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Wednesday News Dump

– Here’s a funny story about my “birth town” of Snellville, GA (my family moved from Snellville to Duluth when I was 13; I consider Snellville to be my “birth town” and Duluth to be my “home town”, if that makes any sense). It seems that the mayor isn’t getting along with a city council member. In fact, relations between the two are so bad that Mayor Jerry Oberholtzer has been asking for police escorts… to the bathroom at City Hall! I guess Oberholtzer is afraid of getting peed on or beaten up… or something.

– If you want news about the Carolina Panthers football team, the last place you want to go is their website. While other teams have sites where mild dissent is welcomed in blogs or opinion pieces, the Carolina Panthers’ site is all about toeing the company line. That’s why the QC Sports Blog advises you to look at the Panthers’ online store – where Julius Peppers and Ken Lucas jerseys are on sale. Is this their subtle way of saying that Peppers and Lucas won’t be back?

– As you probably know, many of England’s cities date back thousands of years. In fact, some of the neighborhoods and streets in Britain are so old that people have forgotten how an area got its name in the first place. This has led to endless arguments over the use of grammar on street signs. For example, one London neighborhood is known as “Earls Court” to the post office and local council, but “Earl’s Court” to the London Underground. The city of Birmingham is so sick of hearing complaints that “St. Paul’s Square” should be “St. Pauls Square” or “Kings Norton” should be “King’s Norton” (or even “Kings’ Norton”) that it has abolished apostrophes on all street signs.

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In Defense of the Pro Bowl

The NFL’s Pro Bowl has always gotten short shrift in the American sports world. Part of it has to do with the timing of the game: coming a week after the Super Bowl, the Pro Bowl usually is a pretty anticlimactic end to the season. Another part of it has to do with the nature of the game itself: unlike baseball, where winning the All Star game actually means something (the winner gets home field for the World Series), in football the Pro Bowl is meaningless. And lastly, you have the players themselves: many all-stars refuse to come, and those that do never seem to play all that hard because no one wants to get injured in a meaningless game.

But I’m here to defend the Pro Bowl. Sure, I don’t care about it much, either. But it’s here, and there are a few good reasons to watch it:

1) It has good rules. In the Pro Bowl, receivers cannot go into motion, you cannot have more than two wide receivers, defenses cannot blitz, pressing or bumping is not allowed, you cannot use a 5-6 cornerback set, and you must be in a 4-3 defense. In spite of all that (or, more likely, because of it), the Pro Bowl is usually lightning fast and offense oriented. And the lack of intentional grounding rule, coaches challenges and booth reviews make it actually fun to watch.

2) It’s kitschy! For the past 30 years, the Pro Bowl has taken place in Hawai’i, so there’s plenty of gorgeous HD shots of the islands, along with music straight from a 1970s playlist: Blondie’s “The Tide Is High”, The Safari’s “Wipe Out”, and the theme to Hawaii 5-0…  and the whole thing is sponsored by State Farm! See, it’s like that Brady Bunch special already! And everyone’s in tacky Hawai’ian shirts, too! How awesome! If only they showed Al Michaels and Cris Collinsworth with mai tais in their hands!

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Burress has a BAD history…

Ever wonder why the Pittsburgh Steelers let all-star wide receiver Plaxico Burress go back in 2004?

Well, wonder no longer. Plaxico Burress is trouble. Everyone knows that. But the sheer extent of his troublemaking is appalling. Check it out:

The Associated Press found that, since Burress joined the NFL in 2000, he has been sued at least nine times by people who said he failed to pay a debt, damaged their car or didn’t pay his taxes.

The people seeking payment from the football star run the gamut, from a Pennsylvania homeowners association trying to collect delinquent dues to a Florida woman whose car Burress rear-ended while driving without insurance. Why? He hadn’t paid the premium.

The pattern of irresponsible behavior extends beyond unpaid debts, records show.

In his hometown of Virginia Beach, Va., Burress has been fined for reckless driving, noise and public intoxication, and threatened with arrest after he didn’t show up in court. Last year in Florida, where he has a home, police twice cited Burress for speeding in the weeks before the car crash, which also earned him a ticket for careless driving.

via New York Giants’ Plaxico Burress has history of lawsuits over debts – ESPN.

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Pittsburgh may name street for Noll

Planners may name a street to be built near the Pittsburgh Steelers’ stadium after Chuck Noll, the coach who led the team to its first four Super Bowl wins.

Plans for an amphitheater near Heinz Field that were approved by the Southwestern Pennsylvania Commission include a one-block street named Chuck Noll Way.

via Pittsburgh planners may name street for Chuck Noll – NFL – Yahoo! Sports.

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REVIEW: LG 600g Mobile Phone

Tracfone is, as I always say in these posts, “America’s largest prepaid only mobile provider”. They offer pretty good deals on prepaid wireless with some of the best terms in the industry. If there’s a problem with Tracfone, it’s the phones themselves. Tracfone’s hardware is years behind the times. This is most likely because the company wants to get the best possible prices on older, popular and proven designs, although Tracfone’s customer base isn’t exactly cutting-edge, either. Tracfone’s cheapest handset – the Motorola c139 – looks like something from 1999, save for the low-res color screen. Their second tier phone – the Motorola w370 – is a slightly thicker version of Moto’s RAZR, the hottest phone of 2004.

Recently, however, Tracfone has offered two new phones with some groovy new features: the Motorola w376g and the LG 600g. Both phones offer Bluetooth and VGA cameras, a first for Tracfone. A bit of a warning: Bluetooth on the Moto phone is crippled, in that it can only connect to Bluetooth headsets. The LG, on the other hand, can connect to most any other Bluetooth device, including desktop PCs, so you can use your computer to shuffle pics and ringtones back and forth instead of SMSing them to yourself. For this reason, and for the external screen (another rare feature on Tracfones), I decided to ask for the LG for Christmas. For what it’s worth, the Moto phone also comes with a built-in FM radio (a feature you think you’d like, but end up never actually using).

So… Santa was good to me, and I got the LG! I transferred my airtime to the new phone quickly and easily (but more on that later). I also ordered a few accessories, such as this Bluetooth USB adapter ($5.94 shipped) and this Bluetooth earpiece (around $25). Now that those accessories have arrived… I can do the review!

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Monday News Dump

– The UK spent $6.6 billion on a new identification card system. The new ID card has biometric technology built into it… but guess how many card readers the UK government bought? That’s right: none. Not a one. Not a single police station, customs house, passport control line or court house has a reader in the entire United Kingdom. So all that biometric data – the stuff that’s supposed to differentiate the almost $7 billion system from the basic laminated ID cards that have been around for ages – is useless. Read more here.

– Around 92% of all Windows bugs could be “fixed” if people would run without admin rights. Unfortunately, Microsoft historically didn’t take much action in this regard (it wasn’t until Vista that they came up with UAC), and because of this, many lazy software vendors wrote code that would only run under an administrator account. So now people feel like they have to run as an Administrator. I wish someone would fix this situation. Read more about it here.

– The economic downturn is really hurting the “entertainment” industry. Specifically, it’s really hurting events you have to buy a ticket for, like sporting events, concerts, circuses, etc. (which is why I put “entertainment” in quotes). Many sports teams are trying to ease the hurt by offering “package deals”. For example, you might be able to get 4 $100 tickets, parking, 2 game programs, 4 hot dogs and 4 drinks for $80. But this promotion is the lamest ever: buy $48 worth of tickets to see Sesame Street Live’s “Elmo Makes Music” event at the Sovereign Bank Arena in Trenton, New Jersey… and get four free tacos from Taco Bell! Jeez – why even bother?

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Should the length of a season be cut? – TV Squad

There’s an interesting article online about the networks’ attempt to combat the recession. It suggests cutting the number of episodes per season, following the British model for scripted fare.

The writer is referring more to the British scripted dramas rather than comedies. In England, comedies are (usually) written by the creator(s). As a result, a British comedy usually has only six episodes per season. This both helps keep costs down and presents no haggling over ownership rights since there are fewer writers.

via Should the length of a season be cut? – TV Squad.

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Rumrunners Super Burger Dog Recipe

A burger? A dog?? NO! It’s a Super Burger Dog.

Thanks to QBabe for this wonderful idea! I’ll give a brief explaination and let the pics explain themselves. After the pics, I’ll give some hints/changes for doing them again. My apologies to the dial up posters 🙁

I used 3 1/4 oz of plain straight Ground Chuck for each one. Flattened out to just a tad longer than the dog. I added a couple slices of Colby Jack cheese and then molded the burger around the dog and the cheese. Just a sprinkling of S n P and garlic powder on the burger first. I pinched the ends tight and rolled a slice of bacon around the burgerdog and fastened each end with a toothpick. I then dusted lightly with Dizzy Pigs Dizzy Dust for added flavor. Cow Lick would also be excellent. I put the finished product in the freezer for approx 45 minutes to ‘set up’ and be easier to handle for the grill.

via Rumrunners Super Burger Dog Recipe. Dizzy Pig BBQ Recipes. Fantastic recipes for the grill, smoker or in the kitchen..

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Introducing DFS

Distributed File System (DFS) is a feature of Windows Server that existed in Windows NT 4.0, but didn’t really become useful until the release of Windows Server 2003.

At its simplest, DFS is a technology that allows you to create “virtual file shares” and add what amounts to symlinks or junctions to real file shares to it. So if, for example, you had a situation where you needed to share ten folders off seven different servers, you could instead create a DFS share and create links to the real shares. As far as your end-users are concerned, it’s only the one file share. That way, all users have a “S: drive” with the same folder structure, instead of one group (Finance) having one set of mapped drives and another group (Marketing) having another.

What’s even better is that you can map a DFS link via WAN connection, so people in two different offices can have the same file shares regardless of location. You can also build redundant DFS shares: just create a new share, robocopy the existing data to the new share, then add both shares to your DFS root. That way, if you ever need to take one of those servers offline, end users will still be able to access the data. In fact, they shouldn’t even notice a difference!

Although DFS was created for corporate customers, I have found one neat use for it at home. As you might know, I got a new computer for Christmas. That computer runs Windows Vista Home Premium; it therefore cannot join my local SBS 2003 domain, which has around 8 total shared folders. As you might also know, Windows networking has always been pretty crappy. After a week of owning the new computer I got sick of getting the dreaded “multiple connections to the same server using more than one set of credentials are prohibited” error with all the different file shares (even though I was only using my domain username and password). I therefore went in and created a DFS share for my local domain. I now map the DFS share as a drive, and Windows only asks me for credentials when I first map it – from that point on it’s smooth sailing!

Learn everything you could ever want to know about DFS here.

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R.I.P. Sid

I seriously meant to post this on Monday. Seriously. I’ve been counting down for years to post it, but it totally slipped my mind in the wake of all the Super Bowl hoopla: Monday was the 30th anniversary of the death of Sex Pistols’ bassist, Sid Vicious.

Sid Vicious

On February 1st, 1979, Vicious was released from New York City’s infamous Riker’s Island jail. He had spent 55 days there after his arrest for the murder of his girlfriend, Nancy Spungen. Sid had actually used his time in Ryker’s to fully kick his heroin habit. The night of his release, a party was held in his honor. However, Sid’s mother had some heroin delivered to the party – against the wishes of everyone else at the party. The heroin was of remarkable purity, and Sid accidentally overdosed. According to NYC’s then-Chief Coroner, Dr Michael Baden (who you may know from countless Autopsy specials on HBO), Vicious died peacefully in his sleep at around 10 am on the morning of February 2, 1979.

Most everyone in the 30-50 age bracket knows the story of Sid Vicious; for those of you that don’t, here’s a summary:

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