links for 2007-11-01
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Coming up on Nov. 8
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ha!
The first spring training game...
To hold me over (for today at least), I dug up Bill Mueller's walkoff homerun from 7/24/04.
You know you want it..
It actually feels busier to me than before. The whole top section is baffling to me. Why is the boston.com logo in the middle? Why is the Boston Globe logo on the right?
What is the hierarchy of the content? The top right of the content section (the prime real estate on the page) has as it's top 3 items: Q&A with Steve Almond, Miss Conduct and Style Blog links??
Some content sections on the page have sub-navigation (i.e. Cars): really?
Why do the items only in the My Community section have icons?
What is up with the 3 lines of dots as section separators?
What is the deal with only the items at the right side of the main navigation have sub-navigation (in a weird little box)?
The one thing boston.com always keeps consistent is it's complete lack of consistency in the underlying sections:
Today's Globe: Lives as a subsection under the News section and is using the old design
News, Business, Sports, Travel, A&E: Use old design and suddenly has sub-navigation which doesn't appear on home page. Note: this means there is no way from the home page to go directly to the Red Sox only page in the Sports section. Spring training is still 4 months away, they have time to fix that one.
Events: Goes to it's own section with unique design - navigation inexplicably moves to left, not all the options are there and is vertical!. I liked it much better at the top of the page where you could select a date and see events.
Real Estate and Cars: when you go to the section, it maintains the same main nav, but has alot more sub-nav than the home page, and completely different page layout
Jobs: Completely different main nav
Local Search: Inexplicable secondary set of tabs as navigation (and the 3 lines of dots for section separators from the home page)
Note: the main navigation options are in a different order in the new design vs. the old design. Very annoying if you are flipping back and forth between the home page and the other sections.
And would it be SO hard to have the Ideas section found in the Sunday paper as a section online? I LOVE that section, but online those articles are all over the place.
The FAQ states: "Different features and sections of the site are scheduled to debut on different days. While we realize that this might be confusing in the short-term, we’ve studied our options carefully and believe that the gradual switch we have planned will ultimately result in a better user experience." A. Think again. B. We're not idiots. We know this is just easier for your technical staff.
Can't wait for the first day with the glaring blinding orange background add for a certain cell phone provider!
Boy, could that man write
and that would be college hoops. There are no other sports outside of baseball and college hoops for me.
And I AM FIRED UP. I've got my Real Women Wear Orange shirt on.. and 3 freshman are rocking my world in their win over St. Joe's, like it hasn't been rocked since a young man named Carmelo Anthony debuted in Madison Sq. Garden for the Orangemen 5 years ago (where has the time gone?).
Rick Jackson
Johnny Flynn
Donte Greene (don't compare him to to Melo - there is only 1 Melo)
welcome to the fray!
Add these to my boys Devendorf and Paul Harris (played with Johnny Flynn in high school - hello!) and I'm ecstatic.
Last time a Syracuse team started 2 freshmen they won the national championship... just sayin'. I still miss Gmac...
Our road to avenge the tournament snub last year has begun.. 2-0.
heal up Andy Rautins...
Thanks for reading. Hope you are all warm and save, sitting comfortably in stretchy pants.
Recently I realized I have got to get more organized. So far this effort has consisted of reading: Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress Free Productivity (so I've had the book 3 weeks and I'm on p.20 - shut up! I've had the 7 Habit of Highly Effective People for probably going on 7 years now). Anyway, in the first 20 pages I've learned that you need to write things down. So I got myself Day Timer and have an official to-do list - on paper, not just in my head.
Earlier this week I opened up the list and found an incredibly easy task: set up eye doctor appointment. I need a contact lens exam to get a refill of lenses. So I make the appointment and was feeling quite pleased with myself. Right up until I realized I had done an incredibly dumb thing in the name of being organized: I had made the appointment for today, the Saturday after Thanksgiving and my appointment is at Lenscrafters: in the mall. Yes, I have voluntarily set myself up to go where I never, ever go. The mall the weekend after Thanksgiving.
I set off for the mall early, anticipating the full parking lot, the driving endless loops around looking for a space, and when one is discovered, the mile long walk. But none of that happened. I parked in the second row from the mall door. Is this the bizarro world? The mall is most definitely not swarming with people . What is going on? Is Xmas a bust? Folks are running around madly overspending on crappy gifts? I'm now officially afraid for our economy. Our stupidity in overspending and going into debt is what keeps us afloat!
On my way back to my car, I passed through Sears. They seemed to have non-stop deals and specials being announced on the PA. "All appliances are on sale!" "Deals in the toy department!" "All appliances are on sale!" I guess nothing says Merry Xmas like a new dishwasher. And then: "Attention shoppers. Any customer who comes to the home goods department in the next 5 minutes will receive a free
stainless steal knife! No purchase necessary. All you have to do is show up with a smile". Are you friggin' kidding me? Frazzled Christmas shoppers with knives? In what universe was this a good idea? I have to get out of this mall..
I'll glaze over the part where I went to Lenscrafters and they informed me they were going to charge me $120 extra dollars as a fitting charge for the contacts - even though I already have contacts - because I hadn't purchased them there. I said: that is absurd. I'll just go back to the place I got the ones I have, who never charged me that. Note: this means the entire trip to the mall was mute.
I am so not in the holiday spirit...
today I put the iPod on shuffle and rediscovered how mind blowingly brilliant Bob Dylan is.
It's Alright Ma (I'm only bleeding...)
Darkness at the break of noon
Shadows even the silver spoon
The handmade blade, the child's balloon
Eclipses both the sun and moon
To understand you know too soon
There is no sense in trying.
Pointed threats, they bluff with scorn
Suicide remarks are torn
From the fool's gold mouthpiece
The hollow horn plays wasted words
Proves to warn
That he not busy being born
Is busy dying.
Temptation's page flies out the door
You follow, find yourself at war
Watch waterfalls of pity roar
You feel to moan but unlike before
You discover
That you'd just be
One more person crying.
So don't fear if you hear
A foreign sound to your ear
It's alright, Ma, I'm only sighing.
As some warn victory, some downfall
Private reasons great or small
Can be seen in the eyes of those that call
To make all that should be killed to crawl
While others say don't hate nothing at all
Except hatred.
Disillusioned words like bullets bark
As human gods aim for their mark
Made everything from toy guns that spark
To flesh-colored Christs that glow in the dark
It's easy to see without looking too far
That not much
Is really sacred.
While preachers preach of evil fates
Teachers teach that knowledge waits
Can lead to hundred-dollar plates
Goodness hides behind its gates
But even the president of the United States
Sometimes must have
To stand naked.
An' though the rules of the road have been lodged
It's only people's games that you got to dodge
And it's alright, Ma, I can make it.
Advertising signs that con you
Into thinking you're the one
That can do what's never been done
That can win what's never been won
Meantime life outside goes on
All around you.
You lose yourself, you reappear
You suddenly find you got nothing to fear
Alone you stand with nobody near
When a trembling distant voice, unclear
Startles your sleeping ears to hear
That somebody thinks
They really found you.
A question in your nerves is lit
Yet you know there is no answer fit to satisfy
Insure you not to quit
To keep it in your mind and not fergit
That it is not he or she or them or it
That you belong to.
Although the masters make the rules
For the wise men and the fools
I got nothing, Ma, to live up to.
For them that must obey authority
That they do not respect in any degree
Who despise their jobs, their destinies
Speak jealously of them that are free
Cultivate their flowers to be
Nothing more than something
They invest in.
While some on principles baptized
To strict party platform ties
Social clubs in drag disguise
Outsiders they can freely criticize
Tell nothing except who to idolize
And then say God bless him.
While one who sings with his tongue on fire
Gargles in the rat race choir
Bent out of shape from society's pliers
Cares not to come up any higher
But rather get you down in the hole
That he's in.
But I mean no harm nor put fault
On anyone that lives in a vault
But it's alright, Ma, if I can't please him.
Old lady judges watch people in pairs
Limited in sex, they dare
To push fake morals, insult and stare
While money doesn't talk, it swears
Obscenity, who really cares
Propaganda, all is phony.
While them that defend what they cannot see
With a killer's pride, security
It blows the minds most bitterly
For them that think death's honesty
Won't fall upon them naturally
Life sometimes
Must get lonely.
My eyes collide head-on with stuffed graveyards
False gods, I scuff
At pettiness which plays so rough
Walk upside-down inside handcuffs
Kick my legs to crash it off
Say okay, I have had enough
What else can you show me?
And if my thought-dreams could be seen
They'd probably put my head in a guillotine
But it's alright, Ma, it's life, and life only.
The Best and Worst 80's Videos...
The winners surprised me. I didn't think there was anything more cringe inducing than Don Johnson's 'Heartbeat'. And wouldn't it be fitting if 'Video Killed the Radio Star' had won best video? It was the first video ever played on MTV.. it's been all downhill from there.
As an aside: what is Safety Dance about? "We can dance, we can dance.. everybody look at your hands?" WTF? Clearly springs from the same pharmaceutical place which brought us 'Everybody Wang Chung Tonight'.
Trent Lott is resigning. Am I the only one thinking: what horrific scandal is he trying to avoid being discovered. This is a man who didn't resign over the Thurmond nonsense.
AND
Al Gore is going to the Whitehouse. Seems there is a little ceremony to congratulate Nobel Prize winners. I so want to see Bush's expression.