Tuesday, February 20, 2007

New, NEW, ALL NEW!

I have a new PDA, a new NaNo, a new email and a new image.

New PDA - My old Tungsten T5 died and I bought a new Palm Tungsten TX.

New NaNo - I joined NaNoEdMo (National Novel Editing Month). I will be attempting to do 50 hours of editing on my latest novel, Guya Principal. Wish me luck.

New Email - I have a new email address and I finally got DSL. HOORAY! I can finally work on-line at home! Let me know if you need the new address, but for now the old one will forward your messages.

New Image - The University of Illinois, my and Mrs. Prop's Alma Mater has cowtowed to the NCAA and outlawed Chief Illiniwek in all his aspects. Well, they can't make me bend my knee to non-sensical Political Correctness. We are going to continue to use the name Illini here and the image of the Chief (as inaccurate as it is) will continue to be honored here.




ADDITION: If you click on the word "Addition" it will take you to a site that has a petition to try to stop Alumni donations in ways that benefit Athletics. I think this is a great way to put our money where our mouths are and to try to get other people's money in our mouths too.

Wednesday, February 14, 2007

Happy Feast of Saint Valentine

Today is the Feast of Saint Valentine, or St. Valentine's Day. I want to take this opportunity to say publicly that I love Mrs. Prop. I know that's not much of a Valentine, but I got her some cards too.

Did you know that St. Valentine had nothing to do with romance or lovers, but that in the middle ages the saint's feast day became associated with romance, because in England February 14 is when the birds mate?

By the way, how come gansta's now-a-days don't have enough class to name famous inter-gang exchanges after famous days. The St. Valentine's Day Massacre sounds so poetic don't it?

I think if we put it up along side equivalent current situations (drive-bys and such) that we would see if for what it was, not something romantic, but something low-down and criminal.

Hooray for the Cops and I'll say a prayer for you.

PS: I just found out that my Roman Catholic Lectionary for Mass says that today is the feast of St. Cyril, Monk and St. Methodius, Bishop. What? I never heard of those guys? I think the Catholics are missing the boat today.

Monday, February 12, 2007

Happy Darwin Day


Wow, what a day. It's Lincoln's AND Darwin's Birthday. I didn't know they were the same day. It's kind of ironic you know.

I guess if you don't care about American presidents, or the United States as a singular entity, or the abolition of slavery in said country, then you can celebrate the other day, or not.

When I was in OBC I had a friend named Ray from rural TN. One day his parents came to visit and we all went to dinner in their van. At one point Ray said, "Hey, Ma, Bill is an Anthropology Major."

I just knew this was going to be trouble, but I, like Hercules, had to meet my fate.

She said, in a most innocent tone, "Anthropology, do you believe in evolution?"

I replied in the positive. To that she spun round in her chair, put her finger in my face and said, "WRONG!"

I'm just happy she didn't throw me out of the van.

"I was made in God's image," she said, "and God don't look like no damn monkey!"

Well, I didn't debate her (we hadn't eaten yet and there was still a good chance that Ray's parents would buy) but I'd be more than happy to debate it here in the comments.

Unless of course you only admire Mr. Darwin for his study of finches.

And oh, by the way, I agreed with Mr. Lincoln too, so bring on that debate as well.

Monday, February 05, 2007

RUN DAMN IT!

You may have come here from Miserable Donuts where you saw one of the two images that were burned into my little gray cells and here you will find the other one.

These images and two things I have to say will be the last I have to offer on the matter and I will move on and complete the healing process.

RUN!

Thomas Jones got 7.5 yard a carry, but they only ran 19 TIMES! "We're a running team." - Lovie Smith. My butt! If they had established the run they would have won the game. I realize that they were awful in almost every phase of the game, but they were in it for a very long time. Had they run when they had the lead they would never have lost it. Does running work? Ask the Colts, they ran 46 TIMES! And they have Manning!

This point is a little more subtle and maybe only a sub-point of the other one. If they had run the same gameplan that they ran against the Saints I think they would have won.

As I said, they managed to work their way down to being horrible in all phases of the game. They started out good on Special Teams (Kickoff return for a touchdown), Defense (interceptions and fumble recoveries) and even offense (big Thomas Jones run, Grossman actuall had a passer rating of somewhere around 120 in the 2nd quarter when Mannings was only about 85), and then lost it, so there is plenty of blame to go around.

Here is an image however that I think summed the Not-So-Superbowl all up:

It was a Train Rex!