Video Games Unworthy of My Fanaticism...Yet

I have to admit it: I never could get into the video game phenomenon. Although there are individual exceptions, I think that becoming a video game fanatic (or not) is largely a generational matter. And I may have just missed the "cut". I know that my children sure were (and still are) big video game players. I keep telling them, in reference to my relative lack of interest in the "activity", that I am waiting for virtual reality technology to take hold. But in spite of the fact that Walt Disney World's Carousel of Progress show's vision for the near future features Grandma sitting in the living room engaged in playing a virtual reality space battle game, nothing of the sort has yet "materialized" in the "real" world of the marketplace. Instead, we just keep getting more realistic looking flatscreen games.

Maybe we need a Steve Jobs in the gaming industry to come out with a vision that pushes the technology and software designers into the virtual world that I myself would clamor for. But then again, maybe that's the point: virtual reality could possibly be made so alluring that its participants might just decide to spend their waking hours completely within its fantasy lands, and that wouldn't exactly be a good thing for society in general, would it? Come to think of it, that's just what happened in a Star Trek: the Next Generation episode: one of the crew went overboard with his holodeck (virtual reality room) sessions to the exclusion of his duties, even losing touch with reality itself (which was actually complete fiction, but in the context of the show it was reality).

After all, it is clear to me that this is already happening to an extent with flatscreen games. There is even a company called GameFlight that allows video game fans to be able to afford to spend just about every waking moment of their lives completely immersed in them. I've seen the commercials: the "satisfied customers" kind of creep me out with their fanaticism, I have to say. Have you seen any of these ads?

Maybe the current generation(s) of video gamers will eventually reach the point where the two-dimensional game image becomes a bore and they collectively begin to demand high-quality and readily available virtual reality. If that happens and the industry responds with some good reality-emulating products (and not those cheap, inadequate 3-D simulations), expect yours truly to join the ranks of creepy video game fanatics...

Chekov and the Nuclear Wessels

This may represent the height (or depth) of triviality, but something's been gnawing at me for years (perhaps illustrating the triviality of my mindset). During the movie Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, the original Enterprise crew has gone back in time to late twentieth-century America in search of some humpback whales. The plan is to transport them back to their own 23rd century just in "time" to save the Earth from a destructive extraterrestrial probe. Yes, this is obviously some heavy fiction: who really thinks we'll even MAKE it to the 23rd century? But still, I'm in on the fantasy elements of Star Trek and I like their stories and characters. And Star Trek IV may well have been their best feature-length movie, at least until the latest Star Trek flick came out and pushed the time travel paradox beyond the breaking point (but with a great story and compelling acting). One thing bothered me about one of the characters, though: Pavel Chekov.

Admittedly the character Chekov, a bridge officer on the Enterprise, although Russian in his upbringing, is played by a non-Russian actor named Walter Koenig. According to William Shatner, Koenig was originally picked for the TV series because he looked a lot like the Monkees' Davy Jones and they wanted some teeny-bopper bounce in the ratings (it apparently didn't work, though). Still, Koenig was able to make Chekov into a distinct, popular character on the series and in the movies. One thing he did that brought many smiles to the faces of viewers (including mine) was his thick Russian accent and difficulty pronouncing certain English words. And now we come to what is gnawing at me...

During a scene in Star Trek IV, Chekov and Uhura are walking the streets of San Francisco in "our" time. Knowing that it is a navy harbor, they are looking for a ship with a nuclear reactor. Chekov walks up to a cop doing his beat and point-blank asks him where the nuclear "wessels" are. The cop looks at him puzzled. Chekov repeats himself, carefully enunciating the words: nu-cle-ar wes-sels. Finally, after some moments of this confusion they do get some information (I believe from someone else). Trust me, everything eventually turns out all right. But "wessels"?

Chekov's difficulty in pronouncing the "v" sound implies that it is nonexistent in Russian. But that isn't so: it is actually very common. Ironically, it is the "w" sound that Chekov keeps saying in its place that is relatively rare in Russian. But still, if you didn't know anything about Russian you wouldn't have any reason to suspect this. Walter Koenig pulled a fast one on us, I think, and got away with it.

But then again, maybe I'm missing something here. If so, will someone qualified with a Russian background explain a native speaker's tendency to substitute a sound rare in his own language for one that is common?

More Sports Stuff, Spectator and Personal

A lot of sports stuff has been going on lately, both personal and in the spectator "zone". So please forgive my continual focus on this area. But facts are facts: some pretty cool things have been happening (depending on whom you're rooting for, I suppose)...

Spectator-wise, the main thing is that my Miami Dolphins finally pulled off their first victory this year, thoroughly blowing away Kansas City on the road today 31-3. Phew, I thought for a while that they were just going to write off the rest of the season. Now they're worth following again...

Also, LSU defeated Alabama yesterday in college football, just as I had wanted. Not that I care one bit for the victors: I just enjoyed seeing Alabama get their comeuppance.

And oh yes, baseball's World Series is finally over and we have a champion for 2011. Now if I can just remember who was playing...

On a personal level, I have decided, after successful runs of 8.5, 10, 7.18, and 7.18 miles this past week, to enter this coming Saturday's Tom Walker Memorial Half-Marathon here in Gainesville. Yes, it's been a while since I ran 13.1 miles. But in each of the aforementioned runs, I felt strong toward the end and am confident that, while running the few extra miles needed to complete a half-marathon may be a challenge, it is still very attainable. Anyway, I've done it before many, many times...

LSU My Preference Over 'Bama in Today's Big Game

At the risk of this starting to look like just a sports blog, here comes another article about...sports! Namely, the sport of football. More specifically, the season-defining college football game between the two top-ranked schools in the country: LSU and Alabama, to take place later today in Tuscaloosa.

At first glance, it might not seem to be important to me as to which team I want to root for in this game: after all, both of them are rivals of my hometown Florida Gators and beat up on them pretty badly last month. So I don't particularly like either team. But against each other? Well, I didn't have to give it much thought: I want LSU to beat Alabama, no doubt about it. And there's one dominant reason for this: Alabama's head coach is Nick Saban.

You see, although I follow college football and want the University of Florida to win, there is one team that I have fervently pulled for since childhood: pro football's Miami Dolphins. In 2005, Nick Saban, after coaching LSU to a national championship, went to try to rebuild a struggling Miami team. I thought he was a great coach and, like so many other Dolphins fans, was willing to give him several seasons to turn the team around. He was a hard worker who insisted on a great amount of control over the team. But at the close of the 2006 season, after angrily denying that he would leave Miami to coach for Alabama, Saban suddenly changed his mind and left anyway, leaving my team in shambles, to go 1-15 the next year.

Now LSU fans don't like Saban because he took on a job as the coach of their big divisional rival. But there are three points to consider here with Saban's treatment of LSU: One, he didn't leave directly to coach at Alabama; he initially left LSU to coach in the NFL. Two, unlike the case with Miami, Saban didn't leave LSU until he had rebuilt their program, even leading them to a national championship. And three, after he left, LSU had a strong enough program to win another national championship with his successor. But Saban left the Dolphins in worse shape than when he found them. Sure, I suppose that, had Nick Saban left Miami to coach for a divisional rival like the Bills or Jets instead of the University of Alabama, it would have irked me more. But the dude, after talking so much about how important character and commitments are, decided that talking is one thing and "walking" is another.

So I doubt that I will ever again support any team with which Nick Saban is affiliated. Not that he cares at all about what I think (or apparently what anyone else thinks, either)...

Muschamp Downplays Rivalries Too Much

As a follow-up to yesterday's article about the Florida-Georgia college football rivalry, I feel the need to discuss the Gators' current head coach Will Muschamp and his puzzling posture concerning school rivalries.

Muschamp has continually and vigorously downplayed the rivals that Florida has faced this year, be they Tennessee, Alabama, LSU, or Georgia. He says that his players train the same way each week and that he simply wants them to carry out their assignments well. If that happens, according to the UF coach, then he will be satisfied and the game will take care of itself, rivalry or not. Muschamp seems to picture himself as somehow above college football rivalries, as if it were something too dirty to involve himself with.

I wonder, though, whether Will Muschamp displays this attitude because he played for Georgia in college and was once an assistant under current Alabama coach Nick Saban when he was LSU. On the other hand, Urban Meyer, Muschamp's immediate predecessor, coming out of Utah in the far west and with his coaching roots far away from the Southeastern Conference, fervently stoked rivalries. I think Meyer was on the right track: there is a lot more to winning football games than simple mechanics. Players need to feel a sense of urgency about an upcoming game against an opponent, and emphasizing that they are playing a rival enhances that feeling. Psychology is essential to good performance on the field. Urban Meyer was also a stickler for mechanical competence with his players, but he understood the need to get them emotionally involved in collectively working to defeat their rival. Will Muschamp needs to get over his professional history and his smugness about the absolute supremacy of mechanics and assimilate this lesson from Meyer, who won two national championships in six years as Florida's head coach.

Florida-Georgia Rivalry, Politics

In the realm of college football, rivalries abound. Some of them get pretty intense, with fighting often breaking out around the stadium among fans of opposing schools. With the Florida-Georgia rivalry, this is partially explained by the fact that they play their games each year at a neutral site: Jacksonville, with each side getting an allotted number of tickets, essentially resulting in neither team having a home-field advantage from year to year. So the unfortunate spin-off of this is that there are more incidents of scuffles between immature and usually drunken fans, supporting opposing teams and acting easily offended at the others' taunts. But there is a larger picture to see regarding this unique arrangement between two proud, perpetually dueling football institutions.

First of all, in college football, having a home game gives a team an enormous advantage over the visitor. Often this results in a weaker team defeating a stronger one, sometimes ruining the better team's title hopes for that year. With Florida-Georgia, though, the stronger team, be it Georgia or Florida, usually wins the game since it doesn't play under the handicap of being an "away" game. So this system favors both schools in the long run as the record has shown: both Florida and Georgia have enjoyed their share of conference and national championships while almost miraculously avoiding stepping on each other, rivals that they are. This year was an example of this: had weak Florida played stronger Georgia at home in Gainesville, they might well have beaten them, damaging the Bulldogs' chances at winning the conference division race.

In a larger context, politicians from the two major parties could learn a lesson from this arrangement. Democrats and Republicans are obviously major rivals, but there are times when they need to sit down at the table and agree to their own arrangements, which are necessary to an effective system of government. Right now, though, compromise and reason seem to be dirty words to those "principled" ideologically-driven politicians who are currently wrecking our political process and damaging our national interests. Too many of them are only concerned about the next scheduled election and what the mass media talking heads are saying about them instead of tending to the people's business.

My Ten Mile Run Today

Anticipating my possible entry in a local half-marathon (13.1 miles) race ten days from now, I decided to step up my running distance today. Well, not initially...my calf muscles felt a little sore from the 8.5 mile treadmill run Monday and I thought that just covering 7 miles would be a good result. But as my run today progressed, I did not feel as if 7 would be enough! So, I kept running until I reached 10 miles and then called it a day. My running time was 1 hr 31 m 46 s, typical of my usual pace.

The weather was crucial in allowing me to finally get back up to 10 miles after several months. Temperatures ranged from 64 degrees at the start to 72 at the end. Likewise, the humidity went from 64% to 57%. As long as it stays like this, I won't have any need to use the treadmill.

As I am writing and publishing this, I have just finished my run a little less than an hour ago. Ultimately, I will judge the success of this run not only by how I did during it, but also how my recovery went. So it will be interesting to see how it goes for the next few hours. Tomorrow I plan to run, but for a mile or so...

High Humidity Still a Factor in My Running

Yesterday morning it was raining throughout the Gainesville area, very hard at times. I decided to wait until the weather cleared up in the early afternoon before I went on my planned long run. Unfortunately, although the temperature remained a wonderful 71 degrees, the humidity still lingered at a high 76% level. So instead I drove to my local YMCA and ran 8.5 miles on one of the treadmills in their air-conditioned workout room.

I have long held that humidity is usually a more important factor in running than is temperature. And yet the great majority of running races (at least here in Florida) take place just after sunrise, while the temperatures are relatively low but the humidity is excessively high (usually 85-90%). They don't have to go overboard in the opposite direction and hold races in the heat of the afternoon (when the humidity is lowest): I would just appreciate it if the races took place later in the morning after giving the air a chance to dry up to a bearable level.

Too high of a humidity interferes with the body's natural process of cooling itself by releasing sweat. I suppose if it is very cold then the body stands less chance of overheating, be the humidity high or low. But I have to scratch my head in bewilderment when the morning temperatures here in northern Florida are well into the 70's, the air is still thick with moisture, and the roads and sidewalks are full of joggers "escaping" the heat by running early.

There is a reasonably decent chance that I will be running in Gainesville's Tom Walker Memorial Half-Marathon on November 12. The race's starting time is 8 AM, just when the humidity is usually at its worst. Last year when I ran it, though, the temperature at the start was a cold 39. I don't think I can automatically count on the same degree of luck this time around, though...

NFL Teams Give Up, Soiling Game's Integrity

We're approaching the halfway point in the National Football League regular season, and already some teams seem to have thrown in the towel and given up after disappointing starts. The Indianapolis Colts, with their franchise quarterback Peyton Manning out of action recovering from neck surgery for possibly the entire season, and the Miami Dolphins, full of excuses for their typically substandard play, are the last two winless teams left in the league. The prize for being the absolutely worst team at season's end? Only possibly the best quarterback to come out of college since Manning, namely Stanford's Andrew Luck. So instead of trying to recover some dignity for themselves and doing what they can to salvage a few wins in the season's second half, I see these two franchises essentially giving up and looking for next year to change. And to me as a fan, I consider that to be a monumental rip-off, as well as a challenge to the integrity of the game. In each game, the two sides should ALWAYS play to win to their utmost ability. But this isn't the only scenario where the game's integrity has been soiled...

A couple of years ago, the Indianapolis Colts seemed destined for NFL history as the first team since the 1972 Miami Dolphins to run through the whole season undefeated. They were within reach of an unblemished regular season when they played the New York Jets in one of the last games. The game was close in the first half, but the Colts' coach decided to bench Manning to "save" him for the playoffs. This gave the Jets the opportunity to come back and win the game. If you're a Colts fan, you're angry at the lost opportunity for a perfect season. If you're a Jets fan, you're angry because their victory was cheapened with Manning's absence. And if you're a fan in general, you're angry because that year the Jets backed into the playoffs over other teams, simply by dint of that "gift" victory.

Sometimes, if a team feels it is still in the running for the playoffs and they need a player at a certain position, they make trades to strengthen themselves. Thus the Oakland Raiders recently picked up quarterback Carson Palmer from Cincinnati to fill in a void created by an injury. But teams like Indianapolis and Miami, after a few losses put them behind in the standings, have apparently decided to sit on their hands for the remainder of the season and do very little to improve themselves. As a Dolphins fan, I feel cheated and offended. Why should I follow them at all??!!

Unit 2 Arabic Vocabulary

This list consists of words introduced in Unit 2 of Teach Yourself Arabic by Jack Smart and Frances Altorfer (Hooder and Stoughton Ltd., 2003). Page numbers are indicated by the numbers appearing on the right of some terms.

سحنا...Hasanan.....well, right, O.K., 41
من...min.....from
في...fii.....in
اﻻسكندرية...al-iskandariyyah.....Alexandria
مصر...miSr.....Egypt, 42
جميلة...jamiilah.....very
جدا...jiddan.....very
القاهرة...al-qaahirah.....Cairo
مدينة...madiinah.....city
كبيرة...kabiirah.....big
و...wa.....and
قديمة...qadiimah....old (of things only) [fem.]
متحف...matHaf.....museum
ميدان...maydaan....square
قريب من...qariib min.....near
فندق...funduq.....hotel
هناك...hunaaka.....there is/are
مطعم...maT:am.....restaurant
ممتاز...mumtaaz.....excellent
طبعا...Tab:an.....naturally, of course
ما اسمك؟...maa ismak/ismik (masc/fem).....What is your name?, 43
اسمي...ism-i.....My name is...
أمريكا...amriika.....America, 44
اليابان...al-yaabaan.....Japan
روسيا...ruusiya.....Russia
واحد...waaHid.....one, 45
اثنين...ithnain.....two
ثلاثة...thalaathah.....three
أربعة...arba:ah.....four
خمسة...khamsah.....five
ستة...sittah.....six
سبعة...sab:ah.....seven
ثمانية...thamaanyah.....eight
تسعة...tis:ah.....nine
اعشرة...:ashrah.....ten
صفر...Sifr.....zero
أنا...ana.....I, 47
أنت...anta.....you (masc)
أنت...anti.....you (fem)
هو...huwa.....he
هي...hiya.....she
نحن...naHnu.....we
أنتم...antum.....you (masc pl)
أنتن...antunna.....you (fem pl)
هم...hum.....they (masc pl)
هن...hunna.....they (fem pl)
مشغول...mashghuul.....busy, 48
هل...hal.....question word
أ...'a.....question word
يبرد...yabrud.....to be, to become cold (verb), 50
بارد...baarid.....cold (adj, not used for people)
عادل...:aadil.....just, upright
لازم...laazim.....necessary
ناشف...naashif.....dry
كامل...kaamil.....complete, perfect
نافع...naafi:.....useful
صالح...SaaliH.....doing right
سالم...saalim.....safe, sound
يتكلم...yatakallam.....he speaks, 51
عربي...:arabi.....Arab, Arabic
هنا...huna.....here

My Health "Crisis" Downgraded to "Condition"

Feeling that I was hurtling head-on into a major personal health crisis, complete with the prospects for major surgery, a slow recovery, and extreme limitations on my lifestyle thereafter, I left my consultation with the University of Florida Shands Hospital specialist/physician/surgeon in "my" area this past Tuesday in a completely different state of mind: my affliction was most likely a natural, life-long product of a condition that I was born with. And with my current age (55), it was normal for signs to begin to surface during routine medical examinations. Well, the prognosis is that I am free to continue living just as I have been (just avoid lifting very heavy objects, not something I wanted to do anyway), albeit with the newly established mandate to monitor my "condition" with prescribed testing every few months. This explicitly means that I am completely free to resume my distance running; so Wednesday, the day after seeing that doctor, I did just that, going out for a leisurely, pleasant 6.26 mile run around my neighborhood. The following day I followed it up with a 5 mile run, and have been running daily since. All with the good doctor's blessings. I am also once again considering running in some upcoming half-marathon races, although my intention is to run at my own pace and simply enjoy the "parade"...

As I get older, I'm sure that as I undergo other routine medical exams, other items will come up and I'll have to integrate whatever treatment is recommended into my life. There is the possibility with my current state of affairs that surgery will still be needed in a few years, but that isn't certain. But even if I do need to undergo an operation, I still face good prospects for a quick recovery and a resumption of my lifestyle (including running, if I'm still interested). As of now, though, the treatment for my condition is...nothing: no medicines, no lifestyle changes. I think I can live with that, thank you...

Gators Try to Bounce Back Against Georgia

There are a lot of doubters about the strength of this year's University of Florida football team going into this Saturday's big rivalry match-up with Georgia. After all, following a big buildup when they easily won their first four games, the Gators have stumbled with three straight losses. Admittedly, they were expected to lose to Alabama and then LSU, the top two ranked teams in the country. But then Florida played Auburn, known for their extremely porous defense, and could only score six points against them. It appeared to me that after being stomped by 'Bama and LSU, many Gator players had lost their confidence, playing more tentatively then with the boldness that epitomized their earlier efforts.

That having been said, first-string quarterback John Brantley, out since the first half of the Alabama game on October 1, will be back, as will explosive speedster running back Jeff Demps. Hopefully, with Demps back, Chris Rainey will go back to his high-yardage efforts. Although Florida isn't known for its wide receivers, I don't think that they are really all that necessary as Brantley is good with the short passes to his tight ends and running backs, who know how to turn short receptions into long gains.

The defense has taken some heat lately, but that is primarily due to the fact that they were outmatched during those two games against obviously more talented and larger teams. Although UF lost to Auburn, its defense actually did a pretty good job containing this team known for its explosive offense and high scoring. Their main problem, as I see it, is their pass defense and their tendency to pile up a lot of penalties.

Although the odds-makers have Florida as a three point underdog to Georgia, I believe that they have a very good chance to reestablish much of that earlier confidence and good feeling about themselves with a victory Saturday. Then again, Georgia hasn't been all that predictable so far this year either, making the game's outcome dependent, I suppose, on which team decides to show up (and play to win)...

Old Office Clerk Job

When I was in my late teens from 1973 to 1975, I worked part-time with my father at a traffic management firm in Miami Shores, just north of Miami. Our jobs were purely clerical in nature, involving sorting papers, revising binders and updating the tariff library. The tariffs were books that indicated permissible shipping rates, as dictated by the Interstate Commerce Commission. The rules governing the rates that various shippers could charge clients to transport their goods from one point to another were all-encompassing and very specific as to the type of commodity being shipped, the starting and end points, and the means of transportation. In this very cumbersome process, it was inevitable that shippers would inadvertently overcharge companies for their services. Some of these companies were clients of the company we worked for. It employed many auditors who would comb over bundles of freight bills in search of any overcharges. If any were found, the auditor would receive a percentage commission for the discovery. This job involved having a great deal of knowledge concerning the very complicated (and continually changing) system of regulated shipping rates, necessitating a complete and updated tariff library. So our little clerical jobs were very important. Then.

Fast forward to now and I wonder, with the instant, vast amount of information available on computers and their ability to manipulate that information according to complex algorithms and mathematical formulas, whether there is even any kind of demand for the type of traffic management company I worked for, much less for my menial clerical paper-pushing job or even those freight auditors. My memories of working there seem now to belong to a completely different era. In contrast, had my part-time job back then been working at a fast-food restaurant or as a stock-worker at a grocery or department store (or as a construction or farm worker), there would have been a continuity of these lines of employment to the present.

It seems that the great push for technological improvement nowadays is to cut expenses by eliminating the need to employ people at a living wage. Ultimately, I see the development of two possible trends, or perhaps a combination of them: one, a society composed of an elite class of the independently wealthy, served by another which performs the menial, low-paying work that supports and serves them. The other possibility is a more socialist society that uses labor-saving innovation for the good of all and ensures that masses of people are not cut off from a decent living just for the sake of the ones with a socioeconomic advantage. It is this conflict between these two very different scenarios that I believe is currently unfolding in our society. I also believe that the people out there need to decide which course represents their own best interests. And then act accordingly, especially at the ballot box, without succumbing to the demagoguery and relatively trivial side issues that permeate and lower political campaigns.

Deer Here

After they had finished their play rehearsal for the evening, I was driving my daughter and her classmate home from their school. He lives in the subdivision of Northwood Oaks, adjacent to my Northwood Pines. For all practical purposes, though, it's all the same suburban neighborhood, here in far northern Gainesville. I also have gotten to know the streets here quite well, as I have ran many, many miles up and down them over the last couple of years. But I wasn't prepared for what I saw as I turned down a street in "Oaks".

It was about 10:30 pm and the fog was beginning to settle down on everything. I drove down a street that crossed over a long drainage ditch. Suddenly, three large deer crossed the street in front of me from the west and disappeared into the mist along the ditch. I had never imagined that deer would be living here right in the middle of my city neighborhood! I don't live out in the country: this is suburban sprawl if anything. Then I wondered where they could have come from, because I had thought that the western border of Northwood Oaks had been completely fenced off. Hmmm, maybe they just leaped over the fences...

This sort of experience makes me want to run more at night. But the humidity is almost always too high then, I'm not too sure of the surface ahead of me, and I'm not at all sure that I am visible enough for the motorized traffic I encounter. I do run around my block sometimes late at night just to get a run in for the day, but that's quite different from charting a lengthy course.

One of the Better TV Channels on History

For the last few days, I have become something of a couch potato history buff, enjoying some good TV shows about various topics. My chief source has been The Military Channel, which has recently become one of my favorite channels. Yesterday they featured shows about famous tank battles. I was especially interested in the Battle of Kursk in July, 1943 during World War II. Taking place on the plains of south-central Russia and pitting Nazi Germany against the Soviets under Stalin, this was easily the largest tank battle in history, hopefully something that will never be surpassed. And today they had a show detailing the extraordinary Doolittle Raid on Japan by the U.S. in April, 1942.

I wish I could rely on The History Channel and History Channel International (recently renamed "H2") for history programming, but they have long lost their primary vision, resorting now to more "present reality" based shows or programming about spurious topics like ancient astronauts. Still, from time to time they'll come up with something pertinent.

I hadn't expected anything historic on the Sci-Fi Channel, but the other day they showed a dramatized movie about the life for true historical figure Prince Vlad of Romania, who was the basis for Bram Stoker's Dracula character. These dramatized movies bother me, though, for I often have difficulty sorting out fact from fiction in them.

All in all, though, The Military Channel is, in my opinion, by far the best choice from programming about history. Hopefully, they will stay focused and not stray as did other channels, for their shows are quite informative and interesting. On the other hand, even this channel is showing some ominous signs of "decay": tonight they featured shows about UFO sightings, Area 51, and "Nazi UFO's"...

Tebowgame

Yesterday afternoon I was driving down University Avenue in Gainesville, just east of the University of Florida. Passing by one of the locally-owned eateries, I noticed what was on the sign out front: Tebowgame Here. I hadn't heard it referred to like that, but I liked it. Tebowgame.

The Miami Dolphins owner and management had decided weeks ago to schedule a tribute to Florida's college national championship team of 2008. Former coach Urban Meyer was invited along with players and staff from that great season. The special ceremonies took place at halftime, and Meyer stood together with the team owner during the game. Of course, the Gator star quarterback from that year was Tim Tebow, who incidentally received his first starting assignment this year as Denver Broncos quarterback for their game today against the Dolphins. Hence the name "Tebowgame".

It was mentioned on the TV broadcast of the game that with the Dolphins organization honoring the Gators, bitter rivals of the home college team the University of Miami, this probably didn't sit too well with UM's most ardent fans, especially with the ceremonies taking place in their own home stadium. But my beef was different: I didn't particularly like the idea of Tebow being in there trying to beat the one sports team that I have consistently rooted for since my childhood in the 1960's.

Tebow, albeit showing some flashes of promise, was generally ineffective for almost the entire Denver-Miami game...and then it got to be late in the fourth quarter with Miami dominating 15-0. Suddenly, "Tebowgame" cranked up into high gear, with the local hero throwing two touchdown passes, scrambling for running yards, avoiding sacks, and then running in himself the two-point conversion that tied the game with 17 seconds to go and sent it into overtime. Then, after Denver recovered a Miami fumble, Tebow kept the ball on the ground with hand-offs that set up their winning field goal. Final score: Tebow's Denver Broncos 18, (sadly) my Miami Dolphins 15.

Denver's win kept them with some slim hopes for reaching the playoffs this year, while Miami dropped to 0-6. I'd like to say that this Dolphins loss was a heartbreaker, but after seeing the game myself I have to say that they pretty much handed the game over to Denver with their own mistakes and deserved the loss.

Maybe Denver can ride the momentum of this win for the coming weeks and end up with a decent season. Miami, on the other hand, is clearly a very sloppy and undisciplined team, quite the opposite of how I thought it would turn out when Bill Parcells was hired in 2008 to turn around the team's misfortunes after a disastrous 1-15 season (after Nick Saban had suddenly deserted the team in mid-contract to pursue his University of Alabama dream coaching job). Well, Parcells has been gone for a while and it looks as if they need another almost complete overhaul. I say "almost" because quarterback Matt Moore, who is standing in for injured starter Chad Henne, was actually quite good (although he was responsible for that game-turning fumble in overtime)...

Gadhafi's End, Libya's Future

Moammar Gadhafi is dead, ignominiously suffering his demise at the hand of rebels in his own home town of Sirte, Libya, paraded wounded though the city and then shot to death in the head. Not exactly what I would call due process, although in a way I understand the statement of utter finality that the rebels were trying to make: this tyrant will never be returned to power.

And make no mistake about it: he would have tried to at least instigate trouble in this land that needs no more trouble than it already has. I believe also that Gadhafi authorized the Lockerbie jet bombing that killed several hundred over Scotland in 1988. Unfortunately, there was no way that "due process" was ever going to convict him of this, but 23 years later, at least we have one less mass murderer in the world to contend with. Let's hope though, that the brutal and barbaric manner of Gadhafi's end doesn't signify the renewal of a cycle of despotic cruelty that is sadly too common in this part of the world.

After all, we really have no idea whatsoever as to which direction Libya will now take now with its "revolution". Sometimes after this type of insurrection, it is difficult for the leaders of the revolt to collectively cool down and change their outlook into one oriented toward a peaceful, civil society. If these leaders begin to see each other as enemies instead of partners with whom to forge a new future for their country, then Libya is in for some dire times ahead. But it doesn't have to go down like that...

The "Who Cares" World Series

I heard that there was an exciting baseball game going on last night. And it was this year's World Series opener, no less. The score was tied 2-2 going into the bottom of the 6th inning when the home team took a 3-2 lead and then held it with near-flawless relief pitching. Let's see, did I leave anything out? ....Oh yeah, the teams were the Texas Rangers and the St. Louis Cardinals. Incidentally, it was the latter who won the game, if anyone cares (I sure don't).

I couldn't think of a duller scenario for a World Series than these two teams. Especially when the regular season clearly demonstrated that the best teams were the Philadelphia Phillies and the New York Yankees. But what we got instead is of minuscule interest, unless of course you happen to either live in or be from the St. Louis or Dallas/Ft. Worth area. I do have one co-worker who is a Cardinals fan, so I guess I'm happy for him.

I predict lousy TV ratings for this series as well as a general descent of collective amnesia upon the public as to who the eventual winner is, as they look back on the 2011 season from the future. In years to come, this may only be memorable as the ultimate "who cares" World Series. Now please excuse me while I stew in my boredom...

Weather Cooling Down Again

Well, once again the weather is shifting a little toward the cooler side: this time it may endure longer. It is currently mid-afternoon as I write this, and the temperatures are currently in the lower seventies, a vast improvement from the heat we've been experiencing over the last couple of weeks. It is also supposed to dip down in the night to the upper forties, much more to my liking.

Unfortunately, my current health concerns are overshadowing the little pleasantries of life that I usually revel in. Maybe the weather change will help me to feel better...

My Health Suffering Lately

For the past couple of months, I have been experiencing some pretty annoying health problems, and one of them is a bit scary. I'm not going to list them here, but please just accept it when I say that it's been an enormous drag on my life for the last few weeks. And, unfortunately, I see no positive resolutions soon to some of the problems (including the scary one).

As for this blog, it has also been more difficult putting out a consistent daily article. For example, I spent most of this morning in bed feeling bad and sleeping, instead of my usual studying/reading/writing time. I'd like to continue with daily entries, but I'll just have to see where the future steers me on this.

So far, I am functioning through my travails, doing what I can to keep up my work and various other responsibilities. But it hasn't been fun, and today was a really lousy one with regard to how I physically felt. Maybe tomorrow will be better...