Well, the Bowl schedule is up, and UT did manage to land in the National Championship. Pretty cool that two teams I follow (UT and OU) have each had a shot in back to back years.
I am, of course, a Longhorn by academic and professional affiliation. But these days I work with 17 other universities, and so my professional affiliations spread a little outside of that particular scope. But as a sports fan, I bleed orange. Just don't tell anyone.
Its sort of cool to know I will want to watch all five BCS games and a load of non-BCS bowls.
The Rose Bowl on New Years will be the scrappy Ducks versus the Buckeyes, and I think the Ducks stand a darn good chance of winning that one.
The Sugar Bowl (also New Year's Day) will feature the former National Champs and team who was ranked #1 all season against Cincinnati. I watched Cincinnati play three times this year, and I think this could be a surprisingly even match-up.
The Tostitos Fiesta Bowl (Jan. 4) will feature Boise State (who I don't care about) versus TCU (whom we should ALL care about). TCU will spend the next month whining about how they should have been in the Championship Bowl, so its a chance to see what they've got against a serious challenge.
The Orange Bowl I'll be watching mostly because its on, but GT and Iowa...? Could be fun.
And, of course, my Longhorns in the National Championship. Versus Alabama, who seems superior in so many ways. It's my sincere hope that the Longhorns will embrace their underdog status, just as UT did in the 06 Championship, and play against an over confident Alabama. Or... Alabama could just walk all over my pals Colt and Kindle.
C'est la vie.
Some other bowls I'll consider watching:
12/22 - Oregon State in the Maaco Bowl.
12/26 - Pittsburgh in the Mieneke Car Care Bowl
12/28 - A&M in the Independence Bowl
12/31 - Houston in the Bell Hleicopters Armed Services Bowl
12/31 - Oklahoma in the Sun Bowl
1/2 - Oklahoma State in the Cotton Bowl
1/2 - Texas Tech in the Alamo Bowl
That's a lot of football, but I have a lot of time off from work.
Sunday, December 06, 2009
UT (barely) Beats Nebraska: Headed to National Championship Game
(editor's note: This is being written at about 1:30 AM Sunday. If the BCS comes out tomorrow with a different ranking than I expect, and UT is NOT in the championship, I will not be entirely surprised. But it @#$%ing better not be Alabama and Florida)
At this point, I guess it means that the worst ranking UT will pull this year is #2? Which I can hardly complain about. Something tells me the other bowls will be the ones worth watching this year. So if you can't find me end of December - January 7, I'll be camped out and watching football.
UT now isn't going off to play in a bowl game with decent ratings that nobody will remember by July. UT is going off to get their asses handed to them by an overwhelmingly superior Alabama. And, I assure you TCU fans... you would not win that game, either, and for the rest of his life Colt McCoy will have to live down the whispers that he (despite breaking school and NCAA records) and his team were always frauds.
I would love to believe UT is going to win against Alabama, and I will be wearing burnt orange the whole week leading to January 7th. But I'm not laboring under any illusions. The divine providence which gave UT a win this evening will most likely not replicate itself in Pasadena.
I'm just glad to follow a team that's strong enough that even when the offense decides to go bonkers for the game, the defense can win it. And if you look at the TAMU game, vice-versa.
Nah. If you want to catch a good bowl game, I'm going to recommend the Ducks in the Rose Bowl, or wherever the hell Cincy winds up. Those guys are insane.
But you can't say UT didn't keep it interesting the past two weeks.
At this point, I guess it means that the worst ranking UT will pull this year is #2? Which I can hardly complain about. Something tells me the other bowls will be the ones worth watching this year. So if you can't find me end of December - January 7, I'll be camped out and watching football.
Dear TCU Fans,
Hey! Feeling cheated that UT is headed to the National Championship and that you're going to have to play in some other stinky bowl game? Let me introduce you to me, this time last year when Oklahoma got to play in a National Championship game that we knew they weren't going to win while UT pondered how we'd beat those guys...
The BCS is ridiculous. You now have your own taste of it. And let me further instruct you that after watching the Cincy game today and the Alabama game, I sincerely doubt that UT would beat those guys either. But funny thing: UT started out ranked very high, played very well in most games, and won every game. That could be TCU next year if your team isn't a fluke this year.
Best,
The League
UT now isn't going off to play in a bowl game with decent ratings that nobody will remember by July. UT is going off to get their asses handed to them by an overwhelmingly superior Alabama. And, I assure you TCU fans... you would not win that game, either, and for the rest of his life Colt McCoy will have to live down the whispers that he (despite breaking school and NCAA records) and his team were always frauds.
I would love to believe UT is going to win against Alabama, and I will be wearing burnt orange the whole week leading to January 7th. But I'm not laboring under any illusions. The divine providence which gave UT a win this evening will most likely not replicate itself in Pasadena.
I'm just glad to follow a team that's strong enough that even when the offense decides to go bonkers for the game, the defense can win it. And if you look at the TAMU game, vice-versa.
Nah. If you want to catch a good bowl game, I'm going to recommend the Ducks in the Rose Bowl, or wherever the hell Cincy winds up. Those guys are insane.
But you can't say UT didn't keep it interesting the past two weeks.
Saturday, December 05, 2009
Revisiting The First Posts
League of Melbotis soft-launched in March of 2003.
You can see that first week's worth of posts by clicking here.
Its worth noting that I actually pulled down the League after its first week, then put it back up. I might have saved myself and all of you a lot of time and trouble if I'd just shut it down back then, but then who would have been around to give you lengthy reviews of "Santa Buddies"?
My very first post at this blog?
Two years into the Bush presidency and a year and a half out from 9/11, America was in an interesting place. We'd rolled into Iraq in a war that made little sense to me at the time. I did not understand how, if Iraq indeed had the WMD's we said they did, they hadn't lobbed them at our military as they spent a month gearing up on Iraq's borders. I also couldn't begin to guess what the gameplan was for occupying such a large and hostile country in the wake of an invasion.
Well, a funny thing happened...
Those early posts are fascinating to read in the here and now. At the time, I was in a very different place in my life. I had no real reason to believe my parents would find the site, nor anyone else that I not pointed to the site. Blogs were only semi-known as a publishing medium, and I couldn't fathom anyone Googling my name (and once it became clear that was an issue, I began referring to myself in 3rd person as "The League").
Jim and I were passing emails on various political topics back and forth, and looking at some of my opinions now, I don't necessarily think I was wrong, but would certainly address the issues in a different way.
Its also clear the contempt with which I held The Valley of the Sun. Neither Jamie nor myself were very happy when we arrived in Phoenix, and after four years, at best I'd say our opinion didn't improve. With three years behind us back in Austin, the majority of the four years is a blur of long work hours, hospital visits, odd social situations, boredom, and the endless planning necessary for scheduling visits to Austin, Houston and Lawton.
Last night Jamie, Jason and I were watching a Canadian documentary entitled "Cat Ladies" (recommended, btw), which reveals how managing, caring for, rescuing, etc... of cats has become a crutch and coping mechanism for the women in the film (a cop interviewed from the Toronto animal detail states that 99% of the animal hording cases are women).
Its not a huge leap to say that some of my obsession with comics, etc... and, indeed, getting into the habit of blogging stemmed from my own dissatisfaction. At one point, I considered winding up this blog when we returned to Austin because I was aware that the person who was writing this site in Chandler, Arizona would be a bit different from the one who was writing it in Austin. However, in the end, documenting the return and re-engagement with a life we'd left behind (and, of course, the aspects of "you can never go home again" which followed) was all part of it.
By April 2 of 2003, I was already ranting about Superman. Superman, comics and pop culture would immediately begin to overwhelm the conversation at LoM. I've never been particularly comfortable arguing politics, and find it odd that I thought a public website discussing politics was a good idea. But we can talk Superman, or Spidey or the latest movies without faces changing color or people feeling like they absolutely must have the last word.
By April 03, 2009, I was getting into details of the latest releases in comics.
At one point, blogging was still fairly new, and I wondered if LoM wouldn't accidentally find itself a wider audience of comic fans. There were little flirtations as I was linked to from bigger sites such as The Beat once or twice (Heidi is still my gold standard for industry coverage), the old Blog@ Newsarama, etc... Always enough to spike interest for a day or two, but I wasn't able to get any real traction.
Luckily, I had no expectations, just wishful thinking. And I do think that my comic work at Comic Fodder made a dent or two in fandom and saw quadruple digits on a couple of posts.
As I didn't believe my folks or anyone else was reading LoM, the language in those early posts is a bit salty. I don't apologize for that. It was what it was, and once I knew Judy and the KareBear were reading, I cleaned things up a bit, and also learned that "@#$%" is infinitely more satisfying than actual profanity, anyway.
And every time I type it, I think of Sgt. Snorkel from the Beetle Bailey comic strips I read obsessively as a kid, and who I recall first employing the tried-and-true technique.
My first pic of Melbotis appears here.
Leaguers may recall that early on, I didn't have titles on my posts, didn't have a comment section, etc... For years, we used HaloScan, and it was a tough decision to abandon the comment section that was sort of the comments of record. We've used the embedded commenting tool for a few years with great success, but I've since lost the comment the time musician "Meco" showed up in the comments to outline how George Lucas had screwed him on the Star Wars Christmas album, and when I'd complained about a McDonald's commercial and the actor's aunt wrote in to tell me I was a @#$%.
Here's a pic I posted on our 3rd wedding anniversary.
kind of sums it up
We'll be married 10 years in April. Go figure.
Here's my first link to Randy.
Its been a long, strange trip.
It is true that, in part, I am looking to close the blog to close a chapter in my life. Many of the reasons why League of Melbotis sprung into existence have wound down or come to a natural conclusion. We're in a different place in how we're dealing with everything from politics to career to comics. And, of course, we're going to have to dig deep when we return to a few outstanding projects that we promised ourselves we'd do touch on again some day.
Still, I'm glad to have such a long period of my life (6.75 years of the past 34.75. That ain't bad.).
And who knows? We could be back.
You can see that first week's worth of posts by clicking here.
Its worth noting that I actually pulled down the League after its first week, then put it back up. I might have saved myself and all of you a lot of time and trouble if I'd just shut it down back then, but then who would have been around to give you lengthy reviews of "Santa Buddies"?
My very first post at this blog?
March 30th, 2003:
Greetings, mortals. This is my very, very first post to this blog. Jim Dedman is a weenie.
posted by Ryan at 10:29 AM
Two years into the Bush presidency and a year and a half out from 9/11, America was in an interesting place. We'd rolled into Iraq in a war that made little sense to me at the time. I did not understand how, if Iraq indeed had the WMD's we said they did, they hadn't lobbed them at our military as they spent a month gearing up on Iraq's borders. I also couldn't begin to guess what the gameplan was for occupying such a large and hostile country in the wake of an invasion.
Well, a funny thing happened...
Those early posts are fascinating to read in the here and now. At the time, I was in a very different place in my life. I had no real reason to believe my parents would find the site, nor anyone else that I not pointed to the site. Blogs were only semi-known as a publishing medium, and I couldn't fathom anyone Googling my name (and once it became clear that was an issue, I began referring to myself in 3rd person as "The League").
Jim and I were passing emails on various political topics back and forth, and looking at some of my opinions now, I don't necessarily think I was wrong, but would certainly address the issues in a different way.
Its also clear the contempt with which I held The Valley of the Sun. Neither Jamie nor myself were very happy when we arrived in Phoenix, and after four years, at best I'd say our opinion didn't improve. With three years behind us back in Austin, the majority of the four years is a blur of long work hours, hospital visits, odd social situations, boredom, and the endless planning necessary for scheduling visits to Austin, Houston and Lawton.
Last night Jamie, Jason and I were watching a Canadian documentary entitled "Cat Ladies" (recommended, btw), which reveals how managing, caring for, rescuing, etc... of cats has become a crutch and coping mechanism for the women in the film (a cop interviewed from the Toronto animal detail states that 99% of the animal hording cases are women).
Its not a huge leap to say that some of my obsession with comics, etc... and, indeed, getting into the habit of blogging stemmed from my own dissatisfaction. At one point, I considered winding up this blog when we returned to Austin because I was aware that the person who was writing this site in Chandler, Arizona would be a bit different from the one who was writing it in Austin. However, in the end, documenting the return and re-engagement with a life we'd left behind (and, of course, the aspects of "you can never go home again" which followed) was all part of it.
By April 2 of 2003, I was already ranting about Superman. Superman, comics and pop culture would immediately begin to overwhelm the conversation at LoM. I've never been particularly comfortable arguing politics, and find it odd that I thought a public website discussing politics was a good idea. But we can talk Superman, or Spidey or the latest movies without faces changing color or people feeling like they absolutely must have the last word.
By April 03, 2009, I was getting into details of the latest releases in comics.
At one point, blogging was still fairly new, and I wondered if LoM wouldn't accidentally find itself a wider audience of comic fans. There were little flirtations as I was linked to from bigger sites such as The Beat once or twice (Heidi is still my gold standard for industry coverage), the old Blog@ Newsarama, etc... Always enough to spike interest for a day or two, but I wasn't able to get any real traction.
Luckily, I had no expectations, just wishful thinking. And I do think that my comic work at Comic Fodder made a dent or two in fandom and saw quadruple digits on a couple of posts.
As I didn't believe my folks or anyone else was reading LoM, the language in those early posts is a bit salty. I don't apologize for that. It was what it was, and once I knew Judy and the KareBear were reading, I cleaned things up a bit, and also learned that "@#$%" is infinitely more satisfying than actual profanity, anyway.
And every time I type it, I think of Sgt. Snorkel from the Beetle Bailey comic strips I read obsessively as a kid, and who I recall first employing the tried-and-true technique.
My first pic of Melbotis appears here.
Leaguers may recall that early on, I didn't have titles on my posts, didn't have a comment section, etc... For years, we used HaloScan, and it was a tough decision to abandon the comment section that was sort of the comments of record. We've used the embedded commenting tool for a few years with great success, but I've since lost the comment the time musician "Meco" showed up in the comments to outline how George Lucas had screwed him on the Star Wars Christmas album, and when I'd complained about a McDonald's commercial and the actor's aunt wrote in to tell me I was a @#$%.
Here's a pic I posted on our 3rd wedding anniversary.
kind of sums it up
We'll be married 10 years in April. Go figure.
Here's my first link to Randy.
Its been a long, strange trip.
It is true that, in part, I am looking to close the blog to close a chapter in my life. Many of the reasons why League of Melbotis sprung into existence have wound down or come to a natural conclusion. We're in a different place in how we're dealing with everything from politics to career to comics. And, of course, we're going to have to dig deep when we return to a few outstanding projects that we promised ourselves we'd do touch on again some day.
Still, I'm glad to have such a long period of my life (6.75 years of the past 34.75. That ain't bad.).
And who knows? We could be back.
This could be cool
I don't know too much about this except what I saw in this video, but there's a show coming on called "Slingers" that looks sci-fi interesting.
io9 had this to say.
io9 had this to say.
Friday, December 04, 2009
Giving Opportunity #2: Heifer International
Here's attempt #2 to find a charitable organization which we can support in the season of giving.
Team Melbotis at Heifer International
Here's a blurb describing Heifer International's general approach to things:
Here are some areas Heifer is working in:
Agroecology
Animal Well-Being
Gender Equity
HIV-AIDS
Microenterprise
Urban Agriculture
Young People's Initiative
Again, this isn't about the size of a donation. If you can afford $5, that's plenty. I want to see what we can do together. Last year we did quite well with the Red Kettle, and I think we can do even better this year.
-Give here and get your name shown.
-Give here sort of anonymously.
So let's put our money where our mouth is when it comes to this time of year. Let's see what we can do with our hard earned dollars to help out some folks elsewhere who are less fortunate.
Team Melbotis at Heifer International
Here's a blurb describing Heifer International's general approach to things:
Heifer has learned over the years that a holistic approach is necessary in order to build sustainable communities. So we’ve developed a set of global initiatives – areas of emphasis that must be addressed if we’re to meet our mission of ending world hunger and poverty and caring for the earth.
Here are some areas Heifer is working in:
Agroecology
Animal Well-Being
Gender Equity
HIV-AIDS
Microenterprise
Urban Agriculture
Young People's Initiative
Again, this isn't about the size of a donation. If you can afford $5, that's plenty. I want to see what we can do together. Last year we did quite well with the Red Kettle, and I think we can do even better this year.
-Give here and get your name shown.
-Give here sort of anonymously.
So let's put our money where our mouth is when it comes to this time of year. Let's see what we can do with our hard earned dollars to help out some folks elsewhere who are less fortunate.
Thursday, December 03, 2009
Easy Holiday Donation! Red Kettle
really? Not one donation yet? I'm going to assume you've all been very, very busy.
It's RED KETTLE TIME, people! This isn't for me, this is The League trying to get you folks to show a little charity and generosity in this time of giving.
Its fast. Its easy. You don't have to give a lot, just a little. All together, we have the power to do something good!
This guy is helping The League drum up support for the Salvation Army
Click here to give!
And the sooner people start giving, the sooner I shut up about this thing.
It's RED KETTLE TIME, people! This isn't for me, this is The League trying to get you folks to show a little charity and generosity in this time of giving.
Its fast. Its easy. You don't have to give a lot, just a little. All together, we have the power to do something good!
This guy is helping The League drum up support for the Salvation Army
Click here to give!
And the sooner people start giving, the sooner I shut up about this thing.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)