NCAA is unfair!

According to the Grand Forks Herald, UND was once again denied a request by the NCAA

UND appeal denied
Herald Staff Report
UND’s appeal to the NCAA regarding the universitys nickname and logo has been denied, according to the organizations Web site.
Today, the NCAA retained the restrictions placed on UND, and two other universities, the University of Illinois, and Indiana University of Pennsylvania.

By denying the appeals from these universities, the NCAA executive committee concludes that the Native American references by each university create hostile or abusive environments inconsistent with the NCAA constitution and inconsistent with the NCAA commitment to diversity, respect and sportsmanship, according to a press release on the NCAA Web site.

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My question is why let other Universities keep their logos that seem much more inapproriate.

What will UND do next? Hmm, I’m not really sure, I think they might take the NCAA to court.

If they decide to go to the ND Board of Higher Ed, I bet they will say to change the logo and name.

Changing the logo and name is going to be difficult and make an equal amount of supporters of the University upset.

It’s a lose/lose situation.

There are a lot people who have genuine and absolute respect for the Sioux name and logo, why can’t they see that? The Sioux fans will always be Sioux fans regardless if the name changes. We will still wear our Jerseys, shirts etc. The NCAA can’t stop that.

Done with Da Vinci Code

I finished “reading” actually listening to the 16 hours of the Da Vinci Code. I’m not going to totally spoil it, but I was disappointed in the ending. But really, if the characters in the book actually found the grail, that would be kind of a farce as well but I guess it would be harder for the author to fabricate the documents etc than to just end the book they way that it did.

The book was really good in my opinion and I must point out that it’s not anti-religous, if I were still Catholic, during the reading of the book, I would be p’od at some parts and probably stop if I was ultra religous, but if you were smart you would read the entire book and your opinion would change and might actually push you back towards your faith.

In the book they are trying to expose an alternate life of Jesus Christ, and the author says through the characters, if that were to be revealed to the world, it wouldn’t be any different than discrediting any other world religion. It would be the same as if we were to say that Budda never existed or that the Koran is bS

Da Judge’s Code

A judge in London used humor to present his ruling and commentary on a recent case related to the Da Vinci Code.

On CNN this is what was said (please note the last line..):

Judge: Solution to my secret code

Friday, April 28, 2006; Posted: 11:10 a.m. EDT (15:10 GMT)

An artist’s impression of Judge Peter Smith at the trial.

LONDON, England (AP) — British Justice Peter Smith issued this statement on the coded message inserted into his ruling in “The Da Vinci Code” suit, which was released by the Judicial Communications Office:

Da Vinci Code Hints

1. HBHG refers to the Dossiers Secret and the hidden message. It is revealed by spotting that certain random letters appear to be different in form from the majority of the text.

2. Applying that to the judgment reveals the following highlighted letters:

SMITHYCODEJAEIEXTOSTGP

SACGREAMQWFKADPMQZVZ

(the first part reveals there is a message)

3. There is no significance to the placing of the letters in the text

4. DVC also uses codes. The most liked one is apparently a numerical one (p. 255 The Fibonacci Sequence). In the book it is changed.

5. The correct sequence up to 21 is: 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21

6. The code is created by letter substitution.

7. The letter change is creating by applying the Fibonacci Sequence numbers above letter by letter.

8. The relevant number shows where you start for each letter to substitute. Thus the first letter is identified by rewriting the alphabet stating at the first letter in the alphabet i.e. for the first letter A third at 3. When 21 is reached the code reverts back to 1 etc. and repeats that until all the letters are substituted. A message ought then be revealed (there is a deliberate typo to create further confusion). The message reveals a significant but now overlooked event that occurred virtually 100 years to the day of the start of the trial.

9. The preparation of the Code took about 40 minutes and its insertion another 40 minutes or so.

10. I hate crosswords and do not do Sudoku as I do not have the patience.

Peter Smith

28th April 2006

Scooby Doo the bunny?

Yes, that photo is Scooby Doo, the bunny. I am not sure if it’s a male or female, but I do know that the name of the bunny or at least it was refered to as Scooby Doo a few times.

The bunny is probably one month old. I was reluctant to get a bunny, especially since we already have a rather large petting zoo collection at home (three cats, two dogs, fish and who knows)… Of course I am not kidding about the who knows.

Now, we have a rabbit. We’ve had rabbits before and some of them were met with an unfortunate fate. Not my doing but that’s what happens sometime with pets who live outside. Fortunately for Scooby Doo, he is living in climate controlled location (in the porch) in a rabbit cage. I think he/she is happy, but what do I know about reading rabbit’s minds.

Anyway, the first thing Madeline did today when she woke up was to ask to see her bunny. That’s cute.

Mickey Mouse Code

Okay, I was really motivated by listening to the Da Vinci Code today.

I will have to add to this post as well at a later time, since I am getting hungry.

I just thought I would try to get my thoughts out as fast as I could, before I forgot about this, which is very likely.

I just had this wave of feelings that I may seem like a real big dork writing about this, but who cares, I’ve got remember that I am doing this for fun and it’s good to keep up my writing skills.

Okay, back to the topic I am trying to write about here…

In the Da Vinci Code, the author, Dan Brown proposes that Walt Disney and his animators have hidden symbolism in the kid flicks. This is true, but to the extent that is discussed in the novel, I am skeptic. Although Walt Disney is another interesting character that is an enigma.

The book says that in the movie Lion King, one puff of smoke spells out the word “Sex” and this is true, I have seen it with my own eyes.

One thing, that my wife always points out that was not discussed really in the Da Vinci Code, is the theme of always killing off the female motherly roles in the Disney movies.

For exmaple, in Finding Nemo, who dies? The mom. In Bambi, who dies? The mom. And you can go on and on with this, pick almost any major Disney movie and you may discover a similar theme. Of course not all of the movies are like this, but look at Cinderella, it’s woman who is the oppressor of Cinderella (her wicked step mom). Look at the movie Little Mermaid, Ariel trades her voice to Ursula, the Sea Witch, for a pair of legs. Ariel can only succeed if she receives true love’s kiss in a few day’s time and she needs all the help she can from a singing crab named Sebastian, a loudmouth seagull, and a flounder.

Well that just shows that males are always the hero etc in some of the kids movies or tales… This is also another blog topic.

Back to my Disney connection to the Da Vinci Code, I was laughing my ass off when I heard the mention of Disney in this book. At first I thought of the “Hidden Mickeys” when the book discussed the hidden M’s in the Da Vinci Code…ooops, I spoiled that you if you haven’t read the book. But really, there was a show on A&E that gave away a lof of the Da Vinci Code, but not really since, now that I am “reading it” (ha, ha), I have found that there is a lot to this book. I am really impressed with the author and I think I might get the book preceeding the Da Vinci Code with the Robert Langdon character.

Well, I really have to eat now.

Pagans and Catholics

After being almost motivated to do more research on the ideas mentioned in the Da Vinci Code novel, I started surfing the net for similarities between Catholics and Pagans or specifically, sun worship and Christianity.

Only doing a short search I found one page, of course biased since it’s from the Catholic viewpoint but it says that similiarities are not so similar, but interesting.

Catholic view of Sun worship

Has a whole description of this information. I didn’t feel like stealing the info today, but after I look at it some more I will take bits and pieces of this at a later date. I will try not to put them out of context, that is why I don’t have time today. And who knows, I may never have time.

I must note that after coming from a very Catholic family (a good one I might add) I do feel guility (again – raised Catholic) about discussing this.. Although, I can be at ease since virtually no one reads my blog. At least as far as I can tell. I’m definitely not going to send this to my family, but if by chance they do see, I must just say I’m just pointing out that it doesn’t hurt to look at every angle when considering something controversial. For example, if I said the sky is purple (which it could be) but in reality, it’s usually blue, that doesn’t mean I am wrong but merely I may be color blind or I may be seeing purple smoke – or get this wearing purple sunglasses. Okay what does that analogy have to do with anything. It just points out that there can be a million or at least few reasons for anything anyone says and you don’t have to chastise them for saying it.

I think may add more to this later…

But I must point out I really don’t want my blog to turn into some sort of religous debate or whatever, it is supposed to be random, just like life is sometimes.

Da Blog Code

After listening to the Da Vinci Code, on CD – and then copied to my ipod so I don’t have to lug around 13 cds, I have been very intrigued by the novel. It is a mixture of murder mystery (not really, you know who the killer is – plot spoiler – the albino named Cilus.) And actually, I could devulge the entire book here, except it takes 16 hours to listen to the book versus probably a lot less time to read it. But I actually, don’t have time to read it.. Which is true, I can listen while driving, I don’t however have time to sit down and read. I do like that the reader can do many voices and makes it enjoyable. I couldn’t imagine listening to this if the reader was monotone or didn’t do the voices.

I do not like that the book is based in France, I don’t the French people. Partly becuase they seem to be arrogant and disgusting etc. I actually hope this gathers some comments, since none of my posting have gathered any comments thus far. I am kind of disappointed, yet I really don’t need any negative attention or to be pissed off by somebody I don’t know.

I am really interested in how much of the book is true. Of course, we will never know for sure, and that is why religion is based on faith. This book, according to the author is not anti-anything. If you read it or in my case listen to it, it may appear to be anti-christian, but it’s not, says the author on his web page. He has actually been contacted by priests and nuns, since this draws attention to religion, and as the old saying goes, any PR is good PR, (PR being short for public relations exposure – whether it is negative or positive).

I can believe the major theme of the book, that Chirst was human and was married and had kids. It’s really not that big of deal when you think of it. Just think, in church pastors are always referring to parishioners or church goers as God’s children, and so what if some of them are actually part of the bloodline of the the son of man.

If you don’t see anymore blogs from me in the future or this disappears, contact the authorites, since the Vaticican or someone who doesn’t like this has taken me out for exposing the truth, just like the plot line in the book.

It’s kind of funny to see the Vatican as the “bad guy” in a book. Whereas in reality, they are a very good organization that provides for assistance and support for millions of people, especially poor people. But I can see where they could be opposed to a “truth” or something like the Da Vinci code proposes.

As a former Catholic, I find myself very interested in this book. I have a feeling that it pulls tighter on the heart strings of people with some sort of religous beliefs. Just imagine an aethist reading this book, they wouldn’t care, it really wouldn’t matter to them, would it?

I actually think this book could be used and might actually be used in education there is a lot of very educational or seemingly educational thoughts in the book. Some of the book is not appropriate for kids, but kids today are exposed to a lot worse things than the harhsest parts of the Da Vinici Code novel. I think however, if someone were to use this in education (specifically – high school or lower) it would be a problem for some parents – conflicting with religous beliefs, etc. Whereas, this is very appropriate for higher education.

Time to get off my soap box and listen to more of the Da Vinici Code and grab some food.

Pepsi Cappucino

Okay, I guess Coke Blak isn’t that weird… there was Pepsi Cappucino sold in Russia.

and check out Pepsi Kona

Pepsi Kona

For more weird products go to:

Weird Products Blog

Blogging in comics

In the past few weeks I have seen my favorite newspaper comic strips mention blogging.

It’s so funny it’s almost true, the ironic statement that people would rather restort to posting a blog than talking to other human beings. As mentioned in both of the comics.

AND the ironic statment in Blondie’s strip is that the daughter doesn’t want her father to see her blog but everyone in the world probably could. When in reality, that’s not true, blogs can be private or shared with only a few people.

Coke Blak – more like blehk..

I bought a bottle of Coke Blak today, it’s Coke’s new idea of what crap might taste like if were bottled. It should be called, Coke, blehhhhk… like yuck.

Actually, it’t not that bad, it’s just weird when you are expecting to taste Coke and all you taste is some weird cough medicine that tastes like coffee.

Well that’s all I have to say about this for now.