Another way the NFL is great

After almost 3 months without any official football activities, the NFL Draft eased our suffering and brought us back to the sport I love most last weekend. I can't wait for fall to roll around again so that I can dedicate my weekends to my TV.

After last month's congressional hearing on the steroid use and policies of Major League Baseball, the committee began holding similar hearings today for the same issue in the NFL. However, unlike the MLB hearing, Commissioner Paul Tagliabue apparently looked like he knows exactly what he's doing, making his statements about the league's drug testing without even looking down at his papers. His "If it ain't broke, fix it anyway" attitude is refreshing to hear.

Christopher Shays (R-Conn.) stated, "This hearing today is like light years different from Major League Baseball...Commissioner, I want to thank you for knowing what the hell is going on. With all due respect, the commissioner of baseball had not even read the document that they had given us."

Family Guy: The Movie

Giggity giggity giggity...all right!!!

No release date yet. IMDb Link

How good are your senses?

Apparently, mine aren't very good. 13/20 = 65%

Senses Challenge

Interesting Fans

Tuesday's Nationals game against the Marlins turned out to be much like the home opener: although the Nationals lost the game, I was surrounded by an "interesting" fan...in fact, 2 of them. Tim and Isner remember "Green" very well from the first game (although they didn't have to sit right next to him) who quietly yelled "Green," "Hey Green", or "Look up here, Green" for about 3/4 of the game. This time I was in for another treat...

First, to our left was a lifelong and die-hard Nats fan (even though the franchise is brand new to DC) wearing a wife-beater and full of tattoos. Although his word of the night was "blue" as he yelled at the umpires for every call, good and bad (which he thought showed off his knowledge of baseball history since the umpires now wear black), he managed to fit in several curse or derogatory words pretty much every line out of his mouth.

 

Then, to our right was an under-aged alcoholic who could not control himself anytime a beerman (or woman) came by, ended up double-fisting, and went through at least 6 bottles of beer. If he had some sort of mental disorder, I'll feel bad, but he certainly wasn't the brightest individual around. He was one of those people who sadly doesn't understand when he's being made fun of...so he was going way overboard with the cheers, and several guys behind him soon started imitating the stadium sounds to keep him going for their own entertainment. At one point he also had the urge to spit beer over the balcony onto some lucky fans below...and I thought I had it bad.

 

Towards the end of the game, my worst nightmare occurred when the two started interacting with one another, with us in the middle. They are certainly giving "Green" a run for his money for most annoying fans...I just hope they aren't regulars for the rest of the season...

Baseball is back in DC

Although I'd generally prefer football over baseball, I must admit that it's nice to have a baseball team close enough to be able to make it home from an evening game before midnight. I saw the Washington Nationals make their home debut last Thursday at RFK stadium, complete with all the festivities you'd imagine after being "baseball-less" for almost 34 years.

It's pretty evident that the team will need a new stadium as soon as possible based on the limited views from certain seats and an out-of-date infrastructure for certain amenities. We missed three complete innings and almost all of the scoring as the Nationals won their home opener 5-3 when we waited for an hour for chicken tenders and fries, only to end up with overpriced fried hot dogs since they ran out of everything else. Other than that, it was a great evening for over 45,000 fans to welcome baseball back to DC.

I've now posted my pictures to the Nationals home opener.

Modular Methodologies for Multicast Algorithms

Special thanks to Isner, TLi, Betsy, and P.B. for their contributions to a recently published paper on Modular Methodologies for Multicast Algorithms. Link to PDF.

White Shirt Experiment

Here is an amazing on-line adventure with some unexpected insight on the universe that surrounds you.

First, a clarification. In order to begin this journey, that will take just a few minutes, you have to play by the rules. The rules, by the way, are very simple, and all you need is just a little self discipline. That's it. Ready?

Clicking on the link below will take you (assuming Java is installed on your machine and is active in your browser) to a page with a small video screen with a green arrow at the bottom. Clicking on the green arrow will launch the movie.

In the short movie you will see a small group of boys and girls wearing black or white shirts that are playing with two balls. Your goal is to count how many times the ball is passed by those wearing white shirts. It's that simple.

Remember, count just the passes of the ball by those wearing white. (Do not run the movie more than once! - remember, self discipline)

Are you ready? Let's go!

Once the movie is over, write down the number of passes you have counted, and continue by moving to step two (No Cheating!)

If you survived this experiment, you can watch other projects from Daniel J. Simons and his experiments in Visual Cognition & Human Performance there.

Mmmmm...free Blizzard

Sign up for the "DQ Blizzard Fan Club" and get a coupon valid for a buy-1-get-1-free Blizzard: Join the Club

Where's the motivation

Last month I could have taken over three complete days off of work without having to take any vacation time, but instead it all went to waste. I've always been pretty good at making the most of comp time until now since I can't get any overtime. Even though I'm exhausted every day and work longer than necessary, I continue to burn myself out and act as if there's nothing more important than my job. Yes, I have problems...

Thanks for sharing

When I was on the Metro the other day, I learned that the girl standing next to me wasn't wearing pantyhose because she's doing the laser hair removal thing.