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My day… continued

So, I forage out for grub.  In addition, my plan for the day was to get my surround sound system setup.  So, I stopped at Target to get a few cables I needed and some speaker stands.  As an aside, maybe there will be some day when I can walk out of Target without spending $100.  I have probably spent a thousand bucks there since I moved here.  Anyway… I get my gear, then head down the hill to get something to eat.

All of a sudden, I notice my temperature gage going thru the roof and steam coming from under my hood.  Oh shit.  This can’t be good.  Luckily, I’m right near a gas station, so I pull in and turn off.  After some adimittedly rudimentary troubleshooting, I realize that my radiator is bone dry.  Not good.  I was able to purchase some coolant, and after spilling half of the bottle all over the place (I had no funnel) I finally get it in.  I was ingenius enough to use an old magazine I had in the back as a makeshift funnel until I had poured enough out of the bottle so I could tip it easier.  It still got all over though.

Being labor day, there aren’t any car repair joints open.  My regular trusted mechanic (the only one I’ve ever found) is all the way downtown.  I guess I will take my car down there first thing in the morning, and rent a car.  See, this is where being single is a giantic pain in the ass.  When you’re married and have 2 cars, it is a minor inconvenience.  Now, it is a huge hassle.

Now, I’m off to hook up surround sound.  If something goes wrong with this, I’m giving up and going back to bed.

Wish me luck.

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It’s back

The blog is back. After some technical difficulties, we are back up and running. Initially there was a scare that this all might be gone into the computer ether, but we’re ok.

Happy labor day everyone. For the record, is there anything worse than waking up absolutely starving, but not having a damn thing to eat in the house? I have some Cheerios, but no milk. I have some aging wheat bread, but nothing to put on it. Perhaps I could whip up the never before seen ‘Cheerio Sandwich’. Were this a normal work day, I would be at work and could hit the cafeteria for something. I really gotta stop watching the Food Network before I go to bed. Last night it was ‘Good Eats’ and he was doing tenderloin. Dear god… I cannot tell you how bad I would like that right now. Tenderloin, that is, not ‘Good Eats’.

In other news, I read this morning that Steve Irwin, the Crocodile Hunter, was killed by a stingray. He was filming a show called “Ocean’s Deadliest”. Gee, you ain’t kiddin. But honestly, who couldn’t see this coming? I would have bet $1000 that one day, one of those animals would catch up with him. I’m sorta surprised that it didn’t end with a croc chomping down on his head Joe Dirt style. Anyway, I feel sorry for is wife and kids.

In other other news, I’ve discovered something very cool. I have been a netflix subscriber for the past couple years. I love it. I’m not as fast as I used to be watching and returning the movies, but the selection they have is second to none. Plus, anytime I think of a movie I want to see, I can head right out to their site and put it in my queue. Brilliant.

Anyway, I received my latest shipment this past week. It had been at least a month or more since I had last returned movies. So, when I got my movies much quicker than I had before, I was confused. Turns out, Netflix has opened a shipping facility in Boise! Before, we had to send them to Salem OR, which added at least a day each way. Now, I can get a disc turned around in half the time. It is terrific. That will be great for getting the TV serieses on DVD, when they are like 6 discs for a season. You can ship the first disc back, and still be watching one of the ones you still have when the next arrives. Perfect.

I can’t recommend Netflix any higher. They have a free trial, and if you love movies, you should try it.

I’m going to now go forth, foraging for food.  Wish me luck.

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Magic Refrigerator

When I got my apartment, I was really only concerned with getting in as soon as possible, and living close to where I work. I live a 4 minute drive from my office (or a 20 minute walk from my door to my desk) and I was able to move in in less than a week.

Though I was really not keen to be back into an apartment again, the situation was dictated to me. Frankly, I really lucked into my situation here, although I was unaware of it at the time. I have many advantages here. First, my apartment is on the third floor, which means that there is no one above me stomping around. Second, my apartment is on the far north east corner of the building, meaning that I only have a neighbor on one wall, and I don’t get any sun directly heating my apartment to sauna like proportions every afternoon. Plus, I’m on the far back side of the complex, which means if you look out every window I have, you don’t see any other apartment buildings. So, I can almost imagine looking out over the tree filled corporate parks behind me that I’m in a high priced condo or something.

I also lucked out with the parking situation. Any of you who have lived in a large complex knows that parking is always a pain in the ass. In this place, each apartment gets one covered parking spot. Pretty standard. However, my spot is directly at the bottom of the stairs to my apartment. I didn’t realize how good that was until I saw my neighbor leave his apartment the other day, and have to walk clear across the parking lot to his assigned place (about 60 yards away). I guess its not a huge deal, but when you’re lugging bags of groceries or something, its nice to park close.

However, the most amazing and perplexing ‘feature’ of this apartment is my apparently magic fridge. Let me explain. I am obviously a re-newly formed bachelor. Yes, I do fall into some of the stereotypes. I admit it.

Long time readers might remember my early eating/cooking adventures after the bomb was dropped. The first meal I cooked was 5 weeks after I moved in, I whipped up some tacos to celebrate Cinco de Mayo. Well, I had all the fixin’s. Meat, lettuce, shredded cheese, refried beans, tomatoes, salsa, etc etc. I think you can see where I’m going here. The cheese and beans have remained in the fridge since that very day. Unused. Uneaten. Not even looked at. Needless to say, when you only have beer, pepsi and ketchup, you aren’t hurting for extra fridge space. So, they just hung out. I finally did something about them this past week, nearly 4 whole months later. Normally, these things should have sprouted legs and made a break for it long ago. However, something magic happened. The cheese, I bought one of those pre-shredded bags of ‘mexican’ cheese with the zip close top. When I pulled it out, it looked as fresh as new. Not one speck of green anywhere in there. If you were to put it back on the shelf, you couldn’t tell the difference. I was astounded. You would think it was never opened. Of course, I still threw it away. I wasn’t taking any chances.

Perhaps even more astounding was the refried beans. They were in a pyrex bowl with plastic wrap over them. Not exactly hermetically sealed or anything. As they literally ‘chilled’ pressed to the back of the fridge for about 110 days, I figured the mold would eventually blast through the plastic wrap like the eruption of Mt. St. Helens. But, it never came. I pulled it out and except for some slight discoloring of the surface, again, not a hint of mold. Astounding. Granted, these beans certainly do not look like new and I definitely wouldn’t eat them. But still…

The only answer is that the fridge is magic. A bachelor’s dream. Throw stuff into it, and forget about it. Instead of forcing one to remain ever vigilant against the insidious spread of noxious fungus, you can continue to go in for beers and gleefully let things sit for months on end. Perhaps I’ll only have to clean it out come spring. This is really making me want to try some experiments. Although, now that I’m in the dating pool again, that might not be the best idea. Something like that might be tough to explain away.

So, next time you’re pulling that 6 day old mold encrusted leftover from your fridge, think about me. Footloose and fancy free. Storing perishable food with no concern of spoilage. Of course, the real danger here is that I will forget just how long something has been in there and mistakenly eat it. When that happens, I’ll probably freak out as the walls burst into showers of pink elephants chewing on my toes, that for some reason have the faces of the Brady Bunch on them.

See ya in the emergency room.

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Terrorism Ambivalence?

Reading the news today, I was just wondering something. Is it possible that as more and more terrorist incidents happen (or almost happen as the case may be) the less people will care?

Follow me on this one. We all agree that terrorism is a horrible abomination. No argument there. It is terrible and sad when people are killed by fanatics. However, reading about these recent arrests that were announced late last week and seeing what has happened since, I’ve noticed something.

On Friday, the stock market actually went UP. Granted, airline stocks got hammered, but overall, people weren’t all that worried (and if you don’t think where people put their money isn’t an indicator of how they feel, you’re crazy). Then, today I read that despite a “security threat level” of “severe” (whatever that means) in Europe, that European air traffic has rebounded to normal. Its been 4 days.

What I’m wondering is if the acts of terror will just sorta become ‘one of those things’. Not that killing people is ever just a non-event. I’m not saying that. What I’m saying is that they have already killed thousands upon thousands of people. They leveled 2 symbolistic buildings. Blown up trains and cars and whatnot. And, are obviously still attempting to do more. Yet, we are sort of paying little attention. Pretty much business as usual.

Maybe this is a good thing. I mean, the whole point of terrorism is to disrupt the larger society by commiting acts of violence. If those acts are diminishing in their impact, if we choose to not give the terrorist the ‘mind space’, don’t we win? Granted, this may push them to try bigger and bigger displays. But, I have to imagine that those are much more difficult and far more expensive to plan and execute than some jackoffs with box cutters.

I dunno… maybe I’m crazy. Maybe I’m just losing interest and failing to be as scared as I was in 2001. I do know that there is no way in hell another airplane in this country gets hijacked without every passenger going batshit and doing something about it. I guess thats why they’ve changed to just trying to blow planes up again.

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Moral Dilemma

Yes, this is another sports related post. But, before you go scurrying off to your US Weekly, hang here for a sec. I guarantee that even if you aren’t a sports fan, know a baseball from a hockey puck, or even give a damn, you will have an opinion on this story.

In Sports Illustrated, Rick Riley wrote about an event that happened in Utah. You can go read his account, but I’ll give you the thumbnail version.

Basically, here is the deal. 9-10 year olds little league game. Actually, this is the championship game. The league is a non-competitive league (everyone bats, no stealing, etc.) Why they’re having a “championship” game in a non-competitive league is something that doesn’t make sense to me, but I digress.

Yankees lead the Red Sox by a run in the bottom of the last inning. Red Sox are down to their last out, with the tying run on 3rd. Their best hitter is coming to the plate. Yankees coach has a decision to make. Pitch to the best hitter (who already has a home run) and possibly lose the game, or intentionally walk him? Behind him in the lineup is a kid who is a cancer survivor with a shunt in is brain and the worst hitter on the team.

Well, the coach does walk the power hitter in order to pitch to the weak link. Predictably, he strikes out and the game is over, Yankees win.

Now, I can see many different angles in this story. First that comes to mind is that that is a bush league thing to do to that kid. You know he’s weak, and you are deliberately targeting him to fail. He’s already been through hell with the cancer and you’re using that to your advantage. Do you really want to win like that?

On the other hand, I’ve long held the opinion that people coddle kids WAY to much. Way too much not keeping score and giving every kid in the league a trophy just for playing all to make sure that some kids don’t feel like ‘losers’. Kids have to learn, sometimes you win. Sometimes you lose. When you grow up, life is not going to try to protect your feelings. It will kick your head in (trust me, I know). If you have never lost anything in your life, how do you know how to deal with it? Parents think a loss is going to destroy their kid’s self esteem. It’s cliche at this point, but everyone always learns more about them self in a loss than they ever do in a win. Life is all about how you deal with adversity. Kids sports is a small way to add some ‘positive losses’ to a kid’s life.

However, does a move like this send too much of that message? Does it teach his players that its ok to ‘win at all costs’? If it does, is that a positive or a negative? Does this teach his team strategy? Constructive thinking? Compassion is important, but the kid was playing in the game just like everone else. He knew the rules. Would he want the rules changed for him or shown special treatment because he’s not as strong or as good as everyone else? What message does that send him?

It is an interesting dilemma. As you can imagine the adults are all taking sides and screaming at each other. Adults have a knack for taking a situation and blowing it all out of proportion. Who knows how long they will argue about this. Weeks? Months? I’m quite sure of one thing. Every kid involved in that game was already feeling better and moving on once the pizza party was over.

If I was the coach, I would have taken my chances and pitched to the power hitter. Kids sports is not simply about winning or losing. As long as you go out there, spend some time with your buddies, have some fun, learn a thing or two… then its worthwhile. There is always the silver lining of a loss… you’re going to learn something about yourself.

I love what the kid told his dad the next morning. It wraps up what this is all about and what I’m telling you. “I’m going to work on my batting. Then maybe someday I’ll be the one they walk.”

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Draft – Post Mortem

Ok… most of you won’t give two shits about this post. However, a couple of you (I’m looking at you Adam and George) might find it interesting. Besides, this is my deal. If you don’t like it… well, you get what you pay for.

Base rules for our league. We start 1 QB, 2 RB, 3 WR, 1 TE, 1 K, and 1 Def. and have 5 Bench players of any position. Pretty standard. We’re also a keeper league, meaning we had to keep 3 players from our last year’s team. This means that right off get go, the top 30 players are already gone (we have 10 owners). So, this makes it a little more interesting (and difficult). I had 2 guys that were easy keepers, Tom Brady and Marvin Harrison. After that it was a little dicey. I had to decide between Willis McGahee or Brian Westbrook. All of the top ten running backs were ‘kept’ so getting a somewhat top RB was imparative. I don’t think Westbrook will survive the season, so I went with McGahee. I’ll probably regret that.

Adam, when we started drafting, all of the players you told me about were kept, Ronnie Brown, Chambers and Culpepper.

My first pick, which was fourth pick in what was essentially the 4th round, I took Willie Parker. Best running back available. I’m not terribily thrilled with that pick either.

Next round: Darrell Jackson. Decent pickup for the 5th round. Provided he can stay healthy. I owned Hasselbeck 2 years ago when Jackson dropped probably 5 touchdown passes. Killed me. Time for him to pay me back.
6th round: Joseph Addai. Went with Adam’s advice on that one. Go rookie running back!

7th: Jeremy Shockey. I’m really surprised he fell that far. Ranked #2 TE on my sheets.

8th: Carolina D. I like that pick. They’re supposed to be good.

9th: Donte’ Stallworth. Could have a big year with Brees in town. Especially if Horn is double covered.

10th: David Carr as my backup QB. Only need him for one week, but if Kubiak can get him in the right direction, might be interesting in the keeper league.

11th: David Givens now in Tennessee. Pretty decent pick at this point

12th: Lawrence Maroney, rookie running back in New England playing behind 2 well worn backs who probably won’t stay healthy. Might be another good keeper pick.

13th: Brandon Lloyd. Did well in SF on a terrible team last year. Wash. should be able to boost his stats a little.

14th: Kicker time… Jason Elam.

15th: Flyer on Greg Jones. Probably won’t see much of the field, but he’s mainly a place filler.

All in all, I’m not horribily disappointed. I would much rather have had a top 10 running back. Somehow, Commisioner Hedges has 2 top 4 running backs, Tiki Barber and Larry Johnson. He’ll probably win again. Bastard.

One thing you always like to hear when you’re drafting is after you make a pick, is a guy or two giving a dissapointed grunt. Meaning, they were sitting on that guy planning on drafting him. So, its just a little confirmation that you’re NOT crazy for taking him. Plus, its always good to get the “that is a strong pick” comments when they’re being serious. We’re pretty friendly, so there isn’t a whole lot of backstabbing or anything.

So, we’re done drafting. Everyone thinks their team can win if they catch a few breaks. Optimism is at an all time high. Of course, after week one and you get 2 players injured, and 3 others do absolutely nothing you’re damn near hari kari.

If anyone wants to see the other teams makeups you can go to our league homepage.
http://football.fantasysports.yahoo.com/f1/255026

Commish said he’d have the teams entered either tonight or tomorrow.

Feel free to critique my complete lack of knowledge of the NFL if you so desire. I’m just happy football is back around.

On a completely unrelated note, there was a huge windstorm that blew through town this evening. Apparently, 16,000 homes in the North End are have no power and there is no estimate of when they’ll be back up. Is it wrong that I take just a slight bit of glee in this? It’s not that I wish hardship on anyone, but power outages is just an inconveinece. Couldn’t happen to a nicer bunch of people( /sarcasm ) Stupid and petty I know, but still…

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Fantasy Football Draft

Ugh… it happens tonight. I cannot tell you how UNprepared I am. We ususally do it later in the month, but our commissioner had to do it today to fit all 10 guys schedules. He informed us of this 2 days ago. I just really haven’t had enough time to get into the nitty gritty of what’s predicted and so on.

Then again, it could well be argued that I don’t really know what I’m doing even when I have plenty of time to prepare. And to those people I say…. well… you’re right. In 7 years I’ve never won. One year I lead most of the season, only to be bounced in the first round of the playoffs. That was my one flirtation with glory.

The rest of the time, I’ve been ending careers. Hence, my team name has been CareerEndingInjuries. It all began back in the first season we were playing. I had drafted Vinny Testeverde as my #1 quarterback. (This was back when he was supposed to have a huge season for the Jets). Week one. First quarter. He drops back to pass… nobody touches him… and ruptures his achillies tendon. Done for the year. Since that time, I have decimated guys. It has gotten to the point that the other guys in the league beg me not to draft players from their favorite teams. I wish I had kept a list of all the players that went down for the season when I had them. There are usually at least 2 or 3 on my team every year. I got Marshall Faulk a couple years ago… I think he ended up playing like 5 games. I’ve had ‘fragile’ Freddie Taylor (twice) and he got hurt both years. I had the Carolina backfield the season that both Stephen Davis and DeShaun Foster had their seasons ended.

I’ve had ACL’s, I’ve had Turf Toe. I’ve had broken collar bones. I’ve had drug suspensions. You name a way to lose a guy for the season, I’ve managed to own those very guys. I’ve had guys get injured, then the guy I replace him with get injured. I’m the NFL’s grim reaper.

So, if there are any teams or players you specifically want to see gone for the year, just let me know. Maybe I’ll draft them and put my curse on them.

I’ll write up a post-mortem of my draft when its finished. Not that anyone really cares about your fantasy team, but dammit, this is my space and I’ll use it how I see fit.

“I’m going to go get directions to our next huge embarassing failure” – Richard Hayden, Tommy Boy

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Weekend

Here’s my question. When you spend an entire weekend doing absolutely nothing, how do you know when you’re finished? I guess technically, its when your alarm goes off Monday morning, eh?

Apart from Friday evening, I did nothing, nada, zip, zilch, zero this weekend. I guess I should be happy that I at least did something on Friday (dinner & movie). Here are the relevant events of the past 2 days. Woke up Saturday morning… watched NFL Preseason game Sunday night. That’s it. That’s the list. I didn’t go anywhere. I didn’t do any work. I didn’t see anyone.

Of course, I’m not necessarily complaining. I mean, I enjoy alone time. It gets my head right. But, thats not to say I wouldn’t have liked a distraction or two.

Oh, Chris, here is your requested box score: 21-38, 247 yards, 0 TD, 0 INT. (solid effort, decent performance. No scores, but no turnovers either).

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One More

You have to read this column as well. More Sports Guy. This one is the anatomy of a bludgening in Vegas. John, I know you can relate to this one. Personally, I have never been destroyed in Vegas. I guess it is due to my view towards gambling. I don’t look at it as I can win x amount. I look at it like ‘I’m prepared to lose x much’. Of course, that probably dooms me right there, but at least I never get killed. There is too much to do to keep gambling like that.

For example, my bad losses are like this one. Last trip. It’s probably 11:00pm and we’re in the NYNY. I sit down at a $10 pai gow poker table. I’m the only one at the table. Just me and the dealer. For those who have never played pai gow, its very simple. You get 7 cards. You have to make a 5-card poker hand and a 2-card poker hand. The only rule is your 5 card hand has to beat your 2 card hand. Anyway, to win, both of your hands have to beat the dealers 2 hands. To lose, both of them have to lose. If you split (win 1 lose 1) then you push and you get your money back. Needless to say, very often you’re pushing and drinking for free. Anyway, I sat down at the table and got $100 in chips. I proceded to LOSE 6 hands in a row. Right off the bat. I then push one, then lose 2 more. Win one, then lose one again. For those of you scoring at home, I turned a hundred dollar bill into $8 (less drink tip) in about 13 minutes. Absolutely brutal. But, its not like losing $800 or something.

Funny, a $92 vodka tonic didn’t taste as good as I thought it should…