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I have to admit that tonight’s OSU-Michigan football game will probably go down as one of the greatest football games ever played.

Seriously: the game had everything: lots of scoring, big plays, tough calls, tension and excitement, a “win one for the Gipper” swan-song story… everything. Of course, the best part for me was the final score (Ohio State 42, Michigan 39).

But, I digress…

In the first half, I thought the Bucks might win in a runaway, but I knew in the back of my tiny, little mind that Michigan had the opportunity, talent, and skill to come back in the second half and make a game out of it — which they did.

The second half was almost all Michigan; the Bucks, however, made all the plays that they had to make, and that was the difference. You could see Troy Smith start to get down on himself for the Bucks’ offensive errors in the second half, but his teammates picked him up — like they should.

Heisman 2006: Troy Smith, hands down.

But I have to hand it to Michigan: they played their hearts out today, leaving them on the field with their souls — and their sorrows for Bo Schembechler (who undoubtedly had the best seat in the house, sitting right next to old friend Woody Hayes). They never gave up, even after several times when they ended up looking dazed, stunned, and wondering, “what the f*** just happened?” (like many other teams also did this year). They simply didn’t quit. Bravo, Michigan!

I have to also hand it to the Buckeye fans: they gave Bo the respect and credit he truly deserved, in an honorable and respectful way. It was probably the classiest I have ever seen Buckeye fans when it comes to Michigan.

I do have to question Michigan running back Mike Hart’s comments about the Buckeye defense after the game — does he know what sportsmanship means? If it should come down to a rematch in the NCAA National Championship game in Arizona in January (more on this in another post), someone might want a make a rather small point in his direction. These things happen.

Oh, to be on High Street tonight! Woooo!

All in all, however, this turned out to be every bit the exciting, nerve-wracking, high-tension game it was billed to be. I wore down my living room carpet pacing in nervous anticipation. My hair’s a little thinner. And my stomach will need a double dose of Prilosec tonight.

Shoot. Afterward, I was looking for nitroglycerin tabs, my heart was beating so hard.

All of this — over a football game. Imagine.

Pass me the nitroglycerin — quick!

Breaking news: ESPN is reporting that during the taping of the “Big Ten Ticket” show at a television studio in Detroit, Michigan, Bo Schembechler, former coach for the University of Michigan football team, collapsed and died this morning. He was 77.

Tomorrow’s game aside, this is a sad day for college football — not just for Michigan.

Tomorrow’s game aside, he was a class guy, a nasty opponent, a great teacher, and the consummate college football coach. He will be missed. Having been through the loss of Woody Hayes, I feel for Michigan fans.

Tomorrow’s game aside, this will have an impact on tomorrow’s game, the Big Ten in general, and NCAA football as a whole.

But tomorrow’s game is just that: tomorrow’s game. The stakes may now be higher for Michigan, but tomorrow’s game is just tomorrow’s game.

Good sportsmanship requires many things, but today — and tomorrow — it requires a few more: I would exhort Buckeye fans not to boo Bo Schembechler when his death is announced at tomorrow’s game (and it will be) — respect the man and his accomplishments because he is as much of Ohio State’s tradition as he is of Michigan’s; I would exhort Jim Tressel to understand (and he will) and communicate to his team (and he will) that tomorrow’s game is still strictly business — they have the better team, they’re playing at home, and they can best deflate Michigan emotionally by playing solid football.

And the single, most respectful thing the Buckeyes can do tomorrow afternoon is to soundly whip the Michigan Wolverines and send them home 10-1. For Woody — in Bo’s memory.

NOTE: — For those of you that are unaware, Braylon Edwards was a standout for the Michigan Wolverines football team and had a couple of good games — in losing efforts — against the Ohio State Buckeyes. He now plays for the Cleveland Browns, and so far isn’t living up to his hype — self-generated or otherwise. And… he talks… a lot.

After last week’s Cleveland Browns victory over Atlanta in NFL football action, Braylon Edwards, as usual, couldn’t keep clammed:

“We are the best team in the country, and it’s goin’ down,” Edwards crowed. “Michigan 29, O-State 17.”

Oh, Braylon, you are so misguided.

So while I was looking for something (specific) to quote for an early-morning post on the OSU-Michigan game, I found another “Full Cleveland” programming job at a local TV station’s web site. If you’re on a Mac, you get this screen:

Under the hood, I found a nasty little piece of JavaScript that essentially said this: “if the visitor is not a Mac, and is not IE3 or is not IE4, and the browser is not Netscape or Netscape 6, tell them that ‘This feature is not supported for your system configuration.’ and ‘Please click here to upgrade your browser.’

Let me see here… Outside of the fact that this is a canned script written in 2001…

Now should I use Firefox 2, released October 2006, or use Netscape 6 (released in 2002 and re-released 4 months later as version 6.22, and 4 months after that, again, as version 7)…

A two-week-old browser — or a 4-year-old browser that nobody uses? I’m supposed to make a choice here?

By the way, this page fails in every Mac browser in OS X. Using JavaScript isn’t practical, useful or even warranted in this situation: a far, far better solution would be to use PHP or .ASP scripting to address this situation — and the site is coded in .ASP!

Browser sniffing with JavaScript is just begging for trouble: some people surf with JavaScript turned off. Others use a browser that properly respects the DOM, and they get garbage just like this. Not to mention that there are also far more recent scripts that take advantage of current browser DOM quirks than this freely available all over the net; this is really more about lazy programming than anything else.

It’s about accessibility; it’s also about usability: consider Target.

And I have a hard time believing that WOIO doesn’t get Mac users on their site — at least not enough to warrant coding for them.

Wait a minute, let me rethink that: maybe it means that Mac users are too smart to consider going there in the first place — consider the content.

OK, so the feed was down for a few. I had a parse error on my archives page, which downed my feed. It’s now corrected.

One of the things that ticks me about scripting languages is the idea that if you have one simple character mis-typed, missing, or otherwise impaired, it impairs the whole shooting match. There’s nothing I can do about it, so there’s no use complaining about it — just fix it and move on.

This, my annual “Go Bucks!” style, is only a temporary design until about Thanksgiving, when I will change the theme over to yet another theme (”Denim & Dinge”) with this same layout and structure. The color palette is the same as the old Bend, except it’s been re-arranged a bit, and the denim image is coming back.

The site’s been restructured, too: I moved the archive links, the calendar, etc. over to their own page; it simply makes more sense to do it that way. In so doing, I also revamped a little of WordPress’ output code to simplify the links: it now puts out one, simple unordered list instead of several lists and several embedded lists. It’s much easier to style now. In fact, I was able to cut out close to 100 lines out of the style sheet. I cut another 100 lines or so out of the CSS file with this layout as well, which makes the site a touch quicker and a lot easier to manage, style-wise.

I’ve been toying with this layout for over 18 months now, and I finally decided to do it: the layout is not liquid, not ice; it’s what they call “jell-o.” If you have a wide-screen monitor, and your browser is not maximized, you can click and hold on the lower right corner of your browser and resize it and the content area resizes along with it — to a point. It has both minimum and maximum widths, so it will maximize the use of screen real estate in any resolution.

This way, it looks good at 800 x 600, and it doesn’t look whacked at 1440 x 900 (like on my screen). It’s a usability thing: easier for the reader, and easier for me. Easier for me means that I’ll spend less time maintaining the site and more time doing what I need to do — and that’s a Good Thing.

Now I haven’t yet tested it in IE7, so if you see something in IE7 that is a little whacked, please let me know; most of the JavaScript that holds this site together in IE is set in conditionals specific to IE 6 and below, so it really shouldn’t break.

That being said, it’ll probably be totally borked in IE7…

Well we don’t give a damn ’bout the whole state of Michigan,
the whole state of Michigan,
the whole state of Michigan.
No we don’t give a damn ’bout the whole state of Michigan,
‘Cause we’re from O-HI-O!

The Random House Collegiate Dictionary defines a wolverine as a stocky, carnivorous North American mammal of the weasel family. Pretty much sums it up.

Is it just me, or has anyone else noticed that all the local trees are bent toward the northwest? There’s only one explanation: Michigan sucks.

I heard recently that you never see a nativity scene in Michigan during Christmas season. That’s because they can’t find three wise men and a virgin.

A Michigan grad came to my door the other night; I paid him for the pizza.

In Arabica the other day, I noticed a Michigan grad using his laptop. How did I know he was a Michigan grad? Simple: he had white-out all over the screen.

Visiting the UM web site the other day, I noticed a course description for a public speaking class; the subject for the entire course was a single sentence: “want fries with that?”

OK, so enough blather. I’ll leave you with this thought: what, in nature, has the colors of “maize and blue”? The short answer is: nothing. The long answer is: Absolutely nothing. Even blue jays have enough sense to color themselves with white, gray, and black instead of yellow.

OK, that given, how many items in nature are scarlet, or scarlet and gray? I’ll start you off with one: a cardinal (the bird).

Ahhh… It’s the week of what is sometimes billed as the greatest rivalry in sports: the week the Ohio State Buckeyes take on “that team up North” in football.

This year, they’re playing in the ‘Shoe, and the Bucks are probably the best team in NCAA football. That other team is ranked #2 at the moment, but I don’t think they’re quite that good.

I could be wrong, but I’m finding it hard to dispute that Troy Smith isn’t anything less than this year’s Heismann winner; top that off with the stingiest defense in the NCAA (in points scored), and… well… I can’t really say that UM’s offense is all that accomplished this year.

My call: Bucks by 9. Possibly more. UM will find it hard to score more than 13 points this time, and if they do, it’ll be a miracle, especially when you take into consideration the Buck’s 12th man — their fans.

This team is probably the best-coached team in NCAA football — bar none. Some people write graffiti that says, “Clapton is God” — in Columbus, I’ve seen that same graffiti with the name “Clapton” lined out, and the name “Tressel” inserted in its place.

So far, that’s spot-on right: Tressel is going for his 6th win against Lloyd Carr’s team, and might possibly force Mr. Carr out with another win. Whatever — he has UM’s number, that’s for sure.

I understand the graffiti.

When I was attending OSU, you couldn’t enter a building without noticing a prominently-placed image of Woody Hayes kneeling on the field with his trademark black Block-O cap and a football tucked underneath his right arm. I suspect that this is still the case, too.

Those photos and paintings might soon be replaced with Mr. Tressel in a similar pose, scarlet sweater vest and all.

And, if so, I’d hardly be surprised.

My bride and I are planning to attend this weekend’s Fabulous Food Show at the IX Center this weekend.

If you want to purchase your tickets early, save time and money, you must purchase them online.

This is not a bad idea; in fact, it’s a great idea, as it saves time, printing costs and money (for the publisher), and it saves the consumer the hassle of standing in lines, risking the “Sold Out” sign being slammed down in front of them just as they arrive at the ticket booth, and just the overall experience of wasting a lot of what could otherwise be productive time.

True, it shifts the burden of the tickets squarely on the consumer, but if you went out and physically purchased the tickets, you’d still have that burden.

Anyway, in my purchasing process, I got to this point, where you are instructed to use the “Print” command in your browser to print the tickets. I have blurred the barcoding and blacked out sensitive information:

All went fine, save for one problem: I’m using a Mac. What you see in the screenshot above is exactly what printed: one ticket layered underneath the other, so only one ticket printed.

I called the help line. They asked me what the issue was and I told her.

“You using a Mac?”

“Yep.”

“Yeah, that’s a problem. I’ll have to send you PDFs. Do you have Acrobat?”

“Yes, I do. What do you mean that it’s a problem?”

“Well, our guys haven’t fixed that one yet. They’re supposed to fix it so we don’t get so many calls for resends.”

“Well, I can tell you how to fix it real fast,” I replied, “just develop for the Mac first, then tweak it in Windows. You’ll cut half of your development time and it’ll work for everyone — including saving you a lot of time working the support desk.”

“Yeah. OK. Is this your email address?” she asked, totally ignoring my direction…

And it’s true: develop first for Mac, then tweak your work in Windows. It saves truckloads of time. Windows developers just don’t see the whole picture — or they just don’t want to.

I’m not banging on Windows developers here — far from it; there are a lot of good Windows-based Web developers out there. I used Windows for years. I originally developed in Windows, and when I learned that there was another world out there, I began to learn how to program for that alternative. Today, I live in that alternative; I know how the other half lives.

I also know how to work smarter, and make that work for a greater number of people.

I noted this first update on cleveland.com’s election returns page. Interestingly, note that no votes had yet been counted when this projection was released.

I also should note here that just about everyone else did this very same thing, projecting Strickland the winner without counting a single vote.