"Is there a better day of the year than opening night for the Bucks?"
So, I thought about it...sure.
• NFL Draft
• NBA Draft
• Opening Day for MLB
• Every NFL Sunday
• NBA Trade Deadline
• Opening day for Free Agency
• NFL Combine week
• Senior Bowl
• New Years Bowl Games
• NCAA Football's National Championship Game
• Every day of the NCAA Tourney
• Sunday at the Masters, US Open, British Open, PGA
• Kentucky Derby or any of the other two provided there's a shot a Triple Crown
• MLB Draft
• MLB Trade deadline
• Friday
• Christmas
• Thanksgiving
• Any holiday that gets me a day off
• Halloween
• Any Tuesday in which a good new movie arrives for rental
• Any Thursday with a new episode of Supernatural
• Men's Final at the Open and Wimbledon
• Any day I get Ciciones Cajun pasta
• Any day I get to cook for someone
I don't know. Those are just off the top of my head.
1) Quick question: you had it to do all over again, what profession would you get into?
a) Politician - I never would have picked this five years ago. But after five years of getting everything I want via my powers of persuasion and charm and speech, I think I could have done some serious good. No joke, I could talk a dog off a meat truck.
b) Sportswriter - My family thinks I was made for it. I probably was. I follow sports like it's my job, I can write and I've got alcohol issues. If I could be the next Dan Jenkins I would die a happy man.
c) General Manager - I used to think that being a GM was something way above my level of sports expertise. Not any more. I'm totally convinced I could do John Hammond's job. Or Zeke's. Or whoever the hell is doing the job in Memphis.
d) Web developer - My current job.
Honestly, I like my current career. I don't arrive home stressed. I'm good at my job. I've got responsibilities and a say in what we develop. I'm about to be on the street but that's not an indictment on my abilities. I could have another job in two weeks if I wanted one.
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4 - Six months ago Ben swiped and broke my $170 Bose headphones. I MacGyver'd this shit outta 'em and now they're working. But for the time in between I was listening to earbuds and generic headphones and I got used to the sound quality. I forgot how amazing a great set of headphones could sound.
I implore you: buy a top-notch set of headphones. Not Skull Candy shit or Sony or Phillips...go top shelf.
Normally I'm not a Bose guy. I love the highs but they lack the depth and base in their home audio. But their headphones are sick.
Reviews are up and down, but if i was ever gonna recommend a set it'd be these:
1 1/2 tbs butter per 12 oz steak
1 tbs garlic powder
1 tbs onion power
2 tbs Worcestershire sauce
1/4 c. steak sauce
Bring that shit to a mild boil in a small pot and immediately remove it from heat. Stir.
Place the steak on a broiler pan and baste the top and sides in the marinade. I recommend a NY strip, but any reasonably thick cut of meat should be great.
Give it a liberal coat of pepper. Apply a thin layer of regular salt and Lowery's seasoning salt.
Start the oven broiler on high heat and put the steak in the oven 4-6 inches from the broiler. Leave in the oven for five minutes.
Take it out and flip the steak. Repeat the baste, salt, pepper steps.
Place back in the oven for three minutes.
Take it out and let it sit for four minutes. The steak will continue cooking and end medium.
Top with a dollop of garlic butter and enjoy.
7 - Is it a fundamental thing with women that they believe that they can change or mold men into being the person that they want to marry? I only ask because lately women have bugged the shit outta me. Guys don't change.
So I was balls deep into a blog about the last five days and it was going well. I'll have it done tomorrow.
But I ran into a thread on PCs vs Macs and to my dying day I'll defend the motherfuck out of my favorite little machines.
Here was what the instigator said:
its a trend to get a mac... i see so many people with them and all they use them for is word processing and surfing the internet. if you have the money, why not? but you can easily do that stuff with a PC for 1/2 the price.
My reply:
I've seen that excuse for ten years. That buying a mac is a trendy thing to do. At what point does it stop being a trend? As for the reason people wouldn't go with a PC, I think most would prefer not having to worry about malware, spyware and viruses killing their machine.
His reply:
being a fashion statement is not an excuse, its just something ive simply observed. why spend an extra $1000 for a prettier screen if you're going to be doing the same things. as for the malware, spyware and viruses, i've had a few problems on my pc with them, but it's never anything i couldn't fix. i take care of my computers... as for the general population, maybe they don't.
every single future project moving forward will be intel base required. this includes the later versions of Xcode (which i primarily use for apps)... i know there are work arounds, but if you've ever done any app programming, you'd know certificate issues and approval from the apple store can be a real pain... having a tinkered with copy of xcode just complicates things tremendously more.
anyways my main point wasn't to compare the older macs with the newer one, it was to simply state that macs are VERY expensive and to the average person, you can handle all your needs on a pc for half the price.
and another person jumped on...
Just look the price of any macbook... It's a fashion statement.
And this is what killed my blog writing for tonight. This reply:
I've made similar posts here in the past, but I own two Macs and three PCs. Two still work as well as the day I bought them and the other three won't boot. I can let you guess which work and which don't.
So I ask you, what was the better investment?
Was it the Alienware laptop, the Dell laptop, the do-it-yourself PC that gave me a good six months before going to ****?
Or was it the two Macs that do everything I need and still do it as well as the day they were bought?
I'm not an idiot when it comes to computers. I worked three years as a PC repairman and computer technician while in college. In that time I must have taken a look at 120 PCs. I never looked at a single Mac. I also work as a web developer and have to do testing on a PC every day.
The bottom line is if you buy a Mac and don't drop it you should have it for a decade or more. That's without having to buy Norton or McAfee or download constant security patches or worry that the attachment you receive or the website you visit is going to destroy your computer.
You're paying extra for the knowledge that your OS is light years better than what's available on a PC, it's more secure, more stable, less prone to depreciation and simply works more logically. But if Windows blows your skirt up, you can even dual boot.
To be honest I don't know why the general public would waste their money on a PC. Gaming I guess? I don't know about that.
I'm a geek. And it's 1:42 am. Time to pop in an episode of something awesome and get in bed.
Frankly, it was a ticking time bomb and you don't screw around with diplomacy or threat level dossiers with the Moon hanging over our heads. It's been trying to gain our flank for a millennia but you never know when disaster could strike. It could happen at any time. Obama saw a threat and fired the first shot; lets see if the Moon bothers us ever again.
Also, you right wingers that thought the President was weak? screw countries, he took on an entire heavenly body.
2 - If you're of the faint of heart, skip to number three. But on Sunday I made the most delicious sandwich...a grilled PB&J with BACON. The smokey, the sweet....yum.
2b - Then I went to the gym :/
3 - It's weird how one person can make the same phrase repeat in your head every time you see or think about 'em. Every time I see the current OOMA or she finds her way into my thought process, all I can think is, "She's so fucking cute". Just those four words. Sometimes I even have to shake my head. She's just sooo....fucking....cute.
4 - The mom continues to impress.
There I am in 4th place, and there she is in 2nd. She's also dominating in the percentage correctly picked. 76.32 is tops in our league of 92 people.
I shudder to think what she'd do in Vegas.
5 - Party this weekend. It's EC's homecoming and Wausau homies are coming over for some shenanigans. I'm offering up a quick sorry to those that are certain to receive drunk texts.
6 - I've been on a serious West Wing kick lately and while I love the show, it's also a little depressing. All of these politicians are idealized versions of what we all want to see in our representatives. They're thoughtful, intelligent and driven to make our country a better place. I can't say that about the people we elect in the real world. Obama was nice change from the brainless hack we had in there for the last eight years, but I'm gonna need to see some results soon. Health care would be a great start.
But seriously, wouldn't you like to see someone that can give you chills? Someone that can inspire?
Wouldn't you like to see someone like Texas congressman Matt Santos? Check out this speech (supposed to be one of concession at the National Democratic Convention but winds up being something totally different).
Fuck.
Tell me that doesn't give you some serious goose bumps.
7 - Now, maybe you aren't a big sports fan. Maybe you don't know anything about basketball.
But trust me when I say this is the most fucked up shot chart I've ever seen.
It was from last night's Bucks game. They're gonna be so god damn bad this season.
The masochist in me can't wait to see it.
8 - So Rush Limbaugh wants to buy an NFL team and the Players Union is outraged. Even the owner of the Colts came out against it.
"I, myself, couldn't even consider voting for him," Irsay said at today's NFL owners meetings. "When there are comments that have been made that are inappropriate, incendiary and insensitive... our words do damage, and it's something we don't need."
I agree(d).
Now......I'm not entirely sure.
I was listening to the radio and heard a take on it that made me reconsider. It was pointed out that almost 500 NFL players have been cited for serious offenses since 2000. Drug use, gun charges, drunk driving, battery, spousal abuse...you name it. Yet all these guys get second chances and now they're the same people that are taking the moral high ground against Limbaugh.
I don't mind it if someone wants to voice their opinion and I'm certainly no fan of Limbaugh, but I can't stomach hypocrisy. So the Players Union won't support Rush's bid, but they'll welcome felons into their league? The owners don't want him in their brethren but they'll sign a defensive end that killed a woman or a cornerback that paralyzed another man via gunshot?
It's bullshit.
9 - I hate it when someone asks me to critique a design and I can't offer up any suggestions. Ben asked me for my thoughts on a logo he put together and all I could say was, "I like it. Great job".
But the fact is he's the best graphic designer I've ever worked with and he does phenomenal stuff.
10 - This blog is running a little long, I know. But in my family, someone who uses one word to say something when they could have used ten just isn't trying hard enough.
1 - This happened over a year ago and I remember reading about it back then, but the verdict came down last week.
From the AP.
This interested me for a few reasons.
- a mother and father, among others, prayed around young Kara while she lay on the ground dying. She did. It was only then that someone had the bright idea to call 911
- it happened in a town I recently lived in.
- I have a heart and it bleeds when I read stories like these.
I want to rant. I won't. I'll just tell an anecdote I heard once...
A man lived by the river. He heard a radio report that the river was gonna rush up and flood the town. That all the residents should evacuate their homes.
But the man said, "I'm religious. I pray. God loves me. God will save me."
The waters rose up, a man in a boat came by and shouted, "Hey, hey you! You in there! The town is flooding. Let me take you to safety".
But the man shouted back, "I'm religious. I pray. God loves me. God will save me".
A helicopter was hovering over head and a guy with a megaphone shouted, "Hey you, you down there. The town is flooding. Let me drop this ladder and take you to safety".
But the man shouted back that he was religious, that he prayed, that god loved him and god would take him to safety.
Well, the man drowned.
So he's standing at the gates of St. Peter and he demands an audience with god.
"Lord," he says, "I'm a religious man. I pray. I thought you loved me. Why did this happen?"
God said, "I sent you a radio report, a helicopter and a guy in a boat. What the hell are you doing here?"
Do you ever get those moments when your brain is trying to wrap your head around everything you're reading or hearing and you have to step back and say, "Wait, hold up".
That was me a few paragraphs into the above link.
They throw out this stat that human evolution started a million years before currently accepted science, and it's treated more like a byline than anything.
Seriously, hold up a sec. We're talking about a jump of almost 25% of human existence in a single yahoo article.
I'm turning the computer off for the night. This is too much to get my head around at 3:03 in the morning.
Ridiculously good. I've been conditioned to expect crummy music the more an artist or band churns out music, but I'm thrilled to say that the recent stuff from old favorites has been awesome.
1 - For the first time in a while I've got new music to digest.
AFI - Crash Love
Paramore - Brand New Eyes
Breaking Benjamin - Dear Agony
Three Days Grace - Life Starts Now
Early returns make me think they're all winners. I'll say more once I get through my 4th and 5th listens.
2 - I shouldn't have even come to work today. I've been totally useless to SP. My accomplishments have been:
• Got the guest list in order for tonight
• Debated the Milwaukee Bucks at RealGM.com for a good two hours
• Picked up the latest AFI and TDG.
• Figured out what food I'd be providing later
• wrote most of this blog
3 - OGT's.
At what point do you sort of start to feel guilty about who you're dating? In high school it'd happen if you were a senior dating the super hot freshman or sophomore. In college it was calling your layup at bar-time and getting her out of your place before your boys woke up the next morning. Is there an equivalent now when you become a young professional?
3b - If this goes bad what'll hurt most is probably the notion that I'll have to get my coffee somewhere else in the morning.
3c - I should have thought this through long ago.
4 - Crash Love is the surprise of the year. Like I keep looking at the iPod to make sure I'm actually listening to AFI. It's remarkable.
5 - My mom is funny. Year in and year out she straight dominates an NFL pick 'em pool myself, her and about 120 other family and friends are in. She might win $600 over the course of a year.
So when I got a phone call at 9:30 last night I knew it was gonna be her. I had just nailed 14/15 games on the day, only losing my lowest pick. I was in 4th place on the week and depending on tonight's game I could either be 2nd or 4th on the week.
If the Vikes win I'm in the money.
If the Pack wins I'm happy as shit for the week and likely longer.
6 - Another question was posed this weekend. What do you think is better: a great TV show or a great movie.
I didn't even think it was a question. Great TV easily.
Look, I love Casablanca. But if it's Bogie for 90 minutes or President Josiah Bartlett for 100 hours, I'm going with The West Wing.
I loved Se7en, but give me four seasons of Battlestar Galactica.
Here is what someone else had to say on the subject:
Anyway, both have their own strengths. I would personally prefer comedy, and since I think it is generally more effectively designed for a TV format, I would say I prefer TV--I definitely spend a lot more time watching shows than movies simply because there is a lot more entertainment out there. And in the last decade general movie quality has been relatively weak, while TV quality has been outstanding. TV is kicking the crap out of film right now.
I think the general rule with lots of things--but with TV in particular--is that over time, things go to greater extremes. There isn't as much on now that's just kind of "meh". Like things like Friends, or That 70's Show where you're like "this isn't terrible, but ultimately...meh". Most things now are either total dogs**t, or really damn good. And if you avoid the dogs**t, you'll see what's so great about a lot of TV now. It's diverse (not stupid diverse--I mean real diversity--formats, styles, approaches), it's smart, and it's more boundless than ever. We are in a golden age of television. So as an over all question, it's debatable. Right now, I think it's definitely TV.
Good call. I love my TV dramas. Not CSI or ER or Law & Order. I'm talking long arches, the ones that take years to wrap up. The ones with twists out of left field, characters being killed off, stories that make you think and trigger emotion. The best movies can do that, but not all. The best dramas can invoke those thoughts dozens of times over the course their runs.
7 - Speaking of good drama, last night before I fell asleep I watched what is one of the greatest episodes of TV in the last ten years.
It's the second to last episode of season 4 of The West Wing. It's called Commencement.
Let me set the scene:
- The President's daughter just graduated from Georgetown and she's set to tour Europe with her lame French boyfriend for the summer
- They're celebrating at a DC night club before they fly away
- The President, the NSA and the Joint Chiefs had a middle-eastern diplomat killed a year earlier because he had ties to a terrorist cell
- A reporter has figured it out and is now questioning the Press Secretary. Not wanting to call it, "That time we killed the brown dude", they refer to it as the "Mudross Research Project".
- Everything else isn't exactly important for the sake of the following video (though it is fucking awesome when Mary Louise Parker asks, "Donna, are you in love with Josh"...all the more reason to watch the show!)
How it was done is something I don't know if I'll ever see on TV again. Everything about it was perfect. The soundtrack, the camera work, the dialogue, the shifting between characters...it was all awesome. When you see the reaction and then the closing credits, no joke, you'll get chills.
I cut it up and dropped it on youtube:
8 - 12:18 am...
This one hurts. It isn't the loss. It isn't because I thought this one could have necessarily been ours. It's not even because we stopped AD cold. It's because Favre won it and he didn't even have to work for it.
I would have to watch the game again, but it appeared as if the Packers were able to stop Peterson with their front seven, sometimes six. Give the line and the linebackers credit, they stayed true to their gaps and didn't make many mistakes tackling.
But my god...the defensive playcalling on obvious passing downs. How, in the name of everything holy, can you only rush three against a guy that's been in the league for nearly two decades. Give this guy time to throw and of course he's going to pick you apart.
Yes, the DBs had some mental errors. But any defense is gonna give up big passing plays when the QB has time to bake a cake in the pocket. Favre never once in looked uncomfortable. It was rare that he was forced to give up the ball early. For fuck's sake, if he's picking you apart when you're dropping eight, could it really hurt to rush five or six? Whatever happened to the exotic schemes we saw against Cutler? What we saw tonight was the Bob Sanders defense all over again, and it just leaves me feeling disgusted.
Second, not all the sacks were on the offensive line. That unit on the left side obviously didn't play well, but Rodgers has got to learn to GET RID OF THE FUCKING BALL. The safety is entirely on him. So were at least three of the other sacks. Against line like that, he's got to have that clock in his head ticking. 1, 2, 3, get rid of the ball or fucking run with it. Again, without watching it a second time I don't know how much the play calling had to do with this. But if Rodgers doesn't have an easy checkdown on every throw, namely to the TE, something is seriously wrong.
The Packers offense is obviously at its best when Rodgers can take a couple steps and deliver a quick strike. Make him roll out, maybe. But if he's gotta take a 5 or 7 step drop he's gonna get killed. The line can't block that long and Rodgers holds the ball too often.
This game could have been different. Lee drops a TD that turns out to be a death sentence. Rodgers throws a terrible INT deep in their territory. The fumble.
This is a game that I think looks worse than it really was and it was for the eye popping plays. The sacks, the big strikes by Favre. Lost in the shuffle was the fact that the Packers ran the ball when they attempted it. Rodgers had a good completion percentage and yards per attempt. They stopped AD cold.
Despite the defensive scheme and the sacks, this game was still relatively close.
9 - Good turnout here, though.
I'm surprised we didn't get complaints from the neighbors but it was a good time.
Getting the food and making it was a pain in the ass. Only now is it dawning on me that I paid $91 for food and drinks tonight. There are a lot of leftovers but unless I want to live at the gym this week I'm not sure how much I want to indulge on cream cheese, Mayo, beef, sour cream and Velveeta.
9b - I liked the compliments on got on my place. Everyone that came through mentioned how great it looked. Glad to know the hard work didn't go unnoticed.
9c - Neither did the food. "Fucking amazing" was the term I most often heard.
1) You ever start a movie and almost instantly know it's gonna be one of your favorites? WALL-E was one. Garden State was another.
500 Days of Summer absolutely is. It's awesome. Almost immediately I'm seeing myself and my friends in these two characters. It's impossible not to. Either you've been one of these people or you know one of these people. Maybe you've been both. I know I have.
I'm trying to write while watching it. It's 1:00 am and I might be keeping the neighbors and my brother up with my laughter. The scene with the Hall and Oats song is one of the funniest things I've ever seen.
On the other-hand, I'm someone who can't stand to watch embarrassing situations. Or train-wrecks you can see coming a mile away. Or anything that reminds me of a time when I was not-awesome and I look back at myself horrified. There are a shit-ton of scenes like this. Like pretty much to the point where I had to turn my head and plug my ears.
I know, I'm a dope.
1b) I can't believe the sister from Almost Famous is now this super famous actress depicting everything that frustrates and demolishes men like me.
1c) There can't be much left of this movie. I don't know how it can possibly end in a way that doesn't leave me completely and utterly fucking hopeless and depressed. That said, 500 Days is still super awesome.
1d) OK, it just ended and I'm grinning like a bastard.
