Eli gets his ring!

Wow! Didn't watch much of the Super Bowl but did catch the winning pass play. Pretty good twelve months for the Manning brothers - they bookended the year with the big prize in the NFL. Wow!

Manning going to super bowl

But it's Eli, not Payton. That's cool.

Couple of pretty darn good championship games today in absolutely miserable conditions. Thought the guys in Green Bay handled the colder but less windy (?) clime a whole bunch better the the boys in Boston.

Photo Sites: Vietnam at Pbase, Iran at Photo Activitists for Peace

Picture: Fresh bread!

Marty was the one who alerted me to pbase.com, which led me to picture albums of Vietnam. And there are lots of them. For starters, try this one.

And it was firedoglake that sent me to photo activists for peace site. Isn't that a great idea! Here's one highlighted by firedoglake suggesting that Iranian women have it a whole bunch better than the recently 'liberated' Iraqi women.

Good stuff.

Diane's new loaf of bread just let us know that it was done. You know what that means: right-out-of-the-oven fresh bread! Better get in line. More later.

P.S. Anybody else out there besides me want the Giants to beat up on the Patriots tonight? And yes I want the Colts to win not only because I want them to win every week but also because with a Tennessee loss, Cleveland makes the post season. Wow!

This and That: Ron Paul's Idea, Boilers Win, Bhutto

Thursday notes to get a day started:

-Via Hullabaloo and tpm: Some discussion of the Ron Paul candidacy in the progressive blogosphere. He's the guy on the Republican side who wants to bring all our troops home, not only from Iraq but also from the rest of the world. Tim Russert asked him about this on Meet the Press and wondered if Paul knew how many that would be. He didn't but Tim did: 572,000. Hmmmm, that's a lot of our guys sitting in posts around the world. As one who served overseas, I for one thought it was a great experience and would love to do it again. But, hey, I can do that in some other capacity, a non-military one. So, what the heck, let's do as Ron Paul suggests and bring the boys and girls home and beef up the diplomacy and other gentler means of getting along with our fellow earth bound travelers.

-Purdue wins in Detroit last night in a game that was high scoring and decided with a last second field goal. The Boilers edged the Central Michigan Chippewas. Gotta love the parity in college football these days.

-Just saw the news that Bhutto was assassinated. That's a kick in the stomach. Makes everything else small and inconsequential at the moment.

Sunday Wrap: Movie: The Tiger and the Snow, Colts Win, etc.

Picture: Lucas out in Palm Springs: the law has arrived!

Movie time tonight: The Tiger and the Snow, a very good Italian comedy that will make you laugh. In the end a love story. The main character is a goof and a poet with a passion for life. Well done, time well spent. Gets a five from me.

Colts win in a game that was a goodie. Had to sit on the edge of the chair right up to the last minute. Colts did get one pick, snapping Gerrard's zero interceptions for the season; another one was canceled because of a Colt penalty.

OSU and LSU for the college football championship. Could be that OSU gets skunked again. It is a rebuilding year after all.

Saturday Morning: Divisadero, College Football, etc.

Notes to get a day started:

-Well into Michael Ondaatje's Divisadero and enjoying the story telling very much. About a group of three who grew up together, were separated, and now going about their separate lives. Coming back together? At least two of them at the moment. They are leading very different lives, one an academic doing research in France; a second a gambler; the third an assistant to a public defender in the LA area. Each of them alone and violently separated by circumstances. A goodie...

-Number One team, LSU, loses. College football is definitely topsy-turvy this year. Over at cbssports.com, a West Virginia-Missouri championship game is predicted. Notre Dame is mentioned, in passing, as it was the team WV lost to in its last foray into a championship game. Remember when? Hint: Eric and Danielle were both students at Notre Dame at the time. That would be a little bit beyond a day and a half ago.

-IU and Purdue expected to have a bowl date. That's cool, especially for the Hoosiers.

-Diane and Lucas getting ready to fly west for a week in the desert with Danielle, Naomi, Leah and Phil. They head up to Indy very early Monday morning.

-Making up my winter's reading list. Greg Waggoner recommended Vengeance by George Jonas, a true story telling of the Israelis selected to hunt down and blow away the PLO terrorists responsible for the killings at Munich during the 1972 Olympics. BTW, do you have any non fiction books that you loved? Any exceptional fiction that you know I should read? I'm open to suggestion.

Guess I'll get ready to head over to the golf course. Expect the temperatures to be around 40 by noon. Might be good walking weather.

Saturday Wrap, Golf, Football and More

President's Cup

Got to watch some of it this afternoon. Weir and Tiger stand out; Americans dominate the day's golf. So what's with the Europeans that scares the bejeebers out of the Americans, I ask again? I see that the Canadian hero, Mike Weir, is paired with Tiger Woods tomorrow; is that fair? Of course, why not Mike Weir with his local support and already several shots in the highlight reel? Ernie Els offers advice in the link: "Not much I can say. Shoot 62 and hope for the best." Still, tomorrow should be a cake walk for the visitors, including Tiger.

College Football

-Good thing I don't feel anything for the Irish anymore; they start 0 and 5 and have dropped seven in a row. What in heavens name has gone wrong with the Irish football program?!
-Purdue and Indiana have a combined record of 9 and 1. Impressive. Nice to see Purdue rebound and everybody wants the Hoosiers to win, don't they?
-Lots of upsets already this week. Lots of teams that have never been in the spotlight are shining bright this season, at least so far. For instance, South Florida. Feather in the cap to all the newcomers.
-And now that Notre Dame is so woeful, can we think of them as underdogs? And start cheering them on and wishing them well because of that new status?

Today's skin match:

Three skins were won, two of them on par threes - that's unusual. The one on #9 by Jon Boyd was a chip in from left of the green down there in fluff hell. Before the chip in, Jon was bemoaning the fact that the day had been one of his worst ever. Nice to finish on a high note.