The Patriots play the Vikings tomorrow night, and then host the Colts next Sunday. So two big nationally televised games in two weeks for the Pats. This is nut-cutting time, though. If they win these next two games they’ll be 7-1 and no worse than tied with Indy for the Conference. And a lot of other teams will suddenly take them seriously.

But this has been an interesting week in the NFL. So many of the “mighty” have fallen. KC beat the injury-riddled Seahawks, who may have a tough time getting back to the playoffs. Atlanta beat Cinci; for all the Bengals bluster and trash talk they’re only 4-3. Philly lost to the Jags; Jacksonville always play strong defense and McNabb can only do so much. The damn Tuna and the Cowboys beat Carolina; Romo did well but for how long?

In the AFC, Denver let the Colts steal one. They just kept running their standard defense and let the…

Boston lost one of it’s true patriarchs this weekend. Arnold “Red” Auerbach passed away at age 89. He died of a heart attack, the Associated Press reported, according to an NBA source who did not want to be identified.

In two decades of NBA coaching, Auerbach won 938 games, a record when he retired in 1966, as well as a record nine NBA championship titles. In those 20 years, 16 with the Celtics, Auerbach had only one losing season while winning almost two-thirds of his games. Coaching the Celtics he won an amazing eight consecutive titles from 1959-66.

For all my years growing up on Boston, Red was the Celtics. He put together winning teams for almost 60 years. From Russell to Havlicek to Bird and beyond. Sixteen championships. He loved the team and the city, and the feeling was mutual.

I don’t think I can say it much better than Dan Shaughnessy of the Globe did:

For decades,

…

This story “Bush Moves Toward Martial Law” on Toward Freedom has been making some noise on the ‘Net. Our President has signed into law (in a private closed-door ceremony) Public Law 109-364, or the “John Warner Defense Authorization Act of 2007″ (H.R.5122) (2). This act allows the President to declare a “public emergency” and station troops anywhere in America and take control of state-based National Guard units without the consent of the governor or local authorities, in order to “suppress public disorder.”

The legislation is available online here, so I figured it was worth taking a look. There is so much rhetoric these days and the media is such a shill for the major political parties that I don’t believe anything until I see it for myself. So, I hop over to the page and search down for “SEC. 1076. USE OF THE ARMED FORCES IN MAJOR PUBLIC EMERGENCIES”.

Now, I’m no legal expert,…

As a freelance developer I usually have 3 or more projects going on at once. Plus requests from established clients to do touch ups. Plus other ventures. Plus all the other daily tasks that one has. For a long while I struggled with keeping it all together – managing the To-Do lists for so many activities. Different priorities, different timelines – finding a way to see it all is a problem too.

Outlook is overkill. The Palm is nice, but I type so much faster than Graffiti works. And any solution that stores the data on my PC means I have to sync between desktop, laptop, and PDA.

Enter RememberTheMilk.com, a small start-up in Australia. It’s a fine example of what Web 2.0 can do. RtM lets you arrange your tasks by category, assign priorities, and mark things as done or postponed (adds a day to the due date). And…

Entering the bye week the Patriots are 4-1 and hold command of the AFC East. But it’s funny, when you watch the sports shows the Partriots are always listed in the top-5 or top-10, always expected to make the playoffs, yet somehow no one seems to take them seriously. So let’s take a look see at where this team is.

Defense: They’ve been giving up some big plays in the secondary, but have yet to give up more than 17 points in any game. Even high-scoring Cincinnati couldn’t get it done against the Patriots. Last week against Miami the turn-overs started coming like days of old. And the run defense is pretty good.

Rodney Harrison is looking more like his old self too. Plus add in Junior Seau as a veteran linebacker flying around the field and this defense could be pretty tough to deal with by mid-season.

Offense: This is a night-and-day situation. The running attack is great. Maroney,…