Tuesday, July 20, 2010
Openglopish
Thope oporopigopins opare shropoudoped opin mopystoperopy, boput opit hopales bopack opat lopeast topo thope nopinetopeen foportopies, whopen mopy mopothoper lopearned opit fropom opa fropiend. Hoper fopavoporopite wopord wopas "opinopelopigopibopilopitopy". Sopay thopat thropee topimes ropeal fopast!
Opit's popossopiboble topo soping opin opit, opalthopough yopou opare opadvopised topo topake opit slopow opat fopirst.
Whopatopevoper yopou dopo, dopon't tropy topo wropite opin it...opit wopil fropy yopour coperopabopellopum opand mopake yopou dopyslopexopic.
Sunday, July 26, 2009
All-Time Greatest Gators
That doesn't mean I can't come up with my own list. If you know much about me, you know I can't do it the same way as everybody else, so my list creates the Greatest Gator All-Star team. No weaseling allowed, so just eleven players allowed on offense and eleven on defense. And some special team players. And a coach. The addition of an entire second team isn't weasely; I prefer to call it musteline.
I've limited myself to players I have seen play, although Alvarez and Youngblood were allowed in because they just missed the cut, and I read plenty about them at the time, and I'm not about to tell either of them that I left them out.
You will notice a quite a few players from the last year or three. My biggest complaint against "greatest" lists is that recent entries are waaaay too common (see here for an example that will make you weep like a schoolgirl; I know I did), probably because the lister was too lazy to do any decent research. Rest assured that I created the list originally without the recent guys, and only added them in after careful consideration. Such are the drawbacks of supporting a successful team.
I'll admit I can't tell the difference between a guard and a tackle, so I just lumped them in as offensive linemen. I can tell the difference between a cornerback and a safety, but historically they're often listed as just "DB", so I combined that category, too. I most definitely can tell a linebacker from a defensive tackle, and I realize that Sammy Green is listed today as a linebacker, but I saw him play and dammit he played nose guard, so in this list he's a defensive tackle.
First Team | Second Team | |
QB | Tim Tebow | Danny Wuerffel |
RB | Emmitt Smith | Fred Taylor |
RB | Neil Anderson | James Jones |
WR | Carlos Alvarez | Wes Chandler |
WR | Percy Harvin | Cris Collinsworth |
TE | Aron Hernandez | Chris Faulkner |
C | Jeff Mitchell | Phil Bromley |
OL | Lomas Brown | Crawford Ker |
OL | Reggie Greens | David Williams |
OL | Burton Lawless | Jason Odom |
OL | Jeff Zimmerman | Donnie Young |
DE | Jack Youngblood | Alex Brown |
DE | Kevin Carter | Jevon Kearse |
DT | Brad Culpepper | Sammy Green |
DT | Ellis Johnson | Trace Armstrong |
LB | Wilber Marshall | Ralph Ortega |
LB | Brandon Spikes | Fred Abbott |
LB | Scot Brantley | Tim Paulk |
DB | Louis Oliver | Will White |
DB | Jarvis Williams | Lito Sheppard |
DB | Reggie Nelson | Wayne Fields |
DB | Joe Haden | Fred Weary |
P | Ray Criswell | Shayne Edge |
K | David Posey | Bobby Raymond |
KR | Brandon James | Jacquez Green |
Coach | Steve Spurrier | Urban Meyer |
Alas, Babylon!
Monday, July 20, 2009
Diamonds are where you find them
Civilization developed first in Mesopotamia, because the winters are cool and wet, and the summers are hot and dry. This is ideal weather for wild wheat. The hot, dry summers forced wheat to grow hard, nutrient-enriched, seed-bearing kernels to survive. These kernels normally fall off before they're good to eat, but some defective plants hold on to them longer than others. Humans ate these defective kernels and defecated the seeds near their homes. Over time, this process of "unnatural selection" wiped out wild wheat and replaced it with the "defective" stuff, which then became "normal".
Rice (East Asia), corn (Americas), and sorghum (Africa) are reasonably nutritious, but wheat has them all beat, so the Mesopotamians had a head start, aided by the blind luck of having all but one of the fourteen domesticable animals over 100 pounds. Their stored nutrition gave them the ability to specialize, which allowed cities to grow, which nurtured diseases, which eventually they developed resistance to.
Here's the best part. The Mesopotamian culture spread because the habitable portions of Eurasia run east-west. They could move without changing their lifestyles, and take their wheat with them. Cultures also arose in Africa and the Americas, but the north-south orientation of these continents meant that the inhabitants were restricted to fairly small areas. Without stored nutrition, they never developed cities and the resultant resistances, and were eventually decimated when contact came, although Africa gave as good as it got in that regard.
The only quibble I have with this book is at the beginning, when Diamond lays out the multiple ideas he originally had for why European culture dominates. One of the ideas was racial superiority of some kind. He rejected this out of hand, never bothering to test the idea. Now I'm not saying that he missed the right answer, but this doesn't sound like the Scientific Method that I was taught.
If I had just five books on my bookshelf, this would be one of them. It's that good.
Sunday, July 19, 2009
Great, just what I need
I was gonna paint the mailbox post, read to elementary school children, learn to play the bassoon, travel to exotic places, reform health control, and reverse the current trend of casual profanity. But I waited too long.
I ran into BrokenPictureTelephone.com. Thanks a lot, Va., I blame you completely.
This is a site that raises time-wasting to epic new heights. It combines the best of Pictionary and Taboo. I no longer play the latter, after a rushed trip to the emergency room following the GB's attempt to remove the buzzer battery with a kitchen knife. It wasn't pretty, and Julie was left behind to clean up, which was not an appropriate task for someone who once fainted when a teacher mentioned that he gave blood.
Where was I? Oh, right. This game is more addicting than crack ... er ... so I'm told ... and is simply hilarious. The drawing skills range from superb to what-the?, but it just doesn't matter. A high level of twisted humor among the participants certainly helps things along.
The only drawback is that there is some pathetic 14-year old who attempts to ruin as many games as he can. The players have learned to just ignore him ("don't feel the trolls") and press on. An interesting experiment in self-correcting social interaction.
This one gets 5 stars, highly recommended
Friday, July 17, 2009
Wait til next year
1968 Coach Ray Graves gets so disgusted with assistants blaming each other that he switches them, making offensive coaches coach defense and vice versa. Bad idea. Gators lose 51-0.
1969 Gator QB John Reaves sets national record by throwing 9 interceptions in one game.
1971 The Great Gator Flop. Defense lets Miami score so Gator QB can break a record.