Cap'n Ken's Homespun Wisdom

A new bill for Congress

2005-03-21T14:14:00.000-05:00

I'm going to write my congressman and senators and ask for the introduction of the following bill:

For the relief of Cap'n Ken.

S 687 ES

109th CONGRESS

1st Session

S. 687

AN ACT

For the relief of Cap'n Ken.

SECTION 1. RELIEF OF CAP'N KEN.

The United States shall give Cap'n Ken the sum of thirty thousand US Dollars ($30,000) , to be exempt from all federal, state and local income taxes, for the purpose of purchasing a 2005 Nissan 350Z Touring edition for the personal use of Cap'n Ken.

SEC. 2. PROCEDURE.

Cap'n Ken shall be entitled to the sum of thirty thousand US Dollars ($30,000) under the restriction that the aforementioned funds be used solely for the purchase of a new 2005 Nissan 350Z Touring edition hatchback sports coupe.

SEC. 3. RELIEF.

This act shall relieve Cap'n Ken of the inhuman shame of not owning a 2005 Nissan 350Z Touring edition.

SEC. 4. TIME FOR FILING.

Said vehicle must be titled in the name of Cap'n Ken and purchased within 90 days of receipt of funds.

SEC. 5. NO CHANGE OF SUBSTANTIVE RIGHTS.

Nothing in this Act shall be construed to create substantive rights not otherwise secured by the Constitution and laws of the United States or of the several States.

SEC. 6. NO EFFECT ON OTHER PEOPLE HAVING TO BUY THEIR OWN CARS.

Nothing in this Act shall be construed to confer additional jurisdiction on any court to consider any claim related--

(1) to other people having to buy their own cars, or

(2) Cap'n Ken having to buy things like Mac Minis, iPods and other entertainment devices using his own funds (unless exempted by other Acts of Congress.

SEC. 7. NO PRECEDENT FOR FUTURE LEGISLATION.

Nothing in this Act shall constitute a precedent with respect to future legislation, including the provision of private relief bills.

SEC. 8. NO AFFECT ON THE SELF-BUYING ACT OF 1990.

Nothing in this Act shall affect the rights of any person under the Self-Buying Act of 1990.

SEC. 9. SENSE OF THE CONGRESS.

It is the Sense of Congress that the 109th Congress should consider policies regarding the purchase of other vehicular and entertainment items for Cap'n Ken in the future.

109th CONGRESS

1st Session

S. 687

AN ACT

For the relief of Cap'n Ken.

Blogger sucks

2005-03-17T13:38:00.000-05:00

Sorry to say it, but Blogger simply blows. Maybe it's just too popular now, but most days I can get anything to publish before about 3 p.m.

And considering my inclination is to write in the morning, most days I just don't even try, which is why The Wisdom is a thinner read these days (I bailed out of my observations on St. Patrick's Day and March Madness today).

I've looked around at some other publishing tools, but I've so far stuck with Blogger because I don't want to re-create the vast library of Wisdom pieces and migrate to another system.

Considering that Blogger is owned by Google and that Google (by some accounts) holds more processing power than any other private business in the world, you'd think Blogger would work to iron out whatever capacity/access/publishing problems they've been having for the past few months.

But for now, Blogger simply sucks.

Sirius > DishDVR > iMic > iTunes > iPod

2005-03-16T14:16:00.000-05:00

In my Monday Musical Notes bit, I threw out the notion that I could probably get my favorite Underground Garage tunes onto my iPod through the Sirius channels on Dish Network.

So today at lunch, I decided to give it a shot. Guess what? It works.

For those of you who found The Wisdom searching for something like [+sirius +ipod +"dish network"] and for anybody else who's geeky enough to care, here's how to make this particular magic happen:

- My setup is: DishDVR (721); Mac Mini; Griffin iMic (with Griffin's Final Vinyl audio recording software; iTunes and a big boy iPod.

- The tasks: 1) Record a few hours of Underground Garage, which is part of the Sirius broadcast on Dish Network's audio channels. 2) Output the recorded audio to the Mac. 3) Record the audio on the Mac. 4) Bring the recorded audio into iTunes. 5) Sync to iPod.

Task 1 (Recording Sirius): Pretty straight-forward. Dish allows me to record the music channels just like I would regular TV. The Dish feed includes the standard Sirius display of song and artist (this is important later).

Task 2 (Output to the Mac): Using the second set of outputs from the DishDVR, I ran standard RCA audio cables from the DishDVR to the iMic. The iMic came with an RCA to minijack adapter that I used for the connection.

Task 3 (Recording on the Mac): Final Vinyl will record from any audio input (in WAV) and gives you the ability to automatically cut tracks based on dead air and all that. But for my purposes (getting individual tracks with artist and song title) I'm cutting one track at a time and editing out any bits of previous or next songs I happen to pick up. My desire for artist/song information means I'm working a manual, hands-on process. I have the Mac Mini and DishDVR running on my 44" DLP TV in split-screen mode, and I simply fast forward through the Sirius recording until a song I want shows up (remember, I'm seeing the artist/song information on the DishDVR screen). When I find something I want, I back it up to the beginning, hit record on Final Vinyl and let the song play. When it ends, I hit stop and clean up any intro/outro mess with the Final Vinyl editor. You fellow old people may remember this basic technique from the days of making cassette recordings of LPs.

Task 4 (Getting in to iTunes): Pretty simple; I just drag the file Final Vinyl saved into my iTunes playlist. It's then converted and copied to my iTunes folder. Once it's in iTunes, I edit the track information to drop in the artist and song name (as well as an album tag of "Sirius Grabs" so I can find it later on the iPod). I wish Final Vinyl would let me edit the track tag to save a step, but no luck there. I might look for another free recording app that lets me do this.

Task 5 (Syncing to iPod): Well, duh. Happens automatically when I connect the iPod to the Mac Mini.

I did a test recording of three tracks at lunch, and the playback quality on the iPod is pretty damned good. Obviously in stereo and pretty much sounds like what I get straight from Sirius.

I know some of you may be thinking this is very labor-intensive. And it is. But a couple of things to note:

- This is "weird" music I'm recording; stuff like Hawaii Mud Bombers and Boss Martians that is hard to find in the regular world. So the value of getting this hard-to-find stuff justifies (in my mind, at least) the labor.

- I could simply let Final Vinyl capture a big chunk (say an hour or two) of Underground Garage and cut up the tracks automatically - or even just create one big file ala Podcasting - to further automate the process, but I find value in having artist/song information on my files, so that also justifies the labor. Ideally, I could get the artist/track data out of the DishDVR as well, but that seems unlikely.

So that's my latest little project. It worked pretty much on the first shot, which is rare.

Musical notes

2005-03-14T10:02:00.000-05:00

With the audio-processing part of my brain freshly stimulated by the introduction of an iPod, Mac Mini and 250GB hard drive, it's time for a few ramblings on music.

• I'm really tardy on this, but Loretta Lynn's Van Lear Rose is a flat-out amazing album. Once again - ala Johnny Cash and Rick Rubin - the teaming of a country legend and a younger kid (Jack White) who understands what makes country music great results in a mind-blowing piece of work.

• Maybe there's hope for America. Loyal readers of The Wisdom will remember my lament at the fact that the new Kings Of Leon album was issued in England (I got a copy from across the pond) four months before coming out in the States, because the British actually like the band. Well, it turns out that the hairy Tennesseans are getting some good buzz from their song The Bucket. Appearances on Letterman, Carson Daly and elsewhere, and their stuff is showing up on Bittorrents (a sure sign of success). So that's good news for good music. The Kings, by the way, are playing Atlanta Friday. I shall, of course, be there. A good show at The Roxy is about the only thing that'll get me to Buckhead.

• My new favorite band of the moment (not to be confused with my favorite band of all time, which is and shall continue to be The Replacements) is The Mooney Suzuki. They bring the stylish punk vibe of Rocket From The Crypt and infuse it with this old-school Kiss feel. Most excellent.

• On the roots-rock end of things, I'm digging The Bottle Rockets. Nothing Earth-shattering, and really makes me wish 6 String Drag was still around, but worthy of some Pepsi credits at iTunes.

• On the weird end of things, The Kills are pretty interesting. Kind of like Timbuk 3 meets Garbage (yes, I coined that analogy), and Alison "VV" Mosshart has really perfected that "hot girl who wouldn't be hot if she weren't a rock chick" thing. Coming to The EARL April 14, by the way.

• On the amazing end of things are The Flairz. First heard on Sirius' fabulous Underground Garage. You can tell they're young and unpolished - but it turns out they're 11!. Yes, eleven years old. Two Australian brothers and a girl cousin, who sings and plays drums. What were you doing when you were 11? And, by the way, the girl - Scarlett Stevens - is going to be smokin' hot by the time she turns 15 16 17 18 19 18.

• And finally, as nice as iTunes is for picking up semi-strange music (thanks, Pepsi!), there's a ton of stuff on Underground Garage that simply doesn't appear to be commercially available. Little Steven seems able to find bands like The Cocktail Slippers, Hawaii Mud Bombers and The Flairz, so maybe Sirius should partner with iTunes or something to make this stuff available online (I bought The Flairz through an Australian music site, but have yet to go that far for others). Or, as I realized last night, I could just DVR a few hours of Underground Garage through Dish Network (yes, I can record the audio channels on the TiFaux), find this weird stuff I like and rip it out to MP3. Interesting.

Why I bought Apple stock yesterday

2005-03-10T16:24:00.000-05:00

Until just over a month ago, I'd never bought an Apple product in my life. But that's my stash now.

Around my office, iPods are omnipresent (one co-worker just upgrated his old 40GB for a 30GB iPod Photo) and one guy I work with just bought a Mac Mini and a 12" Powerbook. When we were in New York, the Apple Store in SoHo was packed - on a Friday afternoon.

So when Apple's stock got dinged yesterday on "fears" that the Napster subscription service might hurt iTunes (don't bet on it), I took the opportunity to buy AAPL at a slight discount.

Of course, I'm somewhat late to the party, but over the past couple of months I've become an Apple Believer.

Mr. Jobs is only now scratching the surface of the home PC market. I think the Mac Mini will be a huge success, and Apple may finally get a bit of a foothold in the PC game.

Think about the two obstacles that have always faced Apple:

1) Macs have always been much more expensive than Windows boxes
2) Macs have always suffered from a relative lack of software (compared to Windows machines)

But the Mac Mini is pretty affordable. And who uses "software programs" these days? The things most people do on a PC at home - surfing the web, organizing photos and music, playing games, chatting and emailing - are either web-based of handled by free software (such as iLife).

So you even the playing field a good bit there. Then consider that Macs are better than Windows machines at handling most of the tasks above - not to mention much easier to network; more secure and more user-friendly - Apple has the potential to be a big player in the modern PC market.

And in the world of convergence, Macs are much better equipped to serve as DVRs, audio jukeboxes, movie editors and the like. I bought the Mac Mini specifically as a home theater component, in fact.

We're at a point where the PC of the future is being shaped. And more and more it looks like it'll be Apple-shaped.

Outside of the PC space, Apple will continue plowing ahead with iPod and iTunes. Expect to see fresh new iPod models every six months or so, and don't bet against a Napster-style subscription service for iTunes.

Down the road, who knows what Apple will be up to. iTV - where you can buy/rent digital TV shows or movies ala carte? If Steve Jobs could get the record companies to sell digital content online, why not the TV networks? Anybody notice that the DVI connector that's on the back of every Mac just also happens to be what's on the back of HDTVs?

I have no clue what Apple will come out with next. But they've made me a believer.

Bud Extra

2005-03-08T09:20:00.000-05:00

Apparently the good folks over at Anheuser-Busch are not content with the more than two dozen mostly crappy beer varieties they currently have on the market. The problem? Not a single one of these brews contains caffeine, guarana or ginseng.

The solution? Bud Extra, or as the kids call it "B to the E" [editor's note: the kids don't actually call this anything - Budweiser is just tagging it as "B to the E" in the hopes of that handle, rather than "crappy Bud thing with caffeine in it", catches on].

Obviously, this is a response to the Red Bull & Vodka craze, which must be stealing dollars from Big Bud. But a beer with stimulants in it? That's just plain silly.

As loyal readers of The Wisdom know, I'm a Maker's Mark man. I drink 'em with a Diet Coke on the side. Diet Coke has caffeine, but that's not why I pair it with my bourbon. But kids who do the Red Bull & Vodka thing, I imagine, are looking for that extra punch the Red Bull stimulants give to their Vodka drunk rather than a nice flavor enhancement.

Back in my youth, it was Gatorade that was used to speed alcohol along its way. I'm glad stimulant technology has advanced since then.

But a stimulant beer? What the hell is the point of that? Regular Budweiser is 4.7% alcohol, and you have to figure the caffeine, guarana and ginseng replace at least a little bit of that alcohol. And it looks like they're selling it in 10-ounce cans, which means a can of Bud Extra would have something like 0.45 ounces of alcohol. And presumably, it would have enough stimulant to be noticed, which means the stimulant to alcohol ratio would be pretty high. Translation: all jitter, no buzz.

A 10-ounce Red Bull and Vodka (mixed 50/50), on the other hand, would have 2 ounces of alcohol to go along with the ton of caffeine and other stimulants. Jitter and buzz will get along nicely there.

So it looks like Bud Extra is another example of the giant, bland market bully trying to cash in on a trend that's out of their control. Good luck with that.

My multifunctional Mac Mini

2005-03-07T14:14:00.000-05:00

The upside of coming home early from New York was that I was able to get over to FedEx and pick up the miracle box that is Mac Mini. After just a day, Mini has weaved its way nicely into the PC/Entertainment mix at The Wisdom Household:

• Mini plugged right in to the DVI input of our HDTV (at full HD res, thank you very much), giving us a 44" Apple-quality monitor. I loaded up the wife's pictures from New York into iPhoto, which run as fabulous screen-saver images. Surfing the web at 44" is also interesting.

• I got an Apple Bluetooth Keyboard and Apple Bluetooth Mouse, which both work flawlessly. After all, you don't want to have to sit within wired mouse distance from that 44" screen.

• I also set Mini up with a VNC client, so I can work on it through our laptop without having to use the TV as a monitor when the wife wants to watch Faking It.

• Mini is now hosting the iTunes library and syncing with my iPod (which is now formatted for Mac). Our 250GB external hard drive now lives behind Mini through USB and holds the iTunes files.

• Mini is outputting stereo audio (from a headphone to RCA adapter) to our A/V receiver, so iTunes is also now a home stereo jukebox. If I had a component CD player, I'd be throwing it out today.

• Mini is a high-quality DVD player, but I don't expect to be using it to play regular commercial DVDs because it doesn't output digital sound. Our regular progressive scan DVD player will still handle NetFlix duties.

• Mini would do a fine job of editing video and burning to DVD through iDVD if we had a video camera and/or things we wanted to shoot video of. But having HD capabilities in iMovie is a good excuse to buy this, isn't it?

• Mini, as I suspected/feared, functions quite nicely as a wireless network bridge (all you have to do is ask it to be one!), and I came dangerously close to getting the PlayStation 2 online through it last night. But the intricacies of routing a connection to Sony from the PS2, through the Mini, through the router and through the DSL modem are yet to be resolved. I've been able to get a laptop online through it, but not yet the PS2. It's complicated. And that may be a good thing.

Apart from getting the PS2 to work right (not Mini's fault, by the way), I only have a few network-related tasks to complete in order to bring Mini fully into the fold.

My plan is to have Mini serve digital content (i.e. Bittorrented audio/video files), but have the PCs upstairs (the new Dell and the old clone - both controlled remotely now using TightVNC) fetch the content. So getting the PCs to dump files somewhere (ideally the 250GB drive) Mini can find them is key.

All in all, Mini ramped up into position quite nicely. It's amazing how easily Macs can fold in to an existing PC network, how nicely they talk to wireless devices and how well they ride the line between computer and home entertainment.

And I'm only on Day 2.

A culinary tour of New York

2005-03-05T08:27:00.000-05:00

Yesterday, the wife and I were lucky enough to enjoy two of our favorite New York eateries in one day.

For breakfast, we had hot dogs from a vendor in Battery Park, and for lunch we hit the city's best sandwich shop - Peanut Butter & Co. in Greenwich Village. "The lady will have The Elvis - no bacon - on wheat and I will have the Peanut Butter Cup on white."

And, yes, the wife does actually enjoy street food and peanut butter sandwiches. We've been here almost a week, and the only fancy meal we've had was at Hell's Kitchen (the restaurant - yes, in Hell's Kitchen) with some co-workers. Otherwise, it's been pizza by the slice, coffee shop sandwiches and - sadly - box lunches at the conference.

We were supposed to go out with Daniella and her man last night, but the wife has taken ill (next time, Daniella - I swear). In fact, we're cutting out early today to get her back home. A couple of days of walking around in 30 degree weather can get to you.

Or maybe it was that street dog ... nah.

Gawker

2005-03-04T08:55:00.000-05:00

I had some free time yesterday morning while the wife was in a conference session, so I decided to hit the streets for a bit. We were staying between Rockefeller Center and Central Park, so I headed up to the park and then back down 5th Avenue.

Before we got up to town, I asked the wife if she wanted to go see The Gates in Central Park, as they were being taken down last Monday. She shared my view: The Gates = Gay (not "gay" as in homosexually-oriented. "Gay" as in stupid). So we didn't. And I'd expected them to be gone by Thursday morning, so I was surprised to still see them in the south end of the park.

And I was wrong about The Gates. They're not gay. They're Super Gay. Seriously. It looks like the silt fencing you have to put around construction sites. Traffic-cone orange posts and matching sheets hanging down. Hideous. The mayor was on TV last night saying how many millions of dollars were generated for New York by The Gates, so good for them. Thank God for stupid tourists.

I then walked down 5th Avenue to Rockefeller Center, and as I was cutting across to 6th, I saw this big crowd of people standing outside the Today Show back door. So I gawked. From the makeup of the crowd, I started to think we were waiting to see JLo. And I was right. Several limos sat on the street, and the crowd kept growing.

Now, please understand that I have no interest in JLo. But this was a spectacle. And just as I went to see Jimmy Swaggart's "I have sinned against you, my Lord ..." sermon in person and once drove up to the Atlanta federal prison (as a teenager - now I live just a few miles away) to watch the Cuban riot drama, I figured hanging around for 15 minutes to catch a glimpse of JLo was a worthy investment in spectacle.

But we were tricked. Instead of JLo, NBC sent out a group of young Puerto Rican girls, who got in the big limo and left. I imagine JLo was snuck out a different back way. It should be noted, however, that it apparently takes three big roller suitcases, four huge Rubbermaid bins and two coolers worth of stuff to make JLo presentable for television.

That was a spectacle in itself.

Mini's world tour

2005-03-02T20:17:00.000-05:00

I got an email from Apple yesterday informing me that my Mac Mini has shipped. I've got the FedEx tracking number, so I've been watching her progress.

Mini will be at my door by 10:30 a.m. on March 7. And she only started her journey today, at the FedEx ramp in Shenzhen, China. And tonight, she's already made it to Alaska. In five days, she'll be in my hands.

From China to me in six days. And this was the free shipping option. Gotta love this world.

Ancient technology and me

2005-02-28T16:59:00.000-05:00

I'm almost embarassed sometimes to whip out my Blackberry to check email. The Berry I tote, you see, is ancient. The Blackberry 857 was released last century. I think it was the first one to have the full screen and keyboard. I remember being in a demo with the RIM guys when this was the hot new thing. But no more.

Nowadays Blackberrys are blue. They're also telephones and PDAs. They're small. So while my dinosaur (company-issued) gets me what I need - instant email access when I'm out of the office - it's hardly a cutting-edge, Hip Internet Dude kind of thing to carry.

But today I feel better about it. I'm at a conference, you see, and the conference lobby has an "email center" where people queue up to check their email via the web. And at most times there's a line. Sometimes a dozen deep to get on one of the four machines. These appear to be people still tied to a PC and browser to get their mail.

Today I exchanged about a half-dozen messages with folks at at HQ; got things moving, got things done. All on my ancient Blackberry, and all instantly. So my Berry may be a relic, but I guess there's still a lot of people who'd kill to have one.

P.S. being at a work conference with the wife rules. Snow sucks.

A day in the flood

2005-02-24T21:10:00.000-05:00

The other night at trivia (we came in second, one point off the win - damned Midnight Cowboy), I was talking with That Yellow Bastard and Brown about life as the hip Internet/technology dudes that we are. But that's another post.

I started thinking out loud about how folks like us (who work in and around the Internet) get exposed to pretty much a non-stop stream of information during the day, and how people like doctors, garbagemen, Starbucks workers and the like who don't work in front of a PC don't have this infostream in their reach 40 hours a week.

And now, with RSS my constant companion, the infostream has really turned into a flood. Now, as I work on my PC, the information comes directly at me. I rarely hunt for information anymore. It all finds me.

So today, I decided to take note of what came into my brain through my feeds. Below is a summary of what I learned from each of the 47 RSS items I felt compelled to read during my workday. This - in chrono order of what I read - comes from about 75 feeds that delivered probably 400 items from 6 p.m. Wednesday to 5:30 p.m. today.

- HUMAX will be making DirecTV equipment
- Yahoo Image Search launched some improvements
- AOL Local Search launched
- Somebody built a four-story Super Mario Bros. mural out of Post-It Notes
- James Van Der Beek is coming back to television
- There's a Hello Kitty iPod Mini dock thing
- iPod Photo Import feature unveiled
- Somebody's made a held-tilt mouse controlled by webcam recognition
- PNY plans to sell 2GB flash audio player
- Preview of Kenwood's KCA-iP500 iPod adaptor
- Europeans expect to have artificial eyes available by 2010
- Apple rumored to be buying TiVo
- John G. has a real problem with Dell
- Is Google coming out with a calendar search feature?
- Disney planning to finally release Song of the South on DVD?
- High-end RVs are spurring trend of posh trailer parks
- UAW trying again to organize at Southern auto plants
- Photos of Porsche Chopster
- Google, Yahoo downgraded by stock analysts
- Is the WSJ killing itself by requiring subscriptions for online content?
- Microsoft implementing tougher anti-piracy measures for its software
- Rumors of Yahoo buying Flickr
- Judge says FCC crossed the line with broadcast flag
- Witness in Edwin Edwards case says EWE's friends out to get him
- Televangelist Gene Scott died
- Progress of state smoking ban in Ga. Legislature
- State senator wants to split Fulton County in two
- Vertical Search gaining traction
- MGM's plans for Mirage City in Vegas
- Harsh message people get when they misdial Sprint PCS collections
- German operations of search engines set up self-policing board to
remove illegal content
- Robin went to the dentist
- Steve Jobs is 50 today
- yes.com shows you what's been played on terrestrial radio stations
recently, in case you can't remember the 28 songs places ever play
- Australia is being terrorized by a giant eel
- Sony's given up on the PSX, which was supposed to be a combo PlayStation and DVR
- You can buy a dildo that hooks to your XBox
- Analysis of why Apple might want to buy TiVo
- Barnes & Noble is fighting back against Google's AutoLink toolbar feature
- Warner Home Video will sell DVDs cheap in China to fight piracy
- Somebody who reads the wife's blog actually likes Maroon 5
- You can buy a USB drive that looks like a Tiki
- ChoicePoint is now getting sued over their identity leak
- Is Apple losing interest in FireWire?

Obviously, a varied set of information. Some of it's work-related, some is tech-geek related, and some is quite random. But I started the day not knowing any of it, and maybe I would have learned about 5 or 6 of these things eventually if I hadn't been sitting at my PC being fed by RSS.

Will I remember all of this stuff? No. Would I want to? Probably not. But at the time I read each of these things, I deemed the information worth knowing. And there's more stuffed in my head now than when the day began.

Again, I'm not sure that's a good thing. But worth noting.

I'll take the tornadoes and ice, thank you

2005-02-22T09:25:00.000-05:00

We had some fairly intense weather move through Atlanta last night. A little bit of hail, lots of lighting and heavy rain. The dogs started freaking out, which had the wife convinced a tornado was coming at us.

Couple this with our recent ice storm, the two ex-hurricanes that moved through last year and the general threat of severe weather we live under in the winter (ice) and spring (tornadoes), and you'd be inclined to think weather is a negative thing about living in Atlanta.

My friends in L.A. certainly share this view.

But the current situation out there - 30 inches of rain over the past couple of months (when they would expect no more than 10) - has mudslides flowing through homes, backyards of Bel Air mansions (complete will pool) breaking off and tumbling down hills and sinkholes appearing out of nowhere.

Of course, Californians don't want to be completely dry, because that's when the wildfires happen. The earthquakes can happen any old time.

So here's my view on weather. In Atlanta, we can expect some severe storms in the spring; we have to be prepared to suffer through the occasional ice/snow storm in the winter and every once in a while the remnant of a hurricane comes our way. But it's somewhat predictable, it comes and goes quickly, and the fairly consistent pattern means we're "tempered" from the weather - that big tree that fell during Ivan sure can't fall again next year.

In California, on the other hand, the weather is usually pretty damn nice. Almost all the time, in fact. But when things do turn ugly - and they do - it seems they have much more catastrophic and longer-lasting problems. I saw a lot of this recently. Mudslides can happen a couple of days after the rain ends, or can be touched off by minor showers after the ground has been saturated.

Imagine living on a hillside - or below one - in L.A. right now. How do you sleep when there's a very real possibility that your house might tumble down the hill or that somebody else's might come down on yours?

So I'll take the tornadoes, I'll take the ice, I'll even accept a hurricane once in a while.

Dell charges sales tax, but doesn't tell you

2005-02-17T17:01:00.000-05:00

Dell has officially pissed me off.

I bought a refurbished PC today (yes, I'm aware that I also just bought a Mac Mini - the Dell system was $364, so get off my back), and during my entire purchase process, there was no notification that I was going to be charged sales tax.

Dell has a "shipping and tax estimator", and after entering my address (including, of course, my state), the estimate was $0 in sales tax. Of course, as their site says, this is only an estimate.

Those of you who are savvy Internet shoppers know one incentive for buying big-ticket items online is that you can often avoid sales tax. Anything I buy for more than $100, I tend to get online for this very reason.

And PCs surely fall into this category. So I was pleased that the Dell "estimate" (which still stated $0 tax through my purchase) was for no tax (and free shipping).

But then I get the email receipt for my purchase. Tax: $29.10.

Motherfückers.

This, obviously, is a matter of principle. Getting a nice (refurb) machine for less than $400 total is a great deal. But I believe Dell is deliberately concealing information about sales tax during the purchase process.

Consider the following:

1) Dell's "shipping and tax estimator" could (and should) know that the company charges sales tax for Georgia shipments. And it could (and should) know that the minimum sales tax anywhere in Georgia is 4%. So it could (and should) "estimate" the tax when I selected "Georgia" in their state pull-down at 4%. That's an easy thing to do, yet they don't do it.

2) My email receipt contained this message below my order total:

Dell Outlet collects tax on orders delivered to Georgia, California, Florida, Idaho, Illinois, Kentucky, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Mississippi, Nevada, New Jersey, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, Washington and Wisconsin. For shipments to other states, tax relates to the third party service contract only. The purchaser is responsible for remitting any uncollected tax on their order directly to the local taxing authorities.

So why don't they just drop this language into the order page? I double-checked by going back through the order process. It's not there. You can't tell me this is hard to do.

3) When I sent an email off to Dell customer service (by the way, they are also making it harder to find a customer service email these days), their system apparently scanned the contents of my message and sent back a detailed explanation of Dell's policy on collecting sales taxes (no, it doesn't say anything about why Dell does not tell you their policy until after you order). So they've got email systems that are sophisticated enough to automatically provide answers, but they can't tell me before I buy that I'm going to pay sales tax?

All of this, as I said in my email, has changed my perception of Dell. I used to trust the company and their products. I still trust the products, but I've lost trust in the company.

I understand that states are cracking down on Internet retailers when it comes to sales tax. And I imagine Dell would love to not collect this tax. It must hurt their business, since they fail to adequately disclose the fact that most customers will be charged tax.

But Dell is being shady about sales tax, plain and simple.

The coolest thing on the Internet this week

2005-02-16T17:08:00.000-05:00

Found via Business 2.0's Time Waster collection:

The Baby Name Wizard's NameVoyager.

It'll blow your mind. And more addictive than Katamari Damacy.

NetFlix hates me

2005-02-16T09:40:00.000-05:00

Loyal readers of The Wisdom will remember my distress after an extensive round of rating movies at NetFlix yielded their top recommendation of Wet Hot American Summer.

Despite my best efforts, I could not rate this movie out of my recommendations. So I stuck it in the queue, figuring someday I might actually want to see whether NetFlix knows me better than I know myself.

Well, thanks to some very poor queue management on my part, Wet Hot American Summer snuck its way up to the top and got shipped out before I could stop it. The wife and I watched it Sunday night.

Jesus what a horrible movie. I get their intention of creating a campy (no pun intended), ironic and smart send-up of Meatballs, but oh how they failed. I would imagine the agents for Janeane Garafalo, David Hyde Pierce, Paul Rudd, Molly Shannon and maybe even Michael Ian Black were fired shortly after this thing premiered.

NetFlix, why do you hate me?

At the Grammys

2005-02-13T23:24:00.000-05:00

I'd like to make note of and point out the difference between two performances at The Grammys tonight.

1) JLo made a point of trying to capitalize on the event by manufacturing a "public debut" of her and Mark Anthony in some super-lame Spanish soap opera song. It bombed.

2) Melissa Etheridge made a point of showing up with a chemo-bald head in her first performance since undergoing cancer treatment to pay tribute to Janis Joplin. And she kicked ass.

JLo is fake, Melissa is real. JLo is opportunistic, Melissa is brave. JLo is selfish, Melissa is respectful.

JLo sucks. Melissa rocks.

Mini me

2005-02-11T15:02:00.000-05:00

Anybody out there ever see the movie Josie and the Pussycats? The underlying story is that pop music actually contains powerful subliminal advertising aimed at youth culture, and this explains where trendy stuff comes from.

It seems this same technology is imbedded in my new iPod, because today I ordered a Mac Mini. I'll have to wait about a month to get it, though. A lot of people's iPods are giving them the same "must buy a mac mini" message.

Actually, this is a fairly well-thought-out purchase that meets some already-established needs (well, wants) in The Wisdom Household while adding a ton of extra value, too.

The needs/wants:

• An Apple machine. Right now, we have a PC laptop with integrated wireless that sits in the living room and a really old desktop PC upstairs that's rarely used. We've been talking about replacing the desktop with either a Mac laptop or desktop, but the cost has been prohibitive. So for the price of a big-boy Mac, we can now potentially add a refurb Dell desktop to the Mini purchase, giving us two modern PCs and an Apple machine.

• A second living room Internet machine. Yes, the wife and I are big enough geeks that sometimes we both want to be online at the same time while kicking back in front of the fireplace. We were pondering another laptop for this reason.

• A "media" machine. One of the cool things I like about our LG DLP TV is that is has both DVI and PC/VGA inputs. That means it can be a 44" hi-res computer monitor. But "media center" PCs are overblown, oversized, overpriced pieces of crap that would look junky sitting among our A/V components. Not so the Mini. And Macs have native DVI output, which means they're perfect for my LG display. Apple's thing about "bring your own display" with the Mini is perfect.

So the Mini will sit in between the audio components and the TiFaux / DVD burner stack, probably in one of these swell acrylic towers, and we'll be able to hit the Web and do Mac things through a wireless Bluetooth keyboard and mouse.

Cool.

The new possibilities:

• An iTunes audio server. Considering that I've ripped more than 3,000 songs so far for my iPod, having the Mini tied in to the entertainment center means I can use iTunes as an integrated jukebox.

• Extending the iPod. Even though Apple supports Windows for the iPod, the really cool stuff is still exclusive to Macs. So it's the ultimate iPod accessory, as they say.

• Potential HD DVR. Loyal readers of The Wisdom are aware of my internal struggles over how best to get HD to my TV. Paying either $549 or $999 for a box to deliver HD and an additional $10 - $15 a month for HD programming just doesn't make sense. There are conflicting reports that the Mini may be able to work with Elgato's EyeTV 500 to record and play back over-the-air HD (some say it's not powerful enough; some say it works using DVI). So potentially it could be an HD server. But I see that as not a sure thing; more like a bonus.

• The center of a networked geek lovfest. I've been reading about how the superior wireless networking found in the Mini (or any Mac) lets you do cool things like use other "headless" machines as remote file servers, TV tuners and all sorts of things. We happen to have a heretofore unused used "headless" Mac (bought for $5 from an old employer's fire sale) just waiting to be a slave to the Mini.

• A BitTorrent TV. For those of you not in the know, BitTorrent is to video as Napster was to audio. And some video BitTorrent can find isn't even illegal! So the Mini can grab video from the Web and display it (perhaps at less than full screen) on the 44" TV. Think of it as a post-event TiFaux. If I don't record something, but find out later I want to watch it, I can get the Mini to grab it and watch it on the TV rather than just on a computer screen. Cool.

• A potential network bridge for the PlayStation 2. Yes, this scares me. I've not bought a wireless network adapter for the PS2 out of fear over what it might do to me. But potentially I could run the PS2 ethernet to the Mini and use the Mini's AirPort as a wireless bridge for the PS2. This realization almost kept me from buying the Mini.

So getting a computer, and specifically a Mac, into the living room opens up a lot of possiblities. And at $800 including most upgrades, tax and shipping, I just couldn't turn Mini down.

[editor's note: Josie and the Pussycats is worth watching just to see Rachael Leigh Cook with the little cat ears on. And the soundtrack has catchy tunes sung by the very, very cool Kay Hanley of Letters To Cleo fame.]

Some fun spam

2005-02-11T09:12:00.000-05:00

Sitting at the top of my corporate email heap this morning was a great bit of spam. I suppose it's a clever one, too, as it made it past the spam filtering system.

I think they managed to do this by using GIFs that looked like text, thus thwarting the system that scans the content for telltale signs of spam.

Here's the GIFfed message:

Amusing. But what I really like about the spam is the "sender's" name:

Acquirable J. Codfishes

Excellent. If more spammers would just take the time to make their crap a little more fun, perhaps I'd spend more time surfing my spam. Of course, I don't need no Fire Play. The wife is already "almost crazy".

Pepsi iTunes 2

2005-02-09T10:50:00.000-05:00

I'm 4 for 4 so far in the new round of Pepsi's iTunes giveaway. Of course, I'm playing smart, so I expect to maintain an extraordinarily high winning percentage.

But I get the feeling this year's contest may turn into a bit of a treasure hunt. At Walgreen's in Midtown last night, there was not a single winner in the mix of about a dozen Diet Pepsis. The mild disarray of the Pepsi rack suggests I'd been beaten to the stock by another in-the-know player.

Fortunately, the Grant Park CVS had a couple of winners this morning (my first two came from a Rite-Aid in L.A. and a gas station in the High Desert). But I suspect in the coming weeks the instance of all-loser supplies will grow.

I guess I need to empty out the winners when I come across them.

In related news, the iPod is up to 3,161 songs occupying 11.5G. I've been rounding up CDs from around the house, and I figure I probably have another 400 or so top-quality tunes to import before I have to start getting creative. I'll feel validated for buying the 40G model once I cross the 20G mark.

'Great To Work For' addendum

2005-02-08T05:46:00.000-05:00

I'd like to add one more item to my list of five things that make a company Great To Work For.

6) Mail the freaking W-2s out sometime before the last possible date allowed by law.

This tax year found the wife and I being owed a total of four W2s - from the wife's old job, the wife's new job, my new job and from The World's Most Boring Internet Company.

Can anyone guess which of those four companies was the only one to wait until Jan. 31 to mail out the W2?

The wife's W2s both came mid-January. My new job's came around Jan. 20, but was available online a week earlier. And, of course, TWMBIC's came when I was out in L.A. sometime after Feb. 2.

And of the four, all but one were available as a direct import through TurboTax. Guess which one I had to input manually.

Big Adventure Followup

2005-02-07T11:27:00.000-05:00

So I survived my trek into the California High Desert. No, I didn't have any offers from any musicians to stay overnight out that way, so I drove the 120 miles back to L.A. afterwards, getting back to my hotel at a workable 1:15 a.m.

Some random observations:

• Pioneertown ain't much to look at. Some random little old-west buildings now being occupied by desert hippies. Interesting in that whole "town built by Hollywood" way, but certainly not worth a drive in itself.

• The desert hippies also run a coffee shop at the bottom of Pioneertown Road called Water Canyon Coffee Co. You'd think hippies working at a coffee shop would be friendly. But you'd be wrong. Maybe they mistook The Cap'n for one of the ...

• ... jackass L.A. types who apparently drive up to Pappy & Harriet's from Palm Springs in a desperate attempt to be cool. There was one such couple (she in heavy makeup, ordering white wine; he with dyed-black, hairsprayed coif trying to fight off the baldness, ordering "Bud") seated by me who kept asking if the crowd was going to get "too rowdy" and whether they should move back from the stage.

• Thank God for the omnipresence of Starbucks.

• As I was driving up the high desert highway in my rented Monte Carlo, a dude passed me and gave me the "cool, dude" head nod as he went by. I realized after he passed that he was driving a Monte Carlo. So apparently he actually bought a Monte Carlo and thinks he and I share a passion for crappy American coupes.

• It's not a good idea to watch the giant windmill generators spin as you drive.

• The wife must stop referring to me as Anne McCue's stalker, because I met him Friday night.

By the way, I took some photos of the show if you're interested. No shots of the stalker or the lame L.A. couple, though:

Anne McCue at Pappy & Harriet's

Cap'n Ken's Big Adventure

2005-02-03T19:32:00.000-05:00

OK, so I need to spill the beans on why I'm really out in California this week (or at least why I'm staying until Saturday).

Tomorrow I'm taking the day off from work and heading out into the desert. My destination is a place called Pioneertown. It's 130 miles or so from L.A.

Pioneertown was built in the 1940s as a huge set for westerns. Original investors included Roy Rogers. It lives on today as part tourist attraction (they do cowboy shows on the weekends) and part refuge for people sick of L.A.

I'm not heading out there because I love westerns. I'll be at a cowboy bar called Pappy and Harriett's to catch a show.

What, you may ask, would be such a fabulous show as to lure The Cap'n out into the California desert on a Friday night?

OK, so it's Anne McCue. But in my defense, I'd be up for heading out there to see other people, too (Lucinda Williams, Shelby Lynne and Cracker are among the acts who've played P&H's). It just happens that it's Anne McCue playing Friday night.

At this point, would everyone please take a moment to thank the wife for not only allowing me to venture out into the middle of the desert alone to see a woman she's given me permission to sleep with, but for also not giving me crap about staying out here an extra day to do so, when I've already been gone for about 14 of the past 30 days.

It should be fun. The only thing I have to figure out now is what I do the rest of the day tomorrow. I could do the "hang out in Hollywood" thing for awhile and then head out to the badlands, or I could seek other adventures in the sand. Pioneertown is close to Joshua Tree National Park, but I'm really not that big of a U2 fan. It's kind of either/or, as there's not a lot to do between L.A. and the desert.

Or, maybe I could take an early tour over at Warner Brothers in the morning and hope to run into Lauren Graham, thus doubling my odds of scratching a name off "The List". Hmm.

I hate when people actually read this stuff

2005-02-03T09:58:00.000-05:00

A note came in to The Wisdom Mailbag yesterday carrying the subject line "Tonya Watts here". Loyal readers of The Wisdom may remember Tonya from a piece I wrote about country music in L.A. a few weeks back - Taking in Nashywood.

I sort of wasn't all that nice in writing about Tonya. I believe "Watts looks like just another surgically-enhanced Hollywood plaything" was among the things written. So I wasn't expecting a rosy message when I saw that email.

But she was pretty cool. Here's the text of the email:

Hey! Well, someone sent me your posting. It was a very interesting article. No hard feelings on my end.

Ps.. My lips are real :)

Well, damn. See, here's the thing: the stuff I wrote was purposefully jackassed. I could have written something more in-depth about the Lords of Nashville and how they might love someone like Tonya if she was just a little less good-looking and not so L.A. I could have focused on her music - which is good - and tied it back with the whole "too beautiful" thing.

But that quote on her site about having "too much lip", her history as a bikini model/Pam Anderson stand-in and her being married to a soap opera star led me down the "make fun of Barbie" route. It was easier and funnier than a more serious bit about trying to bust the Nashville club.

And then she reads it. And has a sense of humor! Damn.

I wrote her back explaining my editorial approach, letting her know I do like her music and respect her attempt to make it in country music, and that I think that her husband looking like David Soul and/or a Vitalis model is a good thing.

I also congratulated her on actually being the woman all these Hollywood types are trying to look like with the lip jobs.

She replied back again, and I think I've cleared the issue up with her. But it would be better if people just didn't read The Wisdom, wouldn't it?

... and I succumb

2005-02-01T17:19:00.000-05:00

Yep, I got an iPod yesterday. 40 Gig, but none of that silly photo stuff. After monkeying around with my travel buddy's iPod at LAX last Friday and then learning that I can get my company's Apple discount at their retail store (and not just online), I figured I might as well take the plunge in time for my latest trip to L.A. tomorrow.

I also had picked up a 250 Gig external hard drive on the cheap this weekend, which is what we call an "enabling technology" that will allow me to rip enough music on my laptop to make an iPod worthwhile.

And, thus, I began ripping CDs in earnest Sunday night. As of this morning, I've got 1,331 tracks and 4.84 Gigs worth of music ready to migrate over to the iPod. Obviously I'm not going to fill it up before I leave in the morning, but that should surely hold me through Saturday.

But I realized something in the process of going through our CD collection - we don't have anywhere near 10,000 songs I actually want on my iPod. I made an initial pass through the collection and probably came up with 200 or so CDs I want to rip. I'll make more passes through, but even if I decide to add the wife's Connells collection or even the post-IRS REM records she owns for some reason, I doubt I'll hit 5,000 in the current stack.

I guess that means I have a lot of opportunity to discover new music. You might say I'm looking at the iPod as half full, not half empty.

Please let me know if I missed anything ...

2005-01-31T16:18:00.000-05:00

Having been on the road all last week, I hadn't fired up my SharpReader since a week ago Friday (I see RSS as a workplace tool, so I don't feed at home).

In between trying to catch up on 1,000 work things today, I also attempted to get caught up on my feeds. I made it through friends' blogs and most of the developments in my little corner of the Internet business, but I've decided to let most of the 2,737 items I've accumulated go unread.

So if any of you heard about cool gadgets, weird online things or the like last week, feel free to hip the Cap'n to them.

[editor's note: The wife did send me a story about merger speculation between Sirius and XM Radio. I'll just say that if that happens, I hope they use the XM equipment and keep the Sirius programming.]

Slackin' Cap'n

2005-01-31T11:12:00.000-05:00

The Cap'n would like to apologize to The Wisdom Nation for his inexcusable lack of output over the past week. There was plenty of fodder on the trip out west, but just not a lot of time to write.

So in the spirit of catching up, here's a roundup of things that have been on my mind lately:

• For an American car, the Pontiac G6 (the one Oprah gave away) isn't bad. I had one as my rental out in L.A. Good performance, decent interior, doesn't look bad. Its stereo had XM Radio built in, but it was probably the worst integration of XM I could imagine. The data came across only on a single nine-character line, so unless you realize that "Catherine" is actually "Catherine Wheel", a lot of the value of satellite radio data is lost.

• Compared to Sirius, XM Radio kind of blows. Their stupidly-named rock stations (Fred, Ethel, Lucy, Squizz) are more or less programmed like commercial stations. And don't get me started on their amazingly lame country stations. Give me Sirius' Underground Garage or Outlaw Country any day.

• A9's new Visual Yellow Pages product is bizarre. They actually drove around cities with a GPS-enabled digital camera mounted on an SUV to capture images of storefronts to marry with business searches. If you "walk the block" in East Atlanta, you can almost get to our house.

• Maybe someday security at LAX will stop this "I highly recommend you remove your shoes" crap. I was too tired Friday morning to mess around with the TSA guys, but a co-worker (who also travels in specific airport-friendly shoes) fell for the "highly recommend" trick and went through with his shoes on. Of course, he got pulled aside for the full-on terrorist search. Note to the TSA at LAX: If you are going to keep this non-TSA policy of searching people who go through security with their shoes on, just say it's policy to hand-search anyone who comes through in shoes. The "highly recommend" line is not helpful to anybody.

• I was at a Starbucks in San Jose Tuesday and asked for my traditional non-morning beverage: iced venti unsweet coffee. I was told by the Starbucks dude that they were not stocking iced coffee - the secret to Starbucks' iced coffee is that they make it extra-strong specifically for use as iced coffee - that day because it was cold outside. This is the first time I've ever been told this, and I hope it's not a trend. If you have an item on your permanent menu, I expect to be able to buy it any day. If you think not a lot of people are going to buy it on a given day, just don't make as much of it, dude.

• Note to VH1's Best Week Ever: Stop with the stupid skits. Just talk about the stupid pop culture stuff that happened in the last week. None of the changes you've made to the format over the past six months have been improvements. The show is on the verge of getting de-listed on the TiFaux.

OK, I feel somewhat caught up now. I've got a big adventure coming up Friday in L.A., so stay tuned for that.

The Forbidden Hotel

2005-01-27T09:06:00.000-05:00

I got down to L.A. yesterday after a day and a half of meetin' and eatin' up in The Valley. And while in L.A., I'm staying at The Forbidden Hotel.

The Forbidden Hotel is the stuff of legend around my office. It used to be the standard choice for people coming out west, but someone at some point decided it didn't look good for the Atlanta people to be "in residence" here when visiting the L.A. office.

And thus it is now Forbidden.

I'm at The Forbidden Hotel because The Favored Hotel and Backup Hotels 1 & 2 are all booked up. So I won't be in trouble for staying here. Several of us are holed up here, and it should be noted that our rate is lower than what's being paid at The Favored Hotel.

But I can see why the company declared this place Forbidden. The Forbidden Hotel is all about "service". There's only valet parking; I was escorted to the front desk by a bellman even though I said I didn't need help with my bags - he needed to "announce" my arrival to the clerk - and I had to turn down an offer from yet another bellman to "guide me" to my room.

When I stopped at the front desk to change a $20 for all the palms I need to grease, I actually felt like I might have to tip the clerk for making the change I needed to tip everybody else. He presented my change like some kind of magic trick - holding it high in the air and dramatically thumbing off each bill.

I came back from dinner last night and discovered that the "turndown service" had left a little tube of toothpaste in my bathroom, apparently having noticed the gimpy remnant of my Crest tube. That'll earn housekeeping a nicer tip.

I'm pretty frugal with company money - I won't be getting a $30 breakfast or expensing any massages or "eyelash tinting" - so I can see how this place can get out of hand. And honestly, after several days of travel, I'd rather stay at a place where I feel more comfortable throwing dirty laundry on the floor in my room. Here, I've got my dirties stashed in a laundry bag inside my suitcase, and my coat it neatly hung on the in-room "valet". I even hang the plush robe back up on the back of the bathroom door.

I'll be back out in L.A. next week. I've booked a room at Backup Hotel 1, where there's no valet, no room service and no bellman. Call it Forbidden Hotel guilt.

VOOM goes Boom

2005-01-24T08:24:00.000-05:00

Good news for The Cap'n on the HDTV front. Dish Network is buying the satellite TV operation of Cablevision - which is basically the HD satellite service VOOM.

This is big for a couple of reasons. First, I'm glad I didn't take the Voom route to getting HD (thankfully, they never rolled out their TiFaux). But more significantly, it gives Dish a new satellite. Hard to argue with the logic behind buying Voom (including its already-deployed satellite) for $200 million when it would cost $250 million to put up a new Dish bird.

So once the deal is finalized, Dish will all of a sudden have an extra satellite to send me programming on. And it sends HD signals [editor's note: maybe all satellites can send HD. The Cap'n is no satellite technology expert]. So maybe - hopefully - Dish will put local HD channels up on this bird and get me an integrated local HD package sometime this year.

DirecTV is planning to launch local HD on new satellites sometime this year, assuming they can get the gear up to space. And until now, their DirecTV HD DVR was the leading contender for The Cap'n's HD dollars (on the assumption that they'll drop the ridiculous $1,000 price tag). Comcast was second, and Dish was third.

And now? We'll have to see what happens with Dish / VOOM, but with a good strategy and execution (lose the DVR fee, give me local HD for the price of non-HD local), Dish could make its way back into the HD equation.

As for The Cap'n, I'm off to the west coast again today for a full week of hob-nobbing with industry giants. The Wisdom's policies on work-related pieces prevent more details, but it should be interesting. So look for weird publish schedules through Thursday.

Wait - that's Atlanta?

2005-01-21T10:43:00.000-05:00

Found in the blogosphere - a fabulous photo stream of shots taken by some guy from Chicago when he was down in Atlanta for the Falcons / Rams game:

• Atlanta photos - SkyscraperPage.

Dude did a great job of showing my city's great neighborhoods - he got around to Grant Park, Cabbagetown, Little 5 Points, Virginia-Highland and East Atlanta.

For the uninitiated, here's a brief glimpse into a small part of Cap'n Ken's world (click on images for full-sized views):

The Flatiron, East Atlanta (the closest bar to Casa Cap'n Ken and a frequent destination)

Old-school barber shop in East Atlanta Village between Joe's Coffee Shop and The EARL. No, The Cap'n does not get his hair cut there.

View of Six Feet Under (Grant Park-ish) from Oakland Cemetery.

As I said, great photos. But what got me about the photo series were some of the comments left about it:

WTF... you made Atlanta look... urban.

Your Atlanta looks vibrant and interesting.

So is this not Buckhead? Ive heard thats one of the most happening spots. These pictures are great! I love to see vibrant stores and urban areas doin their thing.

Apparently this is the weird part of town. Which means I won't be swinging by there, but nice pics anyway

I'm not surprised that "this Atlanta" is so foreign to people, and witnessed by the Buckhead comment, there's a definite - incorrect - perception people have of the city. I'd imagine to most people (including both out-of-towners and suburban Atlantans), Hartsfield + Downtown + Buckhead = Atlanta. And that's fine. To most people, American Idol winners = good music, too.

But in reality, Atlanta is a city of great neighborhoods. They're not all "the weird part of town" - but the fun ones are.

So thanks, random dude, for finding the cool part of Atlanta.

Yet more TV complexity

2005-01-20T13:35:00.000-05:00

Loyal readers of The Wisdom are aware that I've given up (for now) trying to bring HDTV into the house while retaining my basic requirement of a dual-tuner DVR. The best solution seems to be the DirecTV HD DVR, but at $1,000 for hardware in addition to HD and TiVo fees, I'm sitting on the sidelines for a while.

But in reading the new CNet Review of the DirecTV unit, I was struck with a consideration I've never even thought of before:

Unlike standalone DVRs, the HD TiVo records the raw DirecTV signal feed, so there's no signal degradation. As a result, recordings look exactly the same as live feeds. That means most standard channels, and even some high-def networks, exhibit softness or noticeable jaggies, at least on large displays, thanks to DirecTV's aggressive compression techniques.

"Noticeable jaggies" on "most standard channels"? I've noticed a few jaggies on my 44" DLP while watching really dark scenes (the black gets jaggy) through Dish Network, but everything else looks super.

So are jaggies an issue in general with DirecTV on a large screen? Is DirecTV more "aggressive" with their compression technique than Dish Network? And DirecTV users got thoughts on this?

God, it used to be so easy to pick TV service ...

Fortune's "Best companies to work for" list

2005-01-18T19:42:00.000-05:00

The new issue of Fortune was awaiting The Cap'n when I got home tonight, and it's the magazine's annual "100 best companies to work for" issue.

I have problems with a lot of what Fortune seems to think makes a company great to work for. They seem to focus on benefits, "equality", and - in the case of Principal Financial Group - "a lunch hour Bible study group and on-site Muslim prayer room" as things that make a company a good place to work.

Personally, my standards for what makes a company "great to work for" are pretty simple:

1) Pay people what they are worth to the company
2) Give people the opportunity to do good things and advance within the company based upon performance
3) Expect all employees to perform well and get rid of ones that don't
4) Keep bureaucracy and company "rules" to a minimum
5) Manage the company well so that it stays in business

Not much of that seems to matter to Fortune, though. References to pay are things such as "salaries are generous here". A "generous" salary, in my mind, means you're paying somebody too much. And that means money that could be used to grow the business is being wasted. "Salaries are equitable here" is more my speed.

But of all the members of Fortune's list, the one that really gets me is Whole Foods Market, the upscale (and overpriced) grocery chain.

Whole Foods is ranked No. 30 on the overall list and No. 5 among large companies. Here's the blurb that accompanied the Whole Foods listing:

"It's all about equality at this natural-foods grocery chain: A wage disclosure report lists everyone's gross pay (execs included), and a salary cap limits compensation to 14 times the average total of all the company's full-timers."

I suppose "equality" of pay is the sign of a good company to work for - if you're less competent than other people doing the same job as you. Do you imagine there's a lot of "Hey, Bob, you're doing an amazing job - I'm giving you a 10 percent raise" happening when the boss knows Bob's lazy co-workers are going to know he's suddenly making more than them?

And a salary cap? "Hey, Bob, I'm sure you realize that no matter how valuable you are to the company, you'll never make more than $300,000 a year. Now how's that very important task I gave you last week going?" Ridiculous.

There's a very telling detail in Whole Foods' listing. Fortune lists the annual "voluntary turnover" rate for each company's full-time employees, and Whole Foods has the highest turnover - 32%. And it's not because they are a retailer. The turnover rate at Publix is listed at 11%, QuikTrip is 14% and Hot Topic is 20%.

The only other company on the list that approaches Whole Foods' turnover is Valero Energy - an oil refiner and gas station chain - at 29%. Apparently people would rather smell like Valero's crude oil than Whole Foods' stinky cheese.

And the No. 1 company on the list is a New York grocery chain - Wegman's - that is almost the exact same size (30,000 employees, $3+ billion in sales) as Whole Foods.

Wegman's has a turnover rate of 6%. And while Whole Foods' hourly workers make about 10% more ($26K to $23.5K) than hourly workers at Wegman's, the salaried workers at Whole Foods make about 60% less ($57K vs. $92K) than the salaried workers at Wegman's.

I'd hazard a guess that most of the 32% of people leaving Whole Foods aren't the people who feel their salaries are "generous" and love this whole "equality" thing.

You can't spell "subtle bigotry" without M-I-S-S-I-S-S-I-P-P-I

2005-01-18T11:14:00.000-05:00

Spotted on BoingBoing - an MP3 of the actual out-of-office message for the Mississippi State Tax Commission announcing the holiday they were taking off for yesterday:

"You've reached the Mississippi State Tax Commission. On Monday, January 17, the state tax commission will be closed in observance of Robert E. Lee and Dr. Martin Luther King's birthdays ..."

They just can't let a brother have a holiday down there, can they?

• MP3 Link

Logitech cordless PS2 controller

2005-01-17T13:11:00.000-05:00

Did I mention how much this thing rocks? Flawless performance (It did require a little tweaking to get two to work at the same time - and the user "manual" is worthless) and freedom to play NCAA Football 2005 from the kitchen.

And did I mention that if you buy it from Amazon using the link below, I get paid $1.50?

[editor's note: Cap'n Ken is obviously playing around with different ways to try to generate a few pennies here and there from The Wisdom.]

Incidentally, if you'd like to go ahead and pre-order that Sony KDE-50XS955 50" Plasma HDTV I know you've had your eye on, you can use the link below and Cap'n Ken will get paid $300.

Katamari Damacy

2005-01-17T10:09:00.000-05:00

Ever since diving into the GTA world sometime back with Vice City and now San Andreas, I've had to fight the urge to shoot pedestrians, run over motorcycles and generally raise havoc on the streets.

But now I have to resist the temptation to roll objects on the street into a giant mash of ever-growing junk.

A couple of weeks ago, the wife and I had drinks with Brown, and he was telling us about this bizarre PS2 game called Katamari Damacy that had fallen into the hands of That Yellow Bastard. Brown said something about an evil King, stars being taken from the sky and a little Prince who had to roll junk up on Earth to replace the aforementioned stars. And he suggested having TYB bring the game over to The Cap'n & Wife's Post-Holiday Holiday Party (held this past Saturday).

I didn't ask TYB to bring it, fearing its introduction would turn our outwardly civil shindig into a Katamari tournament.

But the Bastard did one better. He bought us a copy as a party gift.

We managed to hold off until around 2 a.m., when the sensible people had left, before busting out Katamari. I was just drunk enough to really enjoy TYB's demo session (the wife's sister's boyfriend was far too drunk to enjoy it, but not quite drunk enough to hurl while trying to follow the action).

It's truly a bizarre game, but amazingly fun and addictive. As Brown and I were discussing, the Japanese have always injected some bizarre stuff into their video games, but technology is just now catching up to allow them to really develop these insane environments. I imagine Pac Man has some really strange backstory, but the technology of the time allowed only for a game showing a little yellow dude chomping dots and being chased by four ghosts of various personalities.

Not so Katamari. Roll up bits of sushi into your ball? Sure. Cats? Why not? Get a little bigger, pick yourself up a child ... then an adult ... maybe a guy in a Mexican wrestling mask.

The wife and I played Katamari a good bit yesterday and last night (we may have sold another unit for Namco after introducing it to Robin and her man when they came over for some PS2 action last night - remind me to call Mr. Robin at 6:29 tonight ...) and I got my Katamari up to 4 m, 71 cm.

I believe this is just the beginning.

[editor's note: If you want to buy Katamari Damacy for yourself, click the link below to get it at Amazon, and The Cap'n will get paid a buck!]

• Katamari Damacy at Amazon

Open the door .... to hell?

2005-01-13T16:10:00.000-05:00

This week finds The Cap'n pondering a choice - one which could have profound implications for the future of my life in general.

Last weekend, the wife and I visited Robin and her man to give them some inside tips on playing San Andreas. After poppin' some caps in the arses of homies and getting them quickly addicted to SSX Tricky, Mr. Robin decided to introduce me to online play for NCAA Football 2005.

And now I want in.

I love NCAA Football on the PS2. But I play almost exclusively by myself against the computer. This is due in part to my anti-social nature, but it also serves as a nice self-limiter of time spent with the game. There's only so many times Cap'n Ken's LSU Tigers can beat up on PS2 USC before I put the controller down.

And every time I think about getting social with PS2 football, I'm reminded of my last year in college, when I lived with my buddy Dave and Madden '92 was released for Sega Genesis. That game was the first thing to displace free half-scrambled porn as our favorite pastime, and we racked up hundreds upon hundreds of hours on the Genesis.

With the free PS2 online system, I'd be opened up to a world of thousands of Daves just waiting for a game. "Think of your wife", I keep telling myself. "Your job, your dogs, the big mortgage payments, all the stuff that will build up on the TiFaux ..."

I fear they'd all get second-fiddle status if I open this door and unleash the online PS2 monster.

What's holding me back at the moment is my philosophical opposition to paying $90 to get a wireless hub to connect the PS2 to my home network. Without that barrier of entry, I fear I'd already be on the path to hell.

[editor's note: Cap'n Ken has a birthday coming up in two months, and a Linksys Wireless-G Game Adapter would make an excellent present.]

[editor's sensible side note: Please do not give one of those to The Cap'n.]

Taking in Nashywood

2005-01-12T13:02:00.000-05:00

After reading the cover story in L.A. Weekly entitled Hollywood Country and realizing that a monthly jam session referenced in the piece was happening this week, I decided to drive down to Hollywood last night to see what all the fuss is about.

"It Came From Nashville" is the brainchild of a singer-songwriter named Tonya Watts.

Watts - and bear with me here - is a transplanted Alabamian who has done modeling/acting work (bikini.com, The Beautician and The Beast, Married ... With Children), used to be a body/stunt double for Pamela Anderson and is married to soap opera beauhunk Brian Gaskill* of The Bold and The Beautiful. Seriously.

She bills herself as an "Alabama outlaw" and goes out of her way to build her outlaw cred. On her website, she refers to herself as "a quirky country girl" and says she "has more lip than any conservative format has room for."

That last statement may actually - and literally - be true, in a rather ironic way.

At first glance, Watts seems like a perfect fit for Bigtime Country - she's good looking, she can sing and she has a nice Southern accent (although to me it seems more Tennessee than Alabama. Acting?)

But upon closer inspection, Watts looks like just another surgically-enhanced Hollywood plaything. She's either had a lot of work done (most notably the big lips) or she's the woman every other gal in Hollywood is trying to look like:

(check out her site for more images. Stupid Flash site.)

She's cut a record produced by Dusty Wakeman (co-producer of Anne McCue) but can't seem to get it released. One of the tunes is called "Right Road Now" and talks about making bad choices in the past but doing better now. Unfortunately, it's hard to become a sculpted bikini model / Pam Anderson stand-in and then get on the road back to "Alabama outlaw." Even her friends call her Barbie.

One of the other "It Came From Nashville" regulars is a kid named Waylon Payne. OK, "Waylon Payne" sounds completely contrived, right? The worst possible fake Hollywood name for a country wannabe ... trading on Waylon Jennings and creating the "wailing pain" homonym. And he's good looking, too. Must be the product of some Hollywood star factory.

Or not. Turns out Waylon is the son of Grammy-winning country belle Sammie Smith and Jody Payne, longtime guitarist for Waylon's godfather (and the man he's named for) - Waylon Jennings.

That kid is talented, comes from a proper country music background, is good looking and has a great name. He put out a record last year that the L.A. Weekly writer refers to as "intensely murky self-indulgence", but if I had to bet on a breakout star of "It Came From Nashville", it would be Waylon.

So the show was entertaining, just a few folks up there playing acoustics and jamming on each other's material. I get the feeling Tonya thinks the "It Came From Nashville" will do for her what the "Tuesday Night Music Club" did for Sheryl Crow. But I wouldn't bank on it.

And for all the "buzz" Hollywood Country is starting to get, the first "It Came From Nashville" in about four months that happened the week of the L.A. Weekly cover story drew about 45 people. Of course, the weird venue - Genghis Cohen - only holds about 50 (one corner is for music, another area is a tiny bar, and the rest of the place is a respectable-looking restaurant), so I guess that's a good turnout.

If you read the L.A. Weekly piece, it talks about how Nashville doesn't care about honest, simple country. As bad as that may be, I think it beats Hollywood, which doesn't seem to care about country at all.

*[editor's note: Mr. Gaskill was at the show last night, sporting a nice David Soul/Hutch leather jacket and looking very much like a Vitalis model from the 1970s. The depth of his soul is revealed on his web site, which sports this opening quote: "Bury me with Valentino when he dies and we will rise as one heart beating for one moment that will last forever in one dream that dances the waltz in a mosh-pit…no matter how much we bleed or get punched in the gut, we keep on keepin’ on how we wanna keep on, forever kissing her tears away in a broken hearted fantasy where there’s no such thing as wasted dreamers and love is as simple as penny candy".]

The List - updated

2005-01-10T08:11:00.000-05:00

Circumstances in the world today require an update to my "list of chicks I can do":

a) Jennifer Aniston is available
b) I'll be in L.A. all this week

I figure being able to honestly use the line "I've dug you since that Ferris Bueller TV show" gives me a bit of a leg up. I'll try not so say "of course, you were hotter with a little more meat on your bones" or "you're still pretty hot to be 35."

Jennifer was on the original List I presented to The Wife at our wedding, but was removed because she and Brad seemed so happy together.

But now she's back! And, sadly, that means somebody's gotta go. Currently on The List:

• Katie Holmes
• Lauren Graham
• Ali Landry
• Sarah Bernard (of CNN's American Morning / 90 Second Pop)
• Anne McCue

Katie, Lauren and Anne are must-keeps, as they in very different ways represent the finest of womanhood. So, then, do I kick off Ali or Sarah?

Sarah - cute as can be; smart, funny. But married and lives in New York.
Ali - hot, single, from Louisiana and lives in L.A.

So as much as it pains me, I'm taking Sarah off. But welcome back to The List, Jen!

Wish me luck in L.A. this week.

Thieves

2005-01-09T13:19:00.000-05:00

The wife and I robbed a Kenneth Cole store yesterday.

Well, not literally, but we feel like we did. Mr. Cole had sent us a card for a weekend sale at their outlet, so we headed up to Discover Mills.

And we came away with:

For The Cap'n
• Reaction wool bomber-cut coat (retail $200)
• Kenneth Cole Italian leather shoes (retail $160)
• Kenneth Cole leather belt (retail $29)

For The Wife
• Kenneth Cole black leather (girly) biker jacket - the coup de gras, as the wife has been hunting just such a jacket for months and really didn't figure to find such a fly one at an affordable price (retail $350)

So we're talking $739 worth of merch at full retail - not that we ever pay full retail. The breakdown:

• Wool bomber-cut coat - just reduced at winter clearance to $89.98, plus take 40% for the weekend sale. New cost: $53.99
• Italian leather shoes - in the clearance bin, marked down to $59.98, plus take 50% off (standard for clearance shoes). New cost: $29.99
• Belt - marked down to $19.98, plus take 50% off. New cost: $9.99
• And the wife's jacket - marked down to $139.98 previously, just reduced to $99.98 at winter clearance, plus take 40% for the weekend sale. New cost $59.99

And thus $739 worth of stuff becomes $153.96.

But wait, there's more!

The sale card mailed to us read "Bring this postcard in from January 6-9, 2005 and receive an additional 20% off your total purchase." And we did.

It should be noticed that the ambiguously ethnic sales girl tried to tell us that the extra 20% didn't apply to the 40% off stuff. Silly girl.

Once we let the manager know (very politely) what "receive an additional 20% off your total purchase" means, another $30.79 was knocked off our tab, bringing our pre-tax cost down to a still-hard-t0-believe $123.17.

My math says that's 83% off the original retail price.

Sure, we bought the coats in the "off season" (although 90% of Atlanta's cold weather is still to come, and we tend to keep outerwear for many seasons), and maybe some snotass Ken Cole fan could potentially see me in my new shoes and realize my fine Italian kicks were from last season, but I really don't care.

Life at 83% off retail. I dig it.

Happy Birthday, Elvis

2005-01-08T13:21:00.000-05:00

The King would be 70 today. I've added a shot (1956) of Elvis into my image rotation (a horrible oversight to not launch with The King, I know, but creating those transparent images is a pain in the arse).

I'll be celebrating Elvis' birthday by just doing what The King would want - TCB.

More tsunami poll results

2005-01-07T13:18:00.000-05:00

CNN / USA Today / Gallop commissioned a poll this week to determine American interest in and actions taken following the Asian tsunami disaster. The key findings:

• 46% of Americans are following tsunami news "very closely", and another 43% are following it "somewhat closely".

• 45% of Americans have donated money to relief efforts, but 26% have not thought about donating money.

• 74% of Americans "have prayed for victims and families", and only 19% have not thought about praying.

Digging deeper into the poll results, we find that among the 74% who are praying for victims:

• 44% are aware that most of the victims of the tsunami do not believe in their God. (88% of those who are aware that most of the victims do not believe in their God have restricted their prayers to those who do believe in their God and 24% of those who have restricted their prayers to those who believe in their God have also prayed for God to send non-believers to the eternal fires of Hell as He has promised to do).

• 29% believe the victims need prayers more than money.

• 8% actually have not offered prayers, but believed the government would relocate them to "Prayer Camps" if they answered the question honestly.

• 6% asked the poll taker if he/she has found Jesus and tried to convert those who hadn't.

HDTV question settled

2005-01-06T16:25:00.000-05:00

Loyal readers of The Wisdom know The Cap'n has been struggling with the question of how best to bring a HD television signal into Casa Cap'n.

The choices:

a) Dish Network's 921 HD DVR: Dish just dropped the price of the 921 DVR to $549 (from $949). It's basically a higher-capacity (250GB), HD version of the 721 DVR currently sitting in The Cap'n's living room. Good: Get HD with current provider (Dish); satisfies the minimum requirements (two tuners, DVR functionality), ability to integrate over-the-air local HD into DVR. Bad: $549 (and $9.99 HD programming cost) is still a big chunk of change to lay down to bring HD into the house when there's still not a lot of stuff I want to watch in HD; strong philosophical opposition to paying Dish a $4.95 monthly "DVR fee" when their DVR doesn't do the type of things TiVo does to justify a monthly fee and when neither of my current DVRs come with such a fee.

b) DirecTV's HD DVR: Priced at $999, the specs (two tuners, 250GB) are otherwise comparable to the Dish 921 DVR. Good: Satisfies the minimum requirements (two tuners, DVR functionality); DirecTV will likely beat Dish to local HD service; true TiVo service (if that's considered a plus). Bad: $999 is an even bigger chunk of change to lay down for HD; acceptance of paying TiVo fee from now until the end of time when I currently pay no such fee.

c) Voom: The satellite service that specializes in HD. Good: More HD programming; Voom finally has Food Network. Bad: Everything else - No DVR, expensive equipment and packages, probably going out of business soon.

d) Over-the-air HD: Local HD is broadcast for free, after all. Good: The HD signals are free. Bad: The thought of buying a $250 - $300 over-the-air HD tuner; I don't watch network TV anyway; no DVRing.

e) Comcast: The "nuclear option". I'd not even be considering them if not for the new Motorola 6412 - Comcast's two-tuner HD DVR. But they remain the siren's song - and you all know how that ends. Good: Cheapest way to HD - no equipment to buy, includes local HD channels; meets minimum requirements (two tuners, DVR functionality); she's beautiful, young and of loose moral values. Bad: The Motorola box has just a 120GB drive; who knows how well the Motorola software performs; odds are regular cable channels will look like crap (most cable isn't really digital like all satellite is); she's actually a man who will rape you and leave you for dead on the side of the road.

And The Cap'n has made his choice ...

The solution is ... ... ... ...

f) None of the above.

Yep, in the final analysis, there's just not a compelling reason to jump at any HD solution right now. The satellite equipment is still too expensive, and I really don't want cable. And apart from the Super Bowl and the new episodes of Gilmore Girls coming up, there's not a lot of compelling HD to watch this winter/spring/summer. So I'll just be keeping an eye on developments and look to have a solution in place in time for college football season in late August.

The Cap'n apologizes for any inconvenience this flirtation with HD may have caused.

Jon Stewart takes down Crossfire

2005-01-06T10:09:00.000-05:00

Wow. The Fake News guy has succeeded in changing at least a very tiny part of the "real news" world.

CNN Let's 'Crossfire' Host Carlson Go

The lead of that story is that the "dick" - Tucker Carlson - has been shown the door, but it also hints at the likely fate of Crossfire, which is to be downgraded to a mini-segment of Inside Politics.

Unless you're completely unaware of the world, you'll remember that Jon Stewart went on Crossfire a couple of months back and implored the hosts to "Stop, stop, stop, stop hurting America". Stewart's dead-on point is that shows featuring nothing more than liberals and conservatives shouting at each other is "bad for America."

And CNN's new network chief agrees. This is an actual quote from the guy:

"I guess I come down more firmly in the Jon Stewart camp," (Jonathan) Klein told The Associated Press.

It's about freaking time. In the months leading up to the election, you couldn't watch CNN for 30 minutes without seeing some segment where they trot out a liberal and a conservative and let them yell at each other. This is what passed for "analysis" at CNN.

I'd hoped that the election would mark the end of such crap, but it didn't. They'd bring these worthless shills out to "debate" the U.N. oil for food scandal, the nomination of Bush cabinet members and the impact of religion on society.

One good side effect of the tsunamis was that coverage of the disaster pushed those liberal/conservative segments off the air, at least until a few days later when they started dragging them on to "debate" whether President Bush was doing enough for relief efforts.

And now I'm sure they'll trot some of these morons out to "debate" whether "debate" segments are, in fact, bad for America.

Our own Scott Peterson

2005-01-04T17:01:00.000-05:00

Here in Atlanta, we're all excited. We have our own Scott Peterson now.

If you don't live in Atlanta, you've probably not heard of Dr. Barton Corbin - yet. But hang on a little while, let this whole "tsunami mania" die down and chances are Dr. Corbin and his dead wife Jennifer will become household names.

Dr. Bart was indicted today for his wife's murder. And the particulars of the case are made for Court TV (and CNN, and Fox, and Inside Edition, ...). Coming soon to a TV near you (and not going away) - The Dentist Murders.

If you Google +"Barton Corbin" +Jennifer, you'll only find 203 results (and 63 Google News results) right now, compared to 131,000 results for +"Scott Peterson" +Laci. Of course, it's still very early.

But can Dr. Bart's case possibly match the Peterson case in the titilation department? Let's see how they stack up (consider this your Dr. Bart primer):

The Crime
- Dr. Bart: Shot his wife in the head while she slept.
- Peterson: Killed his wife, dumped her body in the ocean, reported her missing.
Edge: Peterson

The Victim
- Dr. Bart: Average-looking 33-year-old wife and mother.
- Peterson: Cute 27-year-old would-be mother.
Edge: Peterson

The Accused
- Dr. Bart: Respected and successful suburban dentist.
- Peterson: Lunkhead jackass.
Edge: Dr. Bart

The Backstory
- Dr. Bart: Marriage failing, wife flirting with dudes on Internet.
- Peterson: Marriage seemingly happy, baby on the way, but Scott was poking some skank on the side.
Edge: Peterson

The Intrigue
- Dr. Bart: Did I mention he's also been charged with killing a girlfriend (found dead just like his wife) 14 years ago?
- Peterson: Missing pregnant woman, ultimately the story about poking the skank.
Edge: Dr. Bart - I mean, the dude isn't even charged with his wife's murder before this other one is dug back up and he's charged with it. Couple that with the wife's Internet romance and this one's a winner.

On the whole, I think the Peterson case is a better story for Idiot America, and if TV news can ride this whole tsunami wave (so to speak) into the spring, maybe the Dr. Bart case won't catch fire. After all, if the news can't talk about a case for a year before it goes to trial, it's not really a story, is it?

But stick around.

From the mouth of Miles

2005-01-04T09:45:00.000-05:00

Excuse me, non-LSU fans, for yet another post about our coaching situation. I just can't resist, but I swear it will die down soon.

There's a roundup of quotes from the Les Miles news conference yesterday that really amused me. Find it online at Yahoo! News.

Les on being approached about the LSU job:

"Skip Bertman called to speak to my athletic director and in turn suggested that there was interest. I immediately had interest. I asked that we not meet until we play our bowl game. Skip said he thought we should and I said 'I think we should too.'"

Nice. Les' first contact with Skip was kissing up and being a Yes Man.

Les: "Let's not meet yet."
Skip: "We should meet now."
Les: "Great idea, Skip!"

Les on seeking advice from Nick Saban:

"I absolutely will. I am told on the plane ride back from the Capital One Bowl game wrote about three pages of notes about players and really anything that he wanted to tell me. In the very short future, I will talk to Nick Saban and first of all thank him and suggest to him to tell me where he would go from here. I will revere his recommendations."

I guess we should view Nick's notes as the LSU 10 Commandments or something.

Les on dealing with the media:

"The only thing that I can tell you is that I am relatively honest and somewhat deceptive."

Huh?

Les on expressing interest in the LSU job before being approached:

"I certainly said it to (David) LaFleur after he told me about it in our Dallas Cowboy meeting room. I don't know if I said, 'boy I sure would like to go there.' But there was interest in growing up and seeing Coach McClendon and understanding the tradition of LSU. There was great interest there as soon as that interest was mutual."

Dude, you left the Cowboys five years ago. Is he talking about being interested back when we hired Saban? And when exactly did he see Coach McClendon when growing up in Ohio? I smell a panderer.

Les on the mystique of Tiger Stadium on Saturday nights:

"I don't know what night that was, but I was in awe and there wasn't a person in the stands. It is a majestic, grand venue. I am told that the opponents have a very difficult time in hearing the snap count. I think that is a wonderful advantage for the home folks. I understand the opponents go by Mike (the Tiger). I understand it is called Death Valley and why. I look forward to it. My first Saturday night in that stadium will be an emotional one."

Um, what? The way I read that quote, he was asked about "Saturday night in Tiger Stadium", which to any LSU fan means "football game", and he responded by saying the stadium is quite a nice place, especially at night. And all this "I am told ..." and "I understand ..." crap is ultra-lame. "I understand it is called Death Valley"? How hard is it to pretend you know a little bit about LSU tradition? It's a little outdated, but maybe Les should pick up a copy of Greatest Moments in LSU Football History. His lack of understanding about LSU football makes that governor chick's "LSU will start off 2004 in the winner's chair" comment last year seem normal.

Also, I like Skip Bertman's quote when asked whether Miles' contract is as lucrative as Saban's was:

"I'm not going to pay Saban money for a guy who hasn't earned it"

Damned straight. Remind old Leslie that he ain't being handed some cushy job; he's got himself into a real challenge.

Somebody talk me out of this?

2005-01-03T17:48:00.000-05:00

I'm about ready to pull the trigger on an HDTV setup for Wisdom Manor. Of course, I already have the TV (44" LG DLP), but there is no High-Def signal going to it.

Sure, San Andreas looks great in Progressive Scan, and Dish Network does a good job spitting out digital images, but when you get right down to it, we're not tapping the full potential of this beast.

Loyal readers of The Wisdom will recall that I thought about signing up for Comcast HD service a couple of months ago but quickly came to my senses. But since that time, a couple of things have changed:

• Comcast is now shipping their two-tuner HD DVR (The Motorola DCT6412, if you care).

• Dish Network has dropped the price of their DishPlayer 921 HD DVR to $549 (from $999) and you can now actually buy it! (for some reason, they had refused to actually set it and only made it available through installers before). The box is pretty sweet, as it also includes an off-air tuner that lets you get local "free" digital signals and run them through the DVR.

Comcast shipping the two-tuner model brings their offering up to the bare minimum (two tuner HD DVR), and since they offer an equipment lease, the cost of entry is pretty low (about $75 in install charges, $9.95 a month for the DVR and HD package, total of about $80 a month in programming charges).

But the Comcast box is only 120 GB, meaning about 12 hours of HD recording or 90 hours of SD. And I have no idea what their UI is like or how the unit performs in general. And that's not even mentioning the fact that it's cable. If I remember correctly, not all cable channels are digital, right? If so, I have to figure the non-digital ones would look like pure crap on the HDTV.

The Dish deal, obviously, would cost me $549, plus $9.95 a month for the HD programming and $4.95 a month for this "DVR fee" they have on some units now. I'm tempted to tell them to screw off just on the principle of charging a "DVR fee" on the 921 when I don't pay the fee on my 721 (considering Dish doesn't include TiVo-like advanced features, what - exactly - are they charging me this fee for?)

Yet I find myself still close to calling Dish and ordering a DishPlayer 921.

Am I too loyal to Dish Network and satellite TV in general? Any Comcast people out there want to step up and push me back to cable? Does it make more sense for me to get the Comcast HD DVR and then bolt on a standalone TiVo or something?

Thoughts?

So it's Les Miles ...

2005-01-03T07:57:00.000-05:00

I guess there's no point in bitching about getting a coach who's only has four years' experience winning an average of 7 games a year. Maybe the expectation had to be stepping backward after the Saban years.

So on the bright side - Miles is an offensive guy, and our pathetic showing in the Capital One Bowl is a serious sign that we can't go on with Jimbo Fisher calling our plays.

That's something, I suppose.

The Wisdom's new look

2005-01-03T07:38:00.000-05:00

Obviously, The Wisdom has a new look for the new year. It's tradition around here to have an LSU-themed look during football season and ... well, something else the rest of the time.

For those of you (most of you, I imagine) who didn't instantly recognize the look as something like a Hatch Show Print poster, well that's what it's supposed to be. Or at least as much as a blog template can look like a Hatch poster.

And for those of you (again, probably most of you) who have no idea what Hatch Show Print is, Hatch is a famous Nashville shop that has printed some fabulous two-color posters for country and rock shows for about 100 years. Check out Hatch on the web.

There are several little whirlygigs that rotate on the page (that's either Johnny Cash, George Jones or Hank Snow on the left), so come early and often for your template-based amusement.

I should also note that the page was designed for Firefox, but if you're still using Internet Explorer (why?), it should look OK in that old browser, too. Let me know if it doesn't.

And Happy New Year from The Wisdom.

Unhappy New Year

2005-01-02T09:42:00.000-05:00

I'm working hard to not be depressed about LSU football this morning. I should be thinking we finished 9-3 having lost to three top-10 teams. I should realize we have a ton of talent coming back next year and I should be happy that the program just wrapped up its best five-year run ever.

But the Capital One Bowl was a real pisser, full of bad play calling, questionable decisions and big holes in focus (two blocked punts, two big TDs given up on blown coverage). And we're left this morning without a coach and with our top choice apparently a guy who just finished the season 7-5.

If the press is to be believed, we're about to hire Oklahoma State coach Les Miles, a guy who just doesn't inspire much confidence. I'd like to think Skip Bertman took the chance to chat up Kirk Ferentz after the game yesterday, but if reports are accurate, that's not happening.

Recruits are bailing, which raises questions about our long-term success. If we hire Miles, he'd better win the SEC next year, or we might be facing a long, slow decline back into the 1990s.

But that's all just speculation. Let's see how things shake out in the next few days.

An Open Letter to Skip Bertman

2004-12-31T17:58:00.000-05:00

Dear Skip:

Do not hire Bobby Petrino. I have no idea if he's your first choice, fifth choice or whether you'd even offer him a contract, but please just scratch his name off the list and move on.

As I write this, Petrino's Louisville Cardinals are trailing Boise State by 13 in the Liberty Bowl. But it is not Louisville's performance in this game that worries me most about Petrino. It's not his pourous defense (which prompted several "you just can't do that" comments). It's not Petrino's completely mindless decision to fake a punt on his own 19 yard line. It's not the fact that Louisville fans are so sick of Petrino that they were chanting "L-S-U!" after Boise State scored to go up 10. It's not even the fact that every decent play Petrino seems to have is a gimmick that would be shut down every time in the SEC.

No, Skip, the most telling sign that Petrino does not belong at LSU was the exchange that occurred on the sidelines between the coach and wide receiver J.R. Russell after Russell screwed up and helped cause an interception. I've included several screen grabs of the exchange in case you didn't get to watch the Liberty Bowl today:

As Kirk Herbstreit said after this scene; do you think Bob Stoops' or Nick Saban's players would dare get up in their coach's face like that?

No, Skip, they wouldn't. And if a player did, that player would not be back on the field, unlike Russell, who Petrino put right back in (he told Jill Arrington at halftime that they "need Russell" in the game).

When Petrino's name began to emerge as a candidate for LSU head coach, I questioned whether he's actually proven himself as a head coach at the major college level. What he has proven today (and in the pathetic way he's managed the whole LSU interview process) is that he absolutely IS NOT the caliber of coach we want at LSU.

Good luck with your coaching search, Skip. But please just drop Petrino now.

All bow to the mighty Pac 10

2004-12-31T09:00:00.000-05:00

AAAAAA HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAA!

Texas Tech 43, Cal 31

Yeah, Cal got screwed in the BCS. Texas isn't a better team.

Just five of the Pac 10 teams qualified for bowls this year. Let's look at the results so far:

• Wyoming 24, UCLA 21 (Las Vegas Bowl)
• Oregon State 38, Notre Dame 21 (Insight Bowl)
• Texas Tech 43, Cal 31 (Holiday Bowl)

Arizona State plays Purdue in the Sun Bowl today, and USC plays Oklahoma in the Orange Bowl Jan. 4.

So UCLA is upset by Wyoming, Cal is upset by Texas Tech. And the only Pac 10 team to win so far is the one was considered so bad at the start of the year the LSU dropped in the polls after beating them.

Just thought I'd mention that ...

All I can say is "wow"

2004-12-30T13:23:00.000-05:00

So I'm surfing around at lunch, trying to see if the papers in Louisville have any insight on the Bobby Petrino / LSU dance.

And I come across this column:

Snakes, not Tigers, would fit Petrino best

MEMPHIS, Tenn. — Bobby Petrino slipped — no, slithered — away, his self-made controversy still reeking.

The University of Louisville football coach avoided another day of media inquiries into his contemptible decision-making. When practice ended, he headed straight toward the freedom of a chartered bus. He stopped long enough to speak briefly with an out-of-town reporter and blow off one of his regulars. Shortly thereafter, the bus started rolling.

No word yet on whether he dropped off the players at the team hotel and told the driver to high-tail it to Baton Rouge, La.

It wouldn't be so bad if it happened. Since Petrino has decided to wink and giggle with Louisiana State, spurning all this Cardinal love and patience, it's time for him to depart.

Petrino better get this LSU job.

Because if he returns to Louisville, someone should grab him as soon as he enters the city limits and turn him over to the morality police.

In Louisville, Petrino no longer can be viewed as a genius coach who made a bad but forgivable mistake with Auburn last year. No, Petrino now is an arrogant opportunist who can't be trusted because his desire for the so-called big-time means more to him than integrity, honor and truth.

Petrino could tell me I was in the path of a tornado, and I'd stand in place.

No second chances

This man almost slipped — no, slithered — away to Auburn a year ago, even though the Tigers still had a coach and Petrino's bosses hadn't approved the interview. Now this man has spoken with LSU about its coaching vacancy less than a week after accepting a new contract that made him Louisville's first million-dollar football coach.

If this LSU incident were isolated, Petrino would be considered shady, but perhaps he could make people understand. LSU won a national championship last season and is stocked with enough talent to win another one soon. Evaluate all the coaching jobs solely on the ability to step in and win, and LSU is easily in the top five.

And the Tigers' interest (what's up with this guy and Tigers? Is it a fetish?) in Petrino is understandable. Within two seasons, he's taken Louisville higher than it's ever been and done so with flair.

We can't separate incidents, however. Petrino is 2for2 in job-hunting mishaps. It's a yearly thing. If your 2005 calendar doesn't show a despicable Petrino act somewhere between Thanksgiving and New Year's Eve, consider it flawed and go buy a new one.

It's time for Petrino to leave.

If he can't get this LSU gig, college football's elite and established programs might begin wondering what's wrong with him, knowing that he goes after all the top jobs and seemingly has the credentials. If he can't get this gig, his integrity becomes a greater concern for future schools that have interest.

If he can't get this gig, Louisville athletic director Tom Jurich should give Petrino another raise. And less than a week later, he should fire him. Ben Stiller couldn't create a funnier scenario.

Not my kind of guy

But Jurich wouldn't do it. Petrino might be the most gifted UofL football coach ever. Keeping Petrino could mean a Bowl Championship Series bowl as early as next season. Petrino will have to slip — no, slither — away from here.

"I've always said I'd rather have people want my coaches than not want them," Jurich said in early December after Petrino released a statement saying he was staying here and ending all job speculation.

I've always said I'd rather report on people with integrity.

Petrino wants to flee. Let him go.

Change the locks in case he tries to return.

Bitter, no? Somebody needs to tell the folks in Louisville that their gig isn't the best in the world. I guess this guy would rather have a mediocre coach and program so there's no chance he'd leave.

Call it karma?

2004-12-30T09:54:00.000-05:00

Loyal readers of The Wisdom will no doubt recall that a week or so ago I received a holiday gift from a certain company with which most of my professional life is entagled ... a quite nice Movado desk clock, which was ironic considering I'd been mocking Movado watches only a short while back.

Well, I got a call from the mailroom today saying I had a package, and lo and behold it was yet another gift from my friends out west. And this time they were dead right on.

Nestled inside a little gift box was a (logoed) Swiss Army "Sky King" 128MB Flash drive. Really loyal readers of The Wisdom will recall my piece about how cool the the Swiss Bit / Sky King is way back in June.

And, yes, it's the Sky King, so I will not pose a threat to fellow travelers when I head out to L.A. in a couple of weeks (although the 1/4-inch-long ink pen that pops out of it is very dangerous).

The wife and I both have 512MB PNY Attache Flash drives that I picked up on the cheap a couple of months ago, but there's something to be said for having a spare 128 Megs hanging on your keychain and always with you.

So thanks to my friends out west. Did I mention how much I like that 350Z?

Today in LSU coaching news

2004-12-30T09:25:00.000-05:00

Houston Nutt is officially out (as expected), Kirk Ferentz is being coy about whether he's spoken to LSU, Texas gave Mack Brown a new contract, Oklahoma State asked us not to talk to Les Miles (but we did so anyway) and all's quiet on the Petrino front.

So goes another day in LSU's hunt for a new coach.

I hope Skip Bertman was watching the Alamo Bowl last night as Miles' Cowboys got completely spanked by Ohio State. Hardly the work of a top-notch college coach, Skip. Please just scratch Miles off the list.

If Mack is locked up with a new deal at Texas, I say our best bet is Ferentz. His vague comments about being contacted by schools and typical "I'm happy here" comments make him seem like a man on the verge of jumping jobs, so we'll see.

But somehow I see the winds blowing harder toward Petrino.

Jesus must be mad at me

2004-12-29T13:44:00.000-05:00

I'm heading out to L.A. in a couple of weeks, so I've been fishing for things to do while I'm out there.

Tragically, not only is there not shite going on while I'm out there, but my favorite Australian guitar heroine / member of my "I can do her" list - Anne McCue - is playing the Friday and Saturday before I get there. And with Los Lobos, no less.

[editor's note: The Cap'n has managed to find what is apparently the only photo taken of Anne during the Nashville show I dragged the wife to a couple of months ago. To wit (love that cowboy shirt):]

Why does Jesus hate me?

[editor's other note: The only good thing to come from The Cap'n trying to find something to do in L.A. was the most excellent FAQ below, from some joint called The Hotel Cafe.]

These are some frequently asked questions, and some frequently given answers to go along:

Q: Can I ask you a question?
A: Yes.

Q: So, where is The Hotel Café?
A: 1623 1/2 N. Cahuenga Blvd. In Hollywood. 1/2 a block south of Hollywood Blvd on the West side of the street.

Q: What time do you open?
A: 7pm

Q: Is The Hotel Café an all ages venue?
A: Yes.

Q: Do you serve food?
A: Yes.

Q: Do you take credit cards?
A: Yes. MC & Visa.

Q: Do you take reservations?
A: Sometimes.

Q: Do you pre-sell tickets to shows?
A: No.

Q: If I send you a package, can i use Fed Ex or UPS?
A: No.

Q: Regular mail?
A: Yes.

Q: Where can I park when I come to The Hotel Café?
A: Paid parking is ½ a block North on the same side of the street. Street Parking is also available.

Q: I’m playing tonight, where do I park?
A: See above.

Q: I’m playing tonight, where do I load in?
A: Load in through the back door.

Q: I am playing tonight, can my guest list be 50 people?
A: No.

Q: 30 people?
A: No.

Q: 10?
A: Maybe.

Q: 7?
A: Yes.

Q: I’m not on the list, but I am *insert industry related job title here*, can I get in for free?
A: No.

Q: What if I give you my card?
A: No.

Q: It’s a nice card…
A: Yes it is.

Q: So, how about it then?
A: No.

Q: Can I bring in my own beer or wine?
A: No.

Q: What kind of reds do you have?
A: We don't sell wine.

Q: Do you sell wine?
A: No.

Q: Really, you don't?
A: No.

Q: Do you sell beer?
A: Yes.

Q: I thought beer and wine normally went together?
A: They normally do.

Q: Then why don't you have wine?
A: ...

Q: Can I get a Vodka Cranberry then?
A: No.

Q: Do you sell liquor?
A: No.

Q: Will you ever sell liquor?
A: Probably not.

Q: Why?
A: Because a liquor license is hard to get.

Q: Can I book bands for you?
A: No.

Q: So, I do this comedy act…
A: No.

Q: Abrah Cadab…
A: No.

Q: Do you have a problem with comedians or magicians?
A: No.

Q: I see on the calendar that you have a few TBAs. Can I have the one on the 15th?
A: No.

Q: The one on the 23rd?
A: No.

Q: Any of them?
A: No.

Q: So, I am from Saskatoon Dink, Canada, and I don’t know anyone in LA, and no one knows me. Can I have a headlining spot at The Hotel Cafe?
A: No.

Q: Can I have a residency?
A: No.

Q: Please?
A: No.

Q: Can I play with a Marshall Half Stack?
A: No.

Q: What if I turn it down?
A: No.

Q: But it doesn’t sound right unless it’s really loud.
A: No.

Q: Do you have a piano?
A: Yes.

Q: Is the piano tuned?
A: No.

Q: Do you have an extra 9 volt battery?
A: No.

Q: Can I smoke in The Hotel Café?
A: No.

Q: Is this The Burgundy Room?
A: No.

Q: Is this The Room?
A: No.

Q: Do you rent rooms by the week?
A: No.

Q: Can I rent a room?
A: No.

Q: Is this even a Hotel?
A: No.

Q: Can you give my CD to Nic Harcourt?
A: No.

Q: Can I have Gary Jules’ phone number?
A: No.

Q: Is Max or Marko here?
A: They might be.

Q: I don’t have a demo, but I’m really good, can you book me?
A: No.

Q: I can play a little right now, sort of an audition...
A: No.

Q: Do you have an open mic night?
A: No.

Q: You should.
A: No.

Q: I am a music reviewer for an online magazine you've never heard of. We get 150 unique hits per day... I don't have a business card, but I would appreciate being on the "House List" every night to photo-review acts that preform at...
A: No.

Q: But I have a camera.
A: So do I.

Q: I run an online music site you've never heard of, and we believe yourvenue would benefit greatly from advertising on our site, which stressesthe importance of DIY music. Our ad rates start at...
A: No.

Q: I am playing tonight, can my girlfriend and all of her friends drink
for free?
A: No.

Q: I played tonight, and brought 3 people to see me. Do I get Paid?
A: No.

Q: Does this beer taste funny to you?
A: No.

Q: Is a Stella Artois glass smaller than a pint glass?
A: No.

Q: It looks smaller?
A: Yes it does.

Q: Why is that?
A: Physics.

Q: Can I have a job?
A: No.

Q: How about I just leave my resume?
A: No.

Q: What happened to the pool table?
A: It’s gone.

Q: Do you still have the open jazz jam?
A: No.

Q: Why?
A: Because no one in LA appreciates jazz.

Q: That’s sad.
A: Yes. Yes it is.

The last round of potential coach names (hopefully)

2004-12-29T09:58:00.000-05:00

I'd have thought LSU would be beyond the stage of new names popping up in their coach search by now, but that hasn't seemed to happen yet.

So here's the Wisdom on the latest names:

Houston Nutt: I'm not going to waste time evaluating him as a coach, because I don't see it happening. The man's an Arkansas alum and already turned down a good job (Nebraska) to stay with the Hogs. He's sitting pretty at his alma mater, being competitive in the nation's best conference. He shouldn't and likely won't leave.

Terry Robiskie: An LSU alum who's kicked around the NFL in various coaching spots for the past 20 years. Currently the interim coach of the Cleveland Browns. The way I figure it, if he were a really good coach, he'd be farther along in his career, and if he had a deep love of LSU, he'd have come back as an assistant somewhere along the line. I'll pass.

Jack Del Rio: Head coach of the Jacksonville Jaguars; former Saints linebacker and assistant; married to a Coonass whose daughter just graduated LSU. Young guy who's risen quickly in the NFL coaching ranks. Considering the he already has one of the jobs Saban was rumored to be up for a couple of years ago, why would he step back to college (except for the fact that he might be fired soon - not such a great thing on a resume)? I don't see it happening. Plus, the dude looks like he's had a lot of facial plastic surgery:

Freak.

Jimbo Fisher: LSU's offensive coordinator. Jimbo, I'm sorry. It's too good of a job to promote a coordinator to. Hiring you would bring back nightmares of Mike Archer. Good luck at your next job.

I think that wraps up the names that are out in public as potential LSU coach candidates.

My favorite remains Mack Brown, but we're apparently not pursuing him. Of the names out there, I'd say the best of the bunch is Iowa coach Kirk Ferentz, but if I had to put money on who we hire, I'd say it's Petrino. He's a "hot" coach that can be had pretty easily (no buyout, only makes $1 million with his new deal), and it wouldn't surprise me to see him named coach Jan. 1 (Louisville plays a New Year's Eve bowl, we play New Year's Day) so recruits sitting down for the bowls hear about LSU's new coach, not the uncertainty of not having one.

Worst choices in my mind: Les Miles or any of the NFL guys.

We'll see.

Keeping our ports safe - from trademark infringement

2004-12-28T11:04:00.000-05:00

If you pay attention at all to the news, you've heard the cries that the U.S. faces a potential terrorism nightmare because we lack the ability to adequately search cargo containers coming into the country for "dirty bombs" and the like. I think the figure thrown around is only 5% of containers are ever searched.

Apparently, though, the U.S. Customs Service does have sufficient manpower to identify and intercept cargo coming into the U.S. that may pose a risk of trademark infringement.

From The Smoking Gun: Feds seek to destroy seized "Ghettopoly" games.

Today's LSU coach update

2004-12-28T09:10:00.000-05:00

Forgive me, non-football fans, but I feel compelled to follow the trail of LSU's search for Nick Saban's replacement.

Today's news is that Tuberville is out (thank God), Butch Davis is out (I wouldn't want a sickly coach who wanted a year off, anyway), we're serious about Petrino and may be talking to Oklahoma State coach Les Miles.

So the Wisdom on Miles:

Les Miles: Sorry, I just don't see it. Four years at OSU going 4-7, 8-5, 9-4 and 7-4 (before this year's bowl). He's been an assistant coach at Michigan, Colorado, The Dallas Cowboys and OSU, and he's in his first head coaching job. His resume and record might have made him a good replacement for Gerry DiNardo five years ago, but not for Nick Saban now.

But Skip, you're getting close ... Big 12 is where you should be looking, just a little farther south. Namely, Austin.

I'm ignoring these rumors about Steve Spurrier unless some solid evidence is put forward that he'd leave South Carolina without ever coaching a game there.

So for today, it looks like Petrino is the most likely candidate. As I said yesterday, he's potentially a very good coach, but he's hardly proven himself in two years at Louisville (already a solid program), and I have to think he has Saban-like NFL aspirations.

Stay tuned ...

On coaches ...

2004-12-27T10:33:00.000-05:00

OK, first of all, this image on The Advocate's (the Baton Rouge daily, not the national gay newspaper) site this morning makes me want to puke:

Tuberville as LSU coach? God I hope those rumors aren't true. Skip, if you're reading this - don't do it. The most rabid LSU fan I know has already said if we hire Tuberville, he'll stop going to games. And I'm with him there. Tuberville is a slimy little jerk who doesn't belong at LSU.

That said, there's the serious business of picking a coach. Early talk, of course, has been about Butch Davis (former Miami Hurricane and [fired] Cleveland Browns coach); Kirk Ferentz of Iowa and Bobby Petrino of Louisville.

And The Wisdom on these guys ...

Butch Davis: Fine job at Miami, I suppose. Bad job in Cleveland, and he's admitted to being so delicate that he needs a year off to get his health back. No thanks. Go take some vitamins or something, Butch.

Kirk Ferentz: I can't use my "The Big 10 sucks" logic anymore, since that's where Nick came from, as a negative on Ferentz. And he's done more with Iowa (three bad years, then 11-2 and 10-3 [going in to the Cap 1 Bowl]) than Saban did with Michigan State (his best year was his last, at 10-2. Otherwise he had about a .500 record). But Ferentz is an offensive guy, and LSU showed how defense wins titles last year.

Bobby Petrino: He could be a real talent, but I just don't think he's proven himself yet. Two years at Louisville when the program was already on solid footing? And he's all about the big-play offense, which again isn't our style. He's got NFL and SEC experience, but he's jumped around even more than Saban. Since 1989, he's spent three years at Idaho, two years at Arizona State, one year at Nevada, three years at Utah State, one year at Louisville, two years at Jacksonville (NFL), one year at Auburn and just finished his second year back at Louisville. If he's successful at LSU, do you think he's sticking around?

And then there are the active NFL coaches being talked about (but not talked to until Jan. 2) ...

Gregg Williams: Defensive coordinator for the Washington Redskins, former head coach of the Buffalo Bills. He's apparently a defensive genius, hand-picked by Joe Gibbs to rebuild the mess Steve Spurrier created. He's been in the NFL for about 15 years, and spent 11 years with the Oilers/Titans. No real college experience to speak of, so I'd have to question whether he'd want to leave the NFL and how effective a recruiter he'd be.

Mike Nolan: Defensive coordinator for the Baltimore Ravens. Similar story as Williams; longtime NFL guy, great defensive mind. He coached linebackers for one year at LSU back in the 1980s. But the official Ravens site even mentions him as a soon-to-be NFL head coach, so why would he get off that track, and if he did, how long before he'd jump back?

Mike Trgovac: Yet another NFL defensive coordinator (Carolina Panthers). He's been in the NFL for 10 years and spent the 11 years before that coaching college defense. I'm not overly impressed with him.

And those, ladies and gentlemen, are the leading candidates - at least in public - to be the next coach of LSU.

Kind of depressing. Of those guys, I think I'd make a run at Ferentz.

But let me throw another name out there; one you LSU fans have heard before ...

Mack Brown

Yes, Mack Brown, head coach of Texas. Loyal Tiger fans will remember the flirtations LSU has had with Mack over the years. We came close to hiring Mack when he was at Tulane and Bill Arnsparger left LSU in 1986. We thought briefly about it when Mack was at North Carolina and we fired Mike Archer in 1990. We thought more seriously about Mack when we fired Curley Hallman in 1994 (Mack had gone 7-4, 9-4, 10-3 and 8-4 at UNC during our Curley years), and dreamed of Mack - who went to Texas in 1998 - when we fired Gerry DiNardo in 1999.

Oh, how things might have been different for LSU in the 1990s if we'd had hired Mack instead of Archer.

Mack Brown won at North Carolina. He took a horrible team (they were 1-10 in each of his first two years), and absolutely turned them around. He posted three 10-win seasons in his last five years at UNC. And it's worth noting that he stayed at UNC for a full 10 years ...

Since moving to Texas in 1998, Mack has won at least 9 games every year. He's won 10+ games each of the past four years.

His teams have fierce defenses and powerful offenses. They win in the smashmouth Big 12.

In short, Mack's a winner. He plays our brand of football, he's loyal and he's driven.

But why would he leave Texas?

Because he's not appreciated. See, despite compiling a 69-19 record over the past 7 years, Mack has won zero Big 12 titles (and therefore zero national championships) and will appear in his first BCS bowl this year - and that was the result of poll rigging.

This year Oklahoma will be playing for the national championship for the third time in 7 years, and Nebraska made it to the big game in 2001. And with Bobby Stoops building a new dynasty at Oklahoma, things aren't going to get any easier for Mack in Austin.

It's not that Mack should shy away from a challenge, but a coach can only take so much abuse for winning 9+ games every year (the site firemackbrown.com was just recently taken down after its owner acknowledged that Mack shouldn't actually be fired). He's a loyal guy (10 years at UNC, 7 so far at Texas), and should expect some loyalty in return.

So I hope Skip gives Mack's agent a call, apologizes for passing him up for our last four openings, let's him know about all the cool facilities Nick made us build - and throws a pile of cash at him.

"Merry Christmas, Motherfûckers!"

2004-12-27T09:35:00.000-05:00

And then Fonzie was gone ...

I know he needed to tell his players in person, and that they were all gone until Christmas Day, but still. Dude, you seriously messed up some Christmas dinners.

Having spent so much time on the road in the past couple of weeks, my feelings about Nick Saban leaving have been colored largely by the Outlaw Country channel on Sirius. Good country music, of course, is all about cheatin' and heartbreak.

My initial reaction was echoed in the sentiments of Ween's "Piss Up A Rope" (click for lyrics). But that's a bit harsh.

Instead, I'm thinking Willie Nelson's "Big Booty" is more in tune with my thoughts of our soon-to-be former coach. To wit:

She said I ain't gonna fix you no more sausage;
biscuits and gravy on the side
'cause you done said the wrong thing to me baby,
and you can kiss big booty goodbye

Go on and find yourself a skinny woman
something a little more your size
and don't come back to me a'moanin'
when she cuts you off of burgers and fries

LSU, of course, is Big Booty here. And the Dolphins are the sexy little skinny thing he's leaving us for.

I hope she's good in bed, Nick. Because the sexy ones expect you to stay in perfect shape, too. There won't be any biscuits and gravy for you down there.

Note to CNN's American Morning

2004-12-24T08:21:00.000-05:00

"Rockapella" sucks. They should not be on your show. Please stop showing their stupid "Christmas" bits.

'Twas the day of the presser

2004-12-23T11:06:00.000-05:00

A poem for you, in the spirit of Christmas:

'Twas two days before Christmas, by Cap'n Ken

'Twas two days before Chrismas, when all through the bayou,
Not a Tiger fan was stirring; they wouldn't know how to.
Google News was reloaded in the browser with fear,
Dreading the word that St. Nick would no longer be there

The Tigers had twisted and turned in their beds,
While visions of Butch Davis (or Kirk Ferentz) invaded their heads;
And Bertman in his suit and that NASA guy in his new LSU cap,
Had just begun thinking of coaches to tap,

When out of the Athletic Administration building there arose such a clatter,
The Baton Rouge media sprang from their desks to see what was the matter.
Away to the presser they flew like a flash,
Tore open their notebooks, words ready to hash.

The lights on the podium all around the room,
Gave a lustre of brightness amidst all the doom,
When, who to our wondering eyes should appear,
But a smallish man in the turtleneck he wears all year,

With his Fonzie hairdo and clothes that were slick,
We knew in a moment it must be St. Nick.
More rapid than eagles his decision it came,
And he shouted the words attached to his name;

"Now, Dolphins they want me, they chase me with vigor!
They held out a few days so they could interview Art Shell!
The trash man will give me the ultimate power!
And here it is now, the anxious decision hour!"

And then, in a twinkling, we hear from his lips,
The decision he'd made, after many men's tips.
As we held onto our breath and were ready to cry,
We saw a smile come across the face of this guy.

His eyes - how they twinkled! his dimples how merry!
Surely the words he'd be speaking weren't scary!
We leaned closer to hear what St. Nick he would say,
Nobody in America believed he would stay.

He blurted the words, to the press gave the news,
Driving WBRZ viewership and Google News views,
"I'm staying a Tiger, I love a good fight,"
"HAPPY CHRISTMAS TO ALL, AND TO ALL A GOOD-NIGHT!"

[editor's note: of course, this is all wishful thinking. And sorry if it's a bit sloppy; I had to rush it out before any announcement comes.]

The Better Better Calendar

2004-12-21T17:17:00.000-05:00

The real geeks among you have probably come across the Better Calendar Proposal being pushed by some Johns Hopkins physics professor named Richard Conn Henry.

Basically, Henry's proposal is to shift things around so that days of the week are consistent for any given date each year. January 1 would always be a Sunday, for instance. Apparently the "benefit" of this is always knowing what day your birthday and Christmas fall on, and instead of having to remember "30 days hath September, April, June and November", you just have to remember "31 days hath March, June, September and December".

Every five or six years in Henry's calendar, there'd be an extra non-month-affiliated week thrown in to get the calendar back in sync with the seasons as a substitute for Leap Year. Ideally, Henry says, nobody would work during this "Newton Week".

Whatever.

The Cap'n came up with a "Better Calendar" idea several years ago, and if not for my admittedly poor math and science skills, I'd have worked out the details and pushed it through to worldwide acceptance already. But now that the "Better Calendar" proposal is out there with a shortcut solution - "Newton Week" - for the seasonal sync, I figure actually working out a logical system for balancing dates with seasons isn't too important.

The Cap'n Calendar works like this:

Instead of 52 7-day weeks, we have 45 8-day weeks in a year. The new day sits between Saturday and Sunday and is called .... FUNDAY!

The beauty of Funday is that it falls on the weekend, but isn't associated with any religious observances. So everybody (except for people in retail and the enormous Funday Economy that will spring up) gets the day off, and nobody has to go to church!

It's FUNDAY in the most literal sense.

Creating Funday helps balance out the current inhumane 5/2 ratio of work/free days per week and reduces the total number of work weeks in a year by 7. Of course, switching from a 50-week work year (assuming 2 weeks of vacation) to a 43-week work year might just throw the entire world economy into chaos, but again - I'm not a detail person. Somebody else can work that out.

I imagine that switching to an 8-day week will require some kind of tweaking in the whole Leap Year / calendar reconcile thing. 365.2422 days (a full year) is 45.65 Cap'n Calendar weeks (and 52.18 current weeks). Maybe it's no big deal to keep the current stucture of months and just have fewer weeks in each? Again, I'm not so much with the math and science.

If we did need to insert extra days during the year, then maybe we throw a couple of "Shop Days" in between Thanksgiving and Christmas, create a special "Vote Day" in early November and "Super Bowl Day" at the end of January.

I'm sure these minor little details can all be worked out. But the important thing now is for the world to rally around The Cap'n Calendar and make Funday a reality!

Get to work, people.

Gift idea for The Cap'n

2004-12-21T09:31:00.000-05:00

OK, so it's not coming out until next week, but maybe pre-ordering now gets you the limited-edition first-printing cover with Nick not dressed in teal and orange:

Be careful what you mock ...

2004-12-20T16:44:00.000-05:00

A little while back the wife and I were watching TV when a Movado commercial came on (must have been CNN, since that's pretty much all the non-TiFaux TV we watch). I pondered aloud why anyone would want one of those Movado "museum watches", which I think look like something you'd find at a Tony Montana garage sale:

Then I get in to work this morning to find a box on my desk from a certain company with which most of my professional life is entangled. And inside the box? A Movado "museum" desk clock.

Of course, I'm happy to get holiday schwag from my friends out west, and after eating my way across Louisiana this past weekend, I'm glad it wasn't cookies. And I'm certainly not going to look a $100+ gift horse in it's little black-dialed mouth.

And honestly, the think doesn't offend me. In fact, I kind of like it. I dig the brushed aluminum look, and it makes a handsome addition to my spacious cuboffice.

But I shall not forget the "be careful what you mock" lesson.

Have I mentioned how stupid I think those 350Zs are?

Pre-Christmas Christmas, 2004

2004-12-20T10:53:00.000-05:00

The wife and I got back last night from a quick trip down to Baton Rouge for my family's traditional pre-Christmas Christmas celebration. Nothing could live up to last year's pre-Christmas (I highly recommend reading that post; I know I enjoyed it again), and it was a pretty sedate affair.

My folks have moved out of the middle of nowhere in Georgia and now live in the middle of nowhere in Louisiana. So we drove the extra hour up to their new place Friday evening to spend the night. Nice place, but damn it's in the middle of nowhere.

Driving back to Baton Rouge Saturday morning, we noticed that northbound I-110 was completely shutdown. It looked like some kind of bad wreck had happened, but then I noticed the car sitting up on the wrecker was, in fact, The General Lee. Seems they were shooting a Dukes of Hazzard scene, which I'm sure made the 1,000 or so people being forced off the Interstate happy.

Down in Red Stick we swung over to LSU so I could check out the stadium demolition / construction. Yes, I watch the old new section being town down through LSU's webcam every day, but there's no substitute for seeing it live.

I took the picture below from inside the stadium on the east side. No, a sign reading "NOTICE! - Active construction site, positively NO admittance!" does not apply to me.

click the image to get the fullsize glory

The wife and I spent some time on campus and she snapped some "art" shots around the Quad, but the absolute highlight was coming across a group of folks tailgating at the back of the stadium lot across the street from the baseball stadium.

There was, of course, nothing going on that day. I asked one of the guys if they were tailgating the stadium construction project. Nope. He said they are LSU Baseball tailgaters and they were out there because one of the players had graduated on Friday and his family was in from California. So they set up a tailgate (I'm talking full grill setup, drinks, etc.) so they could treat this kid and his family to the full tailgate experience.

Awesome. Not only is LSU one of the few schools where people party hard for baseball, but these guys are such great fans that they come out to the empty parking lot on a cold Saturday to throw a players' family a tailgate.

Geaux Tigers!

Our actual pre-Christmas Christmas was, as I said, pretty uneventful. My sister in Texas had to bail out, so it was just me and the wife, my folks, and my other sister. No pierced nephews, no mullet kids. But some darn fine gumbo.

We went out that night with my boys Scott and Rocket, who were after proof that the wife is in fact as cool as she is. Longtime friends of The Cap'n are rightly skeptical of my ability to have landed a woman of such high quality.

Then we skipped town early Sunday, leaving Baton Rouge at 64 degrees and getting back to Atlanta at 36 degrees.

The coach-go-round

2004-12-16T09:17:00.000-05:00

Considering the design of The Wisdom incorporates LSU football during the season, I suppose I'm obligated to chime in on the Nick Saban situation. I'd have done it yesterday, but I was in an all-day meeting and actually heard about it from a guy surfing on his Treo. Worse yet, my USC pal was in from L.A. for the meeting, so his "you should hire Norm Chow" stuff trumped my congratulating him for finally getting a shot at the national championship.

So it seems the Dolphins want Nick, and they may give him both a pile of cash ($5 million a year) and control of the organization as GM.

He should take it.

It's not that I want him to bolt LSU for the NFL, but it's what he should do.

I can hear you all now: "But Cap'n, shouldn't Nick want to stay at LSU, the finest damn football program in America?"

But I have to be a realist. Historically, the LSU job is certainly among the better coaching positions in the U.S., and thanks to Nick, it's become an even better job to have. Maybe the 10th-best job in the NCAA?

That means it's the 42nd best job in the world for a man in Nick's profession. Sure, not every football coach wants to jump to the NFL, but Nick's the type that does. He's done it once, already.

So to reach the top of his profession, the NFL is where he needs to be. And he'll make $5 million a year to boot. Maybe it's riskier to take over a 1-8 Dolphins team than to stay at LSU, but risk is what ambitious coaches have to accept in order to move up.

I'm operating under the assumption that Nick is leaving. If so, the question then becomes how we replace him. Hopefully that decision will be made before the NASA geek comes onboard as chancellor. And hopefully we don't make the same mistake we made when Bill Arnsparger left. Back then, we hired Mike Archer (a coordinator under Arnsparger). Mike crashed the program and sent us down the road of Curley Hallman and Gerry DiNardo.

So Jimbo Fisher, sorry.

Word on the street is that Nick has personally recommended former Cleveland Browns and Miami Hurricanes coach Butch Davis as a replacement. Davis doesn't exactly have a stellar recent resume, but reading between the lines he seems to be a real coaching talent. So we'll see.

In any case, Tiger fans need to understand that this is the way the world works. LSU is not the best job in football, but we've had the best coach in football for five years. That's an imbalance in our favor, and we have a national championship, two SEC championships, two Sugar Bowl wins and the best five-year stretch since the early 1970s to show for it.

But ultimately, the best coaches are likely to seek the best jobs. And that's probably the case with Nick. We'll just have to make the next smart move and avoid the next dumb move once he moves on.

Playing along - UPDATED with answers

2004-12-14T10:27:00.000-05:00

[update - So just two were guessed, by some guy I don't think I know. So to close out this silly thing, you'll find the answers below. And shame on you all for not getting The Clash stuff ...]

OK, so over at That Yellow Bastard, he's pushing a new lyric game. Here's the rules and my list (of 10, not 30. Sue me).

1) On your current playlist, hit shuffle and pick the first thirty songs on the list.

2) Write down one line of the song. Try to avoid putting the song title in the line.

3) Have your friends comment and see if they know the songs. (NO CHEATING!)

4) When someone guesses correctly, strike out the line and list the correct name of the song next to it. (Title AND artist have to be correctly guessed.)

[editor's note: I took three liberties with the random playlist rules. I skipped past any song that was a cover, I limited artists to no more than two appearances (there is a certain act that occupies about 40% of my playlist) and I had to skip past an instrumental or two].

1 - Yeah I'm waitin' for you, it's been so long / Yeah I'm lost but I'm at home - (Jet - Come Around Again)

2 - I can't think of a better way to spend the night / Than speeding around underneath the yellow lights - (The Clash - London's Burning)

3 - This year I’ve lost some friends / Some friends? what friends? I dunno, I ain’t even noticed. - (The Clash - Hateful)

4 - I wanted to be like Buddha / but I turned out like Nixon - (Anne McCue - Ghandi)

5 - Easy come, easy go / Let's do the Jerk - (Rocket From The Crypt - When in Rome)

6 - ~~I always flirt with death / I'll get killed but I don't care about it~~ - (The Replacements - Another Girl, Another Planet)

7 - 'Cause everything I need is denied me / and everything I want is taken away from me - (Weezer - The Good Life)

8 - ~~So far so good she's absolutely wasted / She's hanging up and changing her story around~~ - (Kings of Leon - Slow Night, So Long)

9 - They say I shouldn't waste my life anymore by running around / I should find some nice white girl and settle down - (The Blasters - I Don't Want To)

10 - I'm living in a world but I don't know where I belong / Running with a crowd but I've always got to run alone - (The Fleshtones - Shadow Line)

A is for Amazon

2004-12-13T10:53:00.000-05:00

How about an Internet / Search Engine geek post for a Monday?

Google has rolled out a new experimental service called Google Suggest. As you are entering a search term, their engine makes suggestions on the fly for what you are most likely to be searching for. For example, type "LS" in the box and Google suggests the file "lsass.exe". I guess more people are looking for that then "LSU".

Anyway, the suggestions are based not on the total number of results on the web, but on one of Google's own Al Gore Rhythms that determines the "best" match for what you're entering. So entering "Ken" brings a suggestion of "Ken Jennings" ahead of "Kenneth Cole" because of his Jeopardy buzz.

Where things get interesting (at least for an Internet / Search geek like myself) are the suggestions for letters of the alphabet. What "owns" the letter "M" in Google's world today, for instance.

And here we go:

- A is for Amazon
- B is for Best Buy (must be a Christmas season thing)
- C is for CNN
- D is for Dictionary
- E is for eBay
- F is for Firefox (as in the browser - interesting)
- G is for Games (not Google?)
- H is for Hotmail
- I is for Ikea (still more buzz than iPod)
- J is for Jokes (if Jokes beats Jobs, does that mean the economy is doing well?)
- K is for Kazaa
- L is for Lyrics
- M is for Mapquest (not Movies, not Music, not MP3)
- N is for News
- O is for Online Dictionary (hmm, bad spellers abound, no?)
- P is for Paris Hilton (now that's some good buzz)
- Q is for Quotes
- R is for Recipes (holiday, no doubt)
- S is for Spybot
- T is for Tara Reid (gross)
- U is for UPS (Christmas shipping)
- V is for Verizon (Makes a great gift!)
- W is for Weather
- X is for Xbox
- Y is for Yahoo
- Z is for Zip Codes (also Christmas shipping related)

I'm going to re-run these suggestions from time to time to see how the buzz changes. Obviously the holidays are influencing things right now.

Facinating, isn't it? No?

What would you say to your sister's killer?

2004-12-10T14:51:00.000-05:00

"Victim impact statements" are a pretty common element of murder trials these days, and while I suppose there's some value to victims' families in venting their anger, I have to think ultimately getting up in a courtroom to call out the killer leaves family members feeling pretty powerless.

After all, a killer on his way to death row probably doesn't care too much that a mother will never have grandchildren. He probably would get a kick out of hearing that.

But I like the statement the sister of murdered LSU grad Charlotte Murray Pace made in front of convicted serial killer Derrick Todd Lee before he was whisked away to Angola's Death Row.

Sam Pace said she was disgusted thinking that Lee’s was the last face her sister saw.

"This time, I'll be the one watching you die," Sam Pace said. "I want to watch your expressions when the first cold drop of saline hits your veins."

After the first chemical enters Lee's blood stream, Sam Pace told Lee, the second chemical will paralyze his veins and lungs, so that "every cell of your body will be screaming for oxygen."

The third chemical will cause a massive fatal heart attack, Sam Pace said.

"I'll be there as you take your last breaths and descend into hell for all eternity," she said.

Sam went so far as to tour Death Row to get an idea of how her sister's killer will spend his last hours. And she put him on notice that she'll be there to watch him die - and that she'll enjoy it.

Fabulous.

I can't imagine being in Sam's shoes - although considering Pace lived and was murdered about a quarter-mile from my sister's house, I very well could be - but it's great to see she found an angle to not only vent her rage, but to also turn the tables on such a sick bastard.

• Lee sentenced to death (The Advocate [the Baton Rouge daily, not the national gay newspaper.])

Gee, I just thought it was a Turbie Twist

2004-12-09T10:06:00.000-05:00

Our wonderful U.S. Justice Department is advancing the war on terror this month by distributing informational posters to airport security teams giving them some background on the headwear of Muslims and Sikhs:

• Muslim Headwear Poster

• Sikh Headwear Poster

You'll notice each of the posters comes with a section titled "Points to Keep in Mind when searching someone wearing a [insert weird religion here] Head Covering", and these points are:

1 - Show Respect
2 - Explain why you need to conduct search
3 - Offer private room for search, if available
4 - Searches should be done by members of the same sex
5 - Review applicable policies and procedures for more information

Apart from the "offer private room" thing (if your religion says you can't show your head, then dibs on the private rooms makes sense), aren't these just the basic rules the "security" people are supposed to follow with everybody?

And I'd like to think the "applicable policies and procedures" include things like "a Muslim traveler is more likely to be a terrorist than an old white lady, so search every Muslim", but I imagine it's more like "even though each and every 9/11 hijacker was Muslim, you cannot under any circumstances give more scrutiny to Muslim passengers than non-Muslims."

Kudos also to whoever put together this great parody:

• Redneck Headwear Poster

It should be noted, however, that not all Rednecks are Southerners, despite the implications of that poster. Toby Keith is from Oklahoma, and the Klan is as active in Illinois as Alabama.

Unmotivated

2004-12-08T15:34:00.000-05:00

Hey people:

I have time to blog today and there are some things I could throw out there, but I'm just not motivated.

Thought you'd like to know.

CNN anchor commercials - brilliant!

2004-12-06T10:31:00.000-05:00

I'm a huge fan of the new promos running for cnn.com that use the on-air anchors as metaphors for the online experience.

First off, it's kind of high-concept stuff for TV promotions - surfing cnn.com is like having Anderson Cooper sitting in front of you answering questions - so I like the risk CNN is taking there.

Second, it's a brilliant use of the network "personalities" to bridge what's been a big divide between the cable network and the Internet site. And playing on the actual personalities of the anchors (as opposed to some kind of "star" quality the people are supposed to have) lifts the network profile as well.

Third, CNN's taking another risk by poking fun at their news people and audience - Lou Dobbs gets frustrated because he's trying to tell some woman the news, but she's just making moon eyes at Dr. Sanjay Gupta; another woman scolds Wolf Blitzer for not telling her anything she doesn't already know - but it works.

And finally, they are damned funny. I imagine some "serious journalism" outfit like Columbia Journalism Review will come out and say it's inappropriate for journalists to mock themselves and get involved in silly commercials, but the spots hit right at the heart of viewers' relationship with CNN.

These are the best media promotion spots since The Weather Channel's "The Front" ad back in 1998. That award-winning ad featured a sports-bar type place where weather-obsessed fans gathered to watch The Weather Channel. It was killed, incidentally, by some suit over there who thought it showed the network not taking the weather seriously enough.

Hopefully the CNN ads won't suffer the same fate. I imagine they won't air the spots on days when buses are blowing up in Israel, but they are brilliant.

CNN.com has set up a special section of their site where you can watch the commercials, interviews with the anchors and outtakes. It's worth a look.

Principles - what a hassle

2004-12-02T10:23:00.000-05:00

Principles can be hard to have. For example, it's easy to say "freedom of speech is sacred", but harder to support the rights of white supremacists to exercise their particular speech.

And thus New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg is abandoning a very important principle in the face of human tragedy.

New York Firefighter Christian Engeldrum, a hero of 9/11 who was one of a group of firefighters who raised the first U.S. flag above the wreckage, was killed in Iraq this week. He'd re-upped with the Army after 9/11.

To help support Engeldrum's family, Bloomberg is pushing special legislation to grant his widow the benefits she'd be entitled to if Engeldrum had been killed on duty for the NYFD.

I'm sorry, but this is an injustice and if approved would represent the worst kind of government misappropriation. Engeldrum was not killed in the line of duty for NYFD and his widow is not entitled to the benefits. That's just a fact.

Where principle meets emotion, emotion too often wins. I'm sure the New York legislature will approve Bloomberg's measure to give undeserved benefits to Engeldrum's widow. It just feels good to do so, doesn't it?

And if a NYC staff accountant serving in Iraq as an Army reservist gets killed next month, will his widow demand full city retirement benefits? She'd have a good case. And then if a NYC janitor joins the Army reserve and is killed in a training exercise in Texas, wouldn't his widow also deserve the same benefits as if he'd stayed on in his city job and not left for the reserves?

This is why we have rules. It's why New York has standards for granting benefits to widows (Engeldrum's widow is entitled to receive three years of his firefighter pay under the actual rules. She will also receive benefits from the Army because he was killed in the line of duty there.). If the rules are broken for Person A, then Person B has a really good argument for geeting the same treatment.

It's called a can of worms, and this is how you open it.

I'm sure Bloomberg believes the people of New York would want Endeldrum's widow to be taken care of. And I'm sure they do. His actions were courageous and selfless beyond belief.

But the appropriate thing to do is ask the people of New York to help support his widow and children - instead of forcing them to and potentially obligating them to support the aforementioned accountant and janitor widows as well. I believe many people in New York and across the U.S. would happily donate a few dollars to help support his family.

I'd be among them. One of my principles is to support to people and organizations that I believe deserve our charity.

I looked this morning for a fund to benefit his family. I haven't found one yet. If I do, I'll donate to it and I'll let y'all know about it as well. And if any of you come across a fund site, hit me with a comment.

Bringing down the house

2004-12-01T13:59:00.000-05:00

Yes, I'm such an LSU freak that I have the webcam image of Tiger Stadium's construction affixed to my XP desktop. For the unenlightened among you, LSU is replacing the old west-side upper deck with a fancy new west-side upper deck.

I won't bore you with nostalgic ramblings about the "new section" - my dad bought season seats on the 50-yard-line in the deck's second row back when it was the cool new place to sit (ca. 1978). Those were the seats we had when we did the whole motor-home thing, had pre-game visits from Woody Dumas and once from Charlie Mac himself and would come very close to death as my drunk father drove the motor home down Highland Road after the game.

OK, so the nostalgia came out ... but I'll stop short of mentioning the old home for Mike The Tiger that's about to be torn down and reminiscing about the morning I spent in it with Mike V as a cub ...

Dang, I just can't help it ...

Anyway, I captured the image below from this morning.

Kind of nice, isn't it? The sun shining through the ribs of the deck after the seat structure has come down; gaggle of cranes reaching toward the sky ...

You can follow the progress yourself at LSUSports.net.

Cap'n Ken answers your search questions

2004-11-30T13:53:00.000-05:00

I haven't done this in a while, but some recent search queries bringing folks to The Wisdom are too good not to answer.

• how to make starbucks pumpkin scones - 1) Find a Starbucks; 2) Ask for a Pumpkin Scone; 3) Pay the person at the counter. Come on, people, they're like $1.85 or something. NOTE: You may have to visit several Starbucks to actually find a Pumpkin Scone. Fortunately, there should be at least 10 Starbucks within a mile of where you are right now.

• Debra Lafave - Has she become a hot topic again? The Wisdom is being overrun with visits from people seeking the hot, student-doing teacher. I'd still do her.

• Nick Saban - Yes, he'll be talked about as a NFL coach. No, he's still not Jewish, and yes, he's still sexy.

• barbie is a tribute to whom or inspires from which - My, what good grammar. But might I suggest a more direct approach. Perhaps +barbie +named +after at Google will return your desired result.

• pivik "mad cow" - For the record, I have never referred to Jessica Pivik as a "mad cow" or as a "troutmouth" (that was another blog). I prefer "untalented J-school student".

Blue State of mind

2004-11-29T10:51:00.000-05:00

The consumers among you no doubt realize last Friday was "Black Friday" - the infamous shopping frenzy that is the day after Thanksgiving.

TV news was filled with images of people lined up outside Wal-Mart at 5 a.m. and crowds mobbing displays of discount DVD players to snap up the deals. And from Saturday on, the commentary has been consistent: "Why do people go through all this just to shop?"

The talking heads seem mystified. "Some people just love to shop", "It takes the boredom out of Thanksgiving" and "People get pressured to go by family members" were the theories put out on CNN this morning.

Clearly the media doesn't understand.

Why did all those people line up before sunrise and fight for $18 DVD players? Because they had to.

For a lot of American families - maybe moreso those "Red State" families - inconvenience is an economic reality. To give their kids a "good" Christmas, they have to stretch their dollars and find the biggest deals. And those deals happen when Wal-Mart's doors open on Black Friday.

An $18 DVD player is a major score. Little Johnny won't get one if it costs $68. If the family wants to get a PC, they have little choice but to line up at 5 a.m. to get the $349 one.

And it's not just at Christmas. These people are the ones who only buy food they have coupons for. They are first in line for back-to-school sales to save $1 on a pack of pencils. They buy clothes at Wal-Mart.

I'm not one of these people. Never have been. I grew up spoiled and was beyond the "new shoes every month" stage when I got poor. I'm a bargain shopper, but my idea of a good deal is a $10 Gap shirt or $50 Kenneth Cole shoes.

But I can empathize with people who struggle to provide a "normal" life for their kids and themselves. They aren't poor, but the comforts of modern life are a luxury at full retail price.

What's interesting is how clueless the media seems to be to this reality. Pretty much by definition, people on TV don't fit the profile of 5 a.m. Black Friday shoppers. But are they so detatched that they don't understand the reality of these other American families?

And is this typical of "Blue State" attitudes? These types love to mock Wal-Mart shoppers and make fun of people who's idea of a night out is dinner at Ryan's Family Steak House.

But do they really not understand why "Red State" America is the way it is? It would seem pretty hard to win their votes if you don't ...

Do you believe?

2004-11-24T10:18:00.000-05:00

I have a mental list of questions I always want to ask people who say they are Christians. It's essentially a test of logic. If someone professes to believe something but their actions or specific beliefs contradict the larger doctrine, my opinion is that they are not actually believers.

But this post isn't about Christianity. It's about the TSA.

When the stories came out yesterday about women objecting to being felt up at airport security, I hoped it would spur some actual debate over whether these kinds of "security" measures actually make air travel any safer. That doesn't seem to be happening.

On CNN this morning, Soledad O'Brien interviewed one of the women who's considering a lawsuit against the TSA. The woman described the "breast-exam" patdowns as "another erosion of our rights in the name of airline security."

Soledad responded with the typical "yeah, but don't you want to be safe?" kind of reasoning. And that's where the debate usually ends.

So I'm working on a logic test for people who believe our post-9/11 airport security measures make us "safer". But first, I need to find out who believes this.

And while my bits on the TSA and airline security rarely ever draw any comments (or, I have to assume, any reader interest), please take a minute to drop a Wisecrack if you do believe - even a little - that the TSA is making America safer. Or feel free to ignore this altogether and await my piece on our switch from Charmin to Cottonelle.

TSA security reminder

2004-11-23T10:24:00.000-05:00

Lest you forget, this is the reality of airport "security" in the U.S.:

It seems some women are getting tired of being groped in the name of "security". Good for them.

Back in business

2004-11-22T10:19:00.000-05:00

Loyal readers of The Wisdom will notice that both my place and the wife's shop have gone update-less since last Wednesday. I'll leave it up to her if she wants to fill the world in on what was up, but suffice it to say we had a sudden change of plans.

I didn't end up making my fourth LSU game (I guess that means the wife has to let me do five next year), but I did get to see the TigerVision broadcast from the official view-in home of the LSU Alumni Nashville Chapter. Apparently there are two Tiger alums in NashVegas.

But in true small-world fashion, I ended up watching the game with a couple of guys who also should have been in Baton Rouge but ended up in Nashville for the same kind of thing I was there for. And, as it turns out, they are part of the same tailgate group I would have been hanging out with. So I should have met them out back of CEBA, but I ended up meeting them on Music Row. Odd world, ain't it?

In related news, it seems Auburn didn't impress the humans this week, despite really dominating the nation's best defense the same week Oklahoma beat down a horrible Baylor team. But 35-0 looks better than 21-13 to humans (computers can see through it ...). I still don't think Auburn would have a shot in a computer-driven BCS (I re-ran my numbers last night), but maybe the humans will have a change of heart when the Tigers play No. 15 Tennessee in the SEC Championship the same day Oklahoma plays a 7-4 Iowa State. We'll see.

And, sports fans, don't discount the idea that USC could lose before the end of the season. They play Notre Dame this weekend, and the Irish may be better than their 6-4 record would imply. Then the Trojans have to close it out with UCLA. And you have to question USC's focus when they have Snoop Dogg hanging out at practice.

Finally this morning, Jessica Pivik is back (but not linked from the Reveille homepage) today, and thankfully she doesn't want to be a porn star. She also makes a point to say she's not encouraging others to do so. Thanks.

Some justification for picking DishDVR over TiVo

2004-11-17T13:10:00.000-05:00

Whatever happened to TiVo being the champion of personal freedom and choice in television viewing?

Apparently the company is rolling out a "feature" that will insert ads on the screen when you are fast-forwarding (through commercials, most likely).

TiVo is also looking at ways to enable eCommerce through your TV and generally squeeze as much revenue as possible out of users. I don't have a problem with features that don't interfere with regular viewing, but inserting commercials into the dead space of subscribers skipping commercials is downright anti-customer.

And people pay TiVo $13 a month?

Thank you, Dish Network.

Kings of Leon - direct from Memphis ... I mean Nashville .. I mean Los Angeles ... I mean London

2004-11-16T15:09:00.000-05:00

I was pleased as punch to come home last night to find the new Kings of Leon album "Aha Shake Heartbreak" in my mailbox.

If you don't know the Kings, they are a band of brothers (and a cousin) who grew up in and around Memphis and traveled the South with their dad (Leon), who happened to be a Pentecostal preacher. The boys backed the musical preacher before discovering girls and booze in their teens. Now they preach the gospel of throwback Southern rock/blues.

But here's the thing: I didn't buy the new CD at amazon.com. I bought it at HVM.co.uk.

See, despite the Kings being a fine example of old-school, longhaired, red-state American rock-n-roll, their new album hasn't been released in the U.S.

Yep, a record made by Tennessee boys in L.A. can't create sufficient buzz in America. The Kings apparently have a huge following in the UK, but the reception in the States is such that they've released their new disc overseas first (supposedly it'll come out in the U.S. next February).

How freaking pathetic is that? America, you suck.

You funny man, Brown Boy

2004-11-15T10:57:00.000-05:00

OK, I'm not in the habit of posting entries that just link off to things I find amusing, but this kills me.

That Yellow Bastard and The Mexican on UGA football.

[editor's note: This is the kind of blinding wit that fills our table at U-Joint Trivia and often keeps us from thinking enough about the questions.]

The BCS truth

2004-11-14T23:03:00.000-05:00

Man, I loved seeing Auburn spank Georgia yesterday (and of course I loved seeing LSU whack 'Bama). And as an SEC West homer, I like that ESPN is now questioning whether Auburn should be ranked ahead of Oklahoma and get a shot at the Orange Bowl.

So, as a public service, I set out tonight to demonstrate why Auburn of the mighty SEC was more worthy than Oklahoma of the weak Big 12 - and perhaps even USC of the weak Pac 10 - to play for the National Championship.

And then a funny thing happened. I proved myself wrong.

What I'm not wrong about is that the human polls are garbage, driven by the politics of popularity and uninformed perceptions. And I sort of proved that, too.

[editor's note: Ladies, if you haven't stopped reading this yet, feel free to click on over to Grumpybunny at this point.]

OK, so with Auburn tearing up Georgia after beating LSU and Tennessee, I figured an objective analysis of their season would show that they are at least as strong as Oklahoma, if not USC as well.

But here are the facts:

Auburn has beaten three teams (ranked 11, 14, 15) in the current AP Top 25. USC has also beaten three (4, 15, 20). Oklahoma has beaten four (6, 22, 23, 25).

What ESPN has latched its pro-Auburn star to is the Tigers' and Sooners' performance against ranked teams. Against its three ranked opponents, Auburn has an average margin of victory of 14 points. Oklahoma's average win margin is 10 points. USC's is 18 points.

But where Auburn's case falls apart is its overall schedule strength.

The 10 teams Auburn have played have a combined 48% winning percentage. USC's have a 49% winning percentage, and Oklahoma's have a whopping 57% winning percentage.

Auburn has beaten three 2-loss teams, two 5-loss teams, three 6-loss teams, a 7-loss team and an 8-loss team. USC has beaten one 1-loss team, two 2-loss teams, two 5-loss teams, three 6-loss teams, an 8-loss team and a 9-loss team. Oklahoma has beaten one 1-loss team, one 2-loss team, two 3-loss teams, one 4-loss team, two 5-loss teams, one 6-loss team and two 7-loss teams.

But how good are the teams everyone's played? Looking at the all-school rankings of Sagarin and Massey (the two BCS services that have released [non-BCS] rankings so far this week), Auburn's opponents have an average ranking is 84.1 (as in 1 = good). USC's is 45.3 and Oklahoma's is 42.4.

That last stat is the really shocking one. How can Auburn's schedule be that much weaker than USC and Oklahoma?

Two words: The Citadel.

Well actually, ten words: Mississippi State, The University of Louisiana at Monroe, Kentucky, The Citadel. Each of those four teams are ranked below 100 in the composite Sagarin/Massey ratings above. And The Citadel is ranked 219. 219!.

USC played one team (Washington - 121) ranked below 100, as did Oklahoma (Houston - 108). And Auburn played four.

There's not much Auburn can do about the rankings of SEC foes Mississippi State and Kentucky, but putting two sub-100 teams on the non-conference schedule is just asking for trouble.

If last year's BCS formula were in effect, Auburn would be getting clobbered on its computer average, strength of schedule and lack of quality win points. But this ain't your grandfather's BCS.

The BCS is now driven by the human polls. And the human poll voters are starting to love Auburn. "They beat Georgia 24-6! Oklahoma didn't beat Texas A&M by that much!". And thus Auburn is tied for second in the AP and just two points behind in the coaches' poll.

And this, of course, is why the BCS worked better before. Chris Fowler talking up Auburn on GameDay to get more No. 2 votes for the Tigers didn't have that big of an impact on the ratings. And I'm sure AP voters are more likely to change a vote now that they control 33% of the BCS formula. Did you notice the story about Tommy Tuberville playing politics in the press box after the game? Smart on his part, but there should be no such lobbying needed.

Of course, if the AP voters and coaches spent a few minutes digging into the actual facts (doing a computer-type analysis, you might say), then perhaps human polls would be fairly accurate.

But they are not. Congrats on the Orange Bowl bid, Auburn. And Coach Stoops, don't forget to send goodie baskets to AP voters next year.

Something at LSU more pointless than Jessica Pivik

2004-11-12T10:16:00.000-05:00

One of my Baton Rouge operatives tipped me to an article in the LSU Reveille this morning about the Student Senate being unhappy with Jessica Pivik's column.

It seems the SGA is questioning their funding of The Reveille because of Jessica.

This is apparently the latest in a flurry of debate down at LSU about whether Jessica's "shocking" column has a place in a campus newspaper.

It absolutely doesn't, but not because of what it deals with. Jessica Pivik's column has no place in The Reveille because it's bad. Very bad. She's a horrible writer, and her pieces are little more than lifted snippets of Google searches.

But the Jessica Pivik "controversy" isn't what I want to focus on here, because this article brings to the surface the one thing at LSU that's even more ridiculous than Jessica.

Student government.

LSU's SGA - like those at pretty much any high school or college - is a pointless exercise that does little more than pad the resumes of the people involved.

[editor's note: For those of you who may feel that things such as "Student Senate - Arts & Sciences College" make an impression on a resume, you're wrong. Get a job that's related to what you want to do. That's what matters. No employer gives a damn whether you were involved in student government, 4H, Meals on Wheels or anything like that. It just makes you look like an untalented suck-up.]

LSU held its student government elections last month, and the SGA types were thrilled that turnout was up 350 percent! Of course, with 4,700 out of 31,500 students voting, that's still just 15% of students giving a damn, but I guess it beats the regular 3% turnout.

I could go through all the things that make student government so ridiculous (pointless resolutions about things that won't change, etc.), but instead, let's have some fun with the LSU SGA.

First off, I love that the SGA has "Executive", "Legislative" AND "Judicial" branches. Did you know that Roe v. Wade originated as a case heard by the LSU SGA Supreme Court? No? That's because it didn't.

Second, they feel the need to have an Executive Staff. Like it's The West Wing or something. "Chief of Staff"? Give me a break. And click on that link above and scroll down to the very bottom. Check out the "Minority Affairs" dude. Crawford Leavoy? That's the whitest boy I've ever seen.

Third, check out the rundown of The Student Senate. a) thanks for showing up at picture day, everybody! b) notice how the seats in Graduate School and the Veterinary School are essentially unfilled. Serious students have better things to do.

And finally - let's give it up for Daniel Nunes! Longtime readers of The Wisdom will remember Daniel from my piece Tiger "Pride", Indeed!. Daniel is the kid who apparently helps Coach Saban recruit gay players. And now he's won a "half seat" (whatever that is) in the Senate. Good to see the Republicans didn't get a clean sweep on that whole "anti gay" platform.

God (Gee-odd) - think about it!

2004-11-10T10:51:00.000-05:00

In researching current events for last night's U-Joint Trivia match (we led going in to the final question but ended up in second because somebody knew too much about presidents - we think they were cheating), I decided to learn more about Yasser Arafat.

One question I thought might come up was "what does Yasser mean?", so I started searching around for that. The site that popped up first at Google amused me to no end, so I figure I'll share.

It's entitled "It's All in the Name" and found at a site called RaptureReady.com. Yes, a Jesus freak. I recommend a full read of the piece, which looks to draw pro- and anti-Jesus ties to people based on their names, when you have some spare time, but here are just a few highlights:

• Darwin (Dare win) promoted the Theory of Evil ution

• Saddam Hussein (Sad damned Huss ein--we refer to a hussy as a whore in the English language)

• Mohammed, also spelled Mohammad (Mo ham mad) Ham being unclean (Mohammed died from pneumonia and was allegedly married to a nine year old girl. He also murdered many people. Ironically, Muslims don't eat pork, but their supposed prophet has the unclean name within his own name)

• Javier Solana: Foreign Minister for the EU. Solana means "sun" and he could very well be the counterfeit "Son" or the Antichrist. The "number of his name" being 666 could mean that his first, middle, and last names all have six letters. He is the only European leader whose first and last names have six characters and after an exhaustive research, I still haven't been able to find out whether or not his middle name has six characters also.

[editor's note: "exhaustive research" apparently ends after the second Google result, because the third will tell you that his full name is Javier Solana Madariaga - the number of his name is 669!]

• Elijah Cummings: (Coming) is a current Senator in the U.S. Does that mean Elijah is coming as one of the two witnesses?

• Britney Spears: Yes, this is her last name. I think she is a stumbling block of lust for many men. Recently kissed Madonna on MTV.

• Ellen DeGeneres (Degenerate): First person to outwardly express her lesbianism on national television.

Enjoy.

Well that didn't last long

2004-11-08T18:37:00.000-05:00

My flirtation with Satan (aka Comcast) lasted just about 90 minutes.

While waiting for the wife to wrap up at work, I gave the friendly folks at Comcast a call to answer some questions left open by their less-than-informative website. My experience went as follows:

Call 1: Ignoring the prompt to "enter the phone number of the location where you want service" (never trust Satan with your personal information), I was finally connected through to a customer rep. After declining to give him my address, he asked me to hold for a moment. After five minutes on hold, I hung up.

Call 2: I again did not enter a phone number when prompted. I was then connected through to a customer rep, who picked up the line and promptly hung it back up without saying a word.

Call 3: Once again ignoring the prompt, I get a third customer rep who didn't seem too troubled by my refusal to tell him who I am. He did, however, tell me he wouldn't be able to help me much if I didn't give him my address (from the website, I learned that I am in the "Central Atlanta" zone, but that was apparently not helpful to him). But he didn't hang up on me, so I guess that's a plus.

And so it was on to the questions -

Q: What's the deal with the $400 for switching from Dish?
A: It's credited as $25 a month for 16 months, as long as you have a plan that includes a premium movie channel. There's no contract, but if you cancel, you get no more $25 credits.

Fair enough. I didn't figure they were going to send me $400 cash.

Q: Is the $9.95 introductory Internet offer valid along with the $400 Dish deal?
A: Yes. It's $9.95 for two months, then $42.95 a month. And you can either lease a modem for $3 a month or buy it.

Q: I saw an offer online for a free "self install" kit. Does that include the modem?
A: No.

My free "self-install" kit for EarthLink DSL included the DSL modem. I'd kind of assumed that's what Comcast would give me, too.

Q: Then what, exactly, is in the free "self install" kit?
A: A cable and the software.

Q: That's not much of a "kit". So I either have to lease or buy a cable modem?
A: Yes.

Q: The DVR/HDTV offer shows a monthly price of $9.95. Is that just the equipment lease, or does that also include the regular HDTV charge of $5 a month?
A: It includes the $5 fee, so $9.95 is the total cost.

Hmm. Promising.

Q: What's the fee for an extra digital box that's a DVR and a non-DVR one?
A: An extra digital box is $4.80 a month, and an extra DVR is $9.95 a month, so that's $14.75.

Q: Digital box and DVR? What do you mean?
A: They are two separate boxes.

Q: Wait, it's not a tuner with DVR built in? It's two boxes?
A: Yes.

This has just become considerably less attractive. $14.75 a month to get DVR in the bedroom?

Q: I see that you use the Motorola HD DVR. Is this the DCT6412 - the one with two tuners and a 120 gig hard drive?
A: No. It's a single tuner.

Q: Do you offer the two-tuner one?
A: Not yet.

Q: So you're going to?
A: Oh yes! Probably around February.

Another non-negotiable requirement is two tuners.

Q: OK, tell me about installation. How much does it cost?
A: It's $14.99 for a basic installation on up to three TVs. And the DVR installation is $29.50.

Q: DVR installation?
A: Yes. The technician has to install the DVR.

Q: But it's just a box. By "install", do you mean hook it up to the cable box?
A: Yes.

Q: And that costs $29.50?
A: Yes.

Q: And that's a required cost? I can't hook it up myself?
A: Yes, that's required.

And this was the end of the call.

Deal with the devil?

2004-11-08T14:41:00.000-05:00

I find myself today considering the ridiculous; contemplating the absurd; evaluating the ludicrous; pondering the preposterous ...

I'm thinking about getting cable TV.

Yep, cable. Ditching my Dish, as they say. Signing on to have Satan himself (as represented by any and all local monopoly cable companies) deliver my in-home visual entertainment.

I have a permanent hatred, you see, for cable TV companies that grew out of my experience with Cablevision in Baton Rouge.

I lived in 11 different places when I was in college, and therefore I had to visit the horrid old Cablevision office on Florida Boulevard at least two dozen times (factoring in all of the visits to replace their crappy equipment when it broke). Those of you who had the misfortune of dealing with Cablevision know that a trip to the DMV or pre-computerized LSU registration was more enjoyable.

When I moved to Atlanta, I was glad to be rid of Cablevision, but discovered the apartment I moved in to had some ridiculous "special" cable system on which you could only get about half of the regular cable channels. That lack of choice really pissed me off.

Then when I bought my first house, I signed up for MediaOne (the local cable monopoly), but ditched it ASAP for this weird wireless cable system BellSouth rolled out. It was called Americast and required me to get a little white disc attached about 100 feet up a pine tree in my backyard (BellSouth broadcast its wireless signal from the top of the NationsBank building in Midtown).

That was 1998. I've been off cable ever since.

Now, however, I'm faced with a grim reality. Dish Network gives me good service at good prices. I like their DVRs (I've owned about 10 of them, after all) and the fact that I don't pay a monthly TiVo fee.

But in this modern world, there's a lot Dish can't give me. I have an HDTV now, but if I want DishHD, I either have to go without DVR for HD (not acceptable) or pay $1,000 for an HD DVR, which Dish makes really hard for me to buy anyway. Dish also hasn't kept up with video-on-demand services, and having Dish instead of cable also forces me to have a home phone line because I need a DSL line.

Satan (Comcast), on the other hand, can give me a comparable digital TV package, an HD DVR, video-on-demand, broadband without a phone line and even local Weather Channel content, can save me about $50 a month when you factor in dumping home phone service and will apparently give me $400 for leaving Dish.

And thus I ponder a deal with the devil.

If Satan is to get my business, he's going to have to earn it. Comcast is known for horrible customer service, so they're going to have to show me otherwise. I've got an email in to them asking for some details of their HD DVR (they use a Motorola box, and Motorola offers single-tuner and dual-tuner versions). If they can give me a coherent and timely answer there, they've cleared the first hurdle.

We shall see.

"Doctor" Jessica Pivik strikes again

2004-11-08T10:23:00.000-05:00

OK, I'm more convinced now that Jessica Pivik is taking herself seriously (or maybe just using her column to research her own personal issues). Her column in this week's LSU Reveille is another "exploration" of medical issues rather than a (poor) attempt at shocking sexual humor.

Rather than bore you with a link to her column, I'd like to suggest that you re-visit the best On Top column ever written. It's kind of on the same subject, but retains the wonderful shock value and attempted humor we came to love Jessica for.

It's Jessica's final column from last semester, written for her by Cap'n Ken.

• It's better to receive than to give.

Looks like I picked the wrong week to poke fun at Christians

2004-11-05T22:30:00.000-05:00

OK, in case you didn't get the joke, my bit yesterday about swearing off my beloved Makers Mark and LSU football was meant as a commentary on the power of "moral Christians" in government now that they got W re-elected. Somewhere down the road, people like me who don't believe in Jesus and mock "Christians" may be in for a world of trouble once the Jesus crowd gets Ralph Reed elected president.

But I don't have to straighten up quite yet, right? I mean it's not like the FBI is already monitoring The Wisdom - just two days after Bush's victory.

Well ...

Checking out my fly new stats tool today, I found this visitor entry:

"ISP - Law Enforcement Online - Fbi"

I kid you not.

With a little digging, I found out that Law Enforcement Online ("LEO" in charming federal government language) is an Intranet set up by the FBI that is used by law enforcement types nationwide.

It's not necessarily an FBI agent checking in on The Wisdom, but some cop somewhere found some reason to visit (he started at the old site, so I don't know exactly what kind of Google search got him here).

So hello, officer! If it makes you feel any better, not a whole lot of people read The Wisdom. So when you all start rounding up "immoral" bloggers, The Cap'n should be a low priority.

Seeking spiritual guidance

2004-11-05T11:07:00.000-05:00

With the wife out of town this weekend, I have been looking for a spiritual and meaningful way to spend my time. Unfortunately, I have been unable to find many Christian events (outside of Sunday services, of course) going on this weekend, so I began to wonder what Jesus' plan is for me.

Then the angels of Google directed me to a guiding light of Jesus' word right here in Atlanta. Someone whose purpose on this Earth is to spread the Lord's name and lead those like me into the grace and comfort of Jesus. The Lord is calling me to seek out this person and continue to grow my newfound spirituality.

Her name is Cortney Nicole Chatham, a former contestant for Miss Atlanta Christian:

Cortney Nicole Chatham

Being a leader in high school is very difficult. not only are my peers being tempted with drugs, alcohol and sex, but they’re also being tempted with their faith. As I walk into the doors of Grayson High School every morning, I pray for teachers, family, friends and government leaders, but mostly, I pray that the Lord lead someone to me that needs me. Maybe someone who doesn’t know of the Lord. I pray that Christ lead me to someone that I need, someone who could encourage my walk of faith ...

Life is so short and I don’t think people realize that sometimes. The gift of life can be taken away from a person in a heartbeat. I can’t even imagine how wonderful Heaven must be. The Bible says that angels are always singing and praising the Lord. Along with the angels, you can dance and sing. But there is
one thing you can’t do in Heaven... spread the Lord’s name to a non-believer. After all, everyone in Heaven is a believer of Christ. I’ve met many of my peers who have bee lost and have never known Jesus. I feel like my peers have also been greatly affected by my own relationship with Jesus Christ.

I was driving home with one of my friends one night last February. She knew who Jesus was, but she never really had a relationship with Him. She turned off her music and started crying. Not knowing what to do, I did my best to comfort her. When she pulled away, she said, "Nicole, thank you so much for leading me to church and thank you for leading me to Jesus. You’re an angel." I will never forget that night, because not only did I save someone, but I also realized the true purpose that I had on earth. It was to spread the Lord’s name to all that will listen and I have my close relationship with Jesus Christ, my Savior, to thank for that.

Glory be to God!

Right here in my own backyard, a blessed messenger of Christ, praying for the Lord to send her someone in need!

I think spending time with this wonderful angel is just what my spirit needs this weekend.

Glory be to our Great Christian Protector

2004-11-03T18:37:00.000-05:00

I have seen the error of my ways, and I give myself to thee, Great Christian Protector. I once was lost, but now am found.

No longer shall I bathe in the sin of whiskey. My house of worship shall no longer be Tiger Stadium, but a suitable Christian sanctuary.

My thoughts shall focus on you, Great Christian Protector, not harlots who create unholy sexual advice columns. My nights shall be filled with spirtual contemplation, not GTA San Andreas.

Never again shall I denegrate fine Christian hair-styling establishments, wonderful sons of God playing baseball with Christ's guidance or attorneys working to dissolve unholy marriages with Jesus' blessing.

No more shall I question the wisdom of your blessed agents at LAX. Nor shall I sinfully lust after obscure Australian musicians or pop-culture television commentators.

I do this in the hope, Great Christian Protector, that you will offer your blessing and protection in this glorious new day.

What's up with CNN?

2004-11-03T07:47:00.000-05:00

OK, so the wife and I have post-election coverage on this morning. I think everybody knows that CNN is refusing to call Ohio for Bush, but in flipping around, we noticed that even discounting Ohio, CNN has a different elector count than the other networks.

So I went online and checked out the red/blue maps.

In Ohio, which CNN says is "too close to call", Bush has a lead of 136,000 votes, with 100% of precincts reporting.

In Wisconsin, which CNN is basically alone in calling for Kerry, Kerry has a lead of 13,293 votes, with 99% of precincts reporting.

In Nevada, which CNN is also basically alone in calling for Bush, Bush has a lead of 20,505 votes, with 99% of precincts reporting.

All of the states in question have provisional ballots to count, Ohio is the only one with 100% of precincts reporting and the leading candidate in Ohio has a margin of 100,000 votes more than in Wisconsin or Nevada.

How is it that CNN - which says it's not calling Ohio out of an abundance of caution - is willing to call these other two races before everybody else when they are closer than the race that Fox and NBC have already called?

Blow me - I voted!

2004-11-02T13:27:00.000-05:00

I spent a full hour at the polling place this morning in order to vote. And, if polls are to be believed, the only real meaningful vote I may have cast was against the Jesus-lovers' anti-gay-marriage amendment here in Georgia. And that'll probably pass anyway. If not for the responsibility I feel to stand up for gay folks (and against Christians), I probably would have bagged it.

But I stuck it out. What bothered, though, were the large number of unopposed races. There's just something really wrong with that. Get in there and fight, people.

Fortunately, the new electronic voting machines made it real easy to write in my own candidates. Just check the "write-in" box and type whatever you want, and that shows up as your vote (although apparently only "official" write-in candidates can get votes - kind of defeats the purpose, doesn't it?).

So my votes today included:

• U.S. Representative, 5th District: [My own self]

• State Senator: [The Wife]

• State Representative: [The Big Brown Dog]

• DeKalb County Sheriff: Buford Pusser. I figure he'd be good for the job, but I almost voted for Roscoe P. Coltrane.

• DeKalb County CEO: Michael Dell. He's the best CEO I can think of.

• Tax Commissioner: "That Other Guy". No, the system does not check to see if what I wrote looks like an actual name.

• County Commissioner: [My own self]. In case that whole U.S. Rep thing doesn't work out.

• Clerk of DeKalb Superior Court: Adam West. The unopposed incumbent is Lynda Carter, you see.

• Chief Magistrate: "Why Isn't Anybody Else Running".

And then there was that other race - U.S. President.

The choice for me was not between Bush and Kerry. I may despise the Republicans for being pro-Jesus, pro-spending (on old people, at least) and anti-personal-freedom, but the Democrats are still more dangerous by far.

Kerry represents much more of a threat to that which is most important to me - economic freedom. To be clear, the Republicans and Democrats continue to infringe more and more on my economic freedom, and I believe the U.S. is too far gone to reverse the trend. But the Democrats will get us to socialism faster, and therefore I cannot support them. I want to hold on to as much of my economic freedom as I can for as long as I can.

So then the choice was Bush vs. Not Bush.

I've had to hold my nose to vote plenty of times in the past. The last vote I cast in Louisiana, in fact, was for Edwin Edwards. My human friends know how hard that was for me do to, but the alternative was David Duke.

And that's what I was facing today - hold my nose and vote for Bush. A defensive measure to do what I can to beat the Democrats back in a close election. I lectured the wife for weeks that not voting for Bush (she plans to vote Libertarian) is as good as voting for Kerry.

But waiting in line today, I got mad. I started to think about Bush's promotion of an anti-gay-marriage amendment. I started to think about the hundreds of billions of our dollars he's given old people in the prescription drug plan. I started to think about the TSA. I started to think about how he defended reducing income tax rates for high-income-earners by claiming it helps "small businesses" rather than defending it on principle. I started to think about the war in Iraq, and how getting us involved there may be what elects Kerry.

And I couldn't do it.

I cast my vote Libertarian. I don't like the Libertarian candidate, and I think his ideas on the war on terror are dangerously wrong.

But I just couldn't vote Bush.

"Cincinnati's crazy for Cornhole"

2004-11-01T15:04:00.000-05:00

That's right. Hard-working, steadfast Ohioans can't get enough of the cornhole.

In fact, the cornhole craze is catching on across America.

Looking to get into cornhole? a Google Search is a good place to start.

And if you want to see some folks enjoying cornhole, a Google Image Search can be quite helpful.

IMPORTANT NOTE: This link will launch a Google Images "safe search on" result set. The link below will launch a Google Images "safe search off" result set. I don't care who you are, where you work or what you do for a living - do not, under any circumstances, click the link below on your work PC. In fact, you may not want to click the link below from any PC, anywhere.

More cornhole images.

Today's sign that we'll learn about the apocalypse from PR Newswire

2004-11-01T13:30:00.000-05:00

There's a lot of stuff that comes across my RSS reader every day, and for reasons known only to my human friends, many of them concern Google.

So a couple of minutes ago, a Yahoo! News-delivered press release was picked up because it mentions Google. Here's the release:

Simply Wow(r) Achieves Top Ranking on Search Engine Placement Results at Google.com

IDAHO FALLS, Idaho, Nov. 1, 2004 (PRIMEZONE) -- Source Direct Holdings, Inc. (OTCBB:SDRT) announced today that their trademark Simply Wow(r) has achieved a top-response search engine ranking on one of the world's best known search engines: google.com
(Nasdaq:GOOG).

When an individual searches on Google for Simply Wow(r) a link for information and testimonials about Source Direct's proprietary cleaner is one of the top responses shown. Google does not sell placement in the search engines themselves, or allow companies to pay for higher rankings in the search engine results. Source Direct has been working to increase recognition of its Simply Wow(r) brand in the retail marketplace, as well as on the internet, through a series of press releases that advertises the Simply Wow product and educates the consumer about the advantages of using a highly effective biodegradable, non-toxic, all-purpose cleaner/degreaser.

Deren Smith, President of Source Direct, said this: "Google's utility and ease of use have made it one of the world's best known search engines on the internet. Having Simply Wow(r) in the top ranking of the Google search engine placement results is very exciting for our brand."

Source Direct Holdings, Inc., headquartered in Idaho Falls, Idaho, with manufacturing in Draper, Utah, is a state-of-the-art cleaning technology company that manufactures and markets a proprietary line of all-purpose, all-surface, highly effective, non-toxic, biodegradable cleaning products to the multi-billion dollar consumer household and private label automotive cleaning products industry. Simply Wow(r) is a registered trademark of Source Direct Holdings, Inc. For additional information, visit our web-site at www.simplywow.com or contact Phil Flynn at: 800-815-8069.

Forward-Looking Statements

Certain statements contained in this press release are forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties. The statements contained herein that are not purely historical are forward looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended. Forward-looking statements deal with the Company's current plans, intentions, beliefs and expectations and statements of future economic performance. Statements containing terms like "believes," "does not believe," "plans," "expects," "intends," "estimates," "anticipates" and other phrases of similar meaning are considered to imply uncertainty and are forward-looking statements.

Forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks and uncertainties that may cause the Company's actual results in future periods to differ materially from what is currently anticipated. Factors that could cause or contribute to such differences include those discussed from time to time in reports filed by the Company with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The Company cannot guarantee its future results, levels of activity, performance or achievements.

That's right. The company issued a press release to say their trademarked name appears first in Google when a user searches for that trademarked name.

In related news, Coca-Cola.com appears first when you search for "Coca Cola" on Google; Swiffer.com appears first when you search for "Swiffer" and Cap'n Ken's Homespun Wisdom appears first when you search for "Cap'n Ken's Homespun Wisdom" (ok, still the old site, but you get the point.

This week with Jessica Pivik

2004-11-01T10:47:00.000-05:00

Well, it's good to see Jessica Pivik is taking the journalism advice of The Cap'n.

In this week's wonderful article on "jelqing", Jessica gives full attribution to all of her Googled "sources". Well done.

But she writes about the "jelqing" technique with what appears to be first-hand (so to speak) knowledge. I'd imagine she lifted the details of the process from Google, but what if she really is writing from personal knowledge?

This might explain her obsession with the wilder aspects of sexual behavior.

Has Jessica spent significant time with shorties? Did she, in desperation, jelq some poor Bishop Sullivan boy to the brink of disaster back in high school? And has she created this "On Top" persona out of the shame springing from this string of shorties?

Rock me like a hurricane ... please?

2004-10-31T11:08:00.000-05:00

The wife and I braved a swarm of costumed, underage, commercial radio listeners last night in order to see Jet live. The dirty Aussie lads have played precious few gigs in the U.S. this year, so the 99X Halloween show was our only sure shot to see them.

If you don't know Jet - they are some serious rockin' mofos. And herein lies my problem with the show last night. Somebody turned down the volume.

We were standing about 10 yards from a serious speaker stack, but we were not rocked. It was more like being at an American Bandstand taping than a rock-n-roll show.

In my mind, there are some basic truths of live rock-n-roll (I'm talking real rock. Green Day, not Ashlee Simpson for you radio fans):

• Standing right next to a speaker stack will be uncomfortable for all but the most hardcore fans.

• Sensitive ponytail guys (OK, not many sensitive men have ponytails anymore, but you know who I'm talking about) will use the foam earplugs they carry around when they see live music.

• At least one pair of young girls who start the show near the stage will head quickly toward the back with their hands over their ears.

• When the bass player pounds hard on a naked E, your teeth will rattle.

• When the singer screams, it will hurt you.

• If the band happens to have a song most of the audience knows, never will the audience singing be heard over the band.

• When you leave the show, your ears are ringing.

• When you wake up the next morning, your ears are ringing.

None of this was true of the show last night. And these truths should apply to Jet, and to The Donnas, who opened up for them.

So what's the deal? I have a couple of theories:

• Either the station or the venue (The Tabernacle) is worried about lawsuits for damaged hearing, especially with an all-ages show.

• Like most things in America today, modern-day mass-market live "rock" is a wussified version of what it used to be. In other words, most people who go to these shows want the volume turned down.

• Maybe the sound just sucked.

I don't know the answer, and fortunately Jet is a very rare example of a popular band I'd actually want to see live.

But last night's show makes me hope Rocket From The Crypt gets back on the road soon. After their Echo Lounge show a couple of years ago, I couldn't hear myself think for a month.

2 bits, 4 bits, 6 bits, a dollar. All for the Tigers, sit down and be quiet

2004-10-29T10:14:00.000-04:00

I'd never really noticed the little area of Tiger Stadium's student section where everybody sits down during the game. But my buddy Scott pointed it out during the Troy game last weekend.

Sure enough, while almost all of the student section (the northwest part of the stadium) is a stand-on-the-bleachers-the-whole-game kind of place, there was a little patch in the back of the endzone where everybody sat quietly.

And almost all the students there were black.

The Reveille has a front page piece on the sit-down section today. Of course, in typical "save the world" college journalism fashion, the story plays up the racial aspects of black students who sit getting mad at white students who stand.

One part of the piece mentions the "white" state trooper who tells a "white" student to sit down. I'm not sure of the point of that, and other cops referenced in the piece are not racially identified.

Anyway, two points of Wisdom to raise here:

1) If this area is historically the "sit-down" section, don't be a jackass. If you don't want to sit, just move. They are always in this specific area, and they always sit. Again, don't be a jackass.

2) What's with these black students wanting to sit at LSU football games? Are they all just really lame and happen to share the same skin pigment? There are plenty of black students who occupy the regular standing sections, so maybe it's a black fraternity / sorority kind of thing. A lot of white frat boys dress up to go to games, and I think that's pretty stupid, too.

It would have been nice if The Reveille had tried to explain the appeal of sitting, rather than just implying that the stadium is "segregated" because black students have always sat there. But that's probabl too much to ask from Jessica's bosses.

Damn, you girls are fat!

2004-10-28T11:15:00.000-04:00

So there's this new CDC study out today that compares the average height and weight of Americans in 1960 to those in 2002.

Of course, Americans are much fatter and only a little taller now. But here's the stat that really floored me:

The average American woman is 5'4" and weighs 164 pounds.

Damn! Since when did Star Jones become the standard-issue American woman?

I know you ladies all weigh more than it looks like you do. And 164 pounds isn't really "big" if you're like 5'7" or taller. What matters is how you carry the weight, not the number of pounds you're displacing. And constantly seeing models who are 5'10" and weigh 125 pounds makes you all think you're fat.

But 5'4", 164 is the average? That's wild.

[editor's note: Cap'n Ken does not actually think you girls are fat. The sensational headline on this piece is intended solely to sell more papers.]