Saturday, May 22, 2004
Introducing... The Broun Basement!
At the bottom of each page in The Broun Blog, you will now see a menu of free Shockwave games provided by Miniclip.com. The menu is at the bottom so as not to distract from the latest blog entries, but a direct link to the menu is available in the links column to the left.
(I thoroughly recommend HeliAttack 2 as a good, brief distraction.)
I've decided to christen the menu, "the Broun Basement," for obvious reasons. Studying was never the basement's primary purpose.
(I thoroughly recommend HeliAttack 2 as a good, brief distraction.)
I've decided to christen the menu, "the Broun Basement," for obvious reasons. Studying was never the basement's primary purpose.
Thursday, May 20, 2004
Keep on Trekkin'.
Star Trek Enterprise, the fifth series in the nearly 40-year-old franchise, has been officially renewed by UPN and moved from Wednesday night to Friday night.
Personally, I was hoping the show would be cancelled. The cardinal rule of entertainment is to leave an audience wanting more, and hardly anyone shapes their week around new installments in the Star Trek universe. In brief, the franchise needs a break.
Star Wars was fairly dormant between the dreadful Ewok made-for-TV movies and Timothy Zahn's novels set after Return of the Jedi. The Transformers and the Ninja Turtles have both been revived in new cartoon series, but only after interest waned for a while. At least one first-run Trek series has been on the air for seventeen years, and that's simply too long a stretch.
The environment in which Enterprise competes is vastly different from the environment in which The Next Generation thrived. Broadcast television ratings continue to shrink, there's increased competition from cable channels like USA and Sci-Fi, and Enterprise has to compete even against previous Trek incarnations: TNG and DS9 on DVD and SpikeTV. DS9 on SpikeTV competes directly with UPN's Enterprise, and that's extraordinarily tough competition.
There would have been a certain amount of symmetry to a cancellation this year:
Regardless, Friday night is a death zone for science fiction. (See also, Joss Whedon's excellent but short-lived Firefly.) If Enterprise survives the move to Friday and lives to see a fifth season, it will likely be because UPN's standards are already so incredibly low.
Personally, I was hoping the show would be cancelled. The cardinal rule of entertainment is to leave an audience wanting more, and hardly anyone shapes their week around new installments in the Star Trek universe. In brief, the franchise needs a break.
Star Wars was fairly dormant between the dreadful Ewok made-for-TV movies and Timothy Zahn's novels set after Return of the Jedi. The Transformers and the Ninja Turtles have both been revived in new cartoon series, but only after interest waned for a while. At least one first-run Trek series has been on the air for seventeen years, and that's simply too long a stretch.
The environment in which Enterprise competes is vastly different from the environment in which The Next Generation thrived. Broadcast television ratings continue to shrink, there's increased competition from cable channels like USA and Sci-Fi, and Enterprise has to compete even against previous Trek incarnations: TNG and DS9 on DVD and SpikeTV. DS9 on SpikeTV competes directly with UPN's Enterprise, and that's extraordinarily tough competition.
There would have been a certain amount of symmetry to a cancellation this year:
- The Original Series: 3 seasons
- The Next Generation: 7 seasons
- Deep Space Nine: 7 seasons
- Voyager: 7 seasons
- Enterprise: 3 seasons
Regardless, Friday night is a death zone for science fiction. (See also, Joss Whedon's excellent but short-lived Firefly.) If Enterprise survives the move to Friday and lives to see a fifth season, it will likely be because UPN's standards are already so incredibly low.
Wednesday, May 19, 2004
On The Perfection of Units, Big:
I watched in horror yesterday as the Braves went down in order, 1, 2, 3, ... 25, 26, 27, and struck out 13 times against Randy Johnson and the Diamondbacks. By the 1st out in the bottom of the 9th, some Braves fans were actually cheering for Johnson to finish 'em off. (Insert comment on Atlanta fan base here, Frye...)
Read the full story.
Monday, May 17, 2004
Administrative Note
As some of you may have noticed, while the blog saves all posts in the archives, the comments are only saved for a certain length of time, which appears to be around a month and a half. Therefore, any interesting links or other info that is only mentioned in comments will eventually be lost. I believe this should encoruage two courses of action.
1) If you have a particularly interesting or useful link, e-mail it to myself or Bubba (not going to bias you one way or the other as to who to send it to, but one of us goes to grad school at one of the toughest schools on the planet, and one of us sits on his ass most of the time at work) so we can add it to the links you see alongside the blog.
2) If you have a particularly long or important response to a posting, set it as another posting with the title "Re: First Post Title", and reply as you were planning to. A good example of this is Will's reply to "The End of Gaming."
Since we have a few number of people who are only able to check the blog occasionally, and those occasions may be spread out over long periods of time, I wanted to bring this up so that people don't miss out on the more interesting replies and links that have been brought up to date.
1) If you have a particularly interesting or useful link, e-mail it to myself or Bubba (not going to bias you one way or the other as to who to send it to, but one of us goes to grad school at one of the toughest schools on the planet, and one of us sits on his ass most of the time at work) so we can add it to the links you see alongside the blog.
2) If you have a particularly long or important response to a posting, set it as another posting with the title "Re: First Post Title", and reply as you were planning to. A good example of this is Will's reply to "The End of Gaming."
Since we have a few number of people who are only able to check the blog occasionally, and those occasions may be spread out over long periods of time, I wanted to bring this up so that people don't miss out on the more interesting replies and links that have been brought up to date.
Baseball Update
AUBURN TIGERS
Auburn's baseball team was nothing if not consistent this weekend, losing 2 out of 3 to yet another SEC opponent at home. #22 Auburn took Sunday's game against #12 Georgia, 4-3, to improve to 31-21 overall and 11-16 in the SEC after losing on Friday and Saturday.
MONTGOMERY BISCUITS
The Biscuits continued to fortify their position at the bottom of the Western Division of the Southern League by winning 2 of their last 11 games, one on Tuesday against Birmingham, 11-4, and the other on Sunday against Western Tennessee, 10-4.
On a personal note, your humble administrator was finally able to see a Biscuits game in person on Thursday, witnessing a 7-3 loss to Birmingham. The game was a thoroughly enjoyable experience, and the ballpark really is a wonder to see a game in. Sadly, the actual biscuits sold at the game were not impressive.
AUBURN IN THE MLB
Mark Bellhorn of the Boston Red Sox was back to his old ways this week, drawing 7 walks in 6 games to raise his on-base percentage from .387 to .394, while going 5-for-20 to raise his batting average to .230 from .226 as the Red Sox split the last two games of their 3-game series against Cleveland, and split their 4-game series against Toronto. Bellhorn is now only 2nd in the AL in walks with 34...behind Frank Thomas.
Frank Thomas of the Chicago White Sox had a miserable week, watching his batting average drop from .273 to .248 as he went 2-for-17. Both hits were home runs, but the White Sox still only managed to go 3-3 against Baltimore and AL Central rival Minnesota.
Tim Hudson of the Oakland A's got back on track this week, improving his record on the season to 4-1 with an impressive 8 inning, 2 run outing against Kansas City. The performance lowered Hudson's ERA on the season to 3.13, which is good for 6th-best in the American League.
Auburn's baseball team was nothing if not consistent this weekend, losing 2 out of 3 to yet another SEC opponent at home. #22 Auburn took Sunday's game against #12 Georgia, 4-3, to improve to 31-21 overall and 11-16 in the SEC after losing on Friday and Saturday.
MONTGOMERY BISCUITS
The Biscuits continued to fortify their position at the bottom of the Western Division of the Southern League by winning 2 of their last 11 games, one on Tuesday against Birmingham, 11-4, and the other on Sunday against Western Tennessee, 10-4.
On a personal note, your humble administrator was finally able to see a Biscuits game in person on Thursday, witnessing a 7-3 loss to Birmingham. The game was a thoroughly enjoyable experience, and the ballpark really is a wonder to see a game in. Sadly, the actual biscuits sold at the game were not impressive.
AUBURN IN THE MLB
Mark Bellhorn of the Boston Red Sox was back to his old ways this week, drawing 7 walks in 6 games to raise his on-base percentage from .387 to .394, while going 5-for-20 to raise his batting average to .230 from .226 as the Red Sox split the last two games of their 3-game series against Cleveland, and split their 4-game series against Toronto. Bellhorn is now only 2nd in the AL in walks with 34...behind Frank Thomas.
Frank Thomas of the Chicago White Sox had a miserable week, watching his batting average drop from .273 to .248 as he went 2-for-17. Both hits were home runs, but the White Sox still only managed to go 3-3 against Baltimore and AL Central rival Minnesota.
Tim Hudson of the Oakland A's got back on track this week, improving his record on the season to 4-1 with an impressive 8 inning, 2 run outing against Kansas City. The performance lowered Hudson's ERA on the season to 3.13, which is good for 6th-best in the American League.
