Brilliant!

You know those Guinness commercials with the 2 guys that say "Brilliant!" all the time? Yeah, I love those too. Especially the new ones with the limburger cheese hats, haha.

Anyway, I read an article yesterday about this kid in Great Britain who was struggling to find a way to pay for college (and of course, it was 1 month till he was supposed to start, nothing like waiting till the last minute). So, one night, lying awake, trying to think of some way to get the money, he had a stroke of guinness, ooops, genius. "What if I made a web page and sold the individual pixels on it for $1 each (1,000,000 pixels total)?" Now, why would anyone think that? It's silly, right?

Yeah, so silly that after 3 months he's just finished his first term in college with a paltry $936,700 (it was $912,000 when I read the article yesterday so while I was sleeping he made another $24,000) in his bank account. He started by putting up the site (side comment to balderdash: note correct use of site) on a Friday and then spent all weekend trying to convince his friends to tell their friends to find their rich friends to get them to buy squares from him. Minimum purchase was $100 or a 10x10 square (about the size of a pencil eraser). You get your image in that space with a link to your website or whatever. No adult links allowed though (or he would have made $1 million in about 20 minutes).

By Monday he had a friend of a friend of a friend purchase a 20x20 square for $400 and he was on his way. Over the next week and a half he made another $800. Then the press caught wind of what he was doing in the UK and wrote about it. The next day he sold $2,500 and then he was really off. By the time he left for school 3 weeks later he had about $40,000. He's been all over the US doing interviews for tv, radio and newspapers.

And that, my friends, is Brilliant!

Visit the Million Dollar Homepage

Be sure to read his blog, it tells the whole story. I think he said to date that there were 350 or so copycat websites (which is what I thought about doing immediately after reading it).

Have a million dollar weekend all.

It must be the shoes

Last night was my first time in the new bowling shoes with the flames emblazened on them. One key difference in these shoes from other cheapo ones I've had is that they are made just for a right handed bowler. The left shoe is made to slide and the right shoe is not, it has tread on it.
So, my first practice ball, I quickly realized that I usually shuffle my feet on my approach. I realized this because I damn near fell on my face as my right foot stuck on my 2nd step and I stumbled the rest of the way before regaining my balance. Yikes, how the heck am I going to bowl when I've got to change my approach 5 minutes before starting?

I threw another 10 practice shots and found a new way to walk without shuffling my feet. It didn't feel natural but I wasn't falling so I figured that was the way to go. First game I leave a 10 pin, throw 3 strikes in a row and leave a split in the 5th that I missed. Then I proceeded to throw the last 7 strikes for a 254. Ok, that wasn't too bad. 2nd game I struck out in the 10th for a 225. Needed 221 in the 3rd for 700 and when I chopped a spare in the 5th frame (my only open besides the split in the 1st game) it didn't look good, but it came down to the 10th frame. Needed to get the first 2 strikes but left a 10 pin on the first ball. Ended up with 214 for a 693. Not bad for the first time in those shoes, they must be lucky!

We won the first 2 games pretty easily but somehow lost the 3rd. We still went 5-2 and have started the 2nd half at 12-2. I can live with that!

Afterwards we played Euchre in the bar for a little while. I hadn't played that in years. Forgot how much fun it was. KS and I lost the first game but won the 2nd over MC (the cheater who says he never reads my blog) and JD. :)

Have a great Thursday.

Packers could get Bush, but it’s a long shot

From the Green Bay Press-Gazette

Ryan Moede of Algoma, a freshman at the University of Wisconsin-Parkside majoring in sports management, spent hours calculating the Packers’ chances of getting the No. 1 overall pick in April’s draft.
The Houston Texans (2-13) have the worst record in the NFL going into the final week, but the Saints, Jets, 49ers and Packers are 3-12 and have a chance to tie the Texans.
Strength of schedule is used to break ties, with the team having the easiest schedule getting to pick first. According to Moede’s research, seven games must go the Packers’ way in order for them to have a chance at the top pick: Indianapolis over Arizona; New York Jets over Buffalo; Pittsburgh over Detroit; New Orleans over Tampa Bay; Seattle over Green Bay; Houston over San Francisco; St. Louis over Dallas.
The Packers, Texans and 49ers then would finish in a tie for the worst record at 3-13. Opponents of the Packers and Texans would have the same .535 winning percentage, with the 49ers trailing at .539.
A coin flip would determine whether the Packers or Texans get the top pick.

I AM Sean Connery, damnit!

Bond... James Bond.
Cdubya got me a new PS2 game for Christmas, From Russia with Love starring Sean Connery. I've played the last couple Bond games and the previous one had Pierce Brosnan as Bond. I thought EA did an excellent job with that one. Now we go old school with Connery and I'm digging it. It follows the movie fairly well and has all the gadgets (the jet pack is cool). He even has the dorky little sayings that made Bond famous. So far I've gotten through 6 levels, only 66 more to go!

Speaking of Electronic Arts (EA), I read some where that they are having financial troubles. I wonder if it's because most of their games they have to hire either a pro athlete (Tiger Woods, pro baseball players, etc) or now they've taken to hiring Connery, Brosnan and the like to add realism to the games. That can't be cheap and the price of the games haven't gone up.

---

Now that we've officially entered Winter, it's gotten warm. Makes sense, right? I keep feeling like I'm back in Seattle. Cdubya said the same thing. 4 days in a row of drizzle, fog and upper 30's. Supposed to be mid to upper 30's for at least the next 7 days. Goodbye snow.

---

I had to take Sazi (on the right) to the vet last night. She had a big liquid filled sack on her elbow. Doc said it was from falling on it. She does that all the time, not a big surprise there. He drained out 4cc of blood from it. We'll have to watch it for the next week or two. If it gets worse he'll have to put a drain in.
She was such a good girl. I left Delaney at home (man was she upset!) and it was just daddy and Sazi time, she really enjoys the extra attention.


Bowling night tonight! Gotta remember the new shoes...

Peace out

The Camera Incident

Greetings all, hope the holiday was pleasant.

On Christmas day I took Cdubya to her first Packer game. I took my digital camera so we could get some pictures as a reminder, etc. CB was nice enough to take a picture outside Lambeau of us and I took some other pictures from inside during the game. Yesterday I uploaded them to the computer and deleted them off the camera. Then while I was attempting to delete ONE picture I had some how selected ALL the pictures and in one moment all was lost... and no, they didn't go to the recycle bin, they just went bye bye... bummer.

As for the game. It was fun, got to insult tons of Bears fans, got to see Brett throw 4 interceptions, got to see Longwell miss two easy field goals and got to see the Packers lose their 12th game of the season.

Prior to the game we went to Anduzzi's bar for cocktails and lunch. Nice place and they have Guinness on tap so I was instantly a fan. While we were there 4 Mike Ditka look alikes came through. One of them was wearing a coconut bra and grass skirt, ala Chris Farley and the SNL "da Bears" skits.

Highlights of Christmas...

My nephew letting everyone know he got the BIGGEST present out of everyone (the Roboraptor we bought him). That thing was a pain in the ass. Took us about a half hour to get it out of the box and my fingers got sliced up on the plastic packaging. They actually screwed the bottom of it down in the box. It was pretty cool but he didn't really let any of us mess with it. I had the controller for about 10 seconds before he noticed and yanked it away. Ah, 6 year olds, aren't they fun? Makes me want to have 10 of them.

My mom got us this Texas Hold'em electronic game that hooks up to the tv. Gotta try that out, might be fun for our little new years party.

Cdubya got me the Golf Launchpad simulator for my PS2. It's fun but a couple things. First, you need a lot of room to swing a club indoors. Second, it's not all that accurate for putting and chipping. I played it in the living room and was very nervous about swinging a club 100 mph 2 feet from my 55" big screen tv! I can just see the head fly off and smash! There goes the tv...

She also got me these new bowling shoes... can't wait to hear the reaction Wednesday.

Basement update

I've posted some before pictures in my basement finishing blog for those following along.

It's beginning to taste a lot like Christmas

I sure hope it's over soon or I won't be able to button my pants...

I can't resist the cookies, fudge, candy, pies, beer, ham, etc that comes with this time of year and I find myself eating and eating and eating... One of my new year's resolutions (I don't normally do those) will be to knock that off and not be a fatty... more on that when the time is right.

We went to R&R Kelly's last night for dinner. Nice atmosphere but anyone over 40 bring a magnifying glass and a flashlight. I could not read the menu for the life of me. Is it even possible that there is a 4 pt font? Of course, no reading glasses so I had to rely on Cdubya and Dr. Mike to help me read the menu. And that of course, just feeds into his "you're old" comments. Dinner was decent though. And Dr. Mike also popped for the whole thing, very nice of him. Must have gotten a big bonus. I guess that's what going to school till you're 30 gets ya.

We then had a little gift exchange back at their house. Very nice sauces and rubs from William-Sonoma. They do know how we like to eat... :)

I did a lot of wrapping before dinner last night. No matter how much time I take I can't make them look like Cdubya can. I'm happy if the bow doesn't fall off...

---

Taking a page from the Grinder handbook, I've decided to post some charts! :)

One of the most perplexing things about bowling for me this season is my 3rd game average on Wednesdays. I just can't figure out the cause of it. Take a look at my per game average for Wednesday night.

Now look at my per game average on Saturday nights. I have just as much to drink on Saturdays as I do on Wednesdays. CB suggests that he and my teamates on Wednesdays can get into my head and cause me to collapse in the 3rd. That makes no sense only because they try to do that all three games, not just the last one.

Oh well, maybe it's just a coincidence and things will turn around and average out by the end of the season.

This will be my last post before Christmas. Everyone have a safe and memorable holiday.

Round 2 Under way

Last night began the 2nd half of our bowling season. After a miserable first half we were itching to get off to a good start. And we did! We won all 3 games for a 7-0 victory. Neither the first or second games were in doubt but the third was tense. It came down to me of course... I could put the nail in the coffin with a big 10th frame. And knowing that I obviously threw it right through the head pin for a big 5 split (that is the 4-6-7-9-10 for those playing at home). Beautiful... I did manage to pick up four of the five (left the 4 pin). It was then sit and wait for their anchor bowler. He just needed a spare to win. But, he left a baby split (3-10) and only got the 10 pin so we held on to win by 2 pins! Phew... let me off the hook there.

For some reason I just couldn't pick up spares last night. I had a ton of strikes but was 4-9 in spares (3 were splits). In the first game I had a 5-2 in the 2nd frame (big washout) and then struck until the 10th and had a 243. The 2nd game I started strong and then made some spares and finished with a 225. Just needing a 232 for 700 I came out with the first 4 strikes to start the 3rd but then managed to miss a bunch of spares when all of a sudden I couldn't carry anymore. Ended up only shooting a 180 for 648. I was really hoping to back up the 700 I shot Saturday with another... Oh well. At least we won. And I was 5 for 5 in hanging my teamates, won 2 card games and didn't lose beer frame for the 2nd week in a row.

Watched Deal or No Deal when I got home but I can't really remember what happened. I think a woman from Utah won a couple hundred grand but don't remember the exact amount. I enjoyed a few too many Capital Winter Skal's at bowling I guess.

We're going out to R & R Kelly's tonight with some friends for dinner.

Speed Shopping with Beer

4 days till the 25th...

Last night I started doing my shopping for Cdubya. I pretty much knew 80% of what I was getting her and no, a purse was not one of them. I hope she's not too disappointed but there were other things I wanted to get her that weren't on the official list. There's something about finding a gift that they weren't thinking about that they really like. I try to find that one thing each year but it's not easy.

So, I started off my shopping trip by heading to R&R Kelly's in Fitchburg for some free beer. It was high tech happy hour night (excuse for programmers to drink). After polishing off a Capital Winter Skal and a Guinness I headed off for the mall in the proper frame of mind.

First step at the mall was to get some food so I stopped at the Taco Bell for a Chipotle stuffed chicken burrito, mmmm. Then I'm off!

A lovely girl named Amy helped me find everything I needed at William-Sonoma and packed it all away in the back so I could pick it up on my way out. 20 minutes.

Next was a trip to the Boston Store. After begging for someone to help me I got what I needed and was out of there. 20 minutes more.

Then I was off to find a couple special things that I wasn't quite sure about. Headed to Eddie Bauer first. Took a little too long to decide on a couple more items. 30 minutes.

Last step was to Pottery Barn where I know I can always find something she likes. In fact, I think she'd like to live there. I managed to find a couple little things right away and off I went. 15 minutes.

Back to William-Sonoma and I'm out of there. 6 bags in hand, about 90 minutes total, I'm on the way to the car. Home 30 minutes later. Not bad. Just have stocking stuffers left to do. Oh, and wrapping of course. I hate that part, I really suck at it and Cdubya is the queen of wrapping. Luckily 2 of the W-S items were already wrapped! Sweet...

Watched Deal or No Deal again last night after I got home. That show is fun, no wonder it's such a big hit in Europe. The contestant last night passed on $240,000! What a nimrod... He ended up hitting a big number after that and the offer dropped to $189,000, which he took. His greed cost him $51,000. The game is similar to playing Hold'em as you are constantly having to calculate your outs and the odds. The difference is in deciding when the offer is high enough that the odds are no longer worth continuing with.

Deal or No Deal?

Ah, my Green Bay Packers... what can you say? That was horrible. I'm just glad I recognized it early and turned it off at 14-3. We are going to the game against da Bears on Christmas day, I sure hope it's out of their system. Of course they lost Samkon Gado to a torn MCL so we're now down to the team bus driver at RB.

Prior to the game I watched a new game show called "Deal or No Deal", hosted by Howie Mandel. I was skeptical but I really got into it. Here's the premise. There are 26 briefcases held by 26 lovely ladies. Each one has a dollar value in it, ranging from 1 penny to $1 million. The contestant selects one case which is brought down to them (left closed of course). The goal is for that case to have a high dollar amount. But, before you get to that, you need to first pick 6 cases to be opened. Each value in them is crossed off the board. The goal is to eliminate all the low numbers, greatly increasing your odds of having a big $ amount. After the 6 are opened the mystery banker will make you an offer to buy you out, based on the odds of you having a big number. The first offer he made last night was for only $21,000. After the offer you have to say deal or no deal. No deal and you continue on, opening 1 less case the next time. So, she opened 5 cases and the banker makes another offer. It gets pretty stressful as the offers go up and the number of cases dwindle. The contestant messed up by listening to her family (the family is down by them and is consulted all the time). When it was down to 4 cases and there was only 1 that was above the offer of $138,000 (it was $500,000) they told her to do one more and to pick case 8 (cuz 8 is great). She didn't want to do it but gave in. Case 8 contained $500,000 so she was left with 3 cases that contained $50,000, $75 and $500. The offer dropped to $17,000. She said no and got rid of the $75 case. The next offer was $25,000 and she took it. Good move because her case was only $500. Still, I would have never passed up the $138,000. They started another game at the end of the show and that constestant lost a bunch of high values in the first round so his opening offer was only $7,000. Ouch. It's on all week, tune in!

I may miss it though, I haven't done any Christmas shopping for Cdubya yet (though I know exactly what I'm getting). Tonight is the night. Any of you planning to be at the mall stay the hell out of my way!

I Love Christmas Shopping!

Not...

Since Sunday was our get together at my dad's place and we hadn't started shopping yet, we figured Saturday was a good time to go to the mall and other places for shopping. Yeah, brilliant as the Guinness guys say. We only had to stop one time to take a time out after we both lost it a little and there were some harsh words exchanged. Mostly my fault of course...

We got home in time to sit down for 20 minutes before rushing off to bowling. I managed my first 700 series (706) of the year. Blew another chance at a 300 game. Had the first 7 strikes in the 3rd game but couldn't finish it off and ended up with a 268. We lost 4-3 to Grinder's team though... the humiliation is almost more than I can bare.

Sunday we rush up to my dad's for a quick lunch and gift exchange. Checked out the work my brother did on my dad's basement. Very nice. Rushed back home, grabbed my hockey gear and took off again. By the time I got there I was pretty tired. Didn't play overly well but we won 9-0.

Looking at my calendar I see I have 3 meetings covering 6 hours today. Not exactly how I like to start a Monday...

Apprentice Winner Screws Runner Up

Not literally of course, but Trump had every intention of hiring Rebecca after he named Randal as his new Apprentice. That is, until he asked Randal for advice. The selfish bastard said that there should only be one apprentice and that he shouldn't hire her too. Man, the look on her face. You could definitely tell what she was thinking... "you rat bastard sonofabitch, I will kill you in your sleep." So Trump says (paraphrasing here) "oh, I could have been talked into hiring her but since you said no, I won't."

It looked to me from the beginning of the 2 hour show that he intended to hire both of them. It was totally set up the whole way. He even had them pick which job they would want and they picked opposite ones. He was like "oh, that's great, makes it easier." At that point I thought it was a done deal. He would pick Randal and then after the dust settled tell Rebecca that she was hired too. Randal ruined the surprise. Why Trump is listening to him is beyond me... Of course he may end up hiring her anyway, after all the excitement is over. Randal just didn't want to share the limelight with anyone else.

One thing I do not like about the Apprentice, or some other "reality" shows as well, is the constant attempt to make people into enemies. Trump does it all the time. Why is this person bad? Or why is this person worse than you? What stupid thing did they do? He manages to take two people that are very friendly towards each other and respect each other and make them say horrible things about the other. It gets so ugly. That part I do not enjoy. I say, focus on yourself. Why are you great? Why would I hire you? I don't go into a job interview and say shit about the other candidates. Maybe that's something new I could try next time.

I'm about to begin my serious Christmas shopping so I thought I would start with one present for my 2 balding friends first. Merry Christmas boys!

Snow Plows Suck

You work your ass off getting your driveway cleared and it's perfect... and go to bed only to wake up and find the snow plow has come by and deposited 3 feet of snow at the end of your driveway. To make things even sweeter is the snow we had was that wet stuff that packs really tight and weighs a ton! I swear there were boulders in there that weighed 50 lbs. I spent 45 minutes this morning digging it out. Plus you have to get by the mailbox too or you get a nasty note from the mailman. Oh joy...

Last night was position round at bowling. Didn't really mean much to us though. We were in 7th place bowling the 8th place team. We did manage to win 5-2 to cement ourselves in 7th. :)
I had a rough night carrying anything. Lots of 10 pins and 7 pins and just for fun I left two pocket 7-10 splits. Brilliant... Third game I lost it again, 3 splits, a washout and a missed 10 pin and I ended up with a 162. Funny part is Captain Jim had me by 3 pins going into the last game (429-426) so I got him to bet me on series and we both shot 162 so I lost. And I just needed a spare in the 10th to beat him. My 5 count washout and 3 on the 2nd ball just didn't cut it.

Also found out that we are most likely are losing Korey starting in January due to a change in his work schedule. We've struggled at times to get 5 guys who want to show up, this will make it that much worse. I've got a couple guys to call to replace him, we'll see how that goes.

Oh, I'm going to do a basement finishing project so I created another blog that I'll use to track the progress with pictures, etc. You can get to it through a link in my profile or by clicking here.

Amazing Race Finale

Finally. It's over. I no longer have to spend my Tuesdays yelling at the tv screen at the Weavers to shut the fuck up. The Amazing Race Family Edition came to an end last night. The Linz siblings outraced the Bransons to the finish line to capture the $1 million prize. The Weavers came in 3rd but not without a lot of whining first. "It's not faaaaairrrrr." Grrr, I think even the Weaver boy wanted to kill the other 3...

Oh but wait! CBS.com has another challenge to show between the Bransons and the Weavers for a GMC Yukon XL. Let's see who won that one, shall we (playing video now). Well, ok CBS, your video doesn't work. Nice... I don't really care anyway.

On the snow front, the weather people didn't lie this time. We had some good snow to start the day off and it's still coming down hard. 4-7" by the end of the day is the estimate at this point. I'm going to drive Cdubya to work this morning. Despite driving a Yukon the snow scares her. She is from San Diego so she didn't grow up with it (but we have lived here for 7 years now). Many of the smaller schools are closed today. Madison never closes, ever. I just hope the bowling alley stays open for tonight. :)

URGENT - WINTER WEATHER MESSAGE

NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE MILWAUKEE/SULLIVAN WI
1030 AM CST TUE DEC 13 2005

...HEAVY SNOWFALL POTENTIAL ON WEDNESDAY AND WEDNESDAY NIGHT...

.SNOW IS EXPECTED TO OVERSPREAD SOUTH CENTRAL AND SOUTHEASTWISCONSIN WEDNESDAY MORNING. PERIODS OF SNOW WILL CONTINUE INTOWEDNESDAY EVENING BEFORE TAPERING OFF DURING THE NIGHT. THE SNOW IS EXPECTED TO BE HEAVY AT TIMES...POSSIBLY RESULTING IN ACCUMULATIONS GREATER THAN 6 INCHES BY MIDNIGHT WEDNESDAY NIGHT. HENCE A WINTER STORM WATCH IS BEING ISSUED FOR WEDNESDAY AND WEDNESDAY NIGHT FOR ALL OF SOUTH CENTRAL AND SOUTHEAST WISCONSIN.

A LOW PRESSURE SYSTEM IS EXPECTED TO MOVE INTO THE PLAINS TODAY. INCREASING SOUTHERLY WINDS AHEAD OF THIS SYSTEM WILL PULL DEEPER MOISTURE FROM THE GULF NORTHWARD INTO THE UPPER MIDWEST TONIGHT
AND WEDNESDAY. TEMPERATURES WILL REMAIN COLD ENOUGH TO PRODUCE MAINLY SNOW ACROSS SOUTH CENTRAL AND SOUTHEAST WISCONSIN. THE LOW PRESSURE SYSTEM IS EXPECTED TO SLOW DOWN AND DEEPEN AS IT MOVES
INTO WISCONSIN FROM MINNESOTA WEDNESDAY NIGHT AND THURSDAY.

ALL INTERESTS SHOULD MONITOR THE LATEST FORECASTS AND STATEMENTS CONCERNING THIS DEVELOPING WINTER WEATHER SITUATION. MARQUETTE-GREEN LAKE-FOND DU LAC-SHEBOYGAN-SAUK-COLUMBIA-DODGE-WASHINGTON-OZAUKEE-IOWA-DANE-JEFFERSON-WAUKESHA-MILWAUKEE-LAFAYETTE-GREEN-ROCK-WALWORTH-RACINE-KENOSHA-INCLUDING THE CITIES OF...MONTELLO...BERLIN...FOND DU LAC...SHEBOYGAN...BARABOO...PORTAGE...WISCONSIN DELLS...BEAVER DAM...WEST BEND...PORT WASHINGTON...DODGEVILLE...MADISON...JEFFERSON...LAKE MILLS...WAUKESHA...BROOKFIELD...MILWAUKEE...DARLINGTON...MONROE... JANESVILLE...BELOIT...ELKHORN...LAKE GENEVA...RACINE...KENOSHA

1030 AM CST TUE DEC 13 2005
...WINTER STORM WATCH IN EFFECT FROM WEDNESDAY MORNING THROUGH LATE WEDNESDAY NIGHT...

THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE IN MILWAUKEE HAS ISSUED A WINTER STORM WATCH...WHICH IS IN EFFECT WEDNESDAY AND WEDNESDAY NIGHT. SNOW IS EXPECTED TO OVERSPREAD SOUTH CENTRAL AND SOUTHEAST
WISCONSIN WEDNESDAY MORNING...AND CONTINUE INTO WEDNESDAY EVENING BEFORE BEGINNING TO TAPER OFF. SNOWFALL OF 4 TO 6 INCHES IS LIKELY...WITH THE POTENTIAL FOR GREATER THAN 6 INCHES OF SNOWFALL.

CITIES INCLUDED IN THE WATCH ARE MILWAUKEE...MADISON...JANESVILLE...FOND DU LAC...KENOSHA AND THE WISCONSIN DELLS.

A WINTER STORM WATCH IS ISSUED WHEN HEAVY SNOW...SLEET...OR FREEZING RAIN IS EXPECTED TO ACCUMULATE TO LEVELS THAT WILL CAUSE MAJOR IMPACTS TO COMMERCE AND SOCIETY. CONTINUE TO MONITOR THE
LATEST FORECASTS FOR UPDATES AND POSSIBLE WARNINGS. TRAVEL CONDITIONS ARE EXPECTED TO RAPIDLY DETERIORATE DURING THE DAY WEDNESDAY.

Can Static Electricity Blow up your House?

I'm not even sure why I'm posting today. That was about as boring a Monday night as you can get. I got a hair cut, ordered Glass Nickle pizza and tried to watch Shark Tale. Fell asleep about 9 in the middle of it.

My house is so dry that I keep shocking the dogs when I try to pet them. Can static electricity build up enough to blow up your house? Good thing we have 2 giant gas lines running at the back of our property. Boom booms are so pretty...

I've got this little portable humidifier that I filled up and turned on before I left this morning. I doubt it's going to help at all. My brother has Aprilaire in his place. I wonder how hard that is to hook up. I'll have to do some research today on that.

Today begins advance planning for tomorrow's blizzard. The snow is supposed to start some time in the early morning hours tomorrow and snow on into Thursday. I'm hearing 4-7" from most of the forecasters. This is going to be one long winter...

I see the Badger hoopsters beat UNC Wilmington on a 3 pointer at the buzzer by Chris Rock, er, Kameron Taylor. He's off to a really good start this season. It wasn't on tv. :(

Cdubya gave me some Christmas (yes, Christmas, not "Holiday") ideas yesterday. One of them was a purse for $210. She has a serious handbag issue. She already has about a dozen, most of them costing between $200 and $300. Does she really need another? I just can't see buying it but they make her so happy (for about 5 minutes till she sees another one). I have to physically redirect her around the purse sections of stores so she won't be sucked in. Then every time we go out some place and I ask her if she has something (checkbook, cell phone), she answers that she didn't bring her purse! What the fuck people...

Happy Tuesday...

Who needs Bush?

The Packers are killing me... when it finally is looking like they might have an inside track to Reggie Bush after the Jets manage to win a game (granted, Houston is better at figuring out how to lose a close game), the Pack manages to beat Detroit behind the 170 something yards of rookie Samkon Gado. Perhaps they don't need Bush after all.

Spent Saturday night in Kohler at the Inn on Woodlake. Nothing really special about that hotel but it's the only one other than the American Club. We had lunch at a little italian bistro and then drove out to see Whistling Straits. Cdubya was quite impressed with the buildings and the amount of hills that they built. Driving out to it is completely flat farmland all around. Quite a shock to find all the hills when you get to the course. The buildings definitely give it that Scottish feel. The best part is she's all over letting me go there and play now! We also visited Blackwolf Run and while nice, just isn't the same feel. After doing some shopping we had dinner at the Wisconsin Room at the American Club. One word describes the American Club... class. We were greated at the front door by the bellman who asked if we needed assistance. I told him why we were there and he said "follow me, sir" and led us through the hotel all the way back to the restaurant. I kept waiting for him to point me in the right direction but he took us all the way there, then took our coats, asked if we would like cocktails and told us to go ahead and have a seat anywhere (they have a huge waiting area with sofa's, chairs, shelves of books, windows looking out to the courtyard, etc). He then checked us in at the restaurant and had a waitress over to see us immediately. Dinner at the Wisconsin Room can also be described in one word... slow. It took us 2 hours. Most of that just waiting for the waitress to come around. She was mostly non-existent to us. The food was good but I grew very frustrated with the lack of service.

I had a hockey game after we got home yesterday and we won again. This time 5-3. I managed a goal and an assist while playing defense. Fairly good game in between coughing fits. Still haven't gotten rid of that cold yet.

Warning: Survivor spoiler ahead if you haven't watched it yet.

We had tivo'd Survivor so we started it around 8 after I got home and showered. Rafe won the first immunity challenge in a very close race with Steph and Danni. In a surprise move they voted out Lydia who was no threat to any of them. Personally, I would have voted out Danni, but Rafe had an alliance with her to get her to the final 3. If I'm Rafe though, I get rid of her since he would win easily against either Steph or Lydia in the final 2. This would be his biggest mistake and cost him the million bucks.

The final challenge is, as usual, an endurance special. They had to stand on unstable platforms hanging on to ropes. After an hour they had to let go of one of the two ropes. I didn't think this would throw them but first Steph, then Danni, then Rafe all lost their balance and were dangling from their ropes trying not to touch the ground. They all managed to hang on and balance themselves with their backs against a post and their feet on the platform. First to go out was Rafe when he had a mental lapse and touched his hand to the post (after Jeff told them they could not do that). Steph held on as long as she could but Danni's height made it so much easier for her to keep balanced. Danni won immunity and went against Rafe (after he told her it was ok to do that... dufus) and picked Steph to go with her to the final 2. Steph had no chance to win as she'd already alienated over half the jury. Danni won the million easily (though I never did see a final vote total as she got her 4th after the 5th vote was read, but I think it was probably 5-2 with Rafe and Lydia voting for Stephanie).

Oh, I played in a 3 table hold 'em tournament Friday afternoon ($2 buy in). Made it to the final table and was in the top 5 of chip leaders for almost the entire time but made one mistake getting suckered into a bet I didn't want to make and ended up getting short stacked. I tried to make a stand but lost and ended up 9th out of 30. I was upset about that one hand getting to me because I had been so patient the entire time and really was playing a very smart game. I went in big on 3 hands and won all 3 and then sat back to let the others knock each other off. I just had a mental lapse and it cost me.

Oh well, have a great week.

Curse of the Car

I thought I'd seen everything there was to see in Survivor, until last night.

In perhaps the dumbest Survivor move ever, Cindy decides that a $25,000 car is worth more than $1 million. See, she wins an award challenge which is a Pontiac Torrent. Ooh, yay, never had a new car before, etc... But, no one, not a single person, who has won a car, has ever won Survivor. Not in 10 years. Does this bother her? No.... of course not, she's beaten the odds, whatever the hell that means.

Jeff gives her a chance to get out of it, a chance I would have jumped on in about a half second. You can give up the car you won and give the other remaining 4 people each their own car. Now, how stupid do you have to be to know that if you decide to keep the car and not give the other 4 a car, that you WILL be going home?!?!?! I don't care how much they say, "oh, you made the right choice, that's what I would have done", inside they are thinking "you little bitch, how could you screw us like that".

So, fittingly, she doesn't win the immunity challenge (a sobbing Steph wins that, give me a freakin' break), so she gets sent home. DUH! Didn't see that coming? And what was with Judd doing the fist pump when she got voted out? She was the only person that DIDN'T vote for him last time. What a dumbass...

I find it amazing how stupid people really are. Are we regressing in human intellect? Is TV causing us to become idiots? Or is there some other cause? Too much pollution? Something poisoning our food supply? Every day I see something that makes me think "good god, are you really that stupid?" Makes me want to move to a deserted island with Ginger and Mary Ann...

In other news, it snowed yesterday. About 3" worth. I'll be heading home at lunch today (my half day) to start shoveling. At least it has warmed up into double digits! We are going to Kohler for an overnight getaway tomorrow.

See you on Monday, have a not dumb weekend!

Bowling frustration

Bowling is continuing to be a source of frustration for all of us. Just when it looks like we've turned the corner, we regress and get our asses handed to us. We won the first game and came unglued the second game, losing by 154 pins. Lost the third as well to end up 2-5 on the night. On a positive note I did have my most consistent night, shooting 645 with games of 215, 219 and 211, grinding the Grinder into pulp with a 155 pin thumping. I finally didn't miss any spares and only had one open which was a giant split. Of course, I lost beer frame in the first game, which was the 10th week out of 12 that I have lost a beer frame. It's getting ridiculous now. I've lost the most by far despite having the highest average on the team. Guess I'm just a big choker. I did win 2 card games to take over the lead in that category.

Watched Alias when I got home. Julian Sark is back but seems much less sinister now. The previews for next week left me confused. They said Michael Vaughn is back. How can he be back? We watched him take about 15 bullets in the chest, die, and get buried. Does he come back as a zombie? Is it just a dream? Maybe Jennifer Garner realized that losing him from the show is what is getting them cancelled and she's desparate to try to get the show back.

Tonight is the last regular Survivor prior to Sunday's finale! My pick to win is Rafe. What about you?

There are convicted sex offenders in your neighborhood!

Want to know where those child molestors and rapists are in your neighborhood? Wisconsin is now one of the states that will publish the addresses of these convicted mo fo's. I've got 2 within a half mile of my house.
Click here to see for yourself. Thanks to Gerks for that one.

Boston Legal was pretty funny last night. I'm not sure which part was funnier though, the chopping off of the priests fingers with an axe or the shooting of the homeless guy in the forehead with a paintball gun. Shatner is classic... then he goes on Larry King to pontificate about how the poor are the cause of all the problems in this country and they should just get off their fat asses and get a job. I loved it...

Watched March of the Penguins yesterday. Those little guys are amazing creatures. How they survive temps of -80 (yes, minus 80) with 100 mph winds is just incredible. And the little baby ones are so cute, you just want to squeeeeeeeze them.... haha. I highly recommend this for everyone. Be warned, like any nature documentary, not everything is happy, some of them don't survive.

Pity for Philly

Day 6 of this damn cold. I took Nyquil last night at 9:45, still awake at 10:45. I thought that stuff was supposed to knock you out? Maybe I need a double dose. Woke up at 3am but was able to get back to sleep. Made it the whole night without coughing but man, when I got up I coughed for a hour straight. Still coughing now. I hate this shit...

We're supposed to go to Kohler this weekend but we may not go if I'm still feeling bad. I have to decide tomorrow because of the 72 hour cancellation policy.

Is it possible for a Packer fan to feel pity for another team's fans this year? That's the way I feel for the Eagles fans. How could they do that on the night they honor Reggie White? That's just wrong and they should all be ashamed of themselves.

Speaking of the Packers, one of my bald friends came through with some tickets for the Christmas day game against the Bears. Probably one of the easiest tickets to get in the history of Packer football considering the way this season has gone. But, Cdubya has never been to Lambeau and I've been promising her a trip. She wants to catch Donald Driver and bring him home but he would have to jump pretty damn high to reach our seats. I don't know where he'd sleep anyway...

I found a cool Christmas present for my brand new niece at the Boston Store. It's a rocking horse but not just any rocking horse. You press on the ears and it makes galloping noises, whinnies, nods his head and wags it's tail. Pretty cool. Another little girl was there and she loved them. On sale for $75. It'll be awhile before she can use it but that should be ok, she can't really do anything at this point, she's new!

Freedom of speech?

Not in Madison Wisconsin evidently. Kewlhand's Fuck Madison blog has been taken down after he was threatened with legal action from our "liberal" city. I guess it's only ok to speak your mind if it has to do with something they deem ok to talk about, like gay rights or smoking in bars.

I Never Get Sick

Famous last words, told to a couple friends Thursday around noon. By 3:00 I was home sacked out on the couch unable to swallow. By Friday morning it felt like I had attempted to swallow a bunch of rusty nails and I don't mean the drink. Saturday was still terrible only now I've added a cough to it. Sunday the soar throat was gone but now I couldn't breathe. How fun. I gotta quit saying things like that. I'm a firm believer in the self inflicted jinx and I did it to myself.

Still had to bowl Saturday night and did ok, shooting a 640 (218, 229, 193). Kind of ran out of gas and missed a spare the 3rd game. I typically bowl better when I'm sick, I think it helps me slow down.

Sunday I debated all day about playing hockey. I just HATE missing a game and since I was not technically dead I figured I could at least show up. Captain Bill moved me to forward instead of D so I would get a little more rest time and that helped. I was able to play a decent game and we won 6-2.

Let's see, lots of catching up to do. Starting with Survivor. Finally, Judd gets his ass handed to him and got sent home. What an ignorant piece of shit this guy is. And he's calling everyone scumbags for voting him out, what a loser. Go back to opening doors, what a tough skill that must have been to acquire. I can see it taking a month to train him whether the door was a push or pull open type.

On to the weekend where the hockey Badgers took one more step towards a national championship by visiting the Gophers in Minneapolis and sweeping them by 4-3 and 4-0 scores. They had not won a game up there since Feb, 2000, almost 6 years. The only downside was that the 3 goals they gave up Friday was the only time they've given up more than 2 this year.

The Packers... oh good god, why do I keep watching?!?!?! At least this time I only watched the 4th quarter and then actually switched to the Bengals/Steelers game to watch the end of that instead. I'm learning. Now, if only the Texans would quit fucking up and win a couple games. They've thrown away the last 2 when they should have won.

Well, back to work and trying to figure out what I was working on Thursday...
Have a great week.

Opportunity Lost

My bowling struggles continue as once again I was under average and it's slipping steadily away from the 200 line. I don't really get it but I'm still trying. I cost my team a win in the 10th frame of the first game. Needing 2 strikes I got 1 and an 8 count and we lost by 7. We did rebound to win the next two games easily. Fortunately my teamates all bowled over average, lead by the Grinder with a 630 something. Of course, the one time he makes the paper somehow there were no scores listed for our lanes. Haha.

Before bowling I watched The War at Home which I am really loving. It's on Sunday nights between Simpsons and Family Guy and stars Michael Rappaport. This week's episode was all about how parents can't do anything to their kids these days, there's no fear of getting your ass whipped if you screw up. After his kids were blatantly disobeying him, he finally put his foot down and announced that any more disobedience would result in a spanking! Now, his kids are like 12, 15 and 16, a little big for a spanking but he was just trying to scare them. It worked until his 15 year old son Larry broke his putter playing gladiator and his other 2 kids basically demanded that he be spanked or they would know he was bluffing all along. He ends up having to spank Larry, who then packs up his things and moves to his gay friends house (somehow he doesn't know he's gay). Of course, after that child services shows up and wants to know why he's beating his kids. It was pretty funny and right on about the differences between when we were kids and kids today. That fear of an ass beating is gone and with it some level of who's in charge. All my dad had to do was start to take off his belt and I knew I better straighten up. He never actually hit me with it but the fear was there. I say bring back the fear!

When I got home we watched Lost on Tivo. Wow, that was an awesome episode. If you haven't watched it yet, stop reading here unless you want to know what happened.

First, we learn that Kate killed her father, only it's more complicated than that. She learns that who she thought was her real father was not. Her mom divorced him when she was 4 and married her real father, who was a no good, evil bastard who beat her mom. Kate just couldn't take it any more, she said she couldn't live with having part of him within her. So, she created a gas leak and one night when he came home drunk and her mom was out, she blew up the house. She was caught after her mom gave her up but she escaped after a car crash. We don't really know what happened after that yet. She did see a black horse on the island, but I'm not sure what that means and neither does she.

In the mean time they found out that the computer is not to be used for anything other than inputting the numbers and hitting execute and is not to be used for trying to communicate with anyone else, which seems weird. Michael was messing around with the computers when suddenly he hears a beeping from the terminal. He looks at it and the word "Hello?" is there with a blinking cursor. Normally they cannot type until the 4 minute alarm goes off but he is able to type and replies with his own "Hello?". The response is immediate "who is this?". When he responds with "Michael", the reply is simply "Dad?" and the show ends! Is it really Walt on the other side? And where is he? The others had him but he's been seen in the forest too. What the hell is going on???? I can't wait for next week!

Have a great Thursday, it's Survivor day!

Impromptu Laptop Shutdown

So I'm sitting in my favorite chair watching the Amazing Race with my laptop doing some work. I'm watching the battery power indicator and it shows me I still have an hour and 14 minutes available so I'm plugging away (working on a new application for email, more on that some other time) and 5 minutes later it just shuts off. No warning, nothing... Luckily I had everything saved but how is that helpful? Yeah, it's great that I can work in the living room but what the fuck... I can't even start the thing on battery power any more, it has to be plugged in and started then I can unplug it. It's starting to get on my nerves. I'm thinking that I'd like an Apple iBook instead. Anyone have one? Know someone who does? I'd love to hear about it. In the mean time I guess I'll go work in my office instead...

Speaking of the Amazing Race, for the second week in a row no one was eliminated! It's starting to get on my nerves. I want the Weavers gone, now! They are SOOO annoying. I wish the season was over already and I hope they never do a family one again. I've never seen so many disfunctional families that just scream at each other. And people wonder why the holidays are stressful. It's because families are nuts and shouldn't be in the same room together for more than 5 minutes. I'm starting to think that it would be more fun to spend the holidays with your friends and forget about the family crap. Not that there's anything wrong with MY family of course. :)

On the sports front, the Badger men's hoop team lost a nailbiter to Wake Forest in the Big 10/ACC challenge. The Big 10 never does well in this. Illinois did beat UNC in a rematch of the championship game from last season but neither team is the same, both losing many key players. Purdue set a dubious record by losing by 40 to Florida State. First year without Gene Keady could be a long one for the Boilermakers.

Media Merging

Has television started to merge with the internet more? Are we on the path that will merge these technologies together into a more interactive experience?

It started with show recaps on the internet and went to being able to view previews for the next week. Then some shows started to blend in more "behind the scenes" footage and maybe interviews with the actors or contestants.

Recently I found an entire episode of Threshold online at CBS.com to view for free. Apple announced the sale of tv shows for the new iPod. Last weeks episode of CSI Miami had a secret revealed only online.

It appears to me that the networks are trying to find a way to draw the viewers in deeper into the show, not just when they are watching but in other ways as well. Where is this going to lead us? Microsoft is already pushing the Media Center operating system and Sony has created a Vaio that has like 8 tv tuners built in. Won't be long before your entertainment system does not require a separate vcr, tivo, dvd player and recorder but will instead those will be replaced by a single pc that has all those capabilities. You can do it now but there are so many issues with video formats, etc that it takes a guy from the Geek Squad days to set you up.

For now? Keep watching the network websites for more interesting things to come and you'll have to settle for separate boxes to handle everything. For me, I'm looking for the right price on a Directv HD Tivo box. They've come from $1,000 to $600 in the last 6 months and now they're offering a $200 rebate. It's getting closer. I'm waiting for a total price below $400.

By the way, I have finally updated my DVD collection online. Click the link over on the right to view.

Post Turkey Day Syndrome

Ever notice how hard it is to get going again after a 4 day weekend? I'm in a fog...

Lots to cover today as I haven't blogged since Wednesday.
Firstly, the name change. I guess I just got bored with the stupid Random Spewings thing and the direction it has taken isn't where it started, so we have a new name.

Thanksgiving was pretty uneventful. Family came over to our place. We did the food and football thing as usual. Afterwards we made up plates for my sister and brother-in-law and took them over along with a pumpkin pie and a couple bottles of Leinie's Apple Spice beer. They just brought their daughter home from the hospital after 2 months (she was premature) and they couldn't come over.

Friday was interesting... started the day with my neighbor and I hitting some stores and having breakfast. I'm not sure if that makes us women or not... I picked up some presents for my nephew and mom and a couple goodies for myself.

When I got home I noticed a package from Fed Ex at the front door. It was the new controller card for my garage door opener! Ok, now I can get to work and get the remotes working and all will be good. I move the cars out, grab the ladder and proceed to take the outer cover off the opener. I set it on top of the ladder but then realized the controller card was on the opposite side. Down the ladder I go and I start dragging it to the other side when I realize that the cover is probably not going to just stay right there nicely. I look up to see how it's doing and it decided at that precise moment to perform a kamikaze attack on me. Damn thing hit me right in the mouth. Staggered like a punch drunk heavyweight, I drop to a knee, swearing like a sailor (side question: do sailors really swear that much?). I'm checking my teeth and they all seem to be there and I think I'm all good. I look at Cdubya and ask if I'm bleeding at all. She says "uh, yeah." At that point I can feel a warm liquid running down my upper lip. Taking a look in the mirror I can see that my moustache is a fairly dark maroon color it normally isn't... Ok, it's just a small cut, I'll live. I hold a tissue to it to try to stop the bleeding and Cdubya brings me a paper towell and some ice. After 5 minutes or so the bleeding has stopped. I clean it up best I can and I'm thinking ok, back to work. Looking in the mirror I decide to smile a little to check my teeth again and my stomach does a flip flop. The "little" cut is not so little. It's very deep and extends from my nose to my lip. At that point I utter a little "uhhhhhh" and tell Cdubya I better call Dr. Mike (my friend that lives a couple houses over). He's been up all night at the hospital and then our little shopping trip and breakfast, I'm hoping he's still awake. He is, I go over and he says I need to get stitches. So, I spend the next two hours at urgent care where this friendly old doctor with the longest eyebrows I've ever seen gives me 3 stitches. You can't really tell they're there because of the stache. They come out tomorrow.

As for the garage door opener, I went back to work when I got home. Pulled the card out and took it inside where I discovered that Genie had sent me the wrong card. Pissed off I put the old card back in, tightened everything that could be tightened and just for shits and giggles I tried programming the remote again. And wouldn't you know it, it worked! I did the other one, then put the cover back on. They both still worked. I programmed my car, then Cdubya's, then the keypad. Everything worked! And still does... go figure.

Saturday I played in Grinder's poker tourney. I was a little miffed that it turned out to be a limit tournament when it was supposed to be no limit. I'm not a good limit player and love the aggressive nature of a NL tourney. I took down a big pot the very first hand with 3 8's but it just dwindled away. Took 3 bad beats, twice losing good hands to river flushes and once to a river inside straight. Pretty depressing. I finished 7th out of 9 players. Grinder went out right after me despite never playing a hand. :)

In football, the Packers moved one step closer to obtaining that first round pick. Unfortunately, Houston blew a huge lead and lost to St. Louis so they still are a game worse than GB.

And our hockey team actually looked worse than the Packers. We lost 9-2. It got really ugly as two of our players got upset and took stupid penalties then quit and left. It's just a game, amazing how quickly people forget that. The other team had not won a game yet so they were given a new player to help. Well, that guy turned out to have played college hockey at Minnesota State Mankato (same conference Wisconsin is in). And it showed, he was a maniac. We're an intermediate league, he has no business there. Oh well...

Have a good week.

Xmas Gift Ideas

Just in time for Black Friday shopping, here's what you've been waiting for, what to get me for Christmas. :)

Golf launchpad simulator
This ultra cool device connects to your pc or PS2 and allows you to play Tiger Woods Golf or Links using your own clubs. You can play any course that you have, hitting every club in your bag, from your Big Bertha driver to sinking knee buckling 5 foot putts. 2 versions available. For $199 you get the PS2 version and you have to have your own copy of Tiger Woods golf. For $249 you get the PC/Mac version and includes a copy of Tiger Woods golf from EA Sports. With that version you can also use Links instead of TW.

RadarGolf System
From the folks at Sharper Image comes this gift for the golfer that's constantly losing his balls... The RadarGolf system consists of golf balls that have little microchips imbedded in them and a radar device that will help you find them. Of course, it's ridiculously expensive, even on sale at $279.96 but if you got the money... Not sure how good the balls are either. But technically you shouldn't have to buy too many. Of course, I wouldn't use them when hitting over water as the radar isn't going to help you much if you dunk one in the pond.

Turbo-Groomer 5.0
Once more from our friends at the Sharper Image comes this little device for the guy with a few too many wild nose hairs... even has a headlight so you can trim them up in the dark I guess. This baby can do it all, soon you'll be as shiny as a dutch school boy...




iPod Nano
Everyone needs an iPod and this one is ultra cool. I have the Mini and I thought that was small till I laid eyes on the Nano. At $199 for 2 GB or $249 for 4 GB there's one for everyone. Comes in white or black.

Logitech Cordless Keyboard and Mouse
Tired of all those cords running wild? Unplug with this cordless keyboard and mouse combo from Logitech. It's normally $70 but Friday it will be $20 at CompUSA.



That should be enough to give you some ideas of what to get or what to ask for. Enjoy!

Reggie Bush Lottery

Trying to look on the bright side of the latest Packer debacle, I figured I would examine what it's going to take for them to get the first pick in the draft and the rights to Reggie Bush out of USC (whom I think will be the first pick).
Currently, the Packers are 2-8. That puts them tied with New Orleans, San Francisco, Tennessee and the NY Jets and 1 game ahead of Houston who is 1-9.

Let's look first at the Packers remaining schedule and figure out how they will finish. Their next 2 games are at Philly and at the Bears. Obvious losses. Then home against Detroit, another loss. Then at Baltimore. They could win that one. Then 2 more at home, against the Bears again and the Seahawks looking for revenge. I put them at a 3-13 finish. That's prime Reggie Bush land there.

Let's look at Houston next. Now, obviously the Packers need to have the worst record so we're going to need Houston to win at least 2 more games to finish at 3-13 as well. Looking at their schedule they could easily win a few more. They have St. Louis, Arizona and Jacksonville at home and are at Baltimore, Tennessee and San Fran. Now, let's assume they beat San Fran and St. Louis. That puts them at 3-13.

New Orleans, NY, Tennessee and San Fran will need to win 1 more game each to get to the 3-13 category. Let's assume, for the sake of argument, that all 5 teams finish at 3-13. Ooh, who gets first pick? It must be some complicated set of procedures for determining it, right? Well, sort of, only it's not what you would think and it's not the same as the procedure for determining playoff seeding.

Here's how it goes.
1) Strength of Schedule
2) Conference Tie breaker, which is best conference schedule.
3) Coin toss

What? Coin toss? You're leaving the future of a franchise up to which way George Washington's face lands? Uh, yep, it could happen.

Let's look closer at strength of schedule.
Through 10 games:
Packers' Opponents: 87-73
New Orleans' Opponents: 82-78
San Fran's Opponents: 85-75
NY Jets' Opponents: 82-78
Tennessee's Opponents: 79-81
Houston's Opponents: 86-74

Ok, what does that mean for the draft? What I can't find is whether the lowest strength of schedule gets the first pick or the highest. To me, it would be the lowest because you managed to have the worst record with the easiest schedule. In that scenario, Tennessee would draft first and the Packers would have the 6th pick.
But, what if it's not? What if they deem hardest schedule as the criteria? Then the Packers would manage to get first pick!
What if they tied with someon for hardest schedule and it went to conference record?
Here are the current conference records for each team:
Packers: 2-5 with 5 conference games left. Probably finish 2-10.
New Orleans: 1-6 with 5 conference games left. Probably finish 1-11.
San Fran: 2-7 with 3 conference games left. Probably finish 3-9.
NY Jets: 1-6 with 5 conference games left. Probably finish 1-11.
Tennessee: 2-6 with 4 conference games left. Probably finish 4-8.
Houston: 1-8 with 3 conference games left. Probably finish 1-11.

As you can see, it's really up in the air. The Pack has a shot at Bush but so do many other teams. Tune in weekly to see who is getting worse and who is winning themselves out of contention!

The Fat Lady is Kickin' out the Jams

Can we finally just say the Packers season is officially over? Last night's game against the Vikings looked earily similar to the last time they met. Packers dominate much of the first half and lead at the break. 2 different teams show up in the 2nd half and the Packers blow the lead and lose on a last second field goal. They sure know how to keep it close and yet still manage to lose... I believe that's their 5th loss of 3 points or less. Amazing.

I read that thousands of pimply faced college freshmen lined up for more than 24 hours just to try to give the king of the losers, Bill Gates, $300 to $400 for a new XBox 360. Maybe they should spend what little money they have on acne treatments and clothes. I can guarantee that they are not going to get laid by an Xbox... although, I'm sure Bill will be working on that soon.
Personally, I have a PS2... :)

Let's see... Badger news...
Hockey team still ranked number 2 after a weekend sweep of Minn State Mankato.
Basketball team won some Virgin Islands tournament against 3 division 8 schools... and barely won the last 2 games. I don't take that as a good sign.
And the men's cross country team won the national championship yesterday. Congrats!

Coming tomorrow, Christmas gift ideas! Ok, it's mostly stuff I want but you might want them too.

Harry Potter and the Garage Door Opener of Fire

Good Monday morning...

Anyone get out to see Harry Potter this weekend? We attempted to go to the 3rd show on Saturday (12:15) but it sold out while we were in line. We bought tickets for the 11:15 Sunday show and went back then. It was great. Of course, there were things in the book not mentioned or glossed over in the movie but it was a huge book and the movie was 2 1/2 hours already. I can live with that. I thought the special effects were excellent, didn't look super fake like some have in the past. There was quite a bit of humor in this one as well. I give it 3 1/2 stars.

So, Saturday, after not being able to see the movie I started working on the new garage door opener. I started around 1:30, tearing down the old one, putting together the new one, running the wiring, etc. Around 5:00 I had to quit, but I had everything up and the wiring tacked up. Sunday, after the movie and lunch, I was able to get everything connected and working properly. Unfortunately, the damn remotes won't work! The instructions for programming them couldn't be simpler but they just won't work. Neither remote nor the wireless keypad work. I called my dad, who is an electrician and worked for Genie way back when I was just a toddler. I ended up taking the outer cover off the power head and looking for anything I could fuck with. Nothing... but I had unplugged it while I was doing this, and when I plugged it in and tried programming a remote it actually worked! I was so excited, I hung up on dad and put the cover back on and grabbed the other remote and programmed it. Hit the button and... NOTHING. I grabbed the already programmed first remote and hit the button... NOTHING. What the fuck... now I'm pissed... and I noticed that it's 6:00 and I have a 7:00 hockey game.

I go get cleaned up and at 6:15 I'm ready to leave for hockey. Only then I realize it's my turn to bring beer and I don't have any... ok, I'm off like a rocket for Village Liquor in Cottage Grove. Unfortunately, they closed at 6... back to Piggly Wiggly to see what they have. Not much, but I see 4 different 6-packs of Berghoff on the shelf and grab those and a bag of ice and I'm gone. Made it to hockey just as the zamboni was finishing up, no problem.

Unfortunately our hockey team was missing our 2 best players (1 forward, 1 defense) and Tim. We spent the first period and a half stuck in our own end with the other team totally dominating. Luckily for us we held them to 3 goals during this time. We finally got our first goal after a rebound of my shot from the point to make it only 3-1. We traded a couple goals to make it 4-2 going into the 3rd. The other team started to tire and we turned the play the other way but a couple breaks for them made it 6-2. We didn't give up though and chipped away with 2 more goals to make it 6-4. We pulled the goalie but they were able to get control and fire a shot from their own end that went in to make the final score 7-4. Oh well... at least we didn't give up.

Oh, couples league bowling Saturday night. Grinder has me by 16 pins after 2 games... but I beat him by 17 in the 3rd game to take him 638 to 637. Unfortunately, a guy on the team I was bowling against beat me by 1 with a 639 and our team got crushed and lost all 7 points. This is becoming a far too familiar feeling for me.

Packers/Vikings tonight at 8. Not sure if I'm going to watch much of it or not. Gotta help out getting all the food for turkey day tonight and hopefully getting that garage door opener working right.

Venturing into that seedy underworld

I made my first deposit into a Neteller account today so that I could play in Grinder's next hold 'em tournament. I guess this will put me down the path of becoming a degenerate gambler and soon I'll be selling off internal organs to cover my losses... How much can you get for a kidney on eBay anyway?
My goal in playing in this tournament is to show that you don't have to play every day for hours on end and read 16,000 books written by other people that play every day for hours on end in order to play Texas Hold 'em. It's not rocket science... And the online version is a little different for me since you can't really look a guy in the eye to figure out if he's bluffing. I have played some single table tournaments online before (for prizes, not money) and done well. I enjoy no limit hold 'em, maybe it's just fun to be able to say "ALL IN". And in the latest multi-table "real human" tournament I played in I took 2nd (to CG, that lucky bastard).
Oh well, worst case, it's a tax write-off for gambling losses. :)
Does the IRS read these things? Haha

Anyway, last night was Survivor night. Anyone else enjoy Steph and Danni crawling in the mud? Maybe it was just me, but I doubt it. Jamie finally got what he has deserved for quite some time. What a paranoid psycho... I'm glad he's gone. What was with his diatribe about Lydia stabbing him in the back? He did save her the very first vote but since then he hasn't done anything for her. Oh well, sucks to be you...

I noticed a first last night. I was trying to find out what happened to Threshold which was on Friday nights on CBS until recently. In looking at CBS's web site I found it was moved to Tuesday's starting next week at 9 CT (opposite Boston Legal). Anyway, while I was there I noticed that they actually have the entire last episode available to watch online! I've never seen a network do this, could it be the start of something better? I doubt it because they will need to make money from it... It is cool though. http://www.cbs.com/primetime/threshold/

While I'm on tv talk, what the hell is up with the commercials being 10x louder than the show? Is it just some channels? Is it just the digital (HD) feeds? I was watching CBS last night and I swear I had to turn down the volume at every commercial break. How annoying... Maybe my good buddy CB could look into that and get back to me... hint hint.

Everyone have a great weekend. Packers/Vikings on Monday Night Football. How exciting, not even sure I'll watch that one.

And the slide continues

After a great start to the bowling season (33-16 after 7 weeks) we have gone into a tailspin that shows no sign of stopping. We've now lost every point for the 4th week in a row. That drops us to 33-44 and we're closing in on last place. Thankfully we have 2 halves. We'll just chalk this one up to bad luck and move on.

Did I mention I replaced the finger grips in my bowling ball Saturday? No? Well, I did. Best 8 bucks I've spent in a while. No pain last night. Managed to get back to some semblance of normalcy with a 664 (185,235,244). Pretty much blew the last game by throwing back to back splits in the 8th and 9th frames after strikes the first 7. Recovered to punch out in the 10th.

The weather word for today would be "crisp". Fucking 12 degrees this morning when I left for work. Thank god for those seat warmers. Weather Pixie is going to go back inside pretty soon I think.

Anyone have a space heater I can borrow this weekend? I want to put in my new garage door opener without freezing...

later!

Impending death versus the open road

Ok, it's 6am, you're making your morning commute to work on the beltline. You know from the radio and tv and common sense that the roads are quite icy. It rained/snowed all night and got colder, we know you can do that simple math...
But you're faced with a dilemma. You've never seen this much open road on the beltline before, it must be your lucky day! So, common sense and caution go sit in the back seat, maybe you turn the stereo up a little louder than usual to drown out their screams, and you press the accelerator a little harder... this ain't so bad, you think as you approach 70 mph and close in on the Whitney Way overpass... you reach down to check your messages on your cell phone as you take another swig of coffee... the car veers slightly towards the shoulder. Not a problem, you adjust the wheel with your knee (you've got it in cruise control now at 72 mph, well over the 55 limit). Something is tickling the back of your brain, telling you this might be a mistake but you just ignore it and go back to your messages as the car begins a slide towards the guard rail, but you don't really notice until you see the lights of a snow plow up ahead, which causes you to tap the brakes as you're going over Whitney Way and whoooooooaaaaaa neeellllllyyyyyy, you slide clean off the road, flip and barrel roll down the embankment, just like in NASCAR. Only when you come to a rest upside down in a giant mud puddle, your cell phone is stuck in your mouth and your own urine has joined the hot coffee in your lap. It doesn't matter to you though, you're dead.
One more jackass off the road...

I also learned a new term last night while watching The War at Home, which I tivo'd from Sunday night (it's on before Family Guy on Fox, and stars Michael Rappaport). His slightly gay son is dating a very fat, ugly girl and he can't believe it. He's ok with the heavy girl that's got the pretty face or the one with the great body but no face but not both. He says to his wife that he's dated his share of butterfaces before and she asks "butterface?" To which he replies, "you know, everything's great but 'er face." At which point I choked on my Guiness and couldn't stop laughing for 10 minutes. It's amazing how I still find humor in sitcoms.

And last night was the Country Music Awards and the big winner was... oh, who gives a fuck.

First Snow

We're supposed to get our first snowfall of the year tonight and tomorrow. Just an inch or two but some pretty strong winds again could make it fun. The first snow is always kind of special. It's exciting and you're not sick of it yet. Plus it always looks so clean. Minnesota looks to get quite a bit more, maybe 6 inches. Not sure if they're lucky or pathetic... ah, it's Minnesota, so they're pathetic. :)

And being mr. prepared, I got out the snow blower last Friday and got it ready to go. I always love firing it up the first time, tons of blue smoke filling up the neighborhood. I'm sure that's not bad for the environment... right?

I took my new Murano to the car wash near American Parkway on the east side of Madison yesterday at lunch. They have those high speed spinning brushes and it bent my front license plate almost in half. Guess I won't be going back there. Luckily it didn't do any real damage.

ATTENTION, ATTENTION. Will someone please inform the Philadelphia Eagles that Reggie Brown is not Terrell Owens... Oh yeah, I think they learned that last night.

Hockey Badgers moved up to number 2 in the latest US hockey poll, behind the evil Wolverines of Michigan...

Have a great Tuesday.

Ass Dragging

No, it's not a post about my dog in the backyard.... but it is dog related.
Sazi, one of my 2 border collies (one on the right) has epilepsy and occasionally has a bad night. Last night was one of those nights. We had a late night Saturday night and I noticed that she sometimes struggles when she hasn't had enough sleep. Around midnight she had a seizure. It wasn't bad and she was fine a couple minutes later. Unfortunately at 3:30am she happened to be in the powder room and started seizing again. This time she had 4 of them and it lasted about an hour. Eventually she was ok, but I think I got about 2 hours of sleep for the entire night, so it's my ass that's dragging. Not how I really wanted to start my week...

Prior to that though, we had a hockey game. We were lethargic coming out of our bye week and struggled early against the league's best goalie. We were down 2-0 after 2 periods before we finally got on the board about half way through the 3rd. With a minute left we pulled the goalie and ended up with a face off in their zone with 20 seconds left. We won the draw, got off a shot and the rebound went to the other defenseman who rifled a shot top shelf with 12 seconds left to tie it up. We ended up losing in the shootout though, but it was a great relief to steal a point.

On Saturday we went to the Badger hockey game against top ranked Colorado College and saw a great game. Badgers won 3-0 and coupled with their 2-2 tie on Friday night, took 3 of 4 points and should move up close to the top, if not number 1, when the polls come out this week. It could have been much more than 3-0 if they had capitalized a few more times on their 10 power play attempts (they had 1 pp goal). They completely dominated the play.

Bought a new garage door opener (a Genie screw drive one) to replace the crap I currently have. The reason for this is that both my vehicles have the Homelink opener system built in but my opener doesn't play nice so it will be replaced.

And... the Packers won! Holy crap, don't even know what to say there. Probably helped that I missed the 2nd half because of my hockey game.

Unfortunately the Badgers were not as lucky in their game against Iowa. Would have been nice to get a win in Barry Alvarez last home game, but the Squawkeyes wouldn't play along.

Have a nice week...

Fantasy not so fantastic

Ok pervs, it's not that kind of fantasy I'm talking about. It's fantasy football. After several years of smooth sailing riding my "big three" of Holmes, Owens and Moss, I have run into a bit of a problem.
Early on I was given the opportunity of getting out from under the Moss train wreck and got Stephen Jackson in return and it's been probably one of the best trades I've ever made (thanks Mike!).
I still had Holmes and Owens to lead me (scoring only league) and adding Jackson solidified my team and after a rough start I began to climb up the standings and have found myself in 3rd (granted, I'm like 20 games out of first, but hey).
But the last 2 weeks have pretty much ended any chance I had. First, TO decides he hasn't said enough about how he's been mistreated and he winds up suspended for the whole season! Ok, that one hurt, but he's just one player. The Priest lands on his head and after they initially said concussion (phew, he'll just miss 1 game) all of a sudden he's got a carreer threatening spinal injury and is out for the season at a minimum.
Ok, how do you replace those guys? My big three is now a big zero...

As you all know, last night was Survivor night. Judd once again proved to be a total assface... I'm not sure why he felt the need to tell everyone that the hidden immunity idol was definitely on the ground after he told Steph it was definitely NOT on the ground. Why say anything at all? Jerk... oh, and nice job getting drunk and barfing in the shelter ya putz.
I knew Gary found the idol when he was walking back, you could see him hiding something behind his back. I just wish he had called Judd out when he said he had NEVER lied... Gary caught him red handed... oh well. Bobby Jon was the unfortunate victim of Gary's last second save by the idol.

And here's the moment you've all been waiting for... *drumroll please*
The new car!

Highs and Lows

My life is a rollercoaster ride...

Got my new Nissan Murano yesterday after work. Love it!!! Will post a picture as soon as I can.

Had to rush home to change for bowling, then rush back to the dealer because I dropped my cell phone there somewhere.

Bowling started out ok. All 9's and strikes the first game, missed my first 10 pin shot for my only open and shot 203. 2nd game had a couple nice runs of strikes and shot a 245. Not bad, right? Right... so I start the 3rd game with a 10 pin and missed it, only my 2nd open of the night... that's ok. Then I get a split... and I continue on with 3 more splits and shoot a whopping 143 and don't even get 600. What the fuck is the problem here people?!?!?

I'm wondering if I am getting to the point where my body can't handle the style of bowling that I have. Maybe it's time to stop trying to be a big cranker and just learn to bowl with a more easy style. I tell you what, my arm is hanging by the 3rd game. I'm only averaging like 170 that game so something is going wrong. Maybe I just need to work out and build up that strength again. I haven't really done much since my rehab from surgery ended back in April.

Ok, that's enough bitching for one day... Back to my Starbucks coffee and off to the NBC15 web site to see if Grinder passed his heart test.
Later

Destination Kohler

Last night I checked out Destination Kohler while watching the Amazing Race on CBS. They have some interesting packages. I'm thinking about taking Cdubya up for a Saturday night in the next month or so. They have some interesting shops she would enjoy with cooking demonstrations (she's into that kind of stuff), plus I could get a look at Whistling Straits. The Kohler Design Studio looks pretty cool too.

On the 2 hour Amazing Race last night, the Branson family got lucky the first pit stop was a non-elimination one so they survived and I finally got my wish in the 2nd hour when the Paolo family from NY (the family I hate, as I'm sure everyone in the world does by now) got eliminated. Once again good old dad screwed up the directions. At least this time he didn't blame his son for bad driving.

Warning, blatant brand name usage ahead
Only 8 hours and 15 minutes till I pick up my new Nissan Murano... how am I supposed to get any work done??? I refilled my Starbucks coffee, got my iPod Mini ready and put my Sony Ericsson cell phone on vibrate, so I am ready to work... just need to forget about the car and do it.

My obsession with cars

I admit it, I have a problem...

Ever since I bought my first brand new car back in 1990 (a Toyota Celica GT) I have had this desire to constantly get a new car. There's nothing like the feeling of driving that new car off the lot, perfect condition, no scratches, door dings, funny smells... just a pristine machine.

Brief history from there...

• '91 traded in the Celica and bought a Mitsubishi Eclipse GS. I didn't really like the Celica, it handled horribly (remember, I was 25, it was all about the handling and power).
• '94 traded in Cdubya's old Celica ST for a new Ford Ranger pick up.
• '95 traded in the Eclipse for a new Jeep Cherokee.
• '97 traded in the Ranger for a Hyundai Tiberon
• end of '98 sold the Tiberon (moved back to Wisconsin, didn't want to move 2 cars).
• 2001 traded in an old VW GTI I had bought for commuting AND the Cherokee and bought a new Cherokee and a Chrysler Sebring LXi sedan.
• 2003 traded in the Cherokee for a GMC Yukon for Cdubya.
• April 2005 traded in the Sebring for a Scion tC.

And now I've realized the mistake that was. I'm not 25, don't want to shift, don't want a little car... but could I get out of that mistake?

Fortunately, the fine folks at Zimbrick Nissan needed to get rid of some of their 2005's. I was able to find what I really wanted at a decent price and will be picking it up tomorrow night.

Click here to see my new Nissan Murano. The web site shows the 2006's but they didn't change from 2005. Here are the details:

• Murano SL AWD
• SL Touring package
• Platinum color with Charcoal leather interior.
• floormats, splash guards, cargo cover, sunroof wind deflector

Monday Morning QB

Is it just me or does Favre make a lot more mistakes than he used to? I find myself at least 2 or 3 times a game going "what the fuck, Brett?". Maybe this is the end for a super star and his coach... One thing I do know, they are not a 1-7 team. They have played well enough in just about every game to win but mistakes (see above) have cost them every time.

On the bright side, the 20 points Pittsburgh scored all helped my fantasy team as I had their defense (fumble return for td, see above, 6 points), their kicker (2 fg, 2 xp, 8 points) and Duce Staley, whom I activated for the first time this season out of desperation (1 td, 6 points).
So after a horrible start where I was in last place (9 teams) after 3 weeks, I have turned it around and am closing in on 3rd place.

So, what else happened this weekend... Friday went golfing, still sucking but hey it was November 4th and it was in the 60's and sunny, how can you complain about that.

Saturday I ended up having to mow the lawn (penalty for being able to golf in November is still having to mow in November). I raked up all the leaves too, but then we had a huge t-storm (very odd for November in Wisconsin) and they all got blown all over the place including the remaining ones that were still hanging on the trees. Looks like I didn't do anything.

I then decided I would watch the Badger/Penn State game. Ouch! PSU has a tremendous defense and Bucky had no answers. Reminds me of last season when they were undefeated and in the top 5 and got shellacked the last 3 games...

Fortunately, the hockey Badgers went into North Dakota and swept both games. Amazing start to the season, it's possible this is the team Eaves has been building up to.

Saturday night was couples bowling... I guess people must have been bitching about the lack of oil at Bowl-a-vard because there was enough oil to fry a turkey... It took everything I had just to get the ball to turn a little bit. I haven't had to work that hard in a long time. Shot a low 600, which felt much better just because I had to actually work for it.

Sunday, went to see my new niece. She's doing great. She was born 12 weeks early at 2 lbs, 13 oz and is now up to 4 lbs 5 oz and is out of the incubator (she's been in NICU for 5 weeks now). She'll be going home before Christmas.

I did some looking at small SUV's again yesterday. This time checking out what I could get used. Saw a few Lexus RX300's that weren't too badly priced but they are kind of boring looking. I saw a couple of Nissan Murano's that weren't too bad and they have some style to them. Cdubya liked a white one we saw. I think I'll go check it out at lunch, it's close by.

Have a great week.

Is it really November?

No sign of winter in sight, other than it being dark when I leave work. 60's every day? I wonder how long this will continue? I guess I should just shut up and go golfing, which I am at noon today.

Huge news emanating from Miller Park at 11:30 today. Robin Yount will be named bench coach. It's great that the Brewers were able to bring home this local hero. One of the few truly good guys in sports. I hope that mentioning his name will get me ads for his stuff like it did when I mentioned Iverson. Guess I need to be more careful who I talk about.

Survivor... I'm pretty disappointed in Rafe and Cindy. They both had the opportunity to vote Jamie out and still have their power in place and they both wussed out. Rafe was very upset with Jamie's comments and it seemed obvious he would turn against him. Cindy, she's just stupid I guess. Does she not remember that if they had lost immunity the time before she would have been voted out? Duh... hello mcfly! So, Brandon the good old boy, goes home to gramma, while Jamie will continue to piss everyone off. I really don't know who I want to win. Maybe Steph I guess but I'm kind of tired of her now... If Rafe would have turned on Jamie he would have been my pick but he turned out to be just another talker...

Oh, and speaking of the Brewers, I continue down the article in the paper and find that they are raising ticket prices for 60% of the seats and they also will charge more for their 10 "marquee" games next season (7 against the Cubs and 3 against the Cardinals). What the hell is that?

Well, I better get back to (warning, geek talk ahead) designing my new web service.
Have a great Friday and weekend.

Another Brutal Wednesday

For the 2nd consecutive week our bowling team was taken to the woodshed. We have now gone from a 33-16 record to 33-30 in 2 measly weeks. I will shoulder some of the blame as I have struggled to find the groove coming out of my off week. Not sure what it is, maybe I should try sober once and see if that's the problem. I never had that kind of problem before though... I'll give that a shot Saturday in couples league.

On a brighter note, Mike is selling off some clothes on ebay. Click here to bid on one hot item.

How bad do you have to be to get cut from the Packers? Ask Joey Thomas, who was dumped yesterday. Who's next? Packers get a visit from the Steelers this week. I think I may have to go to the dog groomers or something instead of watching that.

Badgers make the trek to Happy Valley, PA on Saturday to take on Penn State for the lead in the Big 10 race. Last year the Badgers knocked both QB's out of the game early with vicious hits (the one on Robinson from Erasmus James was crazy). Wonder if they'll want a little payback on Stocco... could be an interesting game. One humorous note. As a high school football player in PA, Barry Alvarez was not recruited by Joe Paterno. Apparently Joe thought Barry's ass was a little too big.

Bucks are 2-0... and Stephen A. Smith selected them as his "sleeper pick" for this season. Maybe it really is their season... hahahaha.

This just came through my inbox.
Now, I'm no Cubs fan but this is FUNNY.

Spending Spree

Ok, spent lunch at the mall... bought the Sex and the City collection at Best Buy, then went to Dick's and bought a new hybrid 2 iron replacement club.

Anyone interested in my Callaway Heavenwood? It's a cross between a 4 wood and a 7 wood. It has the loft of a 7 wood but the length of a 4 wood. I typically hit it about 210 yards. The thing I didn't like about it is that it has a slightly offset head and I already hit a draw so it turned that into a massive hook with this thing. If you hit a fade or slice, this may be the club for you. I always hit it good, it was just always left... $25 and it's yours.

Opening Day in the NBA

Does anyone care?

I was certainly hanging on the edge of my seat to see if Allen Iverson complied with the new dress code or not... yawn. I actually heard one player complain that the NBA is making lots of money because of the hip hop image and the players should be allowed to dress in hip hop style (whatever the fuck that is). Marcus Camby wants a clothing allowance... an allowance?!?!?! If you hadn't spent your 16 million on crack and ho's maybe you could afford a suit...

Bucks did win in OT, maybe this is their year... hahahahhahahaha.

In TV news, Amazing Race was in Costa Rica where the family with the two little kids got eliminated because mom wouldn't get on her hands and knees and find the damn red bean. I still don't care who wins, just don't like that NY team at all, I wish they would just kill each other and get it over with.

Did you all rush out and get your Star Wars episode III dvd yesterday? It's on sale for $14.99 at Best Buy, Target and Circuit City. I got mine. When did Best Buy become all about bugging the customer? I wandered around for 5 minutes checking out what other dvd's they had then walked past the cameras and camcorders over to the computer section. I was asked if I needed help no fewer than 6 times and when I said "absolutely not" I was kindly reminded that they don't work on commission so if there's ANYTHING they can do to help me just to ask. Yeah, I know how stores work dumb ass...

Now Cdubya informed me that you can buy all the episodes of Sex and the City in one box set (20 dvd's) and that I should run over to Best Buy at lunch and pick it up since it's "on sale" for $165... and that is only $8/dvd and that's a good deal. It's $165! I'll probably do it anyway... she doesn't know I'm going to go buy a new golf club yet. ;)

Hey, it's bowling day, everyone have a happy hump day.

My eBay Claim

Had to post this because I never thought it would happen... Here's the story.

In June I was looking for a new cpu for my Dell Dimension 2400. I found that I needed a certain cpu to match my motherboard. I was watching the auctions on eBay and found exactly what I was looking for and bid on it and won. Sweet! $84 got me basically a lot faster.

I paid immediately and waited and waited for it to arrive. After 3 weeks and a couple emails to the seller it arrived. I was ready to install it right away. I took the package out of the box and opened it up. I examined the writing on the chip (after finding my reading glasses of course, that shit is small!) and wow, wouldn't you know, it's not even close. Oh, it was a Pentium 4 alright but it was a 533 mhz bus instead of 400 and was a 2.7 ghz processor instead of 2.4. Ok, I'm confused, the auction was for a 2.4, 400 and that's the maximum my motherboard could handle. He must have sent me the wrong one...

So, I email him.... wait.... wait.... wait... email him again... wait... finally a response. He doesn't have the chip that he auctioned, that was a typo! A typo!?!?! What the fuck... He says he'll sell me a motherboard for it cheap... oh yeah, I can see where this is going. Scamming mother f'er...
I say no thanks, I want a refund. He agrees and I ship it back.

I email him that I've sent it, did he get it? And I wait... and wait... and wait... 2 more weeks go by, I go to PayPal and find the seller's email address (I had been communicating through eBay previously). I email that address directly, nothing... once more, finally get a response from him (from a different address) saying not to email his father any more! Oh crap, not only am I getting scammed it's by some f'ing punk. He says that he got the chip but that almost all the pins are bent and that he's not refunding me a penny!!!

Ok, I've been patient up till now. 3 months have gone by and I finally hit the roof. I tell him that oh yeah, he'll be giving me a god damn refund... I try threats, I try emailing his father, nothing. I get an offer from him finally for half. I tell him to shove it up his ass, I want the whole thing. He says then I better file a claim.

Ok, you little punk, I'll do just that. I got to Pay Pal because eBay suggests trying that first. Oops, has to be within 30 days to do that. Crap.

I go back to eBay and file a claim with them, thinking I'm pretty much out $84. After 3 weeks I get an email saying they'd been assigned my case and could I send my payment information from Pay Pal. I fax it in and today I got an email saying that I won the case and am getting $52.50 back! Ok, it's not the $84 that I paid but it's better than nothing and I can finally put this behind me.

And the computer? Still sitting with the old cpu and I keep vacillating between buying a "new" processor or just replacing the whole computer...

Please give me candy

Sorry for the delay, it appears blogger has some issues this morning.

So, funniest thing last night. Doorbell rings and I answer and there's this little boy, about 4, dressed in a batman costume but alone and no bucket or bag for his candy. I wait for him to say something but he just stands there silently. Not wanting to scare him, I softly ask "what do you say?". Looking down at the ground, he says even softer "please give me candy". I had to laugh...

We ended up with about 30 kids total, plenty of candy left over for yours truly. Last kids were around 8:30 and never did have the way too old teenagers with pillow cases this year. Probably helped that I turned off all the lights at 8:45.

Watched Catwoman last night... ugh, don't you all make the same mistake. There's an hour and 40 minutes I'll never get back.

Have a great Tuesday!

Weekend Update

This just in... the Packers still stink. Nice play Brett, um, we're wearing white and gold... were those tigers too hard to see? And the run past the line and throw it underhanded play is sooo last year. Someone please explain why I continue to watch? Is it because my alternative is Nascar?

So, Saturday was beautiful, went golfing at Hawk's Landing. Hit my 2nd shot into the trees and it was all downhill from there. Worst round in 10 years, at least. I didn't really care though. It was almost November, a gorgeous day and out golfing with my friends.

Had our 2nd hockey game of the season last night. We were a little short handed. I played defense the first and third periods and wing the 2nd period. I was definitely better than last week and managed a +3 and scored a goal. I was trailing a play when our center circled in the corner. I saw an opening and went for it and he put the puck on the tape and I someone managed to hit the far post and bank it in. Pretty lucky. I only made one big mistake on D, got caught watching the play and didn't pick up my man on the back door and he scored an easy goal. Oh well, I'm still learning. It sure is less strenuous back on the blueline than playing up front and this old body is liking that part.

Tried out a new restaurant Saturday night. It's called Johnny's Italian Steakhouse. It is over in the Greenway Crossing area in Middleton. It kind of wants to be a place where the rat pack would hang out. It wasn't bad, I had filet mignon and it was pretty decent. Cdubya's steak, however, was burnt to a crisp and tasted like shoe leather. I guess she'll learn not to ask for a sirloin medium well. They were nice and took it back and gave her a filet instead, only it was more like medium rare, a little too red for her tastes, but I gotta give it to her, she didn't complain about it. She thanked them and ate it anyway. I'll probably give it another try. They have a pretty decent sized menu and there were a few other things that looked appealing. It was about what you'd expect to pay for a decent steakhouse in Madison, $18 to $22 for the most part. Not sure how our bill came to $135... oh, we had tiramisu for desert! Yummy...