10 thoughts for December 1, 2013

I have a lot of thoughts going through my head, all the time.  Here's my way of getting a bunch of them out of my head, without taking the whole day to write long form.

1. Do people shop for gifts or for themselves during Black Friday weekend?  I never buy gifts on Black Friday or Cyber Monday -- I do shop for myself, though.
2. The most important socialist in the world: The Pope.  Why, just last week he issued a Papal Exhortation saying that Man does not serve Capitalism, but that Capitalism serves Man, with the intention to improve the lives of all, not just a few.  He is a Jesuit, after all, and is trying to carry over his constant acts of charity into his papacy.
3. IKEA now sells an induction cook top...for $999.  If I had a house with a big enough kitchen to separate out my cook top and ovens, I'd get it.  Faster, more even heating than anything else out there.
4. Speaking of IKEA, Portland IKEA is serving roast beef with mushroom sauce for this month's special.  Too bad I've been too busy to take the day off and get out there.  I think I might have some time this week, though. :D
5. If point differential (points scored minus points allowed) determined a team's ranking, the 5-7 NY Jets would be second to worst in the NFL with a -121 point differential.  Their 5-7 record is heavily misleading.  Some other 5-7 teams: Pittsburgh @ -15; Tennessee @ -3; St. Louis @ +1; San Diego @ +2.
6. For a very long time, I'd thought that Gus Malzahn would make a great head coach at USC -- I suggested that USC hire Gus Malzahn when Pete Carroll left.  It does not surprise me that Auburn is now the top SEC team.  Too late to hire him now.  Back then, he was just an offensive coordinator.  Just his first year as head coach and he's turned a 3-9 team into a 11-1 one.
7. Vanderbilt's James Franklin as a potential head coach at USC?  I don't see it.  Half of their eight victories were against teams with a combined 5 wins (Austin-Peay, UMass, UAB and Kentucky), and the only victory over a team with a winning record was against Georgia.
8. Boston Globe reporters demonstrate that they don't know what "back-end" means.  The front-end of the ACA federal website was never broken.  What they meant to say, is that a portion of the back-end hasn't yet been fixed -- the part of transmitting correct data.  That should strike some folks as odd, because medical XML should have been standardized and therefore a very easy thing to code to send to insurers, and if US insurers haven't standardized their XML after a decade, the whole healthcare situation in the US is truly f'd up.
9. Comcast must think people are idiots.  Do they really believe that people will stop cutting the cord if they allow people to watch videos off the internet and use voice commands on their TV DVR boxes?  All it proves, is that they in fact can deliver TV over IP and that they have the crappiest remote control.
10. On the last game of the season, following up with the bad news that one of their players died from drowning earlier in the morning, Hawai'i finally won a game -- the only game of the season.  By the way, did you know that they renamed themselves from the Rainbows ('Bows) to the Warriors to the Rainbow Warriors?