I agree with everything Christian said. So I'll make like Barack Obama ("John is right"), and add a bit: those ugly concrete blocks look like something out of Soviet Russia. "Here are blocks for you to make sit on!"*

*I am aware that this is a gross parody of actual Russian speech. I am also aware that this is marginally funnier when spoken aloud. Just say it in your favorite bad Russian accent. I'll wait, don't worry.

Anyway, it's clear that this was the brainchild of a thousand different committees--one of them wanted a pedestrian-only space, another probably wanted trees, etc.--and as such is unwanted and unloved by all. Hence, I'll advise the University to practice safe (pro)creation in the future.

So, with the season basically half over, what should we think about the season thus far? Like every other sports writer in existence, I’m going to use a “Good” and “Bad” section to delineate my thoughts. In football, everything is either “good” or “bad.” There is no in-between.

The season, so far, has to be considered: “Good.” We’ve got one really good win, we’ve beaten the teams we should have beaten, and stayed competitive in the losses (even though the final scores may not have indicated that).

GoStanford.com

It has been reported by various media outlets that Stanford offensive tackle Chris Marinelli had some pretty tough words for the Notre Dame team and their fans on the eve of their nationally-televised game tomorrow afternoon (11:30am PST).

Marinelli supposedly does not have much respect for the Notre Dame defense, pointing out (correctly) that the the Fighting Irish have one sack for 200 blitzes this year.

Marinelli, speaking in an interview to CardinalReport.com, also said: "We are going out there to mash them up, and that's all there is to it."

Let me say...I sure hope so! The thing about trash-talking is, we gotta come out and batter them now. We have to live up to

While the Athletic Department tried to clean up the mess earlier today, the truth is, I'm kind of happy to see Marinelli say that. He was a bad-ass already, and saying this only confirms it. More importantly, it shows the truth about this team. The Cardinal's got some fire in its belly; it's hungry and it is relentless.

Predictions for tomorrow?

Now that school has started, if you're like me, you find yourself on a limited budget with limited time to prepare breakfast in the morning.

My solution - oatmeal!

Now before you say "yuck!" hear me out. As a kid, my parents believed in a hot, nutritious breakfast, and oatmeal was a staple. Unfortunately, and my parents also believed that sweetener, especially white sugar, was bad as well. This means that many a morning bowl of oatmeal was bland, sprinkled with cinnamon and the occasional raisin and augmented by a small drizzle of honey. Yuck! Because of this, I've always found oatmeal a bit bland and the flavors that go with it (cinnamon and sugar, apple cinnamon, ect.) less than exciting.

One word - cranberries. Cranberries, and occasionally some nuts (like, say almonds) add a nice zing to an otherwise dull food.

If you make oatmeal yourself, you can find yourself eating a healthy, tasty, easy and quick to prepare meal in the morning, low in sodium, high in fiber, and one that will stick with you until lunch.

What you need -
quick cooking oatmeal (you can buy this pretty cheaply by the pound at Country Sun)
dried cranberries (I got at Trader Joes and keep in the freezer so they won't spoil)
dried nuts (ditto)
sugar (or some kind of sweetener)
a microwavable bowl
a microwave
measuring cups
5 minutes

Officially released Oct. 4, the iStanford App from Terriblyclever Design purports to be "Stanford University in the palm of your hand." How accurate is that? Read on to find out...

Chris Marinelli did not lose the game last Saturday. Despite the undue focus on Marinelli, and the suggestion that “next time he ought to keep quiet” from the Notre Dame alums in the NBC broadcast booth—(wait, you mean they weren’t alums? But it makes so much sense!)—the offensive line played a pretty good game. The running game was strong once again, and the five sacks given up were partially mitigated by these two facts: 1) two of them appeared, to my untrained eyes, to be the tight end’s responsibility, 2) Tavita Pritchard is the QB they’re protecting for. No, he’s not slow by any means but still, his decision-making is poor. All this, and we’re down two starting guards: Gustav Rystedt hasn’t played a game this season and Chase Beeler was held out at game time. Whatever they’re paying Chris Dalman for his zone-blocking scheme, it’s clearly not enough.

I don’t want to cause a panic, but I’m wondering: what is going on with the Stanford endowment during this financial panic? The endowment is, I assume, investing for the long-term, but, on the other hand, a major dent into the endowment would probably result in reduced spending. This, of course, is not even touching on donations, which I assume will lessen during this recession. So I’m guessing the financial picture for the University, as with many institutions and companies, does not appear particularly rosy at this time

The headline, perhaps, strikes you as overly cynical, backhanded, or somehow insulting. It’s not meant that way. I mean it like this: relief. I mean it that way because of Maurice Jones-Drew taking bubble screen for 20 after bubble screen for 20—yes, the exact same play over and over again—to lead #5 UCLA back from 21 down, all while I knew down at the depths of my stomach that oh god oh god we’re going to lose and while in the center of my heart I hoped that we could somehow hold them off. And yet, after that disaster I somehow managed to keep some sort of faith in Stanford, only to have Brady Quinn execute a two-minute drill on is in the last game in old Stanford Stadium to dash my hopes once again.

Every Stanford fan I know practically had an aneurysm when they heard Jim Harbaugh's critical comments about fan support. We know that Jim Harbaugh will someday leave Stanford, and by someday we don't mean in Joe Paterno years. No, it will likely be sooner rather than later. But it would be terrible to lose Harbaugh because of something within our control, i.e. attendance. If a Notre Dame or a USC or an Alabama (hypotheticals all, of course) happened to come calling, then whatever. I could deal with that. But I'd hate it to be because of something that seems to be within our control. Particularly when it would seem that the old verities about Stanford football have been swept away so dramatically and so quickly by Jim Harbaugh's regime: contrary to common belief, Stanford football can play tough, Stanford football can recruit well, Stanford football can finish close games. So I decided to undertake a study of Stanford football's attendance, to see whether Stanford football does, in fact, have a problem when it comes to fan support. Though the raw attendance can't tell us why these statistics are the way they are-they can't tell us if we happen to have Cal and Notre Dame scheduled the same year; they can't tell us about the economy-they can give us a small clue about the state of Stanford football fan support. I've decided to start with 2006, the first year of new Stanford Stadium. If anyone can find data prior to 2006, I'd be grateful. (Source is cnnsi.com. The data are available if you e-mail me at datahir AT stanford DOT edu)

I've always disliked Apple for very specific reasons: its insistence on closed and propriety systems and its general hipsterish I'm-so-much-cooler-than-you-simply-because-of-my-computer's-branding attitude being among the top reasons.

But, I could never deny, nor would I ever try, that they have not pushed the envelope as far as technology goes. The company has found a way to consistently be at the forefront of innovation (that something may be known as Steve Jobs). But in that way, I respect Apple. They make gorgeous products (even if they're prettifying and borrowing heavily from BSD) and they get people to buy them.

But these ads cross the line.