BillSaysThis

The lack of new posts to the weblog here over the past two days is not intentional nor do I have pneumonia (sorry Glenn). Blogger has simply refused to transfer my generated files from its servers to my web server. Then gives up with a generic Transfer Error. I’ve filed a trouble ticket and emailed TPTB, hopefully we’ll get a fix soon. I’m jonesing to update already!

Dave Winer had something kind to say about Bill Kearney. Without being overly dramatic, these two have been going at it, and not in a friendly way to the best of my knowledge, for years on various mailing lists and discussion boards. When I say going at it, I do mean that there were lots of nasty words strewn about, not just technical disagreements.

In a completely unprecedented move, 20 to 30 armed Chechen rebels took several hundred men hostage in a Moscow theater today. The rebellion, for Chechen independence, has been going on for years with massive amounts of violence, probably tens of thousands of deaths, on both sides. Though the rebels have taken action in Moscow before, I can’t ever recall such a large scale hostage taking in any conflict. I hate, despise violence as much as anyone, I think, and would love to see everyone get out alive. But the rebels seem to be missing a few screws: the gang is apparently demanding that authorities “resolve the situation in the Chechen republic.” So yeah, the Russian government is just going to cave in to the whole conflict over 700 hostages. Since President Vladmir Putin is not one of them, nor is any member of his family, think again.

Update: Apparently I was mistaken in saying that this was an unprecedented move. Chechen rebels, in June, 1995, took approximately 2,000 hostages for five days in a hospital in Dagestan. More than 100 of the hostages died when Russian commandos stormed the hospital. In the end, the rebels were allowed to leave peacefully when the remaining hostages were freed.

Um, but would an adult want the essence of sweat? Scott Broadbent did a little experimenting in his home chemistry lab and made some 3-methyl-2-hexenoic acid. He will sell it to you, $40 plus postage for 20 mL. Oh yeah, that’s on my holiday shopping list!

After the last NFL season, spent a bunch of time looking at the head coaching changes in the NFL (and a couple of colleges too) in the 01-02 CoachingGoRound. With a third of the season gone, and some amusement coming out of DC, this seems like a good time to see how well the new boys are working out.

The six changes: Steve Spurrier left the University of Florida, where it seems he was more important that people realized, for the Redskins. The man he replaced in D.C., Marty Schottenheimer, took over in San Diego. Tony Dungy left the Bucs for the Colts, prompting the Glazer Brothers to trade draft picks and cash to the Raiders for Jon Gruden, and the Raiders promoted Bill Callahan in turn. Finally, the Carolina Panthers replaced 49er retread with the Giant’s defensive coordinator John Fox.

If we had held this review a few weeks ago, you might have mistakenly thought all these teams’ owners and general managers were geniuses. Carolina, coming off a 1-15 season, was 3-0. So were Oakland and San Diego, Indy and Tampa Bay were 2-1, and the Redskins were 1-2 but coming off a very potent pre-season. So what happened after that?

The Panthers got the biggest smack in the face–zero wins in the four games since. The biggest issue here is injuries. First and foremost, Rodney Peete was turning in a Comeback Player of the Year-level performance until he hurt a knee which required a month in the trainer’s room and surgery. His replacement, Chris Weinke (who was last year’s starter as a rookie but lost the job in training camp to Peete) suffered a concussion early in the next game. Stanford rookie Randy Fasani came on next, playing most of the Panther’s last game but he was not nearly ready and the Kitties went down 30-0 to Atlanta; Fasani looks likely to start this Sunday against Tampa Bay. The remainder of the schedule looks mighty tough–hello, NFC South–and the team will be lucky to end the season 6-10. Which, come to think of it, plus five in the win column in one year is not so bad

The ‘Skins put up another 1-2 trilogy and Spurrier seems to be playing musical quarterbacks. First Danny Wuerffel had the chair, but he got hurt and is now apparently third on the depth chart. Second, Shane Matthews got a turn but, as he’s shown throughout his pro career Matthews is pretty mediocre and so was benched after two starts. Rookie Patrick Ramsey, a strong arm out of LSU, got the nod after a strong relief effort in Week 5. What next? Ramsey has a lousy Week 7 (what a surprise coming in a game at Green Bay, possibly the league’s best team so far this year) and is benched in favor of Matthews. Clearly, Spurrier is just killing time until he can draft Rex Grossman this Spring. In the meantime, Steve wants more control over personnel decisions. Speculation has already begun in the D.C. media over whether or not he’s already anxious to get back to a college job.

Oakland also went 1-2, the two losses coming in the last two games. Without a lot of help, the loss to San Diego at home, is going to relegate the Black and White to wild card status on no more than 11 wins. Jerry Rice is still a great receiver but he isn’t good enough to be number one any more, Tim Brown never was, Jerry Porter is going to be next year’s, and Al Davis made a big mistake keeping James Jett over Reggie Barlow. The defense came out rock solid, with nine new starters, but injuries to Charles Woodson and Philip Buchanon have opened huge holes for Marshall Faulk and LaDainian Tomlinson; reminder: Priest Homes and Garrison Hearst/Kevin Barlow are coming to play the next two games. And let’s face it, Sebastian Janikowski just isn’t getting the job done, missing a 27 yarder that would have won last week’s game.

The Colts repeated the 2-1 result. And they do play in the surprisingly weak AFC South. But the loss, this past Monday night to Pittsburgh, showed some surprising weaknesses from Peyton Manning (is he looking over his shoulder at younger brother Eli?) and the defense. Indy does have a decent chance to take seven more W’s and with them, the division title. An opening round matchup against probable wild carders Denver, Oakland or the resurgent Bills will prove too difficult, though, and send these boys home early.

Tampa Bay is a toss up. They’re 5-2 with a solid shot to capture at least a wild card slot and maybe even the division if New Orleans falters after a strong start. The Saints look like they’re for real, though, with the heartbreaking 22 point comeback win against the 49ers last week. The Bucs’ offense has struggled, as usual, and now starting QB Brad Johnson has a broken rib. Where was Keyshawn and Mike Alstott in the loss to Philadelphia? Will QB Rob Johnson make a difference? The last four weeks have seen the team scoring 35, 20, 17, and 10 points. Looks like another one and out trip to the playoffs unless Chucky boy gets a Johnson hot.

San Diego has to be the surprise team of the year–but that was what everyone said last year too, when the Bolts finished 5-11 by losing their last nine. This year’s model seem much more mature and aware of how to do their job, as evidenced by the way they hung on to take the overtime win against in a major statement game against the Raiders. Drew Brees and Tomlinson are growing into a powerful combination, receiver Curtis Conway is having what could be a career year and the defense already has three players with at least four sacks each. The Chargers should battle the Broncos for the division title and could easily go 12-4 if they avoid serious injury.

Forecast: Schottenheimer, Dungy, and Gruden are safe bets to return in 2003 barring complete collapses. Fox should not be in trouble as long as he ends up 5-11 or better. Callahan is a question mark: was a he holding the spot for a year until Davis could make a deal with someone he really wants, like Dennis Green? He needs to at least reach the AFC Conference Championship Game, if not the Super Bowl, to guarantee his job. Spurrier has to contend not only with his own expectations but also with those of petulant, immature team owner Dan Snyder; even Vegas bookmakers should be hard-pressed to put a line up on this one.

According to My Virtual Model, below left is an approximation of my current size and to the right what I’ll look like at target weight. Doesn’t seem heavy enough for now or slender enough for later. Or take age into account. I am, of course, much more handsome.

 

Zack Bronson broke a foot in last Monday’s win against Seattle and is out for probably two months. This lead directly to New Orleans’ going 10 of 14 on third down conversions, many of which required seven yards or more for first down and came on 12-16 yard completions by Aaron Brooks. Jamie Winborn and John Engelberger were out on injury as well. I knew Bronson (and the other two) would be missed but not this badly. You get outscored 22-3 in the fourth quarter, when the 22 could have been more but for two missed two point conversations, and you don’t win.

Tai Streets had six receptions for 80 yards. Sounds nice except that Streets is not supposed to be the leading receiver on the Niners. TO is and he only had four catches (61 yards including the first touchdown) plus one piddling gain on an end around. We’re not winning when the best offensive player gets the ball five times the whole game. Garcia was 23 of 39 for 275 yards but that’s a dinky 7.05 yards per plus a crucial fourth quarter interception that sealed the loss. Add in Barlow’s fumble and this was another example of “lose the turnover battle, lose the game” with the team going negative in this category for the first time all year.

The Saints did not punt once all game. Both teams had 159 yards in kickoff returns (the one SF punt was for no yards on the return) but the Saints got theirs on two fewer returns and had better starting position all day. Terry Jackson, special teams captain, was put on injured reserve four days with a torn ACL suffered in Seattle.

Arizona (3-2), Oakland (4-1), Kansas City (3-2), San Diego (5-1), and Philadelphia (3-2) are the next five games. Seems like the 49ers will need at least three wins to have a shot at the playoffs and four to match last season’s 12-4 mark. Good luck to us.

I put this short list together for friends of my parents and decided not to let it go to waste.

The Man Himself

• Atkins Center – the official website, click on Shop to get to the products but also has many articles and recipes
• Bread Mixes – I’ve had the Country White and enjoyed it
  

• Muffin mixes – Blueberry, Banana Nut
  

• Official Carb Counter – this is good to have on paper, lists the carb count for pretty much everything

Elsewhere

• GreenBeanz – Good prices for an online store (probably better in general than the Atkins site)
  

• LowCarbLuxury – new to me but has recipes and other material
  

• Low Carb Recipes – Author Karen Barnaby publishes recipes and runs a good online forum where you can post requests for specific recipes
  

• Searchable USDA Nutrient Database – carb count and complete information for pretty much anything
  

• alt.support.diet.low-carb FAQ – great FAQ for the Low Carb newsgroup, and the newsgroup is worth the time on a regular basis

Have some more good ones? Let me know.

This was a nastier than expected 10 day break for the Reds. Stephen Gerrard injured his hip and Emile Heskey had groin problems from their duties with the English national team and neither played today; both are questionable for the mid-week Champions League matchup against Moscow Spartak in Moscow. Defender Stephan Henchoz missed another game due to his injury in the last Premiership outing against Chelsea.

M. Houllier put a very different lineup on the field in response: Salif Diao took Gerrard’s place, Jimmy Traore took Henchoz’s defensive position, Bruno Cheyrou was on for Heskey, and, giving Michael Owen a rest after he played both England matches, El Hadji Diouf got his first playing time in a while on the forward line. Owen did come on in the 69th minute for the other striker, Milan Baros.

Rejoice, you LFC fans. Even though this was an away match at a hostile grounds against a very good Leeds United team, the Reds won out 1-0 on Diao’s 65th minute put-in via a tight cross from Senegal teammate Diouf. Keeper Jerzy Dudek, who signed a nice contract extension during the week, had yet another strong effort resulting in a clean sheet. Dieter Hamann, making up for Gerrard’s absence, controlled the midfield play.

A win is good news, continuing the club’s undefeated EPL march, but the cause for real cheer is the first loss in 30 EPL games dating back to last year by Arsenal; the Gunners went down 2-1 to Everton, the other club based in Liverpool. Which means that after 10 games the Reds are in first place, one point ahead of their archrivals.

On to Moscow!

Once again the gremlins struck at the San Jose Mercury News and I was compelled to write a letter to the editor:

Dear Sir,

Headlines are an important element of newspaper articles but they should also reflect the facts explained in the body of the article. In an election campaign where one major party candidate is making the ethics of the other major candidate a key issue, this becomes even more important to ensure.

I cannot speak one way or the other to Gray Davis’s practices in this regard but even a simple reading of your front page, lead article leads to the simple conclusion that the Mercury News has sensationalized the situation regarding worker’s compensation back surgery coverage. Sure Michael Drobot’s companies, along with other companies who would benefit from the law, donated serious cash to Davis’s campaign. But so did Fireman’s Fund and at least a dozen other insurance companies who would have preferred the opposite result.

Face it, nearly every bill signed into law by the governor benefits someone financially while not signing would benefit a different group–and they all give money to politicians. Further, all bills have to be passed by a majority of both houses of the legislature, which means quite a few people have to be convinced of the merits, not just two. For better or worse, this is the system we have today. What would have been egregious, and worthy of a front page article, is if Davis had signed (and the legislature passed) a bill that gave financial benefit to a donor but no benefit to California residents. That’s clearly not the case here.

This reader thinks you owe Gray Davis, and Michael Drobot, a retraction and your editors need to be far more careful when writing front page headlines. And when selecting articles because on a close reading this one hardly seems worthy of newsprint.

Regards,

Bill Lazar

If the NFL was upset with Terrell Owens for pulling a Sharpie out of his sock after scoring Monday in Seattle, wait until he pulls a trumpet out of his ass and plays some jazz after scoring this Sunday in New Orleans.

$5,000 fine for an “untucked shirt.” What a load of cow pie. Football gets the ratings it does because the games are terrific entertainment, not because people want to admire the incredible athleticism. Be real, Paul Tagliabue, and stop harrassing the best wide receiver in today’s game.

As mentioned in the previous post, I felt pretty rotten today so I mainly hung on the couch. To get the day off to a good start, not counting workout and breakfast, I cued up this Robert Redford/James Gandolfini flick from last year. Perhaps you remember it, the poster originally had a tattered American flag but after Sep. 11 that got changed fast to one featuring the two stars’ head shots.

The Last Castle is a classic two character face off picture. Redford is a disgraced general, court martialed for refusing an order from the President, and Gandolfini is a martinet colonel who runs a military prison for convicted soldiers. The Castle of the title is a historical reference to the original prison on the same grounds as well as to the psychology of the place. Gandolfini, an officer who’s never been on a battlefield, is at first all excited to meet Redford, who wrote the modern classic on battlefield tactics.

But during their first meeting Redford, not realizing the other is in earshot, makes an offhand comment about the Colonel’s prized collection of military artifacts (such as minie balls from the Battle of Gettysburg) and Gandolfini is instantly turned into an enemy. So, in a sense, the conflict here is mostly in the mind of director Rod Lurie, similar to the disaster from a few months ago, K*19. Redford’s character must be lured into the conflict, reluctantly, by abuse and degradation to other prisoners.

I did enjoy this movie, mainly due to the quality of performances. Not just by the two stars but also Mark Ruffalo (who also starred in You Can Count on Me), Clifton Collins Jr. (also in the opened last weekend Rules of Attraction), and Paul Calderon. Aside from an unnecessary minor subplot featuring a daughter, there are no woman in this prison flick.

This film was Lurie’s follow-up to the Oscar-nominated The Contender. I didn’t like that film much at all. As prison movies go, or even military prison movies, I’d take, oh, The Great Escape anyday. The conflict here is far too contrived to be truly interesting and captivating. And the quest for respect on which Redford leads the prisoners devolves directly into an exciting yet impossible battle.

Barely recommended

On the one hand, Sun Microsystems stock price was up nicely today (+ $0.19) and is continuing higher in the initial after hours trading (+ $0.16 more) and, definitely for worse, it’s still my biggest holding. But the reason for this movement is news that the company will layoff 11% of the staff, about 4,300 people. And I still have quite a few friends working there. I sure hope they all miss out on the severance packages.

On the third hand, I am sick. Started with a sore throat last night and added naseau and general tiredness today. I went to the gym this morning after dropping the Sweet One at her train and did my standard aerobic workout on the Life Extension machine but just have had no energy. I’m supposed to revise my resume based on some very good, very specific suggestions but I don’t have the will power.

Fourth, the Blogger system lost this post the first time I wrote it. I know many authors like to write, rewrite, publish, then rewrite again, but I am generally a point and fire kind of guy. Also, and I don’t want to make too much of a fuss, but I am sick today.

Plus, I need a shave. Badly!

Today was the big live concert that Bruce and MTV chose only to show in Europe. Making up for it, in a way, was my finding via RMAS of Bruce Springsteen Live Videos. This site posts for your downloading pleasure a few (currently six) concert video clips that were never commercially released. Note that these are not exactly big polished productions but the three I’ve seen so far are quite watchable. The files are very large, from 30-120 MB for each song, but that does mean better quality too.

I grabbed a solo acoustic Growin’ Up from a little 1972 club show, Spirit in the Night recorded at the Hammersmith Odeon, London, in 1975, Candy’s Room from the classic 1978 Birthday shows at the Capital Theater, Passaic, NJ, and Waitin’ on a Sunny Day recorded at the very same San Jose show the Sweet One and I rocked out at just this past August. When will Reason to Believe be back for the taking?

Don’t miss the second page of clips, which aren’t really whole songs but decent sized portions that could be gleaned from broadcast documentaries and shows. Including a three minute plus clip of Cover Me!

Go see for yourself or come by the house here for a show. Thanks Pete!

Today is Garret’s Birthday!, but no, not that Garret. For starters, the man I’m celebrating has an ee cummings fetish and never uses capital letters. Not to mention our boy is 43 and no longer young enough to get the children’s discount for movies. Last year, Dan wished him HB with a bottled fart.

garret is such a nice guy that even in the depths of inebriation he remembers to send congrats to others born on his day.

I highly recommend his excellent photography! Not to mention his high quality, high volume daily linkage–to me he is the epitome of the link (as opposed to commentary) bloggers.

Someday I hope to travel to the exotic Santa Fe and meet this man.

Face it, a lot of the web is all about copying. Copy somebody’s images, some page’s styles or look, copy somebody else’s music. No worries, that’s the way it’s done.

One of my favorite guys to to play Follow the Leader with is Phil “I live in the middle of nowhere” Ringnalda. I first encountered him in the Blogger mailing lists where he has helped me and many, many others. So when he does something smart, like use Morten Frederiksen’s Syndication Subscription Service, I don’t hesitate, I just do it. Okay, he did switch to Movable Type, which I’ve pondered, but that’s just too huge a change for me and unnecessary, but this one is good.

Frederiksen’s service simplifies the current jumble of formats and tools used for publishing and reading RSS feeds. RSS is, arguably, Really Simple Syndication according to one of it’s primary developers, Dave Winer, so I’ll go along with that. If you are into RSS, then you can get mine by clicking the green SUB button at the top of this column.

Thanks again, Phil.

Yes, that amazing bit of PHP coding that I keep yakking about is now available for public consumption. You can find it at PHP Classes. I’ve already seen 13 hits in the referrer log from people clicking through, so there i some benefit. The site’s maintainer, Manuel Lemos, recommends registering it at Freshmeat so, what the heck, I did. The whole idea is publicity for this site after all. And a goof.

Update, a day later: So sad. Received a ‘no thanks’ message from the Freshmeat administrators: “freshmeat tries to avoid listing projects which fall below a certain level of size and/or complexity (please see http://freshmeat.net/articles/view/198/ for more information), and yours is unfortunately a bit too simple for our application index.” I wonder if I should extend the silly little thing and resubmit.

I’ve been so caught up in weblogs and their discussion boards, not to mention the chat room where I met the Sweet One, that I never did get into Usenet newsgroups. Last weekend, though, I realized that I needed some PHP help and the slow interaction of Google Groups just wasn’t getting the job done. Sure enough, ATTBI provides a news server, so I hooked up with comp.lang.php and got the help I needed. As long as I was there, I looked into Springsteen as well.

And found RMAS (rec.music.artists.springsteen), which is very active, and AMB-S (alt.music.bruce-springsteen), which has some traffic but not nearly as much. The people are very friendly and helpful and are a great source of recorded Bruce shows to trade and share. Seems like I will be getting two myself (Detroit, 8/15/2, and an NYC show from the 2000 tour).

This world has a jargon all its own and here are some amusing examples: BNP – blanks and postage, meaning someone will make a CD for you if you send them blank CDs and a mailer with postage; ALD – Assisted Listening Device, which is the closed circuit system concert halls use to broadcast the concert (inside the building only) for the hard of hearing, but which some enterprising geeks have learned how to record; L/NBC – Little/No Bruce Content, so the message is off-topic and often concerns politics or some musician other than Bruce and I know I can safely ignore the message thread.

There are also some good artwork sites (informally) associated with all of this too. John Joyce maintains John’s Bruce Springsteen Artwork Links Page. The artwork is intended for use as covers for the different Springsteen concerts that are available for trade. A couple of good examples come from Loose Ends for the 1999 LA Reunion Tour show and Joosse’s for the 1980 LA Show that was the first Bruce concert I ever attended.

As I mentioned above, it’s possible to get started in this hobby even if you don’t have any BruceLegs of your own. Then there is the other newsgroup, alt.binaries.music.springsteen (ABMS Info), where people post music that can be directly downloaded though this takes better news reader software than I have just now.

As I found, the two simplest ways to start are the freebies (that’s how I’m getting the NYC show) and BNP (Detroit). Besides the newsgroups, people post their own trade lists and as you get disks in hand you can contact traders directly or use some of the exchanges that have been set up. Having a CD burner certainly helps but I have friends who I will be pestering to help me out here as well.

The show I’d really like to get, and I’m sure this will be possible in the near future, is the 1978 show from the Capitol Theater in Passaic that was broadcast on radio nationwide. Talk about a momento of my youth!

From the Official Springsteen mailing list:

“FOR EUROPEAN BRUCE FANS – “A Night With Bruce Springsteen”

MTV NETWORKS EUROPE PRESENTS

‘A NIGHT WITH BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN

AND THE E STREET BAND’

London, October 7th, 2002: MTV Networks Europe is to present ‘A Night With Bruce Springsteen And The E Street Band’ – a unique live concert with Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band to be aired live across MTV Networks Europe and VH-1 UK on 16 October 2002, it was announced today.

Set to air to over 127 million homes across MTV’s ten feeds in Europe and VH1 UK, the unprecedented musical event, ‘A Night With Bruce Springsteen And The E Street Band’ will comprise a cross-channel ‘live to air’, commercial-free concert from Palau Sant Jordi, Barcelona, with an exclusive one hour backstage ‘Countdown To Bruce Springsteen And The E Street Band’ prior to the concert.”

What the heck is going on here? Don’t we American fanatics deserve to see this show too? There’s never been a real backstage show from Bruce on American TV. One can only hope they’ll figure it out quickly and broadcast it here too, live or not.