. The difference between normal people that work jobs in the real world and the Eagles is that we just put up with these people. People in the real world need to make their situation work, and they take crap from an unruly co-worker when necessary to accomplish what needs to be done. To put it in 7 Habits lingo, sometimes you have to be on the wrong end of a win-lose to achieve a win-win. Sure, T.O. is a child, and maybe he even is a locker room cancer, but Eagles' management and super-sensitive Donovan McNabb are babies to let him get to them. So, it's a lose-lose, and that doesn't bother me too much, I'm a Bears fan.

No Love for the Haters

2005-11-01T23:37:00.000-06:00

Hey it's NBA basketball season again! Opening day is upon us, and who amongst us saw it coming? The opening night of the NBA season is almost as inconspicuous as the opening night of the NHL season. I'll start paying serious attention when February rolls around, and there is no more football to occupy my time.

One thought though, how come nobody thinks the Chicago Bulls will be Eastern Conference contenders? The Bulls were 47-35 last year, which was the 3rd best record in the East. I have not seen anybody predict that they will even make the playoffs this year.

Ok, I can agree that Indiana, Miami, and Detroit will be better than the Bulls this year. I cannot agree that Cleveland, New Jersey, New York, Milwaukee, or Washington will be better than the Bulls. You cannot argue that the Bulls will fall out of the playoffs because of the loss of Eddy Curry. The Bulls actually played better last year when he was off the floor. Sure, Eddy was a big man with good offensive skills, and the Bulls hadn't had a center with good offensive skills in their history.But Eddy just didn't completely gel with what this team was trying to do. His defense and rebounding skills were marginal at best, making him a liability with the Bulls streaky-shooting guards, Kirk Hinrich and Ben Gordon. So I'm just not convinced that the Bulls will lose any ground.

Remember, the Bulls started 0-9 last year, there is no way they will be so flat at the beginning of this year. I'm counting on solid play from Hinrich, Gordon, Chandler, and Nocioni. I also think they'll be able to get minutes, rebounds, and put-back scores from Tim Thomas, Othella Harrington, and Michael Sweetney - anything more than mediocrity from these three would be gravy. I think the real x-factor is Luol Deng. He showed flashes of greatness last year, if he can be a little more consistent, and improve to 15 points per game, and around 8 rebounds, people will be saying "Eddy who?"

I don't think it's going out on a limb to say that the Bulls can pick up five wins compared to last year to go 52-30. It'll be interesting to see how Curry performs for the Knicks, I wish him good health, but not necessarily good play.

Bayless at it again

2005-10-27T23:57:00.000-05:00

I'm ashamed to say that I once agreed with Skip Bayless . Bayless totally went off on the Texas Longhorns' football team in his ESPN Page 2 article . Here's some snippets followed by my rebuttals:

"Why has the BCS formula suddenly decided Texas is slightly better than USC? The Trojans, who wield the most difficult to defend offense in NCAA history, would beat Texas by two touchdowns on a neutral field. Maybe three."

Skip, USC barely squeaked by Notre Dame, and Notre Dame's defense is ranked 97th in the country. Texas' defense is ranked 6th in the country. Do you really think that the Trojans would be able to put up more than thirty-four points on the Longhorns? Think about Skip, the 2nd most prolific offense just rolled into Austin, and they went home with their tails between their legs and only seventeen points on the board. So where is this three touchdown margin coming from Skip? USC's 44th ranked defense? More on defense...

"Ohio State couldn't recover from that loss in time to survive the dam -- or damn! -- that burst on the Buckeyes when they visited reborn Penn State. Yet Ohio State would give USC a better neutral-field test than Texas, because Ohio State has a better defense and better overall team speed than Texas"

It's true, Ohio State is ranked 3rd in total defense, and Texas is ranked 6th. So Ohio State has a slightly better defense than the Horns. But better overall team speed than Texas? I'm sure Skip took the time to track down the 40 speeds of both squads before he made this enlightened point. Yeah, right. Skip was too busy conjuring up 1980s movie and television references to mess around with actual facts.

"And that's why a USC-Texas title game would look something like when Michael Vick and Virginia Tech played Florida State for the 2000 championship. Vick made some holy-cow plays early -- as would Young. But Florida State slowly asserted its superiority and won, 46-29.

That's about what would happen to Texas against USC.

This year's Virginia Tech could keep it a little closer. Ohio State could keep it a lot closer."

Now he must just be joking with us. Could he actually believe that? And even if he does, what is he basing it on? The comparison of this Texas team with Vick's Virginia Tech team even seems a little racist to me. I guess it all just goes to show that Bayless is a tool, who will surely get his comeuppance.

Not A biSOXual

2005-10-25T22:31:00.000-05:00

I am a Chicago Cubs fan. I hate the Chicago White Sox. I don't like Ozzie Guillen, and I didn't like Jason Bere, Jack McDowell, Tim Raines, Frank Thomas, and I especially dislike White Sox fans. A bisoxual is a Cubs fan that is cheering for the White Sox as they make their way through the 2005 MLB playoffs. I am certainly not a bisoxual.

I cannot cheer for the White Sox. I've spent days, nights, and entire summers of my life listening to Chicago sports talk radio, and one thing that I know is that White Sox fan treat Cubs fans like crap. They are more condescending to Cubs fans than any other group of people, even more so than Cardinals fans, comedians, and the mainstream sports media.

The rebuttal Cubs fans have had against the Sox fans is the fact that they haven't won anything in ages either. If they win the World Series it will totally destroy the equilibrium of Chicago baseball fandom. This cannot happen. If the Cubs can't win it, the Sox can't win it.

So, since we're Astros fans this week (and maybe next Sunday) here are two cool Astros rap songs:

Paul Wall - "They Don't Know"

Chamillionaire - "Turn It Up"

today in college football

2005-10-22T23:46:00.000-05:00

ESPN's College Gameday was in Austin today. The Gameday crew is in a different college town every week, so it was pretty cool to see them and be able to say "Hey, I've been right where they are!" Even so, I'm becoming dissatisfied with College Gameday. It's not them necessarily, it's me. I'm overdosing on pregame coverage. Maybe it's adult ADD, but by Saturday I'm always thinking "Let's get to the game already! Enough pregame speculation!"

I went to a pumpkin patch with my wife in Marble Falls this morning (1 hour away), so I didn't watch any 11am games, which is fine with me, because watching football from 11am to 7pm is like a full day's work of watching football. Here are my thoughts on what I did watch:

#9 Notre Dame 49 BYU 23

Last year Notre Dame had BYU finagle their schedule so that this game would happen at the very beginning of the season. Notre Dame thought that they would use BYU as a tune-up for Michigan. Sounds like a great idea, except Notre Dame fell on their face and lost to BYU. So this year Notre Dame had to know not to look past the Cougars. The only way they looked past BYU this year was in respect to their secondary, Brady Quinn looked past them all day to find Maurice Stovall and Jeff Samardzjia. Quinn absolutely torched the Cougar defense. This game has me feeling really good about Notre Dame's prospects for running the table and making it to a BCS bowl.

#5 Alabama 6 #16 Tennessee 3

I'll be honest, I didn't watch much of this one. And why would I? This game was 0-0 for a whole half. You would think that more points would be scored just by accident. But Alabama rolls on like the crimson tide that they are. Congrats to you Alabama. Plus, way to fall out of the top 25 Tennessee, right before Notre Dame really socks it to you.

#2 Texas 52 #10 Texas Tech 17

I told my wife that Texas would win this game by at least 21 points, and I was right. The Horns have done a great job this year in almost every game of making the second half meaningless. This game was hyped, the cheapest seat on Stubhub.com for this game was $172, and I really pity the fool that bought those tickets at that price. The Rice game was about as competitive as this one, and I got tickets for that one at less than face value. The Horns took a top 10 team and just completely smacked them around. Brilliant.

Sammy and Shoes

2005-09-26T00:59:00.000-05:00

Sammy Sosa's season is over. Final batting average .221, with 14 home runs and 45RBI. I was right on the money not to give him any respect.

My wife and I bought some new running shoes this weekend. I realized that I have never had good running shoes. Every time that I run, it is with some degree of discomfort. So I went to a shoe store that actually helps you buy the shoes that are right for you, Runtex. The salesperson actually watched us walk around with our shoes off, and looked at our feet in multiple different standing positions. Apparently, I'm a severe overpronator, and my foot discomfort has stemmed from wearing shoes that are not right for my feet or my walking/running style. So thank you Runtex, you've done what no other shoe store does, actually help me with shoes instead of just being a shoe store waiter.

On a related note, here's a rant on Foot Locker: their return policy is completely bogus. I called foot locker, and the shoe waiter informed me that the shoes must be accompanied by the receipt, and in order to be returned, they cannot have been worn. Does anybody else get away with this? I understand that the margins are low, and if they took returns they would be eating almost 100% cost, but in this discounted world in which we live, what good isn't completely low margin? I thought this was the consumer age, what happened to "NO SALE IS EVER FINAL"? How are you supposed to know if you like a shoe if you cannot even wear it? "Hmm... You know, I can tell from the box, and from the look of this shoe, it is just not going to do the trick for me." Can't believable. To paraphrase Bobby Boucher's Mama, "Foot Locker is the DEVIL!" Someday somebody will stand up for the rights of shoe buyers all around America, and Foot Locker will have to update its antiquated return policy, but until that day, I will be the voice of the little man crying out to all who will listen, Foot Locker is bunk!

Wassa Deal With Corn Nuts?

2005-08-29T01:40:00.000-05:00

This is golden. With such perfect successors, I wonder why they haven't brought Seinfeld back yet???

Great Picture

2005-08-29T01:37:00.000-05:00

Props to BJ

Reason #1 to be excited about football starting soon

2005-08-04T00:45:00.000-05:00

Vince Young is superman. I was totally on fire with my prediction of the University of Illinois' basketball dominance. I'm going to drop another one on you: Watch out for Texas Longhorns football. Everybody's hyping up USC, but I really think this UT team is going to be a steamroller all year long. Vince Young is just out of his mind. Derrick Johnson and Cedric Benson may be gone, but UT is just going to be so strong on both the offensive and defensive lines, they'll just push people around. Look for the horns to win the Rose Bowl again this season, and hoist Mack Brown's first Big 12 and National Championship trophies.

The Most Important Meal of the Day

2005-08-04T00:26:00.000-05:00

I have lived in Texas for two years. The food here is great. I have to admit, I have gained weight since I have moved down here. From Tex-Mex, to barbeque, to Whataburger, to Mangia Pizza, to Amy's Ice Cream it's all beyond fantastic. One thing that I have missed out on is pancakes. I pretty much had not eaten a great pancake in my two years here, that is, until last Saturday. I went to a place called the Kerbey Lane Cafe and their buttermilk pancakes pretty much rocked my world. I would even say that they are on par with the pancakes at the Millrace Restaurant at the Clifton Mill. While finally experiencing world-class pancakes in Texas is nice, another favorite food to tempt me is the last thing that I need.

The Ageless Will Smith

2005-07-13T22:51:00.000-05:00

(top-bottom, Will Smith as Hitch (2005), Will Smith as The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air (circa 1990))

15 years have passed and Will Smith has not aged at all. Other actors and actresses have gone completely down the tubes, but Will Smith has found some sort of fountain of youth.

btw... you have to love the laceless Air Jordan V's the Fresh Prince is rocking, classic

What starts here changes the world

2005-06-21T23:02:00.000-05:00

The symbol that W is making above is the University of Texas' "Hook 'em Horns!" It's kind of like a gang sign for everyone that has love for the University of Texas. At the end of every home sporting event at the University of Texas, the team salutes the crowd with this symbol as "The Eyes of Texas" is played. It's something unique to the University of Texas, and other people are jealous. If you tune in to any of the College World Series this week, you'll see plenty of hook 'ems, but you'll see plenty of fans displaying an upside-down hook 'em. They don't have their own sign, so they rip off Texas' sign instead of actually rooting for their team.

(above: Houston Nutt displaying the inverted hook 'em after his Arkansas Razorbacks beat the Texas Longhorns' football team)

Tom Landry used to say that when you score a touchdown, "Act like you've been there before." The thing is, teams get over on Texas so rarely, that they have to get so geeked when they beat Texas. They may have never done it before, and they may not do it again. So go ahead, pathetic inverted hook 'em flashers, enjoy your moment, because you know that your standard beatdown is coming next time, and probably the next ten times after that.

WEEKEND! I live for the WEEKEND!

2005-06-19T00:01:00.000-05:00

IS THAT BLOOD OR BLACKBERRY JUICE ON YOUR HANDS? OR BOTH?
Daylyn and I drove off to Marble Falls this morning to pick some blackberries at the Sweet Berry Farm . Marble Falls is smack dab in the middle of the Texas Hill country, about an hour from Round Rock. The drive is beautiful, forgetting my camera was a big mistake. It was major fun scooting our Scion xA through the winding, hilly roads. We spent an hour picking and wound up with about five pounds of blackberries. My fingers got a little knicked up from the prickly blackberry bushes (or vines?), but the payoff of the forthcoming blackberry pies will make it well worth the minor discomfort.

NO LONGER PRESIDENT OF THE PROCRASINATORS' CLUB
When I was a senior in college, my dog literally ate my glasses, or at least she mangled the frames. Up to that point, I probably wore my contacts sixty percent of the time, and glasses the remaining forty percent. I haven't had glasses at all in the four years since. I've had vision coverage on my insurance that whole time, but somehow I just didn't get around to it , despite the fact that having contacts and not having glasses is a major pain (and I complained about this frequently).
I had an appointment with the eye doctor today, and the exam and the selection of glasses took all of thirty minutes. So, five to ten business days from now I will probably be sporting glasses forty percent of the time again, and that's one less thing to complain about.

Guess Who's Bizzack

2005-06-14T23:40:00.000-05:00

SPORTS BOOKS JONES

It's funny. My last post, which was sometime during the Reagan administration, mentioned Gene Wojciechowski's upcoming book Cubs Nation. Tonight I actually finished that very book. I've been on a sports book kick lately, the last book I finished was Friday Night Lights. The two books, Cubs Nation and Friday Night Lights, have the same premise: guy follows around an athletic team for a whole season, witnessing the good, the bad, and the ugly. Of course, Cubs Nation was based on the 2004 Cubs season, so it was mostly ugly. Reading the book actually stressed me out, it brought back frustrating memories of a season that was so full of promise, but yet went down the drain in such a hurry. The great part about reading the book now instead of during the off-season was that I could say, "Well, there's always this year!"

A BIT OF GEEK CRED

I've been dissatisfied with my computer's performance for quite some time now. My finances preclude me from purchasing a new box at this time. So I did the next best thing, or quite possibly the only thing I could do to improve my ailing presario's performance. I purchased 256mb of RAM from newegg.com for the low, low price of $18.00. I then proceeded to disassemble, and install the ram all by myself. To the techno-inclined this may be as difficult to them as tying their shoes, but for me it was a venture into a world of craftsmanship that I had never approached, and I am proud of myself.

WEIRD THOUGHT OF THE DAY

With all the zombie movies out these days, I wonder if someday the advance of cosmetic surgey will render the genre implausible. Like the corpses emerge from the cemetary to be greated by the billboard: "Undead? decayed flesh? sagging and distorted facial features? - Dr. James A. Plastic Surgeon will fix you right up!"

More Sammy

2005-01-31T21:12:00.000-06:00

Excellent takes here from Gene Wojciechowski on Sammy Sosa. Some of my favorite lines from the article :

"You want to know why Sosa is no longer a Cub? Because he forgot how to take the temperature of a city that can stomach losing but despises frauds. He underestimated the long-term effects of his annual late arrivals to spring training, his no-shows at the yearly Cubs Convention, the 2003 corked-bat incident, the 2004 hissy fits when Baker had no choice but to drop him in the batting order, the ditch-and-lie incident of Oct. 3."

"Actually, he deserves exactly this. After all, this is a legacy Sosa forged himself, home run by home run, insolent act by insolent act. He was showered with fame, fortune and, at times, boos -- and in the end, he didn't know how to handle any of the three."

"I can already hear Sosa. He'll rave about the Orioles' lineup, about having something to prove. But he misses the point. Sosa had something to prove in Chicago but took the easy way out.
He bolted. Again."

Gene's book Cubs Nation : 162 Games. 162 Stories. 1 Addiction will be realeased April 12th, and you can bet I will be pre-ordering that bad boy.

Just continuing the streak

2005-01-30T21:59:00.000-06:00

I think today, that maybe yesterday's post on Sammy Sosa was a little harsh. He could come back this year for the O's and really prove me wrong. I really hope he doesn't.

The Sammy Sosa trade

2005-01-29T23:06:00.000-06:00

The Cubs have traded Sammy Sosa. The point at which I wanted him traded was when, instead of striking fear into the hearts of pitchers, he got scared and moved his batting stance further away from the plate. Or maybe it was when teams stopped intentionally walking him, and started intentionally walking batters in front of him to get to him. Or maybe it was when a sneeze gave him back spasms and sidelined him for a couple games. It wasn't the corked bat incident, or the walking out on his teammates on the last day of the season incident, it was the fact that he just was not getting it done on the field anymore. The greatest character flaws are easily forgiven if you can hit .300 with over 40 home runs. Barry Bonds and Sammy Sosa are both self-absorbed ego-maniacs who will resort to cheating to succeed. The difference between the two is that Barry has the drive to pull it off. Sammy could get into real great shape and put together some monster years, but he won't. Sammy lacks respect and understanding for the game, his own team, and his own legacy, and for that reason he deserves no respect and understanding in return.

halfway moved

2005-01-28T18:55:00.000-06:00

I watched Total Recall for the first time last night, and there was only one moment when I thought "Hey, that guy is the governor of California!" It was great. After seeing it, I now realize that The Matrix was not nearly as revolutionary and innovative as I thought it was. The Wachowski brothers are certainly not the geniuses that everyone thought that they were back in 1999. If you watch The Terminator and Total Recall back to back, not only will you be speaking with an Austrian acccent, but you'll think "Man, those Wachowski bros sure ganked a lot of stuff from these movies!"

It's Thursday and I don't have to work tomorrow

2005-01-27T17:46:00.000-06:00

I'm going to make this short. I have a long weekend coming up, but it's not quite a real long weekend, because more than 50% of it will consist of moving. And I don't mean moving around, I mean moving all of my stuff from one domicile to another, not my favorite thing.

Before I bust out of here to take in Meet the Fockers for free, I'll leave you with a link to Bill Simmons' latest mailbag column . Bill Simmons is to writing as Jim Rome is to radio.

It's Awesome baby with a capital "A"

2005-01-26T21:26:00.000-06:00

Illinois basketball is on fire. Not only are the University of Illinois Fighting Illini 20-0 (Just as I predicted back in November in my "things to watch" post ), but the Chicago Bulls have been almost as good, winning 17 of their last 20 games. With the Illini, it's expected, they've had like one losing season in 25 years. So it's twice as sweet with the Bulls, because they have been so bad for so long. This is a very good time to be a a fan of Illinois basketball, but then again, it's always a good time to be a fan of Illinois basketball.

Quote of the Day

2005-01-25T20:57:00.000-06:00

"Boycott shampoo! Demand the REAL poo!"
- Steven Wright