One of the biggest mysteries of the Firefly TV series was the history of Shephard Book. That mystery will be finally revealed in a new graphic novel, set to be released later this year.
Reading Material
- If I was the EU…
- Pick and browse for flickr photos based on color.
- Profs should rethink banning laptops from the lecture halls.
- How Blogs are Becoming More Like Newspapers.
- Pirate a video game, and your desktop and personal information get sent out on the Web.
- I’m sure there’s somebody out there that could use this: Top 20 Blogs about Knitting.
- 11 Things You Should Never Do Online.
- Top 10 Things That Annoy Programmers (oldy, may have seen/linked before, but still good).
- A look back at 12 years of hell we call the DMCA.
- URL Shorteners Slow Down The Web.
- Really fun series from Slate: The Secret Language Of Signs.
- Google Apps now has a marketplace — unfortunately none of it (that I can find) works on Google Apps free edition.
- If you have a Philips DVD player, there’s a good chance there’s a firmware hack here for it.
- Making amazing posters and desktops from Google Maps.
- 10 Annoying Habits of a Geeky Spouse (I’ll be the first to admit that a few of these describe me).
- Amazing Life Lessons You Can Learn From Albert Einstein.
- A creative way to setup a laptop in a car so the back-seaters can watch DVDs. A similar product at an ugly site.
- The “No Dashes or Spaces” Hall of Shame — or why your credit card forms on your site suck. My day-job’s site has this issue, too, but considering that our reservation software is barely online capable and DOS-based, I’m not about to monkey with it as I’m afraid I’ll break something.
- It should be easier to contribute to open source projcts, so somebody’s trying to make it easier.
- Paris in 26 gigapixels.
- 10 Geeky Items You’re Embarrased to Admit You Want.
- Search and Share, and interesting add-on for a site, but it effectively disables right-click, which I hate.
- Why new, big hard drives might really suck for Windows XP users.
- 8-bit Austin, a map of the city in 8-bit graphical form.
The First Weekend Of The Pick ’em Is Over
The first two rounds of the pick ’em are over, the spreadsheet’s been updated, and this tournament could still be won by anybody. I’m right back in the middle of the back, where I rightfully belong, but “Canadian Invaders”, “winner winner chicken dinner” and “Spencer Dahl” have the top three spots, but there are still many folks who are contention, with “Club ED” still having potentially 105 points out there to win, which is more than anybody else. There are still people that are down in the 24th-place area that have a bunch of potential points on the table, so there could be some shaking up of things next weekend when the action kicks back up again on Thursday.
LIke mentioned yesterday, the two last-place prizes have already been decided, and I have e-mailed both of them — and am awaiting a reply (two weeks starts today).
This will be the last pick ’em post for a few days, but this certainly the most competitive tournament we’ve had in a while.
Back To Reality
Things can sure change in a day. I went from first to 10th in the pick ’em, and it’s probably only going to get worse, since two of my Final Four teams are now out of the competition. The updated spreadsheet has been put up.
We also have the two last place prizes already wrapped up and Dren is not in last place this year. “Dren will not win!” and “Go hogs!” cannot score any more points to move up the charts to pass anybody. I’ll be sending them e-mails with their prize information. But obviously the top-three are very much still up for grabs.
I Never Saw This Coming
So somehow after the first round of the pick ’em, I’m in a tie for the lead with yesterday’s leader Canadian Invader “Andrew”. However, just a single point behind are a bunch of folks who include my dad, a high school classmate, my sister’s boyfriend, Mr. Dahl, one of Bend’s nicest people, a prize winner from a couple years back, among some other folks — eight in total. With the rest of the weekend’s games worth two points each, it’s still anybody’s tournament (and remember, if I somehow win this whole thing — which is unlikely — I’m not claiming any of the prizes).
For the last place prizes, Go Hogs! “Kyle” has wrapped up one of those places, as he can’t score enough to overtake anything beyond second-to-last. If somehow “haven’t a clue” misses the rest of her picks, and perpetual-loser Dren actually makes one or two (he still has a few teams alive, thanks to all the upsets), Dren might get knocked off. Hell, even monkey has a chance to claim a bottom-feeder prize, but he has quite a few more teams left so the likelihood of that happening is pretty slim.
Mike Bellotti Leaving UO, Joining ESPN
Can’t say that I saw this coming, but considering all the off-field issues the Ducks have had this off-season (which resulted in full-season suspensions for key players), plus he just had to fire Ernie Kent, I guess it shouldn’t be that big of a surprise that he’d want to get out.
Nearly A Perfect First Day In The Pick ’em
We have our largest pool of folks ever in the pick ’em this year, even after thining off some of the folks who didn’t fill out their brackets. Through the 13th game of the day, “Randal D” had picked all 13 games correct — even all the upsets. But after incorrectly picking the last three games of the day, he’s in second place behind our Canadian Invader “Andrew” who picked 14 of the day’s games properly. I managed to somehow pick 12 of them right (how, I have no idea), and sit in third place right now, ahead of my boss and co-workers (which is all that matters to me, really). Dren is still bringing up the rear, just barely behind Kyle, who is trying to upend Dren from his perpetual loser spot. Thanks to today’s lower-seeds winning, they both actually put points on the board.
Last Chance To Sign Up For The Pick ’em
We’re now up to 43 competitors in the free bracket pick ’em. I emphasized “free” because people think you have to pay for it. You don’t. It’s free and for fun. I don’t make a dime of this. However, a lot of local businesses (and some not-so-local) businesses have thrown in some great prizes (I just added one today). These businesses deserve your support, and I’d encourage you to click on their ads that are appearing over to the right of this post or the list below, visit their sites, buy their stuff/services, but most of all thank them for participating in this bit of fun.
Entries and brackets have to be filled in by the crack of dawn tomorrow morning. We already have a record prize haul, and record number of competitors (we had 30 last year), I’d like to see us get up over 50 people before game time tomorrow. So if you haven’t signed up, or your friends haven’t signed up, tell everybody you know and potentially win some great prizes.
Thanks again to some of our the prize providers (some of our prizes were provided by me or by folks who didn’t want credit):
Bandwidth Killers
Just a few videos I’ve had sitting here for a while… check them after the jump.
Time Killer For The Day
It’s silly and stupid, but it’s addicting as heck for some reason. It’s Break The Wall. I’ve yet to actually break through all the walls — anybody else make it?