V, Becky and I are out on the town having a grand old time. Meanwhile, in other news, Tropical Storm Beta is “near hurricane strength” with 70 mph winds, and is “lashing” the island of Providencia.

UPDATE: I actually posted this Friday night around 10:00 PM. I have no idea why it didn’t publish until now.

Newsweek’s Marc Peyser is not impressed with the media’s on-the-scene live coverage of the recent hurricanes.

It’s my 24th birthday, Indiana is witnessing the final Daylight Saving Time transition in which the majority of the state’s residents don’t have to change our clocks, and Mars is making its closest approach to Earth for the next 13 years.

Technically, the Mars thing happened at 10:25 PM, the DST thing is happening right now, and my birth hour is 9:22 AM. But, close enough. :)

P.S. Speaking of which, here are some birthday pictures from Friday:

That’s Brian, a.k.a. K-Boss, helping me blow out the candles. His birthday was Friday, and the cake and party were for both of us. More pics here.

Also, while we’re on the topic of birthdays, Happy Birthday to my soon-to-be brother-in-law, Søren, who turned 30 on Friday!

P.P.S. By the way, about the DST thing… the reason this is “the final Daylight Saving Time transition in which the majority of the state’s residents don’t have to change our clocks” is because next April, all of Indiana is adopting Daylight Saving Time for the first time ever, so next October, Indianans will be “falling back” just like everyone else.

Another tidbit: between 1:00 AM and 2:00 AM South Bend time (i.e., from right now until an hour from now), the time is the same throughout the entire state of Indiana — the only time that’s true all year — because the five EDT counties have set their clocks back, bringing them in sync with the bulk of the state that’s always on EST, but the ten CDT counties haven’t set their clocks back yet, so they’re not yet out of sync with the EST counties. (Map here.)

Hurricane Beta (or as I like to call it, Hurricane β) is approaching the coast of Nicaragua with 105 mph winds, and it could get stronger:

INFRARED SATELLITE IMAGES INDICATE THAT BETA IS CURRENTLY INTENSIFYING AND BECOMING DANGEROUS. T-NUMBERS HAVE INCREASED TO 5.0 ON THE DVORAK SCALE AND THE OBJECTIVE T-NUMBERS ARE ON THE UPWARD TREND. IT APPEARS THAT BETA HAS A SMALL EYE EMBEDDED WITHIN VERY DEEP CIRCULAR CONVECTION. THE INITIAL INTENSITY HAS BEEN INCREASED TO 90 KNOTS AND THERE IS ABOUT 12 HOURS FOR BETA TO FURTHER INTENSIFY TO CATEGORY 3 STATUS BEFORE LANDFALL IN NICARAGUA EARLY SUNDAY. THEREAFTER…THE HURRICANE SHOULD WEAKEN OVER THE HIGH TERRAIN OF CENTRAL AMERICA. . . .

REGARDLESS OF THE INTENSITY OF BETA AT LANDFALL…THIS TROPICAL CYCLONE WILL BRING TORRENTIAL RAINFALL TO PORTIONS OF CENTRAL AMERICA…PRIMARILY NICARAGUA AND HONDURAS…CAUSING CONSIDERABLE DAMAGE…AND LIFE-THREATENING FLASH FLOODS AND MUD SLIDES. EVEN WHEN BETA MOVES INLAND AND BECOMES A WEAKENING CYCLONE…IT COULD STILL PRODUCE TORRENTIAL RAINS.

This is interesting, too: “SOME OF THE DEEP TROPICAL MOISTURE ASSOCIATED WITH BETA MAY GET DRAWN INTO A DEVELOPING WINTER-TYPE LOW PRESSURE SYSTEM OVER THE GULF OF MEXICO BY THE MIDDLE OF NEXT WEEK.”

Perennial Big East doormat Rutgers became bowl-eligible today with a win over Navy. Any bowl trip would be Rutgers’s first since 1978 — but with the Scarlet Knights holding a 3-1 record in the Big East, I’m thinking bigger. What are their odds of winning the conference and playing in a BCS bowl?

I love this idea, not only because rooting for underdogs is fun (and Rutgers gives a whole new meaning to the term “underdog”), but because if anything could shake up the BCS (well, aside from a third consecutive year with more than one team having a reasonable claim to the national championship), it’d be Rutgers in the Sugar Bowl.

Unfortunately, Rutgers’s one loss is to West Virginia, which is undefeated in the Big East right now. That means the Mountaineers need to lose twice for the Scarlet Knights to pass them in the standings. (Technically, if West Virginia loses once and both Rutgers and Pittsburgh win out, there would be a three-way tie for first, in which case the bowl representative would be the highest-ranked team among the three, not the head-to-head winner — but it’s inconceivable that Rutgers, with a schedule strength in the 90s and a nonexistent human-poll profile, would be ranked ahead of WVU and Pitt in the BCS.)

In the event of a two-way tie with Pittsburgh, the Scarlet Knights get in because they beat the Panthers head-to-head last month. And the Big East’s other one-loss team, South Florida, plays at Rutgers next week, so if the Knights win out, USF won’t be an issue.

So, to review: if Rutgers wins out (at home vs. South Florida, at Louisville, at home vs. Cincinnati), and West Virginia loses two of its final four games (at South Florida, at home vs. UConn, at Cincinnati, at home vs. Pittsburgh), the Scarlet Knights go to the BCS — probably the Sugar Bowl, according to this article.

Hey, it could happen. :)

Notre Dame’s next opponent, Tennessee, just lost 16-15 to South Carolina. The Vols are now 3-4, having lost three games in a row. (Admittedly, the first two were to undefeated Alabama and then-undefeated Georgia.) This is bad news all around: ND’s strength of schedule looks even worse, Tennessee will come to Notre Dame Stadium pissed off, and if the Irish beat the Vols next Saturday, it will look less impressive.

Other teams on Notre Dame’s schedule went 4-5 today.

According to CNN, there has been a deadly train crash in India that has killed 102 people (so far). Apparently it was dark when the train attempted to cross tracks that had been partially swept away by severe flooding; seven cars are still submerged. I suspect many more will be found dead, as the pictures make it look pretty much unsurvivable.

Also, there has been a terrorist bombing in New Dehli, with 55 victims (at last count). No group has taken responsibility, although it is suspected to have something to do with Kashmir. The attack was actually three separate incidents, all in crowded marketplaces (reminiscent of attacks elsewhere).

Check out any news outlet for more.

Posted by Brian (Briandot)

Undefeated UCLA and unranked Stanford are going to overtime. The Bruins trailed 24-3, but scored 21 unanswered points in the fourth quarter to tie the game.

I hate to admit this, but I’m rooting for UCLA. I want the Trojans to be the ones who end their undefeated season, dammit! So… FIGHT ON, BRUINS!!! :)

Meanwhile, undefeated Texas is losing to unranked Oklahoma State, 28-19 late in the third quarter!

Will three undefeated teams lose today? (Earlier, Georgia lost to Florida.)

UPDATE: Bruins win!

And Texas has taken the lead.

UPDATE 2: Texas wins, too. So there are five undefeated teams still standing: USC, Texas, Virginia Tech, Alabama and UCLA.

Undefeated Georgia just lost to Urban Meyer’s Florida Gators, 14-10. So now there are only five undefeated teams left in the country, and only one in the SEC (Alabama).

USC, on the other hand, is not going to see its undefeated season end. They’re leading Wazzu, 48-13 with 7:20 to go.

Meanwhile, our resident Terps fans are doubtless on the edges of their seats, as it’s #10 Florida State 28, Maryland 27 with 7:58 left in the fourth quarter. A win would create a three-way tie atop the ACC’s Atlantic division among three two-loss teams: Maryland, Florida State and Boston College. With a game in two weeks against Boston College and the head-to-head tiebreaker over FSU, the Terps would control their own destiny in terms of getting to the ACC title game — win out and they’re in.

UPDATE: Florida State survived, 35-27. USC won its 30th straight, 55-13. And now Stanford is leading UCLA, 7-0, early in the second quarter.

Guestblogger: David Kreutz

The Trojans are dominating the Cougars with a score of 38-6 at halftime. USC lineman Winston Justice recovered a Reggie Bush fumble in the endzone to score his first-ever touchdown.

Top 25

#16 Florida is leading undefeated #4 Georgia 14-3 at the start of the second half.

Maryland is hoping for an upset over #10 Florida State, the Terps lead 21-14 over the ‘Noles at the start of the third quarter.

The undefeated Crimson Tide of #5 Alabama are currently rolling over the Utah State Aggies, with a 28-3 lead going into the 4th.

Rounding out the top 25 in action so far, #11 Penn state is up over Purdue 23-7 in the 3rd quarter.

Pac-10

In addition to USC/WSU, one other Pac-10 game is in progress and in a surprise the 1-6 Arizona Wildcats are leading the Beavers of Oregon State 23-10 at the half.

45 officers and 6 civilian officers of the New Orleans Police Department have been fired for deserting the force in the run-up to, or aftermath of, Hurricane Katrina. (Hat tip: the forums.)

Once upon a time, an egghead pondered the question: why exactly were some people immune to the Black Death? His quest for the answer led him to an English town named Eyam, where the plague had been introduced by disease-ridden fleas hitchhiking on a bit of fabric. The townies knew about the plague and asked their spiritual leader what to do. He said, look, we’re all gonna die, so let’s just stay here. Or something like that.

Everyone expected a ghost town when they came to Eyam the next year. But, SHOCK, there were some people still alive. People who had come into contact with the virus and still survived, defying the odds. Incidentally, cats and dogs were also living in harmony.

When modern day egghead saw this, he said, WTF!?!? So, he studied the descendants of these people and found a gene that I nicknamed Rover. Rover prevented the plague from entering the cells to infect them. Weird, eh?

Egghead’s research was eventually found by egghead 2.0. Egghead 2.0 was researching AIDS and he decided to look at why some high risk people just don’t seem to contract the virus. In doing so, he found Rover, the same gene that protected people from the bubonic plague. His human guinea pig was inject with 3,000x the normal amount of the HIV virus needed to infect a person and still wasn’t infected. It’s all about ROVER!

The, uh, official story is available here.

Newington beat Maloney yesterday, 34-0, to improve to 5-2 on the season and 3-0 in the CCC South. (Articles here and here.) The Indians are now two wins away from their first conference championship since 1993. Next week they host Bristol Central, which has an identical 5-2 record and figures to be the season’s final tough test. Then they travel to Bulkeley (0-7) and finish the season on Thanksgiving with a non-conference game against Wethersfield (1-5).

In other NHS news, Living Room Times pool veteran Danny Pilz, co-champion of the 2004 NCAA women’s basketball pool, won the CCC South cross-country championship! Congrats, Danny!

Hurricane Beta caused extensive damage to the Colombian island of Providencia, but just “one minor injury” has been reported, and “Juan Guillermo Angel, who was directing Colombia’s response to the hurricane from San Andres Island…said the island’s 5,000 residents and [the] handful of tourists appeared safe.”

Charlie Weis has signed a contract extension that is supposed to keep him at Notre Dame through 2015. (Hat tip: kormal.)