Steelers 2009 Schedule: Much Easier!

The Steelers 2009 schedule was outlined on Monday, and it looks to be much easier than this years.

Home:

Baltimore, Minnesota, Tennessee, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Oakland, San Diego and Green Bay.

Road:

Baltimore, Cincinnati, Cleveland,  Denver, Kansas City, Chicago, Detroit and Miami.

Of course, times and exact dates haven’t been published yet. Read more about it here.

I’m back!

In case you hadn’t noticed it from the new posts, I’m back online. I got a new computer for Christmas – a triple core x64 box from AMD, thankyouverymuch – and getting that box up and running was no problem. However, I also upgraded my SBS server from my ancient BP6 to my old desktop – a 3 GHz P4 – and for some reason, SBS just doesn’t like the P4 very much. I had to install SBS several times to get a stable OS, and many times I appeared to have succeeded, only to find that some component wasn’t working properly. What fun!

In any case, everything is up and running at the moment, so I’m keeping my fingers crossed!

Funny Pics

Hamas fires rocks into Israel. Israel strikes back. Pro-Palestinian whiners start protesting at the United Nations… only someone forgot to spell-check this guy’s sign:

(click to enlarge)
(click to enlarge)

Yeah, take THAT, apple, grape and cranberry! Juice shouldn’t be allowed to exist! Juice controls the media and all the banks! Juice runs this country!

What an idiot! Hey, maybe he can hang out with the Get a Brain Morans guy! And yes, the above is a real picture that has not been Photoshopped. See the original here.

Continue reading “Funny Pics”

And so, the heads start to roll…

No big surprises here, but the Cleveland Browns have fired head coach Romeo Crennel, the Detroit Lions have fired Rod Marinelli, and the New York Jets have fired Eric Mangini. OK, the last one is a bit of a surprise… the coach they once called “Mangenius” had a bad year (he was 23-26 overall with the Jets). I just didn’t expect the firing to come so soon.

In other news, the tests on Big Ben’s noggin came back negative, so you can expect to see him play against either the Ravens or Dolphins in two weeks.

Fixing ESPN’s Site

ESPN’s website has an annoying “feature”: a video player that starts playing the latest sports highlights as soon as you load the ESPN.com page. This makes it difficult to stealthily check scores at work, it makes the page load slowly… and it’s just all around annoying.

You can stop the video player from appearing by creating an ESPN.com account and disabling the player in the user preferences. But that’s a pain, especially if you don’t want to give ESPN your information. If you use Firefox and have AdBlock Plus installed, you can easily disable the player by opening the AdBlock preferences and adding the following to a new filter:

http://sports.espn.go.com/broadband/mpf/players/*

Thanks to this site for the tip!

The Obligatory Christmas Post

Have a safe and lovely Christmas, everyone!

And now, the only Christmas song worth a damn:

Some random trivia about “Fairytale of New York”:

– Kirsty MacColl was not supposed to sing on the track. She was dating Pogues’ producer Steve Lillywhite at the time, and was asked to fill in at the recording sessions until the final vocal track could be laid down by Pogues’ bassist Cait O’Riordan. Everyone liked Kirsty’s vocals so much that her version was kept.

– “Fairytale of New York” is (supposedly) the favorite Christmas song of Cliff Richard, Matt Dillon, Dermot O’Leary, Karen Osborne, Pete Doherty, Peter Zimmerman, Ricky Olarenshaw, Carl Barat, Bob Geldof, Liam Neeson, Colin Firth, Chris Moyles, Tim Hames, Sue Johnstone, Chris Martin, and The Office creators Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant.

– Speaking of Matt Dillion, he plays the arresting officer in the video.

– Shane McGowan cannot play piano, so band member James Fearnley (reluctantly) put on McGowan’s rings and jacket for the close-ups of the hands laying piano.

– The New York Police Department does not have a choir; they do, however, have a Pipes and Drums unit. They are featured in the video.

– Not every member of the Pipes and Drums band knew “Galway Bay”, so the song they’re actually singing is the “Mickey Mouse Club Theme”.

– Record labels in the UK have a tradition of releasing “Christmas singles”, and they compete amongst themselves for the #1 spot at Christmas. The year “Fairytale” was released, the single was kept out of the #1 spot by the Pet Shop Boys’ cover of  “Always on My Mind”, which led MacGowan to comment that “[w]e were beaten by two queens and a drum machine.”

Two More Sports Items

Confused by the ever-increasing numbers of rules in the NFL? So is everyone else. And by “everyone else”, I mean coaches, players… even the referees themselves. Check out this article that talks about some of the more obscure rules that have come to light this season.

But at least the NFL is in good financial shape… ‘cos you can’t say the same about many NHL franchises. I don’t have an NHL team near me, so I had no idea it had come to this:

The deepest discounts are offered by the Atlanta Thrashers, Florida Panthers and New York Islanders. The Islanders’ $99 family fun pack for a game on Dec. 31 includes four tickets regularly priced at $80 each. In addition, the Isles throw in four hot dogs and soft drinks, two children’s watches, a $40 Dave & Busters voucher and a coupon for 10 per cent off at a children’s-wear store.

The Panthers are similarly generous, offering a regularly priced $42 ticket for $17. Fans also receive free parking, a combo meal and a $5 gasoline card. Parking is usually $10 at the Panthers’ arena, which means that if the other amenities are subtracted from the ticket price, you could make a case that the club is actually paying the fan to attend the game. Happy holidays!

In Atlanta, Thrasher fans can buy a family pack of four tickets and four chicken-sandwich combo meals at various prices. The most expensive package is $149, which breaks down to $37.45 a ticket, and that’s if the meal is not counted. The regular price on those seats is $300, making for a discount of 87.5 per cent.

Wow! But things are fine, right Gary?