He aw, He aw, He always likes to be called Albert

Hey everybody.

It's been a while. Hope the end of everyone's year proved to be relaxing and enjoyable and the start of 2007 is also the balls.

speaking of balls, courtney was in Times Square Sunday night to witness the magic. i was on our couch watching the 40-year-old virgin.

speaking of virgins, my friend michael gave me a cool t-shirt for christmas. "I gave my word to stop at third. 1987 suffolk county teen abstinence day."

speaking of teens, didn't get much sleep new year's eve because the kid next door shot firecrackers outside my bedroom window until about 3 a.m. it was the third straight night i had trouble sleeping.

in fact, friday night/saturday morning i tried the whole "drink wine at 4 a.m. to fall asleep" strategy but it didn't work too well. after waking up at 2, i finally fell back asleep around 9 a.m. after much reading, some drinking, and watching "Young Frankenstein."

One last interesting tidbit before I go:

Chicago Bears defensive linemen Tank Johnson was arrested on gun charges a while back. Then a month or so ago, police searched his house and found more guns. Johnson's body guard was in the house and was arrested on marijuana charges. a couple of nights later, the body guard was killed outside a night club in a shooting.

The other night, denver broncos player darrent williams was killed in a shooting outside a night club.

The common thread? Both Tank Johnson and Darrent Williams have their full first and last names on the back of their jerseys.

I can't go outside I'm scared i might not make it home

Before we get to today's entry, there has been some Blogger (TM)-induced change to his site. i've seen other sites that had the same change complain about problems with posting comments. so, if you want to comment and it doesn't work try again or something.

***

Had a pretty enjoyable weekend capped off by a trip to the Saints game, which wasn't much to watch.

Before the game, four people played musical chairs for a chance to advance to the musical chair finals in a couple of weeks for a chance to win Super Bowl tickets.

There was one woman this week who was clearly in violation of the spirit of the rules of musical chairs. every one knows that to correctly play musical chairs, you have to travel at a constant speed around the chairs. this woman would dance near a chair for a few seconds then run to the next chair and stop and dance.

needless to say, the woman won. when they announced her as the winner, the crowd--obviously schooled in proper musical chairs sportsmanship--booed mightily. The announcer said, "i think this is the first time somebody has been booed in musical chairs."

I hope the musical chair judges do a better job next time of enforcing the spirit of the rules.

in fact, i'm going to e-mail the Saints now to make sure it happens.

Smoke a cigarette and lie some more

You wore a shirt of violent green, uh huh

I'm wearing camouflage underwear.

Had to stay in Kenner last night (for reasons I'll get to in a second) and i somehow managed to pack a change of clothes but not get said clothes into my car.

I, of course, didn't realize this until I got to work yesterday. So when I got to Kenner, i had to go to the mall to buy underwear, socks and a shirt for work today (i'm wearing the same pants).

I decided i needed to buy camouflage underwear since the really really ugly pair of boxers i wanted weren't the right size.

and now you know.

*****

So i was in Kenner for a wake last night -- Courtney's great-aunt's mother. (Obviously great-aunt by marriage, otherwise it would have been courtney's great-grandmother).

I was out in the lobby of the funeral home and there was obviously something going on in one of the other parlors (everybody was standing really still and fig-leafing it). A few minutes later a group of four or five men walked out of the parlor wearing ornamental oversized-bib looking things around their waist. The cloth was about the size of a large dinner napkin and it was held in place by cord-type belt.

most of the bib/apron things were solid white, but one or two of the men had designs on theirs (in UCLA blue/gold colors). one or two of the guys were also holding small glass containers that could have held liquids or possibly were used for candles. One of the men had sort of long hair and a mustache and looked like Yanni.

One of the men said something to the others that i didn't understand, but i'm not sure if it was a foreign language or just Y'at. but he then clearly said "well done. good job, guys" which led me to believe that the first exchange really was in a foreign language.

i watched for any secret handshake looking thing when they parted company, but didn't notice any. Of course, secret hand shakes are probably more subtle than, say, a high five and a butt drag.

So does anybody have any idea who these people were?

ooooh ooooh arrrrph ow ow ow oooooh "i think she's actually hurt there"

Free at last, free at last

well, i did it.

i had my "me, myself and irene" moment where i just snapped.

since i'm doing a lot of writing today, i don't make any effort to curb my coffee consumption. much like the war i wage with slapnuts who leave the water cooler empty, i have to deal with people who take the last cup of coffee and just turn off the machine.

I guess i was feeling belligerent this morning when i got to the coffee machine to find the machine turned off. I made myself a new pot and stuck a post-it note to the front of the machine. it read as follows:

Today's math lesson: turning off machine (not equal sign) new pot of coffee.

so what happens a few minutes ago?

i go to get a cup of coffee, my post-it note is gone and the machine is turned off again, so there's no drinkable coffee.

I, whose soundness of mine is being brought more and more into question, made yet another fresh pot of coffee. Only this time i poured myself a cup and dumped the rest of the pot down the drain.

victory is mine! (except for having to make another pot next time i want coffee)

i've been tryin to see you, cause i can see you want the truth now

Quasi-sports question: a radio commercial for a paint company this morning was advertising the fact it carries official team colors. the actor in the commercial was trying to decide which of his teams' colors to pick. here was his list of favorites:

NFL: Denver Broncos
College: Ohio State
MLB: Boston Red Sox

what a completely unbelievable group of favorite teams. I would venture to guess that there is no more than two actual people in the whole country that have that sort of inexplicable geographical make-up. sure, there may be one team that doesn't fit perfectly, but that mixture is not realistic.

here's my group:

NFL: New Orleans Saints
College: LSU
MLB: Chicago Cubs

So, my question to you: how does your group of favorites look?

in the comments section, list the three (or two or four) sports you follow the most closely and your favorite team in each to see if the paint guy is actually more normal than i thought. also, include any geographical reasoning (such as where you grew up) to why your group looks like it does.

casting shadows on the winter sky

sometimes things just work out.

friday i was given the opportunity to offer this reply after a higher up asked me to curb my profanity in company e-mails. "From you all right?! I learned it by watching you!"

i was very pleased.

then, out of nowhere, i stumble across this and all is right with the world:

another brick, another window frame's confusion

i just sort of figured it was time for me to write something...

boogers.

now that i have fulfilled my blogging obligation, lets move on to more important topics.

actually, i have nothing to say.

so, leave a comment or a question you'd like me to address.

or don't.

boogers.

Oh, my

funniest thing ever.

"I'm a tight end...but i hope one day to be your wide receiver/ how i long for you to hit me in the slot"

Give 'em what you gotta give to get a dollar bill

Welcome to Sports Friday.

All the talk around Tiger Town these days is the possibility of LSU going to the Rose Bowl. The naive part of me is excited at the prospect. The cynical part of me can't be convinced that the Rose Bowl isn't going to make itself a lot of money by choosing a far less deserving Notre Dame team.

Trust me on this, if Notre Dame gets picked for the Rose Bowl, i am going to unleash a string of profanities unlike the world has ever seen.

*****

Hey, Seth, didn't you say Les Miles needed to be fired a couple of weeks ago?

Yes, I did.

Bet you feel pretty stupid now that it looks like he's taking the Tigers to a BCS bowl?

Not particularly. While i was pleased as punch with the Arkansas win, he was a couple Houston Nutt brain farts away from losing that game. Sorry, this team should be in the national championship discussion.

You LSU fans are unreal. Win one national title and you think you have to win them every year.

That's what i don't understand about non-LSU fans. I don't expect to win the national title every year. I've seen Florida, Auburn, Tennessee and Alabama at the top of their game. There are going to be some years where LSU simply isn't the best team in the conference, much less in the entire country.

Here are my expectations: The years LSU has the talent to win the national title, they should be competing for a national championship. the years they have the talent to win the conference, they should be competing for a conference title.

This year, LSU should be worrying about getting to the National Championship game, not hoping enough teams lose to sneak them into the Rose Bowl as the much heralded and long-remembered "Best 2-loss team in the country" (remove tongue from cheek). This week they should be preparing for the SEC Championship game, not spending the last month pulling for Alabama and Mississippi State to upset the people above LSU in the standings.

And who says national titles have to be a once in a lifetime event? Just off the top of my head, Miami, Oklahoma, USC and Ohio State have all played for multiple national titles in the past handful of years. Look at LSU's talent, facilities, etc. and tell me why they shouldn't expect to be able to pull off a similar run.

So, to me, the deficiency is in the coaching (or moreso, deficiency in coach-hiring). Obviously, you can't ax Miles after this season, you'd never be able to hire another coach worth a damn. But you can't keep letting him lead underperforming teams, either.

Making an A- on an algebra test seems like a good thing. but if Stephen Hawking makes an A- on an algebra test there's a problem. I hope that analogy makes sense.

Hey, did you know Stephen Hawking was British?

Sure didn't. You certainly can't tell by his accent.

*****
The 'Hey, it's your money' Picks of the Week

Reminder: don't do it.

Last week: 7-8
Overall: 61-64-9

Wake +2.5 Georgia Tech
Navy -20.5 Army
Cal -29 Stanford
San Jose St -4 Fresno St
ULL -3 ULM
Rutgers +10 WVU
Neb +3.5 OU
Hawaii -8 Oregon St