Dispatches from the Northshore

I I whooooaaaaaa i'm still alive

2007-08-27T18:30:00.000-05:00

yeah, not a whole lot to report.

school's in now, so that's pretty much taking all my time. nothing super interesting going on.

holy moly, it's been almost a month

2007-07-18T23:19:00.000-05:00

i'm sorry.

i'm still alive.

i'm not sorry i'm still alive, just sorry i haven't updated lately.

yes, i realize the amount of ego it takes to write that, since one who would write such a thing must assume you care that it's been several weeks since an update.

how is viagra like disney world?

you have to wait an hour for each 5-minute ride.

more later. keep the faith.

avoid the clap,
jimmy dugan

Thinkin' 'bout leavin' tomorrow

2007-06-25T15:40:00.000-05:00

the next reader contest i have will be "Name that Blog."

we sold the house (assuming appraisals and all that shiznonsense) this weekend. the buyers want to close within two weeks, so there are very few dispatches left to be sent from the northshore.

we'll be living in kenner for a while until we get the house built in metairie.

dear reader, it's up to you to decide what the blog will be renamed. Here are a list of things that will not be considered as possible replacement names.

-I'm 27 and Live with My In-laws

well, actually, that's about it.

winner will get to write the first entry for the renamed (and maybe redesigned) blog. leave your suggestions in the comments.

She turned me into a newt!

2007-06-22T08:45:00.000-05:00

Several things have caught my eye media-wise today:

Check out this sentence from a story about a guy named Samuel Clemens doing a painting on the side of a hill.

Artist Samuel Clemens, not to be confused with the author of the same name, is at it again.

Man, I'm glad they cleared that up. Because if i saw that there was something going on in Newport, Oregon, written in the present tense about Samuel Clemens, i would have immediately assumed they were talking about the guy who's been dead for nearly 100 years.

And you all know how much zombie painters freak me out. I probably would've had a panic attack or something.

Nothing in my life has prepared me for the possibility that sometimes people have the same name...

...i got a chuckle this morning watching ESPN and seeing this appear at the bottom of the screen. "Adam 'Pacman' Jones to turn himself into authorities"

Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, i will now asexually reproduce exact replicas of myself, each of whom will attend and graduate from the police academy...

...And, finally (i hope), this story tells of a girl who had a cable lop off both her feet when a ride at Six Flags broke. Check out two of the quotes from witnesses.

"When I got up there, the lady she was just sitting there, and she didn't have no legs."

"I seen the car go up. Then, like, the cable broke, I heard -- pwchh -- and I heard a lot of people screaming," Chris Stinnett, who was at a ride next to the Superman Tower of Power, told WDRB/WMYO.
"The cable went under the car -- and I seen it pull up and hit a lot of people -- and I seen them bring their legs up," Stinnett said.

For any current/potential journalists out there, i want to use these as an example. (disclaimer: i think there's a better than average chance the story was transcribed from a television story, so there may have been nothing to be done about the quotes.)

But if you should find yourself writing a story and you have very helpful sources, don't make them look stupid. I know, technically, you're supposed to quote people exactly. But would it have really done any harm to say "the cable went under the car -- and i saw it pull up and hit a lot of people -- and i saw them bring their legs up."

again, this is merely an example. i'm not faulting the writer here - unless it isn't a story transcript. in which case, i am faulting him or her.

Douchebaggery with a passport

2007-06-19T13:08:00.000-05:00

I excused myself to go play online poker (sadly, of the "play money" variety) last night so courtney could watch matt lauer interview the prince people.

while i was playing, i heard lauer say something along the lines of "...talking to your mates at the pub..."

yes, i can just picture Matty Crewcut picking up that bit of dialect quite naturally in greenwich freaking connecticut. i'm sure all his "mates" at the "pubs" talk like that in new england.

freaking assclown.

Come witness the violence inherent in the system

2007-06-19T09:51:00.000-05:00

(if you don't like when i talk sports, skip to the next section)

I'm flabbergasted.

There was a great college baseball game between Cal State Fullerton and UC-Irvine yesterday that went 13 innings.

In the bottom of the last inning, the Irvine lead-off man ducked his shoulder into a pitch that was maybe half an inch off the inside corner and the ball grazed off his sleeve (i think it was the third time he had been hit by a pitch in the game).

He quickly tossed the bat away and headed to first base. And then the strangest thing happened -- the umpire let him keep going.

Irvine eventually ended up scoring a run to win the game (as is the case a great deal of the time when you get the leadoff man on with nobody out).

The Fullerton coach got tossed for arguing the call, as was his responsibility, but i believe it would have taken security to get me off that field. The home plate umpire should never call another World Series game (fyi: i was actually pulling for Irvine before that play).

What baffles me even more is that the ESPN story about the game doesn't even mention the play (looks like CNNSI.com ran the same AP story).

***

To answer Ryan's question from yesterday's Father's Day massacre, my eyes are fine, but my face is a little redder than normal.

***

Book review time. I have to premise this by saying that I bought this book before I realized it was an Oprah book club book.

I'm like the literary equivalent of an indy music snob, i like just finding books to read instead of picking up what everyone else is getting (although i certainly read my share of authors like King and Grisham). I basically spend 20 minutes cruising through bookstores judging books by their covers/titles. It's how I discovered such gems as Like the Red Panda by Andrea Seigel and The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon; although by this point i'm pretty sure both books have long surpassed the status of "seth's secret treasure" by the reading public.

Any who, what i'm ultimately trying to say is that while I was judging The Road by Cormac McCarthy by its cover, I somehow managed to miss the big ass Oprah sticker on front. Mea culpa...

The novel is about a father and son trying to find someplace warm after what can best be described as the end of the world. We never find out what ultimately precipitated the widespread death of plants and animals and humans and wambats and orangutans and breakfast cereals, nor do we learn why the man and boy survived the event. But the two travel many miles by foot through through snow and ashes, trying to survive.

Let's go to the scorecards:

Plot: 4.5
Not a whole lot to say here. Aside from not knowing what exactly the beginning is, there is a beginning, middle and end. Action progresses nicely throughout the novel.

Comedic Relief: 3
There really isn't any that i recall. but i'm not giving it a zero because i'm not sure there was actually any room for humor.

Ending: 4
how to put this...the ending tells you everything you need to know about the story of the man and his son. I think it also gives you a little more info without completely killing the mood of the rest of the book. Can't really say anymore without ruining it for you.

Je ne sais quoi: 4
McCarthy does a great job of telling the story and letting the reader know how hopeless the situation is without wasting a word. I would have liked a little more background, but that's likely the point--it doesn't matter how whatever happened happened, it's just a situation you either deal with or you don't.
There are also several times I would read a sentence and think "what a great sentence. I'm glad i wasn't the one who wrote this book, because i never would have thought to write that."

Final score: 15.5

Encyclopedia Brown and the Case of the Chocolate Boogers

2007-06-18T07:20:00.001-05:00

I literally ate until I puked yesterday.

To understand the full story, we need to go back a bit.

About a month ago I was in Minden for my sister's graduation and went to the doctor. When I got weighed, I tipped the scales at 207.

There is absolutely no way for someone my height to gracefully carry around 207 pounds, so i decided to lose some weight.

I got serious about it a couple of weeks ago. Aside from spending time on the treadmill everyday, i was dodging the urge to snack by eating small meals more often.

Oatmeal for breakfast around 8 or 9. A sandwich at 11. At 1 p.m., a sandwich and some fruit. A couple of hours later, one of those healthy fruit cereal bars. Then a normal dinner at night and maybe some fruit before bed after my run.

Despite history telling me it wasn't going to happen, I decided that i was going to maintain that discipline when i went to courtney's folks' for Father's Day.

I made myself drink a couple of bottles of water before I had my first beer. Then I would rotate between beer and water.

But then the food happened.

It started out harmlessly enough with a quick bite of spinach dip. But then I kept eating it. Then i had a few bites from a couple of other different appetizers.

Then there was a break. Then the real food came.

I went into the kitchen to make my plate. I looked at my plate, then looked at all the food in front of me.

"This is going to be a two-plater, i believe," I told Courtney's uncle.

"yep."

So i take a little potato salad, and a little corn casserole, and a spoonfull of barbeque beans, and small piece of sausage, and a chicken breast and a couple of ribs and a piece of bread and go outside to eat.

Everything was delicious. Courtney's dad recommended i try a chicken leg. So after finishing my plate, i went inside, planning on getting a chicken leg.

Courtney is in there at the same time i am, and sees me pass up the corn casserole she made in favor of more barbeque beans. She guilts me into adding the corn to my plate. I grab a chicken wing and somehow manage to talk myself into three more ribs and another piece of bread (my guess is the beer was working harder than the water at this point).

Somehow i manage to finish off everything, but am not a very happy camper (despite the delicious food).

I sort of exist for a little bit. just hanging around not doing much of anything, although i'm pretty sure i'm going into shock.

Then they bring out the gelato.

I'm about halfway through a beer when they start serving. Mmmm, beer and ice cream. I was not happy.

Despite much of the day being a blur, i remember very clearly what i was thinking as courtney and her mom were passing out dessert. and i still don't understand how it could so obviously conflict with the rational side of my brain.

"ooh, I want a waffle cone because it's bigger, and she better put gelato in the whole thing and not just one scoop on top of the cone."

Ask and ye shall receive.

I knew about 20 seconds in that it was not in my best interest to finish the entire cone. I knew 12 seconds in that i was, in fact, going to eat the entire cone.

Shortly after finishing it, I walked inside and ran into courtney.

"what are you doing?" she asks.

"Pretty sure I'm going to throw up."

She says something dismissive, and i lie down on the living room floor. Not a good idea.

I get back up quickly and walk into the bathroom downstairs. I hung out there for a second, and decided that i didn't want to hurl where everybody was using the bathroom. So i scurried upstairs.

I paced around the bathroom for a bit, with no action beyond the occasional burp. I went and sat outside the bathroom and zoned out for about 10 minutes. Then i try lying down, and rediscover that changing positions is not good for the ol' stomach.

Courtney comes and finds me.

"What are you doing?"

"Trying not to throw up."

At this point, most people would want to throw up just to feel better. I, however, do not have that luxury.

When I throw up, it's violent. I'm talking burst-blood-vessels-in-my-face-and-eyeballs violent. People usually can't stand to look at me for a couple of days after i puke because my eyes are bloodshot and i look like i have a rash on my face.

It had been almost 3.5 years to the day since the last time I had thrown up. It was after my college graduation party. I'm pretty sure it was either caused by a bad appetizer or the Crown on the rocks i was double fisting through most of the party.

I was doing everything in my power to make sure it wouldn't happen again.

I went back outside and took a seat.

Someone else had arrived at the party and i stood up to shake his hand, getting woozy in the process. He then lifted the lid to the trashcan to throw away his plate and i got a big whiff of barbeque sauce.

Good night nurse.

I try not to make a scene and double-time it into the house. Courtney follows me in.

Whatareyoudoing?Whatareyoudoing?Whatareyoudoing?Whatareyoudoing?

Without looking back i just snap my fingers. My little way of saying, yes, i hear you, but if i open my mouth the next sound you hear will most definitely not be English.

I make it upstairs, open the toilet and ralph something that looked like half-digested chocolate ice cream. I don't know if that's a simile or not, since it really was half-digested chocolate ice cream.

Courtney, ever faithful, comes into the bathroom. "Whatcha doing?"

"Just threw up. Wasn't so bad, don't think i broke anything in my face."

She takes a look and agrees. Then a second wave hit.

"Um, you might want to leave."

Then second round was a little more like i was used to. Including one of those things where you spasm and the next batch comes up while you're still puking the first batch, so it's like you're throwing up two different throw ups at the same time.

I have one last barf--this one was splattery--then try to start cleaning up.

Courtney comes in.

"man," i say, "I don't think i could handle having an eating disorder."

Then I stand up. And i feel great.

"Wait, I think i could handle an eating disorder. This is awesome."

Of course, I had the usual post-vomit breathing problems. so i grab a kleenex to try to clear stuff out.

I take a look and the kleenex is brown. How cool is that?

"Sweet, chocolate boogers. Hey, Courtney, look, i've got chocolate boogers."

And they all lived happily ever after.

Restring all your guitars and pack up all your stuff

2007-06-15T14:31:00.000-05:00

i completely forgot that i read a third book a couple of weekends ago.

I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell by Tucker Max

This won't get the standard review because it's unlike anything else you'll read.

basically, self-professed womanizing, alcoholic asshole tells all his best stories.

the stories where he lets his actions speak for themselves are hilarious. There were a few times on the plane i had to put the book down or hand it to Michael because i was going to make a scene.

Sometimes though, he resorts to a "listen to how funny I am" narrative that just doesn't work. As i've mentioned before, it's hard to like someone who laughs at his own jokes.

For example, when he throws a fat girl's clothes out his bedroom window so he won't have to introduce her to his friends it's hilarious. when he talks about how funny it was to make fun of a fat girl at a party, it wasn't so funny. Not because it was mean, but because what he was saying wasn't funny. (Sort of like how the why did the chicken cross the road joke is not funny, but not because its mean.)

check out some of the stories at his web site.

***

Ok, i'll now break the rule i just complained about and laugh at my own joke...

A while back i had to write about a musuem closing its egypt exhibit for renovations. My headline:

Caulk like an Egyptian

***

I broke a string on my guitar the other day trying to tune it. I don't know why i was tuning it considering i don't know how to play it.

***

and now, why i love reno911:

Reno 911! - New Boot Goofin'

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Take me back to New Orleans and don't call me anymore

2007-06-12T12:18:00.000-05:00

Well, got the first schematic drawings of the new house. really like them.

Went over them this weekend to tweak some things and we're meeting with the engineer tomorrow to discuss our suggestions.

Optimistically hoping to be in the house by June or July of next year.

Had a couple of nibbles on our house now, but nothing real serious...

...I'm about halfway through with my weekend recap. should be done any day now...

...I've actually been showing some will power in my quest to lose weight. running everyday and eating smarter. Don't think the pounds are melting off just yet, but hoping for a noticeable difference in a couple of weeks...

...Saw Knocked Up this weekend. It's about a surgical intern at Seattle Grace Hospital who gets pregnant after a drunken night celebrating a promotion to become an on-air personality for E!.

Very, very funny movie. Slow at a couple of parts, but otherwise a lot of fun.

I'm trying to think of the last movie i saw that was this funny. I guess whichever came out later, Anchorman or Old School. Of course, I'm sure I'm forgetting one, so feel free to remind me in the comments.

But i give it an 8 out of 10.

[Edit: Upon further review, probably funniest movie since first 2/3 of Wedding Crashers]

You think Rockford Files is cool

2007-06-08T08:14:00.000-05:00

Much like I always do in my actual work, I have grossly underestimated how much time it will take me to complete my recap of my weekend in Pittsburgh and Boston. So i'm changing my arrival date from "yesterday or today" to "uh, whenever."

But keep the faith, friend(s?), it will happen.

So let's do some reviews of my in-flight reading. I'm introducing a new scale, since i don't think my 1-10 was very consistent.

It's now a 20-point scale, with four, five-point categories. Here's how it breaks down:

Plot: Is there one? any obvious holes or generally unbelievable parts beyond what is acceptable in a work of fiction?

Comedic Relief: This has two incarnations. For heavier themed books, it's the unexpected laughs. For lighter reads, it's the laugh out loud parts beyond the general whimsy of the story.

Ending: A bad ending ruins books for me. it doesn't have to tie everything up nicely, but if there some unanswered questions, there needs to be enough there for me to figure it out on my own.

Je ne sais quoi: All the stuff i don't know how to categorize. Will also serve as a tool for me to adjust scores that seem too low or too high after the first three categories.

And away we go

Hit Parade by Lawrence Block

The third in a series of novels about a stamp-collecting hit man named Keller. The first two were excellent and quite funny. This one?

Plot: 2.5
I guess there was technically a plot, but it read more like a series of short stories. Way too much referencing to past events in the book, like he was trying to catch the reader up on what had happened previously. Wouldn't be so bad if he weren't trying to catch you up on something that happened 10 pages ago.

Comedic Relief: 4
The book as a whole is a fun read, but not a ton of belly laughs. Probably could give a lower score, but want to make sure it gets credit for being consistently humorous.

Ending: 3
Nothing special, but it got the job done.

Je ne sais quoi: 3
The two main characters, Keller and his broker, are endlessly likeable, but i'm not sure how much farther Block can go with them. Wouldn't be surprised if this is the last Keller book.

Final Score: 12.5 out of 20

Music for Torching by A.M. Homes

Unhappy suburban couple sets their house on fire, successfully making it look like an accident. Family splits while repairs/upgrades are being made. Couple stays with neighbors while their two sons stay with different friends. The sort of weirdness that very few beyond Homes are able to conjure and keep things readable ensues.

Plot: 5
Reading it, i felt a lot like the characters: I knew i was going somewhere, i just didn't know where. And I most certainly didn't expect it to go where it went.

Comedic relief: 4
For as bizarre and frustrating as this book and its characters got, it was surprisingly funny.

Ending: 4
I was torn on how to score this. The ending didn't suit my preferences, but i think Homes had to end it like she did to stay consistent with the novel as a whole. The more i think about, the more i think she met the "at least give me enough to figure it out for myself" criteria. So this score is .5 higher than i originally had it.

Je ne sais quoi: 3
There's one subplot that I found a little hard to believe. It involved one of the sons and i just can't fathom how the couple missed what was happening. Ultimately, i think the point of the story was that the fact that they could miss it was the problem. blame my happy upbringing, i guess.

Final score: 16 out of 20
(read this book)

I ain't a morning person, but i'd be one if i could

2007-06-06T08:04:00.000-05:00

I'm in the process of writing about my recent extended weekend in Pittsburgh and Boston. Hopefully I'll have it finished tonight or tomorrow.

I didn't get to work on it too much last night because it took me three and a half hours to get home from work.

I read a couple of books on the trip, but i'm just too tired right now to write any reviews.

Now i have to catch up on missed work.

and don't forget to give me back my black t-shirt

2007-05-25T14:47:00.000-05:00

Best Starburst flavors, by wrapper color. Best to worst.

1.Orange
2.Pink
3. yellow
4. Red

Non-traditional starburst flavors are gross.

Courtney is taking part of the CPA exam today. she should be done any minute now.

I'm going on vacation at the end of next week. Going to see a Pirates-Dodgers game in Pittsburgh and two Yankee-Red Sox games in Boston.

While courtney was studying this week, i read To Feel Stuff by Andrea Seigel.

It was a very quick read with a pretty interesting plot. Sick girl lives in university infirmary. "Dates" a fellow patient. Sees ghosts.

Not a world changing read, but it was pretty darned good. hard to complain about a book i read in two days.

i give it a solid 7 out of 10.

Spatial comparison of goodness of starburst flavors by wrapper color.

Orange
Pink

Yellow

Red

nontraditional

Heeeeey, you've got to hide your love away

2007-05-22T12:05:00.000-05:00

Just wanted to drop by and say hello.

Nothing too specific to talk about today.

Had some very weird dreams last night. one involved drunk driving, another involved rocket launchers and the third involved me playing the piano at a relative's wedding.

I don't remember much about the first (seems appropriate). In the second dream, i was trying to blow up this house and kill two people. but whenever i would shoot a rocket, it would go through a window or something and blow up a house across the street. Then one of the guys pulled out a machine gun and started shooting at me.

In the last dream i was sitting at a piano in church writing a song to play during the wedding. then i looked at the program and the couple had already picked out which song i was going to play. i went and asked my brother to play it for me because i couldn't read sheet music (the fact that i can't actually play the piano didn't appear to be a problem).

I guess that's about it for now. since i made my mom mad with the last video i posted, let's do something with less pointless violence and more pointless.

hmmmmm

2007-05-17T14:11:00.000-05:00

Could you describe a slightly wrinkled shirt as "irony?"

wait....

think about it....

think about it.....

there.

now you get it.

funny, huh?

Everything has changed, absolutely nothing's changed

2007-05-16T09:16:00.000-05:00

It's already been a long day.

I've been up since 3 this morning finishing up two stories due today. And by "due today" I mean "due yesteday." And by "due yesterday," I mean "one was due monday." But that's OK because i turned in another story monday. and by "But that's OK because i turned in another story monday" i mean "that's not OK because the story i turned in monday was due last friday."

Now i have the most boring assignment ever due to today. Yes, I've known it was due today for a month. but that's neither here nor there.

As you likely gathered from a couple of posts ago, I'll be leaving journalism in a few months. Within the next week or two I will sign a contract to teach English (and probably a couple social studies classes) at an all-girl Catholic high school in New Orleans.

Courtney and I are also moving to Metairie. We've put our house up for sale and are in processing of buying a lot on the southshore. There's a good chance we'll live with her parents for a while during construction.

We met with an engineer/architect guy and a builder/developer guy Monday to talk about the new house. It's stressful. It felt like when i bought my car and i was all like "i'm on a budget, tell me if i can't afford it" and the salesman was all like "you can afford it" and the sales manager was all like "you can't afford it" but i bought it anyway and now i owe about a gazillion more dollars on it than it's worth and i hate it even though it's a good car and i should've been happy to get it but i wasn't.

So now i'm interested to hear back from the drawer-of-plans man to see how many of our square feet get amputated.

Enjoy...

Bad Will Acting

2007-05-11T08:15:00.000-05:00

Let's catch up on some reviews...

Read another one of The Dresden Files books, can't remember the name of it. Another solid effort, though.

In the middle of reading Filth, by Irvine Welsh (who also wrote Trainspotting).

This is, without a doubt, the most appropriately titled novel ever. It's a good read, but i don't know if i can finish it. if i do, you'll get a full review.

But let's talk television today.

Grey's Anatomy

Yeah, I watch Grey's Anatomy. Shut up.

Of late, the show has been slipping from the quality entertainment it provided in the first two seasons. But last night's episode was much better than the the last several installments.

I don't think it's a coincidence that since the episode centered largely on the interns being interns (having to take a test to stay in the program) it was a good show. I'm not a big fan of the soap opera stuff that has crept into the show and has dominanted it for most of this season.

Since next week's season finale will pretty much have to wrap up the soap opera stuff (except for the necessary cliff-hanger to bring you back for next season), i'd be willing to bet that last night's episode will prove to be the best of the post-merideth-drowning episodes (the shows before that are a little fuzzy at this point).

I give last night a 7 out of 10, but due to the relative lackluster performances of other episodes, i would probably bump it up to an 8 or 8.5 after the curve.

Traveler

I was pretty excited to see this show, it looked like it would be pretty good.

I made it about halfway through it before i had to change the channel.

The plot idea appears to be solid, but the acting is CHEEEEEEEEZY. Particularly the rich guy's son. Oh yeah, i should back up a bit.

Three friends from Yale grad school. Cross country trip. start in new york. friend one(Will Traveler) disappears. calls other friends. says "i'm sorry." museum they were in blew up. cops think other two friends did it.

needless to say, when friend number two (law school grad) calls the FBI, there's no record Traveler even exists. friend three (rich guy's son) wants to run.

i don't know what happened after that. I changed it after friend two evades authorities and ends up at girlfriend's apartment. (He lives at Yale, she lives in New York, conveniently located where he happens to be. the girlfriend also has no complaints that he had come to New York with absolutely no intention to visit her.)

he looks through her pictures and every one with Traveler in it, his face is covered. So instead of going to the police and saying "see that weird guy you say doesn't exist, we have all these pictures of him with his face covered, that's fishy," he just throws the pictures across the room.

Exit me.

I give it a 4 out of 10.

A womb with a view

2007-05-09T08:24:00.000-05:00

i was a victim of a crime this morning.

A drive-by uterus.

I was walking into the kitchen at work to get my morning coffee and there, taped to the door, were pictures of some lady's uterus.

This is apparently some sort of female ritual. They get pregnant and they want people to see their insides.

In a society where you can't show boobies on television, it is perfectly acceptable to say "look, world, I vaginally ingested some semen and it stuck. now there's a baby inside me. please relish its fuzzy, gray cuteness."

If all matters of childbirth are so cuddly, how come you don't ever see people passing around pictures of their shit- and blood-covered c-section? "and heeere's them stacking my intestines on my chest to get to little Mable Claudine, who was the most precious mix of fetal-pig pink and snot."

Now if you are one of those people who enjoy seeing uterae (i'm assuming uterus is a female noun), more power to you. your friends' can keep their pictures in an envelope and ask if you want to see them. You can say yes.

As for me, I have no interest in such matters. See me in a few months when the baby is born, clean and wearing clothes.

and i'll look at all the pictures you have.

Just freakin shoot me

2007-05-07T08:29:00.000-05:00

This is a picture a coworker took this weekend.

Yes, it's two dogs riding in a stroller.

Yes, the stroller was brought along for the said purpose of pushing a dog in it. No, there is no baby involved.

You should know that if i ever see one of you pushing a dog in a stroller, we can no longer be friends.

I say hey sky, s'other say I won say, I pray to J I get the same ol' same ol.

2007-05-04T15:03:00.000-05:00

i gets a call a coupla weeks ago from some schoo' in n'awlins needin a English teacher and they's be all wonderin if i be feelin it. i's like "sho" so we meets in the principles office and talk and stuff and they be all like "we gown needja to teech a class make sure you widdit" and i's like "sho."

so i drops in wednesday all gettin my observe on and my teach on and afterward they be like "dizzam" cause i learned kids some grammah and some romantic poetry while i show my mad dry erase art skill'z in da hizzouse.

now we beez talkin bouts da possuhbility of me comin to da schoo' and teechin proffessional. and i thinks it prolly gonna happen cause i know the langwidge and should be passin tha nollidge on to the next generation.

so now me an the old lady be lookin to change are residents flip side ah the lake to be closer to her office and da schoo'.

i may be missin da jernalism afta while but i's not so sho since i ain't like them wack honkeys be givin me trubles when i just try be puttin food on tha table. bossman be treatin me aight, not lovin folks be dealin wit outside tha office.

really think i be fective at teechin and lookin foward too it. thinks i get me some good students who wants to get learned. cause chump don wan no help, chump don git no help. Jive ass dude don got no brains anyhow.

A truant finds home

2007-05-02T13:11:00.000-05:00

There's change afoot. details available once they're declassified.

Is it fat in here, or is it just me?

2007-04-20T08:00:00.000-05:00

had to go somehere yesterday and couldn't fit into my suit pants anymore. always a great way to start the day.

in unrelated clothing news, something has come aloose in the sole of my shoe and rattles around when i walk. i think this means i have to buy a new pair of shoes.

Let's do some reviews, shall we? I did promise lots if them, after all. Not much middle ground here, some real duds and a few great efforts.

*****

Meet Joe Black

I'm a big fan of otherworldy topics when done correctly (Dogma is by far the best to pull it off in movie form), so i thought Meet Joe Black might be worth the risk, despite the obvious chick-flick perils. i finally got a chance to watch it the other day when it came on tv.

Worst movie ever.

I'm all for temporary suspension of belief (or whatever the technical phrase for "just go with it" is in the world of fiction), but even in Pretendland, 1 + 1 has to equal 2.

Spoiler Alert

Take for example, the end of the movie when the daughter is talking to brad pitt and says "wish you could have known my father," an obvious reference to the fact that she knows her father is dead. Which means that her father's body is on the other side of the hill. So what does she do? she walks off with Brad Pitt back to the party, just leaving her dead father out there.

End Spoiler

That's not even the most exasperating flaw in the movie, just the easiest to explain. Oh wait, there is another one pretty easy to explain. I'll just call it the "i don't know what peanut butter is but i am intimately familiar with the detailed workings of the IRS" theme.

Anthony Hopkins is the only redeeming part of this movie.

Score: 3 out of 10

*****

The Devil's Apocrypha by John De Vito

What Dogma is to otherworldly movies, I, Lucifer by Glen Duncan is to books . I stumbled across the De Vito book when looking for something else by Duncan. I had enjoyed another book Duncan wrote and wanted to see what else was out there.

I decided to get The Devil's Apocrypha because it was fairly cheap. It's the creation story told by the losers, so to speak.

Worst book ever.

I made it through the forward, barely, where the author misspelled "lose" as "loose" twice. And on the offchance he meant to use the word "loose," he used it incorrectly. So i stopped reading it.

I will keep this book for the rest of my life because 1)I'm opposed to throwing away books, and 2) I'm even more opposed to giving someone else an opportunity to read this literary abortion.

Score: 0 out of 10

****

Solomon vs. Lord by Paul Levine

Ah, sweet relief. A funny courtroom novel that, despite being pretty long, never gets dull.

At parts it gets a tad predictable, but i always tell myself "if things didn't work out the way they did, the story wouldn't have been worth telling."

The pace and storytelling makes up for any predictability problems, and even though how the case will be solved becomes apparent, Levine doesn't give away what the resolution actually is too early. I actually wondered if he did it on purpose, sort of "hey, let me make the reader feel smart, and he'll be happy with himself and like the book more."

Score 8.9 out of 10.

****

Torpedo Juice by Tim Dorsey

Picture the funniest person you know simultaneously being on speed yet having the self control to sit down and write a book. That's Tim Dorsey, the endlessly funny creater of Serge Storms, the serial killer with a heart.

I can't remember exactly how many of Dorsey's books i've read, but you need to grab some of his stuff if you haven't before. If you like Carl Hiassen, you'll enjoy Dorsey.

The basic premise is Storms is a mentally unbalanced lover of all things South Florida. he is prone to knee-jerk obsessions and finding creative ways to kill the bad guys. In Torpedo Juice, he catches a guy robbing an elderly couple. Serge takes the robber, makes him swallow a handful of bullets then runs him through an MRI machine.

Lots of amusing characters and Dorsey's outlandish humor is outdone only by his mastery of subtle humor.

Score: 8.7 out of 10

*****

Breakfast of Champions by Kurt Vonnegut

Got this a couple of days before Vonnegut died after a coworker recommended it.

Very good. It's sort of about two people, but then it's also more about two characters in a book, but then again, it's more about the relationship between an author and his characters.

The sort of thing that's easy to see why people would lift Vonnegut up as an icon. It didn't completely knock my socks off, but it's definitely a case where the way the story is presented adds a ton to the story itself. brilliantly done.

I give it 8.5 *'s out of 10 *'s

*****

A note on the scoring.

You might notice that I've scored two books higher than another novel considered an all-time classic. This does not necessarily mean that the other books are better than Breakfast of Champions.

In an intellectual environment (which i tend to avoid) i would tell you that Breakfast of Champions is easily the best of the books i reviewed. Think of it like this, I know that Tom Brady is a better quarterback than Michael Vick, but i enjoy watching Vick more.

Capische?

This is how you remind me...of that last song you wrote.

2007-04-12T15:45:00.000-05:00

make sure you have headphones on or are someplace where you can turn up the sound on your speakers.

Oh man...

2007-04-10T09:17:00.000-05:00

took me two hours to get to work this morning, then the elevator skipped my floor.

going to be a long day.

and for the last item in yesterday's post, it also includes grammy awards, oscars, and recreational bowling--particularly Misty's recreational bowling.

It's like his thoughts are too big for his size

2007-04-09T10:13:00.000-05:00

Well, i made it through Lent without drinking coffee or soft drinks (although i am having a bit of an internal struggle over whether or not my new fondness for tea violates the spirit of the season).

I also have to admit that i was pretty miserable failure as far as using the break from coffee and soft drinks as part of a larger effort to get in better shape. Despite the will power on the drink front, the shape i'm in is still "round."

Everybody's working for the weekend

I made my first appearance on film since the 10th grade at our staff meeting today. And, now that i think about, i might have been an off-camera narrator during our filming of The Crucible, so maybe today was actually my debut.

One of the people in charge wanted to make a video roasting a coworker who turns 40 today. My two brief appearances got some pretty hearty laughs. Luckily, my coworkers aren't really the Comedy Central types, and; therefore, did not realize that my schtick was pretty much, nay, WAS a direct rip-off of Stephen Colbert roasting Chevy Chase. I'll look for the Colbert video later.

There is another work-related development.

The office manager is setting up balloons and whatnot to welcome the new employee here. It really brings the memories rushing back from my first day here...

...when nobody even freaking remembered i was coming.

Can i tell you how much i love getting to work in the morning and reading "Welcome _____ to the _____ ______ Team!!!"? It's like a sweet little kick in the shins.

It's one of those things I'd like to bitch about to the supervisors, but i'm worried that it'll make me look shallow, bitter and pathetic. And I am not shallow.

Jesus shoots one-over at The Masters

This is one of those things i mentioned last week that i wanted to talk about but wasn't sure I'd get around to it. Luckily, something happened yesterday that made it relevant, so i figure i'd go for it.

Yesterday, Master's champion Zack Johnson thanked Jesus for helping him win The Masters.

I would like to address one common response to that sort of statement. "I think Jesus has more important things to worry about than a stupid golf tournament/touchdown catch/ game-winning sacrifice fly."

One quick caveat: This is purely a logic argument, i'm not in any way presenting my own personal views on theology.

Every smidgeon of religious teaching i have received is based in large part on the following arguments.

God created all people and loves all people, even the assholes.
God is all-powerful.

So, the naysayers are basically making one of the following two arguments.

God blessed you with tremendous athletic abilities, but doesn't care what you do with it and isn't interested in taking any credit for it.
God blessed you with tremendous athletic abilities, cares deeply about what you do with it, but frankly has his hands full right now, so don't bother crediting him in your post-game/tournament interviews. You selfish dick.

To say that God had nothing to do with a touchdown catch is to say that, "sorry, we are not all unique and loved equally by our creator." Certain things are trivial in the eyes of the God, and those things are to be decided by religious, non-sports fans.

I think the second argument is more disturbing because it implies that God is not all powerful. By making some things trivial, you are in essence saying that there is only a finite amount of attention God has at his disposal to give at any certain time.

The results of the Cinncinnati-Buffalo game in week 3 is exactly the type of thing God is concerned about, if the basic premises I've listed above are true. God loves the second string receiver and wants him to make the most of his natural abilities, and certainly on top of that, the big man upstairs wouldn't mind a little credit along the way.

Is ESPN smarter than a fifth grader?

2007-04-04T11:31:00.000-05:00

I've got a lot to talk about.

Chances are it won't all make it into this entry. and there's also a very good chance i'll never get around to talking about what doesn't make the cut. But there's always hope.

Album Review: Pearl Jam Rearview Mirror

Probably the easiest review ever.

Ever since my two-disk Live from Verona, Italy Pearl Jam CD disappeared, I've been looking for a suitable replacement (since you can't find it anywhere anymore). Luckily, I stumbled upon Rearview Mirror the other day, a greatest hits album that I think has been out for quite some time.

It seems the clever folks who compiled the CD's decided to put the harder stuff on disk one (marked by an up arrow), with the slower stuff on disk two (down). This is endlessly convenient. Disk two is perfect for the morning commute when I'm tired, disk one plays best on the evening drive home, when i'm full of road rage and murderous intentions.

Here is the total song list.

If i had never heard Live from Verona, Rearview Mirror would easily land a perfect score. But I can't do it, since it just isn't as good as its live-venue counterpart.

I give it a 9.67 out of 10.

Speaking of reviews...

It's my birthday, my buh buh buh birthday

Thanks to a gift card i received for my birthday, i went on a massive book-buying spree online last night. I think i ended up with 12 or 13 books. I think only a couple of them were by people i haven't read before, and three or four of them are Dresden Files books, since i've fallen a bit behind on the series.

So once those books start trickling in, I should have plenty to write about. i also have a second birthday-related gift card for when i'm ready to reload.

Please leave any recommendations in the comment section. My typical rule of thumb is that i don't like to read anything if it's meant to make me smarter. I don't mind books making me think, but i'd rather that be a side-effect of a well told story.

ESPN sucks at geography and customer assistance

Baseball opening day, which was Monday, is a minor holiday for me. I'm always at work, wishing i could be in front of the tv experiencing all-day baseball. But since I've never actually had a chance to experience all-day baseball on opening day, I can only assume it's glorious.

The best I can do, usually, is to catch the later games. Well, Monday, ESPN 2 was showing the Texas Rangers versus the California/Anaheim/Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim which was being played in California.

And, for some reason, the game was blacked out at my house. So we called DirecTV (i was just going to call Tuesday morning, but Courtney picked up the phone and called Monday night). They said it was an ESPN decision and it had something to do with local broadcast contracts.

So I e-mailed ESPN yesterday, after reading this flippant FAQ answer about blackouts on their site:

Hey, it's a rare occasion when we want to watch anything else except sports on ESPN or ABC either! But we've got these things called contracts that obligate us to black out areas (determined by teams, leagues or conferences) in order to protect local and regional television commitments, and/or to protect ticket sales. So we've got to play by the rules and, if our contract calls for us to black out, show something else (generally, ESPNEWS) in your area when a local team plays in a nationally televised game, when they are playing either home or away.

But we've got these things called contracts...you know what, ESPN, bite my ass.

So, why am i blaming ESPN for this, when the answer clearly says they don't determine the black out areas? Because, frankly, i wasn't happy with the way they handled my inquiry. As I just mentioned, that answer sucks, so i e-mailed them and asked how living in New Orleans in any way qualifies me to be in the regional television coverage area of freaking Dallas (but i was nice about it, pointing out that it's no less than a seven-hour drive between the two places. i don't exactly face a daily dilemma of deciding whether or not to hop in my car and go catch a Rangers game).

I got an e-mail reply from them that basically said, "thanks for the e-mail, we probably won't answer it."

Since they won't tell me whose fault it is, since they're too busy being dicks, i will assume that it's their fault.

stupid jackasses.

One hundred thousand pesos? we do not have one hundred thousand pesos.

2007-03-28T12:12:00.000-05:00

i hit 100,000 miles in my car this morning.

I'm in my car a lot, so it really wasn't much of a suprise that i was driving when the odometer hit 100000.

Too bad i wasn't at home when it happened, or i could have gotten a picture or something. but no, i had to be in the car. i've had the worst luck lately.

Actually, I'm having an OK week.

Courtney's folks got me an autographed Emeril's Delmonico cookbook for my birthday. So i'm going to try to fix some good stuff saturday while courtney is at work.

last time i made something that required any sort of effort i ended up dirtying every dish in the house. so hopefully she'll be home in time to clean up.

I want to hold you high and steal your pen

2007-03-23T08:53:00.000-05:00

I think I might be a genius.

I made a magnificent discovery yesterday.

If you take a good song and randomly replace words in it with "poop," the song's even better.

Betterman by Pearl Jam

Poopin',
watchin the clock it's 4 o'clock
it's got to poop.

tell him.
poop no more, she practices her speach as
he opens the door, she rolls overs
pretends to poop as he looks her over

she poops and says she's in love with him,
can't find a betterman.
she poops in color she poops in red,
can't find a betterman.

Good by Better than Ezra

pooping around the house.
pooping behind the window and the door.
Searching for signs of poop but there's nobody home.

Well, maybe I'm just too sure.
Maybe I'm just too frightened
by the sound of it.
Pieces of poop fall down, but the pooper said,

Aha, it was good pooping with you.
Aha, it was good.
Aha, it was good pooping with you.
Aha, it was good.

***

Other than that, there's not much to talk about.
will spend my weekend working in the yard and watching basketball.
hope yours is equally exciting.

a badge of teenage film stars, hash bars, cherry mash and tinfoil tiaras

2007-03-13T09:17:00.000-05:00

Watched Idiocracy last night.

I had big hopes for it, but it didn't pan out.

The idea is brilliant. Stupid people are reproducing faster than smart people.

Average 2005 person ends up in 2505 and wakes up as the smartest person alive.

Luke Wilson's character learns of his status after being arrested in the future and taking an aptitude test to see what his prison job should be. The question: If you have a five gallon bucket and a two-gallon bucket, how many buckets do you have?

Wilson is charged with saving a civilization whose academy award winning screen play is a movie called "Ass" and the top-rated show is "Ow, My Balls" on the Violence Channel.

Sounds funny right?

It should have been (with the added bonus of being relevant social satire, to boot). But the laughs were noticeably absent.

I give it a 6 out of 10. The idea is great, the execution in lacking. I'd watch it again without complaint, but probably not on purpose. Even though i didn't particularly like it, i still recommend giving it a shot if you haven't seen it yet.

I live in the Village, wherever I go I walk to. I keep my friends around so i have someone to talk to

2007-03-12T09:41:00.000-05:00

Hi, everybody.

Work has been kicking my arse of late, which is the reason behind the extended absence.

SPOILER WARNING - I'm going to give a movie review lower down, so if you haven't watched The Departed yet, and plan to, you might want to skip it. I plan on ruining the ending in pretty specific detail.

Since we last talked, a number of things have happened. so i guess i'll just type whatever comes to mind.

First, I had a birthday.

Turned 27 on 02-27-2007. That should be all sorts of good luck or something. haven't won the lottery yet, though.

Daylight Savings Time is here. boo! exclamation mark.
radio signals suck when i leave the house and it's still dark, so i didn't get to enjoy my usual sports radio talk this morning. Maybe this is a sign that i should get satellite radio.

This also means the return of Working in the Yard season. We have centipede grass, which looks all brown and gnarly in the winter, but also means that i only have to mow seven or eight months a year.

So i have mixed emotions right now. I'm inherently opposed to performing manual labor, but there's also a pretty cool feeling when your yard looks better than your neighbors' and only marginally worse than the yard-obsessed people elsewhere in the subdivision.

The people we bought the house from were big-time green thumbs, which means our garden looks muy shitastic compared to how it looked a year and a half ago. so we're going to get rid of the high-maintanace stuff (those are easily identified by their prominent being-dead characteristics) and go with fewer plants.

I, actually, just want to pay people to take care of the garden, but courtney's too lazy to do that.

we went to Home Depot yesterday and bought some weed killin', plant diggin' up stuff, along with some waterhose roll-up thingies. some people down here call it a hose pipe, i call it a waterhose, mmhmmm.

Had some delicious crawfish from Sammy's in Baton Rouge and some very-good-but-not-quite-great crawfish from the Boiling Pot in Madisonville. If the Boiling Pot had potatoes and corn, it could have earned a higher ranking. they had some good flaor, but not eye-sell-shut spicyness that i like in a crawfish. Sammy's provided all the above.

***SPOILER ALERT***

Watched The Departed this weekend. Good movie.

Aside from the occasional "Ok, i guess i missed something" moments, my biggest problem with the movie is that I like there to be a clear winner, even if it's the bad guy.

After DiCaprio got plugged, I was rooting for Damon to get away with it.

When everybody ended up getting killed, i was kind of like "eh."

***END SPOILER***

So now, I'm just going to take up some space, so people who don't want to read the review, don't accidentally glance up and see something.

BEGIN POINTLESS SPACE TAKING-UPPING

Man, this is really considerate of me.

A lot of people wouldn't go through this much trouble.

But there's no length i won't go to for my friends.

A real saint, i tell ya.

END POINTLESS SPACE TAKING-UPPING

So, I give The Departed a 7.67 out of 10. I'd definitely recommend it. And i'd watch it again, but probably wouldn't buy it unless it was one of those 4 for $20 deals or something like that. But I also don't typically buy many DVD's. even the ones i really like.

When you're strange, faces come out of the rain

2007-02-23T10:29:00.000-06:00

So i got an e-mail today asking me to bring back "Uneven Streets."

For the uninitated, that's an e-mail newsletter I started when i moved to Houma. One of several (three, i think) short-lived newsletters I've put out in my life.

My original answer was, "i'm already doing a blog, so that's the same thing."

But the more i think about it, the more i like the idea.

A once-a-week newsletter type.

could we see the return of "Ask Doctor Sweaty" or "Random-onium?"

Stay tuned.

No one's been sleeping in my bed, but my tennis racket smells like tuna fish

2007-02-23T08:17:00.000-06:00

I thought I'd start off with some reader feedback today.

Hey, everybody, Ryan shops at the Gap! exclamation mark

Misty seemed slightly bothered that i season tuna steaks before i cook them. And i quote, "someone apparently doesn't appreciate the natural flavor of tuna steak. what a shame. what a shame."

Well, dangit, I'm not going to apologize. this isn't a case of overseasoning a steak, cooking it for an hour then drenching it A1. This is seasoning two sides and barely cooking it. There is still no doubt you're eating tuna.

Montie' is fasting for Lent which takes entirely more willpower than i could ever muster. It's only 8:30 and i've already had some chex mix, pringles, three cookies and two mini reese's peanut butter cups.

So i'm really rooting for her.

And did i mention Ryan shops at the Gap?

***

I think I'm getting glasses this weekend.

I have to renew my driver's license by Tuesday, and I don't think there's any way I can pass the eye test right now.

I've actually "had glasses" for about four years now. But people make fun of me, so one day i broke them (accidentally) and never bothered to get another pair. So it's been a couple of years since i've actually worn glasses.

And, yes, I would rather be a danger to myself and others on the road than hear another person tell me i look like a certain other person when i have glasses on. But, alas, there's nothing i can do.

Oh, wait, yes there is.

I'm going to get glasses. try to pass the eye test without them. and if that doesn't work, i'll just put them on to pass the test then break them.

Hamburgers, sodomy and Ash Wednesday traffic

2007-02-21T10:42:00.000-06:00

Happy Ash Wednesday, or, as I like to call it, Return to Suck-Ass Traffic Day.

As you all know, Ash Wednesday celebrates the time Jesus got his ass stuck in a traffic jam on the way to the wedding at Cana, so he turned Lot's wife to ashes for acts of sodomy.

The devout Catholics in Baton Rouge relive the event by taking Monday and Tuesday (also known as Lundi Gras and Mardi Gras) off of work to attend elaborately themed recreations of history's first traffic jam (and the sodomy) in New Orleans. Then, they participate in a much larger recreation by driving into work Wednesday and making my commute farging miserable.

I haven't been struck by lightning yet, so let's move on to a less sacriligeous description of my commute this morning.

Ever throw a party and really bust your ass to make it great?

You spend all day in front of the grill or in the kitchen, just churning out plates and plates of tasty food. Then you finish and decide to reward yourself with a tasty hamburger and you realize that everything's gone except a half-eaten hotdog weiner?

That was my today.

I spent Monday and Tuesday grilling (at work...stupid bosses and their protestant work ethic) while everyone else was partying (that's actually not much of a metaphor, since they really were partying).

So Wednesday comes along and I'm driving to work and everyone is there, hovered around the food (I-12 and I-10). And I'm stuck in traffic for a half-hour longer than normal.

Is it really too much to ask that if i have to work when everybody is off, i should at least have OK traffic to drive in when everyone else decides to come back to work, too?

I have no idea where i was going with that...

...Despite probably punching my ticket to hell earlier this post, i will be attending Ash Wednesday mass tonight.

I'm giving up coffee and softdrinks for Lent and also making a renewed effort to get to the gym. this seems like the perfect opportunity to work on the fact that it grosses me out when i see my reflection.

I walk a lawn and i walk a lawn

2007-02-20T09:53:00.000-06:00

Happy Mardi Gras.

Hope I'm the ony one who actually has to work today. although i'm sure those of you displaced in the northeast are probably trucking along as well.

i have chili on my crotch. i got it washing dishes this morning. but i didn't notice until i was driving to work. so now i have to hide my crotch from people without being obvious about it.

If I ate spinach I'd be called Spinach D

2007-02-15T08:33:00.000-06:00

So here's a recap of yesterday's menu. I think it turned out OK, probably a bit ambitious for my limited kitchen skills. Was fairly impressed that i pulled this entire meal off from start to finish in about an hour and 20 minutes.

APPETIZER: Spinach-stuffed croissants with low-fat homemade french onion dip

Courtney really likes spinach and artichoke dip, but i don't know how to make it. So I decided at first to put some spinach and stuff in dough and pan fry it. Then I decided just to stuff some croissants with it and make something to dip them in.

Directions: Cook some frozen spinach. Cut up some garlic, cut up some artichoke hearts. mix it all together with some shredded mozarella cheese. add some salt and pepper and teeniney bit of cayenne. open a can of croissant/crescent rolls. put a gob of mix in a roll and fold it up. follow cooking directions on can.

For the dip, mix two gobs of sour cream and one gob of mayonaisse in a bowl. add some dry onion soup mix, salt, pepper, and some lemon and lime juice. stir and refrigerate.

The Verdict: presentation really sucked. probably should have used some egg wash to keep the rolls from popping open. but overall, very pleased with how it turned out. Doesn't taste like spinach dip, so if you don't like spinach in any other form, probably not the dish for you. But if you can handle spinach, I'm not ashamed to say that this was a winner.

I give it 4 (out of five) stars.

Side Dish: Cauliflower au gratin
Another of courtney's favorites. This dish suffered the most for two reasons. One, I didn't know how to make it. And, two, because i was in such a rush i didn't pay attention to seasoning as much as i normally do. My cardinal rule is "There is never an excuse to underseason anything." well, since cauliflower is naturally bland, this was the wrong dish to not listen to my own rule.

Directions: Cauliflower au gratin begins with the words that have started a million love stories, "First, you make a roux." melt some butter, stir in a proportionate amount of flower. stir the ever loving shit out of it, then stir some more. this was the first roux i've ever made, incidentally. oh yeah, by now you should have already cooked some cauliflower. so let's backtrack...

cut up some cauliflower. boil some water or some sort of broth. but not a whole hell of a lot, control yourself. drop the cauliflower in, put on the lid. leave it alone for a few minutes. take it out and drop it in a big ass bowl of ice water to make it stop cooking. let it sit for a minute or two, then take it out of the water and put it in a casserole dish...

please tell me you didn't stop stirring the roux, you dumb bastard. ok, when your roux turns blond-ish in a few minutes (i just moved on to the next step when i got tired of stirring) stir in a couple of cups of milk. don't just dump in it all at once, and for the love of pete, keep stirring. stir that for a minute or two, then let it simmer. while it;s simmering, stir in some cheese. i didn't see how much i put in because i was starting to panic.

stir for a second and next thing you know, you'll have this thick sauce like substance in your pan (or pot). pour it over the cauliflower. season it more than I did and top it with some breadcrumbs and more cheese. bake at 375 for 30 minutes.

The Verdict: This could have been a 4-star dish, but because it was too bland, i only give it 3 stars.

Side Dish: sauteed shrimp and mexican tomatoes over pasta.

Whenever i need something quick to eat, i loves me some pasta and rotel tomatoes. so i decided it would make a nice compliment to the main dish. Decided to make it a little better with some sauteed shrimp.

Directions: Boil water. Add spaghetti. not much, because it's a small serving.

season some peeled shrimp. i went with kosher salt, pepper, and a little cayenne. melt some butter in a pan with some extra virgin olive oil. i also would normally add garlic to that, but the garlic i bought was bad because how in the hell am i supposed to know what good garlic looks like. put the shrimp in. cook them for a few minutes until they're cooked.

open a can of whatever kind of canned diced tomatoes you like. I prefer something with a kick.

put some pasta on the plate. add some butter (i used spray butter because that's courtney's preference). salt and pepper and sprinkle with some italian seasoning and a dallop of tomatoes. put some shrimp on top.

The Verdict: this dish doesn't get rated because you can't screw it up and it has a limited ceiling. You could add some bell peppers and grilled chicken and turn it into a main dish, though.

Main Dish: Pan seared tuna steak

A can't miss.

Directions: season the shit out of a tuna steak. kosher salt, black pepper, cayenne, italian seasoning. get a pan with some extra virgin olive oil really hot. put the tuna in it, cooking each side for about 30-45 seconds.

courtney and i both like tuna very raw, so you can cook it for longer if you prefer.

One of my favorite love poems

2007-02-14T09:12:00.000-06:00

Read this in The Big Book of Limericks close to 20 years ago at Pierre Bossier Mall and it's stuck in my head ever since. I'm sure it violates all sorts of limerick rules, but here goes:

THere was a man whose love interests were gingery
He tore a hole in his sister's best lingerie
He touched her behind
and made up his mind
to add incest to insult and injury.

Nobody's romancin' cause it's too early for dancin', but here comes the music

2007-02-14T07:57:00.000-06:00

One of my favorite things about Valentine's Day is that Courtney is OK with me trying things that are usually off-limits.

Usually, because of how closely she watches her diet, I can't cook anything without her suspiciously eyeing the ingredients or cooking methods. But today, I get to experiment in the kitchen while she stays the hell away until dinner is ready.

i am being fairly conscious about the menu though to make sure that if she doesn't like it, it'll be because I screwed up and not because it wasn't healthy enough. I'll share the full menu tomorrow, because i don't want to ruin the surprise in case she reads this today.

But here's a generic round-up:

Appetizer Based on a Common Appetizer but Not Exactly the Same: I actually came up with this one the other day my ownself. It was originally going to be fried, but i think i'm going bake it. I've never made the main part of it, but i looked at a recipe. It sounded hard, so I'm just going to ignore the recipe and make it however i feel like.*

Good Main Dish: make this every once in a while. I know she likes it. Healthy and hard to screw up.

Good side Dish I've Never Made: the recipe for this sounded hard, too. So i'm just going to ignore it and make it however i feel like.*

Secondary Side Dish: Simple but tasty. Small portion to accent the main dish.

Dessert: Don't really have this figured out yet. Think I'll just go with whatever we have at the house.

*I make a pretty darned good (if i may say so) chicken parmasan having never actually seen a recipe, so this isn't the guaranteed disaster you probably think it is.

So, have a great Wednesday and may you all have someone to share your VD with.

Don't know whether i was the boxer or the bag

2007-02-08T09:44:00.000-06:00

Yesterday is that magical day where normally rational adults get entirely too worked up over where a bunch of 17- and 18-year-olds decide to play college football.

As you can probably guess, I am one of those people. I spent yesterday with a list of LSU committments and a highlighter, periodically stopping my work to mark off each name as the signed letter of intent was announced.

That is, until Joe McKnight announced he was going to USC.

I found out from my friend Michael, who sent me a text message. if said text message appeared in a newspaper, it would likely look like this:

F***

Knowing what that simple message meant, i sent him one in return. had it appeared in a newspaper, it would most likely look like this:

F***ing****faced****licking******bag*******ingdingleberryeatingcrotchrot****faced**********

Or, for the sake of space:

(expletive deleted)

I'm ashamed to say I had nightmares last night about McKnight's press conference. There's no good reason for me to get worked up about this.

Incidentally, I also had a dream that an old woman in a powder blue hooptie ran me down on the sidewalk because she thought i stole her microwave. luckily, i came away from the attempted pedestriancide with only a badly sprained knee. Also, working in my favor was the fact that it happened only a couple of blocks from the hospital. Unfortunately, the 911 operator said that since i was so close i would have to walk to the hospital.

But, I'd like to end this post on happy note. So here's a little souped-up Toto cover to help you fondly remember the time you touched the rain down in africa.

pass the mind bleach, please

2007-02-06T12:41:00.000-06:00

we all, or at least most of us, have that internal editor that warns us sternly when we're about to say something we really shouldn't.

Mine is screaming its lungs out right now, because i'm about to say something that really doesn't need to be shared with the rest of the class. Common sense tells me just to drop it and never speak of it with anyone, for fear that people might realize how strange I really am.

But I wasn't born with a wealth of common sense. So i'll just throw this out there.

I had a dream last night that Katie Holmes had sex with a horse in a harness over the Grand Canyon.

Luckily, I didn't actually witness said act in the dream.

The dream was actually from the perspective of a newscast. the anchor was talking about a video that had leaked to the public of Katie Holmes having sex with a horse because Tom Cruise wanted her too.

The station then showed a clip of the video, with Katie Holmes and a horse in individual red, nylon harnesses hanging over the grand canyon. Before it showed anything, the newscast cut to an interview with Holmes, talking about the experience and how much she loves her husband and all that. she basically looked and sounded brainwashed.

anyway, that was it.

Andy, are you goofing on Elvis?

2007-02-05T12:36:00.000-06:00

we've all been there.

you're watching a band and the lead singer is howling out his lyrics with a guitar dangling in front of him. every once in a while, he'll start to play it, but there's no noticeable change to the sound of the song.

I frequently have to ask myself if the person is just pretending to play so he has something to do besides just stand there and sing.

I've always considered Prince a prime candidate for such an activity.

Not a big fan, so i have no basis for any sort of an informed opinion, but the various clips i've seen of him have always left me wondering if he was actually playing.

but i was reading something today and someone said that Prince is actually a very good guitar player. I was a little shocked.

I have nothing more to say that is either relevant or true.

where did all these people come from, and how soon can they leave?

2007-01-31T13:18:00.000-06:00

You may notice that there's a new blog in our stuff we're reading sidebar.

Misty, long time reader and commenter here, is busting out on her own. She's the Joni Loves Chachi of this blog.

her blog is called ambient life, which, i think, is a reference to a sleeping pill or something.

read it early and often. that girl crazy.

another blog, which won't be linked on the right is http://callingkettle.blogspot.com

It's titled "Calling the Kettle Black" and it's written by this anonymous journalist who talks about stuff other people write. the first two posts likely sound familiar.

we must never speak of it again.

I'm here because they're paying me to do my thing

2007-01-30T14:14:00.000-06:00

I've become enamored with nit-picking other people's writing. I even considered nit-picking my own writing, but remembered that it would be considered giving an opinion on material published by my employer and that is not allowed (most people would say 'verboten' right there, but i won't).

This jumped out at me from a story I read this morning about a firefighter rescuing a person who had driven his car into some water.

The writer tells the reader that the firefighter "stripped to his pants and T-shirt" before getting in the water. There are a couple of things that i find interesting about the use of that phrase, and I'll be surprised if i can present this in any sort of way that makes sense.

So to help keep things moving along as best I can, I'll break it down into two separate but parallel but also intersecting points: A. The use of the verb stripped and B. Relevance of the verb stripped relative to its location in the story.

I hate to ruin the ending and all, but I'm pretty sure I'm going to end up being OK with how the writer uses the phrase.

A. The use of the verb "stripped."

Let's look at the phrase "stripped to his pants and t-shirt." I wouldn't be writing about it if it didn't initially strike me as odd.

To me, that could be reworded to mean "the firefighter took off his shoes, socks and possibly an outer-layer shirt." That to me, is not an act that would qualify as "stripping."

Then I thought about it for a second -- the writer did exactly what every journalism student is taught to do: use strong verbs.

"stripped" clearly moves the action along better than "took off his shoes..."

And how many people besides me are going to be anal retentive enough to actually catch something like that?

So i started to congratulate the writer for doing a pretty good job and i congratulated myself for being able to admit i was wrong.

But then I thought about it further.

Maybe the writer meant that the firefighter had gear on when he reached the scene, so he had an additional layer of clothing to take off, which would amount to stripping.

That, in turn, created another question in mind. How come when I read the article I assumed that the guy who made the rescue just happened to be a firefighter and not that he had been called to the scene as part of his job?

B. Relevance of the word stripped relative to its location in the story
While the rescuer is referred to in the headline and first paragraph as a firefighter, it's not until the third paragraph ('stripped' appears in the second graph) that it becomes evident (but not completely obvious) that the firefighter was called to the scene and was not a convenient witness to the accident.

So why didn't i immediately make the connection that "stripped" indicated him taking off his fire suit?

I was taught by Dee Dee Thurston (who stressed this to me until her eye balls bled) that "real people" go early in the story, officials go later.

My default mechanism told me that since the firefighter was mentioned early, that he must be a "real person." Had he been acting in the scope of his job, he would have been a firefighter first and, thus, the person who drove the car into the water should lead the action of the story with those acting in the scope of their profession being secondary to the story. Ergo (what?), since he was in the lead, he was not acting as a firefighter in an official capacity, and wouldn't have been wearing anything additional that would have necessitated "stripping."

But upon further reading, it is noted that the water temperature was in the mid-40s and that the firefighter was without feeling in legs for some time following the rescue.

That meant that the rescue was made under extraordinary circumstances and thus justified both 1)using the firefighter in the lead and 2) the verb stripped.

nice job by the writer (although a bit more explanation would have saved us all from the headache of this post).

Incidentally, I think this will inspire me to begin a second blog to write about stuff like this, while saving you from having to read it.

Bad writing kills world's oldest person

2007-01-29T09:17:00.000-06:00

The woman featured in the previous post's story is dead.

I hope that writer is proud of himself.

slip away, i can feel it all slip away from me

2007-01-26T12:58:00.000-06:00

Ok, check this out. She's old, right? Read that lead again...

A Connecticut woman born to former slaves in the decades following the U.S. Civil War has become the world's oldest person, at 114, according to Guinness World Records.

See that?

The lady is 114, she doesn't need some lame-ass attempt from some writer to make her sound older. She's 114!

2007 (now)-114 (her age)=1892 (her birth year)

Civil War: 1861 to 1865

Never mind the fact that she was born in (Wayne Campbell voice) "a year" not "decades"-- choosing the Civil War as the point of reference was bullshit. She was born nearly 30 years after it was over. Just lame (unless, of course, her amazing longevity truely can be attributed to her multi-decadenal gestation). (i'm also reasonably certain i misspelled several words in that last sentence.)

That's like saying "Seth, who was born in the decades following the Kennedy assassination..."

1892(her birth year) - 1865 (end of war) = 27 years

1980 (my birth year) - 1963 (Kennedy assassination) = 17 years

I was born a full decade closer to the Kennedy assassination than she was to the end of the Civil War. How many people associate Kennedy with the 19 flippin 80's?

Things that happened in 1892 that would have been a better comparison than that lame-ass Civil War shit:

-Rules of basketball published

-Ellis Island opens

-Columbus sails the ocean blue

-Lizzie Bordon chops up stuff...people mostly

-Grover Cleveland elected president

Just crappy writing. and if anybody knows crappy writing, it's me.

And i ain't seen the sunshine since I don't know when

2007-01-25T08:25:00.000-06:00

I was going to devote this entire blog to television shows, but there was a glare in my rearview mirror on the drive to work this morning.

This was literally (and i mean literally as in "literally," not literally as in "figuratively" like some people like to use it much to my chagrin) the first time in two weeks i had seen the sun. Just thought it warrants a mention.

And now on to television.

Started watching "Deal or No Deal" the other day. Really like the premise of the game, and enjoy factoring the odds and all that while watching.

But, bobdamn, do i hate the contestants.

I don't know how they find such annoying people and their very annoying friends and family. I start out interested in the game and playing along, but by the end i'm rooting against the contestant more than anything.

i don't know how long i can keep watching with such a high annoyance level.

Not much for reality television, but i rather enjoy Top Chef on Bravo. The two people i was rooting for were booted last night (althought i wasn't awake to see the end). Now i don't know if i want to watch next week's finale because i'm going to drop-kick a puppy if Marcel wins.

One of my favorite series of books, Jim Butcher's Dresden Files, is now a tv show on Sci-Fi.

don't like the dresden character. too rugged/macho looking. not nearly clumsy/funny enough. definitely a noticeable lack of humor in the show. to be an hour long, the first half should be a lot funnier.

not enough incidental magic stuff (yes, it's about a wizard). he needs to do more of the little stupid spells instead of just blabbering on about the high council then using some lame doom box at the end.

too much father/flashback stuff.

it was basically a detective show with a cop-out "blow the bad guy up" ending. needs to boost the cleverness factor a lot.

otherwise, it was watchable.

I made the mistake of letting Courtney watch Friday Night Lights several weeks ago. Now that I'm ready to quit watching it because of the unbelievable football stuff (although last night's episode was infinitely better as far as that goes), Courtney is addicted to all the soap opera crap involved.

i used to love it, but i don't believe in school no more

2007-01-11T11:50:00.000-06:00

Besides the obvious events like my wedding and...well, my wedding, i guess...the happiest I've ever been around a female was at the LSU-Ole Miss football game in 2003 in Oxford, Miss.

World-famous douchetard Eli Manning was supposed to lead the Rebels to the promised land. but ended up on his butt and all was right in the world as they lost again.

Right after the deciding play. i turned around and saw a woman in ole miss garb crying. It was the most beautiful thing I've ever seen. To quote Cartman after he cooked Scott Tenorman's parents in chili and fed it to him: "Yes, yes, oh let me taste your tears. your tears are so tasty and sweet. oh, the tears of unfathomable sadness. yummy! yummy!"

If you could ever enjoy watching another person's suffering on the level i did that night, you're going to love this video from NBX Sports :

***

Why do people insist on calling hypothetical places of perpetual solitude "desert islands?"

how in the hell do you have a desert island? an island, by it's definition is surrounded by water. it's kind of hard to have something that is both a desert and an island.

it's "deserted island," people. as in, there's no civilization on it. dumbasses.

***

speaking of calling things stuff, i heard someone refer to Les Miserables as "Les Mis" today.

how many times do you have to read or see that to call it Les Mis?

I've never read it, seen it, or have any clue what it's about. So do i have to pronouce it by its full name?

or even worse, am i allowed to pronounce it "Lay Mizerahb" even though i know nothing about it, or do i have to call it "Less miserables?"

any help would be appreciated.

Freecos?

2007-01-10T08:32:00.000-06:00

man, it's been almost a week already. where to begin?

Of course, I was obviously pleased with the results of the sugar bowl.

and i'm not real happy with saban taking the alabama job. i can understand leaving LSU for the NFL if it's truly your dream. and i can understand leaving the NFL because it's not what you expected/wanted. but if you leave LSU for the right reasons, you don't take a job with a school in their freaking division.

i had insomnia pretty bad over the stretch of a few days between christmas and new year's. Check out this joke i thought of while drinking wine at 4 a.m. to try and knock myself out:

What vegetable goes best with extra duck?
Asparagoose!

oh man, that's awesome. if you look closely, you'll see that there are actually two jokes in there.

I kind of thought the whole House-drug arrest problem worked itself out a little too nicely on House last night, but all-in-all it was an excellent episode. i chortled a couple of times. easily the best show on television right now.

i can't promise i will be there on opening night, but i will see this movie...

and just because i'm so happy about it, a little classic lagniappe...

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

2006-12-28T10:00:00.000-06:00

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

2006-12-18T13:39:00.000-06:00

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

2006-12-15T15:31:00.000-06:00

You wore a shirt of violent green, uh huh

2006-12-15T09:14:00.000-06:00

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"

2006-12-14T10:14:00.000-06:00

Free at last, free at last

2006-12-13T13:34:00.000-06:00

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

2006-12-13T08:57:00.000-06:00

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

2006-12-11T13:52:00.000-06:00

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

2006-12-08T12:27:00.000-06:00

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

2006-12-01T15:52:00.000-06:00

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

2006-12-01T11:31:00.000-06:00

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

and the kids were playing cricket with no shoes

2006-11-30T11:36:00.001-06:00

i don't understand why people dial a phone number with the phone on speaker then pick up the receiver when the call goes through. why not just pick up the receiver and dial if you know you aren't going to talk to the person you're calling on speaker phone?

maybe it's just my raging inferiority complex, but there's something about the whole practice that strikes me as snobbish. it's like "look how cool i am. i know how to use speaker phone, but i choose not to at the last second."

Hope everybody had a fun and filling thanksgiving. I spent several days in Minden recharging my batteries. they're drained again, but at least i'll always have the memories. nothing particularly interesting to report from the weekend, which is actually my preferred method of spending weekends.

I'm having sushi for dinner tonight and i'm pretty excited about it.

Finished up with high school, headed to a state school and wandered into you

2006-11-22T08:25:00.000-06:00

Before we get to the picks, a couple of quick thoughts...

...Check out this blog called postsecret. It's kind of funny, sad and strange. Basically, this guy gets people to anonymously mail him their secrets on a postcard. He also has compiled a couple of books. The site is updated on Sunday, and it doesn't look like there's any sort of archive on there to see old ones. Here are my two favorites from this week:

...I have seen various degrees of assholery in my day, but this takes the cake...

...and, finally, here are this week's picks.

Last week: 9-7-1
Overall: 54-56-9

BC -4.5 Miami
Texas -13 A&M
LSU pick Ark
Neb -14 Colorado
Fla -9.5 FSU
Natty -3.5 Uconn
Clemson -5 South Carolina
Kentucky +19 Tenn
OK State +5.5 Okla
Georgia Tech +2 Georgia
Louisville -11.5 Pitt
BYU +10.5 Utah
Boise -3 Nevada (this one scares me)
Wake +1 Maryland
USC -7 Notre Dame

Memorized Holy Grail really well, i can recite it right now and have you ROTFLOL

2006-11-20T10:20:00.000-06:00

With the short week and work, probably will only have a couple of posts this week, with the second one being my college football picks after the lines are out. So here's a rundown of stuff i might have talked about this week...

...get to enjoy the longest weekend i've had in a while starting wednesday after work. heading up to Minden to kick it for the weekend. should be relaxing, provided i don't throw a brick through the tv during the LSU-Arkansas game...

...Line of the week: I was in the bathroom at the Superdome Sunday during the Saints-Bengals game, standing in line at the urinal. The radio broadcast of the game was playing in the bathroom and Cincinnati had the ball. It was third and six and the Bengals ran a play that only went for a couple of yards. The announcer says, "They're well short of the first down." A guy down at the end of the trough says, "Oh, come on! Do you have to say 'well short' just as I'm pulling my dick out?"...

...The LSU-Ole Miss game this week was a disaster. I hate to say this, but I think it's time for Skip Bertman and Les Miles to go. I really feel bad for Miles, who by all accounts is not the type of person you wish to lose his job. And there's no way in the world you can blame him for taking the job. But there's really no reason good reason he got it to begin with. Some quick facts.

Cellar-dweller UNC just signed Butch Davis, who rebuilt the Univerity of Miami program currently being disassembled by Larry Coker, to be their next head coach.

Les Miles is about the seventh-highest paid coach in the SEC

So what do those two things mean? One, if you're willing to pay for it, you can get a top-of-the-line coach. Two, coming off a recent national championship and with a cupboard full of talent, LSU was obviously not willing to pay for a top-flight coach.

If you haven't followed LSU closely, you probably think it's rather stupid for a coach who's lost four games in just under two years to be on the hotseat. But to echo the words of the guy who was more than a little responsible for bringing the title to Baton Rouge, it's not about the results, it's about the process.

THere have been three games this year where the other team's talent was even remotely close to LSU's. Auburn, Florida and Tennessee. And LSU goes 1-2 in those games, nearly 0-3, and almost blows a game against a terrible! italics exclamation mark Ole Miss team.

There are warning signs blaring right now and i'd like to get the problem solved before the bombs actually land. And that starts with getting a new AD who understands that if you have a great football program, you can pretty much name your bottom line and that profit is not necessarily a direct result of being cheap.

And then we hire a new coach, because there is no excuse for UNC making a better hire than LSU. There are no more than 10 programs in the country (and certainly not 6 in the SEC alone) that should be paying their coaches what LSU is paying theirs...

Update for sports friday

2006-11-17T12:04:00.000-06:00

Like i said earlier, michigan ohio state is this weekend.

a group of ohio state fans have a band called the Dead Schembechlers, reference to long-time michigan coach bo schembechler...

...who actually died this morning.

this puts a whole new, more bizarre twist on the game.

i orginally picked michigan to win comfortably 31-17. now i really have no clue

Dusty books and pictures on the floor

2006-11-17T08:32:00.000-06:00

Welcome to Sports Friday.
My big plans last week for a do-or-die type weekend ended up being mediocre instead, which is fitting of how the rest of the season is going. Another loaded slate this weekend, maybe it will prove to be a little less bluh.

Surely it is unnecessary by now to point out that i suck at this and you should not actually consider this betting advice.

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

Last week: 8-8-2
Overall: 45-49-8

Iowa +2.5 Minnesota
NC State -3.5 UNC
Okla. -20.5 Baylor
Miami -3 Virginia
Tenn -8 Vandy
Navy -31.5 Temple
Duke +24.5 Georgia Tech
OK State +6 Texas Tech (a sure sign that Tech will cover)
Ark -14.5 Miss State
Notre Dame -31.5 Army (see above Tex Tech comment)
Michigan +7 Ohio State
Aub-3 Bama
VT pick Wake
Louisville -17 South Fla
Cincinnati +6.5 Rutgers
LSU -27.5 Ole Miss
San Jose State +25 Hawaii

***

Not a whole lot to talk about.

Of course, there's Ohio State v. Michigan this weekend. I've never liked Ohio State so I hope they lose. I'm not a big fan of the idea of the loser getting a re-match in the national championship game, but i would certainly take it over Notre Dame playing the winner for the title.

But for me, the game will really be nothing more than some afternoon entertainment while i'm tailgating for the LSU-Ole Miss game.

That game's going to be a snoozer, incidentally. Ole Miss has been prone to put up a pretty good fight in the past, but they're pretty bad this year.

And now the good news: you will never again read something sports related that offers so little insight.

Run when you run

2006-11-13T10:55:00.000-06:00

well, the wednesday weigh-in is back. kind of.

i'm officially starting back on the three-quarters-ass weight loss effort today. you'll be pleased to know that i have gained back every bit of the weight i lost during the half-assed effort, so i'll be starting from scratch.

but i'm not weighing this wednesday, i'm going to wait until next week to hopefully have some sort of noticeable improvement.

i don't want make you mad, i don't want to meet your dad, i don't wanna be your dream come true

2006-11-10T07:56:00.000-06:00

Hey everybody. Welcome to Sports Friday, which comes to you again after another week of non-sports posting.

Last week was tough for the picks. This week is the one that's going to determine my fate for the season, with a whopping 18 games being pickeed. I looked at the lines this morning and kept finding myself writing down games.

And, yes, because i hate myself, both teams i can never get right, Texas Tech and Notre Dame, appear this week.

If you consider playing any of these games, please look at my overall record then just pay a homeless guy $100 to kick you in the crotch. It'll be more productive. (in other words, don't do it! exclamation point)

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

Last week: 4-7
Overall: 37-41-6

Michigan St. +2 Minn
Cincinnati +18 WVU
Wisc. -1.5 Iowa
Baylor +16.5 OK St.
Kentucky -2 Vandy
USM -6 Tulane
Tulsa -14 Rice
Houston -3.5 SMU
Pitt -8 UConn
Miami +3.5 Maryland
eATMe +1 Nebraska
Notre Dame -11.5 Air Force
Boise St. -13.5 San Jose St.
Tx Tech +9 Oklahoma
Tenn +5.5 Ark
Wake +8.5 Florida St.
Texas -16 KState
Hawaii -38 La Tech

*****

Don't really have a whole lot of analysis from the Tennessee game. LSU got jobbed on yet another bogus replay call on the road and Keiland Williams finally got quality playing time when it matters. Hopefully that was just the first game of several where he is the primary back.

JaMarcus Russell made the types of plays his detractors have complained about and the types of plays that make it obvious (to me at least) that he is easily the best quarterback on the team.

There were a couple of questionable play calls by LSU on the offensive side of the ball, but overall i was happy with the gameplan. I was a little worried early since they used the same formation frequently that landed them a whopping three points against auburn.

I Can't Remember Anything, Part 4 of a 2-part series

2006-11-09T10:00:00.000-06:00

Nothing you care to read from last weekend...

It's become cliche' (as has the phrase, 'it's become cliche') to say "oh, everything but country" when one is asked about the type of music he or she listens to. It's sort of like how all the cool 20-something artistic types like to answer religious inquiries with, "I'm not really religious, but i really tend to lead toward buddhism. I also find Taoism especially interesting."

You know what, take that hand of yours that's holding Art of War and kindly shove it right up your ass. But back to the weekend.

Except for a little Kenny Wayne Shephard during our tailgating, we listened to country music all weekend. I can say that i like country music, since i grew up listening to Hank Williams Sr., Johnny Cash and others. But i really can't stomach the new stuff.

It's awful. So the drive Sunday morning to Atlanta was especially difficult to stomach.

So to help pass the time, i played a game i made up called "What recent crappy hit song is this current crappy hit song ripping off." Here's some of the couple i can call to mind. And before you play the "for somebody who doesn't like those songs you sure do know a lot about them" card, you can just use it as a bookmark for the copy of Art of War currently up your ass. Courtney is a new-country-music addict, and i can't help but hear the stuff.

she really likes that song called "Slow Down" or something with that line "not asking you to turn back around, but i'd settle for a slow down." i like to make up fake words to it like "i'm not asking you to party just now, but i'd settle for a hoe down." courtney looooooves when i do that.

But back to the game. Rosco Flap (who also sings the gayest version of "Life is a Highway" I've ever heard) (and i mean "gay" as in "gay" not "gay" as in "homosexual" or "happy") has this song now that will be played at every high school graduation in the country in may. It's a rip-off of "I hope you dance."

Then there's this war song which is a rip-off of every other war song written in the last three years.

Then there's a brooks and dunn song about rednecks or hicks or something that's a rip off of every other brooks and dunn song and another song about a redneck yacht club and another song about walmart.

then there's a song about a pregnancy test that is a ripoff of every other gimicky country song ever written and shouldn't have been written anyway because it's the stupidest song i ever heard.

i take that back, there was another song i heard twice and i said each time, "this is the stupidest song i've ever heard." but i guess i blocked it out because i can't remember what it was.

then there are all those songs that try to be clever about just being dumped and you think they're going to be sad, but they're actually about how happy the person is. All of those songs are rip offs of other songs like that....don't remember which one came out first.

I think that's about it.

We stopped in Marietta, Georgia to watch the Saints-Tampa Bay game at a Buffalo Wild Wings. I may have mentioned before that i can't go to eat anywhere without something going wrong (i guess it's payback for purposely over-tipping my whole life).

we get there and all order our drinks. The women folk order "Dos Equis light" which i had never heard of, but specify that they want the one in the green bottle. I also want a Dos Equis in a green bottle (not my first choice, but they didn't really have any beer i like. brands of beer i like, i like a lot, but there really aren't that many brands out there i care for), so i order a Dos Equis lager.

The waiter comes back and gives the women folk their dos equis lagers and hands me a dos equis amber. I'm not at all surprised. but i drink it anyway because for some reason, i have a soft spot for those in the food industry.

After i finish my amber, i tell the waiter i want another drink, but i want what the womens is drinking. he says, "dos equis light?" and i just say "yeah, that." so he brings me my lager and all is right in the world.

I think i peed 8 times at Buffalo Wild Wings.

After the Saints game, the women went shoe shopping to kill time while me and mr. david drank beer in the shopping center parking lot. Then we went to the atlanta airport.

we were really early, so i had to sit next to this group of people who annoyed the piss out of me. i can't think of anything in particular (other than the way one guy pronounced "tour" "too-er"), they mostly just sucked.

The flight home was pretty uneventful. I rotated between reading Hound of the Baskervilles and dozing off. There's something cartoonish about Sherlock Holmes, so i have trouble reading it as a serious murder/mystery book, but overall it's a good read. But i think Dr. Watson is a big pansy (and i mean "pansy" as in "pansy" not "Pansy" as in...nevermind").

Then we went back to courtney's parents house and went to sleep. It gets cold when we stay there sometimes so i got two blankets (the guest room has one of those beds with a bed that pulls out from underneath it and pops up, so when we sleep together at her parents' house i pull out and pop up and she takes the main bed).

At some point during the night, my top blanket fell off. courtney got up to use the bathroom and when she got back to bed she took the blanket off the floor and used it. So a bit later i wake up and see that she is using my blanket, which pissed me off (because i think she stole it).

So i roll over and call her "a f'ing jew." (i guess i watch more south park than i realize, because never ever ever ever in a conscious state would i use the word jew as a derogatory word) (and i realize it should be "an f'ing" since the sound starts with a vowel [eff] but i didn't use the abridged version and the full version starts with a consonent sound [fuh].)

Monday morning i get the whole story on the blanket scandal. Notice i didn't say blanketgate. Nixon's cronies did not break into the Water Hotel and once it became a scandal they called it "Watergate." I hate it when people put "gate" at the end of any scandal. If they broke into the Motel 6, they wouldn't call it Blanket6.

anyway, i felt really bad because not only had i used a culturally insensitive insult that really isn't an insult anyway, but i used it for someone who didn't do anything wrong.

The end.

I will now entertain questions from the audience.

why's it have to be this way? be this way

2006-11-08T15:21:00.000-06:00

Thoughts not pertaining to this weekend (but check out episode three that went up just minutes before this).

i know it has to do with kidneys, but hearing the word "renal" makes me giggle...

...Here's an excerpt from an e-mail with my thoughts of the britney/k-fed divorce:

I'm looking forward to seeing britney A) rebound from the divorce, drop some weight, and become hot again or, more likely B) spiral out of control, drop some weight because of a prescription medicine addiction and end up in playboy.

Leave your britney/k-fed predictions in the comment section.

I'm Fairly Certain I Know What I Did This Weekend, Take 3

2006-11-08T13:36:00.000-06:00

The third installation in which i tell you what i did this weekend while typing everything that pops into my head along the way...

We made our way toward the stadium about an hour before kick-off. It was pretty much uphill the whole way, and there were lots of people selling tickets. As we got nearer to the stadium, we stopped so a few people in our group could use the bathroom.

While i waited, i had to overhear this drunk guy talking to another guy and his kids.

Here's the cliff's notes version of what information was exchanged between the two:
Guy and kids like LSU. Kids also like the Cincinnatti Bengals because of the uniforms.
Drunk guy likes Ohio State and the Cincinnatti Bengals.

Here is the actual transcript of the final 20 minutes of the 21 minute conversation.

Drunk Guy: "alright*! Cincinnati Bengals...Chad Johnson...Carson Palmer....Who Dey...Ohio State... alright*! Cincinnati Bengals...Chad Johnson...Carson Palmer....Who Dey...Ohio State...alright*! Cincinnati Bengals...Chad Johnson...Carson Palmer....Who Dey...Ohio State... alright*! Cincinnati Bengals...Chad Johnson...Carson Palmer....Who Dey...Ohio State..."

Needless to say I hated the guy. It was like the world's worst "Mr. Short-term Memory" SNL sketch. In fact, the guy should "be execute" for making me even remotely connect him to a great Tom Hanks sketch.

*The correct AP style is "all right" and i have steadfastly used it as such, but i've given up. Nobody else cares that alright isn't a word. or at least it wasn't last time i looked.

After a wait and a bit more walking we finally got into the stadium, which is the biggest f'ing bullshit joke of a stadium i'm ever been in. the concourses fit about two people at a time (three if there's no wait for the ladies' room). the seats are about 2/3 as wide as normal stadium seating and the rows offer about 1/3 the leg room. If you want to get up (and i didn't even bother, meaning that my booze was left sitting lonely in my pocket all game) the row in front of you has to stand up as well. We were sitting five people in six seats (courtney's dad had to fly home early) and were still elbow to elbow.

The concession stand is set up right outside the doorway between the bleachers and the concourse and is set up so the line perpendicular to the flow of traffic between the bleachers and the concourse. I never knew stadium design was a special olympics event.

The stadium holds about 107,000 people, but could take out 10,000 seats and i'm still not sure it would be comfortable. I know it's too much to ask for a school to show a little pride and reduce the capacity of the stadium to where attending a game is less painful than piercing your tongue with a food processor, but i really wish the tennessee athletic director would attend a game in the seats we sat in.

Rocky Top and Neyland Stadium can bite my ass.

In the row in front of us was a married woman and her kid and to their right was a married man (not her husband). On the first big play, the woman shook her pompom and hit me in the face (if that tells you how close together the seats were).

The woman and the man who wasn't her husband annoyed me, probably moreso than the drunk guy at the port-o-potties before the game.

At first the woman talked about how her dad had a plane and was going to fly her to the arkansas game. That didn't bother me nearly as much as her underwear. whenever she would sit down, courtney would nudge me and point. For the early part of the game, her white thong would peek out from her jeans. I don't know if she took them off or what, but the second half of the game involved me and courtney tricking each other into looking at the lady's rather gruesome asscrack.

I don't understand what the deal is with females and their need to advertise their drawers or lack thereof. maybe i'm just getting old (get off my lawn) but that just does absolutely nothing for me. And trust me, when me and the guys are naked in the sauna together after a steamy post-workout shower at the Y, all we talk about is girls. Ok, that even grossed me out a little. weiner.

At the Saints games, there are two young women (mid-20s to early 30s) whose asses and underoos are always hanging out. One of them was nothing but asscrack last home game, and the other one had her thong showing in the front and the back. (it was black with white piping and looked to be some sort of cotton-nylon composite).

As for the guy sitting in front of us, he was shamelessly implementing the "look how much I love kid" method of flirting with buttcrack showperson. i originally put "shower" but i didn't want y'all to have the mental picture of a buttcrack shower. i don't know if a buttcrack shower would involve water coming out of a buttcrack, or buttcracks coming out of a shower head.

Anyway, there are simply no words that would do justice to how pathetic the slapnuts in front of me was. You'll just have to take my word for it. But he was being all gross affectionate with his son while chatting up the lady and offering to buy her son stuff while he went to the concession stand.

LSU won the game.

We go back to the cars and get mooned along the way. Then we go to a mexican restaurant that makes guacamole for you fresh tableside. talked a couple of tennessee fans at the bar while we waited for a table. he asked me about Les Miles. I asked him if he had an hour to spare. he didn't.

from there we went back to the hotel and went to sleep. I had very angry dreams that night. In the first one, i was yelling at the officials who spotted the ball on the 4th and 7 catch that kept the game alive for LSU. All i did in the entire dream was curse out these two officials.

Then in another dream, i was up on this loft with a group of people i don't know. One of the people was about to leave, but this other guy told him if he left the people down stairs would kick his ass. So i says, "i know some white guy with braces isn't talking about somebody getting their ass kicked." and he really did have braces, too. it was funny.

So he comes up to me and tries to start a fight, but i put him in this badass kung fu grip and told him i wouldn't hurt him if he'd just leave. but he kept trying, and i was like "ok, i warned you" and put him in the Boston Crab, old school WWF wrestling-style.

We got up the next morning and ate breakfast. I got eggs, sausage, a blueberry muffin, biscuits and gravy, hashbrowns and french toast. I put ketchup on my hashbrowns and put the french toast on a separate plate with syrup. when i was done with the french toast, i used the extra syrup for my sausage. i had my eggs between my biscuit and my hashbrowns. i ate my hashbrowns last so i wouldn't get ketchup on everything.

i also had orange juice. and it had pulp in it. i don't like pulp in orange juice. one time when i was kind of young i took a sip of orange juice and said, "yuck, there was a lot of pulp in that sip." but my brothers said that i said shit and not sip. but i didn't say shit. i wouldn't have said that.

I guess that's enough for now.

I Know What I Did This Weekend, Part 2

2006-11-07T10:01:00.000-06:00

A continuation of everything you need to know from weekend, but mostly stuff you don't...

Got up Saturday and had breakfast at the hotel in Chattanooga. I had scrambled eggs, biscuits and gravy, hashbrowns, toast, orange juice, chocolate milk and coffee. I had butter and honey on my toast and ketchup on my hashbrowns. I put the eggs between the biscuits and gravy and the hashbrowns but ate the hashbrowns last so i wouldn't get ketchup on everything.

from there we drove to knoxville. it took somewhere between an hour and a half and two hours. we met up with another couple (the cousin and his wife of courtney's mother's friends). then we when to the store and loaded up on beer and liquor and food.

we parked by an interstate overpass 30 minutes or so by foot away from the stadium. the people manning the parking lot made us back into the parking spots, so we were forced to tailgate standing on railroad tracks. Only one train came and we got out of the way in plenty of time. on of the guys working in the parking lot saw we were lsu fans and gave us mini-bottles of jack daniels. i was wearing blue jeans and long johns, so before we got in the game, i put the bottle in the leg of my long johns and tucked the leg into my sock. the booze made into the game no problem.

After we parked, the lady folk started setting out the food in the back of the rental car (Sequoia, i think). Courtney was trying to pour some salsa into a bowl and instead spilled it.

Bet you can't guess what four-letter word came out of her mouth in front of her mom and her mom's friends...

"Seth!"

I just looked at her. "How do you get 'Seth' out of 'i just spilled salsa in the back of the car?'"

So for the rest of the trip if somebody goofed something up, I'd exclaim "Seth!" and everyone would start blaming me for it. It was pretty funny. luckily, nobody farted in the car.

I Know What I Did This Weekend

2006-11-06T09:52:00.000-06:00

Random Tangets Spliced Together in the Hope that a Story is Born
Everything you need to know about this weekend, but mostly stuff you don't

I left work a little early to drive to New Orleans to catch a plane to Chattanooga. I don't think people do a very good job of checking their mirrors when they drive. There was a car in the left lane whose driver was oblivious to the fact that she was being quite an effective rolling road block.

So i finally make my way around her and some time later i see a police car coming up from behind in the left lane, with lights and siren on. Everyone else gets out of the way. Meanwhile, Captain Oblivious is beboppin along in the left lane with the cop about a foot and half behind her.

And this morning, the same sort of thing happened. I watched a police car with lights on try to pull a car over, only to have it drive along for about a mile not noticing the cop. the car still hadn't pulled over by the time they were no longer visible in my mirror.

The plan was to fly from New Orleans to Atlanta, then from Atlanta to Chatanooga. Courtney and I would meet her mom and two of her mom's friends in Chatanooga and stay there Friday night. Saturday morning, we'd drive to Knoxville and watch the LSU-Tennessee game. Then Sunday we'd drive to Atlanta and fly to New Orleans that night.

I selected my in-flight reading material at Books-A-Million Friday. I picked up (which i think was a sitcom for a little while) and Love MonkeyThe Hound of the Baskervilles. I got Love Monkey because I think my friend Ryan read it and said it was funny. I read most of it on the flight up there, and finished it off on the drive to atlanta.

All-in-all it's a fairly entertaining book about a 32-year-old who works for a tabloid named Tabloid. He's trying to land the girl of his dreams while juggling a batch of potential back-up plans.

There are laugh-out-loud moments. And the longer i'm away from it, the more I guess I'm OK with how it ends. I sort of felt it built up to something that was supposed to be big, but instead it just sort of stops. But the author throws enough in there that upon further review actually accomplishes enough to call it an ending rather than a "stopping."

I give it three and a half out of five stars, with it being closer to four stars than three stars. So maybe 3.6667 stars.

The flight to Atlanta was uneventful. I remember being hungry before we left new orleans, but there wasn't too much available food wise. We had a shot layover in Atlanta, so we grabbed some Quiznos before we caught our flight.

When they called our zone to board, we went through the gate and down some stairs -- never a good sign. we walk outside to about the smallest puddle jumper i've ever seen, and definitely the smallest plane i've ever been on in my limited years of flying (flew for the first time Dec. 2003).

I don't handle flying particularly well, so i was not a happy camper at this point. we all board the plane. a few minutes before take off, the stewardess announces over the intercom, "For weight distribution reasons, we need someone from rows one through five to move back somewhere in rows 12 to 17."

Oh, shit.

I was sitting on a plane where the location of 150 pounds actually made a difference. This was not going to be a comfortable flight.

Turns out it wasn't so bad, just very shaky. From there we went to the hotel and went to sleep.

To be continued...

Some might say you get what you've been given

2006-11-03T08:15:00.000-06:00

Hey, everybody. After a full week (practically) of non-sports posts, I can welcome you guilt-free to the latest full-fledged edition of Sports Friday. For you nonsports people, go straight to the end and check out the video.

The last few weeks have been extremely hectic. The forecast for the next few weeks has been downgraded to "very hectic." So I should be able to provide at least the occasional weekday post, but I can't make any promises. (Yes, I just wrote that paragraph with a straight face as i conveyed the false belief that you actually could give two flat-footed dumps whether or not i update this.)

"Hey, it's your money" Picks of the Week

Last week: 4-2
Season 33-34-6

Finally had a decent week for the first time in i can't remember how long. As the season progresses, I'm finding it harder and harder to find games I'm confident picking. So this week, I'm employing the "Blind hog finds an acorn" method and picking an unusually high number of games.

A few thoughts before i get to the picks. After getting burned early with big numbers, i've spent the last couple of weeks avoiding them, so i'm a little uncomfortable with how many big spreads i've got this week. Also, I'm very unsure about my picks for the Missouri, K State and Cal games. After missing every time I've picked a Texas Tech game this season, they're off the board. But I did return Notre Dame, which i think i've also missed every time this season.

And remember, I'm not stupid enough to actually bet these games. You shouldn't be either.

Mizzou +5 Nebraska
Florida -17 Vandy
Bama -15 Miss. State
Navy -12 Duke
Auburn -30.5 Arkansas State
Notre Dame -24.5 UNC
K State +3.5 Colorado
Tulsa -3.5 Houston
Arkansas -2.5 South Carolina
Virginia Tech -2.5 Miami
Cal -17 UCLA

What's so good about a Good Times van, when you're working on a broken man?

Courtney and I are heading up to Knoxville tonight (well, i think Chatanooga, technically) to go to the LSU-Tennessee game tomorrow afternoon.

I'm excited to be able to say that I've been in the stadium up there (Neyland?) but I've heard bad things about the person-to-seat-room ratio. But I guess there are worse things in the world than being squeezed into a stadium to watch an LSU game.

As expected, the Auburn and Florida games have completely killed my optimism for this game. Of course, I still think LSU will win, but I just can't get excited about thinking that LSU will win.

A couple of random thoughts on the game:
Jamarcus Russell is something like 5-6 against quality opponents, but I'm not sure that record is an accurate reflection of his skills at quarterback. But maybe I'm weird, because I can't get over the talk that people want him on the bench (or away from LSU completely). It seems that next to Les Miles, Russell is the least popular person associated with the team, despite being in the top 5 in the country in passer rating...

I'm very interested to see the scheme the LSU defense employs for this game. Last year, The Tigers pressured Ainge, the Tennessee quarterback, and built a 21-0 halftime lead. Then they proceeded to play the same soft zone that got them torched by Arizona State the previous game and blew the lead and lost in overtime. Part of me wants to forgive that mistake because post-Katrina conditioning woes caused the Tigers to dehydrate and cramp. It was all they could do just to have 11 defenders on the field on any given play.

But then history repeated itself this season. LSU spends all season pressuring quarterbacks (or knocking them out of games completely), and then proceeds to call off the dogs against Florida. Last year, LSU swarmed Chris Leak, who completed only 11 of 30 passes as he struggled under pressure. This year, they played back and let him pick the defense apart underneath, completing 17-26 passes. It's baffling, really.

LSU coaches have not exactly impressed me with their ability to make tactical or personnel adjustments this seasons. They still haven't figured out the tailback situation, it took them 40 forevers to find a punt returner and nine (nine! exclamation mark) games into the season you get to read stories about them wanting to get Trindon Holliday more involved in the offense (Oh, really? You mean the guy averaging 18.6 yards a carry should be getting the ball? Get the hell outta here, you crazy sombitch). So forgive me if i'm not exactly confident that they've learned their lesson and will let the dogs loose against Ainge, who, by the way, will be playing hurt.

Shmoke and a pancake

I try to keep predictions sweepingly general to keep myself from looking too stupid, but sometimes even i can't "save me from myself." At the start of the season, i said that West Virginia would sail through its regular season schedule then get killed by a legitimate opponent in a bowl game. Then i watched them beat somebody (Maryland?), and i said that they'd cruise through their schedule then at least put up a fight, if not win, their bowl game.

So they proceed to go get beat by Louisville. Watching the game, i can't help but imagine that West Virginia can relate to how LSU felt after their losses. That was a game I think the 'eers should have won, but gave it away. Not only did they give it away, they gave it away ugly. Although I must say that WV's defense pretty much sucked, so i won't go so far as to say that the 'eers were guaranteed a win if they didn't turn the ball over so darned much, but it at least would have been "tight like a tiger."

Instead, Louisville was victorious and got to "shake [their] booty KC and the Sunshine Band."

*****
turn on the sound and enjoy:

you don't have to pay, i've got all the change

2006-11-01T15:36:00.000-06:00

I saw today that McDonald's is doing a McRib farewell tour. Does anybody know if this is a yearly gimmick since it's a seasonal menu item, or are they pulling it forever and ever?

i went ahead and signed the save the mcrib petition just to be safe. A world without McRibs is not one i want to live in.

****

Obviously not a lot going on in my world these days beyond work.

I meant to bring back Weigh-In Wednesday today, but I forgot.

I have been to the Y once, and i'm still sore from Monday's workout. didn't go back last night so we could hand out candy.

I've restopped drinking coffee and soft drinks, but have had way too much candy lately. so once i get that under control, look for a much steadier drop in weight than my first half-assed effort.

Here's the time we didn't speak it seems for years and years

2006-10-30T08:12:00.000-06:00

i'm not sure how much longer i can tolerate watching "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition."

EMHE is a bit of a staple in our weekly television line-up. It's a tolerable hour of television that allows me to catch the last three quarters of the Sunday Night NFL game guilt-free.

And i should admit at this point that i used to look forward to watching it. But now it's so contrived. I think the biggest problem is that the people who get the new house are allowed to nominate themselves.

I think the show would be a lot better if the people didn't know they were getting the house. It seems like the point is lost on the families now. instead of the overwhelming gratitude, it's more like the people are opening a christmas present. And sure they're thankful, but it's "I just got a cool house" thankful, not "i can't believe this is happening" thankful.

It's like the families have seen the show so much that there is a certain level of expectation of what they will get when they get back from vacation.

I also hate the parts of the show where the host tries to make the family members cry. it looks like he's trying to be sympathetic, but to me it's an obvious attempt for good television (although i'm not even enough of a jackass to say that there is no genuine goodwill involved, since it is the nature of the show).

*****

In other news, what a crappy weekend for Joe Niekro to die.

The former major leaguer is competing with Red Auerbach for attention and is failing miserably.

Come again some other day when i got time for bleedin'

2006-10-27T08:16:00.000-05:00

before i get to a very abbreviated sports friday (i'm swamped), i have a question for all you people out there. Are you one of those people that put on your emergency blinkers when you're driving and it starts raining?

it doesn't make any sense to me, but i didn't want to start griping about it in case there is a logical thought process behind it.

so if you do that, please leave a comment and let me know why. thanks.

*****
The Hey it's your money picks of the week
last week 3-5
overall 29-32-6

penn state -3 purdue
vandy -9 duke
kentucky -1 miss. state
miami +5 georgia tech (pick most likely to be wrong)
texas -10.5 texas tech
tenn -3 south carolina

Staff cuts have socked up the overage

2006-10-20T08:09:00.000-05:00

Welcome to Sports Friday.

I'll be a busy little bee today, so let me apologize for no not-sports posts this week.

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

Very few games i like this week. Some of these i'm putting on here just to have a big enough sample of games. And i haven't ever guessed an over-under on here, but I've got to think the Hawaii-New Mexico State game will go over the 75, which is a big number.

Last week: 6-5
Season: 26-27-6

West Virginia -22.5 UConn
Texas -5 Nebraska
South Carolina -3.5 Vandy
Oregon -3.5 Washington State
Boise -21 Idaho
Rutgers +6.5 Pitt
Georgia Tech +7.5 Clemson
LSU -32.5 Fresno State

*****

Well, we're in the second game of the third set in the LSU football blowout-blowout-loss cycle. The 49-0 win over Kentucky was as boring as advertised, and there's no reason to believe the Fresno State game tomorrow will be any different.

So that leaves Tennessee as the game to, as Staind put it, break the cycle.

I was hyped up after the two blowouts to start the season, then we lost to Auburn. I told myself that i wasn't going to get excited about the blowouts after that.

But before the Florida game, i had lost all willpower and expected that LSU would go to Gainsville and win fairly easily. they lost. and i told myself that i wouldn't get hyped up by two blowout wins before the Tennessee game.

and to this point, I haven't. I'm not predicting another LSU loss in two weeks (bye next week), but i'm certainly not going to make the mistake of predicting a win.

All the way in on my hands and on my feet and shoulders

2006-10-13T08:47:00.000-05:00

I've been passively asking you every once in a while to check out my buddy Ryan's online music magazine, Marked.

Now i'm telling you to read this.

When you're done, go to the streaming music player on the site and listen to "The Suitcase I Left Behind." if you can hear that song and not order the cd, I'll be amazed.

you'll see in the story that proceeds from the sales benefit musicians affected by Hurricane Katrina.

Shouldn't have to fight, or worry about the bills tonight

2006-10-13T08:18:00.000-05:00

Welcome to Sports Friday.

Hey, It's Your Money Picks of the Week

(I'm eliminating the points play, because much like play-money online poker, it's tough to play realistically. plus i've gotten burned by LSU for two straight weeks. which is why, if i actually bet -- and i don't -- i would adhere to the cardinal rule, 'don't play teams you're emotionally attached to.')

Last week: 5-5
Overall: 20-22-6

West Virginia -25 Syracuse
Georgia -13.5 Vandy
Florida State -22.5 Duke
Rutgers +3 Navy
Texas Tech -7 Colorado
Cincinnatti +25 Louisville (my pick for "game most likely to be incorrect")
Bama -15 Ole Miss
Cal -8.5 Wazzou
Baylor +27.5 Texas (runner up GMLTBI)
Nebraska -9 KSU
Auburn +2 Florida

****

Reader Pick of the Week

Big thanks to Joel for being the only person to humor me and venture a guess on the Reader Pick of the Week last week.

As you recall, I was torn between Mississippi State neutralizing West Virginia and the gut feeling that West Virginia would blow them out. Turns out i was sort of right on both ends.

West Virginia ended up covering by a full touchdown, but Mississippi State kept it close for three quarters. It was 21-7 after three quarters, so with the 21.5 point spread, things were looking good for the bulldogs. That is, until the 'eers hung 21 on them in the fourth to close it out 42-14.

****

One last thought.

My biggest gripe with the broadcast media is that something is either not worth mentioning or the best/worst thing ever. This seems to be especially true in sports.

This morning on Mike & Mike, Mike and Mike were talking about game 1 (yes, o-n-e) of the NLCS and made this argument: New York had to win the game last night. Now, St. Louis MUST win game two.

I just fail to see the logic there. it's the first game of a best-of-7 (yes, s-e-v-e-n) game series. If st. Louis wins tonight, does that mean that New York has to win game three? or are they more equipped to overcome a 2-1 deficit than they are a 1-0 deficit?

How come St. Louis didn't HAVE to win game one? Are they more capable of digging out of a hole than New York? if so, why is game 2 a must-win for them? Winning 4 out of 6 is not a problem, but winning four out of 5 is impossible?

*sigh*

I'm giving myself a headache.

But if i finish all of my chores and you finish thine, then tonight we're going to party like it's 1699

2006-10-12T10:31:00.000-05:00

I'm a little upset about a bad dining experience last night.

There's a little place in Madisonville that seems like it would be the perfect seafood restaurant. It's small. The employees look at you weird because they don't know you. They know everybody else in the restaurant by name. Everybody else in the restaurant knows everybody else in the restaurant by name.

Few conversations are limited to one-table involvement.

They carried Abita Turbodog.

This place should have been a homerun.

So Courtney and I sit down. I order a Turbodog and the crabmeat stuffed jalepeno poppers.

For dinner i have the ruby red trout, topped with crab and crawfish, with a salad and a side of roasted potatoes and fresh vegetables.

Two good things i can say about the dinner: the Turbodog was served along with a frosty mug (with a new mug coming with the second beer as well) and the house salad dressing was pretty good.

It is not a good thing when the best thing you can say about a Louisiana seafood restaurant is that it had a good salad dressing.

It's not that the food tasted bad, it's that it didn't taste at all. the fish tasted like the potatoes tasted like the vegetables.

I still held out hope for the bread pudding, though. i love bread pudding, but under one condition: no raisins.

so i ask our waitress (i should add that the staff was extremely helpful and friendly) if the bread pudding comes with raisins.

Yes, she says, raisins and pineapple.

i haven't really thought about how to end this.

two trains. Yell freeze. It was a head-on cold now it's a love disease

2006-10-11T14:02:00.000-05:00

I've relapsed with my coffee addiction. Didn't touch the stuff for a couple of months, not i'm back to 3 or 4 cups a day.

I'm temporarily suspending the Wednesday Weigh-in for a few weeks. yesterday, courtney and i signed up for the YMCA that's opening down the road at the end of the month. seems like a good opportunity to kick up my half-ass weight-loss effort to at least three-quarter assed. That gives me a couple of weeks to indulge my coffee and soft drink use before quitting cold turkey again. so look for the return of the weigh-in around the last wednesday in october.

Throughout the various courses of fate, i am now surrounded at work by rather proficient typers. don't know what it is about the sound of really fast typing, but it pretty much hypnotizes me (an di can't even spell it). it's like freaking catnip for clones. i just zone out and sit there and listen to it. i've always found it to be a relaxing sound. can't explain it.

Matt has another multimedia slideshow on his site.

Ryan has finally updated his blog, and would like to remind you to read Marked Music Magazine.

I know it may not seem like a sensible scheme

2006-10-06T08:43:00.000-05:00

Welcome to Sports Friday (for ye who speak not of sports, the new post below is sports free. go to town. chimichanga). In order to encourage reader interaction, i'd like to see some of your picks in the comment section. especially for the pick at the end of this section.

The 'Hey, it's your money' Picks of the Week
Overall record: 15-17-6

Arkansas +15.5 Auburn
Wake +17 Clemson
Rice -2.5 Tulane
Notre Dame -29.5 Stanford (don't think i've gotten a pick right with either of these teams this season)
Baylor +5 Colorado
LSU +1.5 Florida
GT -14 Maryland
Oklahoma +4 Texas
Michigan -15.5 Mich state
Tennessee -2.5 Georgia

Point picks
Season total -1400

Going to dig myself out of the hole this week, i feel it. in fact, lets go crazy and try to do it with one pick.

1400 points LSU +1.5

NEW! Reader Pick of the Week NEW!

Ok, guys and gals, i want to see if you can do a better job than the crap I've been doing the last couple of weeks. So if you want to leave any picks in the comments section, be sure to include a guess on this one.

West Virginia (-21.5) at Mississippi State

My rambling thoughts: Mississippi State was a 33 point dog at LSU last week and covered by a point. They are excellent at stopping the run, neutralizing both Auburn and LSU on the ground this year. West Virginia QB Patrick White and RB Slaton (Can't remember his first name) are as lethal a ground attack as there is in college football. LSU has the best defense in the country, while West Virginia's will give up points on occasion. Yes, Mississippi State still managed to cover last week, but one touchdown came on a pick-six thrown by back-up QB Matt Flynn and the other came against LSU's second team defense. Even without a run game, LSU moved up and down the field on them. Russell was 18-20 with three touchdowns and 14 straight completions at one point. I've never watched a game where WVU had to throw the ball to win, but they have a couple of weapons at wideout.

So did the odds makers take all this into account when they set the spread a dozen points lower? My brain thinks this is a line the Mississippi State front 7 should be able to cover even with their horrible offense. My gut says this one is never close and WVU covers easily.

What say you?

*****

Well, this is the week I've been looking forward to/dreading since the Auburn game. Part of me is looking forward to seeing how the LSU defense coupled with a new wide-open passing attack will look against a top-5 team.

The rest of me is scared to death we'll see a replay of the Auburn gameplan and i'll have to go in my backyard and set myself on fire.

But I'm feeling optimistic. If you could put the talent level of LSU and Florida into a video game match-up and let the CPU control both teams, LSU wins it. Saturday will come down to coaching, plain and simple.

fool me once, shame on you. fool me twice? we'll see, but i think LSU rolls in this one.

24-6 Tigers

"I think of a man, then i take away reason and accountability."

2006-10-06T07:40:00.000-05:00

I don't think it would necessarily be fair to say that I get road rage.

I get petty. I don't suffer fools well.

If you do something stupid, i'll position myself just right to spray your car with washer fluid. Mature, I know.

So I was in a pretty good mood today, until my drive to work.

As I've preached before, I wouldn't call myself a defensive driver. But I'm safe. I always know how fast i'm going and where other cars are on the road. I drive faster than the speed limit habitually, but I've never been pulled over for speeding, much less gotten a speeding ticket.

Over the years, I've compiled a list rules governing the correct way to drive. here are the ones that are important to this story.

1. On an interstate highway, brakes are not for slowing down. they are for not hitting the car in front of you.
2. Unless said car has its emergency lights on, do not slow when you see a police car. if you were speeding, the officer already knows it. going 45 for half a mile will not trick him into thinking you didn't just pass him going 83.
3. if you're not brave enough to speed on your own, don't wait for me to pass you then speed up and follow me.

i stopped in Hammond this morning to get gas. and shortly after i got back on interstate, i got in the left to pass a group of cars. After i got in the left lane, a mini van in front of me also got in the left lane. there were no other cars in the left lane within site.

So, needless to say, i was a little surprised when the van passed the first car in the group and its brake lights came on. i slapped my forehead as the van cautiously passed what looked like a soon-to-be police car.

the entire group of cars to our right were white Crown Victorias. They all had tinted windows and that spotlight cop cars have on the driver's side mirror. There were seven of them in a row. Other than the previous description, there was nothing that would lead a reasonable person to believe that she needed to slow down. (did i just use "she" and "reasonable" in the same sentence?)

None of the cars had permanent license plates.

None of the cars had any sort of police identification anywhere on them.

None of the cars had emergency lights.

The cars were driving 68 miles an hour.

Sorry, but that doesn't exactly scream "speed trap" to me.

So this stupid lady in her minivan is bebopping along at exactly 70 mph, clearly concerned that at any second one of the 7 notpolice cars to her right is going to throw on their notlights and pull her over for notspeeding.

We eventually make our past the intimidating armada of those who are clearly notprotecting and notserving. I mistakenly give the driver of the minivan a little credit when she pulls into the right lane to let me pass. mistakenly.

As i pass her, she speeds up. I get up to about 78. she's right behind me, now going 10 mph faster than she was a tenth of a mile ago.

In short order, it's time to pass another car. I get in the left lane. so does the minivan. I couldn't help myself. After i passed the car I slowed down to 68.

This apparently aggravated the woman driving the minivan, so she got in the right lane to pass me. So i sped up. she gets behind me again in the left lane.

The faster i go, the faster she goes. so i slow down again, but just for a second. i speed up, and i'm going about 78 or 80, and she's behind me flashing her lights at me. yes, two minutes ago, i was behind her patiently while she was going 70 in the passing lane, now she's telling me to get out of her way.

I decide that i'm happy where i am (one of my other cardinal rules of driving: Thou shalt not drive in the left lane when there's room for you in the right one) and let her pass me on the right.

so now i'm in a bad mood, because out there somewhere is somebody cruising along in a minivan who thinks i'm a bad driver and will continue to hit her brakes every time she sees a notpolice car on the road.

Loooooooove is a many splendored thiiiiiiinnng

2006-10-04T10:21:00.000-05:00

He shoots, he sco...oooooooooooh

setting traps out in advance so we can spend the weekend staring in a trance

2006-10-04T08:56:00.000-05:00

for reasons i don't fully understand, i think this is really funny.

it's the guy who played Biff in the back to the future movies.

i'm hungry

2006-10-02T11:06:00.000-05:00

went 4-5 with my picks this weekend. so i still suck at that. overall record 15-17-6.

only got one of my points plays right, now at -1450 for the season.

and i really am hungry.

Heaven, I need a rest, I recognize the voices talking in my head

2006-09-28T09:37:00.001-05:00

Going to be swamped tomorrow, so i thought i'd go ahead and make my "hey, it's your money" college picks today. definitely going with more underdogs than usual.

Auburn -14 South Carolina (tonight)
Missouri -14.5 Colorado
LSU -33 Mississippi State (earlier this week i told myself that i wouldn't be comfortable with a number higher than about 25, but i've talked myself into it)
Wyoming +5 Syracuse
Florida -13.5 Bama
Georgia Tech +9 virgina tech (last-second change of heart)
Houston +16.5 Miami
Kansas State +1.5 Baylor
Stanford +32.5 UCLA

overall record 11-12-6

OK, need to dig out of the hole points wise. time to let this bad boy spiral out of control, addiction-style. whoody woo

total for season: -1000

Plays this week:

500 points LSU
100 points Florida

two team:
100 points LSU, Florida

50 point three team
LSU, Mizzou, Florida

*****

I love me some LSU, but i have never been shy to say that we sure do have some stupid fans. Last week, Charles Scott rushed for more than 100 yards. And last night someone called during Les Miles' show to complain that Alley Broussard and Justin Vincent only got two carries between them against Tulane.

Yes, the same Alley Broussard and Justin Vincent who combined for about 32 yards on 16 carries against Auburn. and the caller was mad because they didn't get the ball more. unbelievable.

Don't let the water wash us away

2006-09-28T08:20:00.000-05:00

When you've got 8 or 10 minutes to spare, turn on your sound and check out the two new galleries Matt has posted on his web site.

both are definite must-sees.

I wanna publish scenes and rage against machines. i wanna pierce my tongue

2006-09-26T13:43:00.000-05:00

i'm miserable, San Diego.

just had a cajun blackened steak (or something like that) sandwich from Subway. i give it a 5 out of 10.

it's gratuitously hot.

i'm of the opinion that it's very hard to overseason something. when in doubt, i say, add more flavor. but this, this is different.

when you bite into it, all you taste is hot. one of those things that makes your nose run, but you're out of napkins because you spilled a piece on your clothes and had to clean it up before you go back to work, so you have to use your hand to wipe the snot off your lip. you know what i mean.

so now i've got 14 pounds of subway in my stomach because i forgot that a 6-inch sub is actually pretty filling so i got a footlong. i just want to curl up under my desk and take a nap.

'Cause Mr. Jones and me...know what it means to miss New Orleans

2006-09-26T09:06:00.000-05:00

Thoughts from the Saints game last night:

I've been to sporting events with a better sports atmosphere (not many, mind you), but i've never been to one with such an overall feeling of excitement, i guess it would be what i'd call the "atmosphere atmosphere." definitely goose-bump inducing at times.

When the Saints blocked the field goal, the upper deck started moving. I mean literally swaying back and forth. It was pretty cool, but maybe more scary/creepy than anything.

Haven't listened to a lot of Green Day stuff since high school/early college, but i can think of several songs that would have been better to play than what they played last night. It's called "When September Ends," i think. sort of slow and repetitive and not really the sort of thing to get people fired up.

Have never listened to much U2 at all, as i have previously noted here. But if their full-length concerts are anything like the song and a half they played last night, i could definitely see myself becoming a fan. Don't know when i'd actually get a chance to see them in concert, but if the opportunity ever presents itself, i'm definitely going for it.

I couldn't catch exactly what he saying, but during the 45-seconds of "Beautiful Day" U2 played, Bono changed the lyrics to refer to new orleans.

I'm now allowed to behave any way i want in public. courtney was constantly laughing at the guy sitting in front of us, and he was doing things that i know for a fact would get her mad if i were doing them. so now i have proof that she enjoys outlandish public behavior. hooray me.

And I turned 21 in prison, doing life without parole. no one could steer me right, but mama tried

2006-09-25T08:15:00.000-05:00

Another rough weekend on the picks.
Record this week: 5-6-1
Overall record: 11-12-6

and to top it off, i played the points picks horribly, hitting on only one of my picks. which means that i have gone broke in only two weeks. but i'm sure to rebound next week.

at slow speed, you'll seem focused

2006-09-22T08:13:00.000-05:00

Welcome to Sports Friday (as opposed to Sports Every Day of the Week like it's seemed to be lately).

If you've been around me for any amount of time, you know how much i hate Tulane. Absolutely can't stand them.

I'm one of those people who rarely, if ever, roots for an underdog. I find it much more enjoyable to watch a good team impose their will on a lesser opponent and systematically dismantle them.

So tomorrow you have a team I hate, Tulane, playing LSU, a team that will most assuredly systematically dismantle them. Sounds like a recipe for a good time to me. But last night I got so mad because I just can't get excited about tomorrow's game.

It's all Les Miles' fault. (Incidentally, I decided that the LSU game plan was the reason they lost Saturday. While the officiating was truly, truly, truly terrible, I decided not to mail the letter to the SEC office. Seemed like a cop-out to me. Excuses, as one high school baseball coach often preached, are for losers.)

LSU is going to beat Tulane and Mississippi State the next two weeks by a combined 98-0 (63-0 and 35-0, respectively) and I can't get excited because against Florida or Tennessee or Arkansas or Alabama, our coaches are going to screw up something and lose a game we should win. (i've spent the last several Fridays making myself delete every "we" reference when I'm talking about LSU, but I can't do it anymore).

so i'm sure it'll change once i get into Tiger Stadium tomorrow, but i can't help but expect to wake up Sunday with the thoughts of something that happened during the game that will continue to reinforce my fears that LSU coaches are incapable of adapting.

DISCLAIMER: defensive and special teams coaches are immune from any coaching criticism in the above paragraphs.

*****

"Hey, It's Your Money" Picks of the Week
Overall record: 6-6-5
Last week: 2-4-4
Point balance: 612
Last week: -388

1.LSU -36 Tulane
2.Notre Dame -3 Mich state
3.USC -22.5 Zona
4.Louisville -14 K-state
5.Minnesota -3 Purdue
6.Mich -13.5 Wisc.
7.West Virgina -19 ECU
8. Iowa State +25 Texas [EDIT: Originally had oklahoma here, but the line shifted a couple of points]
9. UCLA -3 Washington
10. Iowa-20 Illinois
11. Hawaii +14.5 Boise
12. Wyoming -1 Air force

Point Plays:

200 points LSU -36 Tulane
100 points USC -22.5 Zona
100 points West Virgina -19 ECU

2 team parlays
100 points LSU, USC
50 points LSU, West Virginia

3 team
30 points LSU, USC, WVU
30 points LSU, Notre Dame, UCLA

Remaining Balance: 2 points (Yikes, this is could get ugly in a hurry)
Best case scenerio: 1760

I'm in a bed, I'm in a little room, i'm in a building, it's in the middle of this life

2006-09-20T12:32:00.000-05:00

i've been told multiple times by multiple people that my sports writing is the perfect cure for insomnia, so i'll try to avoid straying down the sports path for a while, since it's all i've talked about for the last two weeks or so...

YESTERDAY -- As i pulled into the parking lot at work, my "Hey, man, you need some gas" light came on . Since post-work traffic is unpredictable, i decided to filler-up at lunch so i wouldn't risk getting stuck in traffic and run out of gas.

So i left work at lunch and was driving toward the gas station on a two-lane, one-way street in the left lane. a car in the right lane cut across in front of me -- sans blinker, of course-- and whipped across to the parrallel parking on the left.

As luck would have it, she (you didn't seriously think it was a male driver, did you?) came close enough to hitting me that i had to brake pretty heavily. instead of driving past her, i was able to stop right beside her car. I looked out to my left, made eye contact, and gave her the bird. then i drove off.

It made me pretty happy.

TODAY -- Thump. Thump. Thump.

Why the thumping?

All morning. Thump. Thump. Thump.

I was getting ready to go to work, led by the percussion section coming from the laundry room.

Thump. Thump. Thump.

I got dressed and went through the usual drill of locating the triumverate of necessary pocket-fillers: wallet, keys, phone.

Thump.

I walked in the living room and got my keys and wallet. (Thump.)

Couldn't find my phone. (Thump.)

Looked in the bedroom. (Thump.)

No phone.

Looked in the office. (Thump.)

No phone.

Looked under the couch. (Thump.)

No phone.

Looked under the cushions. (Thump.)

No phone.

Hmmmm....

Thump.

Thump.

Thump.

Walked to the laundry room.

Opened the dryer door.

Dryer stopped.

Thumping stopped.

Found my phone.

yeah, you're waking up one desire and i can't get a line

2006-09-19T11:19:00.000-05:00

Well, last week's picks didn't work out too well. I went 2-4-4, bringing my two week record to 6-6-5 (i think). from the points standpoint, i'm down to 612.

*****

I wrote this a couple of weeks ago:

Play calling: Put LSU's top four receivers against any secondary in the country and somebody will be open. I worry that Miles will be so hell bent on running the ball this year that we don't take advantage of LSU's strength at wideout.

well, i'd say that was certainly the case Saturday, when LSU played with an offensive game plan that was so conservative it was repulsive. Jamarcus Russell was something for 9-11 for 151 yards in the fourth quarter, but for the rest of the game, Les Miles insisted on running tosses with slow tailbacks or running the ball up the middle with Jacob Hester or Justin Vincent. It was infuriating. And even in crunch time, LSU followed a successful pass with two runs up the middle, putting lsu on a third and long after Hester was stopped behind the line.

Miles' answer for this ineptitude? we need to run the ball more.

At his press conference yesterday, he basically said that there was nothing wrong with the play selection and the more trouble we have running the ball, the more we're going to try to run the ball.

The man absolutely refuses to adapt to the talent LSU has on the offensive side of the ball. "Surely," you say, "If he's going to keep running it, he'll put in the younger guys and see if they can do better since they're faster." nope. he also says there's no personnel issues, so our two freshman running backs will stay on the bench.

I have also lumped Jimbo Fisher into the mix with Miles, since i don't know who's calling the plays, it's both of their faults. i just see bad things ahead for the LSU program if the coaches insist on being this stubborn (quickly approaching idiotic).

*****

Speaking of idiotic, i'm still furious about the SEC saying that the officials got the pass interference calls correct. they aren't saying anything about the other 10 plays LSU disagreed with.

i'm actually mailing a letter about the logic behind the announcement to the SEC offices at lunch today. here's an excerpt from the letter:

Both plays involve an instance where the path of the ball was altered by a defender who was not interfering with the receiver. The LSU penalty was allowed because the offending defender was not playing the ball. However, that implies that Auburn defender, who had his left arm wrapped around the receiver’s left leg, his right hand behind the receiver’s right knee and his face planted into the upper part of the back of the receiver’s upper thigh was playing the ball. If you discount the Auburn player making the deflection or the LSU player making the interception, I don’t see anyway you can say that the Auburn player interfered less on the play than the LSU defender did on the other play in question.

That, in turn, leads to the reasoning behind waiving the Auburn penalty off because the pass was uncatchable. By making the statement that both calls are correct, you are essentially saying that the pass Auburn threw was catchable. Which further means that the conference is saying a ball in the possession of an LSU defender who was not the offending player in the pass interference call is more catchable than a ball deflected into the air. That implies that had the LSU defender not made the interception and had instead knocked the ball down or otherwise deflected it, he would have created an uncatchable pass and the interference would have been waived off.

Let me repeat that: The conference found that a ball already in the possession of a another player is more catchable for a receiver being interfered with than a ball that is actually still in the air.

Let me make sure i'm understanding this correctly...

2006-09-18T15:39:00.000-05:00

AP--
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. The Southeastern Conference determined that officials made the right decision in reversing a pass interference call late in the Auburn-LSU game.
SEC Media relations director Charles Bloom says that basically, the call of removing the flag would be correct because the ball was uncatchable after the defender tipped it.

Auburn defensive back Zach Gilbert was flagged for interfering with receiver Early Doucet deep in its own territory in the 7-3 win over No. 6 LSU. The flag was waved off because officials deemed that Eric Brock's tip of the ball made it uncatchable.

Bloom says another controversial fourth-quarter call that went second-ranked Auburn's way was also correct.

LSU's interception on third-and-29 was negated because Daniel Francis was penalized for interference on receiver Courtney Taylor, giving Auburn an automatic first down.

Bloom says that pass was ruled a catchable ball.

so what you're telling me is that when an auburn player goes in front of an lsu receiver being interfered with and deflects the pass, it isn't catchable. but an lsu defender in front of an auburn receiver being interfered actually makes the interception and that pass is MORE catchable? how is that possible? what am i missing here? a ball in the air is less catchable than a ball another player is holding? i must be stupid because that's as assbackwards as it gets.

She gets sad when there's nothing going on here

2006-09-15T07:46:00.000-05:00

Hi, welcome to sports Friday.

Earlier this week, i said this would be a tough week to pick games, but i actually found quite a few games I'd consider playing (if i actually bet). Don't think any of these are a lock, but here are:

GAMES I LIKE

BC -7 over BYU
Ohio State -30 over Cincinatti
Rutgers -16 over Ohio
Boise -7 Wyoming
Notre Dame -6 over Michigan
Arkansas -6 over Vandy
Navy +1 over Stanford
Mississippi State -11 over Tulane (yes, i picked a team that hasn't even scored this season to beat tulane by more than 10 points)
Miami +4 over Louisiville (heard yesterday that the last 5 times, maybe it was 6, that Miami has been an underdog, they've won the game out right)
USC -18 over Nebraska

My record last week: 4-2-1 Season Record : 4-2-1

I thought it would be fun to add a twist to this. Since getting games right only does you any good if you bet them correctly, i thought i'd start using fake betting scenerios to see if my prognosticating would actually make me any money. here's how it works: wrong guesses cost the bet amount plus 10%, right guesses pay even money, two team parlays pay 2.6 to 1 and three teams pay 6 to 1 (found all this out last weekend while tailgating).

I'm going to give myself 1,000 points to use to play the season. let's see how fast i can go broke.

Straight-up bets:

100 points Ark over Vandy
150 points Boise over Wyoming
50 points USC over Nebraska
100 points Ohio State over Natti
50 points Miami over Louisiville
50 points Notre Dame over Michigan

2-team
100 points Rutgers and Boise
100 points Boise and Arkansas
100 points Rutgers and Boston College

3-team
25 points Arkansas, Boise, and Ohio State
50 points Rutgers. Arkansas, Boise

wow, just realized i used most of points already. i should go back and change some, i went into this only planning on betting three or four games. but i think i'll let it ride.

Remaining Balance: 125 points

***

Well, consider me sort of on the West Virginia bandwagon. I've decided that a team from the Big East can be a legitimate contender.

I still think they'll breeze through their joke of schedule, but i also think a lot of it has to do with the fact that they're good. but i'm taking back what i said about them getting slaughtered by a tough opponent in a bowl.

This is a good team (with the best down-field blocking i can remember seeing). Maryland moved the ball on them late, so i think they can be beaten. but i think they'll hang around with anybody.

***

of course the biggest game of the weekend is LSU against Auburn. Last weekend i mentioned that i was worried about how much Jacob Hester was involved in the offense. He proceeded to get 14 touches against Arizona, more than anybody else on the team.

That was the last week Les Miles gets the benefit of the doubt from me. LSU has as good of a WR corps as anybody in the country. I'm going to break something if the fullback/ back-up tailback comes out of the Auburn game as the leading receiver and gets nearly 10 carries out of the backfield.

surely it won't happen this weekend. i hope.

This is a blog about West Texas

2006-09-14T10:38:00.000-05:00

Just wanted to answer the questions Kyle left in the comments section from the post below.

1. I'm at 189 as of this morning. which means in the last month, my half-assed weight-loss effort (with that effort being closer to 1/8-assed lately) has led to a loss of 3/10 of a pound. pretty impressive, if you ask me.

2. I have no idea what i think about the line. i haven't seen enough of LSU to where i can make any sort of predictions based on logic instead of emotion. Last week, I wasn't sure LSU would cover the spread but also told Michael that i wouldn't be surprised if they won by 40.

I'll say this: LSU is good. Before the season, I expected that this would probably be a loss for LSU. After watching LSU play twice, I'm much more confident, but don't know how much to read into it because of the level of their competition.

but if you held a gun to my head, I'd pick LSU to win by 4 to 7 points.

Come on down sing a song for me darlin, i don't want to feel it slip away

2006-09-13T10:36:00.000-05:00

Had a dream last night that i heard a new counting crows song. with their recent studio inactivity and the fact that their last tour didn't play at a venue close enough for me to attend, i've sort of been fiending to hear the new cd that's supposed to be coming out early next year.

here's a funny/sad blog entry by crows' lead man Adam Duritz.

speaking of rock stars, matt has angered Bon Jovi Nation (scroll down one or two entries) by indicating that JBJ was rude to him on a recent visit to new orleans. you'll notice how the loyal minions of JBJ just sort of ignore what matt says in his blog and complain about completely fabricated things.

I checked the lines for this weekend's college football games and this week looks to be even tougher than last. it'll be tough for me to find four or five games i like.

Let your dreams be dreams, all this livin's so much harder than it seems

2006-09-11T09:57:00.000-05:00

Hey everybody. hope you had a good weekend.

thought i'd start off by recapping my picks for the weekend. Technically, my record was 3-2-1, getting iowa and texas tech incorrect and pushing on Oklahoma. But I'm going to award myself a record of 4-2-1. here's why:

I made my picks on a Friday and learned Saturday that Iowa's starting quarterback wasn't going to play. obviously -- to me anyway -- that is a game i would not have picked if i had known drew tate wasn't playing. and since i found out before the iowa game started, i would have been able to withdraw that wager had i been betting.

If you notice in my friday entry, i said something along the lines of "hold a gun to my head and i'd pick ohio state to cover" then tossing out the utah st/ark game as another possibility of the underdog to beat the spread. well, both Ohio State and Utah State beat the spread.

So i'm keeping the iowa loss on my record, but giving myself an additional win for getting both Ohio State and Utah State, even though they weren't technically picks.

*****

Had lots of weird dreams last night.

someone tried to drown me in one of them.

in another, i spent a full day at work thinking it was Monday. But it was actually Tuesday and i had missed all my scheduled interviews.

another had something to do with school and a friend of mine drinking a gatorade type drink out of ziplock bags. and i don't remember if it was the same dream or a different one, but the same friend was a member of a two-person video game-playing team that could beat anyone in a basketball video game.

in another dream, i tried to get my brother to show me how to shoot beavers. i was especially interested in killing the genetically altered beavers with super long teeth.

I don't believe in cards, i don't believe in signs, but i'll be leaving soon, i'm here tonight

2006-09-08T15:54:00.000-05:00

sound on:

Had to be hard to keep hating yourself when these people are so well-behaved

2006-09-08T10:48:00.000-05:00

Welcome to Sports Friday and our first installment of -seth's "Hey, it's your money" picks of the week.

I don't gamble on college football, but not because i don't want to. it's more of a inability to justify putting it higher on the disposable income priority list. that sort of thing happens when you leave school owing more than $30,000 on school loans and car note.

But i do enjoy looking at the lines and seeing what i'd do (and subsequently informing others who I'd bet on). remember, it's your money, but here are

Games I like this week
actually, there aren't any jumping out at me as sure things. so here are the one's i like best (it's just a coincidence that i'm taking the favorite in all of them).

Georgia -3.5 over South Carolina
Texas Tech -7.5 over UTEP
Oklahoma -17 over Washington
Auburn -21 over Miss. State
Rutgers -10.5 over Illinois
Iowa -19.5 over Syracuse

No, sir, I don't like it
Games I wouldn't touch:

Louisville -40.5 over Temple
LSU -16 over Arizona
Texas -3 over Ohio State

If you held a gun to my head and forced me to pick a dog to cover this week I'd go with Ohio State (or maybe Utah State +29 against Arkansas), but i really have no clue how that game's going go. I really think Louisville can cover against Temple, but that is a HUGE number. it's just too big for me to go anywhere near it (if i actually bet). And, if i bet, i would never bet on an LSU game. that whole head v. heart thing. but i don't like this line anyway. If the line was a couple points lower, i would consider playing LSU but the line would have to get significantly higher for me to put anything on Zona.

So, if i bet, this week i wouldn't go much bigger than a three team parlay; probably Georgia, Oklahoma and Rutgers.

*****

Well, LSU kicked off the season with an easy win over ULL last Saturday. I thought the game went about as well as could be expected.

there were really only a couple of things that worried me, but i wouldn't even say I'm that concerned about it.

1. Jacob Hester: Good football player. Contributes every time he gets on the field. The type of guy you want playing for your team. But i would like to see him touch the ball 2 or 3 fewer times a game. LSU has a lot of big play potential. Keep Hester involved in the offense, but he shouldn't be higher than fourth of fifth on the team for the number of touches he gets in a game.

2. Play calling: Put LSU's top four receivers against any secondary in the country and somebody will be open. I worry that Miles will be so hell bent on running the ball this year that we don't take advantage of LSU's strength at wideout. My friend Michael pointed out that the outcome was never in question against ULL so it provided an opportunity to work on running the ball.

That thought lessened my worries, since it's stupid to think that Tigers receivers would have much success against teams who drop 8 men into coverage every play. so list play calling as a low-end doubt for now, but it's something to keep an eye on as the season progresses.

you're one of them fancy lads

2006-09-07T15:08:00.000-05:00

hey everybody. been a few days. not a whole lot to report.

lost my wedding ring in the gulf of mexico this weekend. noticed it was missing right away and courtney's cousin found it. so that was good.

****

former LSU defensive line coach Joe Cullen was arrested for driving naked recently. watching him in pregame warm-ups definitely was a give away that he's a pretty high-strung fellow. i'm just glad that he snapped and drove naked elsewhere instead of dropping trou in Tiger Stadium.

****
and, finally, just because:

eh, woulya like to buy a monkey?

when this little girl came and she sat next to me

2006-09-01T15:29:00.000-05:00

Right around the time of our November wedding, Courtney called the garbage people to set up an account. The previous homeowner's had left us their official company garbage can.

However, when Courtney called them, they informed her that they weren't taking new accounts. So we did what anybody else would do -- we set our garbage can out on the appropriate days and let them pick it up for free while they also collected the trash of our (sucker) neighbors who were paying for their services.

Well, Wednesday, (nine months later) the garbage people collected our neighbor's trash but left our can full. THursday morning, I rolled it back up by our garage intending to leave it out again and see if they'd pick it up Saturday.

I got home yesterday afternoon and they had picked up my trash. And had taken the trash can with them. assholes.

so now i don't have a trash can.

*****

I woke up this morning five minutes before the alarm went off convinced that today was Saturday. it completely ruined my day.

but seeing this made it better. turn on the sound