The View From Wisconsin

Shouldn't have worried. Austin had only 92 yards receiving (and didn't get docked a point for that bad attempt at the Wildcat), and my opponent ended up with only 69 points - compared to my 89 points (thank you very much, Big Ben, your check is in the mail).

My second NFL.com Fantasy Football championship! Life, it is good. :)

One of the good things about being in multiple Fantasy Football leagues is that you have the hope that at least one of your teams can make it to the playoffs. Unfortunately, this year I had my Yahoo public team not even make the playoffs, while in the NQRFPTFL (the one I usually want to win, because it's against friends), I lost in the first round and am heading for the seventh place game after a loss this week.

That leaves my NFL.com Fantasy team in the Packers Green and Gold League. Despite a week 14 loss to the second place team in my division to give them the division title, I managed to make the playoffs as the wild card. They had a tie back in week nine, which put them a half-game ahead of me. Our two teams were the only ones with nine wins on the season; the playoff picture was still cloudy for most of the league through week 14.

Welp, because of how NFL.com does the playoffs, I ended up playing the division champions again for a second straight week. This time, though, he did something that was completely shocking - or should I say, Shockey-ing. He started the Saints TE even though he was listed as inactive for the game against the Cowboys. Of course, that wasn't the dagger, as Wayne Larrivee would say; he had Drew Brees starting as his QB. Brees, of course, had one of the worst games of the season against the Cowboys that week. Add to that the Colts "resting" Pierre Garcon that week, and he likely had about 20 points flushed down the toilet.

And then Big Ben Roethlisberger dismantled the Packers defensive secondary the next night to make anything he did moot. I advanced to the championship this week against a squad called the Lonestar Packers - I'm under the assumption he's a Packer fan lost in Texas. My tear-the-hair-out moment was whether or not to start Big Ben or my backup QB, Tony Romo. NFL.com suggested Romo, because of his recent play and because of the matchup against the 'Skins. I couldn't bring myself to not have Roethlisberger out there, though, since he was so good the previous week and the overall statistical picture suggested he was the better play.

Ben and the rest of my squad managed to get me 89 points, while he had only 60 points after the day games. He has one player going at the moment - Miles Austin, WR for the Cowboys. As I type this, he already has one point for the game vs. the 'Skins (11 yards receiving; yardage is at 1 for every 10 rushing/receiving and 1 for every 25 passing). He needs to get 29 more points, because if we tie at 28 points, I will likely win the week due to bench strength. He currently has 46 points to my 23 on the bench, less Romo's totals; since most if not all of Austin's points would be matched with Romo as well, I'd likely have more than 46 points on the bench.

Austin did have one 30+ point game this year in our league - he torched KC in week five, and after the bye he drilled Atlanta with 29 points. I got 24 and 33 from Romo those two weeks as well, so I'd be able to get the points from him. (Update: Austin just got 19 yards, which gives him 3 points for the game - but he just lost 14 yards on a Wildcat run. Ooops.) This could be a long night for me with this game. What's worse is that the NBC station in Milwaukee is "blocked" at work, since that's the station we have our educational channel set up.

As a Big Ten apologist, I kinda feel I have to give my US$0.02 on the news that the Big Ten is seeking to expand.

The reason isn't just to increase revenue by creating a championship game from two divisions in the FBS, but to address some inequities in the Big Ten's schedule (read: the conference falls off the map after the regular season ends, while the Big 12 and the SEC get the pub and the TV time for their championship games).

The Holy Grail of institutions, of course, would be UND - located smack dab right in the middle of Big Ten country and one of the largest and most loyal (Charlie Weis nonwithstanding) fan bases. The biggest issue with the Golden Domers, though, is that it doesn't fit the one main tenet that defines a Big Ten University: the big, state-run, research-minded institution. There are, however, at least seven other schools that the conference is considering:

• Cincinnati. This makes sense, as it's not as far outside of the Big Ten "area", and there'd be an automatic rivalry with OSU. The Big East might balk at its champion (and potentially undefeated team, if they defeat Florida in the Sugar Bowl) leaving for greener pastures.
  
• Louisville: This one would work as well, though it would make the Men's Hoops tournament the Rick Pitino Invitational.
  
• Missouri: There are two issues with this choice - Mizzou wouldn't want to give up their lucrative position in the Big 12, and the travel would be nightmarish for them; they'd be the westernmost team in the conference. It would also mess up a potential divisional alignment; there's already six teams west of Indianapolis (Purdue, Northwestern, Illinois, Wisconsin, Minnesota and Iowa), and Lucas Oil Field would be one of the potential sites for a Big Ten Championship Game.
  
• Pittsburgh: This one would be a winner, and the most logical of them all. It'd give JoePa and Penn State an in-state rival; it'd put six teams in the Eastern Division (Michigan, Michigan State, Ohio State, Penn State, Pitt and Purdue); and Pitt's status as a long-tenured institution would also help. What the Big Ten presidents wouldn't care for, though, is that Pitt shares its football stadium with another team (the Steelers).
  
• Rutgers: The Scarlet Knights fit the Big Ten mold, but they're waaayyyy out of the way geographically. It'd give the Big Ten an "in" with the New York area, though.
  
• Syracuse: Another "way out there" geographically option, and the fact that the Men's hoops tourney would become the Jim Boeheim Invitational as well. Pluses are the same as with Rutgers (read: New York fan base).
  
• West Virginia: This is another geographical oddity, and though it's a "state" school, I don't think that would necessarily give them an in with the Big Ten's school presidents. And now that I've gone through and noticed, is there something to wanting to add three-fourths of the Big East's teams to the Big Ten or something?
• Other "sleeper" picks: Illinois State; Northern Illinois; Iowa State; any one of the directional schools in Michigan (Western, Central, Eastern); and - the ULTIMATE sleeper, based on the "nationwide" comment Alvarez made - Boise State.
  

I would think that, if Pitt can't be convinced to make the jump to the Big Ten, Louisville or Cincinnati would be idea choices. I do wonder, though, if there's a school the conference honchos already have in mind; maybe Notre Dame realizes it needs to affiliate with a conference because it can't afford to keep firing coaches every five years?

A while back, I found that I had a new folder in the My Documents folder on my old XP machine, titled "SafeNet Sentinel". I was a bit concerned about this, since I didn't remember adding any apps or anything that would have created a folder like that, so I just deleted it. Strangely enough, it kept coming back.

For a minute or two, I thought that perhaps I had a keylogger or some other sinister program find its way onto my machine. It doesn't help when the top 10 Google searches for "SafeNet Sentinel folder" turn up either ! or X signs from McAfee SiteAdvisor.

However, the mystery suddenly cleared up one day when I had just deleted the folder (again) and then went to open up a document in Adobe Reader. I noticed that I had installed a toolbar from a company called TerraGo Technologies in Reader, one that allowed a user to mark and measure PDF maps from the US Department of Agriculture and the ArcGIS program used by the USGS. I minimized the Reader, and took a quick peek in My Documents - sure enough, there was the folder again.

Now, I'm not saying that TerraGo is putting out spyware, but it appears that they use SafeNet's software to track the movements of the mouse when you are using their toolbar on activated PDF files. What I'm concerned about, however, is that this could possibly be exploited by hackers to put a keylogger on a computer.

So it is for this reason that I'm putting the "How to delete the TerraGo Toolbar" out for all to utilize:

To uninstall the TerraGo Toolbar from the Control Panel

1. From Start, click Control Panel.
2. Double-click Add or Remove Programs.
3. From the list of installed programs, select TerraGo Toolbar.
4. Click Remove.
5. Click Yes at the confirmation prompt to begin the uninstall process.
6. In the Uninstall Complete dialog box, click Finish.

To uninstall the TerraGo Toolbar from the TerraGo_Toolbar.exe file

1. Double-click the TerraGo_Toolbar.exe file.
2. In the Program Maintenance dialog box, click the Remove radio button, then click Next.
3. Click Yes at the confirmation prompt.
4. In the Uninstall Complete dialog box, click Finish.

I haven't checked yet, but it appears that this will eliminate the folder from reappearing in the My Documents folder. YMMV.

Labels: SafeNet Sentinel TerraGo Toolbar