Medary.com

From the track, it looks like it might get wet here in Kansas City . . . the good news is that the current track stays well south of New Orleans.

Denver 20, San Diego 17
Kansas City 23, Oakland 17
Cincinatti 37, Minnesota 8

Minnesota is just real bad. Did they really need Randy moss that much? Kansas City wins mainly with defense. Kansas City. Defense. Denver squeaks out a home win, dropping the Chargers two games behind Kansas City in the AFC West.

Catching up from the weekend, the Montana Grizzlies, #4 in NCAA Division I-AA, shut down the Jackrabbit offense and took a 7-0 home victory in Missoula on Saturday.

SDSU, now 2-1 on the season, struggled on offense in the sloppy, rainy afternoon, getting just 28 net yards rushing while being outgained 300-108. Still, they had a chance to at least tie the game while putting a major scare into the Grizzlies (2-1). "We've got to win that football game," SDSU coach John Stiegelmeier said. "I think that's a true sign of what kind of individuals they are, that they kept battling today when things didn't look very good and said, 'Look, we're gonna win this football game.' They gave themselves a chance, and I'm extremely proud of them."

Next up, the Beef Bowl game at home vs. Cal Poly, the 11th ranked team in I-AA.

NASA released their Exploration Systems Architecture yesterday. It's an amalgam of Shuttle-derived booster technology with spacecraft very like (but larger than) Apollo's Command and Lunar modules:

The centerpiece of this system is a new spacecraft designed to carry four astronauts to and from the moon, support up to six crewmembers on future missions to Mars, and deliver crew and supplies to the International Space Station.

The new crew vehicle will be shaped like an Apollo capsule, but it will be three times larger, allowing four astronauts to travel to the moon at a time.

The new spacecraft has solar panels to provide power, and both the capsule and the lunar lander use liquid methane in their engines. Why methane? NASA is thinking ahead, planning for a day when future astronauts can convert Martian atmospheric resources into methane fuel.

The new ship can be reused up to 10 times. After the craft parachutes to dry land (with a splashdown as a backup option), NASA can easily recover it, replace the heat shield and launch it again.

Coupled with the new lunar lander, the system sends twice as many astronauts to the surface as Apollo, and they can stay longer, with the initial missions lasting four to seven days. And while Apollo was limited to landings along the moon's equator, the new ship carries enough propellant to land anywhere on the moon's surface.

Once a lunar outpost is established, crews could remain on the lunar surface for up to six months. The spacecraft can also operate without a crew in lunar orbit, eliminating the need for one astronaut to stay behind while others explore the surface.

Image credit: NASA/John Frassanito and Associates.

The Kansas City Royals beat Detroit 10-1 to put off their 100th loss for one day:

The Royals, who have lost 99 games, drew an announced attendance of 8,915 for the opener of their final homestand of the season. That is the smallest crowd to see a Royals' home game since July 5, 1995, when 7,511 watched them play Boston.

"The reasons why the fans aren't out here are the type of season we've had, the time of year it is, not in the race, knocking on 100 losses," catcher John Buck said. "I think that's why people are not going to make the sacrifice to stay up late on a school night cause it is not real meaningful."

The Royals get two chances at #100 today, hosting Detroit in a double-header.

Kansas City's 97.3 FM, an alternative adult contemporary ("AAA") radio station, has changed format to some schlock called "everything that rocks."

This just sucks. The carcass of the Planet's web site says they'll be playing:

U2, Tom Petty, The Red Hot Chili Peppers, Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Jimi Hendrix, Aerosmith, Black Crowes, Green Day, Stone Temple Pilots, Bruce Springsteen, and Smashing Pumpkins. Additionally, Max will rock with Bon Jovi, AC/DC, Def Leppard, Metallica, ZZ Top, Van Halen, Foreigner, Motley Crue, Poison, Boston, Guns ‘N’ Roses, and many more!

Ooh, fantastic, Bon Jovi AND Def Leppard! I hated those guys when they were new! Come on, Union Broadcasting, we really don't need another fossilized hard rock station, do we?

Home again after a trip with unusually poor Internet access. Watch for a Whip tomorrow, Shub-Internet, J.R. "Bob" Dobbs, and/or the Flying Spaghetti Monster willing . . .

I've turned the Blog Directories and Blogroll blocks back on. This probably doesn't mean anything to you. Oh well. Tastes like chicken.

I'm out of town, out of pocket, with spotty wi-fi access. So, I will resume full-time Whipping the week of Sept. 17.

Because of performance issues with the blogrolling.com and the sitemeter.com sites, I have removed the Blog Directories and the Blogroll blocks from the left-side menu bar.

They'll stay removed until I have some confidence that performance issues on those sites won't blow Medary.com out of the water . . . again.

Where was the Whip yesterday? Well, dentist, then a doctor appointment, and then there's the ongoing work copying my VHS collection of Mystery Science Theater 3000 to DVD. Busy, busy, busy!

#7: Royals beat White Sox
#6: Sandy "Docs in my sox" Berger gets a stiff fine
#5: Tired of moo goo gai puppy? Try donkey meat with tiger urine!
#4: We're evolving. EVOLVING, do you hear!!!
#3: Some support for the EMT's story
#2: Should Bush have invoked the Insurrection Act?
#1: General Honore takes charge