Damn.

And just for the record, I'm 80% sure Barrett's shoulda-been homer hit the foul pole.

My sister has some pretty funny comments about a recent TV showing of "The Goonies". It's a great flick. One of those that I can't wait to show my FutureKids(TM). Comedy, adventure, excitement, blaa blaa blaa. It's good stuff. Anyway.

Funny thing is...we had watched it a bunch of times as kids from this cruddy tape that we had. It didn't have commercials or anything (or even breaks in the tape stream where commercials had been paused out) and I assume Mom had taped it off cable during one of our short stints of actually having cable back then. Anyway...there's a scene at the end where the kids have just escaped the cave and the police and their families have arrived to pick them up. They're all telling the stories about their adventures and the cops are going 'yeah, right, ok, whatever' and all that. And Chunk (I think) says something like 'and then there was the octopus!' and since there was NO octopus in our showing of the movie we had always just figured it was BS, since that was definitely in line with the character throughout the whole movie.

Of course, if it was Data who said that I'm probably sounding pretty stupid here.

Cut to the end of the story. YEARS later, and I mean YEARS, independent of each other my sister and I stumbled upon an actual airing of the ENTIRE movie. And there actually IS a damn octupus scene in the movie along with some other stuff they cut out for time and all that. How funny is that.

The Cubs got trounced in their last two games, but that stopped after tonight's 4-3 Cub victory! Maddux is a GREAT guy to have in the rotation to stop the bleeding, and he did just that tonight. The Cubs never trailed tonight (I think) buy the D-backs did tie it up late after Steve Finley's third home-run of the night.

During the top of the 8th Richie Sexson tried to check his swing and seemingly popped something in his left wrist. He went down to his knees right afterwards so I'm thinking it's something serious. The guy's a notorious Cub-killer but it's never good when somebody gets hurt. He's not in our division anymore anyway. Hopefully it's nothing too bad.

Sights, sun and surf await thousands of sailors visiting for Fleet Week: South Florida Sun-Sentinel

Steve and I drove to Port Everglades after class today to see if we could see any of the ships. We were stopped by security at the gates to the port though...it's not opened to the general public.

Oh well...it would have been nice to see the Enterprise.

Office Depot Center

Wow...Prince was playing there as I was driving past. Wait...I don't care about that either.

Arrived in Sunrise, Florida for my training this week. Monday and Tuesday I'll be taking cellular training down here. I made the trip in under 3 hours thanks to mapquest. I'm staying at a Crowne Plaza hotel now, pretty much in the shadow of where the Florida Panthers play...as if I care about Florida sports.

Watched the Cubs game with Court before I left today. Clement pitched a gem...giving up only 2 hits I think, the first of which was a homer by Karim Garcia who almost broke his arm by catching an Alex Gonzalez foul ball and then running into the padded brick wall in the right field foul territory and then ended up batting 10 minutes later. Great game by Clement!

Training tomorrow and Tuesday and then I'll spend some time with Sam on Wednesday before leaving to drive home. Then, CISSP orientation session on Sunday with boot camp Monday--->Friday, study session Saturday and test on Sunday. Wish me luck!

Cubs keeping eye on the ball, not the Sox

Ozzie. PS. Nobody cares about the Sox.

Watched 'Kill Bill Vo. 1' this morning. We rented a bunch of stuff last night. I really don't get all the people who think KB is the best thing since sliced bread. I mean...it's ok. I'd even say 'good'. But not the greatest thing I've ever seen ever.

SI.com - NFL - CNN: Former Cardinals safety Tillman killed in action - Friday April 23, 2004 10:53AM

:(

original story

Wow...in going to the blogger webpage to write this entry it asked me if I wanted to be one of the first to pilot gmail, google's new email service. How cool is that? I even snatched up rgonzale@gmail.com address.


And damn if it didn't make me totally forget what I was going to write here.

Holy cow. The top of the first in Pittsburgh just ended...after a half an hour. Josh Fogg gave up 5 runs (I think) and was knocked out of the game after 20 minutes. The Cubs scored 3 more (at least 1 will be charged to Fogg since he was responsible for the man on) and Mitre is getting spotted an 8-run lead in the bottom of the 1st.

Some notable things...2 bonehead plays by the first basement on the Pirates. First one, he didn't have his foot on first on a routine bouncer on the infield, so when he took the through Aramis Ramirez was safe. The guy was planted and everything...just wasn't touching the bag at all. Second play, he dove for a quick bouncer, then gunned it to get the guy trying to score from third. His throw was off and everybody was safe. Big WTG for him today. Plus, he's got hair like Thor.

Great Cub Victory today. The bats were really at work. Fantastic to see.

Watched via the MLB Extra Innings Feed...which was the Fox Sports feed with the Pittsburgh announcers. Picture was clear and Chip, let me tell you, you were NOT missed. I didn't listen to the radio today because I just watched the game in chunks. I prefer day games that I can listen to over the net during the day while I'm working and then Tivo to the highlights afterwards.

Wow! Derrek Lee just cracked a Grand Slam! Woo hoo! First Wrigley homer as a Cub! Second of the year!

Ordered the MLB Extra Innings package so I could catch *all* the Cubs games. I'd thought buying the Sports Package----and Maddux just served up one to Adam Dunn and it's 3-0 Reds. Great.

Anyways...the DirecTV sports package is a bundle of channels like the Speed Channel and Golf Channels as well as the regional Fox Sports Channels. I figured that'd let me watch the Cubs games on Fox Sports Chicago. Not so. They're blacked out. So I cancelled the Sports package today and ordered the Extra Innings package.

Boy, I hope we got Maddux with a warantee. He seems to be broken.

ChicagoSports.com - Thomas exercises option to complain

He then said he wasn't going to complain about the money he makes. On Thursday, however, Thomas said it's "a little disappointing" on the first and 15th of the month—payday.

This guy makes $6million a year. Is he an idiot? I don't even think he starts at first anymore. He's a DH. What a tool.

HOLY COW! Talk about an AMAZING Cub game! FANTASTIC! It had EVERYTHING!

A friend from England was watching on MLBtv...I hope he enjoyed it as much as I did! Woo hoo!

(oh, and the ump can KISS MY ASS)

Trump to Chicago Bill: You're hired

Way to go Bill! Fantastic job. And nice job picking the Chicago high-rise as your job. The building looks like it'll be amazing.

Boo on the sports guy, whose subjects for his last two columns (golf and the NBA) couldn't interest me any less.

ChicagoSports.com - 'Illiniwek' protesters occupy U. of I. building (Registration Required): "

The protesters said they had three demands of the trustees: immediate elimination of the Chief mascot, dance and symbol; a formal apology to anyone offended by the Chief; and increased funding for Native American and other minority programs on the Urbana-Champaign campus.

'A formal apology to anyone offended'? Jeez. This country is turning into the land of the wusses.

Bin Laden to Europe: How about a truce? Britain, Germany, France: Stick it.

heh heh heh

Blackhawks in Crisis - Out of sight, out of mind

This whole article shows why the Hawks are like a nice deer that used to be big and majestic 50 years ago but now has been clipped by cars so many times it just needs to be shot in the head and have it be over with.

New receiver is in the house.

Arrived yesterday. Works good so far. Neat.

Mike & Mike keep bringing up how tons of people have emailed them saying they don't want to hear about Bonds. In doing so, they start talking about Bonds. Are they idiots?

I miss Mr. Tony.

Mr. President...it may seem petty for me to be mad about your speach going over 'Scrubs' tonight. But oh well.

I am not happy.

How funny is it that shortly after Mr. Tony and Wilbon talked about how Bonds hitting #660 wasn't that big a deal (and ESPN was over-blowing it) ESPN broke into PTI to show his at-bat and his 660th homer?

And how sad was it that I recorded the 6:30p re-run of PTI so I could see the 'PRIOR' item that didn't run during the first showing due to the break-in?

PTI went live for the last segment because they talked about the homer. They do this sometimes when something like that happens. Too bad Tony's not on the radio anymore...I'm sure he'd have a LOT to say about it.

Apparently something big happened in golf this weekend. Congrats to Phil. Nice job.

Sorry, but I'm more excited about the cub victory yesterday.

GREAT Cub game today. Kerry Wood did a great job and the Cub offense REALLY shined. Nice job fellas!

Happy Easter to Everybody!

ESPN.com - MLB - Astros' Pettitte lands on DL with elbow injury

Wow. He got rocked so bad it strained his elbow.

woo hoo!

Big win tonight! The game went 15 innings. I'm pretty sure the Cubs used every reliever they had out of the pen. Zambrano pitched a GREAT game today (yesterday)...I think he only gave up 2 hits. Unfortunately one was a homer by Andruw Jones...about 2 seconds after Dopey Chip call Turner Field 'not a park for home runs'.

Todd Hallandsworth came up with a top of the 9th 2 out homer to keep the Cubs alive in this game. He swung at the first pitch and right after I yelled "Ah! Don't swing at the first pitch!" (due to Corey Patterson disease spreading throughout the club) he cranked one for a homer. I then proudly announced to Court that I was an idiot.

Nice defense by the Cubs, and great game observations by Steve Stone, who is about the only reason I didn't give up and turn the radio on during the game while muting the TV. At one point Chipper Jones was up and Steve mentioned how the Cubs would shift defensively because the way Wellmeyer (I think) was pitching it'd get Chipper to hit one right down the left field line. Aramis Ramirez was standing just off the line and caught Chipper's liner that would have fallen foul had Ramirez not been there.

Great game guys!

Damn...just heard that Ron Santo's son's documentary on Ronnie..."This Old Cub" is playing at the Marcus Addison Theaters...the theater I used to go to constantly! Damn it!

Hopefully it comes out on video.

Cubs play at 12:30pm (eastern) today so I'm taking a late lunch to watch the first hour of the game.

And I just muted Chip Caray for the first time this season. I'm listening to Pat and Ron over MLB audio.

Feels like the season's *really* started now.

Woo hoo! Cubs won today! Some nice offense, decent outing by Kerry Wood, and great relief pitching! Nice job fellas!

Little over an hour until the first pitch...

man, oh man. I can't wait!

Even if you don't agree with why we're in Iraq...this HAS to be done.

Why do I think it's useless when Colin Cowherd has a daily segmetn when he talks to sports radio guys from around the country? Tony used to talk to sportswriters all the time? I guess I'd rather listen to Bob Ryan than the Incredible Mr. Nobody who does Sports radio in Texas or some crap.

Went to Universal today to see if the Revenge of the Mummy ride was opened for guest previews yet. I didn't think it would be but I heard that they'd at least removed the walls blocking off the ride entrance. They put it in the King Kong space in Universal...so the old NYC Rapid Transit exterior has been turned into a 'Museum of Antiquities' or some such. Anyway, turns out the ride was in technical preview...some ride elements were not finished but it was open for guests. After a 40 minute wait we got to ride it. It was awesome. Great ride! It's an indoor coaster like 'Space Mountain' and 'Rockin Roller coaster' but it also reminded me of the 'Indiana Jones' ride at Disneyland. There are some coaster elements and some of the IJ 'car' elements, because you back up and go another way at one point. Very cool. I could tell some things were not installed yet but all in all it was a great ride.

They don't allow *any* carry-ons so I had to lock my bag and sunglasses and stuff in one of those thumbscan lockers they have...they're pretty idiot-proof, since you just follow the onscreen commands and put your finger or thumb on the scanner when it tells you to. Nevertheless, the group of mid-thirties women in front of me were dumbfounded by this thing and took 10 or 15 minutes to figure it out. Once they were done I used it to get a new locker and it opened a locker that already had stuff in it (which somebody must have used, returned and tried to open it, and then left there stuff in there for some reason so the system thought it was empty now) and so I had to get another one. After exiting the ride I noticed the dopey women were near us so I sped out of the store and into the line for the lockers...thankfully they ended up behind me this time. All the while they were complaining about having to wait and decrying the fact that the person using the locker console was going slow. Talk about IRONY.

Some things are just idiot-proof, if you ask me. This locker thing. The automated ticketing thing at the movie theater and airports. I'm sorry...if you can't figure these things out, go back to grade school. *Sometimes* they do have techincal problems but not very often by my experience. Everything is designed for the lowest common denominator (idiots) in this world and I really think it's holding back a lot of cool technological things that are just on the horizon.

UCONN pulled my biscuits out of the fire tonight with a GREAT win. Duke even hit a last second 3-pointer to make them only lose by 1. I think I've won the yahoo group thing without Uconn winning, since the guy below my has Uconn to win also but has less points than me.

Saw ESPN after the game...Vitale seriously looked like he'd been crying. Seriously. What a Dukee he is.