2 Plane flights and one day-long conference workshop later, I can finally relax and bask in the beauty of the internet. Oh how I've missed you these past few days, you bearer of oddball facts and breaking news that the Red Sox are waiving Manny Ramirez.

The workshop and talk went well. I got to hear lots of funny stories at lunch, specifically many "Dijkstra Stories" about how Mr. Shortest Path likes to go to conferences and, seeing that a student is presenting a paper for the first time, ask questions that begin with things like "Well when we solved this problem 10 years ago..." or say something like "Can you explain to me why you've done such worthless work?" and then walk out the door before the stunned M.S. or PhD candidate recovers in time to say something.

Luckily, neither Dijkstra nor Tarjan nor Leslie Lamport nor Wacky Don Knuth were present for my talk, and the questions were much gentler.

California was an odd little place, or at least the tiny little bit of California that I saw: the San Jose airport and Doubletree Hotel 3 tenths of a mile away. For one thing, while we have ads in our airport with Daisy Fuentes on them, in San Jose they have ads with FPGAs and microchips on them. Lots of them.

They also have all their network TV shows on an Eastern Time schedule, but their ESPN stops showing Sportscenter at 10 AM. The morning's not over yet, guys, keep it rerunning!

The water flows in reverse when it goes down the toilet there, also, and while it is becoming winter here in the STL, it's becoming summer in the OC. Or maybe that's Australia.

Speaking of, there were people from all over the world listening to my dynamic and exciting talk, including Australia, the Netherlands, Austria, Delaware, and a guy from Finland who began his talk by saying "I just flew in last night from somewhere with a 10 hour time difference, so if I sound tired up here it's because I'm jet lagged, not on drugs".

But now I've traveled forward in time back to St. Louis, and even though my body thinks it's only 7 PM, for some reason I'm exhausted. Back to work tomorrow.

The long, strange trip begins tomorrow, although I guess it's not very long. I fly out to San Jose tomorrow night, give my half-hour talk on Wednesday afternoon, then fly back midday Thursday. I'm being bankrolled by the department, so I'm sure I'll be dining on filet mignon or surf and turf while I'm there.

While I'm gone, you'll need some entertainment to keep you occupied. I recommend finding it at the official site of the homosexual cross-dressing baton twirler of the Central West End. While dining in the CWE on Friday night, I saw not only him but also a pair of midgets. Needless to say, it made my day.

And of course, there's always this.

So it seems that Tuesday Morning Quarterback will be coming back, although not here on the Festival as I had hoped. Thanks to Brian for pointing this out.

In other news, I've used the magic box to record a couple of songs. I've posted an acoustic version of the venerable favorite Got to Get Her Out, but I've decided not to release the other recording as of yet, thanks to Jim's senseless H4xoring. Enjoy.

Now for this week's NFL picks. I trounced Lucas/Lisa last week, so perhaps he should go back to letting Lisa do it all for him.

NYG at MIN: If this game were not in the friendly confines of the Metrodome, I might be tempted to pick the Giants. But if ifs and buts were candy and nuts.... MIN

CLE at NE: Oh the Patriots. Although they are my favorite team, I find it so hard to pick the outcome of their games lately. I just hope they can beat the Browns, because they are truly pathetic. NE

CAR at NO: Getting to the upset special early this week, I'm going to pick the Saints, overrated after beating the Falcons last weekend, over the Panthers, overrated because of their record. Lucas accuses me of picking non-upsets as upset specials, but I think 3-4 over 5-1 counts. NO

DAL at TB: Everyone thinks the Cowboys will win this game because they've beaten up on a bunch of crappy teams and the Bucs have a beat up secondary. It doesn't matter. TB

TEN at JAX: The Titans have become much more predictable lately, and now they're playing one of the worst teams in the league (sorry Lisa). TEN

DEN at BAL: Oh geez, this is a tough one. Denver's starting a 4th string quarterback, while Baltimore's starter would be a 4th stringer on most other teams. Both teams have all-world running backs and good defenses. I still give the edge to Denver. DEN

DET at CHI: In the battle of the crappy, only one can be the crappiest of all. Detroit hasn't won a road game in 3 years. CHI

SEA at CIN: Cincinnati actually looked good last week, and Seattle is overrated...nah, it won't happen. SEA

STL at PIT: All of a sudden, people are tripping over themselves to praise Mike Martz and the Rams, when really they should be praising the schedule-makers. Anyone can put up 30+ points against Atlanta and the Indoor Green Bay Packers. STL

SF at AZ: All that rest won't help the Cardinals get any better. SF

HOU at IND: The Texans almost pulled it out for me last week, but their last-second pass attempt clanged to the turf. It won't be nearly that close this week. IND

NYJ at PHI: How the Jets have won 2 in a row, I will never know. PHI

BUF at KC: KC and Cryin' Dick Vermeil should have lost on Monday night. Now they play Sunday night, but they play at home this time. KC

MIA at SD: The Chargers are terrible, how did they get a Monday night game? It's not even like they were good last year, they just suck. MIA

michael came up with the great idea of writing a Gameboy Advance game, and we decided that the best way to cross-merchandise would be to make a platform game (because the platform genre was the gold standard for all video games) based on Apartment 12: The Movie.

michael, David, and I would be the characters of the game, of course, and you'd get to choose which one to play as just like in Super Mario Bros. 2. Just like in Mario 2, however, we would each have our own strengths and weaknesses.

I need some help coming up with my video game alter-ego's strengths and weaknesses, though. For example, mine could be the quickest (and shortest) character, but not be able to climb to higher platforms due to his dizzying fear of heights. Anyone have any ideas? Keep in mind the game is based on the plot of Apartment 12: The Movie, so it would involve a lot of extreme sports (and possibly Tony Hawk's name on it, if he doesn't notice, because teenagers love Tony Hawk).

It is a weekly ritual of mine to, while eating my lunch on Tuesday mornings, log on to ESPN.com (no link for reasons I will expound upon later) and read Gregg Easterbrook's column "Tuesday Morning Quarterback". The column is always insanely long, clocking in at approximately 6500 words, with lots of pop culture nonsense and science-geek commentary to go along with his coverage of the past weekend in football.

You can imagine my surprise, then, when I log on today only to find a short note on ESPN's Page 2 that says Tuesday Morning Quarterback will no longer be on ESPN.com. There had to be an explanation, since I was under the impression that Easterbrook was one of ESPN's most popular columnists.

After a bit of digging, I discovered this article, which reveals some sort of scandal that erupted last week over an entry in an Easterbrook blog item in The New Republic where he made some anti-semitic comments.

To which I have to say: Screw you ESPN. I don't condone anti-semitism, but these comments were made in a totally different venue, one that isn't exactly Good Morning America as far as public awareness goes. In fact, I'd wager that 99.9% of Tuesday Morning Quarterback readers were like me in that they did not hear even a tiny murmur about this "atrocious controversy". Just because it's on the internet where billions of people have access to it doesn't mean that billions of people read it.

So because of these comments on a site I've never read, which some on Slate are now saying are more of a case of bad wording than rampant anti-semitism, I can no longer read my favorite weekly football column. Were the comments in the context of football like Rush Limbaugh's? No. Were the comments in an ESPN-sponsored venue? No. Were the comments read by the vast majority of ESPN.com readers? No. Did they cause a public outcry? No. Screw you ESPN.com.

UPDATE
Because by ESPN.com's logic, anything posted on the internet is read by everyone, I will make the following offer to Gregg Easterbrook, who I'm sure is reading this post: If you'd like to continue writing Tuesday Morning Quarterback columns, I would be more than happy to post them on my site. I will even copy-edit them, add comma splices to match my own writing, and add photos taken from the internet. Sure you won't get paid, but your voice will still be heard! (and my traffic will increase thousandfold)

I have just about had it with the WashU shuttle service. Last year I rode the shuttle every day and it was always on time, and I mean always. Considering varying traffic, it was uncanny how often it came exactly when it was supposed to. However, often the drivers drove recklessly, listened to loud or bad music, and the shuttles seemed blocks away from breaking down.

This year, WashU subcontracted out control of their shuttle service to an outside company. Normally, you would expect WashU not being in control of something to be a good thing. However, this has certainly not been the case. The shuttles have been replaced with space-age steel crafts with a fancy stop notification system and a digital route display. The drivers no longer listen to horrible mix tapes, and they even drive a little more carefully. The problem is that the shuttles are now hopelessly off schedule.

And "off schedule" is a bit of an understatement. Today I waited over 20 minutes for a shuttle to take me to campus. This is unacceptable considering that the buses leave every 15 minutes. The evening shuttles, when the schedule shifts to 30 minute intervals, are even later. And by the time they arrive, they are so crowded that no one can fit on them, but that's no big deal since the next shuttle is literally trailing right behind. How is this useful? Instead of a shuttle every 30 minutes, we get 2 shuttles every hour at the same time. Splendid.

I understand that construction has caused traffic to pick up, but this has been going on all semester. You would think they would start running more buses or something rather than just allowing the ones they have to be ridiculously late every single day.

As Nathan pointed out, a large group of us took a trip to the City Museum last night to check out the opening of the new caves. They are indeed very impressive. Even if you've seen the rest of the offbeat museum, it's hard to describe how cool the new section is. There are lots of great crawl spaces, impressive designs, and even huge 10-story spiral slides (only a few stories of which are currently functional). Rumor has it that Aaron, David, michael, Swing-Dancin' Amy, Jim, and Nathan were the weblogishly-blessed that were in attendance.

Lisa and I are still tied (I no longer credit Lucas with any of his website's successes), so we're in for another tight week. Here are the picks.

GB at STL: This one should be a good game, and lucky David gets to go watch in person. Whether in person or on TV, the Packers won't be able to stop the Rams indoors. STL

NE at MIA: As hard to predict as the Pats have been this year, this one's a no-brainer. The Patriots haven't beaten the Dolphins in Miami since Pete Carroll or Bill Parcells were coaching. MIA

DEN at MIN: If this was in Denver and if Jake Plummer were playing then things might be different, but Minnesota is at home, coming off a bye, and playing against Steve Buerlein. They might have trouble stopping the run, but they'll have no trouble stopping Buerlein. MIN

PHI at NYG: Which underachieving team will win? Well the Giants lost to a respectable Pats team last week, while the Eagles lost to the overrated Cowboys. NYG

TEN at CAR: Another compelling matchup. I still can't figure out how the Panthers are unbeaten with Jake Delhomme at QB. It should all fall apart today. TEN

NO at ATL: No one outside of Atlanta may realize it, but this is a big rivalry game! These were the crucial matchups that used to draw celebrities like M.C. Hammer back when he was a celebrity. These Falcons are definitely not too legit to quit. NO

BAL at CIN: Whichever running back the Bengals trot out there, be it banged-up Dillon or Who Dat Rudi Johnson, Ray Lewis will kill him and eat his children. BAL

SD at CLE: Yuck, it's the Snoozer of the Week. And to think there are markets in the US that will be forced to watch this game. The Chargers will beat somebody this year, and it will be the Browns. SD

DAL at DET: I hate to say it, but I think the Cowboys will be 5-1. Oh, what a cream-puff schedule can do for you. DAL

NYJ at HOU: The Jets won their requisite game last week, so it's back to not running or stopping the run. HOU

WAS at BUF: Ah, the two most schizophrenic teams in the league face each other. The Bills have been horrible the last couple of weeks without Moulds, while the Redskins just may have been playing a little over their heads at the beginning of the year. BUF

TB at SF: As expected, the Bucs rebounded from their Monday Night Collapse with a convincing win last week. The Niners have looked pathetic so far and don't look to change this week. TB

CHI at SEA: The Bears make a quarterback change, but until they change head coaches and offensive coordinators, it will be the same old lack of offense for them. SEA

KC at OAK: All this time I bet you were waiting for my upset special, well here it is! OAK

Just so no one is confused, there is no Curse of the Bambino. If you had taken 100 people off the streets, 99 of them would have taken Pedro Martinez out of the game after his shaky 7th inning. The last one, of course, would have taken him out giving up the double to Jeter in the 8th. Not one of them, no matter how ignorant or dumb, would have left him in so the Yankees could come back and tie the game. No idiot but Red Sox manager Grady Little would have done that. There is no curse but the curse of Bad Managing, which both the Cubs and Red Sox have plenty of right now.

Today I interviewed with Microsoft and they did not ask me a single brainteaser or problem-solving question. So disappointing.

Thanks to my undiagnosed stomach ailment, Red Sox night games, and a recent series of job interviews, I have not had time to go to the gym very much this semester. In fact, if I had to guess I'd say I've gone to the gym twice since school started. As a result, I can feel myself getting lighter and heavier in all the wrong places (my arms and stomach, respectively).

My girlfriend probably wouldn't be too happy if I ballooned to 200 pounds, but more importantly my basketball skills are suffering as a result of my lack of exercise. The problem is that on Tuesdays and Thursdays I have class at night and on Mondays I play basketball in the mornings so I don't feel like working out at night. This leaves Wednesdays the weekend to lift, and I'm usually too lazy or busy on weekends.

I never used to be lazy about working out, but that was usually because I had people to work out with, so I felt obligated to go regularly. Now that I am only obligated to myself, I often allow myself to slack off. Does anyone have any good suggestions for keeping up a workout schedule on my own?

Here at the Festival, I've decided to take one from Schnucks' playbook and lock out all of my employees. Because of this, I will need replacement employees for the following positions:

Copy Editor
Graphic Designer
Editorial Writer
Daily Beat Writer
Dancing Monkey

Keep in mind, your period of employment lasts until I decide to end the lockout, which is the craziest part of this little grocery store escapade, in my opinion.

The normal employees were upset, threatened to walk out, then got locked out, but would it really be that hard for the Schnucks company to just hire all new workers? Everyone is looking for a job these days, and it doesn't exactly take a Master of Science to scan items in the checkout aisle (and I should know, I held this position at a Kroger food store in Georgia for 3 weeks). Why, though, would someone take a job that will end without warning sometime very soon? Obviously they need the money, but Schnucks always has a Now Hiring sign up, why not apply for a job before all this mess happened?

I crossed the picket line today, as my lunch today consisted of a smoothie due to my lack of food. As Bart Simpson would say, I was even out of all the basic elements of food, having eaten all the tarragon and drunk all the soy sauce. The picket line wasn't much of one, though, as it consisted of one guy standing out by the street with a placard on, who wasn't even really paying attention to anything. I would feel much worse about supporting an evil and heartless corporation if not for the fact that I needed food. Schnucks supplies me with reasonably-priced foodstuffs on a semi-weekly basis, what have their employees ever done for me?

Like the Red Sox and the Yankees, at least for another 2 hours or so, Lucas/Lisa and I are all tied up. That makes this week's picks even more important.

NYG at NE: Which Giants team will show up for this one? Which Patriots team for that matter? NYG

CHI at NO: We're down to the Jets and Chargers now as the lone teams without a single win after Chicago's rousing comeback last week. The Saints may have a win, but they've played like they've been in a coma all season. NO

TB at WAS: That hacking sound you hear is the Bucs continuing their monster choke from last Monday. They will be pissed for this game, which either means lots of stupid penalties or no chance for the 'Skins. TB

MIA at JAX: It's a matchup between Florida teams, but the question is how long can Ricky Williams carry the ball 40 times a game before his knees end up in the condition of most other Floridians. MIA

OAK at CLE: Woof, the dog pound in Cleveland will be watching a couple of mutts in this game. The Raiders suddenly look like a bunch of 40 year olds trying to play football. CLE

PHI at DAL: When will the insanity end? PHI

KC at GB: All the elements are ripe for an upset here, so I'll make it my upset special. GB

HOU at TEN: Of course, the one game I think I can pick correctly involving the Titans, they end up losing. TEN

CAR at IND: Carolina is not good enough to be undefeated this late in the season. IND

PIT at DEN: I can't of a single thing to say about this game. The Steelers are the definition of mediocrity, yet might win their crappy division anyway. DEN

BUF at NYJ: The Bills almost lost to the Bengals last weekend, but I already did my upset special for this week. BUF

BAL at AZ:

Stop Everything

While watching the Sox and Yankees, I've just been treated to the sound of Johnny Damon grunting as he dove back into first base, thanks to a microphone in the base. Thanks Fox network.

BAL at AZ: The Cardinals and Ravens win this week's boring matchup of the week. BAL

SF at SEA: So the Seahawks are back down to Earth with the rest of the league. Unfortunately for the Niners, they reside somewhere below that. SEA

ATL at STL: This looked like a such a good idea in July, when the Rams were a super bowl pick and the Falcons had Michael Vick. As it is, it's Doug Johnson vs. Marc Bulger, the 2-headed monster of Dunn and Duckett vs. Lamar Gordon. STL

Wow, it's been awhile since I made an appearance here. I've been quite busy in the Real World© (not to be confused with MTV's The Real World), so I haven't had much time to post. Sadly it looks like it will only get busier around here.

This past week I made all my arrangements to go to San Jose, set up software for cs531, wrote a Microsoft Paint-esque Java program for Advanced User Interfaces, and took a 3 hour test of my programming skills as part of applying for a job at Epic Systems.

Next week I have 3 job interviews plus all of the usual things that keep me busy. I'll try to find some time to post a bit more often though, especially if the Red Sox can beat the Yankees.

Oh those crazy Red Sox. They can never just win an easy game. Instead they take a 4-1 lead, then slowly blow it, only to allow the opposing team to load the bases with 2 outs in the 9th inning down by one run. Somehow they managed to pull it out, extending my misery for another week, but I don't know how much more of this I can take.

So yesterday marks the 4th straight WILD that I have skipped. As for the school not allowing kegs, the only reason there is any fuss is that the school has allowed them in the past. No other school sponsors a drinking binge-fest for their students. In fact, most schools actually discourage underage drinking. I know most of you WashUers may find that hard to believe, but there is a whole other world outside of this bubble.

On to the picks. We won't discuss last week's showing. Not at all.

MIN at ATL: The Vikings are due to lose one of these weeks, especially with Gus Frerotte in, but the Falcons are in shambles right now. Rumor has it that Onterrio Smith will be stealing some of Moe Williams' carries, which is just ludicrous. He's the X-Factor, the best player in the NFL, why would you have him touch the ball less often? MIN

TEN at NE: Oh my poor Patriots. Injuries are taking their toll and Tom Brady looks rather pathetic. Usually it's tough picking the outcome of Titans games, but this week I get a bit of a break. TEN

MIA at NYG: The Giants are a very strange team to read. One week they're out-physicaling the Rams, the next week they lose to Bill Parcells' absurd shorts. September is over, so it's not automatic win time for the Dolphins yet, but Ricky Williams is a beast coming off a bye week. MIA

NO at CAR: The Saints are a walking joke right now, and they're hurt. I keep picking them and they keep losing, so I'm reluctantly going with the favorite here, even though I'm not sold on the Panthers offense yet. CAR

CIN at BUF: The Bills have fallen apart, and Joe Burns at running back is just not working for them, but the Bengals are without Dillon and the Bills' D should be able to cover Chad Johnson. BUF

OAK at CHI: The Bears will win one game this year, it's just a matter of picking which game it will be. Not this one. OAK

AZ at DAL: I'm going with this as my upset special, simply because the Cowboys are just not good enough to be 3-1. AZ

SEA at GB: The weather is starting to get colder, so the Packers start to gain that home field advantage. Not quite yet though. SEA

DEN at KC: If Denver had Clinton Portis 100%, I'd go with them. As it is the Chiefs still have Priest "Second best to Moe Williams" Holmes. KC

SD at JAX: David Boston and his cornucopia of attitude problems return to the field just in time to face a really crappy team. Could this be Leftwich's first win? Sure. JAX

DET at SF: Everyone is picking Detroit in this one. Sure San Fran has been pretty bad, but Lucas always says never to pick Detroit. And people, they haven't won a road game in 3 years. SF

WAS at PHI: Another team I'm not sold on quite yet is the Redskins. This would be a huge statement game for them, but unfortunately that statement is going to be "not quite ready to win the big one yet". PHI

CLE at PIT: The Browns this year's 2002 Bears. They overachieved last year, but now are returning to where they should be: last place. PIT

IND at TB: Could it be...a decent Monday Night Football matchup? Like the Super Bowl, Monday Night games usually are early blowouts, leading to 2 hours of inane Maddenisms about turducken and cankles. TB

Since Lucas does not have space for comments, I'll elaborate on my own idea for the Wisconsin quarter design here. Wisconsin, as everyone knows, is the badger state. Therefore, without further ado, I present my* design:

* Note: Actual design stolen from the internet

I've been much too busy this week, both with job related things such as infosessions and interviews and with assorted work related to CS531 and the aforementioned paper (currently titled "Harry Potter and Memory Gestures in Java" for maximum marketing). Next week looks to be a bit lighter, as I have no interviews or job-related things, but I do have to make arrangements for the trip to San Jose, wherein I will have to present my research to a bunch of smart CS-type folks looking to rip holes in my arguments bigger than my deficit in the NFL picks last week. Hopefully I can convince Ron to sweet-talk the department into funding Lucas along for the ride as well, if nothing else for moral support.

But the other, more important, source of my sleeplessness and stress has been the Boston Red Sox, whom Major League Baseball decided to schedule for a 9 PM CDT playoff game on Wednesday night. After coming agonizingly close to winning, the Sox blew their lead and went into extra innings, enough extra innings for the game to go on until 2 AM CDT. Luckily I won't have to worry about losing much more sleep because of them, since they are scheduled to be eliminated from the postseason at 6:30 PM tomorrow night.