Lack of posts

I haven't been active on this blog for a couple of months. It seems neglected. Maybe I should turn it into a photoblog or do something to get it going again.

UCLA -- too much defense for Xavier

I was hoping Xavier could hang in there with UCLA but it's not gonna happen. Too much talent and too much defense for UCLA is going to make it a blowout. Xavier just doesn't have the horses.

Why is this site the third best Brian Reilly online?

I wrote on my other blog that I'd like to be the best Brian Reilly online. If you search for Brian Reilly, I'm definitely above average, with the 3rd and 6th spots currently. I'd like to get back to #1, but I don't know enough about search engine optimization to do that, apparently. It's not really the best Brian Reilly site that gets the top ranking, it's the one that has the best links. And I don't think I've got too many outstanding links to either Brian Reilly site.

UCLA - not the best in NCAA tournament

I picked UCLA to get to the final game and lose to North Carolina. So far, that looks like a possibility. I was a little too influenced by Bob Knight's pick of Pittsburgh to win it all, so I put them in the final four, but they are already out and did some damage to my brackets. Anyway, UCLA looks like they will coast to a win over Western Kentucky, although WKU's wild play in the second half is making it interesting. And in this game, the Bruins don't seem to be getting the benefit of help from the officials.

To Read or Not to Read, is that the question?

The NEA's new report on reading [PDF] paints a bleak picture of reading as a pleasure activity in the US. In a quick look at the document, I didn't see any discussion of the possibility that reading on computer screens accounts for some of the change in reading habits. What is clear though is that reading does compete with other media, and it seems to be losing, particularly among young people:

58% of 7th- to 12thgraders multitask while reading, some ormost of the time. To consider multitasking in other terms: 35% of total weekly reading time for children and teens is shared with other media. “Screen media” alone—video/computer games, e-mail or instant messaging, Web surfing and, of course, TV-watching—account for 20% of reading time, according to the analysis.

Is there any irony in the fact that a 90 page report about people not reading has a 15 page executive summary?

What happened with Vizaweb?

My hosting plan on Vizaweb was up for renewal on Saturday, Jan. 12th. On the 8th, I sent an email to Vizaweb support asking if I could pay more money for a better hosting plan. I got a quick automated response, then waited and got nothing more. I sent another request on the 11th and got the same automated response and nothing more. I tried again on the 12th. Same result. Today my site went offline, so I tried to contact them again. No live support, phone number doesn't go anywhere. I do get quick automated responses when I send them a request, but I still haven't gotten a real response. I went ahead and renewed my account, but my site is still offline and since I don't get a response when I email Vizaweb's support, I don't know when it's coming back online.

I haven't had many problems with the hosting over the past year, so I didn't think about not renewing. I also haven't needed any support, so maybe I was misled by that. I posted a message on their discussion board, but it looked like a ghost town. No activity there for weeks. The whole thing seems very strange. If my site at least gets back online, I can delete some files and keep going without the upgrade in disk space, but I sure hope it's back online soon.