Under anesthetic, subdivided and synthetic

If you're a bound and determined capitalist and want to find the best deals on Friday, make sure you consult Black Friday 2005. I wasn't even considering it until I saw some of Staples' deals. Free shredder? Fifty blank DVDs for $3? Hrm....

Farewell, pigskin messiah.

Kansas State football coach Bill Snyder, who took over a downtrodden program in 1989 and orchestrated one of the greatest turnarounds in college football history, has told his team he will retire at the end of this football season, ESPN confirmed Monday night....

Snyder, 66, will best be remembered for taking over a moribund program and leading it to the cusp of a national title. The Wildcats were 1-10 in his first season but improved to 5-6 in 1990 and 7-4 in 1991 before falling back to 5-6 again in 1992. But then came the string of 11 straight seasons to end with a bowl game.

Perhaps three seasons too late, but very few people have had the effect on this community that this man has -- revitalizing the football team has had a pretty profound effect on the local economy, with plenty of businesses attributing their boom to the resurging football team. And no, they've not been anywhere near spectacular lately, but they're still ninety times better than they used to be.

Also, of all the people to stab in Clay County, why Marvin Macy?

Authorities were searching Monday for three men who may have been involved in the stabbing of a 66-year-old rural Clay County man after he reportedly confronted them about poaching a deer on his land.

Marvin Macy was in serious condition Monday at Wesley Medical Center in Wichita with knife wounds to his abdomen and face.

He's a hell of a nice guy; went to school with his kids, Tammy and Terry (rest in peace, old chum). This is inexplicable and infuriating and mildly worrisome.

Night Stalker cancelled, somehow shorter than the series that spawned it. Gee, a new show not faring well against The Apprentice and CSI. Whodathunkit?

This morning: first snow of the season. Yay. Good day for it, really.

Bahari was a former Collegian editor who was squicked out by strange words ("panties") and called the police when one of her cow-orkers trapped a squirrel in her office. It's impossible to relate the sheer utter goodness of Bahari in text. But I can't explain the following paragraph....

Quaker Maid Meats Inc. on Tuesday said it would voluntarily recall 94,400 pounds of frozen ground beef panties that may be contaminated with E. coli.

I know I'm not on the cutting edge of fashion, and suddenly, I'm glad.

If the Virgin Mary had been born 2000 years later, she might have ended up in an Indiana State prison, if Republican lawmakers there get their way. A proposed bill hopes to make criminals out of unmarried women in Indiana who conceive "by means other than sexual intercourse."

I'd seen this story before, but this was my favorite take on it....

Via beagle1971: Emo Philips on God jokes. My favorite:

A Mormon told me that they don't drink coffee. I said, "A cup of coffee every day gives you wonderful benefits." He said, "Like what?" I said, "Well, it keeps you from being Mormon ..."

Dolphin assassins menace Gulf of Mexico | The Register

Heavily-armed, frightened, and confused. No, we don't mean the Bush Administration, but a group of killer dolphins trained by the US Navy and lately washed into the Gulf of Mexico by Hurricane Katrina, if The Guardian is to be believed.

I know it's late, but it merits mentioning, perhaps even several times, if only for the subhed: Rogue cetacean death squad may be armed. Yes, a made-for-Sci-Fi-channel movie plays itself out in real life. And once more, the Onion has seen it coming.

BISMARCK, N.D. -- Dave Bliss was hired as the coach of the CBA's Dakota Wizards on Friday, two years after he quit as Baylor's coach amid a scandal after one of his players was shot to death.

"I made a mistake and I'm grateful for the second chance," Bliss told The Associated Press before a news conference. "I'm humbled about what I did. Selfishness and ambition played a large role in what I did."

Bliss and athletic director Tom Stanton resigned from Baylor in August 2003, two months after the death of player Patrick Dennehy. Former teammate Carlton Dotson pleaded guilty in June to killing Dennehy and was sentenced to 35 years in prison.

Baylor found that Bliss improperly paid up to $40,000 in tuition for Dennehy and another player, and that the coaching staff had not reported players' failed drug tests. Bliss also asked players and an assistant coach to lie to investigators by saying Dennehy paid his tuition by dealing drugs.

There are not four human beings in the universe, alive or dead, who are less-suited to run a basketball program than Dave Bliss. The man should not be walking the streets, let alone the courts. Wizards: I hate you and I want you to die.

So I sent media guru Jim Romenesko an e-mail about the aforementioned LJWorld blunder that cost a woman her apartment's content -- it was so scary to me, not just the idea of losing everything you own, but of such a simple little mistake that I'm sure I've made dozens of times but in this context being responsible for such a horrible loss -- mentioning the thread which prompted it. I figured he'd be as intrigued with the story as I was.

What I didn't expect -- but is a pleasant surprise -- was for the news bloopers link to get reposted to the left-hand bar of the Romenesko page -- with credit to the LJ post!

If I were biologically capable of doing so, I would express this emotion pulsing through me in a sound I believe you refer to as "squee," possibly with exclamatory emphasis added. But I'm not. So let's just say I am...pleased and flattered. I think I'm at about 1.45 Percocets of happiness.

Also: taunt not Nathan Fillion.

Also also: rewil! Paper critters! Paper hedgie!

A^3: The LJ database is acting weird today. I've seen comments disappear, reappear, reappear only after I post another comment, comment counts go from five to one to seven.... There's a glitch in the Matrix somewhere. Must be Agents.