Eagles Should Have Played: I’m With Rendell

Note: After writing this I reconsidered my opinion. I am leaving the original up, but you should read the comments which were important in my decision. – Geoff

The Philadelphia Eagles play the Minnesota Vikings tomorrow night. The game was originally scheduled for Sunday night at 8:30 PM. At game time nearby Philadelphia International reported visibility of 3/4 mile in moderate snow and blowing snow. The wind was out of the northwest at 21 mph. It was 25&#176.

Under anyone’s sense of the word it was cold… brutally cold in Philadelphia. It was unpleasant to be outside. For those improperly prepared it was dangerous!

The game shouldn’t have been postponed!

Speaking on KYW-TV in Philly former Philadelphia Mayor and current Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell said,

This is football; football’s played in bad weather. I think the fans would have gotten there, the subways work and the major arteries are still open, and other fans would have stayed home – but you play football regardless of the weather.

He’s right even though the current Mayor had declared a State of Emergency in the city.

If I was broadcasting in Philadelphia I would have encouraged viewers to stay home. People would have anyway! The game would have still been available on TV staffed by a crew ready for bad winter weather.

I’m an Eagles fan. This delay probably benefits the Eagles. It makes no difference.

It’s unfair to the other NFL teams who’ve had to suffer through pass deflecting winds, frozen fields and limited visibility.

The Giants Should Have Known

All week the forecast called for a chance of snow Saturday. By Wednesday it became “likely.

Just in case anyone asks the Minnesota snowstorm that took the New York Giants by surprise was well forecast. This is an embarrassment for the Giants and NFL and a pain-in-the-ass for everyone else.

All week the forecast called for a chance of snow Saturday. By Wednesday it became “likely.” Winter Storm Watches were issued Thursday. A Blizzard Warning was up on Friday.

On The Occasion Of Rocky And Bullwinkle’s 50th Anniversary

As animation goes Rocky and Bullwinkle was déclassé. This was no Disney romp with full foreground and background movement.

Fifty years ago today Rocket J. Squirrel took flight for the first time from Frostbite Falls, MN (before Minnesota was even abbreviated MN) launched by his buddy Bullwinkle Moose. As a kid I watched this show religiously. It was always funny, always sharp.

As animation goes Rocky and Bullwinkle was déclassé. This was no Disney romp with full foreground and background movement. The characters was sketched. The backgrounds were static. There are 30 frames per second on TV. There’s no way there were 30 drawings per second on this cartoon.

Rocky and Bullwinkle lived and died on the strength of writing and acting. The pen and ink skill was far behind in importance.

Here is what’s probably my all time favorite YouTube clip: A medley of Boris Badenov, featuring June Foray, Paul Frees, Bill Ward and William Conrad.

Intrade’s VP Scoop–We’ll See

I am paying attention because I sense Intrade is insightful.

The New York Observer’s website has “Intrade Loves Pawlenty’s Chances” as a headline this evening.

What kind of day has Tim Pawlenty had? The kind where your value on the Intrade Republican vice-presidential future markets shoots up by more than 50 points — while your chief opponent’s stock plummets by 31. The Minnesota governor is now trading roughly where Joe Biden was just before word of his selection by Barack Obama broke.

I don’t know a lot about Tim Pawlenty. Oh, who am I kidding? I don’t know anything about Tim Pawlenty. However, I am paying attention because I sense Intrade is insightful. It’s a conversation I had online last night with my friend Farrell. Intrade now has Tim Pawlenty as the prohibitive favorite to be John McCain’s vice presidential running mate.

We’ll know more tomorrow or over the weekend. Can you beat the wisdom of crowds? In the Internet era, can 60 million Frenchmen still be wrong?

I’ll Be Bushed For Christmas

We are still really short of people at work. It’s no one’s fault. I can deal with working a little extra from time-to-time. I am exhausted.

Last night I worked through 11:35 PM. Today, I was in for the noon news.

It is Christmas. The TV station carried NBA basketball all afternoon and much of the evening. I had lots of time between the noon show and 10:00 PM.

As is the tradition, we went to the movies (with Stef) and then had Chinese food! The restaurant was full of other ‘treeless’ people.

Today’s movie was Juno, from director Jason Reitman. This is a quirky movie with interesting production techniques. It’s the story of a 16 year old girl from Mankato, Minnesota who gets pregnant.

This is a dark comedy, artfully written with clever dialog. The words and thoughts may be too sophisticated for a 16 year old, but I bought into it anyway.

Ellen Page as Juno was perfectly cast.

This is not a movie for kids or a picture to be taken lightly. And, though the ending isn’t exactly storybook… and with the subject matter, how could it be… it was a very satisfying film.

Mr. Wizard Dies

Helaine sent me a link a few minutes ago. Don Herbert, Mr. Wizard, has died.

Here’s what I wrote about him three years ago.

Don Herbert had a profound influence on my formative years. He was “American Idol” for many 1950’s nerds. He’ll be missed.

Continue reading “Mr. Wizard Dies”

No Mas – No Mas

No mas – No mas

I’m sure you’ve heard about the SoBig virus. This isn’t the one the big boned kid from Minnesota got arrested over (he’s with one of the variants of Blaster). SoBig is one of those virii that penetrates your email and then tries to propagate itself by emailing itself to everyone in your address book.

What makes SoBig particularly nefarious is that it spoofs where it’s coming from. So, if you were infected, you might send out hundreds… maybe thousands of emails, but they wouldn’t have your return address, they’d have someone elses… like mine!

As far as I can tell, that’s just what’s happening. If it weren’t such a huge pain in the ass, the funny part would be that the messages bouncing back to me (which I didn’t send) are coming from my direct business competitor, WFSB.

Here’s a short sample of what I’ve gotten hundreds of times already:

This message was created automatically by mail delivery software.

Message violates a policy rule set up by the domain administrator

Delivery failed for the following recipients(s):

newsdesk3@wfsb.com

—– Original Message Header —–

Received: by mail1-haw (MessageSwitch) id 1062729730176807_24713; Fri, 5 Sep 2003 02:42:10 +0000 (UCT)

Received: from L-39C (mail.jcj.com [216.224.41.148])

by mail1-haw.bigfish.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id E51C011659E

for ; Fri, 5 Sep 2003 02:42:07 +0000 (UCT)

From:

To:

Subject: Re: That movie

Date: Thu, 4 Sep 2003 22:42:07 –0400

X-MailScanner: Found to be clean

Importance: Normal

X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 6.00.2600.0000

X-MSMail-Priority: Normal

X-Priority: 3 (Normal)

MIME-Version: 1.0

Content-Type: multipart/mixed;

boundary=”_NextPart_000_01AB1BB8″

Message-Id: <20030905024207.E51C011659E@mail1-haw.bigfish.com>

So, what can we learn from this?

First, the network administrators for WFSB (who are listed in Internet directories as actually being from their parent company Meredith) ought to know that SoBig spoofs return addresses and stop sending these bounces. Most other companies have followed that policy of benign neglect.

Yes, bounces are important in normal times, because people would like to know when mail they sent didn’t arrive. But, with this virus, it is obvious from the contents that this isn’t a ‘real’ message.

Second, the headers show that the mail is coming through the mail server at jcj.com, a Hartford, CT architectural firm. It would be nearly impossible to spoof jcj.com because there is a ‘handshake’ with information traded back and forth when the WFSB server gets the mail. If the address were spoofed, there’d be no response and the transaction would end before the mail was sent. Jcj.com shouldn’t be letting this message pass their server… which seems to be happening dozens and dozens and dozens of times.

I sent a letter to the WFSB mail admiinistrator a few days ago. Nothing. Maybe I should let them know I’ll start charging for my services should they send any more of these my way, I wrote jcj.com tonight. It’s too early to expect a response, but they should have nipped this a long time ago..

Meanwhile, it’s another waste of time. Thanks.