Musings of a Dead Parrot

The NCAA has given approval to four new bowl games for next year - the fifth Bowl Championship Series game plus the International Bowl (in Toronto), the Birmingham Bowl, and the New Mexico Bowl.

This will bring the total to 31 bowl games not including the Houston Bowl which needs some resolution to its uncertain future. As of now OVER 50% of D1-A schools (62 of 120) will play in bowl games next year.

Accordingly, the NCAA has had to loosen the qualification criteria. It is reasonable to expect a bowl game may have to take a team with a .500 record or even a losing record because that is the only school available. So the NCAA board of directors also just approved a proposal allowing teams with .500 records to qualify for bowl games if the conference has a contract with a bowl game. Also, teams with .500 records could earn bowl bids if all other Division I-A teams with winning records have been taken and postseason spots still remain vacant.
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2006/football/ncaa/04/27/bowl.games.ap/index.html

Any program that does not play in a bowl game must be pretty pitiful given how low the bar is set.

I won't even bother to comment about the attractiveness to fans of the teams that play in the new bowl games of travelling to Toronto, Birmingham or Albuquerque in mid-late December to watch one's team play.

Chinese president Hu Jintao and his entourage stopped at Microsoft HQ in the Seattle area yesterday on their way to Washington for a summit meeting with President Bush. Hu met with Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer among other Microsoft execs.

By itself, this event is not worthy of a comment. However, some photos of the visit have been posted on the web and Valleywag wrote some very funny captions.

http://www.valleywag.com/tech/bill-gates/chinas-president-visits-microsoft-168376.php

I love the Steve Ballmer "sneezing orc" comment. He also does a passable impression of Peter Boyle. Can he do a soft shoe to "Puttin on the Ritz"?

If the Chinese contingent had visited IBM HQ in Armonk, Sam Palmisano could have said, "I earned a nice $5.175 million bonus last year and have negotiated a pension that will pay me $10,000 per day when I retire. I impressed the Board and Wall Street very much by selling off businesses like the PC company. Thank you Lenovo and thank you China for helping to make my dreams come true!"

The Atlanta Journal Constitution reports on Sunday that the Georgia Bulldogs athletic department made a profit of $23.9 million last year based on data reported to the US Department of Education. This made it the most profitable athletic department in the country.

http://www.ajc.com/sports/content/sports/uga/stories/0416gamoney.html

The top 5 most profitable athletic departments included:
School Revenues Expenses Operating profit
1. Georgia $68.8 million $44.9 million $23.9 million
2. Michigan $78.4 million $61.3 million $17.1 million
3. Wisconsin $75.3 million $59.5 million $15.8 million
4. Texas $89.7 million $74.4 million $15.3 million
5. Alabama $62.3 million $49.8 million $12.5 million

Note: Figures do not include depreciation and debt service.

So of course I wanted to see how my alma mater Stanford and other schools of interest ranked against these figures. I went to the US Department of Education web site with the data (http://ope.ed.gov/athletics/Search.asp) and compiled the following:

Stanford revenue - $41,525,646; expenses - $41,784,647
Cal revenue - $43,886,419; expenses - $51,774,029
UCLA revenue - $44,516,613; expenses - $44,514,157
U$C revenue - $60,732,435; expenses - $60,732,435
Oregon revenue - $40,107,833; expenses - $40,107,833
Oregon State revenue - $36,765,531; expenses - $35,626,358
Arizona revenue - $38,985,159; expenses - $38,985,159
Arizona State revenue - $39,632,445; expenses - $38,047,329
Washington revenue - $43,197,964; expenses - $45,423,346
Washington State revenue - $26,221,008; expenses - $25,703,517

Notre Dame revenue - $57,649,586; expenses - $48,188,542
Oklahoma revenue - $63,382,024; expenses - $62,897,773

Summary findings - most Pac 10 schools operate close to break even except Cal which has an $8 million deficit. Moreover, most Pac 10 schools' athletic departments have comparable revenues and expenses except for U$C which takes in $15 - 20 million more and Washington State which takes in $10 - 20 million less than their peers.

These numbers seem to reinforce that there is a hierarchy of big market/small market teams within the major conferences just as there is in Major League Baseball. Fortunately, there is still some competitive balance despite the revenue disparity. Within the Pac 10, for example, seven of the ten teams have played in the Rose Bowl in the last 10 years.

I will be interested to see the effect on revenues of Stanford's new stadium, (hopefully) increased attendance and new revenue sources.

In early April, David McGill of Omaha, Nebraska became the first USA Rock Paper Scissors League Champion at the House of Blues in Mandalay Bay, Las Vegas. The tournament purse was $50,000!!

The A&E network is actually going to televise highlights from the tournament. Naturally, with an event sponsored by Anheuser-Busch, there are hot and scantily clad Girls of USARPS whose pictures you can see (along with all you want to know about competitive Rock Paper Scissors) at http://www.usarps.com/site/index.php

Tom Delay announced earlier this week that he will not run for re-election for his House seat. This effectively ends the Hammer's reign in the US House. He has run it like a fiefdom, rewarding those who offer him tribute and obey his commands and strictly punishing those who defy him. In a strict Machiavellian sense, he has been extraordinarily successful. There have been very few issues that were priorities to him or his party over the last 10 years where the House did not eventually act in accordance with his desire. His power even extended to the State legislature in Texas where he helped drive through a gerrymandered re-districting plan that wanted to ensure more Republicans would be elected from Texas to the US House of Representatives.

The pundits will miss him too. He often has made statements that are arrogant, ignorant or both. Check out the following (thanks to http://politicalhumor.about.com/od/stupidquotes/a/tomdelayquotes.htm for the source material):

1. I AM the federal government." –Tom DeLay, to the owner of Ruth's Chris Steak House, after being told to put out his cigar because of federal government regulations banning smoking in the building, May 14, 2003
2. "So many minority youths had volunteered…that there was literally no room for patriotic folks like myself." --Tom DeLay, explaining at the 1988 GOP convention why he and vice presidential nominee Dan Quayle did not fight in the Vietnam War
3. "Now tell me the truth boys, is this kind of fun?" –Tom Delay, to three young hurricane evacuees from New Orleans at the Astrodome in Houston, Sept. 9, 2005
4. "We're no longer a superpower. We're a super-duper power." –Tom DeLay, explaining why America must topple Saddam Hussein in 2002 interview with Fox News
5. "Nothing is more important in the face of a war than cutting taxes." –Tom DeLay, March 12, 2003
6. "Guns have little or nothing to do with juvenile violence. The causes of youth violence are working parents who put their kids into daycare, the teaching of evolution in the schools, and working mothers who take birth control pills." –Tom DeLay, on causes of the Columbine High School massacre, 1999
7. "A woman can take care of the family. It takes a man to provide structure. To provide stability. Not that a woman can't provide stability, I'm not saying that... It does take a father, though." -Tom DeLay, in a radio interview, Feb. 10, 2004
8. "I don't believe there is a separation of church and state. I think the Constitution is very clear. The only separation is that there will not be a government church." –Tom DeLay
9. "Emotional appeals about working families trying to get by on $4.25 an hour [the minimum wage in 1996] are hard to resist. Fortunately, such families do not exist." –Tom DeLay, during a debate in Congress on increasing the minimum wage, April 23, 1996
10. "I am not a federal employee. I am a constitutional officer. My job is the Constitution of the United States, I am not a government employee. I am in the Constitution." –Tom DeLay, in a CNN interview, Dec. 19, 1995

In honor of the biggest storm of the season to hit Los Angeles, a list of rain songs:

• And the Rain Crashed Down - Eddie From Ohio
• Riders on the Storm - The Doors
• Who'll Stop the Rain - Credence Clearwater Revival
• Have You Ever Seen the Rain - Credence Clearwater Revival
• When the Levee Breaks - Led Zeppelin
• Let It Rain - Eric Clapton
• Love, Reign O'er Me - The Who
• Fire and Rain - James Taylor
• Red Rain - Peter Gabriel
• Box of Rain - Grateful Dead
• Cold Rain and Snow - Grateful Dead
• Looks Like Rain - Grateful Dead
• It Feels Like Rain - Aaron Neville
• It Never Rains in Southern California - Albert Hammond
• Stormy Weather - numerous
• Singin in the Rain - Gene Kelly
• Blue Eyes Cryin in the Rain - Willie Nelson
• Don't Rain on My Parade - Judy Garland or Barbra Streisand
• Rain - Patty Griffin
• Dry River - Dave Alvin
• I Think It's Gonna Rain Today - Randy Newman
• Raindrops Keep Fallin On My Head - BJ Thomas
• Here Comes The Sun - The Beatles
• Waiting for the Sun - The Doors
• Save It For A Rainy Day - The Jayhawks (different song from . . . )
  Save It For A Rainy Day - Stephen Bishop

One of the generally acknowledged facts in the illegal immigrant debate is that they take jobs that US-born workers won't, especially for the bare wages that employers offer. Examples - picking lettuce, cleaning hotel rooms, etc.

Over the weekend, I read this article in the NY Times that states the Bush administration is having a hard time finding anyone to take the open FEMA director position - http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/02/washington/02fema.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

"The calls went out across the nation, as Bush administration officials asked the
country's most seasoned disaster response experts to consider the job of a
lifetime: FEMA director. But again and again, the response over the past
several months was the same: 'No thanks.'"

Seems to me that this is a perfect opportunity to put an illegal worker to use! If FEMA director is another thankless, dirty job that US-born workers won't do, why not offer it to an illegal? Anyone hanging your local Home Depot or Lowe's will likely have better qualifications than Michael Brown. Isn't construction worker a better fit with FEMA's mission than the Judges and Stewards Commissioner for the International Arabian Horse Association?

This coming Wednesday, at two minutes and three seconds after 1:00 am in the morning (in whatever time zone you happen to be), the time and date will be

01:02:03 04/05/06

I'll remind you again of these odd occurrences as we approach 06:06:06 on 06/06/06. Undoubtedly, some will find the sign of the devil in that date and time. Beware, the apocalypse is nigh!

You may now return to your normal life.