Category Archives: Uncategorized

IW Cover

The Aug. 18, 2003 InformationWeek magazine has a great cover. It’s a picture of New York at night during the black out with the title “What A Week: The Blaster Worm. A Massive Power Outage. What’s Next?” Very nice. Time has a similar one, but I don’t think it’s anywhere near as nice as the one on IW. Check it out if you can.

FTC On Do-Not-Spam List

Timothy Muris, Federal Trade Commission Chairman: “If such a list were established, I’d advise customers not to waste their time and effort… Most spam is already so clearly illegitimate that the senders are no more likely to comply with new regulations than with the laws they now ignore.”

If the penalty for not complying to the list is bad enough and the people in charge of enforcing the regulation actually enforce it, I don’t see how we can’t make some progress.

Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y.: “The FTC chairman says nothing will work, but Americans know something has to be done… A do-not-spam list isn’t going to solve all the problems with spam, but it’s the most broad-based and aggressive approach we know.”

There ya go! It’s better than just saying “fuck it”.

Spam-O-Licous

I’m getting somewhere close to about 60 virus infected e-mails every hour today. No, I don’t need Viagra. How can I refinance my house if I don’t own one? I think I’m pre-approved for about 50 Visa cards now. And I’m happy with my penis size. Delete, delete, delete…

Madden Curse Claims 2004 Victim

If you know anything about the Madden football games, you know of the curse surrounding them. Whoever graces the cover of the game for that year will be struck by this curse. Let’s run down the list very quick (using excerpts from this page).

  • 2001 – Eddie George: Coming off a Super Bowl appearance with the Titans the previous year, the former Heisman Trophy winner’s career was looking as promising as ever. However, his yards-per-carry took a nosedive each of the next two years, as injuries slowed George. He acquired the label of a “soft running back” and was accused of not hitting the hole hard. To his credit, he didn’t miss a game during the next three seasons, but he was obviously not the same running back. His receptions, receiving yards, and yards-per-catch have all continually fallen over the past three years, and he hasn’t had a single carry of over 35 yards.li>2002 – Daunte Culpepper: He was coming off a breakthrough year, which saw him throw for nearly 4,000 yards, 33 touchdowns, and only 16 interceptions (good for a 98.0 quarterback rating). He also rushed for seven more TDs, and led Minnesota to the NFC Championship game against the Giants. It was his first season as a starter, and he was already dominating the Viking record book. But it didn’t last long, thanks to EA Sports. Over the course of the past two seasons, Daunte has compiled totals of 32 touchdowns and 43 interceptions as the Vikings have put together an ugly 11-21 record.li>2003 – Marshall Faulk: He was entering his 10th season at the age of 29, and was already considered a lock for the Hall of Fame. His St. Louis Rams had made it to at least the NFC Championship each of the previous three years, and Marshall was coming off his seventh 1,000 yard season. He’d scored 47 touchdowns in 2000/2001, and had recorded four straight 80-catch years as a running back. But the Madden Curse touches even the untouchable. The Rams came into the season as Super Bowl favorites, but started an unthinkable 0-5. Faulk, considered an iron man during his career, fell to injuries and missed six games. He ended the season with his lowest rushing total in seven seasons, his lowest catch total in four, the lowest yards-per-catch of his career, and half as many touchdowns as the season before. The Rams were out of the playoff race faster than the Carolina Panthers.

And now, less than 1 week after Madden 2004 was release, we can add cover boy Mike Vick to that list. Out six weeks (optimistic?) from suffering a broken leg this weekend. It’s too bad because he was an explosive and fun character to watch.

Sony DSC-F828 Announced

Holy crap on a stick! Sony’s new DSC-F828 digital camera is unbelievable! This thing might actually disrupt my D-SLR plans now. Sounds like Sony’s been listening to users too. Can you say “available compact flash slot”? This was the only reason I went with my Nikon Coolpix 5000 instead of the F717 at the time. You can check out a preview of the F828 here.

Are You Ready For Some (Virtual) Football?

So I bit the bullet and decided to get Madden NFL 2004 instead of ESPN NFL Football this year. Haven’t revisited the Madden series in about 3 years now and figured it was time. Actually, the biggest reason I went with it was just because I was getting itchy to play and it came out today (where as ESPN comes out in September). My thoughts so far… The interface and play calling seem much more clunky and time consuming. Animation is much better than I remember but there are still a lot more variations in ESPN. Overall gameplay is very nice because of the sheer amount of things you can do on the fly. To tell ya the truth, I think I’m still liking ESPN a little better and I wouldn’t be surprised if I went with it instead. I guess I’ll wait out Madden another week and see how it goes.

Other than that, did you guys see SportsLine.com is already doing Power Rankings? How in the hell are they able to do that? Hmm. I wonder where da Bears are…