To continue about today at school though, a substitute could make his living at Spruce High. The secretary in he office asked if I would be back Monday and who knows I might. The lady in the office, seems to want me back too, she said that she'd been hearing good things about me. How she head that I don't know, I had only been there one day.
The more time though I spend in public schools, I amazed that kids learn anything at all. Today I had to skip part of the classwork because we couldn't locate the textbooks. I'd always thought that every child would have his own copy of the textbook, but the kids hear all share copies with each class the teacher teaches. Kids go, books and teacher stays. Another thing is the discplinary problems - eve the best kids can be a problem. I taught two AP classes today (supposedly the smart kids) and all that was differnt was that the kids were not as scruffy and fewer in number. The AP kids looked a if Mom and Dad might care a little and check homework but they were still rowdy.
One thing that I did that surprised the kids, was that I remembered there names. The kids did a surprisingly good job of pronouncing mine, (a few called me Mr. PIE-YEE) so I did my best to remember theirs. One student told me, "You are really good at remembering names, I hate that in a teacher!" Indeed, the kids were startled every time I called them by name. I remembered how much I feared professors who knew my name.
9.14.2002
I am suffering from a little writer's block today, a first for me while blogging. Today at school I made my first serious attempt to deal with troublemakers. I wrote referrals for three students but I eventually tore one up. The principal did get the other two. A little hispanic girl came to class today in a black tie and black wide leg JNCO style jeans with a white shirt. Her best friend (well I am assuming she was) had black fingernail polish. It is very odd to see the goth and skater culture amongst hispanic teens in Pleasant Grove, but it shouldn't be surprising. The hispanic girl (who honestly couldn't have been that little since she was in a 9th gade Geography class) also wanted to know after class whether I was gay or not. Her friend quickly explained that the kids were talking about it and automatically think anyone who talks without using slang, and dresses well is gay. I wanted to laugh, but I did say that I was "straight like a board".
9.13.2002
Blogging from a school again. Today, I am teaching AP Geography at H. Grady Spruce High School, which again, is in Pleasant Grove. I accept jobs in Pleasant Grove readily because I am familiar with the area. I don't get lost on the way there - well I shouldn't get lost on the way there, I did Wednesday.
I have noticed something very odd lately. I keep meeting people who swear up and down that they have met me somewhere. People sometimes claim that I look like a movie star or famous entertainer, but very seldom can they remember which. I should be in pictures.
When the job was assigned to me I was told I would be teaching "language arts". When I arrived I learned that "language arts" translates to English as a second language, which in Pleasant Grove means Spanish. I can understand Spanish - yesterday a girl asked me in Spanish, "what are we supposed to be doing here" (I can't remember the Spanish phrase she used) - but teaching in Spanish would be a nightmare for someone with only two semesters of college spanish to fall back on. So, the kindly lady in the office offered to let me teach geography.
I have noticed something very odd lately. I keep meeting people who swear up and down that they have met me somewhere. People sometimes claim that I look like a movie star or famous entertainer, but very seldom can they remember which. I should be in pictures.
When the job was assigned to me I was told I would be teaching "language arts". When I arrived I learned that "language arts" translates to English as a second language, which in Pleasant Grove means Spanish. I can understand Spanish - yesterday a girl asked me in Spanish, "what are we supposed to be doing here" (I can't remember the Spanish phrase she used) - but teaching in Spanish would be a nightmare for someone with only two semesters of college spanish to fall back on. So, the kindly lady in the office offered to let me teach geography.
Today in school, teaching what the substitute system labeled as "undefined secondary" (theater arts) was the classic substitute nightmare, complete with children throwing wadded-up paper, screaming, playing cards, and a couple getting as close to making out as middle school standards would allow (even though the girl was a little reluctant). The teacher who handed the class over to me clucked sympathetically as she left as if she was witnessing a lamb being thrown to hungry young lions. I did however get to do the Abbot and Costello routine "Who's on First?". The problem was students regarded the class as a "goof off" class and resented any efforts to maintain order.
9.12.2002
Why do Democats and so-called progressives demand silly things like:
I culled that quote from this article. He has a point, and what he urges is important for America's adversarial political system to work, but what he is demanding may have been the exact thing that enabled the terrorists to succeed. When asked who specifically should be held the most culpable for the failure to stop Bin Laden, the Bush administration immediately mentioned that they had tapped Bin Laden's satellite telephone and were privy to his most private conversations and were able to use the conversations to link Bin Laden to several attacks. Until an unknown beaurecrat decided to leak the information to the press. Bin Laden watches CNN and immediately stopped using his phone. This was shortly before 9/11. Disclosing sensitive information like the "chatter inthe system" would reveal more than what the "chatter" can tell us directly. It could likely tip off terrorists to what we know and inadvertently cause another attack. I always wonder why liberals reflexively demand more information, even when disclosure does more harm than good. The public may have a right to know what, but knowing may kill them.
...full public disclosure of what Condoleeza Rice has called the increased "chatter" of intelligence cables concerning a possible al-Qaida attack before it happened.
I culled that quote from this article. He has a point, and what he urges is important for America's adversarial political system to work, but what he is demanding may have been the exact thing that enabled the terrorists to succeed. When asked who specifically should be held the most culpable for the failure to stop Bin Laden, the Bush administration immediately mentioned that they had tapped Bin Laden's satellite telephone and were privy to his most private conversations and were able to use the conversations to link Bin Laden to several attacks. Until an unknown beaurecrat decided to leak the information to the press. Bin Laden watches CNN and immediately stopped using his phone. This was shortly before 9/11. Disclosing sensitive information like the "chatter inthe system" would reveal more than what the "chatter" can tell us directly. It could likely tip off terrorists to what we know and inadvertently cause another attack. I always wonder why liberals reflexively demand more information, even when disclosure does more harm than good. The public may have a right to know what, but knowing may kill them.
I am really disgusted with the current treatment of spiritual belief in popular culture. In particular, what bothers me is the encouragement to not hold concrete beliefs, but to instead subscribe to a vague spirituality. A recent example is this discussion in Slate.com. I don't like this statement in particular:
My problem is that "spirtuality" is really worthless without some practical way of expressing it. I think that most of the public's ideas about spirituality are nonsense. Parents of this generation have not passed their religious beliefs to their offspring as much and so children of today only have the vaguest ideas about spirituality and no practical applications of their spirituality.
My beef against vague spirituality is that it strikes me as the easiest way to cop out of having to do anything. Making religion/spirituality (I hate religion) a part of your life is actually very demanding and requires strict adherence to principles.
Kevin Smith's movie Dogma is another example of pop culture destroying traditional spirituality in avor of vague personal beliefs. I have read the script and love the movie, but in the end the main character also talks about moving from the strictures of traditional belief in the Catholic Church and a more amorphous spirituality. That is crap. Without literal belief of a church's orthodoxy you lose the point of being apart of that church. (I also don't like the Catholic Church.) By divorcing yourself from a church's carefully constructed spiritual framework, without replacing it with a new well thought out framework you discredit and thus devalue what the church stands for.
In effect, what I am saying is that there is no point in being anything but a fundamentalist of some type or the other. I think everybody should have a well thought out rationale for their spiritual beliefs, and from personal experience from numerous encounters with many people, only the fundamentalists in any belief had a reasonable explanation for what they believed. Middle of the road people in religion and politics do nothing and go nowhere. In politics, I think this is acceptable and at times preferable, since most people have beliefs about politics that are just as loony as what they believe about religion. It is bad for religion, and worse for us as a nation because it means that we really only hear from the lunatic fringe from every religion/creed/system of beliefs. Only the wackiest catholics, baptists, buddhists, athiests, pagans etc have anything to say because they are the only ones who know that they are saying.
So go out there and believe something.
As I said yesterday, I'm not anti-religious, just anti-literalist fundamentalists; I'm pro-spirituality.
My problem is that "spirtuality" is really worthless without some practical way of expressing it. I think that most of the public's ideas about spirituality are nonsense. Parents of this generation have not passed their religious beliefs to their offspring as much and so children of today only have the vaguest ideas about spirituality and no practical applications of their spirituality.
My beef against vague spirituality is that it strikes me as the easiest way to cop out of having to do anything. Making religion/spirituality (I hate religion) a part of your life is actually very demanding and requires strict adherence to principles.
Kevin Smith's movie Dogma is another example of pop culture destroying traditional spirituality in avor of vague personal beliefs. I have read the script and love the movie, but in the end the main character also talks about moving from the strictures of traditional belief in the Catholic Church and a more amorphous spirituality. That is crap. Without literal belief of a church's orthodoxy you lose the point of being apart of that church. (I also don't like the Catholic Church.) By divorcing yourself from a church's carefully constructed spiritual framework, without replacing it with a new well thought out framework you discredit and thus devalue what the church stands for.
In effect, what I am saying is that there is no point in being anything but a fundamentalist of some type or the other. I think everybody should have a well thought out rationale for their spiritual beliefs, and from personal experience from numerous encounters with many people, only the fundamentalists in any belief had a reasonable explanation for what they believed. Middle of the road people in religion and politics do nothing and go nowhere. In politics, I think this is acceptable and at times preferable, since most people have beliefs about politics that are just as loony as what they believe about religion. It is bad for religion, and worse for us as a nation because it means that we really only hear from the lunatic fringe from every religion/creed/system of beliefs. Only the wackiest catholics, baptists, buddhists, athiests, pagans etc have anything to say because they are the only ones who know that they are saying.
So go out there and believe something.
9.11.2002
It's lunch time and I am back with a bit more. The students look extremely young compared to who I normally hang out with. They are also more respectful than I expected, but not much. Of course, they have tried to take advantage of the fact that I am a sub but for the most part they haven't been able to.
The school administration attempted to organize the students in a ring around the campus just before lunch and succeeded mostly. They were supposed to lock arms but that never happened. A news 'copter did fly overhead though. Another thing that struck me is how the students were dressed. Even though it is against the rules, several girls were wearing tiny mini skirts. Everything else is allowed though it seems so you see students looking as if they were planning an excursion to the club right after class, even though none of them are old enough to get in. The boys are required to tuck in their shirts and most do. A few students were weariing their patriotism on their sleeves, and pants legs, and shorts. Well I gotta go,time for class!
The school administration attempted to organize the students in a ring around the campus just before lunch and succeeded mostly. They were supposed to lock arms but that never happened. A news 'copter did fly overhead though. Another thing that struck me is how the students were dressed. Even though it is against the rules, several girls were wearing tiny mini skirts. Everything else is allowed though it seems so you see students looking as if they were planning an excursion to the club right after class, even though none of them are old enough to get in. The boys are required to tuck in their shirts and most do. A few students were weariing their patriotism on their sleeves, and pants legs, and shorts. Well I gotta go,time for class!
I swear on my mother's grave that I am going to see this movie the instant it arrives in Dallas. It also helps that my mother isn't dead.
I am very excited to be teaching tomorrow in Pleasant Grove, my old neighborhood no less. I use to drive by the school I will be teaching at all the time. The teacher was even kind enough to leave instructions and a lesson plan. Wow! Totally different than what I was told to expect. I am still nothing but a human prokchop to those kids though. I need to go to sleep though, so at least I will be a well rested porkchop.
The text of an email I sent to a prospective employer at his request:
I have taken quite a bit of time to respond to your request not from reluctance or lack of interest, but in search of inspiration.
As you mentioned, this is a time of transition in my life and an obvious time to decide where I will go. What I am looking for is inspiration. Every great achievement in my life has been the result of great inspiration. I want the next job I take to be the same. My ideal job is a company that uses technology in a new, unimagined - inspired - way to lead, not follow. My place in that company, to begin with, would be programming the software that enables that inspiration.
I spoke to Craig about your products and I am honestly intrigued. I am curious about the ways software could be used to see what is going on in the brain and make sense of test results. I want desperately to be in on the next technical revolution and I believe your company could possibly be uniquely positioned to be a part of that. I think that the next big step after the IT boom will be biological in nature. The only way I can get in on that next wave is by writing the software that makes sense of the biology.
The skills I learned in school were all geared to take advantage of the IT revolution. The most impressive technical skill I have is my ability to program. I have worked primarily in C++ and it has become a hobby for me and honestly at times it has been an obsession. Any skill I develop must first be an obsession. C++ is my most natural programming language but using other languages is not much more difficult. I am also proficient in C, Visual Basic, and I even do a little web design with HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. UTD's training program in programming is so thorough in inculcating basic programming prinicples that picking up a new language is just a matter of days now.
Other than courses on C++ programming, my best course in school was Calculus. The story behind my success in Calculus begins with the fact that I had no high school preparation for advanced mathematics. I arrived at UTD with a scholarship for high scores on the SAT but with a 750 on the VERBAL portion of the SAT and a 600 on the mathematic portion - the opposite of the typical computer science major. My Dad had been pressing for me to enter MIT and one of the conditions was that I had to take the SAT 2 math test. I scored a 600 again, not enough for MIT but enough to test out of Precalculus at UTD. Skipping Precalculus was the worst/best thing that could have happened to me in my college career. I was not even close to ready for Calculus at UTD. The professors claimed that UTD was the hardest place to take calculus in Texas and I had never even taken trigonemetry. I would have made a D the first semester had I not dropped the class. The second semester I returned and made an A. Looking back at my experience and the experience of several other people is that the only thing that could have prepared me for calculus at UTD was calculus at UTD.
In spite of my computer science training, I would say my greatest asset is my understanding of written communication. At UTD I contributed to the school newspaper sporadically and I maintain a personal website with featuring almost exclusively material that I write. I regard this skill as my trump card and what truly has the potential to make me special. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to take as much time getting formal training to develop this skill or explore how it would serve me in the business world, but I see it as big part of my potential value.
I hope this explains what I am about and where I am going adequately. I apologize for the length, but I felt it necessary to try as hard as possible to explain who I am. I am hopeful that you will give me consideration for the position and thank you very much for your time. Feel free to contact me by telphone or email (idahosaedokpayi@yahoo.com).
Idahosa Edokpayi
I had a conversation with a friend about the Joe Boxer commerical and he pointed out a similar commerical with a white man in it that had similar results:
The one problem is that the first actor was fat. It is possible that people were mocking his fatness. Still, it is evidence that the ad is not dependent on the actor's blackness.
ME: to me the ad is innocuous
ME: but many people have become hypersensitive
Friend: if I had just seen the ad without reading about the controversy....with that stupid grin he wears, I woulda thought more than anything that he looks gay...Uncle Tom and minstrals wouldn't have occurred to me....
ME: he does look gay
ME: I think that added to the offense a lot of people felt
Friend: =-O
Friend: :-P
ME: but so what
ME: what does it matter?
Friend: that's interesting...
Friend: it doesn't, not in the slightest...what I think is funny...
ME: yeah
Friend: is that some people have said that the reason people are responding to the ad is precisely because he's black....that because he's black and looking kinda dorky and silly..it makes some people subconsciously "nostalgic" for the old Jim Crow portrayels of blacks in popular culture...but that argument doesn't hold because....
ME: yes
Friend: they are forgetting about this VERY famous commercial...I think it was a McDonald's or Burger King commercial...that ran in the late '80....
ME: yeah
Friend: in which there was this brief clip..no longer than Vaughn's...that showed this fat WHITE young man doing this silly dance....
ME: uhuh
Friend: and he became FAMOUS because of that and started making personal appearances and even had his own fan club....for about 15 minutes....
ME: yes
ME: so people laugh at fat white dudes dancing too
Friend: people were responding to the joyousness and silliness of his dancing...not his skin color...so all those people saying people are responding to the boxer just cuz the dude is black are full of it...
The one problem is that the first actor was fat. It is possible that people were mocking his fatness. Still, it is evidence that the ad is not dependent on the actor's blackness.
9.10.2002
en·nui Pronunciation Key (n-w, nw)
n.
Listlessness and dissatisfaction resulting from lack of interest; boredom: “The servants relieved their ennui with gambling and gossip about their masters” (John Barth).
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[French, from Old French enui, from ennuyer, to annoy, bore. See annoy.]
Ennui is one of the many demons I fight. Why am I not motivated? So what I wasn't born to wealth and power, I don't need those things to get where I am going. All I have to be is motivated. I don't have to be intelligent, handsome, tall, or anything - just motivated. Why can't I bring the same desperate desire to succeed that I had in soccer and every sport I play to the rest of my life?
Why do I lose almost every game I play in regardless of my ability relative to the competition? Why does it not matter that I want to win more than anyone else? Why am I always saddled by teammates who are inept, clumsy, and uncaring? Why is it that when I have teammates who care and are able I am not allowed to be a part of their success? Why?
n.
Listlessness and dissatisfaction resulting from lack of interest; boredom: “The servants relieved their ennui with gambling and gossip about their masters” (John Barth).
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[French, from Old French enui, from ennuyer, to annoy, bore. See annoy.]
Ennui is one of the many demons I fight. Why am I not motivated? So what I wasn't born to wealth and power, I don't need those things to get where I am going. All I have to be is motivated. I don't have to be intelligent, handsome, tall, or anything - just motivated. Why can't I bring the same desperate desire to succeed that I had in soccer and every sport I play to the rest of my life?
Why do I lose almost every game I play in regardless of my ability relative to the competition? Why does it not matter that I want to win more than anyone else? Why am I always saddled by teammates who are inept, clumsy, and uncaring? Why is it that when I have teammates who care and are able I am not allowed to be a part of their success? Why?
My Dad just showed me a baby picture and pointed out that I was so happy. (Note the use of bold and italics. I call this super italics.) He wanted to know what happened to that happy child. He said it was my fault that the child was gone. I don't know what happened, but I don't have the time to worry about it.
The DISD's automated substiute teaching telephone information system leaves much to be desired. I have yet to successfully land a substitute teaching job and the lack of timely notification is to blame. No jobs are ever available until late in the morning when there is too little time for me to actually make it to the job on time. This morning the system assigned me two jobs. The first at Lincoln High had already been filled. The call came at 7:43 and I wasn't told that the job was unavailble for at least another 30 minutes - precious minutes wasted when school starts at 8 am. I immediately called looking for another job but I quickly discovered that the teacher who I was replacing didn't even teach at that particular school anymore. There was nobody to replace... Why is everything in my life so hard? Am I the only person, for who it seems that things that things that should be simple and uncomplicated become long, tortuous affairs requiring multiple phone calls and much waiting? I am not angry, I just honestly want to know. What are the major difficulties in the lives of most college grads my age?
I don't know the people involved in this story, and this happened some time ago, but even time cannot lessen the tragedy of Naytero Ormond's death.
You know I was just thinking that if people visit the links on my site I am generating traffic for other people who care nothing about me and wouldn't divert any traffic my way. As old school and unhip as it is, I wonder if I could join some sort of link exchange for bloggers, or as they were first known, webrings.
Auto-save in Microsoft Office has spoiled me. I keep losing posts through clumsiness and I am frustrated when I can't recover them with a simple "undo" command.
I ran into a great blog that I wrote quite a bit of stuff about before I erased the last post. He also linked a realy good article from a converted dove.
My Dad wants me and my brother to come up with a system with publishing invoices on the web so a customer can clearly see what has and hasn't been paid for yet. He wants it done tomorrow! Fun!
I ran into a great blog that I wrote quite a bit of stuff about before I erased the last post. He also linked a realy good article from a converted dove.
My Dad wants me and my brother to come up with a system with publishing invoices on the web so a customer can clearly see what has and hasn't been paid for yet. He wants it done tomorrow! Fun!
9.09.2002
I just checked... in 4 weeks I have written 20 pages of text in my blog, 11, 722 words, 53, 455 characters, 130 paragraphs, and 835 lines.
At this pace in a year I would have 260 pages; 152,386 words; 694,915 characters; 1,690 paragraphs; and 10,855 lines. Not a lot everyday but if I could do something productive with my time at the same pace it could be really special.
I am always amazed at my ability (and the ability of others) to process text.
At this pace in a year I would have 260 pages; 152,386 words; 694,915 characters; 1,690 paragraphs; and 10,855 lines. Not a lot everyday but if I could do something productive with my time at the same pace it could be really special.
I am always amazed at my ability (and the ability of others) to process text.
Would everybody just lay off of that Joe Boxer ad? I suppose I shouldn't be surprised that the black activists in the political correctness movement would react in horror to the sight of a black man dancing happily in his underwear. I just want to know why these people insist on being killjoys? Why can't black people allow black people the pleasure of being black? Why can't the actor in the ad dance if he wants to dance? At issue is the opinion that the ad is a success because the actor is black. I admit that a white man in the ad probably would not have the same effect. Black people seem to be reacting to the perceived stereotype of the old "black" entertainers, often just white men in black face paint sporting foolish grins. Black people resent having been mocked for entertainment. The average white person knows nothing of this particular grievance and is probably reacting to another subtle stereotype. White people (and other ethnicities also) tend to think of black people and black men in particular as sexual superiors. In fact, I would not be surprised if white men actually feel a little threatened by a muscular black man in his boxers. The silliness of the dancing probably defuses a lot of this sentiment though. The truth is though, that my analysis and just about any analysis is going to be complete rubbish since the ad wasn't conceived with any deep motive in mind. The truth is that people like to dance in their underwear and watch other people doing it. Vaughn's (Vaughn is the actor in the ad) dance evoked an instinctual response from the ad agency and it touchd a lot of other people too. People just like goofiness.
Read the article on slate.com that alerted me to this debate.
See the ad.
Read the article on slate.com that alerted me to this debate.
See the ad.
The great substitute teaching experiment was a bust today. I'll have to make another attempt tomorrow. I rolled out of bed today at 8:30 and called the system. I got a job at Lorenzo De Zavala Elementary. The problem was that this school was on the south side of Downtown Dallas and I live on the north side of Dallas. When you take traffic into account, the commute takes at least an hour. The principal, being a conscientous man with deep concern for his students' educations, distributed them among other classes by the time I arrived at 10 am. The moral of the story is plan ahead. Scheduling jobs at the last minute is not good and taking jobs that far away is silly when you drive a 1987 Camry that makes a harsh grinding noise whenthe automatic transmission shifts gears and burns inordinate amounts of gas. Oh well...
Noel Ignatiev is a white guy who thinks white guys are evil. Rachel Lucas thinks he is smoking some very expensive crack. I agree. Visit Mr. Ignatiev. Ask for a hit of what he's smoking. By the way, Rachel Lucas is cool. This adventure in blog land was brought to you By Gene Expression!
Pete Sampras actually won a tennis tournament! You could make a career out of beating Andre Agassi.
Can someone explain to me exactly what went on in Reliant stadium last night? I suppose I was silly for expecting so little from the Houston Texans and so much from the Dallas Cowboys; but I am a fan and objective reasoning about my team's chances really isn't possible. My Mom looked on as my Dad cursed and I abused the helpless pillows decorating our den. The Cowboys lost miserably because of their inept offense. Quincy Carter simply stank and the running game never got untracked. Really, Carter should have thrown at least three inerceptions, but Aaron Glenn has hands carved from stone. (probably the reason he's a DB and not a receiver) The defense was even better than it was last year if you exclude the slipup that allowed David Carr to throw his second touchdown. The Texans could not run the ball at all on the Dallas defense. Often it looked like the linebackers were eavesdropping on the Texans offensive huddles and were just waiting for the snap so they could hogtie James Allen one more time. La'Roi Glover led the manhandling of David Carr and was in the backfield all night. He even snagged an interception. The offense always had poor field position and never seemed to be able to do anything to improve it. Special Teams was also a nightmare because Billy Cundiff missed a kick and Jason Bell came back to haunt his old team like the Ghost of Kickoff Coverage past. Wide Reciever Randal Williams played well on kick coverage I thought. It's a shame someone that big and fast can't catch passes. Randal Williams ran a 4.1 forty in training camp - more than a tenth of a second faster than Joey Galloway's best time. The Cowboys seemed really promising this year but the offense looks like it will once again disappoint. Serious adjustments need to be made NOW!
I can't help going all crazy about the Cowboys, I have only watched every game every Sunday for the past 16 years. The Cowboys are almost my second religion - and I don't even consider myself a serious fan. There are people in Dallas whose levels of fanaticism for all things related to the Dallas Cowboys would frighten you.
Pete Sampras actually won a tennis tournament! You could make a career out of beating Andre Agassi.
Can someone explain to me exactly what went on in Reliant stadium last night? I suppose I was silly for expecting so little from the Houston Texans and so much from the Dallas Cowboys; but I am a fan and objective reasoning about my team's chances really isn't possible. My Mom looked on as my Dad cursed and I abused the helpless pillows decorating our den. The Cowboys lost miserably because of their inept offense. Quincy Carter simply stank and the running game never got untracked. Really, Carter should have thrown at least three inerceptions, but Aaron Glenn has hands carved from stone. (probably the reason he's a DB and not a receiver) The defense was even better than it was last year if you exclude the slipup that allowed David Carr to throw his second touchdown. The Texans could not run the ball at all on the Dallas defense. Often it looked like the linebackers were eavesdropping on the Texans offensive huddles and were just waiting for the snap so they could hogtie James Allen one more time. La'Roi Glover led the manhandling of David Carr and was in the backfield all night. He even snagged an interception. The offense always had poor field position and never seemed to be able to do anything to improve it. Special Teams was also a nightmare because Billy Cundiff missed a kick and Jason Bell came back to haunt his old team like the Ghost of Kickoff Coverage past. Wide Reciever Randal Williams played well on kick coverage I thought. It's a shame someone that big and fast can't catch passes. Randal Williams ran a 4.1 forty in training camp - more than a tenth of a second faster than Joey Galloway's best time. The Cowboys seemed really promising this year but the offense looks like it will once again disappoint. Serious adjustments need to be made NOW!
I can't help going all crazy about the Cowboys, I have only watched every game every Sunday for the past 16 years. The Cowboys are almost my second religion - and I don't even consider myself a serious fan. There are people in Dallas whose levels of fanaticism for all things related to the Dallas Cowboys would frighten you.
9.08.2002
In reference to what I said here, I think, now, that there will always be a place for textual information. Visual and audio communication does not supercede text. Because people can watch video, and listen to CDs doesn't mean that they stop reading books. Blogs, as a written media, will still exist. The hype will most likely have faded in the future though.
Miami crushed Florida. Doh!
Serena Williams dominates Venus again. They are so good it's boring. They've taken a little drama out of the women's game. I am willing to bet a few people are very displeased with the current state of affairs as the sisters rub a few people the wrong way. (in my opinion through no fault of their own). The big story is the tennis game between a couple of old guys that they're holding in Arthur Ashe stadium.
Odd dream update: This morning right before I woke up I had this dream. It was very odd. I saw this woman enter a storefront and I heard something about Kevin Faulk, who if I am not mistaken is Marshall's little brother, and Kevin Faulk owned a dating service. Only when he walked up it was a muscular white man standing there which is odd since Kevin Faulk would be black. Maybe it was Kevin Falk. Which would be odd, but they don't exactly explain spelling of names in dreams. I think I thought it was Kevin Faulk the football player in my dream too. I kept seeing a counter, the same woman walking up, and Mr. Falk/Faulk walk up too.What this all means I don't know.
Serena Williams dominates Venus again. They are so good it's boring. They've taken a little drama out of the women's game. I am willing to bet a few people are very displeased with the current state of affairs as the sisters rub a few people the wrong way. (in my opinion through no fault of their own). The big story is the tennis game between a couple of old guys that they're holding in Arthur Ashe stadium.
Odd dream update: This morning right before I woke up I had this dream. It was very odd. I saw this woman enter a storefront and I heard something about Kevin Faulk, who if I am not mistaken is Marshall's little brother, and Kevin Faulk owned a dating service. Only when he walked up it was a muscular white man standing there which is odd since Kevin Faulk would be black. Maybe it was Kevin Falk. Which would be odd, but they don't exactly explain spelling of names in dreams. I think I thought it was Kevin Faulk the football player in my dream too. I kept seeing a counter, the same woman walking up, and Mr. Falk/Faulk walk up too.What this all means I don't know.
A simply beautiful blog template here.
Government projects are not all doomed to failure and heinous cost overruns.
I went to see Mostly Martha tonight. It would have been a really great date movie, if it wasn't for the fact that a friend of mine, whose opinion I respect, told me that movies are terrible dates, and also that I don't know any girls who want to date me.
A friend of Bug Selig's spotted David Wells at a restaurant.
Let me take a moment to tell you about AOL and the great instant messaging wars. Does anybody remember the uproar when Microsoft tried to make MSN Messenger interoperable with AOL Instant Messenger? I do! AOL immediately modified AIM and decried Microsoft's attempts to "hack" the system. Microsoft soon gave up after taking the uncharacteristic position that all Instant Messaging software should support "open" standards and adhere to a common framework. AOL eventually agreed to join an industry wide effort to formulate instant messaging standards. In fact, as part of the conditions of Time Warner's merger with AOL, the mergedcompany was required to open its instant messaging network. AOL instead closed its network and promised to comply as soon as its engineers had finished making the necessary modification for opening the network. We are still waiting.
Into this mess walked the good folks are Cerullian studios. Their product, freely available from trillian.cc, is a universal instant messaging client that can operate on: AIM, MSN Messenger, IRC, ICQ, and Yahoo Messenger networks. People (like me for instance) who before had to open multiple im clients to talk to all their friends, could now talk to anybody from one Instant Messaging client. Best of all, users could stick it to AOL Time-Warner - who now owns AIM and ICQ. What is more, it gave harried AIM users an attractive alternative to the notoriously buggy AIM client. AOL constantly updates AIM now to introduce incompatibilities with Trillian, in contrast to Microsoft who actually notifies Cerullian of possible problems in Trillian and provides information on how to interact with MSN Messenger!
Here is an example of Microsoft playing the good guy and AOL playing the bad guy. The problem is that AOL pretty much always plays the bad guy and gets away with it.
Government projects are not all doomed to failure and heinous cost overruns.
I went to see Mostly Martha tonight. It would have been a really great date movie, if it wasn't for the fact that a friend of mine, whose opinion I respect, told me that movies are terrible dates, and also that I don't know any girls who want to date me.
A friend of Bug Selig's spotted David Wells at a restaurant.
Let me take a moment to tell you about AOL and the great instant messaging wars. Does anybody remember the uproar when Microsoft tried to make MSN Messenger interoperable with AOL Instant Messenger? I do! AOL immediately modified AIM and decried Microsoft's attempts to "hack" the system. Microsoft soon gave up after taking the uncharacteristic position that all Instant Messaging software should support "open" standards and adhere to a common framework. AOL eventually agreed to join an industry wide effort to formulate instant messaging standards. In fact, as part of the conditions of Time Warner's merger with AOL, the mergedcompany was required to open its instant messaging network. AOL instead closed its network and promised to comply as soon as its engineers had finished making the necessary modification for opening the network. We are still waiting.
Into this mess walked the good folks are Cerullian studios. Their product, freely available from trillian.cc, is a universal instant messaging client that can operate on: AIM, MSN Messenger, IRC, ICQ, and Yahoo Messenger networks. People (like me for instance) who before had to open multiple im clients to talk to all their friends, could now talk to anybody from one Instant Messaging client. Best of all, users could stick it to AOL Time-Warner - who now owns AIM and ICQ. What is more, it gave harried AIM users an attractive alternative to the notoriously buggy AIM client. AOL constantly updates AIM now to introduce incompatibilities with Trillian, in contrast to Microsoft who actually notifies Cerullian of possible problems in Trillian and provides information on how to interact with MSN Messenger!
Here is an example of Microsoft playing the good guy and AOL playing the bad guy. The problem is that AOL pretty much always plays the bad guy and gets away with it.
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