Seen on Flickr…

There are some incredibly creative people on Flickr (myself not being one of them).  Check out the Curry and Paprika monsters from user mashishka…

SNL

This past Saturday I did something I haven’t done in a number of years.  I stayed up on Saturday Night to watch SNL.  Although the cast is admittedly horrible next to the Ferrell years, I thought guest host Peyton Manning did a pretty decent job.  They also did a Dora the Explorer parody on T.V. Funhouse which was good.  This bit with Peyton was my favorite, I think.

Technorati Tags: SNL

Spring Practice Update

Sorry I’ve been MIA for the last week, kids.  Life is busy.  Here’s a quick rundown of spring practice news:

- First, if you’re not checking out the practice videos and press conferences and www.und.com, you should.

- Quarterback position seems to be fairly wide open.  Who knows what’s going to happen here.  Clausen seems to be getting along fairly well with the other guys.  Many think that Demetrius Jones may lead.  I have no idea.

- RB: Armando Allen is scary fast, Travis Thomas is back at his natural position, James Aldridge is able to do lower body lifting again, and Munir Prince has been moved to CB.  Weis said in his PC yesterday that he’s very encouraged with the running back position.

- TE: Carlson is a superstar.  No surprises there.

- WR: Beyond David Grimes, no one knows what to expect.  DJ Hord is back from an achilles injury, but he’s apparently still tentative on it.  Then you have a bunch of guys who’ve never played (Gallup, Parris, Jackson, Bragg, etc.)

- OL: Sam Young is an animal.  Sullivan will be starting center again.  After that you’ve got Turkovich and Duncan probably starting, and word is that Wenger has looked really good and mean this spring.  Watch out for Matt Carufel too!

- DL: Outside of Trevor Laws, your guess is as good as mine.  You’ve got Kallen Wade, Pat Kuntz, Dwight Stephenson, and Chris Stewart who moved over from OL.  Should be interesting.

- LB: John Ryan got moved back here in the new 3-4.  Maurice Crum didn’t put on much weight in the offseason.  Then you’ve got Joe Brockington, Anthony Vergnaglia, Scott Smith, Morrice Richardson, Toryan Smith, etc.  A lot of youth, and hopefully some talent.

S: Zbikowski is a mainstay, and then you’ll have either Bruton or Herring back there with him.  My guess is probably Bruton.

CB: Ambrose Wooden and Terrail Lambert seem to be no-brainers.  Gary Gray broke his arm the other day, but he apparently is going to be nasty and challenge Walls, McNeil, and Ferrine for the nickel spot.  Add in the aforementioned Munir Prince, and we’ve got some nice speed back here now.

Technorati Tags: notre dame, football, college, weis, nd, irish

You know what today is?

Spring practice baby!!!!

Slim pickings

Some guy on PicksPal has picked all 33 games played so far correctly (Ohio State just beat Xavier in OT).  If you figure each game is a true coin flip (which it probably isn’t, but for simplicity purposes), the odds of doing this are about 1 in 8.5 billion.  Way to go, Kuhnke.  You’re a man amongst boys.

UPDATE: He picked Butler over Maryland too.  That’s a 1 in 17 billion shot.

Shadows

I think this is one of the best pictures I’ve taken.  This is Jenny, who was on my Honduras trip.  Taken at the hotel we stayed at right before coming home.  Her husband, Seth, is in the background.

Technorati Tags: flickr, photo

Pickspal is an ingenius idea

I read about Pickspal the other day on Techcrunch.  It’s basically a Web 2.0 site for gambling on sports.  The basic premise is that you sign up, and are allotted a certain number of points each week.  It’s basically like monopoly money.  Then you go out and bet on games with your points based on actual Vegas spreads.  The top winners each week can win prizes and such.  The site is great for people who like to gamble but are sick of losing money, and has some great web 2.0 features (feeds, social networking, etc.).

Here’s the best part: unlike a lot of other web 2.0 sites, it has found a very intelligent way of monetizing itself.  It keeps track of the best bettors out there and sells their consensus picks for $10 a piece.  The person buys the pick and then goes out and bets at an actual casino or gambling site.  The so-called “genius” players don’t know that their picks are being used to provide the “genius picks” for sale by the site.  No one knows who’s a genius and who isn’t. 

It seems to me the real geniuses are the people that created this site.  What a great idea.

On a side note, you can also run your NCAA Hoops pool on the site using a snazzy ajax interface.  Very cool stuff!

Technorati Tags: pickspal, techcrunch, web 2.0, ncaa, march madness

Oh, baby

You know you’re old when college friends start having babies, and that’s exactly what happened yesterday.  Congrats to Ben and Amy on the birth of their daughter, Claire Elise yesterday.  Claire weighed in just shy of 7 lbs. and was 20.5 inches long.  The birth caused me to reminisce a bit on freshman year.  Ben and Amy of course met at a freshman mixer when Ben declared Amy “a fine piece” seconds after laying eyes on her.  The rest is history, but I can’t help but think that Claire could be turning 7 today if it hadn’t been for the worst roommate in history, Tony “Don’t Call me Bologna” Baloney.

Way to go, kids!

Some more GIMP fun….

Here’s another shameless plug.  I thought this one came out well though.  When doing a cutout, you can color in large areas by using the magic scissors to create a selection.  Then use bucket fill.  That’s how I did the large expanse of water.  Then just use a fuzzy brush around the edges for detail work.

Astronaut canned

Lisa Nowak, the wack job astronaut who drove 900 miles in a diaper to kidnap a woman she thought was having an affair with her astronaut lover, has been fired by NASA.  Join with me in a collective, “What the heck took so long?”  Do you see this mug shot?  Is it my understanding that American taxpayers have been paying her salary for the last couple months since she went berserk?  Infuriating. 

“I’ve been in space.” - Lisa Nowak

Technorati Tags: astronaut, fired, nasa, crazy

“I” before “E”

I think the most-oft misspelled word on the internet is “weird”.  Everyone knows the “i” before “e” except after “c” rule (or when it sounds like “a” as in “neighbor” or “weigh”), right?  Well, the English language is weird, so to speak.  “Weird” doesn’t work with that rule.  If you’re over the age of 8, you should know that.

So for the love of all things sacred, please quit spelling it “wierd”!  That doesn’t even look right!

It smells like a rubber fire in here…

Two days ago was my birthday, and I got the best birthday present I could have asked for: my own office.  Now, to those of you that don’t work in an office, that may sound silly to you.  To those of you who spend 75 percent of your time in a tiny, stacked cubicle, you know it’s a godsend.  Now I can make private telephone calls and close my door, and also strip to the waist and eat a block of cheese without anyone knowing.  Very nice!