YES!

The University of Notre Dame locked up head coach Charlie Weis through 2015.

This is great news for Irish Faithful the nation over. Weis may only be 7 games in to his career as a head coach, but the Irish are 5-2, with a big win over rival Michigan, and one of those losses coming in the final seconds... quite literally... against rival and undisputed national #1 USC. The Irish are 9th in the Coaches' and Harris polls and 8th in the AP poll, the highest-ranked 2-loss team in the nation, and are currently flirting with an at-large BCS bowl berth (14th on the BCS poll).

Welcome back to prominence, Notre Dame. We missed you.

posted by Steve  # 11:21 AM

John over at The Disney Blog continues to impress me, keeping his eyes and ears open. It appears Steve Jobs might be willing to sell Pixar to Disney.

This is an interesting concept in and of itself... what makes Pixar so great is the talent there, including Jobs. What kind of guarantee would there be that those people in the Emeryville campus across the street from my old stomping grounds wouldn't just up and jump ship as soon as Jobs leaves the building? I'm no scholar of business law... I'm not sure just how you could legally require those artists, animators, and programmers to stay...

At any rate, if the asking price truly is in the neighborhood of 5 billion dollars, I have to echo John's plea that the numbers get crunched... and crunched... and crunched... and crunched again, because ABC Family is not exactly the triumph Eisner thought it would be when he paied Rupert Murdoch and Haim Saban something like 4 billion for it.

Of course, if it were to happen, then official Disney media (like the 2005 Walt Disney World Planning Guide DVD Heather and I watched... again... on Sunday) would be able to stop referring to Pixar movies as "A Walt Disney Pictures Presentation of a Pixar Animation Studios Film, Finding Nemo" (or A Bug's Life or Toy Story or etc...)

I also have to wonder if this has anything to do with the rumors... picking up steam... of Jobs considering a run for Sacramento? Leaving a public company like Apple would be easy enough if Jobs was serious about a political career, but first, he'd have to divest himself of his ownership in any major company.

Plus, $5 billion can buy a lot of campaign fliers...

posted by Steve  # 10:33 AM

Pictures are up on Flickr of Friday night, the first part of Dan's Bar Halloween Bash 2005 in Walnut Creek. Very cool shit.

My girl Heather (as Mrs. Mia Wallace, post-O.D., complete with syringe in her breast) and our friend Q (as Lil' Jon) split the costume contest victory. While the prize was a pack of "Gummi Flies," the victory won them both the respect and admiration of dozens.

I love you hun! (and Q you're cool too)

P.S. If you can't tell, I'm the pirate with the rubber-banded goatee. Yes it hurt, no, not that bad.

posted by Steve  # 1:33 AM

Looking through my referral logs, sometimes I click on the random Blogger pages that are in there due to Blogger's "Next Blog" link at the top of all most blogs.

Check out what I found:

Is that a stretch Corvette? Unfortunately, the blog I found it on was written in Portugese so I have no context whatsoever.

posted by Steve  # 4:28 PM

Indian people are funny when they're mad. Engrish rules.

Sentient has the money and muscle power to FUCK you in your back side so hard that your generations to come will be born defunct just the way you are mentally sick & defunct.

Numair Faraz: Indian Techie Flamewar

posted by Steve  # 1:32 PM

The California Liberation Organization is a radical, revolutionary pro-California political party... and MySpace Group... dedicated to rending free the 5th largest economy in the world... and by far the coolest state in the Union... from the iron grip of the United State of America.

And thanks to charter member Daryl, we have a Frappr map. Frappr is cool.

VIVA LA CALIFORNACION!

posted by Steve  # 2:01 PM

A sequel from yesterday's post, also via BoingBoing, is an animated GIF of Empire Strikes Back. Rock on.

posted by Steve  # 11:29 AM

Rosa Parks, whose act of civil disobedience in 1955 inspired the modern civil rights movement, died Monday in Detroit, Michigan. She was 92.

CNN.com - Civil rights icon Rosa Parks dies at 92 - Oct 25, 2005

If you don't know why she was important, you're not an American.

posted by Steve  # 9:58 AM

A best-guess extrapolation of blog-related surveys and data suggests that work time spent reading and posting to blogs this year will consume 2.2 percent of U.S. labor force hours, and work time spent on blogs unrelated to work will take up 1.65 percent of those hours, reports AdAge (via MediaBuyerPlanner).

About one in four people in the labor force visits blogs and on average spends 3.5 hours during the work week engaging with them.

And, because blog readers tend to be the most engaged readers of online content, it seems for now as though they are not siphoning blog time from time spent reading their favorite new sites, but are rather reading blogs in addition to existing online behavior.

While it's difficult to measure how much blog time actually relates to work, AdAge's analysis estimates that just 25 percent of blog visits directly connect to the job.

Blogs Bogging Down U.S. Workers · MarketingVOX

posted by Steve  # 9:16 AM

Click the image for the full 13-pane goodness

posted by Steve  # 5:11 PM

This is a 168k animated gif that manages to render in pixelart animation nearly every important scene in Star Wars Episode Four. This is jaw-droppingly great.

168k GIF Link

(Thanks, Digitaler Lumpensammler!)

Boing Boing: All of Star Wars (ish) as a 168 animated pixelart gif

posted by Steve  # 4:28 PM

Tonight, the Governator will be in our very own Creek at the Lesher answering some questions, or something.

I think Heather and I will stay in tonight. The few blocks around Locust and Civic (i.e., Dan's) will be a madhouse, and closed... parking would be fun. Yes, I know, I know... I live a 15 minute walk from the bar, but quite frankly, it isn't the walk down that sucks... it's the walk back.

Anyway, I can't wait to get rid of the damn Governator. Shouldn't be hard, according to SUSA he's the third least-popular governor in the nation.

"Mahhria!! Save mee! Mayke me uh KENNUHDEE!!"

Sorry, Ahhnold. You might have gotten into office on a Total Recall, but your End of Days are near, with all the Collateral Damage you've caused in this state, like your True Lies about education, well, we the voters would love to take an Eraser to your administration, but instead, we'll just have to play The Terminator and chase you out of the state like the Running Man you are. Seeya, Junior.

posted by Steve  # 12:22 PM

Help me choose which of these fonts looks best to start a logo from. Click for bigger.

What is "Artiphex?" Well... it was an available dot-com, a name no one has registered as a fictitious business name in Contra Costa County, and a Google search which returns just 32 English-language results. It's a deliberate misspelling of the Latin word "artifex," which means (when used as the subject of a sentence), among other things, "creator," "maker," and "expert." And it's my word.

So tell me what you think of those font choices. I like some better than others but neither hate nor love any of them. So consensus is necessary.

posted by Steve  # 5:10 PM

I am now going to test the text-quoting capabilities of Flock's "Shelf" tool:

Flock Developer Preview is now available.

Our code couldn't wait any longer to be free!

But! This preview ain't for the faint of heart! If you're the bleeding-edge type and don't mind a few scrapes and busted knees from time to time, feel free to give it a whirl.

We've got interesting ideas in this thing. We want to know what we've done right how we could improve. And we've got a lot of work ahead of us!

So if a bucket of source code and developer binaries sound enticing, head over to our Developer page now.

Flock

And now, the drag-and-drop from the built-in Flick toolbar...

Let's see how it looks...

UPDATE 3:38pm - Oh man. Oh, that is so cherry.

posted by Steve  # 3:32 PM

I'm blogging from Flock 0.4.8, but not the way they wanted to allow me to... can't seem to get the in-browser blogging tool to recognize my blog. Anyway, I'm still very excited about this browser, and anyone who blogs, uses del.icio.us or Flickr should be too... this thing is all integrated, all social, totally fab Web2.0. Love it.

posted by Steve  # 5:25 PM

Holy Toledo. Rest in Peace, Bill.

Bill King [wikipedia] was the voice of the Oakland A's for 24 years, almost my entire life. His voice, his style, and most of all his attitude absolutely screamed "Oakland A's." There will never be an announcer as Green and Gold as Bill King has been for two and a half decades.

The sports world lost a great man today. I don't know about the rest of you... but I'm in mourning...

Blez at Athletics Nation got it right:

Somehow I imagine King would've been able to say something right now to make us laugh.

And all we can do is cry.

UPDATE 3:55pm - Others commenting:

• BayAreaRadio.org
• Late Night Blogger
• Athletic Supporters
• Moonlit Jazz
• Elephants in Oakland
• The Seventh Inning Stretch

UPDATE 10/19 2:56pm - Baseball Prospectus has a nice piece up about King. Snip:

Even more importantly, King was honest with us. Just this year, when Korach mentioned MLB's plan to switch the DH rule in interleague play, King called the idea "Selig logic," a phrase, he explained, that is an oxymoron. Even with the A's out of the race late in September, he went so far as to call a slow-responding umpire a "jackass" on air. Larry Krueger would have gotten himself fired for a remark like that, but King drew applause. He was notorious for his exasperated disdain for all umpires and he made no bones about it, pointedly criticizing every missed call to the delight of his listeners and colleagues.

It's a tribute to his appetite for self-education that his vocabulary was large enough to avoid the kind of hackneyed repetition all too common today. He had but one signature phrase--"Holy Toledo!"--that was divided between A's and opponents alike, a result of King's love of the game of baseball perfected.

posted by Steve  # 3:25 PM

I had a chance to catch the premiere episode of Comedy Central's newest show, and the first Daily Show spinoff, The Colbert Report, starring Daily Show correspondant and [adult swim] voiceover man (as Harvey Birdman: Attorney at Law's own Phil Ken Sebbin), Stephen Colbert. Pictured.

I have to say, I was impressed. I especially love that the "T" in "Report" is not pronounced (much like the "T" in "Colbert" is silent)... I hadn't caught that in the promo spots, but it certainly makes more sense of the "It's French... bitch" tagline.

I was a little worried that it would feel like a total Daily Show ripoff, or that Colbert just wouldn't be as funny for 23 minutes as he is for 6 at a time, doing correspondant work. But it was comedy gold, and they've already introduced a homebrew segment, called "The Word"... DailyKos had a nice snippet of it posted up this morning... I'll just gank it...

Gold. I can't wait for more. 'Gratz to Colbert. Oh, and the Gravitas-off with Stone Phillips was priceless. I look forward to watching the Colbert Report any night I'm actually home at 11:30pm.

posted by Steve  # 12:35 PM

So back before Eric and I found our current home at The Villas in Walnut Creek, we looked at a condo complex called The Bridgeport. Well, turns out, the units at The Bridgeport are being sold off individually, and the complex has been renamed City Oaks... and guess which local marketing firm is handling the project? Yup. Mine.

I got to draw the area map:

Pretty cool, huh? Yes, I know I'm not an artist... we'll have to see what our graphic designer, Jaime, can make out of this pile of pencil scratches. Fun!

posted by Steve  # 2:24 PM

Definately drunk right now, so please excuse spelling or grammatical errors...

After a night at Dan's where I actually stayed until 1am, a bunch of us... Mandy, Kavon, Matt, and two girls whose names escape me... went to Mel's, I experienced the best Mel's Moment FREAKIN EVER.

Over the P.A. at Mel's came the song "Build Me Up Buttercup" by The Foundations.

Our table, and most of the diner, sang along with the song so loud, that when it came to the chorus, the workers at Mel's turned off the music and let us rawk out. It was fucking awesome. Love it.

Now it's bed time. Tomorrow: Notre Dame v. USC... this should be goooooood.

posted by Steve  # 2:18 AM

One of my favorite people in the world of business... and specifically, marketing... is Seth Godin. He, and some other no-doubt-geniuses, are starting a new effort called Squidoo, and on this coming monday, they will be inviting 300 people who have signed up to join the private beta

Ohhhh... I so want in.

If invited, I will try to participate as a "lensmaster," or, essentially, expert, on either Disneyland, or Walt Disney World, or Disney as a whole... I believe the idea is that once there are multiple lensmasters for a given subject, Squidoo knows how to "focus" on the best, or most-reliable information. I'm not entirely sure how it will work or if there is a vetting process, but I'm interested and excited.

Web2.0. Rawk.

UPDATE 10/17 @ 2:29pm: No invite. Boo.

posted by Steve  # 4:15 PM

Make up your fucking mind, Billy.

posted by Steve  # 1:39 PM

There is no better drunk food than Original Mel's

Yes, for those who have seen American Graffiti, THE Original Mel's... okay... maybe not "THE" Original Mel's, as many have sprung up around the Bay since the 50's, and I know the movie wasn't filmed in Walnut Creek...

Anyway, here's what you do...

1. Order a #4... it comes with two eggs as you like, 3 bacon or 3 sausage, potatoes, and toast or biscuits and country gravy
2. Order the eggs over easy, the sausage, and the biscuits and gravy
3. Hack up the eggs, the sausage... and the biscuits and gravy. Toss the hacked-up B&G onto the plate of eggs/sausage/potatoes, and mix them all around like a muhfuck
4. Add tobasco and ketchup
5. Mangia. And tip well

Holy SHIT is that some good god damn drunk food. Word.

UPDATE 9:55am: Corrected some spelling errors.

posted by Steve  # 1:00 AM

It's lights out for the Beantown Bums. Better luck in 85 years, guys.

Go White Sox! On to the ALCS!

Okay, more than that...

The whole game was basically played in the sixth inning. At the beginning of the top of the 6th, the game was tied 2-2, thanks to a couple RBI hits by the White Sox in the 3rd, and back-to-back solo homahhs by Papi and Manny in the 4th.

Starter Tim Wakefield is pitching, and starts off bad... a walk to Jermaine Dye is followed by a towering blast by Paul Konerko, and the Southsiders are up 4-2. Wakefield is left in to pitch to Carl Everett and gets him to ground out. Chad Bradford comes in to relieve the knuckleballer, and Rowand singles off him. Then Michael Myers is brought in, and before walking Pierzynski, he lets Rowand steal second. Then Papelbon comes in, and even though he gets Crede to pop out and K's Uribe, he also let freakin' A.J. steal a bag. Nasty.

So, bottom of the 6th, the White Sox are up 4-2 with starter Freddy Garcia pitching. First batter up is Manny. Solo shot. At that point Manny was 2-2 with 2 solo HR and a walk. So Damaso Marte comes in to relieve Garcia, and promptly gives up a single to Nixon before walking Mueller and Olerud to load the bases with no one out. Varitek pinches for Mirabelli, and Orlando "El Duque" Hernandez comes in for the worth-less-than-shit-today Marte.

Duque gets Varitek to pop out, then, in a 10-pitch at-bat to Tony "I was a Royal pretty recently" Graffanino, gets him to pop out. Then The Duke fucking K's Johnny Damon after Damon took him to a full count.

That's right. El Duque came in with the bases loaded, 1 in and 0 out. And got two straight infield popups and a strikeout to get out of the jam unscathed. Now that is some quality playoff pitching. He also stayed in for the 7th and 8th and gave up no runs.

But the whole game was played in the 6th.

posted by Steve  # 4:41 PM

As spoken by me, to Nate, via Google Talk... which yes, I know, is a (¡GASP!) desktop app...

yeah i don't like desktop client readers

if i can't read it from any computer anywhere, i won't bother

hell, del.icio.us proved how awesome it was yesterday... i needed to update the browser settings on my phone after i flashed it, but was at my friend Alana's house...

so I just jumped over to del.icio.us, where I'd bookmarked the proper T-Mobile page, and voila, had my shit done

if I'd just had the bookmark on my work or home machine, i would have had to wait. and waiting, as you know, is for pussies.
Couldn't have said it better myself. Because, I did say it myself. I officially heart Web2.0.

UPDATE 3:05pm: Just noticed the first use of the new "quote" class... talk about a hint of color...

posted by Steve  # 2:48 PM

If I can get this new toy to not choke on my OPML file, it may be time for me to say "buh-bye" to Bloglines. We'll have to wait and see.

Yup... it's still importing my subscriptions... hmmm...

posted by Steve  # 11:48 AM

Ken Macha's contract will not be renewed with the Oakland A's. Thank god. Maybe we can get someone who can actually manage a game, knows how to set a lineup, knows how to use a bullpen, and has a little fucking passion for the game!

Found via Elephants in Oakland

posted by Steve  # 3:25 PM

So November is, as usual, National Novel Writing Month, or NaNoWriMo. I missed out last year, while my good buddy Russ slammed down tens of thousands of pages of something I still don't think he's actually finished with yet.

Anyway, I didn't participate in NaNoWriMo last year, but I'm going to this year! I had this weird dream about masks and demons not long ago, and I think I will use that as a starting point for writing this novel. Should be fun. Ha-HA! Who am I kidding, it's going to be WORK! Not FUN!

I'll live, I'm sure. Wish me luck. The page count starts ticking on November 1st.

UPDATE 11:26am: My profile on the NaNoWriMo page can be seen here, and I will update the Participant logo in the side bar to link to this as well.

posted by Steve  # 9:24 AM

I hope Russ will approve.

posted by Steve  # 9:09 AM

So for the last couple weeks at work, I've been typing names into a database. As people from the Alameda area request free rides on one of the two San Francisco-bound ferries, I get to type in their name, address, phone number, and email address into a running spreadsheet. It's mind-numbing, and it's not "really" my job... but someone has to do it, and I type fast.

Every once in a while, amidst a sea of @aol.com, @yahoo.com and @alamedanet.net (!) email addresses, someone has a vanity address. Like, firstname@firstnamelastname.com, or marcia@thebradyfamily.com, that kind of thing. Sometimes I go to these sites to see if there is an actual site there (usually it's just some MX server out there)... and that's how I found the very cool panoramic photography of Danny Vint. Do yourself a favor and check out his stuff. Very cool indeed.

posted by Steve  # 2:31 PM

Now it's pretty much working the way I want.

posted by Steve  # 2:13 PM

So this is it, the new design. I like it. If you don't, well, that's too bad, because chances are it's going to look like this for a while.

I wonder if this works better...

posted by Steve  # 1:53 PM

Comment Spam.

Well, I held off as long as I could, but I will now be instituting that silly little "type in these letters as they appear" thing for Blogger's comments in order to thwart this evil. That, or I will look into HaloScan's chances of eliminating comment spam. LAME!

posted by Steve  # 11:37 AM