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

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

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?

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

Hey everybody.

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

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

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

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

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

One last interesting tidbit before I go:

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

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

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

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

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

***

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

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

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

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

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

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

Smoke a cigarette and lie some more

You wore a shirt of violent green, uh huh

I'm wearing camouflage underwear.

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

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

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

and now you know.

*****

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

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

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

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

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

So does anybody have any idea who these people were?

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

Free at last, free at last

well, i did it.

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

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

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

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

so what happens a few minutes ago?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

here's my group:

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

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

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

casting shadows on the winter sky

sometimes things just work out.

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

i was very pleased.

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

another brick, another window frame's confusion

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

boogers.

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

actually, i have nothing to say.

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

or don't.

boogers.

Oh, my

funniest thing ever.

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

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

Welcome to Sports Friday.

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

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

*****

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

Yes, I did.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Hey, did you know Stephen Hawking was British?

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

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

Reminder: don't do it.

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

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

and the kids were playing cricket with no shoes

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

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

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

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

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

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.