October 2005 Archives
I finally finish the "Dark Tower" series a few months ago, bringing to a close the years of waiting and reading that went into the 7 book series, and Stephen King decides that it's not enough to end the story, he has to team up with Marvel for a new comic book series.
"The series will expand the saga of King’s epic hero, Roland Deschain, whose quest to save the Dark Tower is captured in seven best-selling novels published over the course of twenty-five years. King’s unparalleled storytelling power will inform new stories that delve into the life and times of the young Roland, revealing the trials and conflicts that lead to the burden of destiny he must assume as a man, the last Gunslinger from a world that has moved on. The comics will work in conjunction with the novels, further supplementing and defining the saga’s mythology under the direction of the acclaimed author himself."
Here I go again...
So now that Harriet Miers is out, President Bush has a new Supreme Court nominee. He's Samuel Alito, and apparently, his nomination is going to be the fight we've been waiting for. The Dems are already decrying him as a threat to everything from abortion to privacy to world peace (ok, I made up that last one). Should be fun.
So, is it just me, or does anyone else think that with him and Antonin Scalia on the court, it's going to turn into a "Sopranos" episode? Sammy "The Bull" and Anto "The Iceman". Yeah, I'm that guy who goes for the cheap ethnic joke every time....
Things were going well yesterday. The Giants were smoking the Skins, I was about to leave for my first day of the new curling season, and I had gotten a good bit of drywall mudding done (yes, we are still working on the basement). I was cleaning up after the drywall mud, when the mud trough slipped out of my hands. I instinctively grabbed it, and caught it with my index finger right on the sharp corner. Slice! Right through the side of the finger, taking off a nice chunk of flesh.
Lisa was quick to grab the first aid kit, and Ellie was very concerned for me. It didn't bleed too badly, but it looked really ugly. We wrapped it in gauze, and then had to leave for curling. Lisa drove, since I wasn't feeling 100%. And naturally, we got caught in traffic, and since I wasn't driving, I wasn't able to maneuver out of the jam to any of the shortcuts I knew.
Naturally, I got there late, and the ice was full for pick-up curling, and I only got to throw a couple of rocks. Alas. But on the plus side, that meant that we got first crack at the pizza.
Then, we got home, and I tried to put Ellie to sleep. She's been very daddy-centric lately, and so I've been able to get her to sleep without much trouble. But last night, she wasn't having any of it (maybe something to do with my coughing fits more than anything), and I had to call Lisa in to take over.
An ugly end to a good day. By the way, my finger is feeling fine, but this morning, the gauze was stuck to the little flap of skin and almost tore it off. Not pretty. I made sure to choose a non-stick bandage this time.
Unbelievable. I'm still in shock this morning over the 36-0 shellacking the Giants laid on the Redskins. I admit being a little nervous though, when they kept kicking field goals instead of punching in touchdowns, but obviously, when they kept utterly shutting down the Redskins' offense, there wasn't a lot to worry about. I imagine that some non-Giants fans might have been getting sick of all the adulation piled on Wellington Mara though. But it's something you have to understand, he's pretty much the only owner Giants fans have ever known, and he's always done things the right way You can dog George Steinbrenner all you want, he probably deserves it. But Wellington Mara is a class act who deserved all the praise he got yesterday. Rest in Peace.
Sprint will launch a service allowing full downloads of music tracks over the air to a mobile phone on Monday. The service is said to provide dual-downloads - to both a mobile phone and PC - for the single cost of $2.50 per track.
read more | digg story
I've been really busy at work lately, but I wanted to make sure everyone saw that The Smoking Gun already has the indictments against "Scooter" Libby up on its web site: Libby Indicted In CIA Leak Case - October 28, 2005. The good stuff is on page 20, where they detail his grand jury testimony, underlining the portions that are lies. It pretty much goes quetion, lie, question, lie. Good stuff.
It's not the crime, it's the coverup. You'd think high ranking people in Washington would know that by now.
Not quite a Friday freebie, but nice anyways. $3 off a bottle 12-pack or can 8 pack of Guinness. Brilliant!
Here's your early Christmas idea everyone:
Target Stores will start selling full size video Arcade machines for less than $500. The one machine plays 12 of the original arcade versions of Defender, Defender II, Robotron, Joust, Bubbles, Splat, Sinistar, Rampage, Rootbeer Tapper, Wizard of Wor, Timber, and Satan's Hollow.
read more | digg story
According to industry sources, we may see Pinky and the Brain and Animaniacs on DVD possibly in mid-2006. Brilliant! Too bad it's not in time for Christmas this year.
read more | digg story
If I hadn't been obsessed with getting stupid SSH working on my home computer (I think I've pinpointed the problem. Any surprise that it's Microsoft's fault?), I would have never watched last night's game. As it was, I was so distracted that even though I saw the only run score, I had no idea Brad Lidge was the one pitching. So he blew it again. Wow. So much for Lock Down Lidge.
My favorite part of the game was when Willy Taveras got hit on the hand by a pitch (it seemed clear on replay that he got hit, but I didn't have the sound on, so I don't know what the announcers concluded), and A.J. Pierzynski tried to convince the ump that Taveras fouled the ball off (like Jermaine Dye actually did in a previous game). Pierzynski looked disgusted when the ump ruled that Taveras had been hit. Yeah, cuz you're one to talk, A.J. Don't get used to this feeling, White Sox, because even though you were the best team, you won thanks to some questionable calls and ethics. You may well be cursed for another 90 years.
On to the offseason. The Yankees somehow convinced Brian Cashman to stay on as GM! Let's see what magic he can pull off this offseason.
I'm not going to get in to too many details about the focus group last night. The subject matter (freight rail) wasn't all that interesting, but I found the focus group members to be fairly interesting. It's somewhat predictable, really. When you go to one of these things, you know that they are backed by someone who is trying to figure out the right way to frame their viewpoint so that the average Joe will agree with them. This tends to be easier to do with a subject, like last night, that people don't have strong opinions about. About half the group agreed with their stance from the outset, but were nervous about certain things. In the end, the "spin language" they put out there convinced all but about 4-5 of us (I was one who remained unconvinced) to agree with their stance.
The most fun I had was when the moderator (who shall remain nameless, but happens to be the head of the research group and people in Washington know who he is) said about my arguments, "He's exactly right." I was trying to point out the hypocrisy of the members' views, but they didn't seem to see it. It's kind of hard to explain without getting into details (which, frankly, I'm not sure if I'm allowed to do), but I was amused and entertained. So, the focus group was a success once again. Interesting conversation and $75 for less than 2 hours of my time. The next one is Tuesday, 3 hours for $100, so I'm hoping to get into that one too.
I held out on the World Series game last night until the end of the ninth. When the Astros couldn't score with first and third and one out, then bases loaded with two outs, I knew they were in trouble, and I didn't feel like staying up to find out. Naturally, they lost again, and they're basically done. And here's a shocker: this Series is shaping up to be the lowest rated ever. The only way they save it now is if they go to a Game 7, and even then, they'll probably only get ratings for that one game. Apparently, all the people who hate the Yankees and Red Sox being in it every year don't watch it if they aren't in it. Big surprise. Remeber that the next time someone complains about being sick of the Yankees being in the World Series. Everyone wants to see them lose, but once they're out, they stop watching.
I'm off to another focus group tonight. Not sure of the topic, I think it's supposed to be oil companies or something. Whatever it is, I don't much care, as I get paid $75 for two hours of sitting, listening, and occasionally talking. I just got a note for next Tuesday's focus group, which will pay $100. It's DC area only, so sorry if you're reading this from afar. If you want to attend, you can forward yourself the email I received by putting your email address in this form, then respond to their questions. After that, it's a waiting game to see if they pick you. I haven't gotten rejected when I am quick to respond, so fill it out sooner rather than later.
For those in other areas, fret not. You can go to the Luntz Research web page, and click the "Sign up to participate" button on the left side, enter your email address and the closest major metropolitan area near you, and you can get the same emails I do. Not sure which areas they cover though, but it's worth a shot.
I almost always find these focus groups interesting. I've done TV (a fall preview which predictably tapped "Vegas" as a hit show a couple of years back), the Middle East, pharmaceuticals, and more. Like they say in the emails, if nothing else, you get a couple of hours of interesting conversation and cash money for your time. I added the cash money part.
It's an age-old debate in our household. Lisa is from Michigan, so it's pop. I'm from New York, so it's soda. Finally, someone took a national survey and plotted the results out on a map. Looks to me like soda would win the popular vote with New York and California falling on that side, but pop might win the electoral college with most of the midwest. I have no idea what the fuck those Southern freaks who call everything Coke are thinking.
My co-worker realized that you can see the "other" responses by clicking on the state names on their stats page. Some of the "other" responses are pretty hilarious.
I was all set to rip Bush a new one, after reading the article on Yahoo! News where he named his economic adviser to replace Alan Greenspan as chairman of the Fed. But apparently, in spite of the nepotistic appearances, Ben Bernanke is actually qualified. He was a former Fed governor, and was acknowledged as a very smart guy, having been at Princeton for a very long time.
Darn, I was all geared up for a flame too. Guess I'll have to find something else to waste my energy on.
This past weekend, I was looking over our phone bill for the first time in a while (Lisa is in charge of the finances, so I don't tend to look at these things very often), and I was surprised to see that it was higher than I thought. I had had a similar revelation the last time I looked at our DirecTV bill, when I realized that we were subscribed to "Total Choice Plus", which gives us useless channels like "Soap Net" and "Lifetime Women" for "just" $5/month extra. We dumped that pretty quick, and hardly noticed the difference (Lisa noticed because she was watching a "Mad About You" rerun on one of the affected channels at the time they killed them off).
Our phone bill, from Cavalier Telephone, a regional competitor to Verizon in Northern Virginia, should have our phone service, at $24.95, and our DSL, at $25. The total bill, however, was over $80! Upon further examination, I discovered that it was partly because of our long distance calls (since we dropped our cell phones, the landline costs $0.05/minute, not a bad rate, but I guess it adds up after a month of calls), and mainly due to the umpteen gazillion (no exaggeration) fees they tack on.
So, how to remedy this situation? I did a little research, and Cavalier partners with a VOIP company called "Phonom." Their introductory rate is $45.99/month for phone and DSL, and includes 500 minutes of long distance. After 6 months, it bumps up to $52.99/month. Okay, so that's $3 more per month, but it includes long distance, so we only have to talk for an hour long distance to make up that difference. Plus, there are only $3 in fees (for E911), and nothing else, which saves a heck of a lot right there.
I need to do a little bit more research to find out if we can carry over our existing phone number (it would be a bit of a pain to get a new one), and to make sure the voice quality would be okay too (the requirements say 256 kbps up/down, which I have, but I'm not sure if the quality would be affected if we were downloading a big file or something). I'm thinking that this is a pretty good deal though.
Anyone else using VOIP?
This is troublesome. On Saturday night, I could not fall asleep. I went to bed at 11:30pm, a fairly normal time for me, but just didn't feel sleepy. I finally gave up on sleep and went downstairs and watched "Alias" and ended up going to sleep around 2:30am. Thankfully, Ellie didn't wake up for good until 9:30, so I managed to get 7 hours of sleep, but it still worries me.
Here's what I think are potential causes: caffeine and an afternoon nap.
I generally drink a cup of coffee with breakfast in the morning, and another cup that I bring to work from home. Occasionally a soda with lunch, and that's usually about it. Saturday night, I had a coffee-type drink (General Foods International Coffee, they're pretty yummy, but not very coffee-ish) around 8:30-9pm. Is it possible that 3 hours later, the caffeine was still keeping me up? I used to be able to fall asleep an hour after having a Mountain Dew (in college) or a Starbucks Caramel Macchiatto (more recently). I can't believe that this little mug of not-real-coffee would be keeping me up.
The other possibility is that I actually took a nap while Ellie was napping that afternoon. I was feeling really run-down that day and actually slept for longer than Ellie did, about 2.5 hours or so. Since we were up at 8am, I wouldn't have thought that the nap would have kept me going until 2am...
A perplexing conundrum. Guess I'll be having decaf, and skipping naps for a while.
The latest ingredient in the great cooking experiment was butter. As expected, it was extremely dangerous to a family which considers butter to be one of the major food groups. The recipe was "Butter Crescents", and I wasn't sure what that would end up being. Could have been croissants, or something else. It turned out to be little crescent shaped cookies. Covered in powdered sugar. Oh, how evil you are, Baking By Flavor. Lisa made me bring most of them in to work with me this morning, because if they had stayed at home, they would have been too tempting for her. At just past 11am, half the cookies I brought in were gone already.
The next ingredient is supposed to be "Buttercrunch". This one should be interesting, because it's an ingredient we have never used before.
In a miracle of incredible proportions, CBS allowed me to watch the end of the Giants/Broncos game last night. I pretty much hadn't watched any football yesterday, with the Redskins kicking the 49ers to hell on the early game, and the Ravens/Bears struggling to score in the late game. So imagine my surprise when I turned on the TV after dinner and saw the Giants and Broncos! It got even better when the Giants promptly marched down the field and scored the winning touchdown, on a pass from Eli Manning to Amani Toomer.
This is now two weeks in a row that Eli has led a late-game drive after struggling for much of the previous three quarters. I have a completely unfounded theory as to why this is happening. Eli played his college ball at Ole Miss. Let's face it, Ole Miss was no Tennessee (where his brother Peyton went to school), and they probably had to play from behind more often than not. So Eli has a lot of experience playing against the "prevent" defense. Now, he comes to the NFL, and teams drop into prevent defenses against him in the fourth quarter, and he's able to take what they give him, and do pretty well at it.
Whatever the reason, here's hoping he can do well this coming week. The Giants face the Redskins, and it will be really difficult to deal with the fans here at work if the Giants lose. You should hear them today, after they defeated the 49ers, perhaps the worst team in the league (next to maybe the Texans, and I'd argue that San Fran is worse, even if they have won a game). Gone are the woeful faces after dropping consecutive games to the Broncos and Chiefs, and back is the talk of Super Bowl aspirations. Man, the Giants need to win this one for me.
WordPress is a pretty cool blogging tool. If I wasn't so heavily invested into MovableType already, I might consider using it. They recently set up WordPress.com, a hosted blogging platform. The features are pretty much the same as the software you would install on your own server, but they host everything for you. Plus, it's free. The catch is that you need an invite (a la Gmail) to get a WordPress.com account. Until now.
Flock is a new browser based on Firefox. It adds a few interesting things that integrate blogging and Flickr and del.icio.us bookmarks. I'm not a huge fan yet, it doesn't seem to be too value added over having a bookmarklet or something. But, the one thing it does do is let you create a WordPress.com account without an invite. Apparently, they're partnering, and so Flock users get free WordPress.com accounts. How do they enforce this? A simple User-Agent string. So, here's how to get around it without downloading and installing Flock (since my work account won't let me install it): Fire up Firefox, and type "about:config" into your address bar. This brings up a list of configurable settings. Add a new string, by right-clicking, then selecting New->String. The name for the new string is "general.useragent.override", and the string is "Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.8b5) Gecko/20051019 Flock/0.4 Firefox/1.0+". All these things are done without quotes. Then go to wordpress.com/flock/, and you'll find the signup page is enabled. You can now create your new WordPress.com account!
A little belated for a Friday freebie, and maybe most people won't find it useful, but I think it's a good tip.
Look, I'm rooting for the White Sox to win. But seriously, they gotta stop cheating to win. First, it was A.J. Pierzynski running to first on a phantom dropped third stirke in the ALCS. Now, it's Jermaine Dye not getting hit by a pitch, but in fact the pitch hitting his bat! Another one the umps blew, and it ended up costing the Astros, even though they did tie the game up in the ninth against Bobby Jenks.
If the White Sox win the World Series this year, I think they're going to be cursed for another 90+ years.
TV Cream's Top 100 Toys lists their favorite toys, most of which seem to come from my childhood. My favorites: #90 Mastermind, #81 Merlin, #76 Tomytronic 3D, #40 Game and Watch, #37 Cluedo (and I actually had the version called Cluedo, not Clue), #23 Speak N Spell (ET Phone Home). Good stuff.
The latest attempt at the food experiment, blueberries, was kind of boring: oversized blueberry muffins. The official recipe name is "Tender, Cakelike Blueberry Muffins." I didn't particularly notice anything cakelike, they just tasted like blueberry muffins. But good muffins nonetheless.
The next ingredient in the book is butter. That could be dangerous, since our family loves our butter.
The book is "Baking by Flavor
Yesterday brought me another reminder that, in spite of the dearth of comments on this blog, people do in fact read it. The reader in this case? Dr. Ayman Boutros, my Lasik surgeon.
Yesterday was my three month follow up appointment. I almost forgot about it because I've already started taking my Lasik eyes for granted. Everything has been going very well. I still have a haziness around headlights, or just lights, especially at night, but that is still supposed to get better even up to the next year.
I showed up for the appointment a little bit early, but it didn't seem to matter as the place was nearly deserted, which was a switch from my previous visits. I learned later that it was normally sort of an off day for them, and they just squeezed in a few appointments. They did the same machine tests on my eyes, and then the normal eye exam. This time, I was actually able to pretty clearly read 20/15 with no guessing. So I guess they turned out to be right eventually. The one thing I did notice is that my right eye does seem to still be my "bad eye." It was always worse, but now it's much less noticeable. For a month or so after having the surgery, I was obsessed with covering one eye, and seeing how things looked, then covering the other and comparing. I hadn't done that in a while, so it was a bit surprising that there was a small but noticeable difference.
Then Dr. Boutros walked in. He said that someone from his office had emailed him my blog! Wow, who would have thought? Apparently it's been passed around his office too. I wasn't sure what to think. Is he going to be defensive? Is he going to give me my Lasik for free for the good report? It turned out to be somewhere in between. He very politely explained a couple of the minor things I had maybe complained about before. First, why it seems like they are a factory. I guess my impressions were skewed a little bit because they are very popular (the guy's on the radio all the time), and because the other two places I visited were not very busy at all. They also only have the surgeons work a couple of days a week, and so they pile on the appointments for the time that they are there. I guess it makes sense... He also validated my decision to go with the Intralase. It's a good explanation, so I'll try to relay it here.
Back when Dr. Boutros was first testing the Intralase laser, he was still also doing plenty of conventional Lasik procedures. So one day, he had done a bunch of Intralase with no problems. The flaps were so consistent and easy, he started to take it for granted. Then came a patient who was getting their flap cut with the traditional blade. He cut the flap and started to lift it up, and got that little pitter patter of his heart skipping a beat as there were those momentary questions: Would the flap be okay? What would the surface be like underneath? Of course, it turned out fine, as almost all do, but there were still those questions. With Intralase, there were no such worries, as every flap comes out very consistently. It's not just a matter of making more money, but there's the reassurance that it comes out the same way, every time.
I don't think I really said it here enough, but I am very happy with how everything turned out. The people at the Eye Center were always ready and willing to answer my questions, but I think with my passive personality, I ended up writing about them here more than asking them about my worries or complaints. I made the decision to go with them because I thought they had the best surgeon, and the best and latest equipment, and that they would treat my eyes well. They never let me down, and I would choose them again, and recommend them to my friends. By the way, this is a completely unpaid endorsement. They're not giving me anything for free, and didn't ask me to write this. I'm just very happy with how things turned out.
Can we please stop comparing Albert Pujols' home run to Dave Henderson's? At least wait until the Cardinals win something.
Following up on previous posts about the new fall season, I thought I would see how things are going.
I gave up on "How I Met Your Mother" pretty quickly, after finding out in the second episode that it's basically "Friends" again, only with 5 friends instead of 6. It was marginally funny, but I didn't really like the main two characters, and don't have too much time for new shows.
I've only watched the premieres of "My Name is Earl" and "Everybody Hates Chris", but I am still Tivo-ing them.
"Arrested Development" is still the funniest show on TV. I hope more people watch it so that it stays on the air. Highlights from the season so far: Scott Baio as "Bob Loblaw" (pronounced blah-blah-blah), the family's new lawyer; the ongoing tension between George Michael and Maeby; Gob being Gob. Every episode has something that makes me bust out laughing.
"The Amazing Race", the best reality show (Survivor is this close to being done), came to DC and confused the hell out of everyone who thought the only reflecting pool was in front of the Lincoln Memorial (blame Forrest Gump), while there is one in front of the Capitol. That's where we sailed our model yachts. Yes, you heard that right. I'm rooting for the family with the little kids. How can you not?
"Lost" started off great, but settled right back into nothing happening again. I'm not caring about Jack and Locke, and would rather see what's going on with Jin, Michael and Sawyer with the other group. They had better kick it into gear before people start wondering why they're watching.
"Alias" is having a hard time with Jennifer Garner's pregnancy and Vaughn being "killed off." She can't do any action scenes, and they're trying to bring in this new guy to be the action guy, and it's not working very well, I don't think. Hopefully they will pick it up soon as well, and let us know why Gordon Dean matters, and who Amy Acker (Fred from "Angel", good to see her getting a good part) is.
I may be tweaking some things with the site design over the next few days, so don't be alarmed if things change (example, I flip-flopped the background colors for the page and the boxes, so that the content boxes are now white and the background is gray. I think it's more readable that way, and less dingy. More things like that to come). I also plan on redoing the "masthead" (the banner at the top, for lack of a better term) and I'm not sure if I'll stick with the current color scheme. Let me know your thoughts, if you have any. I'm sure some of you don't even care because, like me, you read this through the RSS feed, but take a look anyway.
After another struggle getting Ellie to fall asleep last night, I decided to watch some TV to decompress before going to sleep. So that meant I was awake to watch the end of the NLCS game between the Astros and the Cardinals. What a great finish. Down to their last strike, scrappy David Eckstein bleeds a grounder through the hole between third and short to keep the Cards alive. Brad Lidge inexplicably walks Jim Edmonds (really, why didn't he throw the man a strike???), bringing up Albert Pujols. On an 0-1 pitch, Lidge hung a fat juicy slider right over the heart of the plate, and Pujols crushed it 412 feet off the facade. It was as if a million voices cried out and were suddenly silenced. Crazy. The series goes back to St. Louis, where the Cards still have to beat Roy Oswalt and Roger Clemens.
For the first time since 1978, Maccabi Tel Aviv, Israeli and Euroleague champions, beat an NBA team in an exhibition game. Okay, so it was only the Raptors. But still, they won.
Why do I mention this? I have two connections to this game. First off, the guy defending on the winning basket was Morris Peterson, from Michigan State. The guy he was defending? Anthony Parker, Naperville Central High School graduate.
I love it when I'm ahead of the curve. Reading is coming back, I truly believe that. And now Time magazine has picked its top 100 English language novels (since 1923, so that leaves out Ulysees, phew!). I'll definitely be using this list for future 12 Books selections, and in fact I am reading one of their selections, Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro right now. Aside from that, I think I've only read 15, so that gives me, oh, about 7 years of reading to catch up on.
I must be a really horrible snaker. My neighbor came over this afternoon after Lisa told him about our plumbing problems, and snaked the problem right out. He didn't get anything out of the drain, so it must have just been some soap buildup or something.
Me: try to snake, only get past the first bend once, make the problem worse.
Neighbor: snakes the stuff out on the first try.
Neighbor > Brian.
The weekend was not going well. The Spartans and Giants had both lost. The bathroom sink was clogged with no solution in sight. There was nothing left to do but go to the pub, and have dinner with the crazy Cajuns.
O'Flaherty's Irish Channel Pub is in New Orleans' French Quarter, and was obviously affected by the hurricanes that hit the area. So all the Irish are coming together and running a series of benefit concerts to help him rebuild. Last night, we stopped by Pat Troy's in Alexandria and dropped a donation and had a Guinness (me) and hard cider (Lisa). We also had some potato leek soup to tide us over to dinner at the Cajuns' place. A wise move, as you may know from previous encounters.
The occasion last night was 4 birthdays, including Ellie's playmate Claire. The invitation said the party started at 6pm, and we knew that we wouldn't be eating for a while after that. We arrived from the pub around 7pm, pretty much just as everyone else was arriving. Our host, Mary Beth, told Lisa that dinner would be ready sometime after 8pm. Like I said, good thing we had some soup beforehand.
The night went well, but was a little slow as far as the banter went. That would change [Warning: the following story may not be safe for work]. First was Matt's invitation to his 10th high school reunion, reminding him to "Bring you a blanket" for the football game, among other things. We sat down for a dinner of Marsala Chicken and plenty of alcohol. Then John whipped out the story of the night. He was flying down to Louisiana, seated between a sixty something guy, and a younger woman who was on her first trip to Louisiana and was very chatty. She mentioned how she had prepared herself for the trip by reading the "Many Index", a local newspaper. Many Zwolle is a town in Louisiana near the Texas border that is famous for their tamales (the "Zwolle Tamale"). The sixty-something guy says, "Oh, so you read about the guy who got arrested for fornicating with chickens?" That's right, a chicken fucker. I have no idea how that works, nor do I care to ever find out. But it brought down the house. God bless those Cajuns. I can't think of a better way to end the weekend.
Our bathroom sink is clogged, and I don't know why.
On Saturday morning, I decided to take a look at it. We had previously replaced the old pipes with more easily accessible PVC. So I just had to unscrew the pipes to see what was going on. But there was nothing in the pipes clogging them up. It appears to be in the drain pipe that runs behind the wall, but I can't see or snake it. Naturally, I found this out after getting myself filthy and wet. I've got no idea what's clogging it up, so it looks like we may have to call a plumber. I hate it when that happens.
The Giants did their best to top the Spartans on Sunday. What an ugly game that must have been to watch. It was the one time I was actually glad to watch the Redskins (by the way, thanks to the Chiefs Shane, I don't have to listen to the Skins' fans crap today). Turnovers plagued the Giants on a day when the defense finally showed up to help the formerly high-powered offense. Did I mention how I hate goal-line backs? Let Tiki have at least one shot to get it in the end zone after he worked so hard to get it there. Something tells me Brandon Jacobs won't be getting the ball there next time.
As was pounded into my brain over and over again Saturday, there's a reason I'm so negative when it comes to the MSU football team. Thankfully, I was drinking heavily, or we might need a new TV.
Up 10-0, they leave a receiver wide open for an easy touchdown to a quarterback who was confused all day.
Leading 17-7, Drew Stanton makes the bonehead play of getting sacked when in field goal range with no timeouts left. Worse, the special teams coach runs the FG team on, instead of waiting for the offense to spike the ball and stop the clock. Instead of 20-7, Ohio State blocks the kick, returns it for a touchdown, and instead it's 17-14 at the half.
Still up 17-14, MSU misses an easy double-team tackle, and Ted Ginn runs it in for the touchdown.
Up again, 24-21, the stupid kicker misses a relatively easy field goal. Instead, Ohio State marches down, gets another missed tackle, and Holmes gets another easy touchdown.
At least 21 points that Ohio State should have at least had to work harder for, and 6 points we should have scored but didn't. We completely dominated that game, but thanks to poor tackling, some bonehead coaching, and just being MSU, we blew it.
Michigan State Spartans: finding ways to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.
When I first read the article Using Gmail to... I thought it was pretty cool that you could make your own "To Do" list. Then I read on to find out how to use Gmail as a spam filter. Combine that with the fact that you can "change identities" from within Gmail, and I can use Gmail as my work email client. Read the article for more good tips.
They also have another article with more cool Gmail tips. Gmail is teh winnar!
My first reaction when noticing that the Michigan State/Ohio State game will be on ABC here this weekend? Great, I get to watch us get killed. Yes, I'm Mr. Negativity. Tony is worse, believing that his Purdue Boilermakers are going to lose to Northwestern. Even I don't go that far.
I don't bet for or against my teams as a rule. But if I did, I'd take Ohio State -6.5.
For your enjoyment, a coupon for a free chocolate fondue at the Melting Pot restaurants. Yummy! The catch is, "when you purchase any dinner for two or any four-course feature," whatever that means.
I admit, I watched the League Championship Series-es last night. Mainly I watched the NL version, but flipped over to the AL when the Cardinals were up big. First off, Mark Buehrle pitched a great game. 9 innings, one run. He deserved to win. But not like this.
In the bottom of the ninth, AJ Pierzynski struck out to end the inning. He started toward the dugout, the catcher for the Angels, who had come in when someone pinch ran for the starter, rolled the ball back to the mound and headed off. The umpire shook his fist, traditionally the "You're out" sign [edit: A co-worker pointed out to me that Harold Reynolds analyzed the ump's "mechanics" and agreed that this was his strike call. What is not clear is what his "out" mechanic is]. Then Pierzynski turned around when he saw the catcher roll the ball to the mound, and ran to first. The umpire called him safe, and the Angels went ballistic, and rightly so. The umpire's excuse? That's his mechanic. That's how he signals a third strike. So how, exactly, is one to know when the batter is officially out? Does he have a different mechanic? Ridiculous, and quite possibly, the worst call I've seen in the baseball playoffs.
It's sad, because I am actually rooting for the White Sox (my new WS pick: White Sox over Cards) to break the "Black Sox curse" which not many people know about (in addition, I don't think a team that can't decide where it is located should win the World Series, I mean, the Giants may play in New Jersey, but they don't call themselves the New York Giants of New Jersey). But if they win like that, they'll have a curse for another 100 years.
I don't know how I missed this press release, but it appears that my Cavalier DSL is safe. I previously feared that the FCC's wacko rulings would kill my DSL, but Cavalier actually uses all their own equipment, and does not rely on Verizon in any way. Good news for me.
In related news, Cox Cable has recently (in Northern Virginia anyway) removed the bundling charge on their internet service. Previously, non-cable subscribers had to pay $15 more than cable subscribers, who got a bundling "discount." Now, everyone pays the same price, so their 5mbps service costs $40. That's tempting, since I removed the phone line from the DirecTivo, and we could move to cable modem and VOIP....
Live coverage of Apple's special event is being blocked, no wifi access inside. But scroll through the comments of the digg story itself, and you'll find that Stuff magazine is providing live coverage as they watch the broadcast at the BBC TV Centre in the UK.
Video iPods, it's true!!!
read more | digg story
So, I'm watching the ALCS last night (side note: how did the Angels win that one? The White Sox looked like the ones who needed waking up), and both managers are wearing nifty new jackets with yellow-ish leather sleeves. I'm signed up to get emails from MLB, and this morning, what arrives in my inbox? "Keep the cold out this fall at mlb.com Shop. Check out our new and classic collection of outerwear for the whole family." The new collection naturally includes the jackets the managers were wearing last night. Nice product placement. Oh, and FYI, they're only $199, if you were interested.
Weeks after the champion was decided, and weeks after the ESPN coverage started, tonight is finally the night that the Main Event coverage begins. I gotta say, ESPN managed to lose my attention by stretching this out into baseball playoff and football season. I may watch tonight just for the heck of it, but alas, the final table won't air for another FIVE WEEKS on November 15th. Sheesh, talk about milking it...
The Internet Archive is making "Charade" available for download. Very cool stuff. Here's a description and how to get it:
A recent widow gets chased by three men claiming $250000 her late husband supposedly stole from the government. Audrey Hepburn, Cary Grant, Walter Matthau.
1GB - http://www.archive.org/download/charade/charade.mpg
4GB - http://www.archive.org/download/charade/charade.mpeg
Streaming - http://www.archive.org/stream/charade/charade_256kb.mp4
read more | digg story
Sorry about that. Lisa took over the computer for the rest of the game, so I didn't get to finish. I wrote down a few notes though....
What the heck kind of call was that on Cano's dropped third strike? I guess the Yankees should know after A-Rod's slap call last year, you're just supposed to run the first baseman over. Instead, he tries to do the nice thing, sees Erstad set up for the throw outside, runs inside, and gets called out for stepping on the base! What a crap call that was. I don't care where the lines are, Cano did the right thing all the way.
Randy Johnson made some good pitches to get out of that jam in the 6th. Too bad he couldn't have pitched like that in Game 3.
Jeter finally chips away with a homer in the 7th. A Rod, at .154 for the series, still sucks. Was that a kid in a monkey suit? I hate that rally monkey. Giambi got on with less than two outs for a change, but still stranded, as the Angels still have Matsui's number.
In the 8th, they get something going, with 2 outs naturally. Watching Ruben Sierra is like watching Pedro Cerrano in "Major League": all curve balls, and he can't touch them. Fuck you, Jobu! [Sidebar: did you know Cerrano was played by Dennis Haysbert, the guy who was president in "24"? Check it out.]
Sierra gets put in left inexplicably. Why not put Bernie in the field? He has to be less of a liability than Ruben. Doesn't matter as nothing gets hit his way.
Finally, the ninth. Top of the order, time to come up big. Jeter does, with a basehit to start. A-Rod, now at .142 for the series. Predictably, he grounds into a double play. .133 for the series for the "MVP". If they haven't voted yet, that should clinch him not getting it. Giambi manages to beat the shift to keep the inning alive. I agree with Tim McCarver for a change, Sheff missed that 1-0 hanging curve. Shoulda tied it. Instead he gets on with a lucky chopper. No matter, they still have Matsui's number as the soon-to-be free agent(?!) pops up to end it.
A disappointing, yet familiar end to the season. Pitching let them down again, but the bats were also unable to come up with key hits. The Angels totally shut down A-Rod, Sheff, and Matsui, which made it really hard to win games. On the flip side, Guerrero, Anderson, and Molina all came up big for the Angels, and that's the difference.
At least I can get some sleep now. Good luck to Fox. Something tells me that the White Sox/Angels series will see a bit of a dropoff in the ratings from the Red Sox/Yankees series.
This may end up being a live blog of the Yankees/Angels Game 5, or just a way for me to vent while it's going on.
Did Mariano Rivera really say "This time, we close it out" in the pregame wrap? Doesn't he know you can't jinx yourself like that? I apologize to the jinx fairies on his behalf.
First inning: Colon not looking great, Moose looks good. Colon is lucky to get out of that unscathed when Matsui strikes out. Seems like the Angels have him figured out, as he hasn't looked very good at the plate so far.
Second inning: Colon obviously wasn't right, but the Angels figured it out before the Yankees did. Did Bernie really miss a sign? Hopefully it doesn't cost them. Unbelievable that the Yankees have successfully run on Vlad Guerrero twice now. Nice job by Bubba coming through with a big hit there. Jeter still doesn't get a hit to drive anyone in, but I'll take the RBI. Tim McCarver says Mussina wants to sit on the bench for another 20 minutes. I disagree. I think he needs a bit of recovery time, but not too much. Turns out I'm right as he gives up a leadoff homer to Anderson (I hate that guy! He always kills the Yanks). What the heck happened in right field? The replays seem to show Bubba not calling for the ball, at any rate. Should have been out of the inning, instead, they're down 3-2.
Third inning: Guess Sheff is okay, solid hit to left. Matsui pops up weakly, Cano gives it a ride, but to the deep part of the park. Let's see how Moose responds now. Badly. Leadoff hit and he's already in trouble. Then a bloop to Vlad, and Cabrera does some "great baserunning" according to the crew. Uh, that was an easy one guys, he was running with the pitch, and it was easily in there. Sac fly by Anderson, well, at least it's an out. Vlad stays at first, so hope for a DP ball from Molina. Nope. Another bloop. Dammit, does that guy swing at some bad pitches? I guess if he hits em, they're good. Little chopper looks like an out, but Giambi goes home and Guerrero beats it easily. Thanks for nothing, sez Moose. I'm about ready to throw the TV out the window, but this is actually good therapy. Great play by Matsui!!!! How did he get that through all those arms??? Wow. And that's all for Moose. Too bad, it mostly wasn't his fault. If the outfielders don't run into each other in the second, he gets out with only one run, and the hits this inning were little flares that found holes. Let's see if the Unit can earn his paycheck now [insert snarky $200 million payroll remark here if you'd like, but no one wants to watch an Angels/White Sox ALCS, no offense to either team]. Finally, an easy grounder to Cano, and the inning and this paragraph are mercifully over.
Fourth inning, bottom of the order coming up for the Yanks, who need to get a run to try to stabilize things. I said before the game they needed to start hitting, now's the time.
Google just came out with a new tool, "Reader." This is for people like me, who read websites through RSS subscriptions and aggregators, rather than visit each site individually. [Sidebar: Bloggers, please publish your entire entry in your feed, not just an excerpt. It's counter-productive for me to subscribe to your site's feed, then have to go and click on each individual entry to read it. I'm unsubscribing from a couple of feeds because they annoy me like that: Dooce, Up For Poker, Dispatches From the Culture Wars (never mind that last one, thanks BG!)] I currently use Bloglines as my aggregator, and it works pretty well for me. But hey, it's Google, so let's give it a shot.
First off, I should mention that this is a beta tool, not meant to be ready for polished use. And it's got some bugs. These are all things I've found using Firefox, going through a firewall, whether that makes a difference, I'm not sure.
The "Your Subscriptions" link is flaky for me. Sometimes it gets stuck on " Your subscriptions are being fetched...", sometimes it displays correctly.
When I click on "Unsubscribe", the feed should disappear immediately. It seems to wait a little while before updating on the server, but it's not clear why or when it happens. Also, this is the one button that requires a reload of the whole page, which is slow. No reason for that.
I'm stuck on one particular post from the "Slate Magazine Podcast" feed. I can't figure out why, but it won't let me move to the next item when it loads that one. Unfortunately, it loads that one every time I use the application, so I'm stuck on that forever. Unsubscribing from the feed does not remove it from the list either, which is something it should do. Reader seems like it's trying to do something nice, by loading an audio player into the item, which I can click on to play the podcast, but I'm not sure if that's why it's hosed. In Internet Explorer, I get an error: "Oops...an error occurred. Please try again in a few seconds." every time I try to move past it. Annoying, but at least it lets me move past it, even if it shows up at the top of the list every time I log back in.
It kinda bugs me that I can only browse through the items one by one. Bloglines shows me which feeds have new items, and I can see all that feed's new items at one time, rather than have them mixed in with unrelated items. It makes it hard for me to follow. Still, the item navigation is slick, and I like that part.
Obviously, I'll continue using Bloglines, since Google Reader is hosed on this one item and I can't read any others. But I'll check back after it's had a little time to develop and mature.
The story is mainly about the dating life, or lack thereof, of a geek. It's a nonfiction book, so Feig tells the story from his point of view, from his own painful (sometimes literally so) experience. It's really hard to describe the book any more than that, if only for the fact that so much of the content would be not work-safe. I did enjoy it, because a lot of it felt familiar, not only for the fact that he's a geek, but because he grew up in Michigan, where most of the events take place. I even got Lisa nostalgic by asking her about places he mentions.
So, I'd recommend the book for geeks and those who love them, but not for everyone.
Next up, Never Let Me Go
by Kazuo Ishiguro. It's too bad that yesterday was Sunday. I'm sure that a lot of people totally missed a baseball playoff game for the ages between the Astros and the Braves. 18 innings before the Astros managed to pull it out. I was surprised too, flipping between football and baseball, that every time I flipped, the baseball game was still going. I was rooting for my pick, the Braves, but they just couldn't get it done as their bullpen failed them, as I suspected it would. Even so, they only have to look in the mirror to find someone to blame. Chipper Jones hit .176 for the series, Rafael Furcal was .150, and Marcus Giles was .200. Those are your top three hitters in the order. Not good.
Equally not good are the Yankees' hitters. Derek Jeter is .235, A-Rod is .182, Sheffield is .188. They'll need to show up in Game 5 if the Yankees want to win. Last night, they were fortunate to come up with the win. Chone Figgins, who, as my brother noted, is not a regular third baseman, made two costly plays, or non-plays. First, he failed to cut off Garrett Anderson's throw home. Alex Rodriguez could have been thrown out at the plate if he had cut the throw off and relayed it home. Instead, the throw was up the first base line, and A-Rod was safe. [Sidebar: A-Rod was on after walking on a 3-2 count. What doesn't show up in the stats is that he had big swings at 2-0 and 3-1 fastballs and whiffed. Instead of a homerun or double, he gets a walk and makes it that much harder to drive him in. Walks ain't what we're paying you for A-Rod! You gotta hit those juicy fastballs!] Next, Figgins handcuffed himself on Jeter's grounder, and skipped the throw to the plate to try to get the not-so-fleet-of-foot Jorge Posada. Jorge just got his heel in before Bengie Molina's tag, and the Yankees took the lead that they would not give up, especially with Mariano Rivera coming in to pitch. Mo had good stuff, and never allowed a baserunner in two innings to get the save. Al Leiter got the win that Shawn Chacon should have earned, by getting Darrin Erstad to ground into a double play. He's actually been decent out of the bullpen for the Yankees, with the only run he's given up being a golfed homer by Molina, which I still have trouble believing. Mike Mussina goes against Bartolo Colon again tonight. It should be interesting.
About a month ago, Starz had a free preview weekend, and so I taped "Van Helsing", since it's a vampire movie, and you know how I love those. Too bad it wasn't very good.
If this movie is any indicator, stunt persons have nothing to worry about. The special effects were overused and obviously not real. I don't mind special effects, but not effects for the sake of having fancy stuff. In one scene, an actress falls off a cliff, and manages to grab on at the last second. It could have been a harrowing scene, but instead they chose to do it digitally, which ended up being unbelievable and lame. That happened far too often in the movie. The other thing that bugged me was a seemingly gratuitous use of werewolves and Frankenstein's monster, which again seemed to be used for the sake of doing more effects. It's too bad, I thought the movie could have been good. Instead, it gets a big thumbs down (for the two of you who haven't already seen it like me).
I was kinda hoping that the Yankees would be able to get some redemption by beating the Red Sox themselves, but alas, the White Sox swept them! El Duque Orlando Hernandez shut them down in a key situation, and the White Sox never let them get another chance. Now it's time for the Yankees to take care of business at home.
Poor execution last night by the Yankees (for the record, the game ended at 1:15am, which explains why this isn't getting posted till 10am). It's either exhilarating or excruciating to watch a sinker ball pitcher work. It's great when, as in the early innings last night, the ground balls go right to a fielder, but it sucks when there's a bleeder that squeaks through the defense, or a chopper that the fielder can't handle, or three consecutive choppers that bounce off the plate, two of them bunts. Chien-Ming Wang had a nice game, but in the end, made one bad pitch up in the strike zone to Orlando Cabrera, who drove in the go-ahead runs. It didn't help that the Yankees made three infield errors behind him (including one of his own on the aforementioned bunt). Poor execution, and no surprise that they lost. Thank goodness tonight is an off night, I need it. Can I get a day game on Saturday? A 4pm start would be nice. Thanks.
All of the Yankees runs last night came with two outs. In fact, in the first inning, all their hits came with two outs, including the huge bases-clearing double by the rookie Robinson Cano. Clutch hitting. Very nice.
Mike Mussina managed to almost get out of the 6th inning, which was "good enough" to get them to Tom Gordon and Mariano Rivera. Yeah, Mo gave up a run, but every time that happens, it seems to be because of a ball that just slips through the cracks of the defense. Not many guys make solid contact, and Mo got out of the jam thanks to a nice play by Derek Jeter and an easy popup to end it.
What happened to the Red Sox? They'll be back, but they made the White Sox look like, well, the Red Sox. Always important to get that first win in a 5 game series. It's especially big for the Yankees, because they can feel better about throwing Chien-Ming Wang tonight, and very good about going home for Game 3 with Randy Johnson on the hill.
The worst part about last night? The game ended at the reasonable hour of 11:15-ish, but I didn't get to bed until after midnight, because Ellie had a nightmare, and would not fall back asleep. It's gonna be rough tonight when the first pitch goes out at 10:20pm...
Yesterday, I read a story about the supposed attempted abduction of ten-year-old twin girls with some incredulity. This happened not 1 mile away from our house! As the police chief of our town said, he's been on the job 16 years and had 2 homicides the whole time. This stuff just doesn't happen in our town. The abductor was scared off when the girls made some noise and the parents rushed in and he fled.
Well, the updated story in today's Post says that the abductor was the girls' martial arts instructor, and the girls fought him off... wait for it... with their martial arts training! Awesome for them. He showed up in court with a black eye and bruises (his ego among them I'm sure).
Update: Lisa just called to tell me that this guy lived literally right around the corner from us. Can't say that I ever even noticed him. The house has always had renters in it, and lately the people there always seem to be loading up their truck for construction jobs or some such. Scary stuff though...
Lisa made part 2 of the great "cook her way through her "Baking by Flavor
This version went much better, as she had all the ingredients ready and everything came out fine. I had one this morning, and it was pretty good (I'm not a huge scone guy, so I don't know how they would compare to really good scones). It used dried apricots and raisins, which I had my doubts about, but which tasted good.
She also made the banana/chocolate chip version over the weekend, because it needed less eggs, and we only had four left at the time. Those were pretty evil, honesty, just because of the chocolate chips. It tasted more or less like banana bread with chocolate chips, which is one of Lisa's specialities.
Next up would be bananas, but I think since Lisa already made the banana scones, she'll skip to blueberries.
Redemption is a nice piece about how Yankees fans have come to mbrace the flawed athletes (as long as they win, that is). This year's examples: Jason Giambi and Aaron Small.
I was just checking the paper during my lunch break, looking at the baseball playoff schedule. It's bad enough that tonight's Yankees/Angels game starts at 8:19pm (official start time), but tomorrow night's game doesn't start until 10:19pm! Luckily, I was feeling really tired the past couple of days and got to bed early, so I feel like I'm caught up on my sleep. Obviously, that's not going to last very long. Here's to hoping the Yanks sweep them in three so that I can get a bit of a break before the next series.
I realize it's sometimes easy to get under my skin, but a couple of things in Sunday's Washington Post got to me.
First, the pit bull ban in Prince George's County, Maryland. They have had a ban since 1996, but are reconsidering it now, and the letter writer argues that the ban should stay in place because pit bulls are such nasty animals. Well, arguably, a lot of them are not nice. But do you know why? Because the people that own them aren't nice. There's a saying among the gun advocate community (that I don't necessarily agree with, but applies here anyway): if you ban guns, only criminals will own them. The same applies here. Is it any wonder that since the ban was put in place, only drug dealers and dog fighters own them? Maybe if they allowed pit bulls who pass a temperament test to be owned in PG County, they'd find that they are owned by responsible people who care whether or not their dog mauls somebody, and they wouldn't have so many pit bull incidents.
Next up, McMansion owners in Chevy Chase try to defend their actions, and end up, as expected, coming off like snobs. I wish they had the pictures to go along with the story, because then you would be able to see Nada Davis' 3-story behemoth towering over its tiny neighbor. I don't think I need to say much more about this that I haven't already said, but this quote was priceless: "You know, because you don't want to live in an old, dirty house, people think you're a prima donna." Yeah, you're not a prima donna at all, and you just insulted all your neighbors who choose to live in those "old, dirty houses." Here's a clue: your house is not the only thing that doesn't fit in your neighborhood. With many houses in our neighborhood getting torn down and McMansions put up in their place, this hits a little close to home. Luckily, it hasn't happened on our block... yet. We like our house, dirty and all.
So how was that for anti-climactic? I'm sure no one else had figured out that if the Yankees won on Saturday and the Indians lost, the Yankees would win the AL East. Crazy. Who would have thought that the Indians would choke and get swept by the White Sox, and not just any White Sox, a White Sox team that could have cared less whether they won. Sad.
So the playoffs are set. The Yankees at LA/Anaheim tomorrow at 8pm. The Sox against the Sox tomorrow at 4pm. The "2 games above .500" Padres at the Cardinals tomorrow at 1pm. The Astros at the Braves at 4pm Wednesday.
A good time to review my predictions:
AL East: Yankees. Check.
AL Central: Minnesota Twins. Oops. No one saw the White Sox doing what they did.
AL West: Anaheim/Los Angeles/whatever they're called Angels. Check.
AL Wild card: Boston. Check again, much to the Indians' chagrin.
NL East: Braves. Check.
NL Central: St. Louis. Check.
NL West: San Diego Padres. Check.
NL Wild Card: Houston Astros. Check.
Damn, those were some good picks. 7 out of 8. I was way off on the Nationals win total though. They finished 81-81, exactly at .500 for the year, and well above my 60 win prediction. They drew over 2.7 million fans in their first year, which topped my 2.5 million prediction.
For the record, my World Series prediction was the Yankees over the Braves. Both teams have some definite challenges ahead though. The Yankees need at least 6 innings out of every starter, because their middle relief just plain sucks. The Braves rely on a lot of young players who have never been in the postseason and a closer who has never closed before this season. But I'm sticking with my pick. Go Yankees!
I know very little about the latest Supreme Court nominee, Harriet Miers, but I have to ask: With all the flak Bush is taking for having his cronies with no practical experience running the government (see Exhibit A: Mike Brown, former FEMA head), is she, a Bush insider, really the right person to nominate? She does have a couple of things going for her though. She's a woman (important since she's replacing Sandra Day O'Connor) and she has no paper trail as a judge because she's never been one. In addition, she was president of the Texas Bar Association, so she must have some legal chops.
My prediction is that she sails through confirmation just like Roberts did. How very boring.
Since my last post about the Saints got such a response, and I'm a glutton for punishment, I just thought I would bring up this little tidbit about this week's first real "home" game for the Saints. Attendance: 58,688. Not even a sellout. Attendance at the Giants/Saints game with much shorter notice: 68,031. Maybe the commissioner is right about not moving the Saints to San Antonio permanently...
Let the flames begin!
I hate kickers. This weekend, they gave me three more reasons to hate them.
First, the kicker for Michigan State missed a gimme field goal at the beginning of the fourth quarter, which would have given them their first lead. Then he misses one in overtime, allowing the Michigan kicker to redeem himself for a missed field goal and win the game for the Wolverines. So many chances for that game to go the Spartans' way, but they blew it. Ugh. And don't get me started on the play calling at the end of the game. Again.
Next, and least important, was my fantasy football kicker Adam Vinatieri. I previously had Ryan Longwell, but since the Packers suck so bad this year, I somehow found Vinatieri out there to pick up. And what does he do his first kick under my ownership? Wide right miss. He ends up getting a FG and 2 XPs, but thanks to that miss, I am down by 2 points going into tonight's Monday Night game. All I need is 2.5 points from Steve Smith to win. Hopefully he'll make up for the stupid kicker.
Finally, there's Josh Brown, kicker for the Seattle Seahawks. I think I heard the announcers say he had never kicked a game-winner in his career. He still hasn't, and now the damned Redskins fans are insufferable again today at work, and I've only been here 15 minutes. At least the Giants won too.
Go see "Serenity." It's really good, even if you didn't watch the original TV series. That is all.
