Bruschi Hospitalized
It was reported earlier today that Patriots Pro Bowl linebacker Tedy Bruschi was admitted to the hospital last night after suffering a mild stroke. Of course, this will lead to questions about whether he should attempt to return to football and if football was responsible for this problem. Either way, it's pretty scary for one of the most important parts of the Patriots.
For those outside of New England, it may be hard to understand how important Bruschi is to the Patriots. He is the Tom Brady of the defense: if we lose him, there's no Super Bowl this year or any other years. Without him, the defense doesn't work.
Bruschi is one of the most popular players on the Patriots, second only to Tom Brady, and the entire region is praying for him at this point.
New RSS Feed
I mentioned this before, and I just finally got around to doing it. I've now set up an RSS feed for useful JavaScript links. I'll update this often with links to JavaScript resources that I find interesting or useful. I'll also work on incorporating this list onto my homepage when I get a second. Enjoy!
That’s Three…
Man, am I wiped. Everyone of the Patriots' Super Bowls is an absolutely exhausting experience for Boston as a whole. But once again, even if it wasn't the 35-10 blowout I predicted, the Patriots amazed us all by once again finding a way to win. Sure, it took about 10 years off of my life, but it's well worth it.
I will fess up and give Philly their due. Terrell Owens played fantastic for a guy who had surgery six weeks ago. He obviously wasn't full speed, but he was damn impressive at half speed. I also thought Philly's defense did a good job, but we really helped them out with traditional Charlie Weis bonehead playcalling. Twice it was second and short and twice he called for a long bomb that resulted in nothing, then tried another pass on third down which was incomplete. Charlie still hasn't learned that he has Corey Dillon who can get four yards by mistake.
And don't even ask my why the Patriots didn't go with the run and some screens more often. There was that one series where they ripped through the Philly defense using that recipe...then they just went away from it. Goodbye Charlie, thanks for the Super Bowls, but you can go ahead and cause the folks in Notre Dame some anxiety.
Congrats to Deion Branch for having his major breakout game and earning the MVP. I thought it also could've gone to Tom Brady for throwing some great passes, but Branch was well-deserving. I think two unsung MVPs were Rodney Harrison and Eugene Wilson. Harrison, obviously, because he had two interceptions; Wilson because after he went out, our defense started having some issues (Philly's last touchdown was over Dexter Reid, Wilson's replacement).
Three Super Bowls by three points...man, thank you Vinatieri. And yes, there will be people who will say that Philly deserved to win more than the Patriots, but there were those who said the same thing about the Rams and the Panthers. Doesn't matter. The point of the game is to score at least one more point than the other team, and the Patriots have been the best at doing that for the past two years. We were spoiled by having more blowouts this year, but in the end, the Patriots just play tough, take advantage of mistakes, and the win the damn game. There's been no better at doing that recently than the New England Patriots, Super Bowl champions for the third time in four years.
Changes To This Site
New year, time for some changes to the ol' Web site. In my constant quest to make this site as usable as possible, I've made some changes that I hope everyone likes.
First, I've changed how external links function. They used to open in a new window automatically, but the latest usability studies seem to indicate that people don't really like popping up a new window. So, all external links now open up in the same window as my site. In order to help, those of you with JavaScript-enabled browsers will see a small icon to the right of each external link to indicate that you will be leaving this site. I hope you all find this useful, as I'm sure everyone knows how to use the back button to get back to this site.
The other change is the addition of an archives list to the left. I realized I didn't have any way to access blog entries once they were bumped off the bottom of the page. I really want to add a search, but I just don't have the time right now. So, the fastest solution was to add archives. And there they are.
This won't be the last of my tinkering, but I just wanted to explain it all ahead of time. I'm very interested to know if any visually-impaired users visit my site, and if so, what your perception is of its usability.
