MIAMI (AP) — The New Orleans Saints stymied Peyton Manning, then intercepted him to seal the Super Bowl, rallying to beat the Indianapolis Colts 31-17 Sunday night.

Tracy Porter intercepted a pass from Manning — of all people — and sprinted 74 yards for a touchdown and a 31-17 lead with 3:12 left. Playing in the Super Bowl for the first time, the Saints went on a 31-7 run after falling behind 10-0 early.

MVP Drew Brees went 32 for 39 for 288 yards for the Saints, tying Tom Brady's Super Bowl record for completions.

Brees went 7 for 7 on the drive that put New Orleans ahead to stay, with the score coming on a 2-yard touchdown pass to Jeremy Shockey.

Manning's interception was the game's lone turnover, and he was rolled to the turf trying in vain to tackle Porter.

man, what a helluva game! i was worried by the end of the first quarter, with the Colts up 10-0 and the Saints didn't really seem to be firing on all cylinders, especially after being shutdown on the one yard line like that... but hot damn, they came back, and that interception by Porter was amazing... about fell out of my seat yelling and screaming when that happened.

real happy for the Saints... congradulations guys, you deserve it.

man, that half time show by The Who kind blew... liked the lightshow, but that guys voice was kind of shot... really would've been so much better with the Foo Fighters in there, that's for damn sure. oh well.

p.s. anybody lose money on the game?

if nothing else, it just reminds you that back in the era of Spartacus, you had slaves kneel down and service you before fucking... oh how times have changed, huh?

WASHINGTON – Mid-Atlantic residents were buried Saturday from a likely record-setting blizzard the president jokingly dubbed "Snowmageddon," and those brave enough tried to clear a path through the wet, heavy mounds of thigh-high snow.

The snow was falling too quickly in the nation's capital for crews to keep up, and officials begged residents to stay home and out of the way so that roads might be cleared in time for everyone to return to work Monday. The usually traffic-snarled roads were mostly barren, and Washington's familiar sites and monuments were covered with nearly 2 feet of snow.

Tihana and Jarrett Blanc had given up on digging, instead taking their dog, Hector, for a walk through northwest Washington during what forecasters said could be the biggest storm for the nation's capital in modern history.

"Our car is stuck. We're not even trying," said Tihana, 36.

The storm toppled trees and knocked out power to hundreds of thousands of customers in Washington, Virginia, West Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, Pennsylvania and New Jersey.

man, those weather guys weren't kidding about the snow storm hitting us and dropping nearly two feet of snow on our asses... i haven't even stepped outside yet, but looking out the windows it's pretty crazy looking -- my world just turned stark white.

at least this time i stopped by the grocery store to pickup some food and snacks... didn't really plan on being stuck in the house for 3 days last time, and man that sucked.

p.s. Snow bears down on DC as Mid-Atlantic region preps

even after seeing the movie and for the first time in ages, actually wanting to see a movie again in the theater... i still find myself all curious and interested in the details behind Avatar — for instance, i had no idea that Peter Jackson's WETA was behind a lot of the production work in the movie.

Thousands in Tokyo have been echoing Barack Obama's signature call for "change" — as in "Change Japanese-U.S. relations!"

Our military is rushing anti-missile batteries to Iran's Arab neighbors in anticipation of new Iranian military escalation.

As in the case of the 2004 Indonesian tsunami, the U.S. both gives the most aid to a devastated Haiti and still seems to receive the most criticism.

China has just warned us not to supply more armaments to Taiwan.

Our Predator drones continue to be the judge, jury, and executioner of suspected terrorists in Pakistan.

What's gone wrong with Obama's dream of multilateral cooperation?

another good one worth sitting back and reading while sipping your hot coffee, on this cold and dreary friday morning... *leans back*

While it's becoming increasingly common for people to leave suicide notes on their Facebook pages, the circumstances surrounding Stephen Garcia's death in particular still gives us the creeps.

Distraught over the separation from his ex-girlfriend, the 25-year-old California native was apparently on a court-ordered visit with their 9-month-old son Wyatt when he drove to an isolated dirt trail in the San Bernardino Mountains and then killed the boy before killing himself in an undisclosed fashion.

Eight hours later, a suicide note, last will and testament, along with a photo collage of Garcia and his son, appeared on his Facebook profile.

"I led everyone on my side of the family to believe I wouldn't of done this because I did not want them to know," the letter read. "But I had been thinking about doing this for months."

man, that is kind of creepy... *blink*

They want apps to work no matter how you hold the iPad: "Your application should encourage people to interact with iPad from any side by providing a great experience in all orientations."

They don't want applications to just be bigger: "The best iPad applications give people innovative ways to interact with content while they perform a clearly defined, finite task. Resist the temptation to fill the large screen with features that are not directly related to the main task. In particular, you should not view the large iPad screen as an invitation to bring back all the functionality you pruned from your iPhone application." That's some straight talk.

They're super into the sharing thing: "Think of ways people might want to use your application with others. Expand your thinking to include both the physical sharing of a single device and the virtual sharing of data."

The oddly "realistic" bookshelf in iBooks isn't a fluke: "Consider a more real-world vision of your application. For example, on iPhone, Contacts is a streamlined list, but on iPad, Contacts is an address book with a beautifully tangible look and feel."

Multi-finger gestures will abound: "The large iPad screen provides great scope for multifinger gestures, including gestures made by more than one person."

It shouldn't feel like a computer, even if the iPad lets you do computer-y things with files now: "Although iPad applications can allow people to create and manipulate files and share them with a computer (when the device is docked), this does not mean that people should have a sense of the file system on iPad."

i wonder if app developers will really take these guidelines to heart... somehow i doubt it, since the temptation to put more stuff on the screen will be pretty strong for most... kind of cool to glance over, though.

CHICAGO – Could it be that blogs have become online fodder for the — gasp! — more mature reader?

A new study has found that young people are losing interest in long-form blogging, as their communication habits have become increasingly brief, and mobile. Tech experts say it doesn't mean blogging is going away. Rather, it's gone the way of the telephone and e-mail — still useful, just not sexy.

"Remember when 'You've got mail!' used to produce a moment of enthusiasm and not dread?" asks Danah Boyd, a fellow at Harvard University's Berkman Center for Internet and Society. Now when it comes to blogs, she says, "people focus on using them for what they're good for and turning to other channels for more exciting things."

Those channels might include anything from social networking sites to others that feature games or video.

The study, released Wednesday by the Pew Internet & American Life Project, found that 14 percent of Internet youths, ages 12 to 17, now say they blog, compared with just over a quarter who did so in 2006. And only about half in that age group say they comment on friends' blogs, down from three-quarters who did so four years ago.

Pew found a similar drop in blogging among 18- to 29-year-olds.

i definitely think that blogging overall has declined, without a doubt... why bother setting up a site or blog, when there's Facebook and Twitter? at least, that's what most of the younger hip kids are all about these days... can't blame them, not in the least -- i still think it's funny that i'm still here typing and blogging after all this time... to put it into context, i've been blogging longer than any of my relationships have lasted, including my marriage.

BEIJING – Google's accusation that its e-mail accounts were hacked from China landed like a bombshell because it cast light on a problem that few companies will discuss: the pervasive threat from China-based cyberattacks.

The hacking that angered Google Inc. and hit dozens of other businesses adds to growing concern that China is a center for a global explosion of Internet crimes, part of a rash of attacks aimed at a wide array of targets, from a British military contractor to banks and chemical companies to a California software maker.

The government denies it is involved, and it reiterated that on Wednesday. Speaking in Paris, China's foreign minister, Yang Jiechi, said China itself "is the victim of pirate attacks" and the international community must fight the phenomenon together.

But experts say the highly skilled attacks suggest the Chinese military, which is a leader in cyberwarfare research, or other government agencies might be breaking into computers to steal technology and trade secrets to help state companies.

"Chinese hacking activity is significant in quantity and quality," said Sami Saydjari, president of the consulting firm Cyber Defense Agency and a former U.S. National Security Agency official.

Officials in the United States, Germany and Britain say hackers linked to China's military have broken into government and defense systems. But attacks on commercial systems receive less attention because victims rarely come forward, possibly for fear it might erode trust in their businesses.

sure feels like it's been awhile since the news about china hacking google first came out... but it looks like at least there's still some follow-up on this one, which is cool since i'm still curious what happens now? how deep or pervasive does this china-backed hacking go? *blink*

p.s. shake that big thang!

PARIS – French authorities have denied citizenship to a man who forced his French wife to wear a face-covering veil, saying he had rejected national values of secularism and gender equality.

The government has been speaking out strongly against head-to-toe veils, and is moving toward banning them in public after a long public debate over French national identity in the age of globalization.

Critics call the face-covering veil a gateway to extremism, but the move to ban it has drawn fierce criticism from some of France's five million Muslims, who say such restrictions are based in fear and intolerance of Islam.

President Nicolas Sarkozy has called the veils degrading to women and unwelcome in France. Sarkozy, a law-and-order conservative whose relations with the Muslim community have often been fraught, has been a vocal proponent of an all-out ban on the burqa, niqab and other face-covering Muslim veils.

i didn't even realize that this stuff was still going on over there in france... i do remember hearing and reading quite a bit about it last year when it was all over the news, but haven't really seen anything about it since.

p.s. Israel warns Syria it would lose future war

** same rules as always... make a choice, don't be the dbag.

have to say, other than the "ribbon" UI update which is very welcome since it's finally more unified with all the other office apps, i'm digging the email "conversation" groupings like i've come to get used with gmail... pretty spiffy.

not sure when it expires, but i'm sure i'll find out one of these days... *shrug*

update: installing all my apps right now... and am curious — any suggestions on a nice editor (preferably free) like Coda, which is just slick, to run under Win7? hmmm...

• Windows 7 Professional (64-bit)
• Intel i7 920 Quad Core
• 12GB DDR3 1066Mhz SDRAM
• 1TB SATA HD
• 1GB Nvidia GeForce GT 220

p.s. another angry grandpa...