Can I give a shout out?

My right-hand-side blog list is currently longer than the sum of my last seven posts. (As soon as I upped this post, that last statement lost all its truthishness.) Mostly that means that I've added most of my students' blogs to my blog list. It also means I'm doing a lot more reading than writing right now.

I'm already impressed by what this semester's crop of students is doing with their blogs, and most of them have less than three posts. I'm going to run through some of the ones that have caught my eye so far, give some students their propers. This is by no means an exhaustive list of the good blogs that my students have created; it's just a short list.

I have to start with Justin's poorly-titled Zack's Gamer Blog. Justin must have read my mind before creating his blog because it's a very video-game-centric blog, replete with Halo music and Star Wars: The Old Republic news. I think Justin really tapped into the baseline goal of the internet: to encourage geeks to communicate with each other.

Ellen posted some nice fifth-grade level riddles, for any riddle fans. I'm a sucker for a clever riddle.

For some reason, I really like the look of this blog entry from Jessica. Maybe I'm just nostalgic for storybook days, but the different-colored opening letters for each paragraph really made me happy.

Emma posted a pretty good story on Friday. She also already has some non-class-related followers, which is good to see. I like it when my students invite their friends and/or families to read their blogs. If only I convince my mother to read mine.

I told most of my classes that they should use a feature of day/week like I do, so they could get into a routine. Nicki has ambitiously decided to post a picture every day. So far, they're all pictures that she's taken, which is pretty cool. I hope she keeps it up. The daily post is a little daunting.

Generally speaking, the first introduction that I have with these blogs is their titles. A few of my students have come up with pretty sweet titles. I really like Melanie's Blog: Mel, for some reason, and it looks like she's carrying that titling schematic over to her individual posts. Alex put a Chris Farley reference into his blog title: The Motivational Blogger...Blogging in a Van Down by the River. Very classy. I also like Julia's bling blang pow. Plus, she references Venture Bros. creator Jackson Publick's blog.

There's a bunch of other good titles, but there's some highlights.

So, far a good portion of my students seem really interested or even excited about blogging. I just hope it continues.

A couple other notes:

Disney bought Marvel. That might be blog fodder for Wednesday.

The Batman: Arkham Asylum review is up, and it is glowing.

Event of the Week:

College football starts Thursday night with, amongst other games, South Carolina at NC State. Secondary EotW to Saturday, when all sorts of college football aims to happen, including (5) Alabama at (7) V. Tech.

Effin’ cry

Family Guy's cool. I like it. But it may be a little over-syndicated at this point.

Let me begin, as they say, at the beginning.

I've been a Family Guy fan since jump street. I'm often proud to admit that I used to tape – as in VHS tape – Family Guy because it was on opposite Friends, a show to which I was very devoted at the time. At one point, I think I had the "entire series" on VHS since it was, at the time, cancelled. I think I even signed a petition (back in my petition-signing days) vying for Family Guy's return during its brief hiatus.

So, I like the series. (I was also Stewie for Halloween one year.)

But here's the thing: On Mondays and Tuesdays in Wilmington, Family Guy is on seven times on three different networks (FOX, TBS, Cartoon Network). That's a potential four and a half hours I could spend watching Family Guy on those two nights. (It's also on at least three times every other weekday.)

When that's coupled with the fact that the show often relies on repetitive jokes – like Peter's fights with the chicken or Conway Twitty – or excessively drawn-out jokes – like when Peter hurts his knee or the second appearance of Conway Twitty – the cycle becomes almost unbearable.

This Family Guy syndication schedule makes me feel like my dad caught me smoking and made me smoke 20 cartons of cigarettes as punishment. At first, I'm loving it because I want to smoke anyway, but after a carton or two, I just can't put up with anymore.

This constant syndication has essentially made me want to quit Family Guy, especially considering the forthcoming Cleveland Show and American Dad, which surpassed Family Guy as my favorite Seth McFarlane show some time during last season.

I'm still stoked for the next season of Family Guy, but I'm now fed up with every other one.

Question of the Week:

What show can you watch the most of?

My take: I can watch Sportscenter pretty much all day, except Mondays during football season. Also Arrested Development.

Named

I have 125 students this semester, which is 150% more than I've had in the past. But I still feel like I need to know all of their names. I kind of thought that I'd take forever – maybe literally – to learn all 125 names, but I feel like I may be at about halfway already.

Here's the thing, though: I only really "know" a good portion of the students' names while in class. When I'm in class, I have clues, like where they're sitting or who they're not, to help me identify them. But outside of class, my students are just one of the hundreds of people I pass on campus on any given day.

That doesn't mean I wouldn't recognize my students already. By now, I could probably recognize about 90% of my students outside of class, but I'd only be able to name about 10% of my students in a non-classroom setting.

I'd guess it works retroactively, too. I have a really hard time remembering names of my former students when I see them around, but I'm sure if I got a whole group back in a classroom, I'd be able to name most of them. Maybe not.

I've had a hard time "staying current" this week, since I do have students again. When I don't have time to read/watch news stuff, my blogging tends to suffer. I apologize for the sub-par blogging week.

Quote of the Week:

One of my favorite quotes of all time:

Dorothy Parker was asked to use the word "horticulture" in a sentence. She responded:

"You can lead a horticulture, but you can't make her think."

Fifth estate

I'm not feeling very bloggy today, so this'll be short.

I feel the need to mention Holly's wedding, which was Saturday, since Holly was one of the original blog readers so many years ago. It was at Belmont Estate in Reidsville, NC. Somehow I ended up talking to one of the owners. I asked him if the place used to be a plantation. He said it was a "working farm." I don't get the need for the distinction, but evidently there is one.

That guy's (business) partner evidently still lives upstairs in the house, but he was the emcee and DJ for the evening and kind of a tool about it. He did a "play-by-play" of the cake cutting, which wasn't easily viewable by a good percentage of the party. I guess when you live in an event center, you lose touch with what counts as play-by-playable events.

It was a good weekend though, and I got to revisit Chapel Hill, which is always entertaining for me.

The Cardinals played a very useful game last night.

John Smoltz pitched well in his Cardinal debut. He even struck out a record seven in a row on his way to 9 Ks through 5 innings. That means that 60% of his recorded outs were strikeouts. Pretty impressive.

Despite Smoltz outing, the Cardinals used five different relievers in the game, two of which earned holds. The hold is such a weird statistic.

Also, Pujols hit his 40^th HR on the year. He's good at baseball.

Event of the Week:

My students start blogging Wednesday, so I should put up an enormous list of their blogs before the week is out.

The only ten I see

I've recently become one of the few, if not the only, Madden NFL 10 detractors in the gaming press.

The proverbial "word on the street" is that Madden 10 is the most realistic football experience EVAR!

I have at least a few issues with that statement. Here are some:

1. If we consider this statement to be based exclusively on graphical excellence – as fidelity to reality often is in video game discussion – then every consecutive version of Madden should theoretically be the most realistic football experience ever. Graphics are always dependent on technology, and technology has, over the course of human history, consistently amassed weapons against its former selves (with a few historical exceptions like the era of the Black Plague or the Dark Ages). Even Bryan, who falls closer to casual than hardcore on the casual-to-hardcore-gamer continuum, realizes that continuous graphics improvements are less an achievement and more a necessity in video game franchises.
   
2. Despite the existence of the FOX Reality Channel, a FOX broadcast should by no means be the high water mark for what actually counts as reality. As far as I can tell, EA Tiburon tried harder than ever to make the Madden experience feel like the watching-football-on-TV experience. But this game doesn't make me feel like I'm playing football. I really doubt that Ed Reed sits down and watches Chris Berman and Tom Jackson during halftime of a game. And if I wanted to do that – if I wanted to watch football – I would. It's on seven months out of the year.
   
3. I'm willing to admit that my recent love affair with NCAA Football 10 has probably colored my perception of Madden 10, but I'm not willing to admit that this is a problem. The problem is that Madden has no more legitimate NFL game comparisons. In other words, I have no problem with this statement: "Madden 10 is the most realistic NFL gaming experience this year." But that's very hollow praise. Instead, I think that Madden 10 should be compared to NCAA 10, as well as previous Maddens, as well as other legitimate franchises like NFL Fever or NFL 2K, which Madden unceremoniously slaughtered mid-decade, leaving room only for painfully trite niche football games like Blitz: The League or Black College Football: The Xperience. And in that pantheon of football games, Madden 10 probably sits right above the median, with the upper echelon filled primarily with previous Madden games.
   

The bottom line is this: the upgrades in this year's edition were negligible at best (gang tackling, moving towels, semi-useful online franchise mode), but the downgrades are many and glaring (scaled-down play calling, annoying halftime shows, increased missed tackles, slower gameplay, automated clock runoff, ill-explained rules and settings, sideline Peyton Mannings who look like pigmen). In my mind, there is no way that this year's Madden is an improvement.

Question of the Week:

What's the most disappointing video game you've ever played?

My take: I'd like to say Hour of Victory because it was one of the worst video games I ever played, but I didn't really expect much, so I wasn't exactly disappointed. So, probably Lord of the Rings: Conquest. I'd really hoped that could live up to its Star Wars: Battlefront heritage, but it just didn't.

Bronze, at best

I'm not sure that I can put my disappointment with Madden 10 into words – though I'm going to try later today when I review it for the other blog. It's just philosophically flawed (amongst other things). It feels like it suffers from an identity crisis.

I'm going to stop writing about that now, so I can save my harsh words for my review because it's gold, Jerry, gold.

Brett Favre's back. Surprise! He's also soon to be back in Madden 10, along with Michael Vick. And by soon, I mean possibly now or at least now adjacent. Two things about this: (1) I might care more about Favre and especially Vick if I still wanted to play Madden, but I don't. (2) EA moved very seamlessly and clandestinely from last year's NBA Live feature Live 365 to an era where every game has updated rosters, which are semi-mandatory and semi-hard-to-find. After the NBA season started, though, Bryan and I were both pretty adamant that the updated roster feature should be absolutely standard, like breathing or something.

By the way, I'm typing a blog post during a class for the first time in months, and it's not turning out to be very coherent.

John Smoltz is "strongly leaning" towards signing with the Cardinals, and why not? Their offense has been clicking lately, and he'll get to work with one of the best pitching coaches in the league. Plus, the Cards will get some bullpen help, which they seem to need less and less as the team starts to gel, but it can't hurt.

Yeah, not very coherent at all.

Quote of the Week:

"Hanson never saw it coming."

An unnamed source about Raiders head coach Tom Cable punching assistant coach Randy Hanson. According to every official Raiders source since, he never saw it coming because it never actually happened.

Leftovers

This'll probably just be a quick spastic blog about highlights from the 5^th annual Sherrick Pig Pickin'.

The "event" is technically on Saturday, but the Friday night festivities have gone through a disproportionate growth in attendance – compared to Saturday. The necessity for a Friday night party rose out of the issues of grilling a whole pig at eight in the morning. Basically, we invited a group of people who we knew would get up and put in work to make the party on Saturday happen. Then we started having so much fun that more and more people started coming up on Friday. This year, we had maybe 20 or so on Friday and only added a few stay-over guests on Saturday. It takes a lot of commitment to go in for the whole weekend, and it looks like our general population commitment level is rising rapidly.

Pops wanted to put the pig on earlier this year – about the same time we did for the first Pig Pickin'. It ended up being a little dry – about like the pig from the first Pig Pickin'.

Non Sig Eppers won the annual wiffle ball game this year – supposedly for the first time ever (so far Sig Eppers have been the ones keeping records). I'm not naming names, but somebody had a bases-loaded AB with two outs in the final inning of a three-run game and blew it. Austin had a great diving stop and base tag at the hot corner – easily the play of the game.

This was our first year with a live band. Everybody reported enjoying that, especially the band.

I met a lot of new people this year, which I think is a good sign. In previous years, I've always known pretty much everybody, but it was nice to have some fresh faces around.

Thanks to everybody who came out and made it happen, and if you didn't make it this year, there's always the next one.

Event of the Week:

UNCW classes start Wednesday. I get to meet a bunch of new students (roughly 125) and begin another semester of ruining young minds.

B.

Not much blog today because I've got an all-day meeting at UNCW. But I did want to finish the "of the week" features.

Question of the Week:

When was the last time you were excited about work?

My take: Certainly not today since I'll be in meeting for the next 7 or 8 hours. But, yesterday I was writing up a syllabus and was actually pretty excited to start teaching again.

Happy Pig Pickin' weekend.

Here I come

I've been grappling with the idea of writing a blog in the style of a late night monologue for a few weeks now. Basically the idea is to talk about a bunch of snippets of news content and follow each with a joke. I'm going to write it like a Conan O'Brien monologue – with his speech patterns and such – because I watch his show the most, but I'm guessing it'll turn out to be about as funny as a Jimmy Fallon monologue. We'll see.

As you probably know, Michael Vick has served his sentence and is now looking to return to the NFL. And insiders are saying that Vick is very close to signing with an NFL team. Some football experts are saying that Vick would be the perfect fit in a newly popularized formation: the wilddog offense.

Speaking of the NFL, the newest version of the Madden football game will be released this Friday. That's right, and nerds, dorks, and geeks across the globe are really excited about this. Not because they'll get to play the newest video game, but because it's the one weekend a year when all the jocks will be playing video games, so the nerds, dorks, and geeks can roam the streets freely.

Xbox Live just released a mandatory update for all Xbox 360 consoles connected to Xbox Live. One of the new features is the avatar marketplace. How it works is that Xbox Live subscribers can pay real money just to dress up their virtual selves in new clothes. Well, now this business model has begun to attract some attention, and other stores are following Microsoft's lead. Earlier today, I tried to go into a Banana Republic, but it cost me $50 just to get in the door.

Another new feature of the update is the ability to purchase and download full versions of recent Xbox 360 games. It turns out some of the games are actually priced pretty fairly and are actually pretty good deals. Yeah, but the problem is that the digital games are so huge and take up so much hard drive space that to you actually have to buy a new hard drive every time you want to download another game.

Some of you may have heard of the scandal surrounding Louisville men's basketball coach Rick Pitino. It turns out he had an affair and then gave the woman money to help pay for an abortion. Yeah, this is true. Pitino said he didn't want to pay for an abortion, but she threatened that if he didn't, she would raise their kid to be a Kentucky fan.

How many of you watched the show Prison Break. (Hold for applause.) Wow, there were like six of you. Well anyhow, the show has been canceled but it looks like the series might continue in a video game. But unlike in the show, the goal of the game is to actually break into prison. This is true. Yeah, the goal of the game is to find the only place in the world where people actually watched the show Prison Break.

As some of you may know, gaming magazine EGM recently stopped printing their traditional magazine. So, to fulfill their existing subscriptions, they sent the men's magazine Maxim to all of their subscribers instead. Well, it turns out, that some mom's weren't so happy about their sons receiving Maxim in place of a magazine about video games. Yeah, apparently, they didn't want their sons to stare at unrealistic and unattainable women all day.

Tonight 37-year-old Pedro Martinez makes his return to Major League Baseball when he starts a game for the Philadelphia Phillies. He's 37 years old. But the crazy thing is that he's replacing Jamie Moyer, who's even older than Martinez, in the Phillies' starting rotation. It turns out Moyer isn't too happy about being replaced. Yeah, Moyer said he hasn't been this upset since his team lost the World Series to the Chicago Cubs.

Quote of the Week:

Hank Hill: "Bobby, vegetarians can't be trusted. Just last week we caught one of them siphoning gas out of a company truck."

This isn't a particularly recent quote, but I heard it on King of the Hill last night and decided it was a go.

Event of the Day: the premiere of the Event of the Week

There were a couple of fun ejections in MLB yesterday. One was in the Cardinals/Pirates game, when Pirates reliever Matt Capps plunked Pujols in the first at bat after Skip Schumaker hit a two-run HR off of Capps. Here's the ejection. The ump was really quick to toss Capps, which seemed kind of weird since there wasn't any bad blood in the series – that I saw. The ump hadn't given a warning during that game. One of the Pittsburgh commentators said, "Well, you can't hit a superstar – apparently."

I wonder if there is a legitimate superstar effect in these situations. Pujols may be the most transparent case: he already has 36 intentional walks through only 111 games. I think any time he gets hit, an umpire has to wonder if that's just another way to avoid a Pujols AB.

I also love Tony La Russa's comments about it, from the MLB.com recap:

"I think he [the umpire] had it exactly right. I think it was an intentional hit and there is no doubt in my mind it came from the bench, and I really believe it didn't come from the manager. Don't ask me to expound on that."

I don't know that I've ever read a single quote that was so blunt, yet so cryptic. I probably should have saved that for Wednesday's Quote of the Week.

The other really strange ejection was when Shane Victorino got thrown out for arguing balls and strikes. Pretty much everybody gets rung for arguing balls and strikes, so that's not a strange thing, but Victorino was doing it from center field. Tim Kurkjian is fond of saying that he sees something different every time he goes to a baseball game. This was a little bit different.

50 Cent was in last week's episode of Entourage so he could make fun of Turtle, and 50's already lined up another cameo that is relevant to my interests. Evidently, the forthcoming Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 is stocking its multiplayer mode with celebrity voice cameos, and 50 has been confirmed. Here are some cameos I'd like to see in the game: Woody Allen as the voice of characters near death, Quentin Tarantino as a squad leader, Larry David as a guy who's out of ammo, and Gilbert Gottfried as the best player in each game. Those voices may not bring the same sort of grit as a 50 Cent or Keifer Sutherland and Gary Oldman (who were in Call of Duty: World at War), but they should could play their parts – and be hilarious.

Event of the Week:

I probably couldn't have picked a better week to start the Event of the Week feature since the 5^th Annual Pig Pickin' is only 5+ days away. If this feature were, instead, the Event of the Year, the Pig Pickin' would probably win. As a lead up to this weekend's festivities, this happened:

Q&A

I'm not sure why I don't respond to your responses, as Trevor pointed out in his response to Wednesday's blog. I can vaguely remember having a reason not to at some point, but that reason has since become irrelevant and forgotten. So, from here on out, I will make a conscious effort to respond to your responses, assuming they merit a response.

Response.

Usually, I'll just respond with my own comments in the comment section. (Maybe I won't even have to do a word verification since it's my own blog.) However, since Trevor's comment(s) raised a number of issues, I'm going to respond this time with an entire blog. It's also just an easy blog topic, which is nice.

Before I start the answering, let me say that this is exactly the type of conversation I've always hoped to stir up with the "What should I do with the blog?" questions. As any good writer ... er writing instructor will tell you, understanding audience is a crucial aspect of effective writing. I feel like I understand Bryan (plus I talk to him every day), and I have a reasonable understanding of Matthew, but beyond that, I don't know who is reading and what they want. That's why I ask the questions.

Now for some answers:

1. I do read your blog responses. I get an email from Blogger every time somebody responds to my blog. Assuming I have internet access and am running Microsoft Outlook, I get a desktop notice every time I get an email. So, I usually read your responses pretty quickly after you respond. The emails with blog comments are usually my favorite emails.
   
   
2. I don't agree that my lack of response to your comments precludes community. After reading your response, I decided that this blog has already created a community. The fact that Trevor and I communicate pretty exclusively through this blog proves that. A community is a place where people go to communicate about certain things. In my mind, there isn't a set number of communications that have to take place before that place becomes a community. At any rate, what I should have said is that I would have liked a bigger community.
   
   
3. At a further rate, I'm still totally down with the community aspect of this blog, but it also has other, potentially more important purposes for me now, namely:
   
   
   1. To prod me to write regularly. If I believe my own teaching, the best way to become a better writer is to write.
      
      
   2. To set an example for my students who are all required to blog.
      
      
   3. To showcase my writing skills to potential employers. It's not much proof, but at least I can put it on my résumé.
      

   These are some of the reasons I'm willing and partially excited about letting the QotD – blog starter though it was – take a bit of a back seat for now.
   

4. Another reason I'm considering chilling the QotDs is that not many people are answering them, even if they do respond to the blog. One of the QotD's purposes was to encourage response, but if you folks are responding to the blog in general without need for a question, then that purpose seems less valid.
   
   
5. With that in mind, I will begin test driving a new feature format next week. I don't want to devote certain days to particular sports, as Matthew suggested, because there isn't always MLB or NBA news, though there's always NFL news, much to my chagrin. I also don't want to limit my ability/desire to write on other topics, like the state of the blog, video games, or TV. Anyhow, here's what I'll try next week:
   

   Monday: Event of the Week
   Wednesday: Quote of the Week
   Friday: Question of the Week
   
   I'll deal with Tuesdays, Thursdays, and weekends as they come up, if they do.
   

6. I got this picture from MLB.com's Gameday feature. Once I found the at bat I was looking for, I used the print screen button to essentially copy everything on my screen, which I could then paste into whatever – I think I used Paint. From there, I just cropped out the excess, saved it as a .jpeg, and posted it.
   

A few other notes:

If you're the Mets, at some point you have to start thinking about replacing your training staff, right? Just look at their injuries. Ridiculous.

My other blog has undergone a revamping of sorts lately. So, it'll look a little different if you check it out.

Happy early birthday to stat boy who finally turns 21 tomorrow and should be drinking beers at the Milwaukee/Houston series this weekend.

(Possibly the final) QotD:

The NCAA football preseason coaches' poll was unveiled today. What do you think?

My take: Four ACC teams, including my alma mater? I like it. But considering the semester hasn't even started at most -if any - of these schools, it's safe to say that it's still early.

History of the QotD, Part I

I doubt if anyone remembers, but the Question of the Day began on AOL Instant Messenger or AIM, as it's now known. I had, as happens occasionally, given up on the concept of an away/status message, since mine were rarely correct and I didn't really have the patience or interest to change that fact. So, I decided to inject some life into my away messages with the QotD.

The AIM QotDs worked well because, at the time, I communicated with a lot of people specifically through AIM anyhow, so it wasn't much of a stretch for those same people to answer questions through AIM. There were problems, though, like a word limit on away messages and the impermanence of AIM away messages in an era where very little information is actually discarded.

So, I moved the QotD to a blog format on my MySpace blog. I even posted all of the AIM QotDs on one lazy blogging day. The MySpace QotDs worked reasonably well, though I lost a good chunk of my non-habitual responders in the switch. The QotD, for the roughly year and a half that it lived on MySpace, evolved into what was essentially a message board for our small group of fantasy players, et. al.

After about a year hiatus, the QotD phoenixed its way into this blog, which was started, in part, as an example for my students who have since been required to blog. At the time, I revived the QotD without much though, assuming it would be at least as successful as its predecessor on MySpace.

I was wrong. In the time that I've been writing this blog, the QotD has pretty much become a way for Matthew, Bryan, and I to keep in touch.

The thing is: we have cell phones and email and stuff, so that's not really the purpose of the QotD. The purpose was to create a larger community, which it did on AIM and MySpace. At this point, I'm willing to forego the QotD's original purpose, since nothing I seem to do has much effect towards a return. Earlier in my life, I would have been more angry and adamant about my readers responding. There was even a time when I would have considered it stealing if they didn't, though I can't seem to find that time. But, now I suppose I've calmed down about it.

I'm not ready to completely 86 the QotD, but I am willing to evolve it. With that in mind, today's QotD is two-fold:

QotDs:

1. Why don't you respond to the QotD?
   

   My take: I do.
   

2. Would you be more interested in a different blog feature?
   

   My take: Perhaps. I've been kicking around ideas, like Event of the Week, Quote of Week, Question of the Week (of course), Stat of the Week, etc. Each feature could have a specific day, like Event of the Week would probably be a Monday feature to warn you of upcoming cool stuff. The downside, from my perspective, is that these new features wouldn't necessarily be interactive, but from my best estimation, 50% of my readership isn't interactive anyhow.

Let me know what you'd be interested in seeing.

I’ll take that one please

I couldn't think of a blog topic today, so I've decided to write about a single pitch from last night's Cardinals/Astros game in St. Louis.

It was the bottom of the seventh inning, and the Cardinals were down 2-0 but were threatening. The inning started with a Rick Ankiel pop out, but then Mark DeRosa walked and Yadier Molina hit a single, moving DeRosa to third. Julio Lugo struck out for the second out (and that was probably the real problem).

So, with two outs and two on, Joe Thurston pinch hit for Adam Wainwright. Thurston was facing Bud Norris, who was making his first ever Major League start and proving to be a real problem for the Cards. Norris had a little trouble this at bat, though. He started with three straight balls to Thurston.

Of course, Thurston was taking all the way with three balls. Here's a snapshot of the pitches in the at bat. Take a look at pitch #4:

Thurston took the pitch and was already a few steps out of the batter's box when the umpire, Bill Hohn, lazily called the pitch a strike. Norris didn't throw a single pitch in the strike zone during the AB, but Thurston ended up swinging at the next two pitches, ending the inning and the Cards' last legitimate scoring opportunity.

The sole called strike was a bad call, but the fact that it came so late was like getting a speeding ticket after you've already parked in your own driveway. I usually don't like complaining about officiating because I understand that they're human too and I generally like that aspect of human error penetrating every portion of the game. But, when an umpire or a ref makes any sort of delay before blowing a call, it looks, to me, like they're unsure of the call themselves and are therefore more likely to actually be wrong. I suppose it's just about acting confident about the calls even if they're not.

I'm proud of myself for creating that screenshot of the Thurston AB and getting it into the blog. If that hadn't been possible, I probably would have just skipped blogging today.

QotD:

What percentage of sports officiating should we relegate to computers, replays, etc.?

My take: I'd say no more than 22%. Again, I'm perfectly fine with human error factoring into officiating if for no other reason than we can bitch about it later. Besides, mechanical judging systems have proven to be ineffective as well.