Hey King,

The two times you've picked the Bucs to lose as your What The Heck™ Pick of the week, you've been right. And these have been their only two losses. What gives?

Of course I think the difficulty of the Bucs' remaining schedule will make it pretty tough to put them in this category again anyway, but just in case you were thinking about doing so, (being an avid Bucs fan) I can only say: Cut it out!

;-)

-Jack

Dear King,

I think your points are all true. I don't feel that any of the calls in the game were technically incorrect. And I'm sure replays will make at least a persuasive case for many of the calls.

I do feel however that the calls were inconsistent and BY FAR benefitted the Steelers. The actual numbers I believe were 20 yards of penalties for the Steelers vs. 70 yards for the Seahawks. A 50 yard handicap is enough to change the game significantly if the penalties are on random plays. But the 70 yards of penalties against the Seahawks came at such critical moments during the game... That I think is really why so many fans are upset. I would also like to point out that in addition to phantom or ticky-tack calls against the Seahawks, I noticed a number of points during the game in which there was an obvious hold that should have been called against the Steelers but wasn't.

I make no attempt to guess at the motives of the officals. For all I know, the head line judge had color-blindness issues involving green-blue and yellow and black. I am certainly not a fan of either of these teams. I root for the Bucs, and when they're not in the Superbowl, I just generally hope for an exciting big game. And in this big game I felt that the victim of the zebra robbery was really the fans. They were robbed of an exciting finish. I don't know if the Seahawks could have pulled it off on a level playing field... and I never will. And that's really too bad.

Sincerely,

-Jack

I mostly agree with the article, but I do have to dispute the "obviously correct call" regarding Nowitzki's foul. It looked to me like an obvious no-call. If anything, it was Wade who leveled his forearm into Nowitzki.

This is not to say the Heat did not deserve to win. They did. They were obviously the better team. And I don't think the bad call was any kind of intentional stacking of the deck by the refs. Just not a good call at all.

Not only do TIs feature a programming language very similar to Basic, but they also allow easy access to a simple graphics library so that a programming novice can get instant gratification. They're also portable, cheap, and can be used in the classroom.

That's what I started on.

-Jack

Software Engineer

If Democrats had an overwhelming majority in congress and were squandering it with compromise on Iraq then I would agree with the idealists here. But the majority is really on a knife edge at the moment, especially in the Senate. Please idealists! The pragmatists want what you want. Stop sabotaging them. Please do not "go voting for Naders" on this. (I'm calling dibs on the coinage of that phrase, by the way.)

Had to comment on your saying that "Rosenfels played reasonably well" in the Bucs game. Being a Bucs fan who watched the game, I have to say that that's a huge understatement.

Against the #1 defense in the NFC, the guy went 27-of-36, 3 TDs, 0 Ints, and ended up with a passer rating of 116.6! I couldn't believe what I was seeing. At the end I could almost hear our thoroughly defeated defense whisper its single dying word: "Rosenfels."

... was going to southern Italy.

I've never been anywhere where there were more people out to find a way to cheat me. Don't get me wrong. I feel very lucky to have gotten to visit some of the most impressive ancient sites around. My wife and I got to see the Colliseum, the Forum, the Pantheon... We made it out to Pompei, which was incredible, and we even spent a day on the beautiful island of Capri. But seriously, nearly every person with whom we interacted in a situation where there was money involved attempted to cheat us. The bread-on-the-table trick was extremely common, though luckily my wife had been before and was ready for it. We also got ticketed on a train ride we thought we had paid for. At the famous Blue Grotto, they charged us one amount but afterwards gave us the ticket stub that showed they were supposed to charge half that.

I believe though that this is not generally the case everywhere in Europe. I've also traveled to England, France, Switzerland, Germany, Spain, the Netherlands, Belgium, and even elsewhere in Italy and in general I've not felt like I constantly had to be wary of scams. Prices may be high right now due to the exchange rate, but at least you know what you're paying in advance.

As for the anti-American sentiment... I don't think it's really pre-ordained. If you fit the stereotype of the fat, loud, ignorant American, then I supposed you might get treated as such. I mean, I once saw an American tourist get shocked when the French restaurant wouldn't take US dollars. Show some awareness of where you are. And learn some basic phrases in the language of the place you're visiting. It's amazing what just a little cultural respect will do. (Except in Paris, where they seem to detest you more if you butcher the language than if you can't speak it at all.)

In general, as long as you try to keep in mind what you expect of visitors in your own country, you'll do fine visiting someone else's.