« December 28, 2007 | Main | December 30, 2007 »
By Brendan Loy
Penn State beat Texas A&M in the Alamo Bowl, so the top six in the Irish Trojan Bowl Pick 'em Contest remain unchanged from the last update.
If Alabama beats Colorado in the Independence Bowl tomorrow, Hal Strickland will remain in sole possession of first place. If Colorado wins, D. Brooks will tie him for the lead.
Full updated standings here and after the jump.
By Brendan Loy
New England 38, New York 35, final.
By Brendan Loy
Does anyone have any favorite podcasts that they would recommend subscribing to?
Just curious.
P.S. This is actually primarily Becky's question (though I'm certainly interested in hearing people's suggestions, too).
By Jay Johnson
I haven't mentioned this before, but Apple has been very, very kind to me recently. To put it into a brief version, I had an issue where connecting an external monitor to my MacBook Pro caused the system to go into complete deep-freeze mode. At that stage, only a hard restart worked.
Well, I went through several stages of phone support, up to and including reinstalling Tiger. Alas, no great success was found. Finally, I found a workaround that worked on a message board, and pretty much let it go. However, in the interim before this, I actually wrote a letter to Apple, explaining the problem and requesting some assistance in resolving it.
Shortly after sending the letter, I received a nice email and a phone call from a fellow in Cupertino (I assume), who reviewed my case, and explained what was being done from Apple's perspective on evaluating the glitch.
These calls and emails were frequent over the period of a couple of weeks, and I explained the workaround I had found that was a satisfactory interim solution. Finally, when I installed the 10.4.11 final update of Tiger a couple of weeks ago, the problem was gone completely, without the workaround.
Frankly, I hadn't really given it any more thought until I received a call from my guy in Cupertino. He explained that the engineers were still working through the issue, and was just giving me a status update. I explained that the problem seemed to be gone after installing 10.4.11, so it was cool. I thanked him for his help, and thought that was all.
Until a few days later, when he called and said, "By the way, we want to send you Leopard." So, Friday morning, the FedEx guy showed up with my Family Pack box of OS X Leopard. I've now installed it on my MacBook Pro and the missus' MacBook, and it's pretty sweet.
However, now I get to the main point of my post. I'm really looking for some direction from a website about utilizing the cool new features in Leopard. I'm interested in some tips/tricks, etc. for using Spaces, sharing between computers, the new features in Mail, etc.
Anyone with helpful tips would be a tremendous help. Thanks.
By David K.
Amidst the college bowl games, the potentially historic NFL game between the New England Patriots and the New York Giants is currently underway. The powers-that-be at the NFL conveniently came to their senses earlier this week, and it is being broadcast on both NBC and CBS along with the much-maligned NFL Network. It's the same feed for all three, so it doesn't really matter which one you pick (commercials are the same too, so you're stuck with the same annoying commercials, no flipping between, although you could swap to the Alamo Bowl to watch JoePa's 500th game).
Despite speculation that one or both teams might rest their starters, it appears all the big guns are out for both teams, and it's paid off so far for the Giants, as they have a 7-0 lead part way through the first quarter.
UPDATE: It's been a battle so far but the Giants are still on top 21-16 thanks to some great plays and a few mistakes by the Patriots as we go to the half.
By Brendan Loy
Hal Strickland took sole possession of first place in the Irish Trojan Bowl Pick 'em Contest moments ago as Mississippi State beat Central Florida, 10-3 in the Liberty Bowl.
Strickland picked Penn State in the evening's final game, the Alamo Bowl against Texas A&M. But he will stay in first place at the end of the night even if the Aggies win.
Mark Gardner and 2005-06 pick 'em winner Brian Dupuis are tied for second place, one point behind Strickland. They also picked Penn State, as did Scott Fort, Courtney Tawresey and D. Brooks, who are tied for fourth place, two back of Strickland.
All of the bowls for the remainder of 2007 are worth two points each; the non-BCS New Year's Day bowls are worth three apiece; and the BCS bowls are worth five each. Current standings after the jump.
By Brendan Loy
Tennessee 82, Gonzaga 72, final. D'oh!
By Brendan Loy
ESPN's announcer for the Meineke Car Care Bowl just stated that the AP is reporting that UCLA has hired former Washington coach and Bruin alum Rick Neuheisel, who left a trail of recruiting-violation carnage in his wake at both UW and Colorado, as its new head coach.
Hahahahahaha.
The score, by the way, is Wake Forest 17, UConn 10 in the closing seconds, with the Demon Deacons running out the clock.
UPDATE: Wake wins, 24-10. Hal Strickland and Mark Gardner are now tied for the lead in the Irish Trojan Bowl Pick 'em Contest. One of them will take sole possession of the lead depending on who wins the Liberty Bowl: Strickland if Mississippi State wins, Gardner if UCF wins.
Meanwhile, here's an article about Neuweasel.
And in basketball, Tennessee and Gonzaga are underway. Go Zags!
By Brendan Loy
Hurricane season has been "officially" over for almost a month now, but Alan Sullivan notices a borderline tropical-ish storm out in the eastern Atlantic that the National Hurricane Center has apparently chosen not to name. He agrees with the decision to keep the storm nameless. He also compares it with Tropical Storm Zeta, which formed on my wedding day two years ago -- and which, I gather, Sullivan believes was an example of NHC count-padding. Whatever. If nothing else, Zeta made for an interesting footnote to my own personal history. (And hey, maybe the NHC will belatedly name this one, too, and the baby will be born on the same day. Wouldn't that be something?)
P.S. FWIW, Pablo would be the name. (Of the storm, not the baby.)
UPDATE: Right on cue...
A SURFACE LOW PRESSURE SYSTEM CENTERED OVER THE EASTERN ATLANTIC OCEAN ABOUT 950 MILES SOUTHWEST OF THE AZORES HAS BEEN GRADUALLY ACQUIRING SOME SUBTROPICAL CHARACTERISTICS DURING THE PAST DAY OR SO. THIS SYSTEM HAS BEEN PRODUCING GALE-FORCE WINDS...MAINLY TO THE NORTH AND EAST OF ITS CIRCULATION CENTER...AND IT COULD BECOME A SUBTROPICAL STORM LATER TODAY OR TOMORROW AS IT REMAINS NEARLY STATIONARY.
I said before that "Pablo would be the name," but actually, that depends on when the storm is named. If it doesn't get a name until after midnight on January 1, it would be Arthur -- the first storm of the 2008 season.
UPDATE 2: Dr. Jeff Masters has more on proto-Pablo/Arthur, as does the Miami Herald.
By Brendan Loy
Mitt Romney, the serpentine former governor of Massachusetts, has unleashed a negative advertisement targeting John McCain, hoping to prevent the Arizonan from becoming the "Comeback Kid."
McCain has the perfect rebuttal -- and it was produced by Romney's own media whiz-kids, Stuart Stevens and Russ Schriefer. They made the ad six months ago, before they defected and joined the Romney camp. (They were for McCain before they were against him!) But it was never aired, as the McCain campaign didn't want to "go negative."
It remains to be seen whether the McCain campaign will actually run the ad, but they've already leaked it to Slate. The ad uses Romney's own words to paint him as the craven flip-flopper he is. See for yourself:
Ouch.
UPDATE: Here's the anti-Romney ad that McCain is actually running, apparently:
(Hat tip: Andrew Sullivan.) I'm not sure the McCainiacs' strategy of relying on newspaper endorsements to sway Republican voters is the best idea; being "the MSM's favorite candidate" is not necessarily a good thing.
By Brendan Loy
A nasal spray containing a drug called "Orexin A" could eliminate sleepiness.
Hey, I could use some of that for the first few months with the baby. Where can I sign up for a clinical trial?
My other sites