Wednesday, November 29, 2006

OH YEAH!!



Truly a game for the ages! I was hoping for a close game...one where both teams were in it until the end...and that's exactly what we got. It was a hard-fought game, and a surprisingly high-scoring one.

I'm gonna take a second to respond one last time to the complaints by Michigan fans that the officials cost them the game. If you want to blame somebody, blame Shawn Crable. His helmet-to-helmet hit on Troy Smith would have been called by just about every official in the country, and let me show you why.



Here we have Smith after his release heading out of bounds. Notice Crable coming in with his head down.



And here we have Crable hitting Smith. The top of Crable's helmet made contact with the side of Smith's, knocking Smith's head back.Folks, that is a textbook example of the type of helmet-to-helmet qb contact that officials will call every single time especially going out-of-bounds.

Was the call influential to the game? Certainly, since it was on a third down and gave OSU a first down, and instead of the drive ending with a punt it ended with a score. However, you simply cannot say that Michigan would have won that game were it not for that call. The Buckeye's were up 35-31 at that point

And while I'm at it, any talk of a rematch in the National Championship game is ridiculous. "But it should be the two best teams in college football!" are the cries I hear. The two best teams at the time played and OSU came out on top. The Super Bowl rarely features the two best teams in the NFL. That game is usually played as one of the AFC playoff games.

I feel just a bit for Michigan fans right now because they're feeling what we felt during the Cooper era. The rivalry will live on and we'll play again next year.

GO BUCKS!!



Friday, November 17, 2006

ONE MORE DAY!

In honor of tomorrow's game, a few selections from my gallery:









Thursday, November 16, 2006

Only Two More Days



Just a little over two days from now the Buckeyes and the Wolverines will be taking the field at the Horseshoe for one of the biggest rivalry games of all time. I have savored every moment of this week knowing that I will likely never witness a game this big again. The build-up here has been surprisingly quiet, which is very unusual for Toledo this time of year. If I had to guess as to the reason I'd say it's because both sides realize just how huge this game is and there's a hesitation in bringing the smack talk because the abuse after the game could have one jumping off the high-level bridge. I've actually exchanged more smack talk online with friends than in person. I have a feeling it will all come out tomorrow though as the weekend finally hits and there is a little more tolerance for flags, hats, ect.

I've been an NFL fan since I was very young. My interest in college football has been gradually building over the past ten years, especially after the 2002 season. I've been to two football games so far: in the Dawg Pount for the last game of the 2002 season for the Cleveland Browns (when they locked up a wild card playoff spot with a thrilling win over the Falcons), and the OSU game against Minnesota last month. Between the latter and this week's buildup to The Game, I have to say that the NFL has nothing on college football in terms of excitement. I have literally been twitching at times this week in anticipation of this Saturday.

Looking forward to another collection of Tressel-era scoreboard pics...







GO BUCKS!!

Saturday, November 11, 2006

Veteran's Day


Today is Veteran's Day (also known as Armistice Day). I am actually sitting down to write this at 11:09AM and will pause in two minutes to say a prayer of thanksgiving for those who have fought and served to protect this country and promote freedom over tyranny, particularly those who have given their lives to that end. It is both fitting and sobering that Veteran's Day comes so soon after election day in this country, for at once we are reminded both of the liberty we have to participate in the governance of our nation and the fact that there are those in this country who trample on the service of our armed forces by working to progressively erode and annihilate the very freedoms they died for.

May the Lord bless our troops and our veterans.

Thursday, November 09, 2006

"Classic" Games

I am long past the days when I kept up with the latest hardware and jumped at the chance to play the latest games as soon as they came out. That died when I left college, back when I played Descent for hours on end over the campus network and then later Quake II. Sure, I've enjoyed some great games since like Quake 3 Arena, Unreal Tournament, Jedi Knight/Academy...but I simply don't have the time to play as I once did.

Well, I've since found myself longing to play some of the old games again. It started when I finally tracked down a copy of Willy the Worm and Sleuth, two games I used to play all the time on the old Kaypro 8088. Not to long ago I stumbled upon an online version of Zork, another classic I used to play on the old Kaypro (I still remember the day in fifth grade when I actually won the game!). I had some great fun revisiting my youth playing these games.

I have since found that, true to my mantra, you can find anything on the Web (anything, that is, except a picture of the battleship version of the USS Enterprise NCC-1701D from the ST:TNG episode Yesterday's Enterprise, but that's another story). I've come across utilities and mods to be able to play Duke Nukem 3D, Descent, and several other older games on Windows XP thanks to the ingenuity of some avid gamers and programmers.

My coworkers and I have found that these games run quite well on our laptops, so now we have impromptu mini-LAN parties on lunch breaks. Ahh...takes me back to the good old days...

Wednesday, November 08, 2006

Post-Election Thoughts

I am what would be categorized by the media as a member of the "religious right." I am one of those "intolerant religious extremists" who does not believe in the right to kill unborn children or euthanize the elderly or disabled, does not believe that Darwinian Evolutionary Theory should be taught as unchallenged fact, does not believe that the Constitutional language designed to keep the state out of the church means the church must be kept out of the state, and does not believe in the socialist view of entitlement. So, needless to say, yesterday's election was rather depressing.

That being said, from the state-level standpoint I'm disappointed but not distraught. Though I would have preferred Blackwell, anything is better than Taft. I am disappointed in how Betty Montgomery was smeared with the unfair and unwarranted guilt-by-association with Tom Noe. Gotta hand it to the Democrats...they were able to use the failures of just two men, Bob Taft and Tom Noe, and milk it for all it was worth. They removed several capable, good people from office and replaced them with unqualified novices and political hacks. We'll see how that works out for them (and unfortunately we pay the price if it doesn't).

From the national standpoint I'm not at all happy. If you had told me eight years ago that Nancy Pelosi would be House Speaker I would have told you that the people of this country are not crazy enough to let that happen. I still shudder at the thought. But from a historical standpoint you gotta remember that prior to the "Contract with America" election in 1994 the Democrats had controlled Congress for 40 years. That in and of itself is a mixed bag considering that 40 years saw an incredible decline in moral values, but good things still came out of that era. Now however you have a Democratic Party which is much more liberal-socialist, and looming large is the 2008 Presidential Election. Given what just happened with Pelosi I can no longer say that the people of this country are not crazy enough to elect Hillary Clinton as President, and until I see a strong candidate emerge from the conservative ranks I cannot say that there's anybody who will convincingly beat her. It will be interesting to see whether the Republicans put forth the candidate which best represents the views of the party or the candidate they think has the best shot of beating Hillary Clinton. I'm willing to put money on the latter, and I actually think they have a better chance of winning by focusing on the former.

What scares me though is the possiblity of the White House and both houses of Congress being controlled by liberal Democrats, especially if a liberal majority is achieved at the Supreme Court level. I am very concerned about what that means in terms of personal liberties (more on that in a second) and the fact that there will very likely be a further expansion of the welfare state with such things as National Health Care. NHC was Hillary's pet during her husband's administration, and the majority gained by the Republicans in Congress in '94 was a major factor in keeping that from coming to fruition. Now that such a roadblock may no longer be there if Hillary is in office two years from now, I would not be surprised to see it be pushed again. God help us if she succeeds.

The state issues were what I was most concerned with yesterday. I am opposed to a minimum wage law to begin with, so there was no way I was going to vote for what was a ridiculously structured perpetual minimum wage increase. The entire notion of having the most grossly inefficient and cost-ineffective entity in the entire world (the US Government) dictate financial policy to the businesses which have made this the most prosperous country in the world is so insane it's almost comical.

Then you have the smoking issues. These were the ones I thought about the most before Election Day. I avoided the ads as much as possible and focused on the issues themselves as they were written. What it came down to for me was that Issue 5 said "no smoking in public at all" and then gave a list of a few exemptions that the state would "graciously" grant the people, whereas Issue 4 said simply it would place restrictions for smoking in certain public places in the interest of public health but let everything outside of those restrictions fall under individual liberty. Two fundamentally different views of governmental function, and I think unfortunately many conservatives didn't understand it in these terms. The reason I say that is because, as I later learned, Issue 4 was "written by Big Tobacco" and the perception was that if the big evil tobacco companies endorsed it then it must be because it allowed them to kill more people...or something like that. Heaven forbid they endorse it because it wasn't as socialist, or *gasp* because it didn't go as far in outlawing their product (since of course the people are mindless and are forced to use their products).

Days like this make me happy I'm a Christian, trusting fully that God is in complete control and that nothing falls outside His sovereign providence. Does that mean this country will not continue down the path that will ultimately lead to its demise? Of course not. Nations rise and fall, and as ours has risen so it too shall eventually fall. But I am a citizen in a Kingdom not of this world, and my King sits at the right hand of the Father and reigns even now. One day His Kingdom will be fully consumated and I will be among my adopted brothers and sisters living in the everlasting immediate presence of the Lord God.

"For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us." - Rom 8:18 (ESV)

Thursday, November 02, 2006

90 Seconds of Middle East History

I was browsing through the Calvinist Gadfly site and came across this presentation of the conquest history of the Middle East. It certainly gives an interesting perspective on the history of this region and under whose control it has been.




Please visit the original blog entry for some very relevant Scriptures about God's sovereignty over the rise and fall of nations.
Troops Fire Back



Never underestimate the resourcefulness of the troops stuck in Iraq, Mr. Kerry.

(psst - your election campaign ended two years ago. you lost. get over it.)