Well Said

I had begun writing a post on the subject of the current financial "crisis", but before I had a chance to put a bow on it, TMQ (still your #1 source for political/economic information) came along and said everything I wanted to more eloquently. I guess that's why they pay him the big bucks.

You can (and should) read his thoughts here.

To paraphrase, since TMQ can be verbose, "crisis" is a relative term and we're all best served by looking at the larger economic picture. It's a very optimistic, and welcome, perspective of what we're currently seeing occur on Wall Street that I am very much in agreement with. Media outlets and politicians are calling it a "crisis" simply to promote their own agendas, and bad days on Wall Street don't necessarily translate to an economic crisis. My (and TMQ's) $0.02...

Is Tonight the Night???

Following up on Ian's Brady Quinn post... Could tonight be the night Quinn finally gets his shot with the Browns? The Giants are VERY good, and they may pound the Browns and Anderson to a pulp. The Browns are very close to pulling Anderson, and he may have a tough time tonight. I see a good chance of Quinn getting a shot on Monday Night Football.

Lord knows ND fans have to have something to cheer for!

Bump In Traffic

I thought I'd try to "legitimize" our blog today and get us some easy traffic like all the other sports blogs do. Here goes...

Brady Quinn is gay.

Brady Quinn likes dudes.

Oh, snap! Look at those zingers! Take THAT, Brady Quinn! Bigotry and homophobia are hilarious! We should expect to see the traffic rolling in any second now...

For reals, though - what's the fascination with Brady Quinn? He's a late first-round draft choice backing up an All-Pro in his prime in only his second year.

Yeah, he's taken some stupid photos with what look like high school buddies. We can't all be as bad-ass and ooze testosterone like you tough-guy sports bloggers out there. He's also been seen like this
Not. Too. Shabby. (The girl. Not the white linen blazer and blue slacks.)

Let's face it - Quinn gets grilled because he went to Notre Dame. He busts his ass, teammates have nothing but good things to say about him, and he'll probably unseat All-Pro Anderson before the season is done. Meanwhile, former Heisman Trophy winner "Statutory" Matt Leinert is hooking up with jailbait and got beat out by a 37-yr old wash-up. But he gets a free pass because he went to Southern Cal and knows celebrities.

My point - as usual, I have none...

Still?

According to sources, Brandon Walker has retained field goal kicking duties for Notre Dame after winning a practice competition with junior Ryan Burkhart. Two questions arise...

1. How bad must Burkhart be to continually get beat our by Walker? Reports are that, once again, it wasn't even close.
2. Will practice ever make perfect?

There comes a point in time where you need to throw practice out the window. By all indications, Walker is a great practice kicker. However, the fact remains he's 1-7 on field goal attempts this season and 7-19 in his career. I don't care if he's bombing 72-yarders from the left hash in practice, if he can't hit a 31-yard chip shot in a game what's the point? Maybe the opposite holds true for Burkhart. Maybe he sucks in practice, but would step up in a game situation.

Notre Dame has been lucky thus far in that their kicking woes have yet to cost them a game, but they will eventually. If Walker continues to choke in games I don't really care what's happening in practice, a switch needs to be made.

F$%^ You And Your Bad Grammar, Apple

Apple has released their latest iPod, and the marketing shit-storm that goes along with any Apple release is in full effect. Once again, Apple is trying to chip away at the collective intelligence of America by using blatantly poor grammar.
Notice the problem here? If you're one of the millions of people that made it through 3rd grade you would have quickly noticed that "funnest" isn't really a word. The correct comparative and superlative forms of the word "fun" are "more fun" and "most fun", respectively. Who the hell do you think you are, Steve Jobs? William freaking Shakespeare? You do not have the clout to just go making up words willy-nilly. Hey, look! I can do it too - Apple, your ad campaigns are dumbening society!

Sadly, this isn't Apple's first cutesy foray into infuriating ad campaigns. Remember this?
Yeah, that was Apple's first attempt at eroding correct English. The word "different" in the above phrase is performing as an adverb and should therefore end in "ly", e.g. Think differently.

What really drives me nuts is that most people probably don't even realize the errors and I'm probably going to start hearing the word "funnest" all over the place, losing a little bit of my sanity with each utterance. I'm dreading the release of the latest MacBooks and the accompanying ad campaign that proclaims, "The new MacBook. Designed by Apple in California. All parts purchased from and assembled in China. Gooder than all those other laptops." Damn you, Apple...

Weekend Recap

Mainly for Bridget and Brian, who couldn't join us in South Bend this past weekend...

• DC to Indy (plane), Indy to South Bend (car) - eh... probably the last time for that.
• Would it kill Indiana to build an honest-to-God interstate between Indy and South Bend? That drive should never take 4.5 hours.
• Little cousins playing together? Awesome. Little cousins playing together after 9pm? Not so awesome.
• South Bend liquor store workers are quite the friendly lot. The legendary stories of Grandma T negotiating the prices on handles of Captain Morgan are suddenly more believable.
• 16oz Miller Lite's and Mustard-Cheese dip are not a suitable replacement for breakfast and lunch.
• Notre Dame defensive line? Not so great. Notre Dame jumbo sausage dogs? Great.
• Bruno's is a shit-hole. Literally. Although, I would beat a man to death with a shoe right now for a couple slices of that supreme.
• Zoe (7p bedtime) up past 9p two nights in a row = totally awesome plane ride home!

All in all, an enjoyable weekend featuring an Irish win. I'm honestly shocked that everything worked out as well as it did considering the hectic scheduling. I was bracing for a fiasco. Regardless, it was good to see everyone during the brief interludes of activity.

One More...

Ted's been putting out a fair amount of political commentary on the old blog of late in favor of John McCain. In most cases I've played devil's advocate, while stressing I'm still undecided - which is still the case. So I thought I'd throw a quick bone in favor of McCain/Palin by sharing a few quick positive thoughts on Gov. Palin.

• The contempt (it's the perfect word for this situation) shown Palin by the media and liberals is completely unfair. Whatever people say, she wasn't handle the Governor's seat in Alaska - she earned it with confidence and intelligence. It's especially galling coming from so many celebrities - a segment of the American population that makes a living playing make-believe - many of whom never even attended high school.
• The whole angle that she doesn't have enough foreign policy experience is a joke. How much foreign policy experience did Bill Clinton gain as governor of Arkansas - a state that probably out-hicks even Alaska? How much did Ronald Reagan, victor in the Cold War, gain acting and sitting as governor of California? If you answered 'None', you're spot-on.
• Enough with the argument about whether or not you'd be comfortable with her as President. This is a contrived attempt to spin McCain's age. What if Obama were to die in office? ZOMG! Biden is 66! I don't know if I'm comfortable electing a secondary official who maybe, possibly, potentially could die while in office.
• One thing that I think is often too easily overlooked in Presidential races is leadership. Senators and Congressmen like to stress how they led committees as examples of leadership. That's crap. I don't think you can quantify what it takes to be the person where the buck stops -the one who everyone looks to when a final decision needs to be made. Sarah Palin has been in that position as governor of Alaska. She has been the final arbiter, the one who says, "This is what we're doing. End of discussion." She hasn't had the luxury that Biden and Obama and, even, McCain have had in the Senate, blowing their idealistic horns and grandstanding while knowing full well it doesn't mean a damn thing because the majority will win out. That's putting on a show knowing there's no risk involved. Being the person in charge involves risk and gravitas with everything you say and each decision you make. Everything you do is scrutinized. Call me naive, but I think that's a huge advantage for Palin over everyone else in this race, her running mate included.

So there you have it - a little fair-and-balanced by yours truly. I think that tonight's VP debate should be very telling, but not for the reason others might think. If McCain loses ground as a result of a poor Palin performance it won't be because Palin has been exposed as an amateur, it'll be because McCain will have been exposed for picking a gimmick running mate for the sole purpose of getting himself elected - a selfish act that would belie everything McCain has said or done in his career to get to this point.

P.S. Still undecided, but that may change after tonight...

Looking Good...

At risk of jinxing the whole f#$^ing weekend, he's the current weekend weather forecast for South Bend. Looks like it's shaping up rather nicely, if not a little chilly for the later parts of the game Saturday. Can't wait!

Why, Mr. DJ? Why?

I feel sheepish admitting these two facts, but here goes...

1. I still listen to plain, old frequency modulation (FM) radio.
2. I love Nirvana.

You'd think those two guilty pleasures would blend like PB&J since Kurt Cobain committed suicide and radio disc jockeys (DJs) are notorious suckers for playing music made by now-dead musicians. Here's the problem - while Nirvana only ever made 3 studio albums and those 3 albums are packed with great songs, the DJs only ever play the 3 worst Nirvana songs...

• Come As You Are
• Heart-Shaped Box
• Lithium

They aren't horrible songs relative to today's music scene (which pretty much sucks), but compared to Scentless Apprentice, All Apologies, Breed, Polly, School, About a Girl, et al., they're shit. I don't get it, there are almost 40 songs from studio albums, countless live/unplugged versions available, even the Incesticide EP - literally hours of music to choose from - and it's still the same 3 damn songs. It's depressing. As depressing as the fact that Cobain was probably murdered by his crazy wife, Courtney Love? Eh, maybe not, but still... throw me a freaking bone now and then.

I Did It!

I have taken the technology plunge. I put in a pre-order for a shiny new Blu-Ray player today on Amazon. Check out the just announced Panasonic DMP-BD35K.

Blog regulars may recall the myriad HD-DVD vs. Blu-Ray posts that flew around this site for months and years prior to the death of HD-DVD this spring. So it is no surprise that the Heffernans are interested in Blu-Ray technology. Why did I wait so long? What caused me to pull the trigger now? Why did I pre-order from Amazon? The answers lie below...

First off, nobody in their right mind would have purchased either HD disc format until the format war was decided. I actually wasn't sure it ever would be! But the quick and stunning defeat of HD-DVD gave me confidence that Blu-Ray would actually make it. After Blu-Ray won, the players available were in a bit of chaos. They were very expensive, well over $500. They had differing Blu-Ray standards (1.0, 1.1, 1.1+) that didn't always promise future disc compatibity. They supposedly had a lot of glitches, and took forever to load discs and content. Up until today, the best Blu-Ray player available was actaully a PS3! As a result, I watched and waited for the next generation of Blu-Ray players to hit the shelves - likely in time for Christmas.

Today, CNET ran a full review of the new Panasonic Blu-Ray line. I am a big CNET fan, and they know their electronics. The new review convinced me now was the time to pull the trigger. The BD35K comes in at $299. It is fully 2.0 compliant. It has the best image quality available in a Blu-Ray player. It has one of the best chips for upconverting older DVDs to 1080p. It fully decodes all the fancy audio modes in new movies for those of us that don't have a $2000 receiver. CNET says the only better player is the BD55K that offers analong 7.1 output, something that nobody needs anyway. Now is the time to buy. Other companies will release their new players soon, but Panasonic has been the reference standard for Blu-Ray from the start. It's this one, or wait until next year for the next generation, which will assuredly have a few minor updates. However, the major issues are addressed in this player today, and it's time.

I also decided to go with Amazon because of their great track record for me. I bought my HDTV from them, and am very happy. They always have the best price, and they don't have tax or shipping. Nice when you have over 9% sales tax.

So if anyone has been considering Blu-Ray, trust me when I say this is the time to take the plunge. As further incentive, all the big movies of this year are starting to come out in Blu-Ray. I am going to the store to buy Iron Man and Sleeping Beauty in Blu-Ray next week. The Dark Knight is coming sooooon!