• The saber heard round the world

    Unless you haven’t listened to the radio, watched TV, or just woke from a thousand year sleep at the kiss from a certain royal prince; you’ve probably heard that the world’s designated kook, Kim Jung-il, tested his first home-made atomic weapon last night (EDST – or this morning, Korean time). What surprised me most about the news is how little people were talking about it. I brought it up with several people today, and each of them either didn’t know, didn’t care or both… mostly both. This is big, people. Imagine the world’s best-known, psychologically imbalanced person this side of Helter Skelter and give him “The Button.” That’s who Kim Jung-il is right now. You thought the Cold War was scary, imagine the world doesn’t respond… and Iran uses North Korea as a role model. Imagine the scenario outlined in an article in Slate Magazine this evening: Japan gets nervous and develops their own bomb (who has plenty of technological know how to slap one together pronto)… which prompts China (Japan’s long time rival) to resume testing… which prompts India to get jiggy with it… which makes Pakistan nervous…

    … and I’m not sure if I’m going to sleep tonight.

  • Gators in the hunt

    After watching another nerve wrenching college football game, I was in no condition to watch a hockey game. The Lightning were making their first home appearance of the season, so I couldn’t just ignore it. So I tuned in, against my better judgment. Then they went down two-zip in the first period, and I just had to turn the television off. It’s after midnight and I still don’t even know the final score. This is the effect of college football has on me.

    Now I don’t want to wax prophetic, anointing Tebow the great white hope of Florida Football… but the kid is tough. I was watching the game, taking in a Tebow play, and I asked myself: “Did he just run over a safety, carrying a defensive lineman on his back?” Enter Vern Lundquist (who never saw a missed call he didn’t like). “That’s a true freshman, pushing over a safety. Unbelievable.” For once I had to agree with Vern. But before I start getting overly anxious to call Timmy’s number, I need to see the boy throw a little more. After all, a quarterback does throw the ball every now and again… even an option quarterback. He’s put the ball in the air a few times, a couple times for touchdowns. However, a common theme for most of his throws has been a WIDE open receiver. When I say WIDE open, I mean having your own zip code. I’d like to see how the boy does when he has to sneak a ball in through double coverage, or when he’s got to place the ball in the seam of zone coverage. Then I’ll be ready to join the bandwagon. Until then… I’ll still be glad to see the ball in Leak’s hands on passing downs. I will say this: the offensive staff did a heck of a job game planning the LSU game. I’m not sure anyone could have gotten more out of the personnel at their disposal. Consider the fact that the Gators had NO running game with Winn out, and were playing against what might be the best defensive secondary in the SEC. The Gators haven’t exactly been an offensive juggernaut in the first five games… and yet they managed to go one dimensional against a strong pass defense, and pull out the win.

    That’s unbelievable, but in a good way.

  • One project falls by the wayside, another takes it’s place

    The MySQL / Perl / UNIX / blog software tinker project has officially been abandoned. You may have noticed that the site was down one day last week… an unanticipated byproduct of my life shortening battle with my own inadequacies. Upholding the fine tradition of manhood the world over – after two weeks of futility I decided to go back and read the directions to the blog software update I was attempting to install – whereby I discovered that my makeshift server did not meet the minimum requirements.

    No doubt you are sitting in the comfort of your own home, saying one of two things to yourself or your loved ones:

    “Oh that’s gotta hurt!”

    “Jeez what an idiot.”

    Don’t worry – you won’t hurt my feelings. I’ve thought the same… and worse… all by myself. The real victim in this is Adam. The poor boy has me as a role model… he’s surely doomed to repeat the folly of his father.

    So I’ve abandoned that whole catastrophe, in favor of a similarly doomed project… a recon mission for cost savings around the house. I’ve downloaded Skype, a free alternative for the phone, with visions of using my computers as speakerphones. A Skype bonus, the possibility of video conference calls with my non-Mac family members (you know who you are), is intriguing. I’ve done hours of research looking into tools to help abandon the landline phone service to our home… in favor of our wireless service. I’ve installed a filter on our water supply to help reduce our grocery bill (no more bottled water for these Kauffmans!). I’ve studied our itemized cable bill and our provider’s advertised package deals for possible savings. After two days of work I’ve come up with almost fifty dollars in monthly savings.

    Maybe this second project wasn’t such a bad idea after all. We’ll just have to see how the landline termination project goes. Stay on the lookout for a phone number update in the near future.