Author: Stagger Lee

I love our guys, but the dream of 2009 is officially dead. Winter is coming.

Also, I hope every ref in that game gets leprosy and their daughters all run away with drummers.

Turns out iPad day was a red letter day for sports. A pair of two seeds went down. Only four 15s have ever won a first round game, all between 1992 (Santa Clara) and 2001 (Hampton) – but in a three hour span, Norfolk State took down Missouri only to be surpassed by Lehigh definitely outplaying Duke. Against that, Ohio over four seed Michigan was almost an afterthought, never mind 10-7 upsets like Purdue over St Mary’s and Xavier over Notre Dame.

It’s a bloodbath. At least my bracket is still leading the friends group (I’m dead on the blog brackets) by virtue of a couple solid upset picks, but the two game lead isn’t going to get me far. Good job I have the Yahoo Tourney app on this thing.

Because this post is brought to you, of course, by the new iPad. Fingerprints notwithstanding, it’s looking good so far. Performance has definitely improved from the original, though not radically so – I suspect most processing improvements have been in graphics rendering rather than raw CPU speed. I did buy the dark gray SmartCover, which is so far so good I suppose. It’s nice having the auto lock and the easy prop-up. Connection with the AppleTV is working after a couple of false starts – happy anniversary, Harto – but GoodPlayer isn’t putting the shady copies of Sherlock Season 2 up on screen. Nor does AirPlay really work for mirroring video, although this would work a treat for Keynote presentation.

The thing shipped with 80% battery life, and was still in the 60s after all the setup and iCloud restore. Then of course I got it home and had to start from scratch with the iTunes library, but I think we are set now. Books are in the Kindle app, there are PDFs in the iBooks app, the Economist has the last two issues ready to read, and there’s video cued up and ready to watch. The other effect of finally owning this has been to unload most video off the iPhone – horses for courses. Even the lo-def video looks good, although using a nice high-contrast black and white film like Good Night and Good Luck may be cheating.

Most of all, though, it’s the size of a magazine, it weighs a pound and a half, and it adds to the sense that I’m living in the future. I didn’t take the laptop out of the bag tonight. I may not take it out of the bag at home again unless I’m working from home. I’m glad I waited a couple of years for the super-HD display and the HUGE battery to drive it. I’m also glad I got the Verizon 4G – can’t wait to give it a spin on the road to DC next week.

This is the DynaBook. It really is. This is the dream that a nontrivial chunk of Silicon Valley has chased for the last forty years. And programming tools aside, this is it – hell, Jef Raskin’s original vision for the Mac didn’t involve programming, it was damn near a utensil itself. Time to go back and re-read Insanely Great and see what the plan was, because this – which you can climb on for as little as $400 now – may have hit the nail on the head.

All that’s left is to pair the Bluetooth keyboard and get going.

When I graduated from Vanderbilt, Gil Amelio was still technically the CEO of Apple, the stock was still stooging around 15 or so, and you could be forgiven for thinking the name of the company was “Beleaguered Apple Computer.”  Now, once again, people are lined up around the block.

The funny thing to me is that people only line up around the block for the iPhone and iPad.  There’s not a mad run on the Apple stores for a new MacBook Air or a new iMac. And I don’t remember this kind of madness for the previous generation of Apple goods, or even for the iPod in its heyday – largely because, for the most part, a lot of those things were announced as “and this is on sale TODAY.”  I wonder if the week or two between announce and release was a deliberate move to get the free advertising from the lines at launch – actually I don’t wonder at all.  Steve was no idiot.

But the lines form for the iPhone and iPad, because they are personalized in a way computers never were.  Even the most cozy cuddly 11″ MacBook Air is running UNIX and is a multiuser system.  The iOS devices are a throwback to the original Mac – there’s no login (aside from the security code), there’s no multiple user IDs, there’s no computer-ness between you and the interface.  Just touch, and go – full screen, the way ‘Er Indoors prefers to compute.  The iPad has become the first truly personal computer – something as close to you as your phone.

One of these days, I’m going to sit down and look at my life in the future, twenty-five years on from when I first really started to think about it.  It’s amazing how much of it looks like something I might have imagined, right down to the do-everything handheld and the car with the red light from the dashboard idling while I look at my future-Ironman and wear my future-Barons hat.

Once again a mass of sports distraction before taking delivery of a new Apple gadget.  Only this time instead of John Isner and Landon Donovan, it’s Shaka Smart and John Jenkins delivering the goods.  Once again, Vanderbilt with a heroic postseason victory despite a less-than-100% performance; they let Harvard get in, stay in, hang around and almost battle back, but stout defense from Ezili and TWENTY-SEVEN POINTS from the Man In Black (and Gold) kept things on the right track.  Wisconsin on Saturday – a 4 seed, meaning that everything is gravy the rest of the way.

Meanwhile, at last check, the iPad is…(checks Apple Store)…in San Jose for two hours now.  So I’m definitely going to take delivery tomorrow at work, and it should be simple to get things going since I have a backup to restore with all my apps and a guest wireless account to make sure I get on without any hassle.  The real trick will be putting it down long enough to get some sleep Friday night before running the 5K on Saturday…

Look, any pundit who seriously thought Mitt Romney had a prayer in Alabama and Mississippi is stealing money.  A Yankee Mormon whose conservative credentials are suspect and who basically created Obamacare: The Phantom Menace?  This is where I remind you that the Mormons are a cult, according to Southern Baptist doctrine.  Of course he finished third.  He’s lucky to have been that high up.

More interesting, though, is that Santorum lapped Gingrich to win both states.  This should be the death knell for Gingrich, although that will only come when his rich casino backer decides to stop stroking checks for him.  But apparently everyone is finally tired of the same old shit we’ve had for twenty years from the original Republican FIGJAM – and so, once and for all, the final Newtering is complete and Little Ricky Sweatervest has finally won through to claim the mantle of Anybody-But-Romney.  Which is interesting, because for a Pennsylvania Catholic he’s pretty much locked up the fever-swamp-South wing of the GOP…which, in 2012, basically means “the GOP outside Wall Street.”  Which means once again it’s all-in against the homos, the wetbacks, public education, and that slutty slut Sluticia S. O’Slutbag and her birth control pills.

I like Obama’s chances.  Never say never, and keep the passport topped up, but I have a hard time thinking that there’s a big population of undecided voters that will say “wait, pre-Vatican II Catholic social thought is EXACTLY what this country needs for me to get a job!”  A notional Santorum ticket will do GREAT in the Confederacy, but that’s not enough states to win anymore.  And as always, this time, the Union has the hydrogen bomb.

If you’ve already had an awful day before you can even get into your office, the move is to turn around and go home. Going into work is only asking for trouble. Personally, the high point of the day was having a needle in my arm and the blood tubing draped completely across my body for an hour.

I need Jesus, and an In N Out 3×2.

5-12 matchup.  Against a 12 that should have been seeded higher.  And of course it’s Harvard.  Hope people enjoy a game with actual student-athletes playing against other actual student-athletes.

Proof, again, why this is the greatest event in sports?  Friends represented this year by: UConn, Notre Dame, Michigan State, Colorado State, Virginia, Syracuse, West Virginia, Ohio State, Alabama, Cal, Michigan, San Diego State and Kansas.  And that’s just off the top of my head.

And I have officially come around 100% on the “First Four” simply because it means two games Tuesday night and two on Wednesday.  WALL TO WALL MADNESS.

On to New Mexico!

 

ETA: Kevin Stallings has cleared himself of the charges, as far as I’m concerned.  He did figure out how to coach this team up – brilliantly, today – and he managed not to waste the most talented Vanderbilt team in a lifetime.  Jury’s out on recruiting, but we always knew this would be a rebuilding year and we can wait one season basking in lingering glory before we hunker down to it in 2013-14.  They responded to the pressure of expectations.  That’s good enough for me.

71-64.

Final.

UK’s Anthony Davis, likely the the national player of the year, was outscored by three different Commodores, including Player of the Game Jeffrey Taylor and SEC Tournament MVP John Jenkins.

I have watched these kids for five years now, more and closer than I ever did any Commodore team in the years after leaving Vanderbilt.  In 2006, I finally talked myself into believing it was okay to claim Vandy as my own, and I went all-in.  I’ve seen a breathtaker in Moraga and a heartbreak in San Jose, and that’s just in person.  I have perched on the edge of the sofa, curled into a ball in front of the laptop, done deals with every higher power known to man, frightened the neighbors and annoyed my family to no end.  I have been emotionally invested in this team in a way that never happened when I was there, even.  I let them break my heart.

And today, it all paid off.

That’s a banner.  That’s a ring.  That’s a trophy.  That’s history.  That’s never going away, no matter what, even if we endure another sixty-year drought in the conference tournament.  Today, we are on top of the pile.

I know I’ve said that the problem with being a fan is that the high of winning is never as high as the pain of losing is low.  Well, let me say through the tears of victory (and the snot of victory; it’s allergy season): I was very, very wrong.

I don’t care what we do in the NCAA tournament.  I don’t care what happens next year.  We could go 0-27 next year, and that banner will still be hanging in Memorial: 2012 SEC CHAMPIONS.

John, Jeffrey, Festus, Brad, Lance, Steve, Kyle, Rod, Dai-Jon, Kedren, Shelby, Josh, James, Jordan, Aaron.  Our heroes.  Thanks for making it happen.  At long, long last, this fandom’s paying out. =)

I had my second run on the smoker today.  Couple of pork shoulders went in at 8 AM, a couple racks of ribs in front of them at noon, and by 6 PM it was dinnertime.  No sauce, just a rub of the wife’s devising, and nothing fancy on the wood – just white and a little red oak. And like last time, it went down a treat with the people to whom I fed it.

There’s a pattern forming: rub down the pork shoulder the night before and put it in a bag in the fridge overnight.  Come up with a gallon of Arnold Palmer somewhere – either bought in a jug from Safeway or just get a bottle of tea and a bottle of lemonade from Whole Foods and mix.  Plus coffee to start off with.  And the fire gets lit at 7:45 and is usually good to go just in time to insert the aluminum pans with the shoulders in them at 8.  Then tend the fire for a while with Absolute Radio’s Rock and Roll Football coverage, including the whole of Ian Wright’s call-in show, which takes me through to about 11.  After that, just play music on the iPhone, catch up any remaining podcasts, doodle around on the computer, read the Kindle.  Open and rub down the ribs at 11:45, on the rack in the smokebox at noon, and then it’s just sitting around waiting and tending the fire.  Don’t let it drop below 150 or get much over 180, and I still don’t have a really good sense of the wood.  The afternoon wasn’t as predictable as the first time, and the fire seemed to run hotter.

It’s also cold. I don’t know how much of that is just cool weather and overcast skies, how much is sitting still in a reclining chair at 8 AM, and how much is made worse by the Arnold Palmer blend, but my designated smoking outfit tends to be a t-shirt, then the soft-shell, then a canvas jacket over that, creating the look of a heavy work coat.  Which makes sense to me; a blanket-lined Carhartt is about what I’d expect to wear running a smoker in winter.  Makes for a lot to wash when I get home, though – the wife claims that the smoke effect is if anything stronger (though less unpleasant) than the days when I’d come home having smoked two cigars.  I’m a little curious how it’s going to be this summer.

I’m also a little curious how the iPad is going to work out.  I have Wi-Fi in the yard where the smoker is, so that’s not a problem, and the iPad should last a hell of a lot longer than the MacBook Air has done.  Will I end up with iPad and iPhone running simultaneously?  Probably.  Might still staff out books to the Kindle just for battery purposes.  But no matter what the reading material (or surfing options), it always adds up to a quiet, relaxed afternoon with plenty of five-space.  Time to myself in a good cause – or at least a good cause as far as the folks at dinner are concerned.

There’s very little to it.  All the work is in assembling the rub and applying it to the meat.  Once the fire is lit and the meat’s in its box, the rest of it is just hanging out waiting with an eye on the thermometer and occasionally pitching a log into the firebox.  No basting, no swabbing, no rotating anything – the smoke does the work and I just sit there with my feet up.  Odd, that I should find a new hobby less than a week before turning 40 and take to it so readily, but I admit I have – it’s almost dead solid perfect, even if it means getting out of bed at 7:30 Saturday morning.  It gives me alone time and plenty of it, followed almost immediately and of necessity by social time.  I don’t even need that much of the meat myself – but there’s plenty to go around, and I cooked.  I never cook.  At best I might throw a steak on the grill for ten minutes. But this is dinner I made, and people like it, which is gratifying and positive reinforcement for the future. And there’s one imperial shit-ton of wood already there, enough for at least a half-dozen more runs.

Once a month, minimum.  Not a bad habit to get into.

The wife directs me this morning to this blog post, which makes a case that people who are not that smart are incapable of recognizing that they are not that smart.  With nontrivial consequences for things like, oh, democracy.  Or climate change and the denial of same.

If you have been reading this blog longer than about thirty seconds, you will realize that I find this shocking NOT AT ALL.  Couple that knowledge with the fact that one political party in this country has been hard at work milking the venom of anti-intellectualism for decades now, and you can see not only how we got in this mess but why our prospects for escaping it are limited at best.

To complete the parody quote from the title… “I see dumb people. Walking around like regular people. They don’t see each other.  They only see what they want to see.  They don’t know they’re dumb. All the time.  They’re everywhere.”

And they will be the death of us, if we let them.