The deadline to enter my bowl pick ‘em contest is tonight at 8:00 PM. (That’s also the deadline to enter a new set of picks if you’re already in the contest but have had a change of heart about your predictions.)

We’re at 87 contestants and counting. Join the fun! Give yourself a reason to care about the Papajohns.com Bowl! :) Sign up now!

Again, you can view everyone else’s picks here (sorted by bowl) and here (sorted by person). You can also look at what ESPN users are predicting. Today’s bowl, the TCU-Northern Illinois Pointsettia Bowl, is actually the second-most lopsided of all the bowls, with TCU favored by 93.9% of ESPN users. Only Texas over Iowa in the Alamo Bowl (96.2%) is considered more of a sure thing.

UPDATE: We ended up with 118 contestants, just under last year’s total of 128. Coming that close is pretty darn good, especially considering: 1) I didn’t start the contest until three days before the first bowl (as opposed to seven days last year); 2) by the time I started it, most of my law-school classmates had already started their winter break, which always diminishes readership; and 3) last year the website will still experiencing the echo of its post-Katrina boom.

How cool is this… a satellite view of Thursday night’s aurora display, as seen from an Air Force satellite 500 miles above:

WOW. (Hat tip: SpaceWeather.com.)

After the jump, a view of the aurora display on a more typical night, two days earlier.

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ScrappleFace: “Kerry Humbled to Be Named Time’s ‘Person of the Year’”

Well, I saw it:

That’s a 10-second exposure of the Shuttle and the International Space Station, docked together, flying past the constellation Sagitta, and specifically the red giant Gamma Sagittae. Well, they weren’t really flying past Gamma Sagittae; really, they were about 200 miles above northern Missouri and southern Iowa. But they appeared to be flying past Gamma Sagittae. :)

Admittedly it’s nothing overly spectacular, but it’s always fun to see the Space Shuttle or the ISS, and it’s especially cool when you know it’s both of ‘em. Tomorrow’s pass (5:59 - 6:04 PM, in the southern and then eastern sky) should be really cool, with the Shuttle and ISS undocked but near each other; that’s something I’ve never seen. I don’t know how distinct they’ll look in the sky, but I hope to find out! Assuming the sky is clear (and the forecast looks excellent, knock on wood), I’ll definitely be out taking pictures, and maybe a video too.

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The Space Shuttle Discovery and the International Space Station, docked together, will fly overhead this evening, and should be visible from South Bend for approximately two minutes in the western sky, from 7:11 PM until 7:13:13 PM (at which point, at a 41-degree altitude, they will pass into the Earth’s shadow and thus disappear from sight).

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They ended up lighter than I expected. 15 games for ‘Melo, the maximum penalty of all involved.

I still stand by my original statement Friday night.

This is just another reminder to sign up for the 2nd annual Irish Trojan bowl pick ‘em contest! The deadline is tomorrow at 8pm EST.

Between the aurora borealis and the end of finals, I totally forgot about Saturday morning’s rescheduled launch of the TacSat-2 from Wallops Island, Virginia, which I had been hyping earlier in the week because of the predicted Vandernberg-style contrails that Space.com said could surprise people in the pre-dawn hours all across the eastern United States.

Well, the launch happened, and guess what? The predictions were true! Check out this absolutely spectacular photo from Chesapeake Beach, Maryland, about 100 miles northwest of the launch site:

Wow. And here’s another one, a wider view from moments earlier, taken by the same photographer, who goes by “8230This&That” on Flickr. He writes:

What a surprise. I happened to be out shooting this morning when I saw this white streak heading for the sky. First I thought it was a boater in trouble shooting off a flare but as it got higher and higher I realized it was more. When I checked the AP headlines online I saw that it was a satellite launch from a NASA site in Virginia. I believe this is the point where the rocket boosters are about to separate from the satellite. Taken from Bay Front Park (Brownie’s Beach), Chesapeake Beach, MD.

“8230This&That” wasn’t the only one surprised — nor was he the furthest-away observer to get a spectacular view. Take a look at this awesome photo from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, roughly 300 miles from the launch site:

When he took the picture, the photographer, “scooba1981″ on Flickr, had no idea what he was looking at, as this discussion thread makes clear. (The thread’s title is, “What the hell was in the sky this morning?”) More photos here and here and here (the last one by “privatecypher,” another Pittsburgh guy).

Back in Maryland, blogger “Baygirl,” a.k.a. “chesabeachmd03″ on Flickr, also got a surprise view of the rocket while taking pictures of the sunrise over Chesapeake Bay. You can read her account here, and view her pictures on either Flickr or Photobucket. Again, very neat pics.

Not everyone was caught by surprise. Lydia Netzer, a.k.a. “lostcheerio,” a photographer, blogger and married mother of two (and definitely one of the people Time was talking about in its “person of the year” issue, given the amount of content she creates on the Internet), went with her husband and children to watch the launch. You can read Lydia’s account, and view her photos, on her Xanga blog. [UPDATE: Actually, the fuller account is on her HamptonRoads.com blog, where she writes: “We and all the other nerdypants people freezing our bottoms off got to hear the roar, see the fireball, and watch it disappear. It was so cool. The exciting part took about a minute and a half, but it was worth it.”] But best of all is her YouTube video:

Naturally, the Netzer family’s little adventure makes me think of the various times my parents dragged me out, back when I was a little kid, to watch some event in the skies, be it Halley’s Comet or a lunar eclipse or whatever. And, like me, Lydia’s son is even a redhead! Though apparently it was his younger sister who had the best time:

[T]his morning we woke up at 4:00AM and drove up to the Eastern Shore, to Wallops Island where NASA has a space rocket launching thingamajig, and we watched a rocket go from right across a marsh from us up into ACTUAL SPACE, right in front of our eyes. It was very very cool. We all enjoyed it, especially Sadie Grace. It was very early though. We are all very tired.

I just hope Lydia knows she may be dooming her children to a lifetime of being sky-gazing nerds. :)

Like the Netzer family, “Fever606″ also went specifically looking for the rocket launch, and captured this photo and this photo from Assateague Island National Seashore in Maryland, several miles north-northeast of Wallops.

By far the most extensive photo gallery, though, comes from “bsigrist,” who — in Brendan Loy-like fashion — posted a massive collection of 75 photos of the launch, taken from a location immediately across Chincoteague Bay just a few miles due north of Wallops Island. I highly recommend viewing them as a slideshow, setting the “speed” to its minimum setting of 1 second. It basically works like a movie. Really awesome job. Here are thumbnails of three of my favorite shots from his collection:

Those photos were taken at 7:03:47 AM, 7:04:56 AM, and 7:06:04 AM, respectively. And there’s a lot more, from the very moment of launch to the point where the contrails faded to grey four minutes later. Great stuff. Like I said, I highly recommend the slideshow.

God, I love Flickr. :)

Bsigrist and the Netzers were, I believe, at the nearest publicly accessible viewing spot from which people could watch the launch. But of course, those on base at Wallops got an even closer view:

More here and here. Here’s the launch video (15.7 MB, WMV format).

Not to be left out, a couple more accounts of observing the launch can be found here and here, and a photo captioned simply “A Dang Rocket!” can be found here. God bless the Internet. :)

Oh, and Reuters has a photo of another onlooker at Assateague Island, looking straight up at the contrail:

First it was Missouri Valley Conference afterthought Indiana State stunning #14 Butler, the first loss of the season for a Bulldogs team that has beaten Notre Dame, Indiana, Tennessee, Gonzaga and Purdue. Now, a week later, another MVC afterthought has joined the party. Drake overwhelmed Iowa, 75-59 on Saturday, ending a 27-game losing streak to its in-state rival. Granted, the Hawkeyes are 5-6, but as the Valley Ledger says, “anytime you beat a Big 10 team with ease, it’s not a bad thing.” The Ledger has gone so far as to rank Drake, which finished 5-13 in conference play last season, fifth in the MVC pecking order — ahead of Northern Iowa, which went to the Big Dance last year, and Creighton, which just barely (and unjustly) missed out. (Iowa, incidentally, is 0-2 against MVC competition, having also fallen — albeit in a close game — to its other in-state rival from the Valley, Northern Iowa.)

It’s clear that the MVC is quite good, again, this year. (Though, alas, Southern Illinois didn’t help the case by losing to Indiana yesterday.) The big question is, how good are they, and in particular, how good is Wichita State? The Shockers — who hung 102 points on hapless Maryland-Eastern Shore yesterday — are 8-0 and ranked #8 in the AP poll. But are they a legit Top 10 team? Ken Pomeroy takes a fair & balanced look at that question.

One thing I certainly agree with Pomeroy about is this statement: “We know the MVC shouldn’t be held to mid-major status anymore, but as long we are beholden to Nantz and Packer on Selection Sunday, that will be the perception.” Heh.

Oh, and speaking of teams that shouldn’t be considered mid-majors anymore, I neglected to mention that Gonzaga on Saturday suffered its worst loss of the season, a 96-83 shallacking at the hands of unranked Georgia. As I wrote in comments on a previous post:

I’ve watched a bunch of [Gonzaga] games this year, and they’ve been inconsistent. When they’re on, they’re great. See: wins over North Carolina, Texas and Washington, all in VERY impressive fashion. But they’ve also laid some eggs, with today’s being BY FAR the biggest. (Butler and Wazzu, both of which are quality teams this year, flat-out beat the Zags… this time, they beat themselves. Where was the effort?)

It’s hard to get a handle on this year’s team. In a lot of ways, they’re better than last year: more balanced, more defense, less standing around looking at Adam Morrison. Derek Raivio is playing much better, Pargo is really coming along, and Heytvelt is a beast. They’ll be even better once Micah Downs gets back. But the inconsistency is concerning.

All three of Gonzaga’s losses have come after big wins. In fact, they’re the very three wins I mentioned above: UNC, Texas and UW. They lost to Butler two days after stunning the then-#2 Tar Heels; they Coug’d it against Wazzu three days after destroying Texas; and they got embarrassed by Georgia seven days after giving rival Washington an almighty beatdown. (The long layoff between games was because of final exams, and that’s been causing a lot of discussion, as the Zags tend to play terribly in their first game after finals. Not that that’s an excuse, of course — all teams have finals — it’s just an annual pattern that’s interesting, and frustrating for Zags fans.)

The good news is, the Zags have tended to play well immediately after a loss, so hopefully that bodes well for the big game against Duke on Thursday at Madison Square Garden. GO ZAGS!!!

P.S. Really, I think the problem is that Gonzaga can’t beat other teams with the nickname “Bulldogs.” First Butler, now Georgia. Heaven help them if they have to play the aforementioned Drake Bulldogs in the Big Dance! ;)

If I’d known about UCLA Undie Run when I made that awful list, it definitely would have been on there. I mean, USC’s “Primal Scream” is pretty cool and all, but listening to some dude* in your dorm yell “F***IN’ A!!!!” at the top of his lungs for 15 minutes doesn’t exactly measure up to watching a bunch of half-naked girls run around outside in the cold. So I’ll give UCLA the edge in the category of “exam-week study-break traditions.”

Now if only this tradition could be imported to USC, it would instantly improve, due to the inherent hotness of Trojan girls. :)

Photos here and here. (Warning: partial nudity! SFW, though — “unless Bruin dorks in underwear isn’t safe at your place of business,” as TrojanWire puts it.) Flickr photos here and YouTube videos here. (I haven’t seen ‘em all, so I can’t vouch for their SFW status.)

*His name was Shelton.

P.S. Notre Dame has its own finals-week tradition, and it involves full nudity: the Zahm Hall “Bun Run,” a tradition which the Zahm-ites apparently inherited from Keenan Hall and sometimes share with Alumni Hall (?). Alas, these are all male-only dorms. But if you’re into that sort of thing, here are some photos. As I said, full nudity is involved, but only the naked “buns” are shown in the photos — no, uh, “weiners.” :) You can also read Kristin’s accounts of the two most recent Bun Runs here and here.

One of three climbers missing for more than a week on Oregon's Mount Hood has been found dead, a sheriff's spokesman says. Visit CNN for the latest.

Since my earlier post has already scrolled way down the page, I figured I should remind everyone to sign up for the 2nd annual Irish Trojan bowl pick ‘em contest! The deadline is Tuesday at 8pm EST.

Also, since I’m competing in the contest, and I can view everyone else’s picks as they come in, it’s only fair that y’all should have that ability, too. So, you can see everyone’s picks here and here. Providing those URLs isn’t an advantage to late entrants, because anybody is free to change their picks at any time prior to 8pm Tuesday. You simply need to fill out a new entry form. Your last set of picks submitted before the deadline will be assumed to be your final, official entry (unless you tell me otherwise prior to the deadline).

This is fascinating. I’m not qualified to assess its accuracy, but it’s certainly a very interesting read. (Hat tip: Insty.)

When I saw a faint aurora borealis display from Douglas Road late Thursday night, I thought it was pretty cool. Such things aren’t visible too often from Indiana, after all. But as I’ve read other people’s reports and looked at other people’s pictures, I’ve become slightly bummed, because it’s clear that if I had gone outside a few hours earlier, and/or ventured just a bit north of town, I would have gotten a much better show — possibly something like this, or better. If only the Northern lights had come at any other time than the night before my FedTax exam!!

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If the NBA was going to have a(nother) big brawl, I’m glad it was at Madison Square Garden, just because the New York tabloids are so entertaining at times like these…

Heh.

The Post’s Andrew Marchand asks, “Is this the final straw for Isiah?” The Daily News calls it a new low, and News columnist Lisa Olsen writes:

It was offensive enough when they were falling into the Garden crowd, risking injury not just to themselves, but to innocent bystanders. This was criminal behavior perpetuated by both the Nuggets and the Knicks, and if David Stern had the cojones, he would expel their precious bodies into the next season.

As it was last night, 10 players were ejected, the NBA once again gave the impression it was a league perpetuated by thugs, and yet, the madness did not end there. It shouldn’t be that difficult to separate bravado from responsibility, machismo from reality, but there stood Nate Robinson nearly an hour after the blood had barely dried on one of the game’s worst brawls ever, talking about how it was all about “trying to protect family.”

Good Lord, what a way to pile shame on top of the disgrace. Had some masked man just broken through the window and stolen Robinson’s bling? Had his fancy ride been carjacked? At least the culprits involved in the Pistons fight against the Pacers two seasons ago in Detroit had the good sense to shut up.

There will be plenty of opportunity to dissect last night’s film from all angles, to replay again and again the sorry sight of Jared Jeffries going after Carmelo Anthony at midcourt, the pitiful images of Robinson and J.R. Smith wrestling atop the baseline crowd. There will be mammoth fines, lengthy suspensions. Psychologists will moan about the decline of sportsmanship, and they’ll be right. Robinson’s postgame justifications might even get lost in the roar, but they shouldn’t. Because the attitude precedes the actions, always.

Robinson and some of the other Knicks, including and most importantly their coach, actually had the audacity to suggest the Nuggets were at fault because their starters were still in the game late in the fourth quarter, when the Knicks trailed by 19. As if Thomas never had the killer instinct. As if that was reason enough to start chest-bumping and fighting.

“It was like a slap in the face to us,” Robinson said of the Nuggets’ strategy. He went on to add that never in his life, not in high school or in college, had any opponent done something so disgraceful, so dishonorable. “We just tried to come back from a deficit and they still had their starters in the game. It was a slap in the face to us, to the franchise.”

As I said in comments last night, those comments from the Knicks and — especially — their coach Isiah Thomas were just incredibly, unbelievably lame.