I grew up a UCLA fan as my dad instilled within me the love of the Bruins. As I went off to college, I chose UCSD, and since we don't have a football team, and our other sports are Division II, I've still followed the UCLA Bruins - in football, basketball, whatever. But while I am a UCLA fan, that does not make me a USC hater. And this year, it's been fun to watch USC as they try to win a national championship in football - I even got the great opportunity to go to the USC/Stanford game earlier in the year.

When the BCS rankings came out last week and, despite a 45-0 win over Arizona, they fell to number three nationally as Ohio State moved up to 2nd because they have a harder schedule and the same record as USC. But while I was initially upset, as Ohio State has not scored an offensive touchdown in three of their wins, and in 4 other games, they've won by three or less points, including a 16-13 win over a now 5-6 San Diego State University team, I let it go. Why? Because I knew that they'd lose this week. Against #9 Michigan, I knew they had no chance - in fact, the people who set the odds even favored the #9 Michigan over the #2 Ohio State.

So now that the Wolverines have won and Ohio State has lost, it seems as if USC will have no problem making it to the national championship game in the Sugar Bowl to face #1 Oklahoma, assuming USC can win their final two games. But then again, there's been talk that if LSU wins out, they could do what Ohio State did last week and jump ahead of USC because of their strength of schedule. But then again, this could all be a moot point if someone at the New York Times figures out that USC didn't deserve that #5 ranking they were handed last week.

P.S. - At 12:30pm Pacific today, USC plays UCLA. While I always cheer for UCLA, this year, I've got to be rooting for USC. They have a chance to play for the national championship, and I'm always glad when a PAC-10 school is in that game - and to knock Oklahoma off their pedestal, to take away their perfect season, and to bring the championship to the West Coast, would be all too pretty.

URL: University of Michigan

I always like to try something new, and I'm a huge fan of Jones Soda. But this just goes a bit too far. I was contemplating ordering a couple, but it was $5/2 bottles and then $6 shipping, so for two bottles, it would have been $11, and I just don't think 12 ounces of Turkey & Gravy soda for $5.50 is quite worth it. Plus...they were only available yesterday at 9am and I really didn't want to get up that early (though I did get up that early today to watch Michigan/Ohio St. - good news - Michigan is up 14-0 and they are going to win and go to the Rosebowl - Go Wolverines!).

URL: Turkey & Gravy Soda at JonesSodaStore

Now, I realize the Internet is a big place and there's all kinds of sites out there. But when you search google.com for "hats" - you just don't expect this to be the second result.

URL: Fat Chicks in Party Hats

After a quick search of google for "dictionary," the top three links were unable to define episteme for free - you'd think Miriam Webster would have it, but alas, neither m-w.com or yourdictionary.com could find the word. Luckily OneLook.com (the only one I'm linking to - the only one you should visit), found 2 definitions. OneLook.com actually searches all the online dictionaries in its database to find you the answer(s) you're looking for:

noun: the body of ideas that determine intellectually certain knowledge at any particular time

EPISTEME: A Foucauldian term, deriving from epistemology and "-eme" (the smallest significantly distinctive unit of a structure, like a morpheme, phoneme, seme or sememe), to mean something along the lines of "distinctive units of the social institutions (e.g., relations of power) which give shape to what we think of as knowledge." Foucault himself wrote more allusively in The Order of Things: "what I am attempting to bring to light is the epistemological field, the episteme in which knowledge ... manifests a history ... of its conditions of possibility.... Such an enterprise is not so much a history ... as an 'archaeology'." John Tagg's Grounds of Dispute reads much as a series of essays exploring one such episteme, the discursive field (see discursive practices) created by the intersection of art history and cultural politics.

URL: RhymeZone: episteme

I've been a fan of dictionary.com for quite a while now - they've had every word I've ever needed to look up - and it's always been free. A while ago, they started offering a pay service with audio pronounciations of words and a few other nice extras. Of course, I really didn't need any of those extra features, so I never subscribed - all I really needed were definitions from time to time. But today, I ran across a word that they refused to define unless I subscribed. Now that's going a bit far. I've got no problem with sites charging for extras, but charging for stuff that used to be free is a shame. I realize it's hard to make money on the Internet, but the definitions on dictionary.com have always been free, and by offering such a service, they have built up a large usergroup...now that they are charging for definitions, I've got to look elsewhere for my dictionary needs.

URL: Dictionary.com/episteme

Just in case you had to know, the estimated airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow is about 24 miles per hour. Continue on...

URL: style.org > Estimating the Airspeed Velocity of an Unladen Swallow

A couple of days ago, I wrote about how I was upset that I missed Kasparov's victory over X3D Fritz - and now, after watching the final game in the match, I'm even more disappointed. Today's game was interesting to watch for about an hour, and then it just degenerated into a tit-for-tat, play for a draw game. Granted, Kasparov was seriously crippled with the Black pieces and an opponent who never blunders and a tie was what he was going for, while it was up to X3D Fritz to win the match. Today's game lasted just under two hours and was nothing all that special. Every move was seen by the commentators before the computer made it, every tactic was transparent, and when you're playing against an opponent who can see 4,000,000 moves a second and never picks the wrong one, it was just a matter of time before Garry accepted the offer of a draw.

As a whole, the match was quite interesting, and for his hard work, Garry walks away with $175,000, but I'd have loved to see a longer match - perhaps 5 or 6 games and I would also have liked to see Garry with the white pieces again. But, alas, all is done - it was a fun match to watch and I'm thankful ESPN2 and ESPNEWS televised the event, and hopefully, in future years, chess can continue to gain momentum and get more television time. Sure, it's not football, where you've got hard hits every minute or two, but chess is just such an intricate and amazing game, it's a shame more people aren't into it.

URL: Kasparov vs. X3D Fritz

Today, after watching a disappointing chess game on ESPN2 (more on that later), I went out to Circuit City and picked up an SIR-PNP2, SIR-HK1 and an SIR-CK1. For those of you who don't know what those stand for, it's basically a very nice Sirius radio setup. Sirius radio, the only competitor to the more well known XM satellite radio had a few advantages that made me go with them. Besides the $50 mail in rebate (25% off - though I am bidding on a $70 mail in rebate on eBay now - about 33% off), Sirius offers 100 streams of satellite radio, including 60 streams of commercial free music. On top of that, they offer 40 more channels of talk, sports, and more. So here I sit now, flipping between ESPNRadio (which has horrible reception via regular radio here in San Diego), PRI, NPR (only offered on Sirius), the comedy channel, the classic rock channel, and the 80's channel. I've got just about any radio channel I want, with crystal-clear digital reception and since I have both the Home Kit (HK1) and the car kit with a built in FM transmitter (CK1), I can take it where ever I go. Right now, it's plugged into the Input line on my computer and I'm listening to Queensryche's Silent Lucidity during commercials on ESPNRadio's Sportsnight.

I absolutely love the radio, I can set up to 20 different artists that I like, and whenever they're on, the receiver will notify me and I can switch if I want. On top of that, I can now listen to every Lakers game (since, they are all not televised here in San Diego and the reception for 570 KLAC sucks) - or any other NBA or NHL game I want to hear. I also had to order a portable battery type thing that I can take into the bus with me since the radio requires a cigarette lighter for power in a vehicle - so now, my shifts should fly by as I can listen to whatever my little heart desires...I love gadgets.

URL: SIRIUS Satellite Radio - Homepage

I know movie tie-ins are nothing new, and most movies have them - you've got phones from the Matrix, Disney toys at McDonald's, etc. But these tie-ins with the new movie The Cat in the Hat are just out of control. I'm not sure how many commercials I've seen now pimping various Cat in the Hat merchandise, trips, etc. Mastercard's giving away trips to Universal Studios, you can buy ornaments at Burger King, and you can buy seemingly anything you want on the website. It's completely out of control and I have to wonder how Mr. Geisel is feeling with his books being used in such a way.

Added Later: Looking around the site, it even appears you can browse through ALL 16 different partners from the movie - everything from Peanut Butter to Postal Services.

URL: The Cat in the Hat

I'm so upset I forgot that the 3rd game was on today pitting the X3D chess engine against Garry Kasparov. I would have loved to watch this to see how Garry was able to masterfully control the white pieces, featuring a strong pawn advance to force the confused computer at one point to move the bishop one space forward and then the next turn, move the same bishop one step back. Completely confused by Kasparov's advances, there was nothing X3D Fritz could do - and now, with the match tied at 1.5 a piece (X3D won game 2, and Game 1 was a draw), it all comes down to game 4 on Tuesday. I got my shifts covered at work (I need some time off anyways) and will be able to watch, thanks to ESPN2 and ESPNEWS - should be an interesting game. I caught Game 2 in which Kasparov blundered while playing the black pieces, and hopefully in Game 4, history won't repeat itself.

It's odd - I never really thought I'd be watching chess on television. I've played occasionally and can beat my friends, but none of us are very advanced and I don't consider myself very good at the game of chess, but watching it on television is mesmerizing (though the ESPN announcers are quite unpolished and obviously not meant for television). The sheer intricacy of the game, with the myriad of different choices on each move, and the added intrigue of watching man versus machine makes it that much more interesting on TV. I just wish I had the time to play more often - one of these days I'm going to treat myself to a nice glass board and pieces...I always have to take a look at them whenever I visit the Gamekeeper.

URL: Kasparov vs. X3D Fritz