Previewing Wake Forest: Q&A with Blogger So Dear

It's going to be OK Jeff...promise.

Yes, I do still blog. You mean y’all haven’t noticed all my recent posts?

To say it’s been a busy six months would be an understatement. That said, I have no excuse for not filling up this space on the Interwebs with angry posts about ACC football, basketball and other sports topics. I’ll try to do better. Notice I didn’t say “I will do better.” Anyway, on to Wake Forest vs. NC State, a Saturday showdown in the RBC Center that should really get the blood flowing. Given the back-and-forth game the two played in January (wait, what?), I fully expect another barn burner in Raleigh this weekend.

Many thanks to Martin Rickman, owner and site manager of the fine Wake Forest site Blogger So Dear, for contacting me about doing a Q&A preview of tomorrow’s game. My questions are in bold. To find my answers to his questions, go here.

#NoChristmasDecorationsOnCars

Before I begin, let me give credit where credit is due. Thanks to @Joey_Powell for the headline inspiration and for spearheading the #nochristmasdecorationsoncars movement among Triangle tweeps during the last couple of weeks

Now, on to the meat of this long overdue post (overdue in the sense that I haven’t posted in months and because of the topic being discussed) that I’ve been angrily writing in my head since the first time I saw a set of antlers on a minivan.

Who came up with this idea? What person had enough free time to say to themselves, ‘you know, I think my station wagon needs a nice set of stuffed antlers coming out of the windows and a Rudolph nose hanging off the front bumper?’  Was it a grandmother who was too darn sweet to confront? Maybe an innocent child who would have been crushed if his wimp of a father had said ‘no son, we can’t put antlers on my Tahoe.’

It’s hard to say when, how and why it started, but at this point it’s crystal clear: people love putting Christmas decorations that should never see the light of day on their cars, arguably the most public pieces of property they own. It’s appalling, sickening and it must be stopped (or at the very least, made fun of).

I’ve talked junk about everything that’s wrong with Christmas before. Several times, actually (Here, here and here). But this latest craze, which defies logic more than ‘ol Timmy Tebow, takes the cake. My initial paragraph-long rant about car decorations last year has now morphed into a full-fledged rant.

Throughout the last couple of days, I’ve solicited my Twitter followers for pictures of some of the more ridiculous Christmas cars they’ve seen to use as an example. I’ve compiled them for your viewing (dis)pleasure. When you see these cars in parking lots, feel free to remove the antlers, wreaths, lights or whatever else and place them in the closest trashcan. If you see folks driving, try to do the ‘you have a flat tire’ motion and when they pull over, make your move. They may think you’re a carjacker, so act quickly and get on your way.

Whatever you do, don’t condone people you know who have decorations on their cars.

Thanks to everyone who contributed photos.

Wednesday Whine: Steve Spurrier, the idiot

I’ve been planning to bring back the Wednesday Whine for months now, but it just hasn’t happened. I haven’t had the inspiration from what goes on in daily life. Maybe I need to put myself around more idiots and watch the complaints come flowing back.

If you havent’ followed this blog at all, last year I had a weekly installment called the “Wednesday Whine” where I’d pick a topic that bothered me and essentially talk junk about it. Seeing as how this is a blog on the Internets, I feel like calling people out is just how it works. I feel really tough behind this keyboard. I talked about the N.C. State Fair, things I despise about Christmas and, most famously, spandex. Thanks to the beauty of search engines, that spandex rant still gets a good number of hits each week.

I’ve been looking for an excuse to bring it back, and on Tuesday, Steve Spurrier delivered. Thanks HBC, I really do appreciate it.

If you’ve missed it, Steve Spurrier lost his mind before his weekly press conference, essentially disassociating himself from The State columnist Ron Morris because of some “negative” articles Morris has written in the last six months. Spurrier threw a little tantrum and ended with “well I’m not going to talk if he’s in here.”

I’ll let you watch it for yourself and then, for my whine, I’m going to break it down play-by-play style.

ACC Prediction: Week 6 Rewind

All in all it wasn’t a bad week (4-4), but if Georgia Tech and North Carolina had decided to actually show up and play football games, it could have been a lot better. What the heck was that abomination in Chapel Hill?

There was a football team in Winston-Salem Saturday, and somewhat surprisingly (not to me), it wasn’t Florida State. Until the Seminoles can figure out what’s going with their quarterback situation, expect inconsistent performances.

NC State looked better in its win over Central Michigan, especially in the second half. Tom O’Brien (SNIFF) is getting things all lined up for a 5-1 finish.

Not sure what happened to Pittsburgh against Rutgers. I’ll blame Big East commissioner John Marinatto.

Going to keep things brief today.

Correct Picks

NC State (-10.5)
Wake Forest (+10.5)
Clemson (-21)
Tulane (+10) against Syracuse

Incorrect Picks

UNC (-14)
Georgia Tech (-14)
Virginia Tech (-7.5)
Pittsburgh (-7)

Season Record: 40-17-1

ACC Predictions: Week 6

Maybe the Eagles should just let Kuechly play running back.

With the “let’s prove how good we are nationally” part of the season in the rear view mirror (thankfully), the ACC schedule really starts to heat up in week six with several important conference games. It’s about time. Nothing gets my blood flowing quite like Maryland Georgia Tech at noon in Atlanta.

There are a couple of upset alert games this week, with Florida State visiting Wake Forest and Boston College going to Clemson. Alright, maybe only one upset game (damn you, Spaz).

Sadly, with a bye week Duke can’t go for four straight wins in four straight weeks. The quest will have to wait until next Saturday when Florida State comes to Wallace Wade.

On to the picks…

Twitter machine rolling along, but can it make money?

Excuse the jump into nerd territory with this post, but I couldn’t resist mentioning the New York Magazine article I read Tuesday about the past, present and future of the Twitter machine.

The book-length piece, which centers on how the powers that be at Twitter headquarters intend on making the company profitable, did much more than simply talk about Twitter and cash (which it will generate, mind you). Author Joe Hagan talked at length about what Twitter is, what makes it great for those who use it and how it’s constantly changing despite not being fully defined.

For me, that’s the greatest part about Twitter: it has no true definition. It can be whatever each individual user wants at any given time and it can change almost instantly.

If you get a few minutes, read the whole article. If not, here’s a couple of notable excerpts.

“People describe Twitter as a global consciousness,” says Ryan Sarver, a fast-talking engineer who comes out of his third-floor sanctum to meet me in a conference room. Sarver, who is responsible for managing this chaotic flow, the so-called fire hose of tweets, says Twitter has only begun to take shape. “We’re in the early life cycle of what the platform is,” he says. “This is version one.”

In the planning rooms of Twitter, the most prolific and widely followed tweeters are called “influencers,” or “power users,” and they are at the core of its business. If it loses them, it becomes, essentially, MySpace—a digital graveyard where a party used to be. So while they race to retool the tweeting experience for the masses, Costolo and Dorsey are on a parallel campaign to keep Twitter’s star attractions, celebrities and politicians and the media, chattering away on Twitter.

RIP Steve Jobs

1955-2011

Steve Jobs, the co-founder of Apple Inc., who introduced simple, well-designed computers for people who were more interested in what technology could do rather than how it was done, died Wednesday at age 56.

In a brief statement, Apple announced the death but did not say where he died. Mr. Jobs suffered from a rare form of pancreatic cancer and had a liver transplant in 2009, and he stepped down as Apple’s chief executive on Aug. 24.

Full obituary from Washington Post.

Like a lot of people, I’m at a loss for words. Steve Jobs was a true innovator and someone who changed the way the world uses and appreciates technology. In a lot of ways, he completely changed the way we think about personal technology and what it should do for the person using it.

Fittingly, I learned about his passing on my iPhone. As I continued to refresh Twitter and see how everyone in my Raleigh-based network responded, Jobs’ influence became even more apparent.

A couple of quotes from Jobs.

“That’s been one of my mantras — focus and simplicity. Simple can be harder than complex: You have to work hard to get your thinking clean to make it simple. But it’s worth it in the end because once you get there, you can move mountains.”

“Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure – these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose.”

Also, if you want a quick look into how Jobs thought about business and life, take a few minutes and watch his commencement address at Stanford in 2005. Really good stuff.

RIP, Steve.