Thursday, January 24, 2008

Idiots who disable right click on their websites

You've probably encountered websites that some misguided person wrote who thinks that he/she can "protect" his/her content by simply disabling your ability to use YOUR browser's context menu. This drives me nuts and I tend to immediately leave any website that automatically assumes I'm there to steal their content. In the past I've also taken to emailing the admin or site owner and informed them of two things:
1. I will never return to their site or use their service if they have right clicking disabled because I don't like being treated like a thief.
2. I can easily defeat their attempts to prevent me from right clicking by simply turning off javascript.

Of course, most emails I send are ignored (idiots don't like being shown that they are as much), but every once in a while people actually thank me for sending them an email and remove the right click disable script from their website.

Anyhow, I recently ran across a useful article that has a script that allows you to bookmark it and simply click it anytime you need to disable a "right click disable" script. It's located here:

http://javascript.about.com/library/blright.htm

Very useful. Thanks Stephen!

Tuesday, January 8, 2008

Mike Tomlin and the Two Point Conversion

Being a Cowboys fan I enjoy watching the Steelers lose. Their play Sunday was abysmal, but if they had a good coach they would have at least had a chance in overtime. Instead Mike Tomlin did his damnedest to keep them out of overtime. I have come to the conclusion that he is an idiot. Not only that, he turns around and lies about the situation.

Situation:
You just scored a touchdown with 10:30 left in the 4th quarter, and the score is now 28-23, down by 5. There is A LOT of time left, but you decide that you better go for two since you may only have a chance for a field goal later (ignoring the fact that you just drove down the field and scored a TD on consecutive possessions with ease). Questionable in my book, but fine. Then you get penalized and instead of going for 2 from the 2 1/2 yardline you're now going for two from the 12 1/2, a far, far more difficult task. So, WHY NOT KICK?


Here's Mike Tomlin's reasoning. I highlighted in red the parts to pay attention to:

(Link: http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/tribune-review/sports/steelerslivextra/learnmore/?sle_story_id=546149)

Why did you go for the two-point conversions?
We wanted to make sure we were up by at least a field goal, so if they kicked one it would only be a tie. Being up by two doesn’t serve any purpose. If we go 30-28, we still lose the game based on what transpired after. With the first one it was still irrelevant. It was the same quandary. It was insignificant if we got the one. Playing the charts, that is not out of bounds. That is just baseball. Everybody has that chart. I don’t know if there was 10 and a half minutes left. There were 10 and a half minutes left when we scored that first touchdown with Santonio (Holmes) and we kicked the extra point. It was six minutes on the one he is talking about. We were trying to get the score to three points. We were down by 11 and we scored, so it would have been down to three.



"Playing the charts"? "That is just baseball"? Are you on drugs Mike? This isn't baseball, jackass, it's football. As a coach your job is to coach the freaking game, not "play charts". Any minimum wage moron could "play charts". Then he goes on to show that his recollection of events doesn't match the game's timeline. So not only does he make a bonehead call and go for two with 10+ minutes remaining, in a post game interview he clearly lies about the situation.

Sorry Mike, the Holmes TD came on the 1st play of the 4th quarter. You went for two after the 2nd TD of the 4th with 10:29 left in the game as was stated - regardless of your recollection of the events, idiot. If he would simply fess up and say "yeah, I screwed up, sorry", I might give him another chance. Instead he defends his idiotic call by trying to make the situation a more dire one than it really was. What else can I say? If he was the Cowboys coach I’d be calling for his head.

Wednesday, January 2, 2008

Roger Clemens

So we'll probably never know for sure if the Rocket took steriods. He was named in the Mitchell Report by a former trainer. Of course he denies ever using steroids, but who wouldn't? If he DID use them would there be any benefit to admitting he did? And if he did NOT use them, he certainly would not lie and say he did. So where does that leave us. It leaves us with a trainer, Brian McNamee who cooperated with the government to attempt to avoid as much jail time as possible. Is he telling the truth? Who knows?

My guess is if he had told the prosecutors "nah, no one on the Yankees used steroids" it would be assumed he was lying, and there goes his plea deal. So of course he has to name someone. Then again perhaps he is telling the truth.

Either way, there's no good way for me to know who's lying and who's telling the truth. I don't know either man from Adam. One thing is for sure. Roger Clemens is coming off my "heroes" list. One day I may decide to add him back, but at this time I've lost all faith in baseball in general. It really sickens me.