Zaza Pachulia! Of all my draftees none excite me more than Zaza Pachulia. Maybe it’s just because I like his name, but maybe not. Maybe it’s because this 21 year-old is going to rock you guys like a tiny fiddle.

Check out this new Sony commercial featuring 250,000 real bouncy (super)balls cascading down the streets of San Fran.

Then this guide is for you: How to become a republican

Some good points:

Accept Christ as your own personal weapon
Drop the J Bomb! REmember that the more you talk about Jesus, the less you need to act like him.

But what if we run out of Terrorists?
Thanks to us, your children will nver know the horror of living in a time of peace. The War on Terror never kills an enemy without breeding a new one!

Would you rather have a million stupid mamograms or one kick-ass tomahawk missile?

Forests are dangerous places where wolves attack girls heading to grandma’s house
…. Forests are much better off without trees, according to a new study by the best scientists in the Lumber Industry

Happy Halloween.

Wow, a year. Thanks Zach, both for the reminder and the praise. also thanks to bwb for the server space. More importantly, thanks to everybody for making this thing interesting. design and function are worthless without good content, and that’s what you all (posters and commenters) provide content that is at least as interesting to me as anything on the internet.

10.29.04
Hello world!
Filed under: Administrative
— posted by Joel @ 8:35 pm

Well here it is boys. I’m still tweaking a few things, and there are several features I’d like to add when I get ’round to it, but I wanted to get this mofo up and running in time to get out and rock the vote. If you notice any problems, please report them as a comment on this post. Ditto for features you’d like to see added

Chevy Chase Bank has installed ATMs in 34 of DC’s Metro stations and they’re advertising with this scary thing.

Its ATM head with human body really gives me the creeps. Its face is trying to smile, but it’s devoid of any humanity. What is he hiding in his unseen hand? And why is he looking at me? He appears ready to spring forth and to attack me. But why? What happened to humans? I liked those ads better.

Way to go Joel, this site’s sweet.

You’ve gotta love an album titled “the campfire headphase”. To me, it subtly evokes the idea of doing narcotics in some kind of wooded environment. I’ve listened to this album a fair amount (in its 2 weeks of daylight) drunk, and it’s even had the rare advantage of a stoned listening session, and I’ve gotta say: “holy cow”. This stuff is good (for a review, here or here). Not better than Music Has the Right to Children (which it does) or Geogaddi. But as good. And it won’t scare the crap out of you if you happen to sober up while listening to it (as would Geogaddi with its constant references to Satan and David Koresh). No, this one’s much more peaceful, and even includes a fair bit of strings. The highlights (though it’s all good):

• “Chromakey Dreamcoat”
• “Satellite Anthem Icarus”
• “Peacock Tail”
• “Oscar See Through Red Eye”

I made my picks this morning minutes after waking up, and I made a mistake. If it’s your pick, and you don’t see anyone on the draft board that you’d rather have than Josh Smith, then let me know via email. If the player I want is still on the board and you draft him, then I’ll trade Josh Smith for him.

If you are rocking Google Home, you will find the Galloway story in top stories.

Apparently the gummunt allegedly has found about $150,000 in his ex-wife’s US bank account that might have come from the oil-for-food program.

Tisk, tisk.

The Bush administration is continuing its crackdown on a free and independent press. This time, their target is The Onion.

In a recent demand letter, an assistant counsel to President Bush informed The Onion that they were using the official seal of the president without permission, which turns out can be a violation of federal law. “It has come to my attention that The Onion is using the presidential seal on its Web site…. [The seal] is not to be used in connection with commercial ventures or products in any way that suggests presidential support or endorsement.” The Onion is fighting back. Unleash the lawyers!

…Well not my home ‘hood, but my school ‘hood. Rapper Cam’ron was shot three times in the arms early Sunday morning in a botched carjacking while stopped at the intersection of New York and New Jersey Avenue. That’s just blocks away from where I go everyday to learn about things like the subtle (but all important) differences between obscene speech and pornographic speech. In fact, I unwittingly rode my bike through this same intersection some 14 hours after the shooting. Of course, because I, unlike Cam’ron, wasn’t “driving [a] royal blue 2006 Lamborghini and wearing … $200,000 worth of diamonds and other jewelry,” I wasn’t particularly concerned that I’d be the possible target of a carjacking.

As for Cam’ron, he’s alright. His first words to the media upon leaving the hosipital were, “I got shot three times and my album comes out Nov. 22.” I didn’t make that up.

Hey Guys,

I don’t mean to be a sour puss, but we only have a week to go until the beginning of the NBA season, and are only in Round 4 of the NBA Fantasy 13 round draft. We’ll have to speed it up if we want to finish… Arriba, arriba! andalay, andalay! !!!!

The Fugees are back! Their first new single, “Take it Easy” has leaked. I’ve only listened to it a couple of times, but I kind of hope it doesn’t make the album, which should be out in late December.

Well, I promised one, and if any one cared to hold me to it, here it is, my life update. It’s long, so if you care to read it, you’ll have to click more.

Read the rest of this entry »

Once apon a time, in an improbably tall dorm room, BWB and I were spending a lot of time reading about photogrophy on the internet. Me because I was trying to decide between a digital camera and a film camera plus a film scanner and Ben because he was (unbeknownst to either of us) about to start making a living buying and selling cameras and lenses on eBay. In the process of researching I discovered two things:

1.the physical size of the ccd in most consumer level digicams is much smaller than a piece of 35mm film and, therefore, only a tiny fraction of the size of a medium or large format camera’s film.

2. the limitation of a ccd’s size is similar to that of lcd displays…the more sensors per unit, the more likely a unit will have an error in it.

The upshot of this was that ccds with the same sensor density as little digicam ccds but with the same physical dimensions as a large format film frame were (and still are), though commercially untenable, in principle very possible. After some rough calculations, we envisioned the future of digital photography: gigapixel cameras that would contain so much data the need for a zoom lense would be irrelevant. The image would have so much detail that “zooming” could be achieved later by cropping out the section you were interested in and printing that. We imagined taking a picture of a stadium full of people and being able to make a decent crop of each fan’s face.

Well as it turns out. somebody has produced a camera that can do just that… but not at all in the way that I would have guessed

If you wan’t to hear some guy that writes about science and photography for a living talk about it, then read This Popular Science Article. If you want to hear my less informed, but also shorter, rendition, then press onward.
Read the rest of this entry »

Sunday night, Ken “The Hammer” Hamlin, former Razorback and current Seattle Seahawk, had his skull broken and body bruised in a altercation outside a nightclub in Seattle’s Pioneer Square. He was released from Intensive Care today after doctors removed a blood clot in his brain.

Apparently: a shoving match between Hamlin and another man, Milam, lead to skirmishes inolving almost 100 people outside of Larry’s Nightclub. Surveillance cameras show Hamlin resisting restraint from bouncers, stripping down to a tank-top, and throwing a punch. Milam, who spent 9 of the past 11 years in prison for manslaughter charges, knocked Hamlin out with a blow to the head. Bystanders uprooted a no-parking sign and used the pipe to strike Hamlin repeatedly, while others punched and kicked him. As fellow Seahawk and a club security guard tried to help Hamlin, Milam threatened to shoot people and ran. He was found shot-to-death in Seward Park three hours later.

Police have a murder suspect, and there are no clear signs that he has a connection to Hamlin or the Seahawks.

a.baller raises an interesting question:

is there anyway you could set up a smack board on here, where we can talk trash to each other through the season…

what say you league members? As long as the trash talking stays at a reasonable level (say an avg of 1-2 fantasy league related posts/comments per player per day) I’m content to use the current JttM settup (i.e. blog-posts and comments) because i like a little bit of lively chatter on the old blog. everyone ok with that? If you would rather have a seperate message board style forum that can be arranged. or if you guys are super nice to me i might be able to cook up some sort of alternate page to view posts tagged as sports and their comments as a message board style thinger (in addition to being able to view them within the blog)

Tonight I saw the future of the NBA, and the future looks bright. From 13 rows back at center-court, I saw the Hawks square off against the Hornets, beating them 97-94 (it was actually a lot more of a blow-out than this). I saw my boy Joe Johnson (15 pts, 6 rebs, 6 asses), the ex-Razorback and LR Central Tiger, show off a game so polished it made my eyes hurt. I think he’ll be more of a passer/distributer this year than he was with the Suns — the Hawks need him to be with a fine cadre of high-scoring wing players but a scarcity of creative playmakers. I look for him to get 7 assists a game and not be an all-star this year, but possibly next year when the Hawks win more games.

Chris Paul (7 rebs, 8 asses) is quick as a stick (i.e. a stick, having been thrown) and looks to be a tad over 5′10″, not the 6′0″ he’s listed as. He’s a very good ball thief. JR Smith (26 points) has star written all over him. He hit six threes and single-handedly brought back the Hornets in the fourth. He’s not a good passer or defender right now, but his scoring ability is certainly there. Othello Harrington led the team in scoring and is really good at lay-ups - he’s the very epitome of wiry and is by far Atlanta’s best back-to-the-basket threat. Josh Childress (20 pts) impressed me with his Marion-like quick jumping and ability to put up many points in the flow of the game. Chris Anderson, the gangly white dude-dunker whose alias is “Birdman”, looks straight-up retarded. Marvin Williams (12 pts, 6 rebs), the youngster from the national champion Tarheels, is less smooth than I thought he would be, and more of a hustle player with ungodly long arms. He had one back-down, power spin and shot move that reminded me of Amare Stoudamire (Daniel), but doesn’t have the strength yet to be a big factor down low, or anywhere for that matter.

P.S. I was disappointed that Josh Smith did not play tonight. Having been apotheosisized at the 2005 NBA All-Star Dunk Contest, he is now a deity of dunk.

If, like me, you don’t pay for TimesSelect, you probably missed David Brooks’ column last Thursday making fun of Miers’ old writings. Fortunately, the University of Michigan is providing that column for free.

In it, Brooks quotes excerpts from Miers’ monthly column for the Texas Bar Journal, written when she was president of that organization. And from the looks of it, her prose is rather wretched. Try this sentence:

”We have to understand and appreciate that achieving justice for all is in jeopardy before a call to arms to assist in obtaining support for the justice system will be effective. Achieving the necessary understanding and appreciation of why the challenge is so important, we can then turn to the task of providing the much needed support.”

Okay. So that was then, this is now. Maybe Miers is a better writer today?

Not so. Apparently her response to the Senate Judiciary Committee’s questionnaire, which she submitted yesterday, is ridden with both typos and basic legal misunderstandings (i.e. “legal typos”). And her prose style ain’t too great either.

These mistakes would be funny, except that if she’s confirmed, future lawyers and law students will suffer through countless wasted man-hours trying to figure out what the heck her opinions are supposed to mean and, more importantly, what the law is. It’s incredible that someone with such bad writing could have graduated law school, let alone be nominated to the most elite legal institution in this country. You cannot provide sound legal advice if you cannot even clearly communicate that advice in writing. Miers, it appears, cannot even construct proper, well-written sentences.