Entries from September 2001 ↓

“Whatever.”

Last week wasn’t so good. I didn’t pick the right home underdogs, although some had some pretty good weeks. The bankroll is at $985.

Minnesota’s looking bad. Maybe you guys never watched the pre-Randy Moss Vikings, but those were some sad times. The worst thing about those non-15-and-1 teams was that they frequently lost to teams they should have beaten. We would pull out a victory against a really good team, only to be beaten by Green Bay at home the next week. (Remember, I’m talking about 1991 Green Bay - bad team.)

But I’m hoping the Vikings rise to the occasion, at home, vs. Tampa Bay, where they’ve been given two and a half points. If the Vikings go 0-3… bad things will happen in this state. I’m betting against it.

$100 on the Vikings +2.5 vs. Tampa Bay
$50 under 38 points

I also like San Diego this week, but six and a half points is a lot of points. I should probably avoid this, but

$50 on San Diego -6.5 vs. Cincinatti

We all know Cincinatti’s not for real, right?

I was just reading some other pages on style sheets, and I have to say: damn, this page is handsome. All bold and brown and sexy… damn.

Which reminds me, getting back to my normally modest self, that I have some new projects I’m working on. Since none of you have web projects you’re thinking about, and since I trust you, I’ll let you know what my projects are.

1.) A page about my DirecTV installation. Thanks to a source or two on the web, I’ve got DirecTV up and running indoors, and I’ve got the photos, diagrams, math and links to prove it. This will help people.

2.) A page dedicated to the KQRS Morning Show. A lot of people grow up in Minnesota, and they never realize that most morning radio is awful. KQ enjoys the highest share of any morning show in the nation: other major markets have more listeners, but nobody reaches a higher percentage of listeners. Disseminating news and information about the KQ Morning Show could be a great project.

3.) A page with popular hip hop tracks and the samples they used, with a little Acid tutorial for people that want to construct similar loops/beats. I think a lot of kids hear Jay-Z or Snoop, and they don’t realize that those guys are looping the Jackson Five or P-Funk. This could be a problem with my current host, because they watch traffic logs for MP3 files and crack down on MP3 sites. Mine wouldn’t be an MP3 site (though surely there would be samples and music), but there might be lots of traffic.

There is a tendency in rap to spell things out. The best example I can think of is Kriss Kross: “what’s that in your hand? it’s an S-to-the-P-R-I-T-E can”.

You might have also noticed about, oh, ten years ago, adding syllables to words got play. People started saying stuff like “in the hizzouse”, “you can sit izzon bizzack”, “off the hizzook”, and “for shizzo”. (Side note: I gave Benno the nom-de-hoops Bizzy, which he adapted into Bizrock. Then he and Risnes started calling me Tizzy instead of Tubbs. Wouldn’t you give up, too?)

So when Jay-Z releases a track called “Izzo (H.O.V.A.)” with the chorus “H-to-the-Izzo, V-to-the-Izzay” the first thing you should be thinking is that 1.) there’s some spelling happening here 2.) what are my other clues? He’s spelling out HOVA, a name he uses to refer to himself on the track (and through the whole album, if you haven’t heard it).

If you’re wondering why his name is “Hova”, think of the self-aggrandizing nature of Jay-Z, and why he would want people to call him Jay Hova instead of Jay-Z.

On a related topic, “off the heezy for sheezy” means “off the hook for sure” after you run it through the Jamie Foxx filter.

I was just shopping for video games at Amazon, and their featured review for Dark Cloud is by Dave. He’s from Shoreview, MN, and he writes “this game is off the heezy for sheezy for real”.

Dave, you live in Shoreview. You’re talking about a video game. Snap out of it.

If anyone ever wants to send me encrypted mail, I’ve got a key. You can find it at pgp.com or I can send it to you. If you’ve got one, let me know, and we’ll think of something to say to each other that is terribly important.

Of all the things I studied in the math program at Macalester, nothing impressed me quite as much as the concept of public key encryption. You take your message, the algorithm, you take the public key, and the result can’t be turned back into the message without the private half of the key.

Usually this rant goes off into a stern warning about the weak points of public key crypto (don’t lose your key, don’t pick a bad password, keep your keys safe), but right now there’s an even bigger danger. Actual members of congress have argued that such software should be outlawed, and all encryption used in the United States should be crippled with a government back door.

This simply won’t work: if bad guys are already using encryption to communicate, we’re never going to get them to “upgrade” to US-approved versions of the software. As skeptical as I am about the right to privacy, I know I’m within my rights to encrypt and secure my free expression, and to keep it from anyone other than the intended audience.

Attention everyone: I have stopped using the ODBC DSN to connect to my database. In switching to the OLE Jet connection, I hope that this site will be more stable and reliable. If you see any problems, let me know, but don’t be a jerk about it.

My past four days at work here have been wrapped up trying to fight the newest worm. Nobody else here at work seemed particularly interested that our servers were bugging out and sending .eml files all over the place. However, every time we think we’ve got it taken care of, the stupid thing reinfects our networks.

So yes, Tony, it’s real, and it’s a pain in the ass.

What’s everybody doing this weekend? We’ve got a baseball game, a work party, and maybe a church festival to take care of this week. (I’m also dead if the Gertens website isn’t in tip-top shape by Monday.)

Oh, and I got Audiogalaxy to work from my workstation here. Yay!

I want to buy some PS2 games. Or maybe even some Dreamcast games, but they should be getting cheap pretty soon. I want a fighting game, and I want NFL Blitz, and I want an RPG. And while I’m wishing for games I can’t have yet, NFL Blitz 2002, Metal Gear 2, Tony Hawk 3, and the new Virtua Tennis would be nice.

As you may remember, in Week 1, Tampa Bay didn’t beat the spread, and the Monday night game actually went over. So I won $100, and lost $50 (plus 10%), so I’m at $1045.

Lots of teams are home underdogs this week: Cincinatti, Chicago, Dallas, New England, San Francisco, Seattle, and Arizona. That’s an unusual number, but there are an unusual number of unusually bad teams playing at home this week. But I think traveling favorites have a couple of strikes against them. First of all, I think any team has a chance this week. So much has happened that I doubt every team will be at 100%, so lots of upsets could happen. The other thing is that nobody wants to travel this week. Football teams are going to be practically alone on flights, they’ll be away from their families, and that’s got to mess with their heads. I don’t like away favorites this week, so my bets are:

$50 on Arizona +8.5 vs. Denver
$50 on Cleveland +1 vs. Detroit
$50 on Seattle +3 vs. Philadelphia

Sometimes I forget that Hunter S. Thompson (Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, etc.) writes a rambling and amusing column for ESPN’s website. The past two columns have been about terrorism and America (and are still pretty good), but the one before that offers a quick primer in Nashville history, Jack Nicholson, football in Los Angeles, and the best way to watch and/or bet on football games.