It's been a good couple of weeks for friends of the 'phisch. Steve landed a programming job with DirecTV's billing company in Charlotte, NC, and Richard is now a sysadmin with Standard & Poor's in Boston. Congrats, amigos! I hope you both have long, happy, healthy, and wealthy careers with your new employers!

The LSU baseball team is swept for only the second time in all of its College World Series appearances, and their season is over. The Tigers dropped their losers' bracket game to South Carolina yesterday, 11-10. LSU came back from a 6-0 deficit in the 1st inning to take the lead. But Coach Smoke Laval left reliever Jason Determann in an inning too long, and it cost the Tigers severely. The Tigers had a two-run lead going in to the bottom of the 8th, when the Gamecocks blew through a tired Determann's pitching to take a one-run lead they held on to through the top of the ninth for the win. The Tigers had a great run: they finish the season 45-22-1, and this loss is only their first in seven tries against an SEC foe in the CWS. They were the regular season SEC Champions, and runner-up in the SEC Tournament.

So this weekend my bride and I took some big baby steps. Furniture was purchased. Items were registered. And strollers were test-driven through the aisles of the local Babies R Us. I knew having a kid was going to be a lot of fun...

So sayeth the n3rdling. (And CBS.) I have to agree; the only thing I write in cursive any more is my signature. My handwritten print is much better, and cleaner. So much so that someone is supposed to make a font for me, at some point in his copious spare time. Even then, like Jon, I'd much rather type it than write it. Jon brought up a good point in our discussion about it: if you type it--which nowadays means in to a computer--you can index it, search it, publish it; the possibilities are endless. This is probably why my feeble attempts at journaling have all ended in failure. Printing is just too slow, cursive is too messy. I may fill up a couple dozen pages in a journal, then it tapers off to nothing. I guess what I need is a decent journaling app, where I can print out the individual entries to put in to a binder or some other hard copy product.

So, at Dan's urging, I took Mind Media's Brain Persuasion Test. My results:

Your Brain Usage Profile

Auditory: 60% Visual: 40% Left: 50% Right: 50%

Chris, your hemispheric dominance is equally divided between left and right brain, while you show a moderate preference for auditory versus visual learning, signs of a balanced and flexible person.

Your balance gives you the enviable capacity to be verbal and literate while retaining a certain "flair" and individuality. You are logical and compliant but only to a degree. You are organized without being compulsive, goal-directed without being driven, and a "thinking" individual without being excessively so.

The one problem you might have is that your learning might not be as efficient as you would like. At times you will work from the specific to the general, while at other times you'll work from the general to the specific. Sometimes you will be logical in your approach while at other times random. Since you cannot always control the choice, you may experience frustrations not normally felt by persons with a more defined and directed learning style.

You may also minimally experience conflicts associated with auditory processing. You will be systematic and sequential in your processing of information, you will most often focus on a single dimension of the problem or material, and you will be more reflective, i.e., "taking the data in" as opposed to "devouring" it.

Overall, you should feel content with your life and yourself. You are, perhaps, a little too critical of yourself--and of others--while maintaining an "openness" which is redeeming. Indecisiveness is a problem and your creativity is not in keeping with your potential. Being a pragmatist, you downplay this aspect of yourself and focus on the more immediate, the more obvious and the more functional. Gee, who would have thought I was balanced? :) This does explain a lot about me, however. How I seem to be at war with myself at times, creativity versus technical interests. How I can do ultra-basic stuff in Photoshop or OS X's Terminal, but haven't become more of a power user in either, despite my intentions to do so. Thank goodness I use an OS that allows me to consistently work both sides of my brain. Feel free to take the test yourself and leave your results in the comments.

This seems to be an appropriate use for Windows XP technology... (Thanks, Jason.)

Steve Jobs' other company has released a teaser for their next film, The Incredibles, due out in November next year. Consider this your splatter warning.

The LSU Tigers crushed Baylor 20-5 in game three of their NCAA super regional to earn their 12th trip to the College World Series since 1986. Yeah, that's right, bub: LSU has been one of -four- eight teams in the CWS 12 times in 17 years!

Dan notes NASA's sense of humor with regard to Mars rover naming conventions and mission patches. This is what happens when guys our age, who grew up with Looney Tunes, are put in charge...

For the first time this season, the LSU Tigers win an extra-inning game, and in doing so take their 8th consecutive regional championship. The Tigers, 20-1 all-time in regional championship games, were 0-4 this year in extra-inning games. LSU now moves on to a best-of-three super-regional against Baylor to determine who goes to the College World Series. Geaux Tigers!!

More accurately, I possess 31.36095% geekish qualities. Take the test yourself, unless you're Erik.

My good friend Francisco informed me this morning that our up-and-coming Texas Rangers have made baseball history. No MLB club has ever fielded a team in one season that had three players with 500 home runs, 400 home runs, and 300 home runs, respectively...until now. Rafael Palmeiro, Juan Gonzalez, and Alex Rodriguez take those honors, respectively, and 2001 "Comeback Player of the Year" Ruben Sierra currently stands at 278 home runs in his career, so he's knocking on the 300-club door as well. If we could just get some consistency out of the pitching staff, like we did during the last 7-game winning streak (which included a sweep of the playoff-nemesis NY Yankees club), this team would be contending for a pennant. For now, we have to struggle to win two just to get back to .500. UPDATE, 6/13: Well, this was short-lived. The Rangers traded Sierra last week to the Yankees.

1. What brand of toothpaste do you use? Colgate Total. 2. What brand of toilet paper do you prefer? Angel Soft. 3. What brand(s) of shoes do you wear? Rockport boots and casual shoes; Reebok or K-Swiss sneakers. 4. What brand of soda do you drink? Trying to cut out soda from my diet, but when I do, I prefer Cherry Coke. 5. What brand of gum do you chew? Don't chew gum.

The questions, with my answers, from last Friday's Five (which I only saw yesterday): 1. What drinking water do you prefer -- tap, bottle, purifier, etc.? Honestly, it depends on where I am. Most of the time, especially at home, I'm fine with the tap, unpurified. When I travel, even to other parts of the metroplex, unless I've been there before and have tried the tap, it's from a bottle. 2. What are your favorite flavor of chips? Tough one; I'd have to say Cool Ranch Doritos (now in a low-fat baked variety!). 3. Of all the things you can cook, what dish do you like the most? Red beans and rice. 4. How do you have your eggs? Scrambled. 5. Who was the last person who cooked you a meal? How did it turn out? The Morrisses and Leaumonts; great grilled burgers and baked fries for a Sunday afternoon pool-side get-together.

The LSU baseball team has won the regular season Southeastern Conference championship (again) for 2003, its first since 1997. LSU's head coach has been named SEC Coach of the Year (again, though a first for current head coach Smoke Laval). Junior shortstop Aaron Hill has been named the conference's Position Player of the Year. The Fighting Tigers finished the regular season 37-18-1, and begin play against Arkansas in Hoover, Alabama, tomorrow, in the SEC Tournament. (I wish I could come out for it, Dad!) Looking for another SEC Tournament championship, and a berth in the College World Series, LSU has rebounded from several major injuries throughout the season to clinch the SEC championship. Geaux Tigers!

Go Mavs! After Najera missed his first free throw in the first quarter, the Mavs combined for 49 straight free throws to help catapult them to an upset victory, 113-110. The Mavericks were down by as much as 18 at one point in the game. Dirk Nowitzki was monster on the court for Dallas, proving in every facet of his game to be Tim Duncan's equal. I'm not so much a NBA basketball fan as I am a Dallas Mavericks fan, and it's nice to see them hang in there and pull this one out. Around the office yesterday, we all agreed that we wouldn't be surprised to see the Mavs drop Game 1, having just come off their second seven-game series in the playoffs. The Spurs had an extra day of rest after knocking off the defending champ Lakers in six games. Finally, it seems the ineptitude and need for sharper contact lenses that pervades the NHL has crept in to the NBA as well. The officiating for this game was inconsistent at several points throughout, and overbearing at others. Both sides suffered and benefited from this behavior, so many would say it was a wash. The fact is that consistency amongst those officiating is greatly needed in professional sports, and this begins at the top of the leagues' front offices (are you listening, Gary Bettman?). Officials are going to miss things that happen on the hardwoord and ice; that's a fact of life, and one most fans can live with. What we don't like is the inconsistency of what constitutes a foul/penalty from team to team, game to game, series to series.

[Possible spoilers] So my lovely bride and I caught The Matrix Reloaded Saturday night. My overall feelings with the film mirror Jason Kottke's. In addition to what Jason has to say, allow me to add the following. As much as the production touted the Twins in teasers, trailers, and the like over the past few months, they didn't have all that much screen time. This is a shame, since they are extremely cool characters, the likes of which we hadn't seen within the Matrix. The first hour of the movie would have been better with about 20 minutes taken out. We get that Trinity and Neo love one another deeply. We get that Zion's having a big party to show they aren't afraid of the machines. We don't need it to drag out. I actually leaned over to my wife at one point and twiddled my thumbs. All in all, it was an enjoyable flick, but nothing mind-blowing or earth-shattering, certainly not like the first film. The freeway chase was our favorite part of the movie. I'm going to miss Gloria Foster in the 3d installment.

...is retromingent. Courtesy of Anu's free A.W.A.D. service: retromingent (re-tro-MIN-jent)

adjective: Urinating backwards.

noun: An animal that passes urine backwards, e.g. raccoon.

[From Latin retro- (back) + mingent, stem of mingens, past participle of mingere (to urinate).]

"When my turn came, I discovered that the bathrooms had been designed for a retromingent. The rest of the flight? Rather uneventful." --Jeffrey Levine; The Concorde, Firsthand: Built for Speed, Not for Comfort; The Washington Post ; Dec 17, 1989.

"I can verify that camels are, indeed, retromingent." --Sally Bixby Defty; Just Deserts Midnight at the Oasis Sing Your Camel to Bed; St. Louis Post-Dispatch; May 16, 1993. Sorry, but had to pass on another retro- word. You're welcome for the enlightenment. (And subscribe to A.W.A.D.!)