The Phantom City

Almost forgot about Friday catblogging. Let’s see:

After 25 hours of pregame show — seriously, it was 25 hours — the LSU Tigers beat Mississippi State 45-0 in college football. I only caught part of it, but I wasn’t exactly impressed with LSU’s offense. Not sure why so many sports pundits are picking them to play in the national championship. I think this is the same team that didn’t even win its half of the SEC last year, except this year they have a worse quarterback. And, let’s not forget, they still have Oklahoma State’s old coach.

Anyway, MSU’s QB threw six interceptions, which is impressive. Of course, just to be fair, one of those interceptions occurred in the end zone when the receiver was pushed to the ground by his face mask before the ball got there. Perhaps the referee standing five feet away thought it was a punt? So, only five interceptions. Much better.

Oh, okay…here’s a real cat:

Sort of.

While I’ve been in random Yahoo! fantasy football leagues the last three years, this is the first year I’ve joined a league set up by a friend and actually participated in a live draft. So, I thought I would go the full disclosure route and list the players I picked up for what I think will be the league’s best just-below-.500 team.

Round 1: RB Frank Gore
Gore says he wants to get 2,000 yards in a season. I’ll need at least 20 of those yards to be from the 1 into the endzone.

Round 2: RB Willis McGahee
Yep, he gave up on the Bills, but he’s playing for the Ravens now. I’m counting on fear of Ray Lewis to motivate him and Brian Billick’s lack of an offensive imagination to give him lots of opportunity. Besides, he’s been really productive.

Round 3: QB Drew Brees
On the plus side, he had a great season last year and an even better preseason. On the minus side, he is made of fine Waterford Crystal.

Round 4: WR Marques Colston
Why, yes, there was a run on wide receivers. How could you tell? Anyway, I’m sure all of the Saints opponents will have forgotten about his performance last season and won’t double-cover him or anything.

Round 5: WR Calvin Johnson
He might not have looked special in preseason, but he sure does in Madden 2008. Hopefully he’ll get used to the ball coming somewhere near him, since it won’t be thrown by Reggie Ball. Relax, Calvin. Embrace the easy catch.

Round 6: RB Adrian Peterson
The Minnesota rookie, not the one who’s going to play a lot for the Bears once they realize they are about to start the season with Cedric Benson at RB. Yep, I picked him because of one play against the Jets. That, and the fact Chester Taylor kept running into the line and falling down. I’ll look prescient.

Round 7: QB Ben Roethlisberger
Jon Kitna went one pick before this, meaning I’ll miss out on the 40+ touchdown passes he’ll be throwing in his mind. However, I will get to hear a lot about how Ben was so good two years ago, and so bad last year. To make up for it, every pass will be exciting.

Round 8: RB Thomas Jones
Heh, heh, heh…I’m so good…He’s going to be Curtis Martin this year. But will it be the great running back Curtis Martin, racking up an 1600+ yard season, or will it be retired Curtis Martin, eating chips on the sofa while watching the game?

Round 9: DEF Carolina
I make this pick every year. Every year I watch as division opponents just run up the middle every play.

Round 10: WR Jerry Porter
Hmm, one catch last year…I have a feeling he’ll improve that by at least 1000%.

Round 11: TE Dallas Clark
Dallas Clark rules! We get points for intangibles and downfield blocking, right?

Round 12: WR Muhsin Muhammad
Moose caught almost every single pass one season with the Panthers. He’s reliable, and Rex Grossman needs that. That, and someone to carefully hand him the ball from center, and then to point out where he should throw, and….

Round 13: WR Bernard Berrian
Another Bears wide receiver. Heck, somebody’s going to catch those Rex Grossman “passes,” and most of the time it will be a Bear. (The mind of the Sex Cannon is a dark and mysterious place.)

Round 14: WR Wes Welker
No, you’ve heard of him. Used to play for Miami. Gave the Patriots fits. Kicked some extra points for them. The sports magazines says he’s a QB’s best friend. Even caught Tom Brady’s baby when it came out. Impressed Bridget so much she secretly named the kid after him. The media says the last name is Moynahan, but it’s really Welker. And most importantly: He’s the Chosen of the Devil.

Round 15: K John Kasay
I did not see those two field goals get blocked…I did not see those two field goals get blocked…I did not see those two field goals get blocked…I did not see those two field goals get blocked…

And that’s it. It’s a lineup you could take out on the field and use to win the…uh…NFC South. Which is a proud accomplishment in its own right.

So many spiders….

Actually, maybe they’ll stop the killer bees.

Update: Oh, great. The giant web is the result of different species of spiders mysteriously collaborating. Isn’t that the start of a horror film?

Oops, I broke the planet.

The largest planet we know of outside of our solar system is 1.7 times the size of Jupiter, but it has the density of balsa wood. Or maybe it’s a giant diamond latticework with lots of empty space?

Update: Or maybe it’s a big clump of space dirt?

So, here’s the story:

1. Chris Knight, candidate for Rockingham County (NC) Board of Education, makes a Star Wars-themed campaign commercial and posts it to YouTube.

2. VH1’s Web Junk 2.0 — geez, I hate that name — picks up on the commercial, which has become a viral video hit, and shows the video as a show segment, complete with commentary by Aries Spears. They do so without asking for permission to use the video, because stuff on the Web is free, right?

3. Chris Knight posts the segment of the show on YouTube, since it’s neat that VH1 decided to use his commercial.

4. The entity I like to think of as ViacomBot, dedicated to making sure no Viacom-owned content is watched in an unauthorized manner, sends a notice to YouTube to take down the VH1 clip. YouTube complies, because stuff on television is not free.

5. Chris Knight’s post about the whole affair is linked from Boing Boing and Slashdot, which means it will likely be linked from even more places, which means Viacom and YouTube get plenty of unwanted attention and drive lots of traffic to Chris’s blog, which links to the VH1 segment, now hosted elsewhere. It’s the Internet Circle of Life.

I like the suggestion given by several commenters of simply adding commentary to the VH1 segment, and then daring ViacomBot to take it down. ViacomBot might not be particularly sensitive to public opinion, and the interlocking permissions and business relationships could potentially give it an edge under the letter of the law, but turning it into a fight over fair use could be rather interesting.

Update: Valleywag too!

Astronomers have found a star, zipping through the galaxy at 291,000 miles per hour, creating a tail much like those of comets. This tail, however, is 13 light-years long.

No commentary, except to note that the universe is a wonderfully strange place. That, and it’s good we can see the tail. Otherwise, it would be coming right at us.

Link courtesy of Boing Boing.

Here’s the picture, from Yahoo!

Here’s the caption, emphasis mine:

An elderly Iraqi woman shows two bullets which she says hit her house following an early coalition forces raid in the predominantly Shiite Baghdad suburb of Sadr City. At least 175 people were slaughtered on Tuesday and more than 200 wounded when four suicide truck bombs targeted people from an ancient religious sect in northern Iraq, officials said.(AFP/Wissam al-Okaili)

Those bullets look really low-mileage.

Of course, the scarier part is that she lives in a place where she can get fresh rounds that easily.

Courtesy of SportsShooter.com and Romenesko.

That’s probably about right, although I’ve been known to be an INTJ depending on the day.

For anyone wondering: Oscar the Death Cat.

The DC Universe will be experiencing a Final Crisis next year, with a crossover series that appears to be the end of the Crisis on Infinite Earths > Identity Crisis > Infinite Crisis chain. Now, given the fact I was kind of disappointed with the results of Infinite Crisis (aside from 52), what could make me interested in this one?

It’s going to be written by Grant Morrison. Well-played, DC…well-played indeed.

Maybe I’m reading too much into this, but the characters pictured above — from left, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, Flash, Superman, Hawkman, and Batman — are all close to the original Silver Age Justice League of America. Everyone except Hawkman was in the original lineup, and he was one of the first ones to join. So where’s the Atom, Aquaman, and Martian Manhunter? (Okay, so right now Ray Palmer’s Atom and the original Aquaman are indisposed, but I don’t think it’s a good sign for J’onn J’onzz.) Just as long as we don’t get Snapper Carr (”Snap, snap!”).