Mizzou Football: Things keep getting worse!!

On Saturday Mizzou concluded the season with a 17-14OT win at Iowa St. The Tigers, who were predicted to contend for the Big 12 North title and finally make a push to get into the top 10 and BCS contention, finished 5-6. They lost four games in a row prior to their season ending victory. Their coach, who everyone thought was a perfect fit for this team, became a jerk to the media (who cares), the boosters (bad, bad, idea) and the players (even worse idea). Today there is news that starting running back Damien Nash quit the team.

Nash, who is from East St. Louis, was the big recruit everyone was hoping for when he signed. Finally the Tigers landed a big name recruit from the St. Louis area (where they normally have a tough time recruiting), and he spurned Nebraska to come to Mizzou. What could go wrong? Two words: Gary Pinkel. Pinkel is stubborn and has obviously lost this team. Why were Nash and Pinkel not getting along? The offensive (in more ways the one) play-calling. This quote from Nash got him suspended for a game:

"I wish I had the headphones on to hear what's going on. I wish I could call the offense. I didn't understand a lot of the plays."

This quote came after a loss 20-17 to Oklahoma State where Mizzou had a 17-0 with a minute left in the first half and did nothing offensively in the second half. Nash received seven carries in the second half and had every right to be upset. I agree that Nash shouldn't have publicly called out the play-calling (which was horrible), but to be suspended for a whole game (a game that was important at the time against Nebraska) is ridiculous. That suspension was the turning point of a horrible season. The lost every game until this past Saturday. Now Nash is leaving. I hope Pinkel goes next.

What are you thankful for?

Happy Thanksgiving!

I'm happy for:

My Family and Friends

My church

My house

The great year I've had

An awesome thanksgiving meal!!

New Site Update...

Ok, Haze just for you :)... I've finally made a few new posts

So the new blog isn't ready... I'll make a post when it is (maybe event some previews). Look for it sometime in December, till then I will be posting here. (And more frequently then I have been the last two weeks).

So what's new?
I've been spending my free time (which hasn't been much until this week) working on getting my computer back ready so I can start mixing music again. I used to do this a few years back with some DJ software and I always focused on electronic (trance, ambient, progressive trance, etc..) and now I'll be picking it up again with the same genres but with a Christian slant. We'll see how this turns out, but I've always loved mixing music and I'd loved to eventually get some real dj equipment and do it live.

My new sound card will be here in a couple of days and I'm trying out some new software so keep an eye out for downloads when the new site goes live.

Also, my hours are back down to a normal pace now that we (myself and several others at etg) have launched and wrapped up the finishing touches on the website we have worked around six months on. Check it out at www.stlouischildrens.org. Kudos to eliot at bigwidesky for his great design and all the hard work by everyone at slch, etg and bigwidesky.

Political Ramblings...

I had some good political conversations over the last few weeks with some friends. One of which was my college buddy Greg, who was in town this past weekend. Greg, who is a high school teacher in Sedalia, Missouri, claims he is a liberal (it's probably hard not be after two masters degrees), but I think he is more of a issues-based moderate. In my humble opinion, we agree far too often for him to be a liberal.

On to my point; I thought I would finally make a post about a question I have asked every "liberal" I have spoken politics with in the last few months. Do you feel like your values and agenda are represented by the current (soon to be past) Democratic regime? Do you think your views are the same as John Kerry, Ted Kennedy, Terry McAulife, Daschle, Hillary, et al?

The answer has been a resounding no. Why? Because the "Reagan democrats", southern democrats and Midwestern union democrats have been left behind by the more liberal members of their party.

At it's peak, liberalism forced changes in society, some good, some bad. "Liberalism" can take some credit for big changes in our society: civil rights, equality for different races, religions, gendera, union rights.

But what "issues" are the liberals focused on now? Insulting the "stupid" red-staters, bashing conservatives, protesting for the sake of protesting, calling people who disagree with them Nazis, attempting to destroy religion, trying to appease countries who loathe us for our freedoms, blaming us for world problems, creating "documentaries" with no basis in fact, etc.

If the democrats can moved beyond their far-left, angry leaders and reward and promote centrists who have solutions instead of complaints, they may gain some momentum, until then looks like us red-staters are going to be around for a while.

New Blog?

I'm thinking of creating a new blog that is:

A) ASP.Net based

B) Hosted somewhere other than blogger

C) Maybe something open-source where I could help the community development as a side project.

I think I will probably start with .Text blog. Does anyone have any thoughts on ASP.net blogging engines?

Breaking the Redskin Curse

So we've all probably this mentioned on Sunday:

The outcome of Washington Redskins home football games has correctly predicted the winner of every U.S. presidential election since 1936.

Well not anymore!!! Goodbye Redskin Curse!

Bush Wins!! Blunt Wins!!! Exit Polls Lose

Wow, this seems a little like a mandate. First president since GW1 to receive more than 50% of the vote. Republicans take more Senate seats, retain control of house and have a majority of Governors.

This is the second best news I heard late last night: Daschle loses!
This election confirms what I've been saying for a while, the current democratic regime is way too left for the "common man" democrat. Kerry, Kennedy, Daschle, McAulife, et al are out of touch with the common man and the Southern democrats feel left behind by their party.

Oh yeah, how about those exit polls and the pre-election tracking polls? Obviously, the media and pollsters have some explaining to do. Where are you now Zogby?

MTV... Rocking the Vote

This is an email I received from MTV (the tv station I hate the most) this morning:

A Message from MTV: Please Go Out and Vote Today!
All year you?ve been hearing from the candidates, asking you to choose them to be President for the next four years. MTV urges you to go to your polling place this morning and make your choice ? for President, as well as for local candidates and referendums. If you?re too young to vote, then go get your older brothers and sisters out of bed, and make sure they do. Pick up the phone and remind your cousins and friends to stand up and be counted. If you're ineligible to participate in the election, contact friends who can, and encourage them to make a choice.

I appreciate MTV trying to get people out to vote, we all know how left-leaning their company really is, but they aren't urging people to vote one way or another. By the way, as someone who works with email marketing everyday it's very sad that an organization as large as MTV can't figure out which characters don't work in emails. All of times you see a "?" in the middle of the email are the result of them both not testing their emails properly and using invalid characters for emails.