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| Not sure if any of you folks caught it but the Super Bowl was played
last week. It was on tv and so I decided to watch it.
Actually I was so uninterested that I tuned in 2 minutes late. No
I didn't watch the stupid halftime show. I heard Mick Jagger had
another wardrobe malfunction - disgusting.
I was glad to see Jerome Bettis get the win since I'm a Notre Dame
fan. Too bad ND doesn't have any good running backs anymore like
him. I think he was probably our last really good one.
Julius Jones was good but he was completely wasted by the dumbass staff
that was there at the time. Thank God they were replaced and now
are infecting a once proud Washington Husky football program.
Mold on! You stay classy Ty!
Anyway let me depart from football a moment and then I'll tell a story
about the Super Bowl. I recently installed Linux on my
laptop. I have wanted to dump Billdows for a long time since it
has and always will forever suck. As you know Gates stole or
bought a crappy operating system (DOS) and foisted it upon a naive
public. DOS was a virus from the beginning. Even though a
real OS already existed called Unix, Gates opted for DOS which became
Windows 3.1 and on and on. Now every 2 years M$oft creates
another incompatible clone with a fancy new name blah blah blah.
As everyone knows Linux is just a repackaged Unix. It's a
developers dream to work with and I always wanted to install it on my
laptop. But I had a few Windows-only apps like Quicken,
Quickbooks, TurboTax that I just couldn't live without so I was
stuck. Alas, I discovered this really cool product called VMWare
which stands for Virtual Machine Ware. I downloaded an eval copy
and installed it on a Desktop machine I was using that already had
Linux on it. Then I created a Windows Virtual machine on it and
sure enough it works like the real thing. It's pretty fast even
on a 600 MHZ machine. Then I installed my QB, Quicken, TT on it
and I'll be darned if it didn't work flawlessly! So then I
installed Linux on my laptop and VMWare + XP + QB, etc. Really
nice! It feels so good to no longer rely on Windows for my
everyday development use. My version of Linux (Redhat) even comes
with an Office-compatible Software suite so I can read Word, Excel,
etc. files!
Now back to the Super Bowl. My wife Beth and I were watching the
game together. My wife has been watching football every since
we've been married around 30 years now. So we're watching and
there's this play where the Pittsburgh QB is scrambling while looking
downfield for a receiver. He's running towards the LOS (line of
scrimmage). He's trying to be real careful to not cross the LOS
because he still wants to throw to one of his receivers
downfield. So he gets really close to the LOS and then kind of
backs up and then heaves it downfield and I think Hines Ward catches
the pass on the 4 yard line. This leads to the goahead touchdown
- a real key play. But before they can get the next play
the refs agree to review the play. The question is: did the
Pittsburgh QB cross the LOS? If he did then the pass would have
been an ILLEGAL FORWARD PASS!!!! A HUGE NO NO IN FOOTBALL!!!!! So
my wife asks what's WRONG WITH THROWING A FORWARD PASS AFTER YOU CROSS
THE LINE OF SCRIMMAGE?????????????????????????????????????? In
all the years of football she didn't realize that was against the
rules. To compound things she goes on a diatribe about how it
SHOULDN'T BE AGAINST THE RULES YOU SHOULD BE ABLE TO THROW THE BALL
ANYWHERE ON THE FIELD.
I told her that would be like Shaq being able to just stand under the
goal and put his hand through the basket and knock every shot out of
the rim - it just wouldn't be fair. It's an arbitrary rule
designed to make the game fair. Can you imagine how the game
would be if there wasn't a rule? Football scores would be like
120-95!
Announcer 1: Leinhart fades back looking, looking for a receiver
... everyone covered... he scrambles ahead ... he's at the 20, the 25,
the 30 ... oh he's almost tackled ... at the 35 ... oh here comes Zibby
up to make a crushing tackle ... oh no Wooden has fallen down ... WR
Smith is WIDE OPEN AT THE 10 .... Leinhart throws .... TOUCHDOWN
USC!!!!!!!!!
Crowd: RAAAAHHHHA RRAHHHHHAAAH AHHRRHHRAH ANOIISEE AHHRRR RRAHHAHAHAA
Announcer 2: ND is once again victimized by sloppy DB play .. Wooden knows he needs to cover Smith on that play .... !!!!!
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| on the intracacies of Barbie!
My recent Red Ryder BB gun adventure:
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| As you know from my many previous postings I have recently accepted a fulltime job in my hometown of Jackson, Mississippi. For most of the last seven years I have worked as a computer programmer in various cities on a contract basis. So it will be good to be at home with my lovely wife and beautiful daughter, not to mention wonderful nieces and nephews.
Today I drove from Ridgeland to Birmingham, Alabama to finish up the last week of the contract before I start my new job. Everything was beautiful. The sun shone brightly. Birds were singing (although it's hard to hear them at 85 mph), squirrels were playing and vultures were enjoying a hardy early morning piece of roadkill.
Then something strange happened. As I was crossing the state line into the beautiful state of Alabama ... suddenly ... I realized ... everything was upside down! Yes upside down. Fortunately since everything was upside down then it mostly looked rightside up but you could tell it was still upside down. Very strange indeed.
Our Christmas holiday was thoroughly enjoyable. We had some memorable services Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. I had to force my daughter to attend the Christmas Eve service but by the time it was over she told me, "Dad, thanks for making me go I'll never forget you for all that you have done to make my life so unbelievably wonderful even when I don't realize your instructions are so wise and wonderful." Can you believe that quote? What respect I have from my family.
Christmas Day also involved the traditional gift unwrapping. After opening all of my totally uninspring and boring gifts I received one more. A 3 foot long rectangular box with shiny red wrapping paper on it. I thought to myself, "Hmm." I began to tear it open at the end and read the label: RED RYDER BB-GUN!!!!! I instantly tore through the box like a piece of kleenex and yes it was the Red Ryder BB Gun at long last after so many years many desperate years of desperate longing oh at last my own BB Gun not a borrowed one but my own. Then my sometimes 20 year old son ripped the gun out of my hands and loaded a bunch of BBs into it and began to shoot anything that moved in the house including guinea pigs, ornaments, people, picture frames, etc.!
We did some target practice later that day at my father-in-law's house. My shooting was incredible. I basically didn't miss all day. Even when we moved 300 yards away from a thimble which is what I was using for a target since aluminum cans proved to be ridiculously too easy. After I grew bored of such standing targets I began to target moving animals. Last count I bagged 25 squirrels and 57 birds. Eventually this grew tiresome so I began shooting straight into the air and catching the bb in my mouth.
Then night fell.
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