Respect The Mustache

Several months ago, the Heffernan boys got word from Mom that Dad had been considering the unthinkable - shaving his mustache. This rocked us to our core. We had no idea what spurred Dad to ponder this crazy idea. All we knew is that Dad had always had a mustache as long as any of his had been alive. The only time we had ever even seen Dad without his trademark 'stache was in pictures for his own wedding. So we decided to act in the only way we knew how - we grew our own mustaches!

The plan was hatched during the week of Colin's wedding, and formalized through a series of emails between brothers in the months leading up to Thanksgiving. The first critical step was wife approval. All wives reluctantly agreed on one condition - no mustache until Thanksgiving. Thus, each brother grew either a beard or goatee, slowly grooming it before the big day. Then, before arriving in Cincinnati for our family holiday, the mustache would be revealed! What follows is a brief description of each brothers' road to mustache glory...

Ted
The eldest Heffernan brother had sported a goatee several times in the past. Usually, this was a result of laziness with regards to shaving. It was often reserved for wilderness trips including the Boundary Waters and a prior Western road trip. This past experience served him well as he decided to sculpt a goatee into the mustache. Ted began his goatee on September 25, after his last 1st call as a radiology resident EVER! Over the next 7 weeks, the goatee grew in very nicely. He passed the dreaded "itchy" phase after a month and it was smooth sailing after that. His mustache was finally sculpted Monday night on November 20, to allow his coworkers the opportunity to see the fruit of his labor. The 'stache most closely resembled a young Uncle Dan, with the corners curling below the corners of his lips.

Ian
Ian was the most reluctant of the Heffernan brothers in the mustache endeavor. Repeated emails questioning if we were still going through with this were answered with a resounding yes. Ian elected to go with a full beard in preparing his fledgling 'stache. He hated every minute of it as it became more and more itchy. When he finally trimmed the beard, the 'stache that remained was sure to get him a full search by airport security. The 'stache most closely resembled a young Magnum PI although not quite as bushy.

Colin
Colin was surely the most enthusiastic participant in growing a 'satche. According to his wife, he stroked his growing facial hair constantly, and discussion of possible 'stache styles dominated their evening conversations. Colin was also remiss to shave his mustache, unsuccessfully lobbying his brothers to keep them through Thanksgiving. The 'stache most closely resembled a young Uncle Terry, thin and long, extending well beyond the corners of his lips.

Kevin
Kevin also went with the full beard route. However, Kevin possesses a distinct advantage over his brothers - he has red facial hair! Thus, Kevin crafted a redbeard that would be the envy of any Notre Dame leprechaun. It was also the envy of his boss. Kevin proudly displayed his facial hair at work - even getting an ID photo taken with a full beard. His boss demanded that Kevin reveal the 'stache at work before leaving for Thanksgiving. Kevin complied and made that boss feel like a lesser man. This was truly an original 'stache. Thinner than the other Heffernan boys, it had the distinct advantage of being red.

So after finally arriving Wednesday night, the above photo was taken and the brothers went to sleep one last time with their 'staches. The next morning, Ian cracked and decided to shave. The rest of the brothers followed suit, Colin reluctantly, and the 'staches were no more. However, Dad never did get rid of his mustache. I think he got the message, thanks to a little help from the friends on our upper lips.

MISSION ACCOMPLISHED!

God is Irish

#3 Louisville? Loss.
#4 Texas? Loss.
#5 Auburn? Loss.
#6 Florida? Win*...
#8 California? Loss.

The way I see it, Notre Dame wins out and they have one helluva good shot at the BCS title game.

Oh, and just as icing on the cake - Florida State is shutout at home 30-0 by Wake Forest, it's first home shutout in 33 years. And Miami loses to Maryland. Both teams are now 5-5. I wonder why we aren't hearing any stories about why those two schools can't compete at such a high football level with their stringent academic requirements. Oh yeah - because their players don't go to class... Is there any doubt God is a Notre Dame fan?


* = Florida didn't win as much as South Carolina lost. A blocked extra point, a 55-yard field goal negated because of a home field call, a blocked field goal, and another blocked field goal that would've won the game as time expired. Not a very convincing win at home against a South Carolina team that everyone seems to think is so good even though they're 5-5...

A.C. Liger

So I recently asked some of you for help with a new soccer team I'm forming. My initial idea was AWESOM-O FC, after the most famous robot in cartoon history. Unfortunately, a group of teammates shot that down. They came back with the funny, Man-chest-hair United. While I laughed, it's not a name I would want to be associated with for a whole season. Also, since we are coed, a few girls did take issue. I did give them props for their uniform badge idea - an inverted triangle with a tuft of hair!

So now I will unveil the official team name (if you haven't already figured it out)...

A.C. Liger

You might ask, "What in the heck is that?" Well, it's a little homage to Napoleon Dynamite. You may recall the brief scene when Deb takes a peek at Napoleon's sketchbook on the steps at school. One of the many immortal dialogue exchanges from the movie ensues:

Deb: What are you drawing?
Napoleon: A liger.
Deb: What's a liger?
Napoleon: It's pretty much my favorite animal. It's like a lion and a tiger mixed... bred for its skills in magic.

So check out our official team logo at the top, and our team badge. Our uniforms will be adidas Squadra II - Argentina style, with sky blue jerseys and socks matched with black shorts. It should be pretty awesome. Too bad most of the players have very little experience. Oh well, it will be pretty damn fun though! I'll keep you posted on our glorious accomplishments throughout the season!

Viva la Science!

I don't think I could state this any better, so I'll just paste this link:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/11/05/nosplit/nwarm05.xml

My only regret is that I didn't read this sooner and post before election day. I recommend checking back next week for the second part of Mr. Monckton's piece...

The Blind Taste Test

About a week ago Stewart Mandel, an si.com college football writer that I usually enjoy, wrote an article doing a blind comparison between Notre Dame and another unnamed team's schedule/record, a la college basketball tournament worthiness (this full article can be read here). His point being that Notre Dame's schedule and record compare more favorably to Boston College/a mid-teens ranked team than to the "elite" programs. Using Mandel's scientific method here are the schedules and records of three other 1-loss teams. Can you guess who they are?

Team 1:

Result	Opponent	Score
Win	No. 107	56-7
Loss	No. 1	24-7
Win	@No. 83	52-7
Win	No. 85	37-14
Win	I-AA	56-3
Win	@No. 17	28-10
Win	No. 75	63-31
Win	@No. 36	22-20
Win	@No. 59	35-31
Win	No. 51	36-10

Team 2:

Result	Opponent	Score
Win	No. 73	20-10
Win	No. 118	14-13
Win	@No. 67	24-13
Win	@No. 81	27-3
Win	I-AA	34-14
Loss	No. 23	27-17
Win	@No. 70	25-23
Win	@No. 102	24-17
Win	No. 21	21-14

Team 3:

Result	Opponent	Score
Loss	@No. 16	35-18
Win	No. 54	42-17
Win	I-AA	42-16
Win	@No. 34	49-21
Win	@No. 24	41-13
Win	No. 19	45-24
Win	@No. 28	21-3
Win	No. 46	31-24
Win	No. 45	38-24

Now, looking at those three teams I would think their schedules and records are pretty comparable. If forced to choose, I would say Team 2 has the most impressive resume and is most deserving of a national title shot.

Who are they?

Team 1 = Texas, currently ranked #4 in the BCS
Team 2 = Wake Forest, currently ranked #20 in the BCS
Team 3 = California, currently ranked #8 in the BCS

So why such the disparity? The obvious conclusion is that Wake Forest and California were punished early for lack of preseason hype and a first week stomping, respectively. Meanwhile, Texas was highly regarded to start the season and although they suffered an early-season whipping at home by Ohio State pollsters were hesitant to punish them for the loss.

My first point is this - teams aren't be responsible for their schedule. All they can do is win the games they play. I know it's popular these days to rewrite history, but, like it or not, Notre Dame had the most difficult schedule through the first 5 weeks of the season and performed admirably over that stretch. Of all 1-loss teams, Notre Dame dropped the most in the rankings following their loss. Why is that? True, the were beaten pretty badly at home, but so was Texas. Mandel tried to prove that Notre Dame is more on par with a Boston College based objectively on schedule and record. That's just asinine. Does he honestly think that Boston College is as good or better than Notre Dame. By the same rationale does he think Texas, California, and Wake Forest are equals? Of course not.

My second, and final, point is this - pollsters are morons, and as long as they have a say in rankings and national championships prejudice, bias, and hypocrisy like above will be a constant in college football. The system is ready for, and in need of, change...

Conference Call Hell

So I'm sitting here on a work conference call that occurs once a quarter. Unfortunately, the call is mandatory and I'm still low on the totem pole and my managers would notice and berate me if I wasn't on the call. Meanwhile, thos same managers don't attend because they know how painful these update calls can be. But I digress.

In an effort to get better attendance on these calls, Ernst & Young TSRS (my division) decided to give prizes away to persons actually on the call. Sadly, they didn't just want to pull a name out of a hat and give it to someone, they wanted to make it "fun." They decided to use the "Deal or No Deal" format to award prizes. This idea, while promising on paper because a fiasco for several reasons:

1. Because it was a phone call, I couldn't see beatiful models holding suitcases filled with money.
2. Someone who wasn't on the call won a prize! The prizes were for call attendees; someone explain to me how this happened?
3. The Howie Mandel impersonator had the personality of a brick.
4. I didn't win anything.

Attendance for this call was high - attention paid to the speakers on the call was, understandably, low. I have been on conference calls at a lot of different places and companies, and it's always the same. The details are boring and at too high a level for someone in my position, and the efforts to keep people like me on the call and interested are corny and embarrassing, and actually drive more people away from the call.

Unidentified woman on a conference call.

I propose the following formula to increase conference call interest and attendance across the country:

1. Everyone who attends is given a $25 gift card to Best Buy, Barnes and Noble, or McDonalds (for technophiles, bibliophiles, and fat people, respectively).
2. Conference calls cannot last longer than 45 minutes.
3. At least 15 minutes of the call is devoted to talking about national or international sports.
4. Presenters must not try to be humorous during their section of the call (there is nothing funny and no way to find any amount of humor when talking about testing database servers for appropriate setups).

These simple suggestion should help alleviate many problems with conference calls while simulataneously increasing attendance and motivation. Take it from me, I'm an almost-MBA.

Subjective College Football Groupings

In professional sports it's become a fairly common practice to debate the winners of MVP awards. Pundits like to say that there should be two separate awards, one for the Most Valuable player and one for the Most Outstanding player because these two concepts are radically different and often are not represented by the same player. Well, after watching Louisville basically earn a place in the college football national title game with a victory over West Virginia last night I'm beginning to think college football needs to segregate it's national champion from it's best team.

At the start of every college football season pundits talk about who will win the national championship. Some teams get legitimate mentions because they are outstanding football teams. Some teams get lumped in based solely on having a reputation as a 'big' football school. Others are simply in the discussion because they have a good shot at going undefeated and folks assume that for some reason these teams should be included. It's all bullshit. Does anyone honestly think that should Louisville make it to the national title game they're more deserving than the loser of the Ohio State-Michigan game? Heck no! There's the national champion and then there's the best team. And just like in MVP awards, the two aren't always one in the same.

So here's my completely subjective college football groupings based on nothing other than who I think are contenders and who are pretenders.

LEGITIMATE TEAMS: These teams are here because if they play their game, no one outside the other teams in this group could beat them. They all deserve to be in the national title discussion.

• Ohio State
• Michigan
• Southern Cal
• Notre Dame

SURVIVING ON REPUTATION: In other years, any one of these teams could be in the legitimate teams group. This year they're not quite up to snuff, but still get mentioned because of name recognition.They're all capable of beating one another, but they'd need some help in beating any of the legitimate teams.

• Florida
• Auburn
• Texas
• Tennessee

POSERS: These teams have no business being in the national title discussion. The only reason they're here is because they happen to be in a BCS-affiliated conference and/or happen to have a shot at going undefeated in a mid-major conference. Either way, they're competitive with one another but would probably get spanked by any of the legitimate or reputation teams, provided those teams don't completely melt-down.

• Louisville
• West Virginia
• California
• Rutgers
• Arkansas
• Boise State

So there you have it. Completely arbitary. Absolutely debatable. But that's the way I see the college football landscape. To think of it in another way, try this - Take your favorite college football team and imagine they could play any of the above teams for a national championship. Would anyone pick a team not in the posers group? Or, imagine you could remove 5 of the teams above and the rest are put in a hat from which one is chosen randomly to play your favorite college football team for the national championship. Would anyone not choose all 4 legitimate teams and probably 1 reputation team? But it's just an opinion, but then again so is the determination of who gets to play for the national championship...

This Time It's Personal...

This past weekend Notre Dame handily defeated a pretty darn good Navy football team. I should know - I was there, and I was never really worried. So after a convincing win over a good team on the road I expected Notre Dame to move up at least 1 spot in the rankings, considering some teams had the week off, others lost, and some others were played pretty close. I was wrong. For the second week in a row, Notre Dame was jumped by a team that did not play after Notre Dame had won. Last week it was Florida, this week California. Once is ignorance, twice is personal...

After Florida jumped the Irish last week head coach Charlie Weis complained about the polls and wondered how a team "home eating cheeseburgers" could jump a team that played and won. That appears to have been a mistake, one for which the pollsters were more than happy to punish him, as the exact same thing occurred this week.

Since arriving in the college ranks Weis has been labeled as arrogant and aloof - that, combined with Notre Dame's reputation as being arrogant and aloof, being an independent, and having their own contract with NBC seems to have created some animosity in the college football world. I posted here a few months back about an article that said many coaches were rooting against Notre Dame in the Penn State game simply so that Weis would get his comeupance from fan-favorite Joe Paterno. Apparently, those coaches and pollsters are now doing what Paterno could not and are taking out their bias in a much more direct manner - via the polls. Folks will say this shouldn't matter because the Irish didn't move positions in the BCS, but remember, the AP and Coaches polls are both part of the BCS equation. If Notre Dame continues to be punished in those polls, it will eventually affect their BCS standing.

I've long been a fan of the college bowl system and the AP and Coaches polls. Mainly because when it got down to it, they were pretty accurate and objective. That is no longer the case. Pollsters are obviously attempting to punish Notre Dame where it hurts most - in the wallet...

OVERPRICED SPACE-ROOMBA AWAITING MORE BULLSHIT ORDERS

Mars Rover Beginning To Hate Mars

PASADENA, CA—After nearly three years of nonstop data collection, Spirit has begun transmitting obscene gestures and confusing rants.

I know a lot fo you probably read The Onion from time to time, which is really one of the funniest web sites around. However, this article made me laugh harder than I have in a long time. Honestly, I really do love space exploration. I used to read all about it when I was younger, considered aerospace engineering as a step to being an astronaut, know all about the obscure history (did you know the Soviets had a moon shot ready to beat Apollo 11, but the rocket blew up on the launch pad), and I even bought Tom Hanks' DVD set From the Earth to the Moon!

Thus, I closely followed the development, launch and landing of Spirit and Opportunity. But that was 3 years ago! It really is funny that these things are still rolling around the surface of Mars doing useless science, and engineers are posting riveting mission updates such as this epic, "Spirit Clears Away Dust, Gets New Software Upgrade." It is even funnier that there is a crew of highly educated scientists holed up in some bunker/mission control, living life based on Martian sols. That's right, they only work when it's daytime on Mars. Since Mars has a longer day than Earth, that makes for some pretty interesting work hours!

Alright, enough joking around. Read the article and laugh your butt off. Then, look forward to the next big space mission that doesn't include some rich dude shelling out $20 million to waste a seat on a rocket to the ISS. The new NASA launch vehicles are in development, and real space exploration will resume in the next 2 decades: Moon return by 2018 and Mars missions in the planning stages.

Heroes

The Hiro Nakamura of the future.

I don't know if any of you guys have been watching this show, but it's freaking awesome. I'm hooked on it like Whitney Houston on crack. NBC took an idea that everyone loves, comic book superheroes, and essentially turned it into a TV drama. The acting is very good, and they have a few people you'll recognize as well.

What's going on is that regular Joe's on the street are finding out they have super powers. Some are more super than others, but all are pretty cool. However, these people aren't going out and fighting crime like Spidey and Superman, they are trying to maintain their normal lives. However, there is a super-villain as well, though we don't know exactly what powers he has, and he is currently just starting to interact with the Heroes.

Here now is a run down of the Heroes and their powers:

Claire Bennet - a cheerleader from Texas, Claire is pretty much indestructible. In one episode, she wakes up and is cut open on an autopsy table. Pretty gross stuff. You may have heard the taglines of the show - "Save the cheerleader, save the world."

Nathan Petrelli - Congressman who can fly.

Peter Petrelli - Brother of Nathan, we just found out that he mimics the powers of any other hero he is around.

Niki Sanders (played by Ali Larter) - has an alter-ego she can't control. The alter ego is extremely strong and very brutal. Kind of like the Hulk, especially since the alter-ego only comes out when she's threatened.

Isaac Mendez - when he's high on heroine (and they show him with the spoon and needle), he can paint the future. His superpower is quite expensive. He just painted the death of Claire Bennet, and so we had the tagline again.

Hiro Nakamura - can bend space and time. He can teleport and move through time. He's still working on refining this ability.

Matt Parkma - the wuss of the show, and a cop to boot, he can hear people's thoughts. He also was beat down already by the bad guy.

Unlike Lost, this story can continue indefinitely because you can always come up with new villains and new heroes in a show like this. I'm excited about this because there can be lots of mini-stories for each hero, and also an over-arching story they all participate in, which is exactly what is happening.

It's a fun show, and so far it has had a small stupid factor. Plus, it's fun watching how these superheroes live their lives and use their powers. Hiro Nakamura was at a casino stopping time and winning lots of money, and Isaac Mendez writes a comic book about the superheroes mentioned above, though he didn't know they were real people.

If you don't watch it or haven't seen it yet, I recommend checking in on it - Mondays at 9PM. Also, every week NBC plays the most recent episode online at NBC.com. It's a great way to kill an hour if you have other things going on Monday night.