We’re riding out Ike in our condo in downtown Houston. I’ll be posting updates to twitter, Natuba, and YouTube as we watch the storm roll in and directly over our heads. As long as I have some sort of power and connectivity, I’ll be updating. Come see how it’s going at:
My alma mater pulled off an amazing play on Saturday afternoon. The 14 lateral, 61 yard play with 2 seconds remaining in the game between the Tigers and the Millsaps Majors will probably go down as one of the best NCAA football plays of all time. The play took about 60 seconds of real time, and the ball was touched by 7 tigers (even a couple of offensive linemen) on its way into the end zone. Trinity and Millsaps have a history of spoiling each other’s seasons. They did it to us my freshman season, and it kept us out of the playoffs that year. Of course, we demolished them for my remaining 3 seasons :). Since then, Millsaps has picked up head coach Mike Dubose from Alabama, and they have become a very formidable force in the SCAC. This time, Trinity got to play spoiler and kept the Majors from winning the SCAC title outright. Now, if Trinity can win out, [they will take the conference title and head to the playoffs again](http://www.trinity.edu/departments/athletics/Football/game_summaries/TU-MC.htm “Athletics – Football”).
Thanks to this play, Trinity, Millsaps, and D3 are getting a lot of play on ESPN and YouTube. Even John Gruber of Daring Fireball [picked it up](http://daringfireball.net/linked/2007/october#sun-28-lateral). The video at ESPN video is much higher quality than the YouTube one. So I’ve embedded it below.
Man, it’s been a crazy year for college football.
Here’s another angle. It’s a much better view.
**UPDATE**: I don’t know why, but the video was taken down from YouTube. So, I removed the link. Hopefully, the ESPN one will stay up.
**UPDATE 2**: The video is back up on YouTube. So, it’ll be there in case ESPN takes it down. [Here it is](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fnkjyQhaZBY).
**UPDATE 3**: I added another YouTube video provided by Millsaps. It’s the end zone camera, and it’s a much better view.
There was a fierce hail storm at the office yesterday, and I was able to catch a little of it on my camera. It’s hard to see much past the gate, but I didn’t want to step out from underneath the ledge on account of the chunks of ice falling from the sky. The winds were pretty heavy. It looked like the front edge of a hurricane. FYI, the bigger one [here](http://click.videoegg.com/video/cqbYqH) looks better.
> researchers at the University of Texas in Austin are hoping its smart surveillance system can lend a hand in detecting that pent-up rage. The “computer vision system” can reportedly analyze human movements as they occur, and distinguish between “friendly behaviors such as shaking hands, and aggressive actions like punching, pushing,”
> [Smart surveillance systems may soon detect violent behavior](http://www.engadget.com/2006/10/26/smart-surveillance-systems-may-soon-detect-violent-behavior/)
Although this looks really cool, I can’t help but worry that it will turn out like ED 209 in RoboCop some day.
Being a public servant is a mostly thankless job. Although I don’t have a whole lot of love for our local politicians, it’s a little more clear to me now why they seem to have little respect for the citizens of our fair city. It’s easy to put yourslef on a pedestal if the people you see outside of your circle look like this. If I had to put up with this every day, I’d probably have killed myself long ago.
After over 6 years in the software industry, not to mention living in Houston most of my life, I can actually understand what this guy is really saying. Still, the subtitles are classic. Also, his accent is really Indian, not Chinese.
In this installment of Borat in USA, our plucky hero reports on the game of American football (yes, the real football) for his viewers in Kazakhstan. So, where do you go when you want to learn football? Texas of course! Katy HS head coach Gary Joseph is the instructor he picked on for this assignment.
Choice quote: “I can throw a rock and hit gypsy from 15 meter, if chained. If not, 10 meter.”