People's Court, Anyone?

I'm not sure why, but I've been enamored with litigation shows. The Defenders has been a show that I've taken a great interest in lately as well as Judge Judy, Judge Alex, and The People's Court. After watching today's episode of The People's Court, I've noticed the following text at the conclusion of the show:

Both the plaintiff and the defendant have been paid from a fund for their appearance. The amount, if any, awarded in the case is deducted from this fund, and the remainder is divided equally between both litigants. The amount of the fund is dependent upon the size of the judgment.

I wonder if there's any way two people can make out on this deal. My guess is that the size of the fund becomes the judgment, so that noone makes out on any money in the deal. What are your thoughts, and how can we maximize our winnings from The People's Court?

Picking the BCS Bowls

Since I'm not a huge fan of Christmas, my favorite time of year may be the end of the college football season. And even though the game is played with a very poor postseason, it's still fun to see who goes to the big games. To give a refresher, here's the top 15 schools in the BCS according to last Sunday's rankings along with results this weekend if they played.

#1 Auburn -- Def. #19 South Carolina 56 - 17...ouch!...SEC Champion

#2 Oregon -- Def. Oregon State 37 - 20...Pac 10 Champion

#3 TCU

#4 Stanford

#5 Wisconsin...since they're the highest ranked team in the Big Ten (it's really the Big 11, but who's counting?), they're going to be the Big Ten champs.

#6 Ohio State

#7 Arkansas

#8 Michigan State

#9 Oklahoma -- Def. #13 Nebraska 23 - 20...Big 12 Champion

#10 LSU

#11 Boise State -- Def. Utah State 50 - 14...making up for previous shortcomings, eh?

#12 Missouri

#13 Nebraska -- Lost to #9 Oklahoma 20 - 23

#14 Oklahoma State

#15 Virginia Tech -- Def. #21 Florida State 44 - 33...ACC Champion (Go Hokies!)

...

(Unranked) Connecticut -- Def. South Florida 16-13...Big East Champion

My only comment here is that Nebraska is pretty much out of the BCS picture by losing in the Big 12 championship. Now let's look at the selection procedure according to bcsfootball.org. Otherwise, there isn't going to be a lot of leapfrogging going on.

1. The top two teams in the final BCS Standings will be placed in the National Championship Game ("NCG").

Result: NCG -- Auburn v. Oregon...this will be a great game to watch. Go SEC!!!

2. Unless they qualify to play in the NCG, the champions of selected conferences are contractually committed to host selected games:

Atlantic Coast Conference-Orange Bowl
Big Ten Conference-Rose Bowl
Big 12 Conference-Fiesta Bowl
Pac-10 Conference-Rose Bowl
Southeastern Conference-Sugar Bowl

Result: NCG -- Auburn v. Oregon
Sugar Bowl -- (Vacant spot by Auburn) v. ???
Orange Bowl -- Virginia Tech v. ???
Fiesta Bowl -- Oklahoma v. ???
Rose Bowl -- Wisconsin v. (Vacant spot by Oregon)

3. If a bowl loses a host team to the NCG, then such bowl shall select a replacement team from among the automatic-qualifying teams and the at-large teams before any other selections are made. If two bowls lose host teams to the NCG, each bowl will get a replacement pick before any other selections are made. In such case, the bowl losing the No. 1 team gets the first replacement pick, and the bowl losing the No. 2 team gets the second replacement pick. If the Rose Bowl loses both the Big Ten and Pac-10 champions to the NCG, it will receive two replacement picks.

For the games of January 2011 through 2014, the first year the Rose Bowl loses a team to the NCG and a team from the non-AQ group is an automatic qualifier, that non-AQ team will play in the Rose Bowl.

A bowl choosing a replacement team may not select any of the following:

A. A team in the NCG;
B. The host team for another BCS Bowl;
C. When two bowls lose host teams, then the bowl losing the number one team may not select a replacement team from the same conference as the number two team, unless the bowl losing the number two team consents.

Results: Since the Rose Bowl loses a team to the NCG, and TCU is an automatic qualifying team from a non-automatic qualifying conference, the Rose Bowl gets TCU. The Sugar Bowl gets a replacement pick, and they will probably pick Ohio State since they will travel well to New Orleans. To summarize:

NCG -- Auburn v. Oregon
Sugar Bowl -- Ohio State v. ???
Orange Bowl -- Virginia Tech v. ???
Fiesta Bowl -- Oklahoma v. ???
Rose Bowl -- Wisconsin v. TCU

4. After steps No. 1, 2 and 3 have been completed, any bowl with an unfilled slot shall select a team from the automatic qualifiers and/or at-large teams in the following order for the games played in 2007 through 2010:

January 2011 games: Sugar, Orange, Fiesta

Results: Sugar Bowl will choose a SEC team to keep the tradition, so they'll take Arkansas. Unfortunately, the rules have Stanford as an automatically qualifying team in the BCS. So does the Orange Bowl pick Stanford or UConn. Despite Stanford being located across the country from the Orange Bowl site, it'll undoubtedly sell more tickets than picking UConn. So the Orange Bowl (reluctantly) pick Stanford. This leaves Connecticut to the Fiesta Bowl. To summarize:

NCG -- Auburn v. Oregon
Sugar Bowl -- Ohio State v. Arkansas
Orange Bowl -- Virginia Tech v. Stanford
Fiesta Bowl -- Oklahoma v. Connecticut
Rose Bowl -- Wisconsin v. TCU

I hope that there'll be some surprises tonight, but I think this what will probably happen.

Enjoy!

Why Can't We Just Get Along?

I have to write about this topic because the 2009 baseball postseason is a prime example for what I want to talk about. For those who don't know this, I grew up in the borough of Queens in New York City. It's such a large city that there's more than one professional team in the market for each of the four major sports (2 football teams, 2 basketball teams, 3 hockey teams, and 2 baseball teams). Growing up, it's perfectly understandable to pick one team from each sport (assuming you follow all four sports) and stick with that team, no matter how well or poorly the team performs. Most of the time, those choices are determined from your parents (i.e. if your dad's a Mets fan, you're most likely going to be a Mets fan), and that's alright too. Another aspect of being a fan I'm alright with is rooting against the other team during the regular season. For example, as a Met fan, I usually hope that the Yankees don't do well during the regular season.

What I'm not alright with is taking that same attitude into the postseason. At some point, you need to put your personal pride aside and take pride in your city. If both teams make the postseason, not only is it amazing that both teams were good enough for the playoffs, but you can also root for your team in hopes that they win the championship, especially if it comes at the rival team's expense. But it seems selfish that because your team didn't play well enough to make the playoffs that you need to have the rival's team experience some sort of embarassment in the postseason. One thing I enjoyed as a kid was when the Yankees won the World Series a couple of times in the late 90s. You may ask why I enjoyed this when I was a Mets fan, but my answer to that is because Mets fans and Yankees fans were able to enjoy an awesome parade/celebration in Manhattan because NEW YORK won a championship. Even better, New York was guaranteed to have a parade in 2000 because the city fielded teams that were the best in both the American and National League.

So why can't we come back to those times? Is it because people are up in arms about Yankee spending? Didn't they lose the World Series in 2001 and 2003 to small market teams (Arizona and Florida)? Didn't they blow a 3-0 lead in the ALCS to the Red Sox, something that hasn't happened in history until that point? It seems like Yankee fans got their karma the last 8 years, so what's the point in battering them some more? That time period was evidence that spending doesn't correlate strongly with whether you have a World Series ring on your finger or not. An even better question is why are we cheering harder for someone else's demise than for our own success? Believe it or not, baseball is a zero sum game. In zero sum games, there are winners and losers, nothing inbetween. Because of this, you need to take the falls as much as celebrating your successes. For these reasons, I hope many fans think about what they are really rooting for. If they stick to rooting for themselves, then everyone will end up being a winner in some fashion. And if someone else has more success instead of you at one particular moment, then allow them to enjoy their success in their own space and look forward to when your success will come. In essence, why can't we just get along? Why can't we root for NY? LET'S GO NEW YORK!!!

Hey Bulldog

No, this is not going to be a rant on UGA athletics. I like this title because I've acquired a whole bunch of Beatles music, and Hey Bulldog was the first song that's not one of their most popular hits that I've really enjoyed.

Currently, things have been coming along well. I'm doing a LOT of Java programming for the Tennessee Department of Transportation, but I'm a lot happier working with Java programming from scratch than editing FORTRAN code that's far from efficient (using outdated techniques from FORTRAN 77 or something of the like). Plus, I'm understanding the underlying theory a lot more when you're coding up something from scratch like I have been doing. Classes are becoming more interesting as the semester is coming along, but I cannot say whether the switch to Industrial Engineering was a good one or not.

Things on the horizon look very interesting. Timmy and I are going to be going to our first home UT game at night. Finally, the fireworks that have been shot during the other home games can been seen for once. Then, we'll have three weekends in a row of visitors. First, it's two of Timmy's friends from Floral Park. Next comes my mother, which will be anticipated because I haven't seen her in a long time and Georgia's coming into town to take on the Vols. Finally, it's my better half that's coming into town for the second time, and I'll have myself a four-day weekend.

Until next time, keep out of trouble. Go Greyhounds! Go Hokies! and Go Vols!

Settling Well in Knoxville

So it's been about 3 weeks now since Timmy and I have moved down to Knoxville, and it's been a splendid time already! We've attended an Irish festival and a country music concert. Yes, I said country music, but it was a very good concert. Sugarland was a great opening act, but Keith Urban was the one that shook Thompson-Boling Arena (UT's basketball arena, which is an excellent venue). He was so good that I bought my first country album today, which was the album that he released this year (Defying Gravity)!

As for school, classes haven't been taxing thus far. We're into our third week of classes already. I have my research topic, which is a neat one. It's called highway cost allocation, which involves coming up with a fair and rational way of splitting up the cost of rehabilitating, repairing, and/or building a highway among the vehicle classes (passenger cars, two axle trucks, etc.), which are the people who use the highway.

This weekend's going to be an excellent one! Annette's coming in on Thursday morning. Timmy, Annette, and I have tickets to see Sara Evans on Friday. And Saturday's going to be a glorious day. The three of us have tickets to see the season opener for the Volunteers football team, where we'll be in a stadium that holds over 100,000 people!!! Not only do we have some football action at noon in Knoxville, the Hokies will be on national TV against Alabama. I'm hoping for a big win here since it'll be against a top 10 team.

Until later, keep out of trouble folks!

Welcome Back My Friends...

Yes, it's been nearly a year and a half since I last posted to this blog. Many people have abandoned this blog probably, and it's ok. I felt that I had some time on this holiday to bring some people up to speed with what's been going on, especially those I haven't seen in a while!

• I'm heading down this week to the Volunteer State, Tennessee, to look for a place to live. I'm moving down there because I was offered admission into the PhD program in Industrial and Information Engineering at the University of Tennessee, which is located in Knoxville. I'll be funded under a graduate research assistantship, although I may have some grading the first semester I'm there.
• Currently, I'm home preparing for my last teaching assignment at Virginia Tech. It's an online course, which I am looking forward to because online learning is a recent development that has my interest. I shall be learning the pros and cons of this teaching medium over the next few weeks, and I'll be glad to share my experiences with other fellow educators.
• If you weren't aware of it at this point, I got engaged last May to Annette Fidecaro, my college sweetheart. However, the wedding is in the mildly distant future because we do not currently live in the same state (she's working in DC) and I'd like to finish my studies at Tennessee before we start planning. Another bonus in waiting is that a close friend of mine will be receiving his Holy Orders shortly after I earn my PhD, and it would be awesome to have him preside over that special day.
• My AFI journey is still coming along. Last fall, I purchased an Xbox 360 and discovered the power of Netflix. That service has greatly assisted me in the AFI process. I will give an update sometime in the near future with my progress.

Alright, I'm getting somewhat tired with writing at the current moment because I want to get on my bike and enjoy this wonderful weather. Contact me when you have a chance; I'd love to hear what's new with you!

AFI Update

So I talked about my movie binge last post. Here's a more complete update of the films I've seen on the 2007 AFI 100 Years...100 Movies List

Movies I've seen with AFI rankings next to them:
#1 Citizen Kane
#2 The Godfather
#3 Casablanca
#4 Raging Bull
#8 Schindler's List
#9 Vertigo
#10 The Wizard of Oz
#11 City Lights
#12 The Searchers
#13 Star Wars
#14 Psycho
#17 The Graduate
#19 On The Waterfront
#21 Chinatown
#24 E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial
#25 To Kill A Mockingbird
#26 Mr. Smith Goes To Washington
#32 The Godfather Part II
#33 One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest
#34 Snow White And The Seven Dwarfs
#39 Dr. Strangelove
#50 The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
#51 West Side Story
#57 Rocky
#66 Raiders of the Lost Ark
#71 Saving Private Ryan
#72 The Shawshank Redemption
#76 Forrest Gump
#83 Titanic
#89 The Sixth Sense
#92 Goodfellas
#99 Toy Story

And I'll keep things posted as we go along. Take care fans.

P.S. You can find the list at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AFI's_100_Years..._100_Movies_(10th_Anniversary_Edition)