when in the course of current events...

a lot has happened in the past 24 hours...

1. Penn State defeated Florida State in the Orange Bowl - other wise known as the AARP Bowl featuring Joe Paterno vs. Bobby Bowden - both coaches are over 70 years old. some called it the greatest game of the year... i watched the game... it was a sloppy game filled with mistakes. 3 missed field goals and a missed extra point... tons of penalties... in this case it wasn't that both teams deserved to win, as JoePa said after the game. instead both teams deserved to lose.

2. erronious reports last nite said that 12 miners trapped in a WV coal mine were all found alive. there was rejoicing, people were singing and praying and Geraldo Rivera on Fox News was talking about what he was going to do to the rescued miners ('wet my finger and wipe away the dirt and kiss 'em all'). what turned out to be a cruel turn of events, the reports were wrong. only 1 miner had survived and it appears that the error in the reporting was based on someone overhearing a cell phone conversation...
this is a sad day and i pray that God will be with the families of those involved, but maybe this is a wake up call to the American media. they love to jump on the latest 'news' story, camp outside the event and talk... mostly about nothing... repeating the same things for hours... with no time to fact check. we don't see hard news reported anymore, we see trendy ways of pretentious news (dare i say) journalists pretending to report... they aren't really reporting though... this can be attributed to the fact that almost everything is live... this is our fault... we want it now... we have made news reporting a consumer product that is based on the appearance, not on the substance. it felt good watching the reports last nite. i went to bed with a smile and disbelief... i woke up and was shocked... the truth is difficult sometimes... shame on you, news media.

edit: after more time and thought, i think part of the blame in all of this is the human emotion. and really, in this situation it isn't fair to blame that. those who rejoiced late last nite were clinging to hope... hope that was fading with every passing minute. they wanted to believe the imposible. one man even said that they all thought that the miners were going to come straight to the church instead of the hospital to get examined. this is a tragedy and it is so very unfortunate that all of these people had to go through the whole realm of emotions, some even in front of live tv cameras.

3. one teenage girl was killed in a traffic accident early yesturday morning in North Canton. the driver is in critical condition. alcohol is believed to be the reason for the accident. alcohol claims another life... and yet some right now are still bragging about the hangover they had as a result of NYE partying. i'll never understand why it is somehow 'cool' to be wasted and drunk. why is that something to brag about? i know i could be villified for having such a belief but you know drinking oneself into a drunken stuper is nothing to be proud of... but maybe i am taking things a bit to seriously... to bad the teenage driver of that car didn't take it seriously enough.

4. the nest generation of DVD products will be released. Sony & Toshiba are in competition to come out with the next big digital video player - unfortunately both players are not compatable with each other (much like the whole Betamax vs. VHS battle in the 80's.) some movie studios have teamed up with Toshiba and others with Sony to only release their movies on that format. at this point, the only way for the consumer to be able to view all the movies they want they would have to own both players. this will be a consumer nightmare. lots will be happening with HDTV and new digital DVD technology... wait and see...


and to end on a happy note...
5. i am still rejoicing Ohio State's victory over Notre Dame in the Fiesta Bowl monday nite. man, they looked good. We'll be losing three strong players at the linebacker position but there is a bright future for the Bucks next year. da da da da da da da da... Go Bucks!