My first ustream broadcast went off pretty well.  The broadcast was a bit delayed as Dan showed up about an hour late but three other friends stayed on and watched Fresno State grind out a solid 24-7 victory over New Mexico State.  My second-straight run at a WAC title is in motion and off to a very good start.  My only regret was that I forgot to record the broadcast.

I’m a big fan of finding little tech-related projects and then seeing if I can get them to work.  Inspired by the lack of a spectator-mode in NCAA, Mike and I have been discussing various ways of streaming the game to various other members of our dynasties.  Audio/Video capture from the 360 would be ideal but we were looking for something a little cheaper — preferably $0.

Enter ustream.tv.  Ustream and others like Mogulus (shout-out for Dan!) are a new breed of web application and the ease with which they make webcasting available is nothing short of astounding.  Using the iSight on my MacBook, my upcoming Fresno State/New Mexico State game will be broadcast over the web for my other friends to watch on the newly formed gergi TV.  

Granted, the scale of nerdiness here is a bit high.  Not nearly as high as setting up the webcam to watch my cats sleep all day long… which I did today.   Nor as high as setting up Twitter accounts last night for both Argo & Beta.   That said, I have a project in mind that will put all of these nerd endeavors to shame.  Cats and blatant misuse of technology will be involved if I can find the time to work on it.

My NCAA dynasties continue, though ever more slowly.  I’m now in three dynasties: WAC as Fresno State, SEC as Vanderbilt, and CUSA as Tulsa.  We’ve got 6-10 people in each dynasty and the time between “weeks” is getting further and further apart.  

The WAC is still my #1 dynasty and Fresno State is off to a spectacular start with huge wins over Kansas, Oregon, and an in-conference victory over Carl’s La Tech.  I’ve been practicing various plays and finally  figured out how I can call in my backup QB to run certain plays — something I’m definitely planning on doing in my upcoming game against Dan’s NMSU team.  My backup QB is the superstar recruit I snagged last season whom I promised early playing time and I’m definitely interested in using him to help me acquire my 2nd WAC title.  Unlike last season, Chris (Hawaii) is off to a red-hot start and could be the favorite to win the conference at this point while Josh (Boise State) seems to have fallen off a bit.  Right now, I have to like my chances though it will likely come down to the games against Chris and Mike (Nevada) for the title.  

The SEC is the slowest moving dynasty and Vanderbilt is really struggling against the competition.  I’m 1-3 though I have confidence I have at least one upset forthcoming.  The talent pool is a lot deeper than my WAC team but the competition is light-years above.  Most of my fellow dynasty-ers picked the cream of the crop in the SEC so it may be awhile before I can compete in that league.

CUSA is my newest dynasty and is made up mostly of people in the WAC dynasty.  I got assigned Tulsa who, in real life, had a pretty phenomenal seaon with a ridiculous offense.  That offense prowess is not to be found in the dynasty however.  In my three games, I’ve gone 1-2, scored 4 offensive touchdowns, and thrown 9-10 interceptions.  My receivers can’t seem to get open and while my HB is solid, the offensive line is awful and can’t hold off any sort of defensive rush.  My prospects at Tulsa are also pretty weak as the recruiting pool for a 1-star school in Oklahoma is rather limited.  Tulsa is definitely a work in a progress — from the ground up.

Despite what Pandora thinks, I have a pretty wide and varied taste in music.  My iPod shuffles between rock, country, rap, and even classical throughout the day in my rather eclectic music collection.  I’m always on the lookout for new music.  These days, however, it’s almost always because I heard it on a TV show or commercial, in a movie or video game, or some other non-traditional means.  I almost never listen to the radio anymore and that’s because of one thing: podcasts.  Last week when I was without my Celica, not being able to listen to my podcasts was probably the hardest thing to adjust to.

Podcasts can be found on pretty much any topic though it still heavily favors news & technology — the first industries to adopt podcasting.  For me, beyond my weekly must-listen in the form of TWIT, the granddaddy and standard-bearer for all tech-related podcasts, I don’t really listen to any other technology related podcasts; I get enough technology in the hundreds of related articles I read every day.  As for news, I’ve tried repeatedly to get into the NPR podcasts but I just habitually find myself leaning more toward other podcasts.  Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me is always entertaining but more often, I pass the quick trips with ESPN’s PTI and College Football podcasts.

I’m a complete history junkie and, as far as I’m concerned, the history podcasts are the jewels in the world of podcasting.  I’m constantly searching iTunes for more quality podcasts along the lines of The History of Rome and The History Network.  For longer trips, Christina and I have steadily been listening to the in-depth TPN::Napoleon series.  Also, Dan Carlin’s Hardcore History is… well, for hardcore history fans… but is also an excellent podcast.

iTunes + iPod + crazy car adapter + podcasts = awesome nerdiness.

Thanksgiving has come and gone and my least favorite holiday is now behind me.  It’s not that I dislike Thanksgiving — I’m just not a big traditional meal kind of guy so a holiday devoted to just that isn’t really my thing.  A few days off work, on the hand — That is something I can get behind.  Regardless, on my new rotating holiday schedule (thank you Married Life!), this year was Turkey Day down in Richmond.  True to my family, it was a loud and boisterous affair with people coming and going and upwards of 25 some people tucked away in every nook of my grandmother’s house.  In a rather bizarre turn of event, I somehow ended up spending a good portion of the day watching Dallas with a bunch of Cowboys groupies…  Ack!  Ah well, I’m more of a college fan anyway.

Speaking of college football, due to the crazy parity (and mediocrity) of the ACC conference this season, VT is somehow going to the ACC Championship game this Saturday.  They will match up against BC - Sound familiar?  That’s right — all of the twists and turns, the unexpected upsets, the week-by-week changes in division leaders… at the end of the season, the exact same teams from last season are playing for the ACC conference championship.  Surprise!

Now that the college football season is winding down, I finally got a new TV for my basement.  My too generous mom dragged me out to Circuit City on Black Friday and coerced me into picking out a new TV for my downstairs “man cave.”  After moving into the townhouse a bit over a year ago, I had given up my nice HDTV for the living room upstairs and had made do with a 19″ monitor down in my basement that was also hooked up to one of my computers. No more — I’m back to the sweet goodness of a big HDTV.

There was a catch, of course.  My car, which is ideally sized for me, is not quite as ideally sized for an HDTV.  I had a few different options for transferring the TV back to my townhouse but in the end, I settled on my mom’s minivan.

My mom will tell all who listen that the minivan she has, a Mazda MPV, is the only minivan that drives like a car.  She may be right but whichever car it is that it drives similarly to… well, it is definitely not a Toyota Celica.  While it’s a very nice vehicle in it’s own right, I just can’t get past the notion that I’m driving around in a minivan.  On the other hand, my mom can’t stand driving around “an inch from the ground” in my car either so I guess it’s good that we’re supposed to be swapping back next weekend.  I’m just glad I hadn’t chosen to borrow my uncles truck.

Last night, VT put the season on the line and traveled to Miami for what I considered a must-win game.  As is much too common, VT dropped the ball (literally in Dyrell Roberts case) and let Miami steal a 17-14 win.  Several suspect penalty calls, numerous fortuitous “mistakes” by Miami that turned into game-savers, and most of all, the atrocious play-calling by the VT offensive coordinator Bryan Stinespring, led to the loss.

The defenses for both teams were playing quite well in general.  Bud Foster dialed up a constant blitzing assault that worked pretty well in general.  Likewise, the Miami defense managed to lock down the VT running game completely.

For the most part, the quarterbacks played reasonably well even with the offensive line providing almost no protection.  Sean Glennon, who I have never been sold on, had a reasonable game with only one bone-headed mistake where he took a sack that pushed us out of field goal range.  Tyrod Taylor also played reasonably well and provided essentially the only offense we had in the second half.  Darren Evans was repeatedly stopped and our running game was virtually non-existent.  Boykins had a phenomenal catch while Roberts had the previously mentioned drop.

Despite having all the breaks go Miami’s way with the fumbles and penalties, Virginia Tech was still in a position to win the game.  Unfortunately, Stinespring was unable to come up with a gameplan and continued to make the wrong decision time and time again.  Miami’s defense was consistently able to stuff our inside running game but the few times we call an option or a designed QB run, we seem to be averaging 6-8 yards per play.  Obviously, we continued to attempt runs up the inside.  Brilliant!

The difference between Stinespring and good offensive coordinators becomes really apparent when you look at certain plays.  e.g. With our constant blitzing, Miami was able to able to capitalize by calling several screen passes… specifically designed to abuse the blitzes.  They did this with signficant success in the 3rd quarter.  Stinespring went the other way — With Miami completely shutting down our inside running game, Stinespring calls just that on a critical 3rd & 1.  Using Pickle, a guy who hadn’t touched the ball previously in the game.  Against a defense that has not let us run up the middle yet.  I guess his thinking is that they would never expect him to call a play they’ve been so successful at stopping… time and time again.  I think we all know how that play ended up.

I suppose my frustration is quite apparent.  VT has all the pieces but atrocious play-calling and gameplans are killing us.  How is that Beamer can’t see what every other Hokie fan can?  Something has to change and that something is Bryan Stinespring.

… Or so NCAA Football ‘09 tells me when I start up a game as the Fresno State Bulldogs.  With the release of the Madden & NCAA Football games for the current year, my friends have all been setting up various online seasons and dynasties with each other.  Though I tend not to play too many sports game — they really are pretty much the same year-to-year and get rather repetitive — I decided to pick up NCAA 09 after hearing people talking about the dynasty they setup.  With a little coercion, I managed to get them to restart the league and now 5 of us are playing through a multiple season dynasty with one another.  We tried to find a conference/division where we’d all play each other and have more or less equal teams.  Enter the WAC and my team, Fresno State.  It should be interesting as my record in practice games is 1-8.  These Bulldogs are about to get humbled.

This past weekend, Tech topped the team with the best name we’ll face all season, the Furman Paladins.  Unfortunately, their play level doesn’t quite match the same level of excellence as their name so Tech can’t really feel too great about a modest win over a DI-AA (or whatever they call it these days) opponent.  ECU’s complete domination of WVU is perhaps more reassuring that maybe we’re not quite as bad as we thought we might be.  Next weeks match against GT (another well named team: The Ramblin’ Wreck) should give us a better idea of where we’re at.

Usually I’m not a fan of Bobby Bowden down at FSU but I have to give him and FSU a bit of credit.  When the offensive coordinator wasn’t getting it done, he fired him.  Despite the fact that it was his own son.  When the redshirt senior quarterback wasn’t getting it done, he benched him.  In this area at least, Beamer could learn a few things from Bowden.

Tech football started the season with a bang:  A terrible implosion.  Completely incompetent on offense, VT still managed to lead for the first 57 minutes of the game.  ECU stuffed the box but our running game was still modestly successful. However, Stinespring found grinding-it-out to be unacceptable and decided to take to the air.  Regardless of the fact that the first pass Glennon threw in the game was an interception, Stinespring must have thought it an aberration as he continued to call passing plays that inevitably failed, were intercepted, or resulted in no gain.  Likewise, despite two great defensive scores, overall the defense didn’t help much on a play-by-play basis.  At this point, it really feels as if the coaches are “throwing away the season” by putting Glennon at the helm with this very young VT team.  Glennon has yet to improve as a quarterback in his several years playing for Tech.  He still makes the same mistakes, still blames others for his faults, and still shows little enthusiasm for developing his game.  By next year, the rest of the team will be veterans and we can put in Tyrod who has a much higher upside than Glennon.  Maybe they’ll prove me wrong but for now, it looks like the Hokies will have to suffer through another disappointing year.