It appears that the launch of ESPN-HD tonight showing MLB's Opening Day (even though it was at night) game between Anaheim and Texas was a flop. It wasn't because of a crummy picture, but rather, hardly anyone saw it in all its glory.
No satellite provider is currently carrying the channel, though negotiations are in progress. A few cable providers are carrying the HD-version of ESPN, but that's still a small portion of the total HD-viewers.
This thread on AVS Forums shows just how few people were able to see it.
I truly believe that this single channel will propel HDTV sales. Sports on television in high definition is just about as good as being there, but with instant replays, a wider aspect ratio, close-up views and your own bathroom down the hall.
However, with this type of technology, you have to see it to believe it.
As you watch the wall-to-wall war news coverage, you probably heard about the Iraqis surrendering. The reporters mention that the Iraqis are aware of the correct way to surrender, but they never mention the correct way to surrender or how they found out about the correct way. It's really easy, read the leaflets that were dropped.
In case you were wondering about the weather in the area, here's the weather for the Kuwait International Airport.
So, an independent journalist wants to go to Iraq and find some news. He's looking for donations to help fund the journey. Hurry, he's leaving next week.
I'm not sure what the point of this is: http://www.iraqbodycount.net/
You thought Freedom Fries was a good way to snub the French. Well, now some protesters want to give the Statue of Liberty back to the French. Oh boy.
I'll leave my opinion on the war for a potentially future post. In the meantime, here is a great radio debate between a war protester and an Iraqi defector. The Iraqi is very passionate about the issue and does an excellent job of getting his point across. The protester should immediately ask her high-school debate coach for a refund. It's a few minutes in length, but well worth it.
As the United States is about to get its War On, I thought it would be helpful in providing some links to web sites that offer news updates on the war.
I'll be visiting these sites mulitple times a day:
Today's my birthday, now that you know, you really should have bought me something. I'm not asking for a lot, maybe a little something from ebay: GUARANTEED CHICAGO CUBS 2003 WORLD SERIES!!!!
Happy Birthday also to Dan Drake, my twin brother.
Now this, is war blogging.
Kevin Sites is a CNN correspondent working the war coverage. He's posting daily updates of his travels through the front lines of Kuwait, Iran, and Iraq.
He offers an insiders look into the daily life of a war correspondent.
Bookmark this site as we march closer to war.
My wife, Katie, lost her aunt this week in a losing battle with cancer.
Moira Tobin Wickes was more than an aunt, she was a wife, a daughter, a sister, a mother, a healer, and a role model for many. The scope of her loss grows each day as the reality of her not walking into our lives again becomes clearer in the fog of our sadness. Katie and I are lucky to have many happy memories of Moira.
She touched many lives, as was evident in a standing room only Holy Name Cathedral for her funeral mass yesterday.
Our many thoughts and prayers are with her husband and five sons.
The following appeared in yesterday's Chicago Tribune:
MOIRA TOBIN WICKES, 46 Children's Memorial specialist created orthotics departmentBy Barbara Sherlock
Tribune Staff Writer
Published March 12, 2003There is a vivid image of Moira Tobin Wickes shared by her friends, family and colleagues.
It is of a dynamic, petite woman moving through life with a child often resting on her hip and a smile on her face.
Mrs. Tobin Wickes, 46, died of cancer Monday, March 10, at Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago.
The Chicago mother of five tied her love of children and her passion for healing into a 25-year career at Children's Memorial Hospital. Among her accomplishments was creating the hospital's department of orthotics, a branch of science that deals with supporting and bracing weak or ineffective joints or muscles. She served as the department's supervisor for many years before becoming its director in 1998.
"I have never known anyone else who was so energetic and hardworking and at the same time friendly, cheerful and lighthearted," said Mary Weck, her colleague and friend for more than 20 years. "Her enthusiasm and spark touched everybody in this hospital."
Whether it was one of her five sons, any of the dozens of nieces and nephews or the thousands of pediatric patients she saw at the hospital, children always found a place in her arms and an eager listener to their tales.
"She just had this great love for children and always wanted to be a healer, and deep down felt she could be the most effective as an orthotist," said her husband, John.
The two met in 1982 at a dessert party hosted by a mutual friend in Chicago. "I remember walking in the room and seeing her," her husband said. "She was beautiful and so filled with life with this wonderful, hardy, infectious laugh." They married in 1983.
While studying at Mundelein College in Chicago for a degree in biology, Mrs. Tobin Wickes began volunteering at Children's Memorial in its child psychology department. A short while later, she moved to the physical therapy department and, after her graduation in 1978, became an aide who helped the therapists apply splints to the young patients, Weck said.
"She saw a need for orthotics, so she went to Northwestern University Medical School, became certified as an orthotist, and in 1982 began building this department," said Weck, a physical therapy pediatric specialist at the hospital.
In 1992, Weck and Mrs. Tobin Wickes started the hospital's serial casting program, which was featured last year in a PBS television documentary.
The program, an alternative to surgical intervention, incorporates gait training, muscular strengthening and orthotics with the common therapy technique of fitting patients with plaster and plastic casts that are revised on a weekly basis over several months.
The casts gradually train the patient's foot, ankle and leg into proper alignment. The other components Weck and Mrs. Tobin Wickes added to the program reinforced the work done by the casts.
"The casting got some notoriety, but it isn't half as impressive as the work she did building our whole pediatric orthotics department," Weck said. "She started here as an orthotist all by herself within the physical therapy department and grew it into this huge, busy department."
The pediatric orthotics department became a separate unit in 1986 and is now staffed by five orthotists, a resident, seven physical therapists, eight technicians and an in-house laboratory.
Mrs. Tobin Wickes was the seventh of 17 children born to Noreen and Frank Tobin.
"Somehow my parents were able to instill this unique quality where we all felt very close," said Virginia Payne, one of Mrs. Tobin Wickes' younger sisters. "They did it with unconditional love, and Moira really embodied what we learned from our parents. Her greatest gifts were her strong ability to love, family values and family closeness."
Other survivors include her sons, John Jr., Stephen, Timothy, Edward and Robert; 10 brothers, Terry, Frank, Michael, Robert, Daniel, Timothy, Patrick, David, John and Edward Tobin; five other sisters, Noreen O'Neill, Kathleen Tobin, Rose Bradshaw, Margaret Heneghan and Ann Tobin; and 51 nieces and nephews.
Mass will be said at 1 p.m. Wednesday in Holy Name Cathedral, 730 N. Wabash Ave., Chicago.
Copyright © 2003, Chicago Tribune
I've been very busy lately. My current client has been keeping me busy, which is a very good thing. I've also started working on a new site of my own: BreakingBlogs.com.
The site will have similar features to BlogDex, but will also include some interesting new ideas. More details regarding this site will be posted here in a few weeks.
I stayed up last night until just after midnight Chicago time, over an hour after the "amazing pictures" were supposed to be posted to www.8march2003.com, but the site was down. So I went to bed. Boy am I happy I didn't wait up for this.
So, the pictures are now posted and they're showing some mysterious "supership" a.k.a. "Ark II".
Why the hell has a secret faction built a SUPERSHIP on a man-made plateau in a mountain range high above sea level?This could only mean one thing! They are expecting an event to take place that will cause cataclysmic global flooding.
I love how he says immediately after describing these lame blurry pictures that it "could only mean one thing". Right, only one thing. Many people who sent this guy email before today have said he's a great writer and to keep it up. Well, I don't think he's a good writer. I think he had a good idea to attract world-wide attention, but the writing needs some help.
Now, we all know this is a hoax, but this is getting real stupid real fast.
He then goes on to say that the "faction" is trying to undermine the top secret pictures by launching a site of there own: www.mountainsub.com.
If you go to that site, it says a similar story, with similar pictures - reversed in Photoshop, maybe? But, if you click on the link at the bottom of the page, it takes you a page asking what kind of publicity stunt is the site being used for!?! The "winners" will be posted on April 15th.
Don't get sucked into this garbage of a trap. On April 15th, another page will be put up asking you to wait until May 13th (pick any day you want) to see if you're a winner in the gullibility test soon to appear on the site.
If you don't share the same opinion as me on this, then please go here: www.10march2003.com
Update:Comments closed.
I stumbled across this article on WSJ.com yesterday
Amazon Has Approval To Sell Domain Names
Amazon.com Inc. has quietly received the go-ahead to begin selling Internet addresses to users who want a piece of cyberspace real estate.The Seattle-based Internet retailer in early December was accredited as a so-called "domain name registrar," making Amazon one of about 160 companies and organizations that are permitted to register Internet addresses, or domain names, ending in familiar suffixes like ".com," ".net" and ".org." Amazon received accreditation from the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, or Icann (www.icann.org), the nonprofit group that oversees the administration of Internet addresses.
Great, another tab on Amazon's navigation bar. I wonder if they're going to suggest possible domain names like they suggest everything else?
Bubba is just like you and me, being selected for jury duty.
Former President Bill Clinton has been tapped for jury duty. A questionnaire designed to help defense lawyers and prosecutors select a jury for a federal attempted murder case indicated that Prospective Juror No. 142 was actually William Jefferson Clinton.ALTHOUGH CLINTON’S NAME was never revealed at a hearing in federal court in Manhattan on Friday, his answers, read aloud in the courtroom, provided the giveaway.
Under previous jobs held, the respondent answered President of the United States. He also wrote that he thought he could be fair and impartial, despite his “unusual experience with the O.I.C.,” or Office of Independent Counsel.
I'm sure Bubba was hoping to selected and be sequestered so he could flirt with the other female jurors while "deliberating".