Northbound

The DMN on the fate of Baylor head football coach Guy Morriss:

It seems simple, really. If Morriss takes Baylor to a bowl game, he’ll get a contract extension. If he compiles another losing season, which would be the fifth in five years, he could be fired.

Really?  That simple?

Look.  Would Baylor have a better shot at the Big XII if it had a better coach?  Of course it would.  But Mack Brown isn’t walking through that door.  Steve Spurrier isn’t walking through that door.  Urban Meyer isn’t walking through that door.  No elite coach in his right mind wants the Baylor job.

Has GuyMo turned in a winning season yet?  No, and it would be folly to expect him to.  Anyone who manages to win 15 games after inheriting a Kevin Steele team should be given a parade and the keys to Waco Hall.  And let’s not forget, Morriss was one OT period over Oklahoma away from a winning record and a bowl berth two seasons ago.

But what if he turns in a losing record this year?

Okay, you think about replacing him, but with who?  You’re only going to get two kinds of coaches at Baylor; those on the way up and those on the way down.  Someone on the way up is going to ditch the B faster than you can say “Nick Saban”.  Even Mike Singletary.  I love Mike Singletary.  And he might come coach here.  But by 2012, he’s going to be prowling the sidelines for an NFL team.  Any young up-and-coming coach that comes to Baylor and succeeds is going to leave for a better job eventually.  (And we’ve seen what happens to up-and-coming coaches that come here and fail.  It ain’t pretty.)

The alternative is replacing GuyMo with a candidate on the downside of his career — say, Chan Gailey, someone like that.  Is that what you want?  Really?  Why replace a perfectly good GuyMo, who’s been nothing but loyal and stalwart in his tenure by the Brazos — and who has beaten A&M at least once — with a retread from somewhere else?  What kind of sense does that make?  What does that say about who we are as Baylor fans?

I want to win as much as anyone.  I’d love to see a new coach come in and lead the B to the Cotton Bowl or whatever reasonable facsimile is reasonably possible.  But at some point, there needs to be some kind of stability, something other than the endless parade of Reedy-Roberts-Steele types in and out every few years.  I’m for keeping GuyMo, win or lose, for at least another year.  We owe him that much, just for not being Kevin Steele.

Now that the Harry Potter series is over, it may be instructive to go back and see, exactly, how and why Lord Voldemort…

SPOILER ALERT:  The following contains serious, massive spoilers for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, and maybe the other books if you haven’t read those or are waiting for the movie.  You have been warned.  Read no farther! 

As I was saying, to see exactly how and why Lord Voldemort failed to follow the simple rules set forth in the epochal “Top 100 Things I’d Do If I Ever Became an Evil Overlord” list.  The following is inspired by that list (and hopefully doesn’t infringe on it in any way, or at least I hope not).  This is the Top Things I’d Do If I Were Lord Voldemort.

1. I will stop calling myself “Lord Voldemort.”  I will pick a name that is equally evil, of course, but less obvious, like “Lord Simon Cowell” or “Lord Scott Boras.”
2. When I pick a new name, it will not be an anagram of my real name.  My enemies have the same access to the Internet Anagram Server that I do.
3. I will stop calling my loyal minions the “Death Eaters.”  Instead, I will call them “The Funky Bunch.”
4.  The next time I have a chance to kill Harry Potter, I will not use the killing spell that has backfired on me four different times.  I will shoot him with a gun.
5. If one of my Horcruxes is kept in the vault of Gringotts, I will take special care not to torture any goblin who may have access to said vault.
6. If I have only one Horcrux left, and it is in my pet snake, I will not take that pet snake into battle with me.  I will entrust the snake to the care of my local zoo or herpetological association during the course of the battle.
7. I will not insist that I alone be able to kill Harry Potter myself.  If one of my Funky Bunch has the chance to kill him, I will allow him to do so.  Then I will kill that person and take credit for killing Harry Potter anyway.  It’s not like anyone would ever be able to contradict me.
8. If I announce that Harry Potter should give himself up, and come into the Forbidden Forest alone, unarmed, and he does so, I will not immediately kill him.  I will wonder why he did something so foolish, and ask him so.
9. If I come up with a great idea like giving one of my Funky Bunch a silver hand that strangles them the second they betray me, I will insist that all of my Funky Bunch get the same silver hand and not just one person.
10. If I do manage to kill Harry Potter, I will check to see that he is dead myself, and not let one of my Funky Bunch do it if I have threatened the child of that person in the last few days.  Then I will shoot Harry Potter with my gun, just in case.
11. If I acquire a wand that is rumored to have unstoppable killing power, I will try it out on one of my Funky Bunch first before using it on Harry Potter.
12. If I am interrogating a prisoner with vital information, and one of my Funky Bunch signals me that they have captured Harry Potter, I will pay attention to the signal instead of continuing to interrogate the prisoner.  I am the Dark Lord, and I ought to be able to multitask.
13. I will not let Severus Snape become headmaster of Hogwarts just because he asks me to.  Double agents cannot be trusted.  Instead, I will send him out to kill Harry Potter and let one of my Funky Bunch take the job.
14. I will not leave my diadem Horcrux lying around the Room of Requirement where anyone can find it.  I will donate it to the British Museum, and chances are that they’ll just store it in a vault somewhere, which is fine by me.
15. I will not have all my Horcruxes be completely obvious magical heirlooms.  At least one of them will be something that you would never think would be a Horcrux, like Nelson’s Column, or Tony Blair’s hairpiece.

You know, it’s a wonder that Voldemort got through seven books, when you think about it.

The NYT reports that XM’s growth is in the right direction for a change:

XM Satellite Radio Holdings Inc. narrowed its quarterly loss from a year ago, the company reported Thursday, as it continued to add subscribers while seeking regulatory approval for an acquisition by rival Sirius Satellite Radio.

The Washington-based company reported a second-quarter loss of $176 million, or 57 cents per share, compared with a loss of $232 million, or 87 cents per share, in the year-ago quarter.

Is this good news?  Well, no, because it means the service is losing money, and that could mean the end of satellite radio eventually.  Except that if XM and Sirius both post big regular losses, that would mean that the Justice Department might not block a merger — there’s no use in fostering competition if both competitors are destined to lose lots of money every quarter.

But it is at least qualified good news, because at least the losses are narrowing.  Remember how everyone used to complain that Amazon wasn’t profitable, for years and years?  Look at it now.  Amazon isn’t in the same business, of course, but if you have a good product, people will come to it, eventually, and that’s when you start reaping profits.

The next question:  how good is XM?

XM said it had its best quarter ever in gross subscriber additions, with 942,000 new customers brought into the fold. But it also had a harder time keeping its subscribers. Net additions were only 338,000, compared with 398,000 in the year-ago quarter.

Oops.  Well, this is a problem.  Why would people drop XM?  I mean, I can’t answer that; I’m an addict.  But maybe people are turned off by:

1. Annoying DJs.
2. Annoying bumpers on stations without DJs.  (This is most prominent on Lucy 54.)
3. Really poor organization of channels.  (Why is the folk channel right in the middle of the country stations?)
4. The commercialization (curse you, Clear Channel) of some stations that used to be pretty good.  (This means you, Nashville.)
5. Really bad commercials on channels that have them – by this, I mean the two ESPN stations.  For some reason, XM can’t attract good advertising — I cannot imagine why — and the same damned stupid commercials play over and over again.  If I hear one more time how Laurel Langmeyeris a master of one-on-one financial mentoring and a best-selling author, I am going to do something really dangerous in my car, probably something that will set off my airbag.  I am not kidding. (Note: She appears to spell her name “Loral Langemeier”, for those of you wondering why you ended up at this blog when you typed her name into Google. Just so you know.)
6. I’m going to repeat #5, actually.  There’s one that’s worse, about some sort of patio sun screen, and the narrator keeps getting interrupted by his wife, who repeatedly inveigles him to “Tell them about the discount, Harry.”  I never want to hear this commercial again, never, not ever.
7. All the annoying promos for all the shows on the other channels.  I don’t want to hear who’s on “Oprah and Friends,” I could care less.  I know Dylan does a show (that’s actually pretty good and almost understandable at times), you don’t have to keep telling me.  Just play some more music.
8. Not enough Patty Griffin.

And just like that, I’ve solved half of XM’s problems and paved the way to profitability.  Just like that.  I ought to get a medal.

The DMN says that Notre Dame is conspiring with Jerry Jones – proof, as if proof were needed, of the inherent evil of the Golden Dome and all that dwell beneath it — to bring the Fighting Irish to Jerryworld in Arlington to play the stalwart Baylor Bears in 2012.  The unstated premise is that the Irish seek to use the 2012 contest to raid the fertile fields of Texas football prospects — that the D/FW recruiting class of 2011 will be encouraged to make the long, cold trip north to South Bend if they can play at least one game in North Texas against the lowly Bears.  The game — even the opponent — is an afterthought.  (One supposes that if Baylor were not available, that the Irish would then try to work out a deal with the North Texas Mean Green, or the SFA Lumberjacks, or the Highland Park Scotties.)

From the Baylor perspective, all I can do is quote the wisdom of that great philosopher, Bugs Bunny:  “Of course, you know, this means war.”

Now, 2012 is a ways away — five long years — and both rosters will have completely turned over by then.  (It is far, far too early for me to tease ND fans with a travelogue to the greater Arlington-Grand Prairie area, other than to say that you might want to make your reservations to Pancho’s now.)  But it’s never too early to start the hate. 

Hate?  Well, yeah, it’s not like there’s a huge Baylor-ND rivalry going on, but come on.  They’re Catholics, we’re Baptists.  Their head guy, Benedict XVI, is going around telling people that Protestant churches aren’t churches.  Them’s fighting words.  This aggression will not stand, and if we have to wait until 2012 to get our licks in, then we’ll wait.  All day long, if we have to.

See you in Arlington, Domers.

I am so happy to be reading articles like this (and not living them):

The Texas Bar Exam… tests torts, contracts, real property, evidence, criminal law and procedure, and constitutional law. The essays test Texas law knowledge in subjects such as family law, business associations and oil and gas law.

This amounts to “an overwhelming amount of information that we’re expected to know,” Ms. Logan said. “We literally have a box of books that weighs about 50 pounds. How are you going to remember all of this stuff?”

For some the pressure was too much to bear. About 100 applicants withdrew in recent weeks, Ms. Vaughan said.

Failed the Texas exam the first time I took it; that was in ’94.  I completely outsmarted myself; I figured that if I took a week off to go to South Dakota on a camping trip that I’d come back fresh.  Big mistake.  I wasn’t ready, I hadn’t studied enough, and I ended up cracking my UCC book for the first time in the parking lot of the World Trade Center (the one in Dallas, where they had the exam). 

Barely passed it the second time.  I thought I would be smart and took the exam in Waco, where I could hole up in the Best Western by Baylor and study the whole time I had off.  Unfortunately, this was February 1995, which was the big kickoff to the Phil Gramm campaign.  I worked in the Senator’s Dallas office at the time, and I kept getting frantic calls from the campaign office, seeing if I could help work the opening event.  (Didn’t make that much difference in the long run; that campaign was doomed from Day One.)

Thought I would never had to take it again, but I did — twice.  Moved to Atlanta in 2002, and had absolutely no plans to take the bar exam.  My employer had other plans.  I was informed that I needed to take it as part of some ill-defined staff development scheme.  Sweated over it for months, took it, got it over with, and now I get a lot of junk mail.  Moved to New Jersey in 2005, got a real-lawyer job, and of course, I had to take New Jersey’s bar.

Good luck to anyone who’s taking it and suffering; I understand how you feel, more than you know.

T.R. Sullivan, on whether Arlington will get an All-Star Game again anytime soon:

 The site of the All-Star Game is selected by the Commissioner’s Office and is supposed to rotate year to year by league although an exception was made when Pittsburgh and San Francisco went back to back for the National League in 2006-07.

Since the Rangers hosted the game, it has been held in the American League cities of Cleveland (1997), Boston (1999), Seattle (2001), Chicago (2003) and Detroit (2005). Yankee Stadium gets it in 2008.

That leaves seven cities that are theoretically in line in front of the Rangers: Anaheim, Oakland, Kansas City, Minnesota, Tampa Bay, Toronto and Baltimore … not necessarily in that order. But if the Rangers have to wait for those seven cities, then they will not get the All-Star Game back until 2024.

But they don’t necessarily take turns. Kansas City hasn’t had the game since 1973, and Seattle, Chicago and Cleveland have all hosted it twice since then, as will Yankee Stadium next year. Not sure anybody is rushing to have the game in Minnesota, Tampa Bay or Toronto, but baseball does like to showcase new stadiums.

The Yankees are getting the game in 2008 as a final hurrah to the old stadium, but it’s doubtful they wait until after 2024 to have an All-Star Game at the new park.

Okay.  We know the Yankees get the game in 2008, and the Cardinals get it in 2009. 

UPDATE:  I had a long piece on this guessing who gets what games when.  I am pulling that down and revising it, because I think that MLB is close to having something like a reasonable rotation here.  What if you did the following:

2008 – AL East
2009 – NL Central
2010 – AL West
2011 – NL East
2012 – AL Central
2013 – NL West

And then repeated that ad infinitum.  That would guarantee that different sections of the country would get the game, as well as keeping the AL/NL alteration.  This would work, right?  ‘Course it would.

So my revised picks are:

• 2010 (AL West) – If the A’s park is finished, the A’s should get it.  If not, it should go to the Angels.
• 2011 (NL East) – Four of the five NL East teams could take it. Washington has a new ballpark coming; so does New York.  Philadelphia just built one, and Florida’s never had it.  It probably should go to Philly.
• 2012 (AL Central) – Kansas City, for sure.
• 2013 (NL West) - Either Arizona (who’s never had it) or San Diego, unless this is the last season for Dodger Stadium.  Probably San Diego.
• 2014 (AL East) - Tampa Bay ought to get it here, especially if they have a new stadium by now. 
• 2015 (NL Central) – Wrigley Field would be the next in the rotation.
• 2016 (AL West) – Either Oakland or Anaheim, whichever didn’t get it in 2010.
• 2017 (NL East) - Probably the Mets would slot in here, although I’d rather see the game go to the Nationals.
• 2018 (AL Central) – Minnesota, if they have a new stadium.
• 2019 (NL West) – Arizona, probably.
• 2020 (AL East) – The new Yankee Stadium, although I’d rather see the game in Toronto or Baltimore.
• 2021 (NL Central) – Cincinnati, probably.
• 2022 (AL West) – It would be the Rangers’ turn.

Okay, then.  I wonder if I can book a supersonic ramjet to fly to Arlington for the 2022 game, or if they’ll have the transporter grid set up by then.

Finally, something to like about the proposed Sirius-XM merger:

Listeners could choose from a package of 50 radio channels for $6.99 a month, compared with the current standard rate of $12.95 a month. They also could opt for a 100-channel package that includes selecting channels from the other service’s range for $14.99 a month.

Okay!  Now, do I want to know what’s in that package?  Yippie skippie, you betcha.  I need to know.  But if you give me five country stations, a couple of the XM “Decades” stations, a couple of the pop stations, include some bluegrass and jazz and alternative and classic rock — you got yourself a deal.  (Unless the package includes the God-awful XM “commercial” stations like Nashville, Mix 21, or Sunny — don’t want to pay for those, period.)

A so-called ‘Family-Friendly’ tier, which would enable listeners to block out channels they found offensive, would be offered as well. The companies say this option would cost $1 less a month than the standard $12.95 monthly charge.

Heh.  You don’t want to know what I think is offensive.  I think Celine Dion is offensive.  But I’ll gladly take the dollar not to have to listen to Howard Stern (or XM 66).

The statement from the companies said that if customers chose the $6.99 a la carte model, they would be able to add channels on an individual basis for 25 cents each.

Because the two companies’ systems are technologically incompatible, the plan is to maintain two separate radio systems in the immediate aftermath of the merger.

But, on Monday, the statement said that listeners of one radio would be able to choose from a selection of the best of the other radio’s programming.

Oh, I like.  I like this a LOT.

Having said that, the article doesn’t say anything about sports, which would be my next question.  But I’m sure there’s a way to get both MLB and the NFL on my XM — hopefully sooner rather than later, and hopefully cheaper rather than more expensive.

I sent out a few query letters on my novel over the 4th of July weekend, and I’m getting rejection letters back from agents, as expected.  But I haven’t gotten one like this: 

There is no way to figure out how long your piece would be or how much it would cost. No professional director or actor or cinematographer or production designer or casting director, etc. would read beyond the first few lines, because the project is so unprofessionally written. You do not have industry standard formatting. When one flips through the script, it seems to be all speeches and no choices/actions. There are no visual descriptions, discernible plot points, character arcs, or sub-plots.  

Part of me would really like to see this kind of thing, but an even bigger part of me wouldn’t, not ever.  (H/T:  Driscoll)

I won’t go much farther than my friend at Crazy Mokes has done in her Harry Potter prediction-fest, but here are some questions that I have (spoiler-free):

1. Does Harry get any help from “across the veil”?  So many people have died in the Potter universe — people that want to help Harry — and he has gotten help from the shades of his parents before, so why not?  The flip side to this theory is that Harry might go to the land-of-the-dead, and return, Christlike, but somehow I don’t see that as an option.  (Although there are the Deathly Hallows, come to think of it.)  I think I’d like it much better if he handled Voldemort on his own, but that would run against the grain of the series-so-far.
2. Why did Tom Riddle want to teach at Hogwarts?  I think this is the question that’s going to drive Harry back to Hogwarts for Book Seven — there’s something that Voldemort wants there, and Harry must find it.  (It could just be that Voldemort missed his basilisk friend, but I don’t know.)
3. Who will betray Harry?  Somebody has to, and it’s going to be one of his friends. You always betray your friends; you can’t very well betray your enemies.  (Ancient Klingon Proverb, that.)   Someone Harry trusts is a traitor, but who?  (Taking into account the Imperius Curse, which I bet plays a big role here.)
4. How do you destroy a Horcrux, anyway?  Good question!  We don’t know that, do we?  Dumbledore destroyed one, and it withered his hand (supposedly).  Did he explain how that worked to Harry?  Maybe Slughorn knows.

Guesses:

1. One of the things we think we know is a Horcrux is not a Horcrux at all.  It is a Portkey, and it will lead Harry someplace bad (to the Deathly Hallows, perhaps).
2. There’s going to be at least one moment when we (collectively) slap our heads and say, “Oh, yeah, why didn’t I see that coming?  In hindsight, it was so obvious….”
3. Contrariwise, there’s going to be one moment where Rowling makes an awful mistake — like messing up the order of the parents in the duel in Goblet of Fire — where everybody is going to just slap their heads again, this time in frustration.
4. The last chapter of the book has Harry beating out Viktor Krum for the Golden Snitch in the last game of the Quidditch World Cup.

I really like the sepia filter on my digital camera, especially for taking pictures at the new breed of retro stadiums:

Especially the little details:

It really works well at places like Coors Field that feature purple flags – the sepia doesn’t care:

Of course, the stadium doesn’t have to be retro (or empty) for the sepia filter to work its magic: