Cap’n Ken’s Homespun Wisdom

Checking The Wisdom logs today, I noticed a flurry of activity coming from TWMBIC servers over the past day or so. I have a couple of regular readers over there still, but this recent activity suggests a bunch of people seeking some kind of wisdom from The Wisdom.

I guess it probably has to do with the guy who quit over there this week. Yes, my sources tipped me to it. And, yes, his departure is very much in the mold of Cap”n Ken leaving - he”s an amazingly talented Internet professional whose talents were squandered because he dared to try to improve the place. But, truthfully, I”m over the whole TWMBIC thing.

Yeah, I like to see the talented and ambitious people leave there. It”s not a hard thing to predict, though. The economy is getting better, and people who want to do good and interesting work will leave. The people who want job security and good maternity/paternity benefits will stay.

So the gossip and goings-on of TWMBIC don”t really turn my gears. I am waiting for this big, big deal I got wind of about a month ago to go down, though. That could be fun.

But, loyal readers at TWMBIC, don”t expect to find much breaking news on the company here. Sorry.

Just days after discovering the sweet, secret message for readers of The Wisdom by Jesus-loving hair stylist Sherry Miller, there”s more love coming in for The Cap”n.

I fished an email out of my spam box this morning from a supporter of Theida Salazar. Loyal readers of The Wisdom will remember that Theida is/was a candidate for the state legislature who found my wallet at a Braves game last year and dropped it off at lost and found, gaining my appreciation forever more.

But after finding Theida”s website and reading through it, I had to withdraw my endorsement on general principle.

Well, Salazar supporter tamaragenice@bellsouth.net took offense to The Cap”n saying not such nice things about Theida and his “grasp” of the English language:

OK, Sherry Miller has already established that The Cap”n has a hard, evil heart, so I shant argue with the idea that I need to do some deep searching of my empty soul. Nor can I really fight the notion that I might be “spiritually misguideded (sic)”.

But I come off as “somewhat of a bigot” because I didn”t give Theida props for trying to help his community? Come the hell on. We all know what a cracker The Cap”n is, but I”m a bigot if I mock someone”s lack of grasp on the English language? I never even mentioned that Theida is of a particular race (I did originally assume he was Hispanic - and a woman), much less attribute his idiocy to his race.

The good news, though, is that no matter how bad I piss people off, they usually wrap up with “God bless you”. So I”ve got that going for me.

OK, the preseason AP and Coaches polls are out, which used to mean something to me when I”d expect LSU to show up somewhere between 15 and 25. But I knew we”d be Top 5, which means we”re in the national title hunt until we lose a game, so the drama of moving up the ranks is pretty much lost.

But in surfing through Yahoo”s excellent new college football content, I noticed something odd. If you pay attention to the URLs of Yahoo”s team pages - but why would you, unless you”re an Internet geek like me - here”s how they show the AP Top 10:

1. UUB
2. OOC
3. GGB
4. LLI
5. FFC
6. MMI
7. TTH
8. MMK
9. OOB
10. WWH

Huh?

For whatever reason, Yahoo has chucked the idea of /usc or /lsu as being the URL for team pages and has instead adopted this cryptic system. As best as I can tell, the first letter is supposed to be the first letter of your school name, although they seem to have broken the pattern for USC (if “University of Georgia” is “G”, “University of Alabama” is “A” and “University of California” is “C”, how is “University of Southern California” “U”?).
The second letter seems to serve no purpose other than to repeat the first (I found no instance of a school where the second letter is different), and the third letter is the unique identifier for each school falling under the first two letters.

Under “L”, for example, we have:

LLA - Lafayette Leopards
LLC - Lehigh Mountain Hawks
LLE - Liberty Flames
LLG - Louisiana Tech Bulldogs
LLH - Louisville Cardinals
LLI - LSU Tigers
LLK - Langston Lions
LLL - Livingstone Fighting Blue Bears
LLM - Lane Dragons
LLN - Lock Haven Bald Eagles
LLP - Lambuth Eagles
LLQ - La Verne Leopards
LLR - La Salle Explorers
LLS - Lindenwood Lions

I don”t see the connection that makes Lehigh “C”, LSU “I” and Lambuth “P”, and also leaves out “B”, “D” and many other popular letters.

As you might have guessed, this is driving me a bit nuts. Back in the glorious days of dial-up connections, I remember Yahoo switching to an abbreviated link structure (/r/bu instead of /business) to save about 2K of page weight (I miss my 28.8K modem). Brilliant!, we all thought.

But I”m not sure what gives with this odd NCAA link structure. Any ideas?

Damn, this makes me happy.

I was checking out some referer info for The Wisdom and noticed somebody had come over checking out which sites were linking to www.sherrymillerssalon.com.

Loyal readers of The Wisdom may remember a piece nearly a year ago entitled “Will Jesus do it for 5%?” in which I poked a lot of fun at “Christian” businesses I found through Google.

[editor"s note: I"d forgotten how much I loved the "The Lord giveth Lincoln Towncars - and they"re priced to move" line I put in that post.]

Among them was Sherry Miller”s Golden Chair, a cuttery in New Jersey that professes “We believe in enhancing the natural beauty that God gave to each individual”. I included a pic of what Sherry has done to one New Jersey family (it wasn”t pretty).

Well, apparently it was Sherry who came over from the linkto: search, because she has replaced the image of the butchered family with this:

Sherry, of course, isn”t the first Jesus Freak to take The Cap”n on as a cause (although she is the first to lump The Wife in the evil-heart category), but I admire the depth of her initiative.

So please, faithful readers of The Wisdom, pray for me, so that Jesus may change my hard, evil heart.

And bookmark the permalink for this entry. I”m sure Sherry will come back and change her secret message.

If anybody out there is looking to do some early Christmas shopping for The Cap”n, here”s a gift suggestion.

Actually, pretty much anything from the Johnny Cash auction would make a nice gift.

The Dave Alvin, etc. show at The Troubadour last night was most rockin”.

And I reached a new milestone in “The List” - actually meeting one of the celeb babes on my wife-approved I-can-do-her list. To be fair, I did add Australian alt-country singer Anne McCue to “The List” specifically because she was opening for Dave last night, but still …

No, I did not get lucky. But I think Anne may stay on “The List”. She”s amazing.

A) She”s really cute (kind of has an Elizabeth Shue vibe)
B) She writes great alt-country, blues and rock songs
C) She”s Australian
D) Maybe most significantly, the girl plays guitar like Hendrix. In fact, she covers a Jimi song on her new album, which takes a lot of balls for any guitarist to do. She carries the whole guitar load herself onstage, and favors a black Les Paul.

I was mesmerized by her, and I couldn”t stop wondering what kind of world we live in that she”s not famous. She out-crows Sheryl Crow. She”s a hot Bonnie Raitt.

Maybe one of the older folks in the crowd was a record exec who chased her down and signed her to a major-label deal after the show.

And speaking of older folks, Dave had moral support in the crowd from half the dudes from The Blasters as well as John Doe (true music fans will remember that Dave replaced Billy Zoom in X back in the 80s).

Dave busted out a few Blasters tunes, opening with Goodbye Baby, So Long and closing with Marie, Marie. The tunes lose a bit without his brother Phil singing, but damn fine nonetheless. Similarly, he did 4th of July (an X song he wrote), and it wasn”t quite the same without John Doe singing.

But, all in all, a really great show. Dave”s the man, and has been kicking the LA scene for about 30 years now.

And since he”s old now, he went on at 10:15 and finished around midnight, which was good for all the old dudes in the crowd (and those of us still living on Eastern time).

I”m heading back to The ATL today, and I”ve about had my fill of Cali. for now.