Stuck in town for Thanksgiving? Stuck at home for Thanksgiving? Here are some Commentator-approved ideas!

1.   In general, Macy’s and drunk should be synonymous, but this should be the case even more so on Thanksgiving. If you’re in for the hours and hours of fun called the Macy’s day parade consider making a pitcher of Mexican Thanksgiving Shots and taking a shot each time you see a marching band.

Recipe: Fill pitcher 1/2 full with Tequila. Fill remaining part of pitcher with Wild Turkey.
Alternatively, check out these holiday shot recipes. And this holiday drinking game.

2.   Find a Bank of America and impersonate their door.
3.   Capture wild turkey, take it downtown, let it go and then chase it saying “Turkey is friend not food!”
4.   Make yourself a meal of traditionally American food, just kidding! Check out these local places that are serving up Thanksgiving dinner. Or, if you’re too lazy, to venture a mile off campus McDonalds is open until 11 a.m. (Ethics and shit: I contribute to MyEugene and have class with the author of that article, so don’t get all crazy and yell at me for bein’ biased, ’cause I told you!)
5.   Change all of the Bibles for copies of the Student Insurgent before Thanksgiving service at your church. (I’d link to there blog here but it seems they must be SOOOO busy with their upcoming issue that they had to delete their blog.)
6.   And what’s as awesome as walking 2 miles at 9 a.m.? Running 4 miles of course! Sign up for the Turkey Trot 2-mile walk or 4-mile run benefiting Food for Lane County.
7.   Oh, and I almost forgot, the university calender says that the Museum of Natural and Cultural History will be showing an exhibit from 11:00 a.m. to 5 p.m. This couldn’t possibly be wrong, I’m sure they’re open. So make sure and check it out!

And here’s a little history lesson, enjoy!

Put that Sociology degree to use with the ODE‘s handy guide to panhandling, released just in time for our global financial market meltdown.

Praying: Reading the Bible and praying can distract from the fact that a person is begging. It attracts attention, but not necessarily in a negative way.

Women versus men: Women inspire more pity because people assume they are mothers or more delicate than men. However, more men panhandle, so statistically, they make more.

Be professional: Treat panhandling as a job. For most people who are begging, it’s the only option they have. If you are in this situation, be professional and work hard because it’s likely the only job you have and it’s probably your only income.

Of course it wouldn’t be an Emerald story unless the reporter interviewed one or two people. In this case, the money interviewee is “Huggy” Miller, who offers the following advice to future UO graduate panhandlers:

Miller begins the song, “May I beg your pardon my Lord,” and it continues in a lilting British accent than contrasts oddly with his round, scruffy face and flame-covered bandana. He considers his ditty an icebreaker, and said asking for change or holding a sign will only bring in coins, while a song or a rhyme brings in the bills.

Miller said he sleeps down by the river, on church steps or in people’s homes when they offer. Besides paying for food and cigarettes, his panhandling money is currently going toward a big splurge – a night in a hotel.

Yes, learn to fake a British accent and spend your money on cigarettes and hotel rooms. Now there’s some advice you can bank on in a recession.

Thanks to OC Alum Ian Spencer for sending in this video. It warms the cockles of my heart.

Nancy Pelosi Techno Chicken from wreckandsalvage on Vimeo.

UCLA has decided to hire Rick Neuheisel to coach their football team:

Neuheisel, a quarterback who was the MVP in UCLA’s 1984 Rose Bowl victory and later served as a Bruins assistant under Terry Donahue, was hired Saturday as his alma mater’s 16th coach.

His five-year contract is for $1.25 million annually, plus incentives.

[…]

Colorado was placed on two years’ probation by the NCAA for infractions committed while he was the Buffaloes’ coach. All were deemed secondary violations and most involved improper contact with recruits.

The AP story glosses over Neuheisel’s infractions while at the (first) college football program he destroyed. Here’s what the Gazette of Colorado Springs had to say back in 2002:

The NCAA announced Tuesday it has reduced the number of Colorado football scholarships, restricted coaching visits and placed the school on two years probation after a three-year investigation found more than 50 violations.

[…]

Most of the violations involved improper contact with recruits from 1995 to 1998 under coach Rick Neuheisel, now at Washington.

“In many instances these violations would not be considered very serious, but in the recruiting process, any recruiting violation could impact the decision of a prospective student-athlete,” said Tom Yeager, commissioner of the Colonial Athletic Association and chairman of the Committee on Infractions. “What made this case ‘major’ were not only the calculated attempts to gain a recruiting advantage, but also the number and pattern of the violations.”

So he commits “more than 50 violations” at one school, places bets on college athletics at another school, and is gleefully welcomed (and given $1.25M+/year) by the Bruins.

To put this hire into perspective, Rick Neuheisel was replaced by Gary Barnett because of his ethical lapses. Yes, Gary Barnett.

Congrats, UCLA!

So, can someone tell me who thought it would be a good idea to schedule the Oregon/Arizona game for 12:20 in the afternoon on a day most people have school or work? The game could’ve easily been scheduled for yesterday evening, but instead those of us with, you know, jobs and other responsibilities miss out. Thanks Pac-10!

Those of you unable to watch today’s game but able to use the Internet can see live scoring updates here.

Alright, this has nothing to do with anything and is probably years old, but I just discovered the Internet Anagram Server today thanks to Digg and am rather astonished that I hadn’t heard of it sooner. Did you know that “Daily Emerald” can be rearranged to spell “ideally armed” and “deadly mailer”? Or that the letters in “Commentator” also spell “rotten comma” and “coma torment”? It’s no Ron Mexico Name Generator, but it’s fun nevertheless.

Fellow NFL fans probably remember last Sunday’s hilarious Chargers/Broncos game starring Jake “The Snaaaaaaake” Plummer and LaDainian Tomlinson. Well at the end of the game, Chargers defensive lineman (and Oregon alum) Igor Olshansky punched Broncos Center Tom Nalen after Nalen had tried to cut block him in the knees on a spike play. It’s no surprise that Igor would react so vehemently to such a dirty play– he had arthroscopic knee surgery about a month ago . Anyway, here’s a video:

Well, it’s inventor and biggest supporter is, in any case.

Milton Friedman did more for popularizing economic thinking and the understanding of government’s role in causing economic difficulty than any other Economist of the 20th century. He helped foster the Rational Expectations revolution, and, I think most importantly, argued strongly against the Phillips Curve and established grounding for the NAIRU. I think the last paragraph of the FT obit sums it up nicely:

Friedman himself attributed the spread of both free markets and monetarist ideas to belated recognition of the consequences of soaring government spending and high inflation in the 1970s. But so far as the reaction was coherent and rational, much of the credit must go to him. The very success of free market policies has, of course, led to fresh problems; and what would one not give for a reborn 30-year-old Milton Friedman to comment upon and analyse these new challenges?

Goodbye, Milton. And thank you.

Mozilla Firefox, the only web browser you should be using on Windows, has hit version 2.0. Get the Windows version here and Mac version here. The new feature most users will actually care about is in-line spell checking, but there are a significant number of small-yet-welcome additions and changes.

And for those who don’t value computer security, Microsoft has recently released Internet Explorer 7. IE 7 features such groundbreaking innovations as tabbed browsing (ooh!), RSS feed support (aah!), and a built-in search box (¡increíble!).

I don’t know how long this has been up, but Parker Howell is one of the featured graduates on the UO home page. I expect that once I graduate the UO will do the right thing and, in the interest of fairness, feature me on the home page as well.

For the record, my “Accomplishment of note” is that I got an A in an Art & Gender course.

I’ve made a slight change to our comments system in order to help visitors identify comments that are not from who they say they’re from. One of the problems with our comment system is that anyone can enter any username and any email address, so it’s relatively easy for people to pretend to be, for instance, Jared Axelrod. Well, we aren’t removing that ability– anonymous comments are here to stay. But we are enabling people to register on our site and be identified as who they say they are when they post. These users will be delineated by a red asterisk next to their name. So how do you register?

1. Many systems apparantly recognize our registration emails as spam, so you will first have to temporarily disable any spam filters you may have operating. University users can click here.
2. Next, click the register link under the Meta section on the right side of the page. Write in the name you wish to be known by and an email address. If possible, use an email address with your name in it so that we can be sure it’s actually you. Your address will remain private and we will never under any circumstances give it to a third party. The only publicly-visible personal information will be your username and your website address (if you specify one.)
3. Next, check your email. A password will have been sent which you can later change.
4. Now reenable spam filters.
5. Finally, click the login link under the Meta section of our website.
6. After logging in you will be able to post comments without filling in your information every time.

Any “imposter” accounts created will be deleted. If there are any questions, please feel free to reply to this thread or email us.

UPDATE: We’ve received word that some people are not receiving a password through the mail due to the University’s spam filters. If you’ve signed up but not received your password then you should contact us and we’ll give you a generic password that you can change. If you wish to sign up through a University account then first disable spam filtering so that the registration email can go through, then register, then reenable spam filtering. We’re working with our hosting provider to get this resolved, but this should fix things in the meantime.

I will be one of four panelists at Portland State’s “MEdIA (Media Education In Action) day” which takes place at 1:00 Tuesday (tomorrow) in Room 236 of PSU’s Smith Center. According to organizers, I’ll be a part of a “panel discussion focusing on the portrayal of homosexuality within the media.” I’m not quite sure what exactly the discussion will encompass or why they invited someone from the Commentator, but I’ll be there. The other attendees are Marty Davis (Publisher of Just Out), Sue Burns (Manager of In Other Words Bookstore), and Wende Morgaine (PSU University Studies Instructor and Faculty Team Leader).

I do wonder if the organizers think the Commentator is some sort of hysterically anti-homosexual journal. Are they expecting me to show up with a “Straight Pride” t-shirt or do they actually know that I’m quite liberal on these sorts of issues? We’ll see.

because every bit of information that goes through AT&T’s network also goes through NSA filters. Illegally, of course. Read this. Then read this. The “vulnerable to hackers” line is laughable to anyone who has an even rudimentary knowledge of computer network security.

It’s March- both the best and the worst time of year if you’re an American sports fan. It’s the best because we get the NCAA Tournament- undoubtedly the premier sporting tournament in the United States. It’s the worse because it’ll soon be all over, with nothing to entertain sports fans for six months besides regular season baseball. Ugh.

Anyways, here are my final four picks for the Tournament. First, the men:
Texas v. Kansas – I feel that Texas is a better, more rounded team than Duke despite the beat-down they received from the Blue Devils earlier in the year. While I’d love to see LSU come out of the Atlanta region, I just don’t feel they are an Elite Eight-calibur team. Kansas, meanwhile, has gone relatively unnoticed despite a 15-1 record in their last 16 games. There’s no question in my mind that they can beat Memphis if they get the opportunity to play. I’d love to see Gonzaga come out of the Oakland region, but I just don’t see enough depth and ability to match up with well-rounded, athletic teams like Kansas and UCLA.
Connecticut v. Boston College – Look for Uconn to come out of the D.C. region. It’ll be tough—Washington, Illinois, and North Carolina all are superb teams—but Uconn is the deepest (and perhaps best coached) team in the nation. Boston College, meanwhile, is likely going to have two huge hurdles in Nevada and Villanova. I think Villanova’s four guard system will hurt come tournament time. Sure, guard play wins NCAA championships… but it’s far better to have a well-rounded team with two superb guards than a lopsided team with four good guards.
Texas v. Connecticut – Uconn wins it, again.

Now, the women (please forgive the depth of analysis, my interest in Women’s college basketball is limited to LSU):
Tennessee v. Arizona State – Pat Summit’s pissed off, and that’s not a good thing for the superb North Carolina team that’ll likely have to face her Volunteers in the Elite Eight. I’m picking Arizona State purely because I’m a Pac-10 homer and because Kovesdy’s a solid interior player.
Duke v. LSU – I don’t have a reason to pick Duke other than that I’ve heard they have a good team this year. Meanwhile, I’m picking LSU because I’m a big-time Lady Tigers homer. If I were rational on this issue, I’d likely pick Oklahoma, whose 6’4” 250lb Freshman Center Courtney Paris has more interior presence than Maarty Leunen and Ray Schafer combined.
Tennessee v. LSU – LSU wins it, defeating both Tennessee and Hurricane Katrina in one fell swoop.

I wouldn’t normally play the role of TV guide, but there are two notable things (besides Selection Sunday) on television tonight. The first is ESPN’s Through the Fire, which shows at 5:00 and 9:30pm PST. Through the Fire is a documentary chronicling a year in the life of Blazers Guard Sebastian Telfair. The filmmakers followed Telfair around the year before he was drafted, and from what I’ve read the results are outstanding. Think Hoop Dreams: New York.

Also on is the season premiere of the Sopranos, which certainly needs no introduction. Wish I had HBO.