My bathroom reading of late has been a book I picked up at Half Price, Prometheans in the Lab (Another one of those history of chemistry books I tend to pick up.) I had just finished the chapter on Norbert Rillieux the guy to whom you probably owe your sugar addictions.
Then earlier today, I found this article (via metafilter) on Harry Coover the guy responsible for super glues (Also a question subject at either TRASH regionals or nationals).
The common thread between these two: Both are 2004 inductees into the National Inventors Hall of Fame

Unfortunately, they won't be able to save the team rap.
Stingrays are moving to Florence.
The key quote in this story is true, but really, for our sport, the convention center is pretty close to perfect, on a facilities basis.

I had been wondering if the state quarters program was eventually going to lead the Mint down into the spiral death trap that a lot of state lotteries are in, namely the notion that constantly changing the product is the only way to keep the product selling well. Problem being it only works the first couple times, then you start losing people, but you can't stop doing the action in the first place, not realizing either way you'd lose people. This story indicates they're well on their way down that path. I know I can't wait for my Chester Alan Arthur gold dollar. (Now the government says it's worth one dollar, but an investment like this means it could someday be worth... one dollar.)

Finally, I had had enough issues with ABC's plan to turn adoption into a reality show already (Think "Million Dollar Chance of a Knifetime: Solomonic Edition") , but this just pushed it into the stratosphere. (Admittedly, simply adding the notion of Uri Geller vaguely trashy is kind of like having a can of whipped cream in fridge, you can add it to any dessert to make it better.) And I'm sure I won't be the first to point this out but: Shouldn't he have known this was going to happen?

Okay, I get the feeling that my favorite coach to loathe, Tom Coughlin, is going to have plenty to scream about. First, we combine the stylings of ABC's The Bachelor looking like he's got a coach planted bullseye, following the Eli Manning signing. Add to that this bachelor, who I have to guess is going to turn the locker room into the lost season of Coach. I'd always gotten a sort of Bull Meechum vibe off him, and now, I can just see him bouncing footballs off Snee's head.
(I guess I don't loathe him as much as I just enjoy watching him suffer. Plus, it's hilarious to see him screaming on the sideline and dub in your own quotes from Ross Perot.)

Apparently Walt Whitman also burns down trees and knocks down your soul. But wait, there's more! ( 1 | 2 | 3 )

On numerous occasions Craig and Joe and Mike and I have kicked around the notion of what we'd do should the money start rolling in at extreme levels. This is where the notions of Kidder's Casino and House of Wacky Prop Bets (today's wacky prop bet: Which would be first: tournament at CMU ends, or Steelers first draft pick). Joe's plan simply consisted of getting a franchise of Vichy, the Montreal buffet where I consumed 13 different types of meat in a meal. The reason I bring this up, is because if that ever happens: This will NEVER happen to you, and that's a promise from me, to you the customer.

Draft day. And you know, if it weren't for my broken TV, I might have just skipped out on the tournament. (Not that I would really, but, you know, when things are running well, I mean really running well, and you realize you're that cruising so well, it's occasionally hard to feel like you're not slightly redundant in making it work.) Having the ESPN web feed in the tab room really helped, though I doubt I'll ever find out if Dennis Green, in picking Larry Fitzgerald, actually had the look of Rottweiler contemplating a raw steak.

So, it's hard for me to figure if the Steelers actually got a steal or not in round 1. I had sort of mentally conceded that Rothlisberger was not going to be available at 11, and was starting to worry that Rivers (who I had eventually picked as the second best QB, but likely the 3rd to go) was going to be headed to Cleveland (crazy talk, I know, given they just picked up Garcia, but it was looming in my head.) So when I heard that Rivers was gone at four, Rothlisberger felt like a step down, despite me initially thinking he was the one we wanted. Equally crazy, but one cannot expect fandom to be balanced by logic on draft day.

My main concern now, is why I'm worried about Rothlisberger. I think I can sum it up in the following three unreasons.
1. Rothlisberger is just not a name I trust on a quarterback. That many letters needs to be across the shoulders of a lineman, otherwise it's going to read "LISBERG" and a blur of arm motion.
2. Similar to this, I really don't know if Myron can pull an entire season of "And look at that pass by Rothlisberger." Myron dodged the Fuamata-Ma'afala bullet by cutting it to "Fu". I don't see a similar easy trim here. Roth doesn't quite work, and I suspect much mangle and "yoy" in his future.
3. I'm still stuck on the fundamental beauty of what the Steelers plan had to have been with Philip Rivers. Take him, force kicker Jeff Reed to change numbers, and then give it to the quarterback. How perfect would it have been to see on every Sunday at the confluence.

RIVERS
3

Thing of beauty I tell you.

I was well aware of the presence of "Turn off your Television Week", one can't traverse through most of the link collectors listed on the left side of this page without it. I was also fully ignoring it, which makes the events of this evening all the more ironic. About two minutes after turning it on, the picture tube in my TV blew out. Somehow, I find myself more worried about someone thinking I actually did follow the advice to kill my television. At best, at this point, it's going to be an assisted suicide.

Maybe, I can just claim television addiction. Since this article seems to indicate to me that the next plan for addiction experts is to prove to themselves that everyone is addicted to something.

And the Warhol-Campbell's Soup cycle completes itself.

The story here is going to be interesting. On one hand, the security issue is paramount, and frankly that should be the final decision. On the other hand, having gone through there this past week, it's clear that Airmall can't survive economically without the hope of non-passenger revenue. (I'm not sure it's viable even with the added revenue, but it held its own prior to 9/11, so we grant it a shot.) And given the tight monetary ties between USAirways, the Pittsburgh airport, and the county and city have with each other, any number of them could be overleveraged to the point that should one fail, they all do. (And given some of the other stories swirling in town, this may get swept away.)

You know, I'm this close [puts his thumb and forefinger close together] to just up and declaring him the Pompetess of Fraught. This may be the tipping point. Already in the throes of the hardest fall since either Gino Toretta or Wiley Coyote, Maurice's legal strategy appears to be to climb right up to the top of the mesa just in time for Paul Tagliabue to sneak up behind him and go "meep meep."

In other fraught news. I can pretty much write the Fosters ad now. FRAUGHT. BEER.

And for those of you who believe in the power of other curses, we might just get the wreck of the Larry Fitzgerald.

They found Saint-Exupery's plane.

From the Hot Stove League...
Okay, it was already touched on on Countdown, but I'll bring it up, given I'm also suffering a cooking related injury, I figure it's fair game for me. I can't believe this level of stupidity. Frankly, a chef should know better, and the fact that he's the self-proclaimed Naked Chef... well, that just makes it comedy gold. I mean, I can't even imagine frying bacon without long sleeves.

From the Crazy Dictator Department...
Turkmenbashi decides to open up another front in the rap war. This is seen as a call and raise over recent actions by Hugo Chavez.

From the Things that sound much better when you're drunk Department...
Japanese scientists make it sound better for everyone's sake.

A good thing.

Karma got me again. Just when I thought we had pulled off a very good, very solid tournament, I sliced my finger open while making dinner. These things seem to happen to balance it all out. So I'm typing slowly.

It is a bit hard to parse some of the accolades from this one. After all, we already know that it's insane to expect that doing the same thing over and over again will result in different results. And yet, from my end that's exactly the problem. People are claiming there was a great improvement in trash, (admittedly it's secondhand opinion, since most of the comments came from people who didn't attend), and yet, nothing at any point in the process changed to any significant degree. Outside of them being different questions from last year.

Well, I guess it's a nice problem to have.