Today is the big day for the Philadelphia Eagles and the New England Patriots. Super Bowl XXXIX is here and while the game itself promises to be interesting, I have to wonder how much of XXXIX will end up being simply XXX. I do hope Paul McCartney keeps all his clothes on.

If you have ever spent time in Jacksonville, you know that while it may be the largest city in the country (square mileage, not population) there is not a lot to do, especially for the atypical Super Bowl crowd. To help alleviate the inevitable nightmare of insufficient sleeping space, restaurants and bars, five cruise ships are in town and available to anyone needing a hotel room. It should be a big money maker for them too, selling sleeping rooms, alcohol and food without the expense of actually sailing the ships. The only thing they will not be permitted is gambling. While the Tallyrand Terminal is reasonably near by, half of the six ship fleet will be docked in the north-east industrial part of town. Cost to the city: $11.7 million

Additionally, the City of Jacksonville has put together a themed entertainment festival, with live music, food, drinks and Super Bowl merchandise. Across the river is another temporary area, the NFL Experience. Water taxis will be in place to shuttle people across and back. And I am sure The Landing will have lots of themed events going on as well. If I were more interested in sharing space with the more than 80,000 people who will attend, I would consider driving up to check out the extras.

Any readers particularly interested in the game? I will probably tune in here or there, but my interest is minimal. I placed a random bet on the score at the end of each quarter, so maybe by the end of the day I will have won a few hundred dollars.

The Bud Light advert banned from the Super Bowl
Makes fun of the infamous Janet Jackson "wardrobe malfunction."

Super Bowl Ads
News, Reviews and History.

3-D Seating Chart of Alltel Stadium
Includes a panoramic rendering of the view from each seat.

The Star-Nosed Mole
One scary looking creature. [ via ]

IFilm Streaming Super Bowl Ads

Review of the Super Bowl Adverts
MSN Slate takes a look at them all

The Lodge is hosting the first of what is sure to be many Bodhisattva Reunion nights. The event will be held on Monday, 07 February 2005 starting at 2200. There is a $3.00 cover charge. Scheduled live acts include Fantasie, The Hex Tremors, Country Slashers and Jim O'Rourke. Click here for a scan of the official flyer.

Let me know if you are interested in going.

Welcome to the new and improved Mount Sutro. I am excited to be posting this notice that the upgrades to the site are nearly complete. Before I get into the list of changes and new features, I would like to ask that if you discover anything out of order you pass it along to me. Your cooperation is appreciated.

Here is a selection of the changes you will notice (and some you will not):

• Instead of syndicating posts for the "One Last Breath" blog from a phpBB-powered forum, WordPress now controls that feature. Due to the flexible nature of WordPress, an open source content management system, "One Last Breath" posts are now available from anywhere on the site. A new category, archive and search system is also in place. These new features are located in the "Article Archive" window. Finally, RSS 0.92, RSS 2.0 and Atom 0.3 are now supported.
• My ongoing displeasure with phpBB in general has prompted me to move the forum (now called "Public Square") to a new platform. The excellent open source software package Simple Machines is now in charge of all forum functions. Since I am only basically familiar with this program, many changes are still to come and a few things are to be fixed.
• Some new items can be found in the "Miscellanea" window. RSS feeds will be enabled shortly, should you choose to syndicate or batch read websites. The translation features have also been enhanced. Computer translations by InterTran are available in twenty-eight (28) languages by a simple click. In addition to adding many new languages, since the "Miscellanea" window appears on every page (except "Public Square" and "Gallery"), translation can be done seamlessly from any page. Finally, my Amazon.com wish list is now publicly available and linked to in the "Miscellanea" window.
• The entire site has been recoded from the ground up. I had originally planned on taking the approach of developing the site using only the newest standards (XML and such) but was not willing to spend the time upgrading my own skill set. Regardless, the underlying code does what it needs to do visually and is now in a better position for further refinement.
• All the graphics have been redrawn or converted from their original to PNG. The main logo, date and time clock, sectional titles, icons and other graphical elements have all been recreated to fit with the fresh update on the original retro operating system theme.
• Overall site width has been re-calibrated to a default setting of 1024 x 768. Visitors with smaller screen resolutions will be required to scroll horizontally to view the primary content (left window) and feature windows (right column of windows).

There are so many more changes that are unnecessary to go into now. Please let me know what you think of the redesign and if you encounter any problems or errors, please let me know.