Feeling Very Tech-Savvy

I am a lifelong Redskins fan. It hasn't been a great deal of fun lately. One thing that has really tweaked me this season has been the loss of the Redskins Radio broadcast of the games. But I think I've solved the problem.

The Redskins Radio team includes Sam Huff and Sonny Jurgensen. I love listening to their call of a game. They have a wonderful history with the team and make even the dismal seasons of late enjoyable.

For many years, the Redskins Radio broadcast was available locally on WGMD. A few years ago it switched to one of the horrible rock stations upstate. I could still pull it in, though.

This season, however, Daniel Snyder -- the team owner and I think the team's jinx -- has launched his own broadcasting company and now the only place I can find the Redskins Broadcast is on-line.

I don't mind that, of course. The problem is that, for some reasons I don' really understand, the Redskins Radio call of the games -- whether on-line or over the air -- is somewhere between 15 seconds and a full minute behind the TV broadcast. This has been a sore point for Skins fans everywhere.

Today, though, I realized that I can use our new Tivo system to bring the TV and the radio call back in sync. If you pause a live broadcast via Tivo, it records the show while it waits for you to hit "play." I simply paused the TV version at the start of a play and started it when the radio broadcast reached that point.

Perfect! I have my Sam and Sonny back and don't have to listen to retired Dallas Cowboys players call Redskins games anymore.

Of course, the Redskins still suck. It's 17-0 in the second quarter. Clinton Portis is gone with a broken hand. The Skins can't score and their defense is making the Eagles look like the best offense ever in the history of football.

But at least I'm listening to my old friends again.

Filed in:

• media
• technology
• radio
• sports

There Comes A Time to Stop the Cheering

We went out to a sports-bar type of restaurant this evening. It was crowded, so we were put at a table in the bar section.

The bar features a huge television screen, on which was showing the Penn State game against Temple. Penn State won the game, 47 to 0.

The bar was crowded with Penn State fans. Alumni, I would guess. They were very proud.

With each interception by Penn State, each score, each big play, the bar crowd erupted in cheers.

But here's what puzzles me. When the score is already 41-zip in the third quarter; when the other team is completely routed; when you've put in your freshmen and they are walking all over the other team; is it really appropriate to cheer deleriosusly when your team does well?

Isn't the whole thing kind of already over?

Filed in:

• sports
• culture

Report From Return Day

I spent yesterday at Return Day, Delaware's ancient tradition of post-election reconciliation.

The Thursday after each election, the candidates, party leaders, their staffs, and a state's-worth of political junkies gather at the circle in Georgetown to hear the official election results, join in a patriotic parade, and ceremonially bury a hatchet to symbolize their putting the battles of the campaign behind them.

Students from the Sussex Dance Academy were scheduled to perform in the morning at the youth stage; Colleen was joining the performance. I took her over early and we spent the day at Georgetown.

The youth performances ranged from gymnasts through singers and dancers to a tiny child giving a recitation.

We walked around to see the sights before the parade. It was fun to see who I knew. I ran into my old friend Mike Short, who is now the editor of the Sussex Post. I had a chance to talk to John Schroeder, once our state representative, before redistricting following the 2000 Census. I told him that Karen and I had written him in on the ballot.

I also had a chance to say "hi" to Don Blakey, newly elected to the General Assembly as representative for the 34th District. Don has been a Levy Court Commissioner in Kent County. He's a retired educator. I knew him first when he and his wife Dolores came down to join us in a production of Big River with the Possum Point Players.

They are a talented couple. And nice folks.

The parade was long, with many carriages and cars filled with politicians. The practice is for opponents to ride together and greet the crowds together. We got to see Tom Carper and Jan Ting, Ferris Wharton and Beau Biden, Joe Biden, and many others.

Two things stood out for me.

There appear to be more beauty pageant winners in Sussex County than there are elected officials in all of Delaware.

The parade entry marching right behind the very talented African American Step-Dancing group was the Delaware Grays, part of the Sons of Confederate Veterans.

I particularly liked the float by the Cape Gazette, which included a front-end loader laden with cleaned-up campaign signs and pulling a trailer with a large fake bull and the sign: "Election is Over. No More Bull."

Filed in:

• Delaware
• Election
• Politics

Oh, For Pity's Sake

I'm on many e-mail distribution lists. I'm an information junkie.

One of the lists I'm on is the e-mail list of the "Positive Growth Alliance," a pro-developer PAC-type group formed by property-rights activists (developers) to counter the many growth-control groups that have arisen in recent years in response to what many see as out of control development in Coastal Sussex County, Delaware.

The Positive Growth Alliance people are nothing if not self-promoters. Their election day e-missive today centers around this:

For up-to-the-minute ELECTION RESULTS, please visit the POSITIVE GROWTH ALLIANCE WEBSITE and click on the link that says ELECTION RESULTS on the center of the home page.

The excessive CAPITALIZATION is theirs. not mine.

I was curious to see how this crowd might present the election results, so I dutifully clicked through to their home page and clicked on the big, red, "ELECTION RESULTS" link that I found there.

It took me directly to the Delaware Commissioner of Elections web site and its Election Results page.

Why not just send a friendly e-mail reminding people where to find the official election results? If you must direct people to your own web page, shouldn't you offer some original content? Some analysis? Some thought?

Or did they just want to count clicks?

Filed in:

• Delaware
• election
• politics

It's Time

If you are reading this and you are a citizen of the United States of America, let me just say:

GO VOTE.

That is all. Thank you.

Filed in:

• election
• Delaware
• politics

How Hard Was It to Find This Guy?

Curtis Allgier, considered Public Enemy #1 in Salt Lake City, Utah, was captured today. Someone spotted his girlfriend and that led the authorities to Allgier.

I assume he was keeping out of sight; he had some, um, distinguishing features.

Filed in:

• crime
• law-enforcement

Protest Song Number (Fn:Count[PROTESTSONGPOSTS])

I heard David Dye interview the singer Will Kimbrough on The World Cafe a few days ago. It's well worth a listen, especially for his song Pride, which neatly sums up much of what I've been feeling of late.

The tune is from Kimbrough's new album, Americanitis. He says, of the song:

A good friend tried to warn me about being too preachy on the CD. I responded by putting a full blown sermon, complete with slide guitar solo, on there.

He calls it a sermon; but if the thoughts are preachy, the musical style is not. The song unfolds in a laconic American folk-song version of sprechstimme, with Kimbrough quietly skewering us for some of our sins:

There's no power in pride.
Pride is a man who goes to war to save face.

And pride is a man who cannot tell the truth
if it might make him look weak.
There's no power in pride.

Our sin is pride and we know it.
We just can't bear to talk about it.

We paste those [pride] stickers right next to the fish
we bought down at the Christian Store.
I'm not bashing Jesus,
But how 'bout we read what Jesus said for once.

I say for balance we take in a little Buddha,
And Johnny Cash.

He has a point.

Pardon Me While I Boggle. Briefly.

Here's a headline that puts my brain on "pause:"

BREAKING NEWS: Air Force to create Cyber Command

According to the full story, on Federal Computer Week's FCW.com, the Air Force is planning "to bring full-scale military operations to cyberspace."

Service officials have said they view cyberspace as a strategic and tactical warfighting domain, similar to air, sea, land or space.

Oh. Goody.

Filed in:

• web
• internet
• military

Are You as Sick of the Election as I Am?

Don't get me wrong. It's hugely important that we all go out next Tuesday and vote. Who-ever you vote for, you must vote. We don't deserve our Democracy if we don't. (Or maybe we do?)

But I am sick of the partisans, and the TV ads, and the attacks. I'm ready to vote. Can it be election day yet?

On the other hand, it was cool to run into Levy Court At-Large Candidate W.G. Edmanson at Spence's Bazaar today.

I was walking my lunch. Mr. Edmanson had rented a space in the weekly flea market that forms at Spence's each Tuesday. He was there to meet possible voters and hand-out literature and lawn-signs.

I told him that I don't vote in Kent County, but that I wished him luck. I asked him how the Spence's booth was working. He said he's "not one of those in-your-face politicians" (I think I remembered that right) and that he was just there to give things away.

He seemed like a nice fellow.

Filed in:

• election
• Delaware
• politics
• Dover
• KentCounty

Here's a Useful Resource for Some Delaware Bloggers

Given how closely some Delaware blogs are following and blogging the current election, I think the Center for Citizen Media's Election Day Bloggers' Legal Guide could be a help.

The idea is that bloggers can submit legal questions about blogging the election. They will be answered by Student Fellows at Stanford Law. The first example question caught my eye:

Can you be in the voting area except to vote? (Not in Delaware)

Word to the wise. (via theBivingsreport)

Filed in:

• Delaware
• election
• blogging
• politics