Inside Job

Once again, Buckeye hearts have been broken, and the Scarlet & Gray has been further disgraced after losing another winnable game to a big opponent at home. First it was Texas in 2005, then it was Penn State in 2008. Now it's USC in '09.

Last year I wrote how Jim Tressel's conservative playcalling known as "Tresselball" has been the culprit for Ohio State's big-game losses (now six straight to top-5 opponents). But after dropping a disappointing 18-15 decision to USC last Saturday night, I have to say that Tressel is only partially to blame.

On Saturday night the Sweater Vest did decide to play it safe more often than not, opting for easy field goals and punts when the Buckeyes needed points. He also continued to script an unimaginative run game, with 90% of the plays going straight up the middle ineffectively (especially near the goal line). And when he did decide to take a chance in the final minutes of the first half, he mismanaged the clock, which ultimately allowed USC to drive back down the field and tie it with a field goal in the closing seconds of the second quarter.

But like I said, it's not all on Tressel. Even with a typical vanilla gameplan, quarterback Terrelle Pryor had his chance to put USC away. But some bad reads as well as his failure to connect on key passes squandered first downs and touchdowns. And even though he operated out of the shotgun the entire game, there was not a single time where he used the zone-read to exploit his evasive scrambling ability. This is partially Tressel's fault, but for all the hype surrounding the sophomore signal caller, Pryor is yet to really prove himself, and he still looks tentative and uncomfortable running OSU's offense.

The one thing that was working was the defense. With the exception of Trojan scoring drives before each half (situations that Tressel put them in), Ohio State's D played lights-out for most of the game. Even the Bucks' much maligned O-line was controlling the line of scrimmage and winning the battles in the trenches.

USC actually played an uncharacteristically conservative game in an effort to ease their freshman quarterback in for his first road game in a hostile environment. But the classic USC confidence and execution was still there, as coach Pete Carroll went for it twice on 4th down to keep scoring drives alive. Jim Tressel didn't. And that pretty much says it all between the two coaches and programs: Ohio State plays not to lose; USC plays to win. The Trojans execute; the Buckeyes do not.

Much like the demeanor of their leader, Ohio State exhibits little edge, aggression, or killer instinct in their play. As evidenced with the too-close-for-comfort brush with Navy the previous week, they don't put teams away. Meanwhile, the always jovial Pete Carroll and his USC team couldn't be more different, remaining loose but fiercely competitive. In big games they play with swagger and confidence, and they have fun doing it.

Small Talk
Coaching deficiencies aside, the biggest thing that irks me about Tressel is his self-effacing, disingenuous communication with the press, always downplaying failures while never giving real answers.

"I haven't had a game yet where I haven't had a significant number of decisions or thoughts that we didn't really critique and see if we could do better," he said to the local media a few days after the USC game. "I'm not sure exactly what a wholesale change [to the offense] would entail."

Not only is Tressel willfully oblivious, but like a certain former president, he's just out of touch.

And with Buckeye fans railing against Tressel for the loss, he actually had the nerve to make this statement:

"Honestly...I feel terrible for them because there's no way they're happy. They’ve got to be some of the most unhappy people in the world, and I feel bad because we just made them less happy. And I hate to be a part of making someone less happy. I mean, they’re already miserable, and to make them less happy, I feel bad."

Is any other Ohio State fan who's not offended by this? After six straight marquee losses, Buckeye fans have every right to be upset. But instead of personally accepting blame or issuing a genuine apology, Tressel deflects the hot-seat pressure by backhandedly insulting his own fan base, labeling them with the predisposed condition of being "miserable" while ignoring the fact that they might be miserable BECAUSE of him. What an insult.

What Needs to Happen
It's simple: Things need to change, or Tressel needs to let someone else run the offense. Tresselball was good enough to win a national championship, and it's good enough to beat Michigan year in and year out. But for a team that possesses as much talent as Ohio State, that's not enough. It's not that Tressel is expected to meet almost impossibly high expectations each season, it's for him to do it competitively. But because the game of football has changed over the past decade, Tressel's current style will only continue to result in needless losses, pain, and further embarrassment for the institution that is Ohio State until his contract is up in 2013. That is, unless he swallows his pride, relinquishes control, and hires an offensive guru to take over the playcalling duties (Cincinnati's Brian Kelly comes to mind).

The good news is that by now, Tressel's continued failures are well-documented, and Buckeye Nation is finally aware about why Ohio State keeps stumbling on the national stage. OSU fans should be outraged about what has happened in the past few seasons with a coach who has stubbornly and unnecessarily squandered talent and success.

With this last game, though, the most painful thought that stays with me is the fact that Ohio State let a freshman quarterback come into Ohio Stadium at night and walk out with a win. With the electric atmosphere in the Horseshoe, that should never happen, and especially at a time when Ohio State and their hordes of fans NEEDED this win.

Yes, the hardest part is thinking back to that magical night, and what should have been but will never be. Loss where there should be victory; shame where there should be glory.

Must-reads:
• Urban Changing OSU Philosophy
• Deconstructing: The grisly demise of 'Tressel Ball'
• Ohio State must figure out how to utilize Pryor's athletic gifts
• Pin down Tressel? It's harder than it sounds
• Thorny victory for OSU
• Buckeyes, The Vest do it their way

The Two Towers

"If our own government was responsible for the deaths of almost a hundred-thousand people...would you really want to know?"

Over the course of the past eight years, I've devoted a considerable amount of time to studying the vast number of inconsistencies in the official account of 9/11. What I've discovered is that if you spend even half an hour examining different sides of the puzzle, the official story is downright impossible, and at times absurd.

Yesterday Asia Times posted an article entitled "Fifty questions on 9/11." Below I've linked to this article as well as another key one. If you read these and watch the comprehensive video segment from the third link below, you'll see that the evidence of a conspiracy is not only overwhelming, but damning. And then the truth becomes nine parts conspiracy, one part theory.

• Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth
• The Coincidence Theorist's Guide to 9/11
• The 9/11 Myth
• Fifty questions on 9/11

If you're an eternal skeptic dismissing this possibility with an unbelieving head shake or knee-jerk reaction, understand that I'm not pointing any fingers—just presenting evidence that strongly supports an alternate version of events.

It's important to note that 9/11-type events and false-flag operations are not new. Look no further than the Reichstag fire, the Gulf of Tonkin, or Operation Northwoods. History repeats itself, and someone always benefits.

Lastly:

"A building is a symbol, as is the act of destroying it. Symbols are given power by people. A symbol in and of itself is powerless, but with enough people behind it, blowing up a building can change the world."
—V for Vendetta

One little victory: Ahmadinejad has a point...

White Lightning

In August 1999 I purchased my first computer. Actually, my dad bought it for me before entering my sophomore year in college, but it's the only computer I've ever owned. I'm ashamed to say that it cost about $3,200. Here are some of the original specs for my Dell Dimension XPS T550:

• Operating System: Windows 98 Second Edition
• Hard Drive: 19.6 GB (I almost chose the 10-gig one at the time)
• Processor: Pentium III 550 MHz
• Memory: 64 MB
• Video Card: 16 MB NVidia Diamond Viper TNT

Obviously, all of these features are laughably Stone Age in the computing world. Up until 2007, I was actually running the relatively unstable and no-longer-supported Windows 98, much to my disadvantage. My 550 MHz processor has long been surpassed by dual-gigahertz technology, and almost any video playback has been fairly choppy thanks to my awesome Diamond Viper video card, what with its 16 megabytes of unbridled power.

Can you believe this bad boy cost over $3,000 at the time? Not something I like to think about. But what's funny is that it only took a few years for the system to become outdated, as faster processors, bigger hard drives, and better operating systems took over. By the time I graduated from college, I was subject to constant teasing and ridicule for still running Windows 98 on a 550 MHz processor. But in a display of resiliency, I embraced the suck, and dubbed my computer "White Lightning" for all its blazing speed and glory.

This isn't to say that my computer hasn't seen its share of changes over the years. There have been many. The most significant was the long-overdue upgrade to a new operating system (though Windows XP was hardly new in 2007). Yes, White Lighting has also had DVD-ROM and CD-RW drives replaced, a big boost in RAM (now carrying the maximum 768 MB), partitioned hard drives, and the replacement of peripherals (monitor, keyboard, and mouse). It's battled through a few viruses and malware infections here and there. It even survived Y2K.

Yep, White Lighting has been through a lot. But throughout it all, I've stuck by it, and it's stuck by me. It's never run faster, and I'm proud of how I've streamlined it in optimal fashion (nightly shutdowns and a general level of TLC go a long way). And with over 5 gigs left on the hard drive, I do believe it's still got some years left in it. But when you spend over 3 grand on something, this is the kind of lifespan I expect. Most others aren't so patient.

The funny thing is, there's been a newer computer sitting in my closet since April, an extra Dell from work that they didn't have any use for. It's ready to go whenever I choose to hook it up. All I have to do is transfer my files and shut White Lightning down for the last time, but I just haven't gotten around to doing it. Because, really, what's the rush? White's been with me this long, and I can't give up on him now.

Twitter This

I have to say, I'm not a fan of Twitter. In particular, there's one thing that keeps annoying me about this site:

Who actually has enough free time on their hands to follow a stream of celebrity and non-celebrity updates from day to day?

Social media continues to evolve, but just because we can post our every action of every waking second doesn't mean we should. Twitter is narcissism at its worst. And I can't speak much better about its devoted followers.

When you think about it, it doesn't seem right that Twitter stole a popular feature from Facebook and made it its own. The thing is, status updates on Facebook are great because that's not the only thing you use Facebook for. But with Twitter, you're limited to posting banalities like "At Central Park" or "This bar sucks." WHO NEEDS TO KNOW THAT? Who cares?! Like boring blog posts, these are glorified text messages, but Twitter fails where text messages succeed.

Speaking of texts, isn't it amazing how hardly anyone answers their phone anymore? The texting phenomenon has truly revolutionized how we communicate. When you miss a call, people don't even bother leaving messages, because what's the point? No one wants to spend one minute calling their voicemail and waiting to hear what you had to say, only to call you back (or text you, which they could have done in the first place). We rely on texting more than ever simply because it's a quick, asynchronous way to get the information we need.

These days, the less engaged, the better.

Related:
• The 12 most annoying types of Facebookers
• Local Couple Resolves Argument Using Telephone

There Is a God

First, Chinese Democracy. Now, The State on DVD!!!

Apparently there's a 15-year wait on anything cool that began in 1993.