John Adams

I appreciate this board but this "day" is idiotic.

That is cool. Great for a little practice amp for the office.

You know little about John Adams. I took his name for a reason.

The life of a college prof is a guarantee of lower middle class ease. It's pretty great. Never wealthy but few comparative worries if you live within your means. It's like the higher-degreed version of an old-fashioned union job...but you get more vacation. I was tempted by it at one point but went another direction.

Teaching "film" for $3000 = overpaid. Stop already with how hard professors work. You're killing me. Come on man. Admit it: College profs are almost entirely a lazy bunch of people who love to complain about how hard they work when they barely do. It's ingrained in the stupid culture. And yes, besides having them in my immediate family, I also have friends who are professors. The science guys do a little more and have something resembling a normal job (with Summers off, sabbaticals, vacations, flexible hours, great benefits...) but the liberal arts people are in a middle class coasting lifestyle, which is about right. Teaching Shakespeare to college kids is wonderful and rewarding but shouldn't be a 200K/year job.

So it's rough for a year. The next year, your prep time falls dramatically and every year thereafter, it falls even more. And that one year isn't that bad either. You're starting in a job. It doesn't pay well.

The thought of college adjunct or junior professors carrying a heavy workload is funny. The thought of them complaining about their heavy workloads though--that's easy to picture. It's not that hard. Maybe a touch harder in the sciences where the research can take up lab or computer time but let's not go too crazy: There are fewer jobs cushier than college professor. I never made an easier $3,000/semester than when I used to do adjunct teaching. Being a musician won't usually lead you to wealth. It's something people do because they love it (as I shop for a used Les Paul).

Adjunct teaching is simple. Want to make more money? Teach more courses. Teaching kids is a million times harder than teaching college, not that college profs would admit it.

Break in my house to find out the answer.

When you resort to holding the Bengals up as a model franchise, it's time to step away from the keyboard.

I am all for removing all the equipment and letting them just arm tackle like rugby. There would still be collisions but people would protect their heads better and you would minimize the head blows. Again, I have no problem if adults want to scramble their brains but you can't do all this damage to kids. The kids have the least medical support, the worst coaching, and the most to lose--since the vast majority of them will get a million head blows without the pot of NFL gold at the end.

The NFL is posting concussion warning posters in every NFL lockerroom this year. This is long overdue and probably still not enough. What I find most striking was this: What a complete load. Here's the new poster article. http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/news/story?id=5412862 And here's the article discussed last year regarding how repetitive head trauma (at levels that don't cause concussions) has a true and awful side effect. http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/10...currentPage=all I love football still but wouldn't let a child play it for all the money in the world.

Shleck could have made a break for it (presumably with his team) if he'd wanted to. The point is that the Astana team (including Contador) would have gone with him and there's no way Schleck could make up 43 seconds on that last day unless he was blood-doped up. The Astana team would form a protective bubble around Contador, right behind all of Schleck's Saxo team and while the Saxo team did all the work, the Astana team would just follow along...with Contador doing the least amount of work. A lone rider or small group of riders almost never breaks off from the peleton and does any damage to the overall tour standings except in the mountains. Using that much energy only pays off for a day...never the next one. In the mountains, it can be a little different because the reduced speed in the moutnains gives less advantage.

I guess if he can't ride on the last day, he wouldn't win but it's never happened.

You mean like when basketball and football pull the starters to a standing ovation and the second and third string go in and just hand the ball off? It's the same thing. Just a different way of doing it. The competition is over the day before the last day.

BuffaloBud commented on the etiquette and he's right. It's just an understood thing that on the final day, it's over except for a few of the sprinters who can race around to get the stage win. There's no rule about it except that it's always been the rule. You don't keep fighting on the last day. And yes, 39 seconds would be a ton of time to make up between two evenly matched people on the last flat day. The only time you see people make up that much time when it matters is on big hill days when someone just bonks (like Armstrong did this year). If his team had tried to pull away, the Astana team would have gone along with him (including Contador) and Schleck never would have been able to do it. Finally, it's amazing that after 2000 miles, it always comes down to just seconds between first and second place. Some of that is strategic though. Once the leader has the lead over the close competitor,he doesn't waste a lot of energy trying to grow the lead. He just conserves enough to keep his lead and attack if he needs to. Contador could have won by more perhaps but he'd have risked using up energy and being tired the following day. That's why the leader usually positions himself safely with one or two teammates in the mountain stages and stays with the group of people trying to catch him.

Follett is not known for Shakespearean prose but when he wrote this, he hit on something special. The topic combined with the intrigue made for a good story. The miniseries episode 1 was quite good--2 hours setting up the characters and their intentions. Several standout actors in the mix. I read the book so long ago that I can't comment on the miniseries faithfulness to the plot. All the major plot points are present though. Building the cathedral. The local intrigue behind that. The throne succession and its role in the cathedral. Church jealousies. Dark age struggles. I had no idea there was a sequel until you mentioned it.

Never liked Ken Follett but this was a great book. Mini-series stars Al Swearengen c**kscukers.

But not for Howard...he refused to allow them to stream his stations.

Why? Evans was great in the first 3 years.

A decade later and they are still clamoring for a below average QB on a team with a ridiculously good defense.

The ellipses fill-in is at the link below. http://deadspin.com/5583267/surveying-the-...matt-millen-era

I trust stuckincincy to call for a return to the good old days of breasfeeding to age 8.

The HTC Incredible is an amazing phone. There are others too that are better in ways than the iPhone. But to bring up Blackberry in this discussion is foolishness. The Blackberry is a cute email machine.

I rarely am on EDGE. You must live in the styx.