Silflay Hraka

SI.com - NCAA Football - Power Rankings: 26-119 (cont.) - Tuesday September 26, 2006 12:16PM

SI.com lists UNC as number 67 in its weekly 1-119 Power Rankings. That represents an improvement on last week’s 68th place ranking. After being shelled 52-7 at Clemson, I find it difficult to believe UNC is better than 52 other teams. For that matter, I find it difficult to believe that UNC is better than 2 other teams.

NC State is ranked 65th in the nation, up from 86th after squeaking out a last-second win against Boston College.

Duke is 113th for the second week in a row. That seems about right.

I look forward to tracking UNC’s progress towards the bottom of the rankings for the rest of the season. Duke may be the only winnable game remaining on the schedule.

Going after Cobia with a cracked fly rod.

“I can hear it cracking,” Carter said, half-laughing at his predicament. “Every time the fish makes a surge, It cracks a little more. I can’t put any pressure on him.”

“It’s cracked right above the handle, right in the area that gives you the most power. I don’t know if it will hold up if this lasts too long.”

Looking for ghosts on Ocracoke.

Armed with electromagnetic field detectors, infrared cameras and metal dowsing rods, parapsychologist Christine Rodriguez, accompanied by an assistant and a small group of skeptics, trudged to the beach one recent evening, about 600 yards from the place where the infamous pirate drew his last breath. They wanted to see if he had some unfinished business he wanted to share.

It’s a fact that Blackbeard, also known as Edward Teach, was killed in a gruesome battle in 1718 off Springer’s Point, a wooded Eden that lines an area by Ocracoke Inlet called, aptly, Teach’s Hole.

That’s pretty close to where the Soundfront Inn is. Maybe it was Blackbeard who hid the poker pot under the house.

The perfect beer nibbles.

Breeders of crickets say the insects have become “finger food for beer drinkers” in an age of increasing prosperity in Vietnam compared with the recent past when they might have been food for the hungry or for wartime soldiers surviving in the jungle.

Businessman Le Thanh Tung raises hundreds of thousands of the flying insects in barrels and sells them to restaurants in Ho Chi Minh City, the Southeast Asian country’s largest urban area, or to other breeders in neighbouring provinces. “The taste is very particular, very special and it smells good and tastes delicious but it is very difficult to compare cricket to other meat,” said Tung, 28, suggesting that crickets are an acquired taste.

Crocophiles - October 2, 2006

The newly christened Croc was a hit at the 2002 Fort Lauderdale boat show, and it took off from there, largely due to the many accolades for its comfort. (As one blogger - there are many blogs about Crocs - put it, “You have to put on a pair and try them and, I swear, you won’t care if they look like donkey balls, you’ll just love them.”)

I have yet to give in the Croc craze. A lot of people find them to be hip, but I find them to be nothing but hideously ugly. I was convinced for the longest time that they were intended solely for those who spent a lot of time in the garden.

I realized Crocs were taking over the world when I visited the folks over the weekend and found that my 72 year-old father wearing a pair of Crocs around the house. If the craze has reached him, it’s truly mainstream.

Thankfully, I think that also means the craze is nearing its end. No hip craze can survive my father adopting it. The only thing even remotely hip about my father is surgery.

‘Jihad’ car ad upsets U.S. Muslims - Sep. 25, 2006

A car commercial proclaiming a jihad on the U.S. auto market and offering “Fatwa Fridays” with free swords for the kids is offensive and should not be aired, Muslim leaders said on Sunday.

“They are planning on launching a jihad on the automotive market and their representatives would be wearing burqas … ,” Mirza said. “They mentioned the pope in there and also about giving rubber swords out to the kiddies — really just reprehensible-type comments.”

I hear they were also going to be selling cars that explode when driven into areas with a lot of pedestrian traffic.

MapsofWar.com.

Link via Defense Tech

Hmph. It turns out there are laws in Mexico.

In Mexico, it is illegal to apprehend a wanted criminal. Everything else is fine. Go back to what you were doing.

I just realized what I want out of the president when it comes to dealing with Hugo Chavez, Iran, Al-Qaeda, et al.

More Niccolo Machiavelli.

“Since it is difficult to join them together, it is safer to be feared than to be loved when one of the two must be lacking.”

And more Al Capone.

I want you to get this fuck where he breathes! I want you to find this nancy-boy Eliot Ness, I want him DEAD! I want his family DEAD! I want his house burned to the GROUND! I wanna go there in the middle of the night and I wanna PISS ON HIS ASHES!

CNN.com - Scatology and satire: 10 years of ‘South Park’ - Sep 22, 2006

I don’t watch a lot of television but what I watch consist almost entirely of episodes of South Park. Little Irish Stout has digital cable with DVR and I set it up to record South Park whenever it comes on. When I go to visit, we inevitably end up spooning on the sofa watching South Park reruns.

LIS had never seen an episode of South Park until we started dating. Now she runs around the house repeating some of her favorite lines to her two dogs. Her favorites lines are typically from Cartman but Butters is her favorite character. The dogs frequently get “yeah I want cheezy poofs!” and “talking poo is where I draw the line!” and “well, I’m pissed off Rick. How are you?”

Most women just don’t get South Park. They just think it’s vulgar and mindless. LIS thinks it’s hysterical. I think she might find it even funnier than I do though. She understands that the boys learn an important lesson in each episode.

It’s terribly endearing.