Merry Christmas!

Fair Winds and Following Seas

or

Miles to Go Before I Sleep

Well, it's down to tonight. Tonight is the last night we'll spend in our house here. I'll miss it a lot. It's a great house and I really liked living here. Our family is relocating up to IL and hopefully after a short while we'll find someplace up there in IL that'll be just as good (if not better) than what we've all had here.

The movers come tomorrow. This whole weekend was very hectic. We'll be all set once they get here.

We'll spend tomorrow night at a HoJo and leave for IL on Wednesday right after the closing on the house is complete.

Might be a few days before I update again.

CNN.com - Robert Novak leaving CNN - Dec 16, 2005: "Commentator Robert Novak, who hasn't been seen on CNN since swearing and storming off the set in August, will leave the network after 25 years and join Fox News Channel as a contributor next month"

Novak going to Fox News...no big suprise. In the 'Crossfire' days, I have to say that the Right wasn't helped much by Novak. He seemed a little aged and bumbling at times, particularly when set against Paul Begala.

Church & State || National Jewish Democratic Council: "Democratic members asked the Republican author of the resolution, Rep. Jo Ann Davis (R-VA), if she would permit the symbols of Chanukah and other holidays to be included in the protection of the resolution -- and she refused."

Boy, this is a crazy world we live in.

I found this to be a great capper to it all.

Dingell’s HOLIDAY Jingle for O’Reilly and House GOP

Washington, DC - Congressman John D. Dingell (MI-15) recited the following poem on the floor of the US House of Representatives concerning House Resolution 579, which expressed the sense of the House of Representatives that the symbols and traditions of Christmas should be protected. “Preserving Christmas” has been a frequent topic for conservative talk show hosts, including Fox News’s Bill O’Reilly:

‘Twas the week before Christmas and all through the House

No bills were passed ‘bout which Fox News could grouse;

Tax cuts for the wealthy were passed with great cheer,

So vacations in St. Barts soon would be near;

Katrina kids were nestled all snug in motel beds,

While visions of school and home danced in their heads;

In Iraq our soldiers needed supplies and a plan,

Plus nuclear weapons were being built in Iran;

Gas prices shot up, consumer confidence fell;

Americans feared we were on a fast track to…well…

Wait--- we need a distraction--- something divisive and wily;

A fabrication straight from the mouth of O’Reilly

We can pretend that Christmas is under attack

Hold a vote to save it--- then pat ourselves on the back;

Silent Night, First Noel, Away in the Manger

Wake up Congress, they’re in no danger!

This time of year we see Christmas every where we go,

From churches, to homes, to schools, and yes…even Costco;

What we have is an attempt to divide and destroy,

When this is the season to unite us with joy

At Christmas time we’re taught to unite,

We don’t need a made-up reason to fight

So on O’Reilly, on Hannity, on Coulter, and those right wing blogs;

You should just sit back, relax…have a few egg nogs!

‘Tis the holiday season: enjoy it a pinch

With all our real problems, do we honestly need another Grinch?

So to my friends and my colleagues I say with delight,

A merry Christmas to all,

and to Bill O’Reilly…Happy Holidays.

In a Red State

Just got an automated call from the 'Florida for the Preservation of Marriage' coalition or whatever wanting to inform me about important things going on with the 'Preservation of Marriage Ammendment'.

I can only assume this is to drum up support for an ammendment that would ban gay marriage in the United States under the auspices of 'preserving' the 'traditional' meaning of 'marriage'.

Yeah...it's time to go.

Kongfrontation

We went to see King Kong last night. Beforehand we had a nice dinner at Earl of Sandwich. I had wanted Chili's but Court said that they have Chili's in IL and it'd be our last time eating at EoS for a while so we went there.

It was an 8pm showing. I enjoyed the film, though like some others I felt it was a big long. I think there were several scenes in the first third of the movie that could have been cut. Also, I felt the spider/insect attack scene could have been trimmed some.

A lot of great visuals. This film has one of the most amazing sequences I've ever seen , Kong vs. 3 T-rex, and one of the dumbest, a brontosaurus stampede and subsequent pile up.

Kong looked fantastic, I have to say. I feel the T-rex bar (set by Jurassic Park) was not really met here...only because I think the full-size (animatronic) T-rex in JP was so astounding.

I liked the actors in their rolls. Brody did a nice job, I thought. Naomi Watts was a great Ann Darrow. I even liked seeing Kyle Chandler (an old 'Early Edition' favorite) though I was a bit puzzled by his character since he goes from a coward--->hero--->coward during the course of the film. If there was a weak point in casting I thought it was probably Jack Black...though Black's normal theatrics lent themselves well to the role at times.

There were a few clunker lines like the first mate (a character I was sad to see go) giving Jimmy advice, something like "You've got to get an education, Jimmy! That's what's important!"

There were a few times where the suspension of disbelief just did not work for me. Ann climbing to the top (yes, the TOP as in look up and there's only sky and look around you and there's nothing) of the Empire State Building and standing there with nothing to hold on to...Jack doing the same thing and the both of them standing on the top of one of the tallest buildings in the world like they were standing in the middle of a Target parking lot. Also, when Jack rescues Ann he grabs the foot of a giant bat-like creature that flies them down from Kong's lookout point...that's a little harder to believe than the rest of the movie.

They definitely made Kong a more sympathetic character. It'd be hard to watch a certain 'ice skating' scene and not feel something for him. I didn't get teary or cry or anything at the end, but it was sad. Makes you wish they'd just left Kong alone on that island.

At one point you see some Kong-ish skeletons at Kong's lookout point were kind of an indication that a sequel might be possible at some point.

The visuals of the Kong's rampage through New York were amazing. I felt the planes looked a little fake (why not use real biplanes and cut them in somehow?) but the city itself looked *Amazing*.

I'd give it a 7. I just think that the way the beginning was dragged out detracts from the film too much.

Movie & TV News @ IMDb.com - Studio Briefing: "the two sides are also discussing the possibility of Disney buying Pixar outright and, in effect making it Disney's animated division"


This would be the smartest decision Disney has made in YEARS.

I have seen the Falcon, and it is mine.

During her 'day after Thanksgiving' shopping, Court picked up the LEGO Millennium Falcon. It was half price so she got it at $50. Originally it was for me, but later she decided against it and was going to sell it to a friend so that friend could give it as a gift for somebody else. Of course, I was surprised to see it in the loot when she came back from shopping and even more surprised that it wasn't for me. Anyways.

Time passes...

The Falcon is still in her car. I ask her why it's still there and she said she keeps forgetting to give it to the friend.

Time passes...

It is still there.

Time passes...

Still there.

Time passes...

Then, last weekend, we exchange gifts with our Florida friends, and it's also a 'last goodbye' of sorts since some we won't again before we move. In loading the stuff into the car, I see it again.

Me: "Ok. I've seen that one too many times. It is mine now."


And it'll be put together once we get back to IL and situated.


EDIT

I should ammend this story to state that I had told Court multiple (dozens of) times that I didn't want it because I'd never have room for it even though I really did want it.

Heard in our house yesterday...

Court: "Things are so crazy, it's like I think it's Thursday when it's Wednesday."

Me: "Uh...actually it's Tuesday."

Baby on Board

Belated congrats to Cousin Beth and her husband George on the birth of their son Braiden Alexander, born Dec 10, 2005 10:45am (mountain time) 7lbs 12oz 21.25 inches.

Lots of love to the newest member of our family!

Yahoo! TV News & Gossip -: "At least on Fox. Producer Brian Grazer told CNN last week that he is working feverishly to move the sitcom to another home.

'I think we'll get picked up by some other network, possibly,' he said. 'You never know."

We can but hope.

CNN.com - Snow storms freeze center of country - Dec 8, 2005

Old Man Winter is bringing his A-game.

He'll find me ready.

The Sign of Four

FOUR JOBS YOU'VE HAD IN YOUR LIFE

Ace Hardware guy
Central Service Tech at Alexian
White Hen Pantry man
Whatever it is I do now

FOUR MOVIES YOU COULD WATCH OVER AND OVER
The Empire Strikes Back
The Shawshank Redemption
The Untouchables
Office Space


FOUR CITIES/TOWNS YOU'VE LIVED IN
Bartlett, IL
Carol Stream, IL
Elk Grove Village, IL
Orlando, FL

FOUR TV SHOWS YOU LOVE TO WATCH
Smallville
Stargate SG-1
The Office
Battlestar Galactica

FOUR PLACES YOU'VE BEEN ON VACATION
Orlando, FL (har har)
Las Vegas, NV
San Francisco, CA
Anaheim, CA


FOUR WEBSITES YOU VISIT DAILY
my sister's blog
The Ravensoft EF Board
Trekbbs
CNN.com


FOUR OF YOUR FAVOURITE FOODS
Porkchops and applesauce (that's swell)
Ham and cheese on rye (no seeds)
Barnaby's Pizza (coming soon to a meal near me)
peanut butter and banana (don't knock it til you try it baby)



FOUR PLACES YOU'D RATHER BE RIGHT NOW
asleep
on this tour
Cub game
Bears game

National Geographic: Remembering Pearl Harbor

Another generation's 9/11.



Apart from that, it is also the birthday of my cousin Beth (preggers, big time!) and my Grandpa Rick (The I to my III).

CNN.com - The many facets of Tookie Williams - Dec 3, 2005: "Williams says he's not the same man who co-founded the Crips, not the man convicted of blowing four people away with a shotgun in 1979 during robberies that netted little more than gas money."

oh yeah? Well those four people you murdered aren't the same either. You know why? BECAUSE THEY'RE DEAD.

Oh Deer

Some time ago some people cut down some of the bigger trees that formed the berm between our backyard area and the pond behind us. Now it's just a loose configuration of bushes. Last night, as I was getting ready to close up the back room, I saw Hooper and Boots staring at something outside. It was a deer. Actually, there were two of them. I asked Court to bring a flashlight and we could see their eyes glow green in the light. It was pretty amazing since they weren't that far away. Now that the berm has been cut down they can go between areas pretty easily. I wouldn't be surprise if one came up to the back door if we put food out. (don't tempt me)

I had seen a deer in the area around that back pond a long time ago when I was looking out our back bedroom's window. Now that Court's seen them too it's proof I'm not nuts. Funny thing was, the father of a family who came by to view the house asked if we'd ever had any 'beasts' in our backyard. heh heh

Bob and David - It's Official!: "Combine that with your sucker appeal to the knee-jerk white Christian patriot in us all who would much rather hear 87 fart jokes than hear a joke in which the President (the current one, not the last one) or the Pope, or Born-Again Christians, or Lee Greenwood get called on their shit for being the hypocrites that they are, and I think we've got a winner!"

Hilarious David Cross hatchet job on one of those idiot 'blue collar' comedy dopes.

Warp Speed ahead...: June 2005: "CKB still top dog!!

Well, Rich G has managed to put together his rig but guess what?? It came up short in the benchmarks when compared to the CKB (CUNSOT Killer Box). His machine scored a measly 8528 on the 3dMark 2003 benchmark, which is less that my 11103. So, there you have it, CKB is still the top dog! Woof! Woof!"

Unfortunately, the 'top dog' has been put to sleep. In what has been termed 'just a slight hiccup' by its owner, the CKB went offline last night due to some kind of internal error. What a damn shame!

Let's all take a moment of silent to reflect on the CKB...ok, that's enough. CUNSOT II reigns supreme once again!

Current CKB 3dMark 2003 score: 0

CNN.com - Wendie Jo Sperber dead of cancer - Dec 1, 2005

Cancer. :(

Amani Toomer - New York Giants - News - NFL - Yahoo! Sports: "Gregg Bell, of the Associated Press, reports the Seattle Seahawks were told by the NFL that referee Larry Nemmers made a couple errors in the Week 12 game against the New York Giants. "

Yes! My old High School principal Larry Nemmers came through with a bogus TD call that gave my boy Toomer some Fantasy Football points! Woo hoo!

Bearing down

Great Bears game yesterday. The Defense dominated the game, so much so that on the Buc's first plays the D stripped the ball and the Bears recovered at the TB 1 yard line. Can't get better field position than that. Orton flew a nice play-action pass to the TE and that was that. He had another nice play on a screen pass later in the game. He's not "winning" games for the Bears, but the important thing is he's definitely not losing them. This team has found a way to win. They score just enough points for the W.

The weekend break was nice. We relaxed all weekend, really. Court had made arragenment for us to eat at the Liberty Tree Tavern in the MK (for my belated BD) and we had a nice dinner there on Saturday night. We had some people drive by the house and take a look and grab some of the fliers that are on the sign, so that's good.

Saturday we finally took that California Adventure litho to a framing place. It had been in its packing tube for almost two and a half years. I was happy to see it wasn't displaying any kind of banding artifacts from being stored that way for so long. It's smaller than I remember. I didn't even really remember what it had looked like, to be honest. It brought back some nice memories of our honeymoon and all. Getting it framed won't cost an arm and a leg either, so that's nice. We went to the same place Disney gets stuff framed at. We should have been going there all along.

Court made a rasberry cheesecake pie last night. It was pretty good. We started to watch the TV movie version of 'The Poseidon Adventure' but got bored with that and watched that 'Three Stooges' TV movie that was on a few years ago...they recently showed it again on AMC and I recorded it on the Tivo.

I put it for my time off work. From December 19th--->the end of the year I'll be off work, barring any trip anywhere that I *have to* go on. Hopefully that particular trip won't happen until January.

I've also started migrating my email to my gmail address. For anybody reading, rgonzale6@bellsouth.net will still be active, but I won't really be checking it other than to see what other newsletters and people need to get my new address. It's a spamcatcher right now since I've made a lot of the changes already. I just need to send out my new address to my friends and stuff. Since bellsouth will be going away once we move we need something for the interim until we get an ISP at the new house.

CNN.com - Review: Run your own studio in 'The Movies' - Nov 23, 2005

Definitely on my Christmas list!

The bird is the word

We had a very nice Thanksgiving today. I ran out yesterday and picked up a smoked turkey breast and a mini-ham from Honey Baked Ham, and I got some sides from Boston Market. They went into the fridge and the sides got re-heated today. Also made some of the flakey layers biscuits, which I really liked. Good food and a nice, restful day. We both needed it. Court will be up at 4am (!) tomorrow for ShopFest 2005. I'll be sleeping and probably stay asleep for 6 hours after that. That's too damn early. Even for Call of Duty 2 for $30.

All in all, we're very thankful for our health, safety, (a margin of) success, and they fact that we could all (me, Court, Felis Cattus, and Hoop) be together on this holiday. It'll be our last holiday in this house here in FL.

Hope you all had a nice holiday as well.

Don Surber's Pajamas Media: Ze French Open Post: "AP and UPI reported today that the French government announced that it has raised its terror alert level from 'Run' to 'Hide.' The only two higher levels in France are 'Collaborate' and 'Surrender.'"


heh heh heh

Rocky Mountain Why

Well. Flew out to Denver Sunday night instead of the originally scheduled Monday morning. This kept us from having any kind of birthday dinner, and it also meant that not only would I be away from home for Court's BD, but for part of mine as well. I've resolved that next year I'll just take both days off.

Got into Denver at something like 10:30pm local time...12:30am Eastern. Fun stuff. Tired as hell and when I got in I learned my colleague wanted to meet for breakfast at 6am. Yikes. I figure I was in the hotel for something like 5 hours, all told. Nice.

The talk went ok I guess. Not really my kettle of fish. We'll see how it all plays out. Meeting ended at around 1pm so I headed to Coors Field to take a tour, which was to start at 2pm. It was only supposed to take about ten minutes to get there but being a dope and getting lost helped me stretch it to an hour. Thanks to the landscaper (who pointed me in the right direction) and the gas station lady (who narrowed it down exactly) for their help. In getting lost I passed Invesco Field (huge) and the Six Flags park in Denver.

The field was VERY nice. Beautiful park. There's a continuous row of purple seats around the upper deck that signifies the 'mile high' line. Suites were very nice. This was more of an in-depth baseball tour since Coors Field is only a ballfield, unlike SkyDome which they use for other stuff. We actually got to go into the visitor's locker room at Coors (Cubs have been in here) and into BOTH dugouts. Amazing. We got to walk on the warning track and I actually stepped onto the grass for a step even though we weren't supposed to. How could I resist?

Funny thing is, I came to see the park and get a bat. Guess what? They had sold out of the damn bats. I had to get one that says "Coors Field" in a cheesey type of logo. And it was buy one get one free. And I got a free 2005 Opening Day pennant too. A local sports store I stopped in after the tour had no bats either. I'll have to find one online.

In house selling news, things are moving along. A few people have been in to see it and we've got an offer, which is nice. We'll see what happens.

CNN.com - Tot who died on Disney ride had bad heart - Nov 15, 2005

Very unfortunate.

ESPN.com - NFL - Jesse Jackson calls T.O. suspension 'much too severe'

Oh, deliver us. Please.

Terrell Owens - Philadelphia Eagles - News - NFL - Yahoo! Sports: "Nov 12 NBC10.com report, citing Knight Ridder, reports there is serious backlash at Philadelphia Eagles WR Terrell Owens' agent, Drew Rosenhaus - from his fellow sports agents. Several agents interviewed by reporter Paul Domowitch said the rest of the agents who represent NFL players are 'nauseated' at Rosenhaus. Two sources told Knight Ridder that some of Rosenhaus' current NFL player-clients are looking to dump Rosenhaus after his performance at Wednesday's press conference, Nov. 9, where he took the spotlight away from Owens."


BWAAAAAAAAAAA HAAAAAAAAA HAAAAAAAAAAAAA HAAAAAAAAAAAAA HAAAAAAAAAAAAA HAAAAAAAAAAAAA HAAAAAAAAAAAAA HAAAAAAAAAAAAA HAAAAAAAAAAAAA HAAAAAAAAAAAAA HAAAAAAAAAAAAA HAAAAAAAAAAAAA HAAAAAAAAAAAAA HAAAAAAAAAAAAA HAAAAAAAAAAAAA HAAAAAAAAAAAAA HAAAAAAAAAAAAA HAAAAAAAAAAAAA HAAAAAAAAAAAAA HAAAAAAAAAAAAA HAAAAAAAAAAAAA



(breathe)

BWAAAAAAAAAAA HAAAAAAAAA HAAAAAAAAAAAAA HAAAAAAAAAAAAA HAAAAAAAAAAAAA HAAAAAAAAAAAAA HAAAAAAAAAAAAA HAAAAAAAAAAAAA HAAAAAAAAAAAAA HAAAAAAAAAAAAA HAAAAAAAAAAAAA HAAAAAAAAAAAAA HAAAAAAAAAAAAA HAAAAAAAAAAAAA HAAAAAAAAAAAAA HAAAAAAAAAAAAA HAAAAAAAAAAAAA HAAAAAAAAAAAAA HAAAAAAAAAAAAA HAAAAAAAAAAAAA HAAAAAAAAAAAAA

CNN.com - 'Arrested Development' gets the ax - Nov 11, 2005

damn it

Chicago Sun-Times - Season of Sharing

Just got a notification today. The site's been updated for this year.

A Red-Letter Date in the history of Science

Fifty years ago today, Doctor Emmett L. Brown was standing on a toilet trying to hang a clock. He slipped and hit his head. When he came to, he had a vision. A vision of the Flux Capacitor. It's what makes time travel possible.

Chicago Sun-Times - Season of Sharing

This is still up from last year. When its updated for this season, it'll provide a space for you to put in your contact information so you can be sent a child's letter to Santa along with instructions on where the gift can be sent.

I say this, because I have a request. If you live in the Chicago area and happen to see information about this in the paper, please let me know. That'll let me know that I can let them know to send me a letter. Last year, with everything going on I got my letter very late in the month and had to rush in order to get my gift in on time.

Thanks!

the futon critic - the web's best primetime television resource: "...while returning comedy 'The Office' got the thumbs up for three additional episodes, the network announced yesterday."


Woo hoo!

You Passed the US Citizenship Test

Congratulations - you got 9 out of 10 correct!

Could You Pass the US Citizenship Test?

Ok, so I don't know a lot about Vermont. Who does?

Must be the season of the witch

Halloween came and went. We only had one group of Trick-or-Treaters, the neighbor kids. We got something like three bags of candy, just in case. We usually don't see a lot of traffic but you never know, right? Anyways, I'm not sure why we got so few. There really aren't that many kids in our neighborhood, I suppose. In retrospect, I probably should have set our outside light to 'always on' for that night rather than just 'motion activated' like normally. Maybe our end of the lot looked a little dark. Who knows?

Anyways, Halloween night we watched the first half of Gremlins, which I hadn't seen in a while. Still holds up nicely, I think. Hoop definitely has his Gizmo moments.

Got some new DVDs recently...Batman Begins, which is a great flick. The 'making of' thing on the 'Tumbler' (the new Batmobile) was pretty neat. This thing actually works and it can haul ass. Was amazing to see tooling around the streets of Chicago. Court picked up the Office Space giftset (with mousepad, notepad, pen, red swingline stapler, and some other stuff) and also Revenge of the Sith.

We watched the primary 'Making of' doc on disc 2 of RotS and it was pretty well made, I thought. It basically goes through the different departments that work on a movie and talked about how they contributed to the Anakin/Obi-Wan duel scene. It gave a real voice to the myriad of credits you always see on a movie that are of such length that they all just kinda run together.

Will probably watch RotS tonight...or at least some of the cooler scenes. Once in a while I just crank up the volume on the receiver and dial up a DVD that I know has a sequence where the sound and visuals are just amazing. I'll do the SuperBoots (it's a bird, it's a plane, it's a cat!) dealio to the beginning credits of Superman with the Superman fanfare music, or play the speeder bike chase from Return of the Jedi which has some AMAZING positional sound. Great stuff!

CNN.com - 'Trek' veteran dead at 57 - Nov 2, 2005

I found this very surprising, as I did not even know he had cancer.

I'm not going to wax poetic with things like "it's a great loss" and all that. Obviously, when anyone dies it's a sad and unfortunate thing.

One thing that sticks with me here: cancer. I hope it's beaten one day.

ChicagoSports.com - Backward toss baffles everyone

This was total BS. Mariucci basically got a free challenge by bitching to the officials and getting them to change their call. What a crock.

At least the Bears won. Orton looked great. He threw a bullet at one point to Mushi for a TD that was probably the best thrown pass by a Bears QB in a long time.

Yes, I just pulled a MacGyver and fixed my chair. (didn't have a mullet though)

Miers withdraws court nomination: "WASHINGTON-- Harriet Miers withdrew her nomination to be a Supreme Court justice Thursday in the face of stiff opposition and mounting criticism about her qualifications."

I had a feeling this would happen, and it did. Over the past few days things slowly drifted away from the line where her being appointed to the High Court was really going to happen.

A recent exchange tonight:

Court: "You know something? Maybe if I don't watch them, they'll do better. How long have I had the game off for? 15 minutes? They've just scored 4 runs."

Me: "Now you know how my life is."

Yes. Court has now caught my sickness.

ESPN.com - MLB/PLAYOFFS2005 - Guillen apologizes after Sox fan slaps Biggio's wife: "'It was one guy who acted like a 12-year-old, who slapped her upside the head,' said Biggio. 'I'm not going to sit here and hold all the Chicago fans accountable for this for one guy who was acting like an idiot.'"

It's a shame it happened. Biggio's a pretty stand-up guy with his comments, which is nice. Too bad he's a Cub killer.

Wired News: No Longer Safe for Work: Blogs: "'My best understanding is that my company's anti-blog stance is the industry norm'"

I actually understand this stance. At first, when I heard about people getting fired for stuff in their blogs, I thought it was a little odd and that the people involved were just dopes. While that might be the case, I saw something of how problems could occurr while I was sitting in the office up in IL last time I was there.

I noticed a lot of things that I'd thought were funny, particularly about some co-workers, and at first I thought I would blog about it. After thinking about it for about a half-second, I decided not to, for 'fear' it might come back to haunt me somehow.

Now, only one person from work reads my blog, and I trust him 100%. But you never know who else might be watching. (cue Twilight Zone music)

TheIndyChannel.com - News - Scary Halloween Decoration Prompts 911 Call: "'Next year, I think I'm going to get an old car and a dummy,' he said. 'I don't know what we are going to do with Santa, maybe have him in his sleigh in flames.'"


toats hilar.

In related blog post news, the african guy (of Harambe Wildlife Preserve fame, yo!) saying "Seacrest out." as his form of 'goodbye' was the funniest thing I've seen on TV in a long, long, time. If you're not watching "My Name is Earl" (or "The Office", which is funny as hell) you're really missing out.

ESPN.com: Page 2 : The Tommy Maddox Corollary: "3. I'm starting to think that the Baseball Gods just plain hate the Cubs."

Uh...Shell...did I not just say this sentence to you the other day?

My Name Is Earl: Teacher Earl - TV.com: "The gentleman who portrays the African man in this episode portrays the Wildlife Refuge Director in the queue video for Kilamanjaro Safarii at Disney's Animal Kingdom Park at Walt Disney World Resort, in Orlando, Florida."

I KNEW IT! (if this is true)


Miss Jobson, no one in Africa calls them Thompson's gazelles...they are called Tommies! Tom-mies!

ESPN.com: Page 2: "So the pressure's on -- if you're coming to one of the next three signings, bring a witty sentence with you."

I'M TELLING YOU, IF HE HADN'T LOST THAT DAMN NOTEBOOK... :)

Hitting to all fields...

• I am here just about all week.


• I've quickly found that standing at the booth for 7 hours right after spending Friday-Saturday-Sunday shlepping around Disney until late at night is probably not the best gameplan I could have had.


• The Contour (old n'busted) hit 99,000 miles on my way back home yesterday. woo hoo!


• A guy in the booth across from us looks exactly like Mr. Incredible. When I mentioned this to a co-worker he said "Yeah, if he worked at that Insurance company forever."


• My blue Cubs bracelet mysteriously vanished from my wrist between Saturday night and Sunday morning. Sunday, the White Sox won game 5 of the ALCS and are heading to the World Series. Seriously, does ANYONE think that's just a plain old coincidence? Come on now. I ain't crazy.


• The phrase "This could be the last time..." (in regards to leaving Florida) has now been pulled out more than a few times in order to justify buying some Disney junk. (yes, the Star Tours store stuff was for me, but whatever. This blog isn't about making me look bad)


• I'm considering taking a yellow high-liter to certain passages in the Sportsguy's book (thus breaking my 'no writing in books' rule...yes, I have one) that particularly 'speak' to me.


• My Mom was so excited to go to Chik-Fil-A the other day. Shell, you would have been 'toats embarr'.


• I'm 98% sure that the notebook that the sportsguy lost included a lengthy passage on how witty and profound the thing I asked Shell to have him write in my signed copy of his book was. (I'm pretty sure that's the most awkwardly constructed sentence I've ever written)


• Somebody paged me today asking how to say 'thank you' in Albanian. And I answered.

ESPN.com: Page 2 : The NFL's kitchen sink: "(By the way, I got to the bottom of this 'LT' thing with Tomlinson -- apparently, Tomlinson asked Lawrence Taylor for permission to use the nickname and Taylor agreed. Well, you know what? I don't care. If LeBron James' name was Mebron, we wouldn't call him MJ, right? So I'm not calling Tomlinson LT. From now on, for the purposes of this column, we're calling him 'LDT.' And that's that.)"

I'm sorry, but this was hilarious. For the record, I've always called him LDT. I've had him on my fantasy teams the past two years, luckily enough. The commercial with him holding up some fantasy team's jersey during a fantasy draft and saying "Uh...I need to talk to my agent" is hilarious.

ESPN.com - MLB - Recap - Angels at White Sox

Thanks to Tivo, we could see that the ball was actually caught. But, a win is a win and at this level, you take it.

The thing I hate about this is it's going to be talked about over and over and over on Tony's radio show tomorrow and PTI.

Wait a sec...just realized tomorrow is Yom Kippur. No Tony K on radio or PTI. Well, forget everything I said then.

CNN.com - Idaho on a shoestring -- caves for $5 a night - Oct 12, 2005


psshht. And just who hasn't slept in a cave before?

White House Briefing  News on President George W Bush and the Bush Administration: "'When the questioning turned to Miers, Bush blinked 37 times in a single answer -- along with a lick of the lips, three weight shifts and some serious foot jiggling.'"

This might be another one where you have to register. In summation, basically the President was displaying some pretty bad body language when questioned during a photo-op in New Orleans.

ESPN.com: Page 2: "Right now, somewhere in New York, a five-year-old kid is wondering if the Yankees will win a championship in his lifetime.
-- Dan Bock, Durham, N.C."

heh heh heh

NBC5.com - Sports - White Sox Fans Camp Out For Nothing

oops

Ok, only old ladies buy bouillon cubes.

Can This Nomination Be Justified?

Wow. A great article (by Conservative George Will from the Washington Post) saying basically that Miers does NOT have what it takes for the highest court in the land.

(might require registration...sorry)

Krypto the Super Dog

When I was upstairs earlier tonight Court asked me to bring a small envelope downstairs for her. I called Hooper upstairs, gave him the envelope, and told him to go see 'momma', He took it to her.

True story.

Oscar Winner Cage Becomes Father Again - Yahoo! News: "His wife, Alice Kim Cage, gave birth Monday to a boy, Kal-el Coppola Cage, in New York City, said Cage's Los Angeles-based publicist, Annett Wolf. No other details were available."

Yes, Kal-El. As in the last son of Kryton. As in Clark Kent. As in Superman.

And yes, I joked about doing this the other day. But it was a JOKE.

Trumped

Isn't "I'm guaranteeing a victory" the dumbest thing you can say on a show like The Apprentice?

Hitting to all fields...

• All geared up for 'Serenity' today. Been looking forward to this one for a year or so...pretty much ever since I heard of it. I can't wait.


• Walking Hooper last night an noticed the neighbor breaking new barriers in terms of a shitty parking job. They have two space and one car so of course his minivan is diagonally parked with 3/4 of it in one of his spaces and 1/4 of it in the space of the neighbor next to him


• When I fall asleep in the chair I almost ALWAYS wake up at 4:30am. I wonder what happens at that time to wake me up. It's like clockwork


• The boss's wife had a baby. A boy, their second. Congrats to them!


• Found I'll be manning a convention booth at the Swan (or is it the Dolphin?) October 17-20

More later. Was thinking of posting my thoughts on some of the new TV shows this season.

ESPN.com - MLB - Recap - White Sox at Tigers

Well, congrats. Now let's see what you guys can do with it. Good luck.

Andrews McMeel Publishing: Press Release - The Complete Calvin and Hobbes: "Fans From Around the World Interview Bill Watterson"

Watterson has pretty much retreated from 'public' life since C&H ended. This is a pretty good interview if you like C&H. Enjoy!

Some of you may have noticed there are several deleted comments in some of my posts. Rest assured, I'm not strangling anybody's freedom of saying whatever they want to say, it's just that an automated blog spam-bot is dropping 'commercials' of a kind as comments to some of my posts. When I see them I delete them.

I'm thinking of instituting a 'prove you're a person when you comment' type thing that blogger has. Basically, you'd have to type in a word that's shown in a picture to prove you're a human being before you comment. We'll see how the spam goes, I guess. If it increases, I'll turn that function on.

Hybrids: Don't buy the hype - Sep. 26, 2005: "Hybrids: Don't buy the hype
Sure, hybrids save gas but they won't save you money. There are smarter ways to go."

An excellent article. We had some small thoughts of getting a Hybrid Ford Escape (mostly, I did) but we decided the price point of a Hybrid over a regular Escape (something like $5K) was too much. Also, we had some concerns about getting it serviced, etc.

ESPN.com: Page 2 : 10 things I hate about you: "Actually, that makes her doubly crazy because she hates that I think my clothing affects the outcome of games."

So I'm not the only crazy one.

CNN.com - Last of swept away dolphins rescued - Sep 21, 2005: "JACKSON, Mississippi (AP) -- Marine biologists have rescued the last four of eight trained dolphins that were swept to sea by Hurricane Katrina."

Shell, this one's for you!

"Well, unless Ralph is willing to buy me a new car, I'm going to have to stick with this one until the wheels fall off."

Ah, my car. Shortly before I left for San Diego (actually, the Friday before Labor Day to be exact) my car went from sounding like a regular car to sounding like a damn tank. Of course, I have NO CLUE about cars so I didn't know what the hell was the matter with it. I looked at the muffler (a baby's 'looked at' not a mechanic's) and didn't seem to find anything wrong with it. I didn't think much about it because I wasn't going to need to use it Labor Day weekend and then after that I'd be gone for 10 days. I'd take it to Midas once I got back home and settled.

I met Court at Midas yesterday afternoon and we dropped it off and then I took her back to work and went home. An hour went by and the guy from Midas called. There was a cracked pipe coming out of the catalytic convertor...a new CC would cost $600 he said. Then, he said, we can replace the pipe with a flex-hose and make it as good as new. He said Ford makes the cc that way so you have to replace the whole thing if even only the pipe is cracked. Mechanics have come up with a work-around of using this flex-hose that'd make it just as good as the factory would. The price of that...$150. I chose that route. :)

One thing I like about our Midas is, there've been two times when I took my car there with something *definitely* wrong with it. Once, it was dying every once in a while and I took it there and they fixed the spark plug firing or something and that problem went away forever. The second time is this last time. Both times it cost me less than $200 (the level where fixing a car stops being a screw-job and becomes a minor inconvenience, to me anyway) and both times the car ran perfectly afterwards.

I hate taking a car in for some problem only to have it run (seemingly) the same damn way it had been running and have it cost me hundreds of dollars. (see recent Boots vet visit) With this fix the noise level produced by my car decreased 800%, so it was well worth it.

My car costs us nothing and I hardly use it so it's a perfect situation. There's definitely a level where if the fix had cost a certain amount (maybe say, over $500) that I would have said 'screw it' and either gotten a new car or gone without. I'm glad that didn't happen.

boy, if I get to see a moon landing someday...


(more later, I promise)

Still alive, just busy. More later.

CNN.com - Customs officials send seized goods to victims - Sep 6, 2005

How cool is this? What a great use for stuff that's probably just taking up space somewhere.

"But when I pulled on one of those threads...I unravelled the tapestry of my life."

Ok, now a break from our regularly scheduled "horrific news from New Orleans" or "somebody died" posts.

I was thinking the other day. It's now September 2005. A little over 10 years ago, I acted on a HUGE decision in my life. It's one that shaped my (then) future and continues to do so to this day. I went to NIU.

After high school I had always figured I would go to college somewhere. I just didn't think about where. A guidance counselor mentioned that NIU was a 'good accounting school', and since I had liked my HS Accounting classes (mostly due to my teacher, Mr. Booth) I decided to go there.

I had some thoughts about joining the Navy. The silly thing is, if JAG had been as big back then as it later turned out to be, I might have joined. I've always had something of a fascination with the Navy...I figure it to be the most 'civilized' of the Armed Services anyway. I took the ASVAB in High School along with some friends. It's the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery. At the time, I remember it got me out of a study hall or something. It was full of real 'does this square peg fit in a round hole' type questions. I'm not sure if it even still exists in that form. At the time, it was basically a coin flip as to what I would do. A Navy recruiting Chief came to our house to talk to me and left some information. They were saying that with my scores they could send me to Nuclear Training School in Orlando, FL. (ironic)

I later found out they tell that to everybody. :)

I had sent my ACT scores to NIU, UofI, and Notre Dame, just for grins. I heard back from all of them and responded to NIU. After finding out how to deal with their financial aid stuff, I chose to forget the Navy and go to NIU. It was as simple as that.

That one decision, admittedly one of the most important in a young person's life, made me the person I am today. I don't know how I would have turned out had I gone into the Navy. I'd like to think I would have excelled and advanced and all that. I'd probably be in much better physical shape.

But I wouldn't have met my wife, who I love. I wouldn't know my brother and sister in law, two of my best friends in my life. I wouldn't have my dog or my cat. I probably wouldn't have my job with my good friends from work and all that has brought me, financially and otherwise.

I decided to go to NIU. I wouldn't have it any other way.

CNN.com - Armstrong: Mars trip will be easier - Sep 6, 2005: "KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (AP) -- Neil Armstrong said Tuesday that a human expedition to Mars won't happen for at least 20 years, but might be easier than the trip that made him the first person to step onto the moon in 1969."

I certainly hope I am alive to see a landing on Mars. I can only imagine how amazing it would be to experience, even as an observer back on Earth.

CNN.com - Bob Denver, TV's 'Gilligan,'�dies at 70� - Sep 6, 2005: "Bob Denver, TV's 'Gilligan,' dies at 70"

I *promise* that later tonight I will have something to write about that doesn't involve somebody dying or a city being destroyed.

I promise.

Chief Justice Rehnquist Dies at Home - Yahoo! News

Boy, in so many ways, this is not good. RIP. :(

CNN.com - Lt. Gen. Honore a 'John Wayne dude' - Sep 2, 2005: "Lt. Gen. Honore a 'John Wayne dude'"

This guy sounds like an ass-kicker. Glad to see he's in charge.

Kayne West is crazy.

Seriously, I don't even know who this guy is. But his ranting is kind of funny. It's a shame he had to pick this event to be an idiot...though I'm not sure he's able to turn that off.

CNN.com - Bush: 'Results are not acceptable' - Sep 2, 2005: "'These are some of the 40,000 extra troops that I have demanded,' Blanco said. 'They have M-16s, and they're locked and loaded ... I have one message for these hoodlums: These troops know how to shoot and kill, and they are more than willing to do so if necessary, and I expect they will.'"

And these guys aren't going to be on patrol in Iraq, Kosovo, or Afghanistan. They're going to a major American city, patrolling for roving bands of ARMED assholes.

I've been able to get a hold of a video of the Anderson Cooper interview of Mary Landrieu. Here's a transcrip:



AC: "Joining me now from Baton Rouge is Louisiana Senator Mary Landrieu. Senator, I appreciate you joining us tonight. Does the Federal Government bear responsibility for what is happening now? Should they apologize for what is happening now?"

ML: "Anderson there will be plenty of time to discuss all of those issues about why and how and what and if. But Anderson, as you understand, and all of the producers and directors of CNN and the news networks...this situation is very serious and it's gonna demand all of our full attention through the hours, through the night, through the days. Let me just say a few things...thank President Clinton and former President Bush for their strong statements of support and comfort today. I thank all the leaders that are coming to Louisana and Mississippi and alabama to our help and rescue. We are grateful for the military assets that are bringing brought to bear. I want to thank Senator Frist and Senator Reed for their extraordinary efforts, Anderson, tonight--I don't know if you're heard maybe you all have announced it--but Congress is going to an unprecedented session to pass a ten billion dollar supplemental bill tonight to keep FEMA and the Re--"

AC: "Excuse me, Senator..."

ML: "Red cross up and operating."

AC: "Excuse me, Senator, I'm sorry for interrupting. I-I haven't heard that, because, uh, for the last four days I've been seeing dead bodies here in the streets of Mississippi. I--and--to listen to politicians thanking each other and complimenting each other, uh, y-ya know there are a lot of people here that are very upset and very angry and very frustrated, and when they hear policitians slap, you know, thanking one another, uh, it just, you know, it kinda cuts them the wrong way right now. Because literally, uh, there was a body on the streets of-of-of this town, yestrday, uh, being eaten by rats, uh, because this woman had laying on the street for-for forty-eight hours and--and there's not enough facilities to take her up. Do you--Do you get the anger that is out here?"

ML: "Anderson, I have the anger inside of me. Most of the homes in my family have been destroyed. Our homes have been destroyed. I undestand what you're saying and I know all of those details, and the President of the United--"

AC: "Well who are you angry at?"

ML:"--States knows those details. I'm not angry at anyone. I'm just expressing that it is so important for everyone in this nation to pull together, for all military assets, and all assets to be brought to bear to this situation. And I have every confidence--"

AC: (indistinct, to me at least)

ML: "that this country is as great and as strong as we can be to do that, and that effort is under way."

AC: "Well, well, I mean there are a lot of here who are--are kind of ashamed, uh, of what is happening in this country right now. Ashamed of what is happening in your state, certainly, and that's not to blame the people who are there, it's a desperate situation, um, but it--I--I guess, you know, th---who---who can, I mean do--no one seems to be taking responsibility. I mean, I know you say there's a time and a place for kind of, you know, looking back, but, this seems to be the time and the place...I mean there are people who want answers and there are people who want someone to stand up and say 'You know what? We shoulda done more.' Are-Are all the assets being brought to bear? I mean...today for the first time--"

ML: "Anderson..."

AC: "I'm seeing National Guard--"

ML: "Anderson..."

AC: "troops--"

ML: "I know."

AC: "in this town."

ML: "Anderson, I know, and I know where you are and I know what you're seeing. Believe me, we know it, and we understand, and there will be a time to talk about all of that, trust me. I know what the people are suffering. The Governor knows, the President knows, the military officials know, and they're trying to do the very best they can do to stabilize the situation. Senator Vitter, our congressional delegation, all of us understand what is happening. We are doing our very, very best to get the situation under control, but I want to thank the President. He will be here, uh, tomorrow we think. And the military is sending assets as we speak. So, please, I understand, I--I--I understanad. You might say I'm a politician, but I grew up in New Orleans, my father was the mayor of that city, I've represented that city my whole life, and it's just not New Orleans. It's St. Bernard, and St. Tammany, and Plackman Parrish that have been completely under water. Our levee system has failed. We need a lot of help...and the Congress has been wonderful to hlep us and we need more help. Nobody's pefect, Anderson, everybody has to stand up here, and I know you understand, so thank you so much for everythign you're doing."

AC: "Well, I--I--I appreciate you joining us on the program tonight I--I can only imagine how busy you are. Thank you much--very much Senator uh..."

ML: "Thank you, Anderson."

AC: "Senator Landrieu."

ML: "Thank you so much, thank you."

AC: "And--and--and good luck to you and all the people working to solve this problem, cuz at this point it is very hard to try to figure out how this problem is gonna get solved."

Chaotic scene at convention center - MSNBC TV Live - MSNBC.com

Boy, this video is just...horrifying.

CNN.com - New Orleans mayor issues 'desperate SOS' - Sep 1, 2005

Amazing. Was just watching 'Anderson Cooper 360'. He was interviewing Louisiana Senator Mary Landrieu. Basically, it went like this.

Senator: "I just want to thank Senators (blaa blaa blaa) for all their support, and former Presidents Clinton and Bush for (support), and also Congress for having a special emergency session for (funds)".

Anderson Cooper: "Do you understand how angry it's making people here that the response from you they're hearing now is thank-yous and pats on the back to fellow politicians?"

Senator: "Oh yeah, I'm angry too...(blaa blaa blaa)."

What a joke.

American Red Cross

Work is matching donations, which is nice. I've also heard there will be a benefit of some sort on TV tomorrow.

My first thought when I got into this was that I would be glad when it was over.

Well, it is over. And I am glad.

My feet are KILLING me. It's around half-past seven local time, and my plane leaves in 3 hours. In about an hour I'll take a cab to the airport. It's less than a ten minute ride. I'll then fly to Atlanta, getting in at (too lazy to check) and then leave at (too lazy to check) for Orlando where I'll land at 8:15am Eastern. I'm sure I won't sleep on the plane. I just hope if I do happen to fall asleep nobody is snoring loudly and no kids are screaming and crying.

Today's session went well. Mark called me this morning. I thought he'd was calling for breakfast but he was at the airport. He was catching an earlier flight home because his son is sick. I putzed around a little, did a tour of the USS Midway, ate lunch at a local mall, and then headed back to the hotel to clean up and get dressed.

The show was ok today. Less people than yesterday, I think. Around 5pm people seemed to get more interested in drinking and eating than in anything we had to say, which was fine. Made some good contacts and met some nice Motorolans. We have some opportunities for follow-up, which is what this was all about I guess. I spoke to a bunch of people and didn't drop the ball or anything, so I'm happy about that.

Signing off now to lay around and moan and groan about my feet.

stay classy

ESPN.com - NFL - Favre's boyhood home a total loss, family safe

Of course, I am thankful his family is safe. But did Sportscenter really have to report this story and make a big deal over it? I'm sorry, but today I saw a story with a family from Gulfport. Their home was destroyed, as many were. The casino where the mom works was destroyed, the dock where the dad works was in shambles. They have nowhere to live and no jobs. Somehow I doubt they have a gajillionaire son to buy they a new house wherever the damn well they please.

Actually, one of the family's sons worked at something of a 'Sea World' type place. He said some of the seals and otters had been killed, and one seal was shot and killed when it got into somebody's backyard and was apparently unruly.

Hyatt | San Diego hotels | Manchester Grand Hyatt San Diego hotel

The hotel I'm at.

Anyways. Tonight, work hosted an event onboard the USS Midway. I'd say a great time was had by all. Of course, with free food and booze for this crowd that alone was probably enough. There was a band there that played some Outcast and Black Eyed Peas along with Van Halen and Journey, so that was nice. Food was pretty good. This is the type of thing I haven't seen Moto do in YEARS. Everybody seemed impressed and all so far as I could see.

We manned the booth today, along with a half dozen other people. It went well. Better than I thought it would anyway. One mistake I did make...wearing the wrong damn shoes. My feet are killing...KILLING...me now. I have a HUGE damn blister on my left heel which hurts like hell. Tomorrow is NOT going to be fun. If only my Born shoes were black, damn it. One of the first things I
ll do upon returning is buy a nice pair of comfortable black shoes. The ones I have now are cheap dress shoes...they go with my "somebody died" black suit. They hurt like hell and were uncomfortable about an hour into the dealio today. Unfortunately, I had to stand for about 4 hours after that. For the event tonight I changed into khakis and my brown shoes, so that helped. But my feet still hurt like hell.

Mark leaves tomorrow morning, so I'm flying solo for tomorrow's session. Wish me luck.

Two things to remember to post about tomorrow...

• Rumsfeld (yes, him) at the Padres game)


• Idiot, IDIOT, I-D-I-O-T weatherman getting blown around in the hurricane

Fightertown, U.S.A (well, close to where it used to be anyway)

coming to the end of day one in San Diego. The clock here says 10:01pm but to me it's 1:00am since I'm still on Eastern time today. I got up at 6:00am got ready and stuff, and Court, Hooper, and I went to the airport. We said our goodbyes and eventually I boarded the plane at ~8:15am. The flight to Denver took over 3 hours. During the flight the pilot told us to look out the left side of the plane (where I was) and we could see the hurricane waaaay off in the distance. When I got off the plane I was ready to eat since it was like 12:30pm (eastern) and I hadn't really eaten anything. I went to MD to get a burger or something but they were still serving breakfast. It was only 10:30am in Denver, damn it. I waited a half hour and got a #2.

The Denver plane boarded at noon (pacific) and we landed in San Diego around 2:30pm (pacific).

One of the things I thought would suck about getting here was that due to the VERY short notice I was only able to pick center seats through the online booking tool. Luckily, I was able to talk to the gate people and get a window seat going to Denver and an aisle coming here to SD. We'll see how the return flights go.

On the way here to Denver I sat with a woman who was afraid to fly and a 22-year-old girl from Holland who seemed to make friends with everyone she talked to. Her and the woman talked the whole way there. They apologized for bothering my reading and I told them it was no big deal. We talked for a little while. I was amazed that this young Dutch girl had gone to so many places....she'd been to Berlin and to a bunch of other places. I guess when you live in Europe going to another country is like going to Wisconsin.

Anyways, I landed here and Mark called me. We got in around the same time so we eventually found each other (well, he found me) and took a cab to the hotel. During the cab ride we passed the USS Midway (which we are having a reception at tomorrow night) which is now a museum ship with tours and flight simulators and stuff. There are some planes up on the deck...an F-14 and a few others I recognized. The real prize was across the bay though...CVN-76, the USS Ronald Reagan. Amazing. Even from far away it looks like it can kick ass. Very cool to see. I can't wait to get a better look tomorrow.

After we worked at making sure our booth presentation would work we had a meeting with the other Motorola people going over how things would go over the next few days. After that Mark and I went to dinner to a place called Anthony's which has very good seafood. I guess Uncle Bruce and Aunt Angie and Grandma came here when they were in for Matt's wedding. Mark likes to seafood but his wife doesn't so he never gets to have it. I had a chicken pasta which was good and it came with broccoli which I didn't eat but I know Court would have loved. The girl asked us about dessert and when she mentioned spumoni I couldn't so no. (shout to the Pag's days in DeKalb) I figured it would be a scoop but it was 3. Needless to say, I didn't finish it.

During dinner Mark and I talked about work stuff. Pretty boring if you don't know the details and people involved so I won't get into it. He did say that there's a lot of traction with our services and stuff with customers so that's good. Some other good things were said during our meeting today so it all sounded positive.

After dinner we walked back to the hotel. Mark's feet were killing him so he went back to his room. Me, on the other hand...

When I found out I had to come here I checked the Padres schedule. They were in town. They were even playing at times(7pm today, 7pm tomorrow, 12pm Wednesday) where I could see a game. When I got here I did a mapquest dealio to see how far I was from the park. .9 miles. I looked out the window, figuring I should be able to see it from the directions. I can. During the day it was a little harder to make out in the jumble of downtown, but it's plainly visible if you know where to look. Tonight, right now, with the lights still on, it's obvious. Anyways, I walked to the park, figuring I would get the best seat I could for around $20. I got there in the 4th inning and the guy told me he could get me a seat behind home plate for $40. I bought the ticket, and eventually sat down in the best baseball seat I've ever had, ever. Section 102 (right behind home plate, probably 6 inches to the third base side), Row 20 (20 seats back from the foul net), Seat 6. Amazing. Everything just *sounded* closer. It was VERY cool.

The whole point to visiting PetCo Park was to get a mini-bat, which I've begun collecting. I've got ones from PacBell Park, Bank One Ballpark, SkyDome, Dolphins Stadium, Tropicana Field, and now PetCo Park. I'd like to eventually visit each big league park so I can get them all. Obviously, I've been to Wrigley and Comiskey but didn't get bats. I'll fix that next year...or maybe if I get the chance when I get up to IL in 2 weeks. I left the game in the bottom of the 8th to beat foot traffic because I thought I might take a cab back. I ended up walking anyway and went right by the San Diego Convention center. Did I mention that VoiceCon is a Freeman show? heh

I noticed by the scores that the Cubs lost, White Sox lost, and bad for the White Sox since Cleveland and Minnesota both won. They better watch it.

Well, tomorrow is 'man the booth' day from 2pm-7pm, then the reception at 7:30pm. I asked Mark about meeting him tomorrow morning and he said 'sleep in, don't worry about it'. Of course to a guy that gets up at 5:30am sleeping in probably means 8am. That's fine by me. :)

ChicagoSports.com - Woe ... whoa, backup!: "That same crowd spent most of the first half lustily booing Hutchinson, who finished with a passer rating of 0.0 after going 3-for-14 for 33 yards, two interceptions and three sacks."

yikes!

CNN.com - Bush: We will complete the mission - Aug 24, 2005

(this is the story I speak about below)

I saw something on CNN today that made me think. Cindy Sheehan (sp?) was returning to Crawford to resume her protest. I guess there are also people there that are supporting the President too. Anyway, during some meet-and-greet somewhere the White House produced the mother of a family where the husband and one son just returned from Iraq and the other two kids are still over there. They're in support of the President and our mission (whatever that is, natch) in Iraq. The mother did say that Cindy Sheehan is mourning in her own way, and it's not particularly the way she would mourn, so I thought that was nice. Anyway. I'll say two things.

- Trotting out (and this was a trot-out, no doubt) this family to put them as an argument answring the Sheehan people seems pretty silly. Also, I'd say that if (G*d forbid) somebody in this woman's family is killed her support for the President might fall, especially if she starts thinking a lot about why we're over there and what prompted this.

- Secondly, I heard the President say that if we leave now 'the terrorists' will have thought they beat us. I don't have the exact quote, but he basically said the old "If we run away with our tail tucked" dealio. I'm just wondering...what do 'the terrorists' have to do with why we're in Iraq?

The President continuously uses a lot of terms that dance around the fact that he believes people who are against the Iraq war are not patriotic. That makes me want to puke.

This day has bounced back and forth. I got a last-minute trip dropped on me for this weekend. Me and the boss will be heading to San Diego on Sunday and staying until Tuesday or so.

This means that I'll be traveling Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, then coming back home and then leaving for Canada the next Sunday--->Friday then Canada straight to IL for a week.

Not a happy thing.

A really nice thing though. Court made a special trip on her lunch to buy me a new hat. Also, she bought me a Red Sox hat (for the playoffs, baby) as well. So that was a nice capper to a kinda crappy day.

A Purrfect Storm: "We didn't even get any oil out of the deal. Remember how much of the war's cost was going to be repaid by a generous new Athenian-style government from its bountiful oil revenues?"

I've been wondering this myself. Where's all our oil, dagnabbit???

CNN.com - Northwest mechanics go on strike - Aug 20, 2005

I've heard it said that these guys would rather see the company go backrupt than have wage and benefits cut.

Union boneheads.

ChicagoSports.com - Still searching for signs of a miracle: "Still searching for signs of a miracle
Cubs lose 3rd in row on Jones' blast in 9th"

Shell was at the Cub game last night. The Cubs have driven me nuts since the all-star break. I'm not happy that they lost, but at least Shell got to see her favorite player (Chipper) single-handedly win the game for the Braves.

That's me all over.

CNN.com - Tiger kills teen during photo pose - Aug 19, 2005

Tiger killed for being a tiger, basically.

Who wouldn't want to pose for their senior picture with a siberian tiger? (sarcasm)

I feel bad that after 4-5 good days (including a visit from Aimee and Chris and our 2nd anniversary) I'm writing right now in a pretty crappy mood.

Last night I went out to ship some things I had sold on ebay. On the way back I heard a weird brushing-type sound from my left front tire. I just wanted to get home so I could take a look at it since it was 10pm and there wasn't really anywhere to stop. Of course, once I was SURE my tire was going flat I was just about to go up a hill about 10 minutes from home. I drove and drove, hearing worse noises from my tire as I went on. At the point where I was driving on the rim I was able to turn right at a stoplight onto a side-street.

Yeap, it was on the rim. And worse, the tire was totally shredded. I don't know how it happened...I didn't notice anything jarring until I heard the brushing noise. Of course, there's nothing like Florida idiots blowing by you as you're changing a tire on a hot, humid, weekday night. Some idiot didn't even get into the other lane all the way while passing me...not that there was ANY other traffic around for him to avoid. Idiot.

So I get back home, my knees killing me from having to kneel in the street, I took a shower and got ready to go to bed. I went out to get a pillow that was on the chair and banged my left knee on our coffee table giving myself a nice bleeding gash that still hurts right now. Good times.

We're going to the Yankees/Devil Rays game tonight. The Cubs won last night so they are 1-1 in the MHBOOTT* era. I got a nice Cubs jersey from Court for our anniversary and she liked the thing I got her so that's good.





* - My Hat Blew Off On Test Track

No clear finish line in Iraq - washingtonpost.com Highlights - MSNBC.com: "No clear finish line in Iraq
Timing is muddy for U.S. withdrawal"

Wow, so glad our men and women are over there. What's the criteria for finally leaving? "Uh...i dunno."

Wonderful.

ChicagoSports.com - Absolutely no relief in sight

The Cubs have totally imploded.

CNN.com - Jury convicts video game defense killer - Aug 10, 2005: "While the judge barred jurors from hearing testimony linking the 2003 shootings to the game, defense lawyer Jim Standridge reminded them that Moore, after his arrest, told police 'Life is a video game; everybody has to die sometime.'"

What a joke. This dope goes nutso and tries to play the 'videogames made me do it' card.

Is it any surprise that the idiot woman who almost ran right into me as she was cutting me off yesterday with her huge SUV had a 'Bush/Cheney' bumpersticker?

CNN.com - 'Discovery is home' - Aug 9, 2005

Woo hoo!

In about 4 hours the crew of the Space Shuttle Discovery will be landing back here on Earth.

May God Bless them and keep them safe.

"Gentlemen, what are your intentions? I'd like to go home."

I had expected to be awakened by Discovery's sonic booms as it returns home to Earth. Court said it was enough to wake up someone sleeping and also disturb Boots enough to freak him out. I went to bed around 3am so I figured that after only being asleep for an hour or so I'd most likely be awakened. I was not.

When I woke up in the morning, I was a little freaked out. I was afraid something had happened to the shuttle. I turned on CNN right away and learned that Discovery will try to land tomorrow. Whew!

CNN.com - Peter Jennings dies of lung cancer - Aug 8, 2005

I didn't even know he had cancer.

RIP

tomluv: Who's your favorite faux Christian ex-rock star?

This guy looked like a total idiot on Celebrity Poker Showdown, that's all I know.

The future's so bright...

I tend to put off things that I know I will enjoy. Kind of a 'saving it up for later' type deal. For instance, I've never seen the Godfather part anything. I know I'll probably like it when I sit down and watch it, but I just haven't gotten to it yet. Also, I know getting my wisdom teeth out will probably get rid of the (pretty much) constant headaches I've had for the past few years. The reality is I'm just too lazy to do anything about it and I'm saying I'm 'saving that for later', but I digress.

I watched the movie Super Troopers the other day on Comedy Central. I was looking through the Tivo listings (probaly for Superman or super-something) and I saw Super Troopers on there and I set it to record. Normally when I do this I end up deleting the thing anyway because I don't think I have 'time' to watch it. With this, I made the time and I'm glad I did.

The movie (done by the same people who did Club Dread, which I liked) isn't one of those 'stupid funny' movies. One of the funniest bits is one trooper betting another one on how many times he can say 'meow' to a guy he pulled over. It was Comedy Central so they cut out the swearing (dubbed with other words, and maybe 4 times through the whole movie) and some nudity...it suffered a little for that because there's a part where Rabbit (rookie trooper) gets in trouble for something that really didn't show at all so it kind of came out of nowhere.

Anyways, I bring this up because The Dukes of Hazzard, which opens tonight was directed by the same guy and has the people from the Broken Lizard comedy team in it. I think that Thorn (the director) and his partner might even be in it as 'themselves'. As if having Jessica Simpson AND the General Lee in the same movie wasn't reason enough to go see it...

CNN.com - Police: Handcuffing girl not a violation - Aug 4, 2005: "The girl's mother, Inga Akins, sold her story exclusively to a tabloid TV show, and her attorneys have notified the city that she plans to sue. "

There are enough idiots in this story that I'm not even going to single them all out. Nice to see the 'parent' will get to cash in...what is this world coming to?

I weep for the present.

"The point is ladies and gentlemen that greed, for lack of a better word, is good."

I went through my closet and collected up some stuff to sell on ebay. Basically some toys that I had seconds and thirds of and hadn't taken out of the packages. Of three things I've put up two have sold. They've gone for a little over what I paid for them. It's not about the money, though that's nice, of course, it's mostly about cleaning up my closet and getting rid of some stuff.

Once I sell this last thing I'm going to put some more stuff up.

Oh, and Shell, good luck with your ROOT CANAL! :)

"Gordie wrote a story!"

Happy birthday to TV's Wil Wheaton who's 33 years old today.

"Nobody ever goes in...and nobody ever comes out."

We went and saw "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" last night. I enjoyed it. I've always been a fan of the "Will Wonka" film with Gene Wilder and I went into this latest with the expectations from that one.

The story from this movie follows that of the book. As such, there are certain things different in this one than the old movie. In this one, Veruca meets her 'fate' like she does in the book. Also, Violet brings her mother instead of her father, and Mike brings his father instead of his mother. Other than that, it was mostly the same. There were some things added in about Wonka's childhood that seemed added in to make the movie a bit longer.

The production design was amazing...though I think the 'chocolate room' in the earlier film was a little neater than the one in this one. The 'inventing room' in this newer film was a lot more detailed and interesting than the one in the earlier version I thought.

The songs were different in this one too. The ones from the early movie are classics, of course, but the ones in this film were pretty good too. It was hard to hear some of the lyrics due to the music, unfortunately, but from what I heard they were pretty funny and catchy.

I thought Johnny Depp did a good job as Wonka. His voice and mannerisms were pretty distinct. A few times he did or said some things that made me laugh out loud and that's always nice.

All in all, a good movie. A movie worthy of the earlier work.

Know when to walk away and know when to run.

Yakface.com | Star Wars Action Figure News!: "Yak Reader Tony Wan Kenobi sent in this report from Tulare,Ca:
Hi my loving wife again scored for me at our local wal-mart and target. First at walmart yesterday she scored 47-50. She decided to go back today and she found 51-55."

The insanity above--getting your wife to go hunt Star Wars toys for you--kind of illustrates why I'm getting out of the Star Wars toys business.

When I visited over the 4th I heard my second cousin's son (young kid) talking about a Star Wars figure he wanted. The thing was, I had two. Now, I'm 27 years old. I had two of a figure a little boy wanted. Of course, right off I knew I would send him one that I had. But the thing that got to me was the fact that they'd been hunting all over for this figure and couldn't find it.

Now, obviously I didn't buy ones they would have eventually found (especially since I bought them in Florida) but still, it made me think.

I'm not going to be into the business of buying some toys some kid might enjoy more. I'm not going to 'work' to hunt these things down anymore. If I see something I think is particularly cool, I'll get it. But I'm not going to be so focused on it anymore.

Fly me to the moon...

CNN.com - Eager fans cheer Discovery liftoff - Jul 26, 2005

I wanted to do this for the last launch attempt which was cancelled. This morning, on the spur of the moment I decided to drive out towards Titusville (route to KSC) to see if I could get a better view of the launch. I stopped when threre was a break in the surrounding trees where I thought I could get a nice view.

There was already a car stopped there, and shortly thereafter a bunch of people stopped too. I offered to take a picture of a group that was waiting in lawn chairs when one of their group was taking a picture of the other two. Behind me a Florida Highways truck stopped and the guy got out and walked up to my car. He asked if everything was ok and when I told him I was stopping to see the launch he said that's cool because he was too. After a shortly while I'd guess a couple dozen cars stopped along the same section of the highway.

It was an amazing thing to see. I'm glad I decided to head out there.

"You're gonna need a bigger boat."

Over the weekend I played some City of Heroes. While flying around Talos Island somebody announced they were taking on Lusca. It was a great battle. You have to take it down a tentacle at a time and it takes a long while. There were probably around 20 heroes fighting it at once. I wish I'd taken a screen cap...it was real 'justice league' type stuff.

"Remember, at 4:00 you have to shove a pineapple up Hitler's ass."

CNN.com - Atta's father praises London bombs - Jul 20, 2005

Somebody give this guy the 5:00 appointment.

Don't sell the sizzle sell the steak.

Omaha steaks has called again. See, the trick is to just say 'our freezer is full'. That gets them off the phone pretty fast. Sometimes you'll get a sly whip who'll say 'well, we can just delay shipment' but most of the time they say they'll call back later.

"Do you know where 1640 Riverside Drive is?"

Luckily, directions were not needed this time. Today's journey back to the comic store store I'd already went to was uneventful. Second time around is easier I suppose. I went there hunting the old Marvel GI JOE comics. I've recently gotten back into them thanks to a find in the Superman store in Metropolis, Illinois believe it or not. Anyway. I've decided to try to get the complete collection. I'm not entirely sure just how many I have in storage at my Mom's--but I do know what the covers look like for the ones I already have.

Military Jokes Military Humor

This had me busting up. :)

CNN.com: "Police say evidence left at the scenes has given them what may be a 'significant breakthrough' in the case."

Boy, what a world. Let's hope these bastages get caught.

CNN.com - James Doohan, 'Star Trek's' Scotty, dead - Jul 20, 2005

RIP :(

Google Moon - Lunar Landing Sites

36 years ago today. Fantastic achievement!

SI.com - NFL - NFL agent Rosenhaus performs CPR, saves boy - Tuesday July 19, 2005 8:21PM

Luckily Drew was able to use his dark powers to resurrect the boy.

I wonder what hotel it was...

Hitting to all fields...

• yesterday I slept until 2pm after going to bed at 2am. I guess that's called 'paying your sleep debt'.


• Stargate, Atlantis, and Battlestar were all great. The new guy on Stargate will add a little comic relief, which is good.


• We had dinner at the San Angel Inn at Epcot on Saturday. I noticed that while most people write Gonzalez with an 's' at the end (not how my last name is spelled) Mexicans almost always write it with a 'z'. I wonder if that know something I don't.


• On that front, I noticed something else. I had always thought that I was the last male Gonzalez from our family. Turns out, there must be others. I get emails from my Great Aunt every so often and there are other male Gonzalez's in the To: fields. It's a little bit of a weight off my back I guess--though it was probably the height of hubris to assume I was the last.


• I had a dream last night that I won $20,000 from some casino coin machine. woo hoo!


• Roofing company guy is up on the roof looking for problems. Since they re-did the roofs in our complex after the hurricanes people (including us) have had problems with leaks. He's pounding away up there...I'm waiting for him to come down and say nothing is wrong with it. My response will be, of course..."What the hell were you pounding for then?"

More later.

CNN.com - Harry Potter frenzy begins - Jul 15, 2005

Just got back from Borders where they're having a big celebration tonight. After Court went to bed I decided to surprise her by going and picking up the book. There were more people there than I thought. Luckily, I got a good number and only had to wait around 45 minutes. There were a lot of people there in costume and stuff--even the employees. A few teens customers were looking and acting like they were too cool to be there. My question would be: Why are you there then?

Hitting to all fields...

• For today's comic book store adventure, the first place I went to turned out to be somebody's damn house. Switchboard.com shows it as a "Comic books and Collectibles" business...must be somebody web-based business. jeez. At least the second place I went to existed--even though the web directions were for shit. Took me forever to get there because they had me go a stupid way...and the cherry on top was that I took a wrong turn anyways. Getting there: 40 minutes. Getting home: 10 minutes. Figure that out. Anyways, I was in such a bad mood I bought stuff there I didn't really need and could have gotten cheaper on amazon. oh well. Seemed like a nice enough place.


• Trip to Canada for work, which was supposed to be in two weeks, has been moved to 'no clue' status. That's always nice.


• Did my second taskforce (in as many days) for City of Heroes last night. I was up until 2:30am I think. Damn things take 4+ hours because they're like 15 missions in a row. Luckily, nobody dropped off. Actually, I dropped off once or twice because bellsouth was having a maintenance period starting at 1am this morning. Luckily enough I was able to connect back on with no probs. Even got a shiny new badge too.
  


• Heard tell it's a possibility Mark Cuban might buy the Cubs. (I'm not gonna say anything and jinx it)
  


• Serenity comic book was very good...it's too bad the show got cancelled. Yes, I got all three covers. :)

Oh yeah...and new Stargate, Atlantis, and Battlestar tonight!

CNN.com - Rehnquist silences retirement speculation - Jul 14, 2005

3 more years! 3 more years!


We can but hope.

Ok, so I headed out after work today to try to find a comic book store. I had gotten directions to one from the internet and I mailed them to my phone. Unfortunately, I left off the mileages so once I hit the last place I had no clue how far down it was or whatever. Consequently, I came home without going to a comic book store since I could not find it.

Tune in tomorrow when I try to find it *again* during lunch.

gah...

I'm working on something for work and it's not working. (let me throw work in there a few more times)

Anyways, what I've got is fine for what I need...but I'm trying to be slick and make it a little nicer and it's just not happening.

Should I throw in the towel and call it? Or should I keep plugging away?

Decisions, decisions...

GateWorld | Your Complete Guide to Stargate!

Both Court and I are really looking forward to tomorrow's season premieres of SG-1 and Atlantis. After the demise of Enterprise :( it's nice to be able to look forward to some good scifi TV. Also, Monk has started back up so we're watching and enjoying that too.

This season Stargate is moving away from Egyptian mythology and moving more towards Arthurian/Medieval type stuff. Looks very interesting. They've also added a new team member...Ben Browder who used to be on Farscape. I've never watched Farscape but I know some people who have and they've enjoyed him.

Anyways, we're going to order up some $5 Little Cesar's and have a good time.

(I'm also looking forward to Battlestar, but Court doesn't watch that...yet!)

I've gotten my cat addicted to dog treats.

It could be worse. He could be addicted to starbursts.

The Superficial - Rob Thomas is offended: "'If I were gay,' says Rob, 'Tom wouldn't be on the top of my list. It would be Brad Pitt. I'm more offended by the rumours saying I'm Scientologist.'"

I've only heard about 3-4 things Rob Thomas has ever said...but they've all been funny as hell.

Ok.

Please keep in mind, anonymous posters, that nothing makes me happier in life than the false sense of power I get when I delete comments from people who're being nasty or making racist comments.

Yes, Michelle called people losers...directed to the person (or persons) that has made multiple racist comments on my posts.

If anybody wants to slam on somebody, slam on me. I don't care, really. Particularly when it's either from somebody I don't know or somebody I do know that's not identifying himself (or herself...) for some reason or another.

Everybody is free to come here and comment. I try to make the posts interesting but mostly they're random thoughts I have and stuff I want to talk about.

Let's direct the comments to the posts (or at me, personally) and not to other posters.

Channel 2 sees future in expanding Web site: "*'This Old Cub,' the 2004 documentary about Cubs third-baseman and broadcaster Ron Santo, will air for the first time at 7 p.m. Saturday on WGN-Channel 9. The film, narrated by actor Joe Mantegna, was written, produced and directed by Santo's son, Jeff."

Give it a look if you have the time.

From Sunday night to Thursday night I get about 4-5 hours of sleep a night. Now, this is no one's fault but my own. Ever since I was in college (actually, before that) I just haven't been able to go to bed before 1am or so. Sometimes I start reading around 1am and stay that way for hours. Sometimes I eventually drift off in my chair with my glasses on and my book in my lap. I usually make up for the sleep-loss by sleeping in big time on the weekends, but sometimes I have to get up early for one reason or another.

On Sunday we got up around 9am for the Cubs/Marlins game...and I didn't exactly get to bed early the night before. During the weeks where I don't catch up on my sleep during the weekend there's usually one night a week where I have to go to bed early--like before 11pm--or I'll start hallucinating or something. As I fell asleep watching the beginning of the All-Star game, it seems tonight will be that night.

Press Briefing by Scott McClellan

Wow. Way to go press corps!

ESPN.com - ETICKET - Searching for Bartman

I'll let it speak for itself.

Needless to say we are back in FL. The drive home was abyssmal. Lots of traffic and two accident--one pretty serious--slowed us down two hours from our trip up. Keep in mind please, a drive from FL to IL (and back) gets old after about 45 minutes.

Court started driving in both cases and then got tired so I took over and drove most of the way on both trips. Hooper was tired as hell on the way back and slept on the passenger's lap the entire time. We probably should have done it that way on the drive up as well.

We got in at 3:30am Saturday morning and both slept until around noon. We saw 'Fantastic Four' that afternoon after unpacking. More on that later.

We went to the Cub game (more damn driving) on Saturday and saw the Cubs beat the Marlins 9-2. Why the Cubs couldn't have won the last damn game I saw them play before this in Florida I don't know.

I did get a mini-bat, putting my collection of mini-bats at 4. I've bought mini-bats at Pac-Bell (Giants), Bank One Ballpark (Diamondbacks), SkyDome (Blue Jays), and now Pro Player Stadium (Marlins). I'm going to make it a mini-goal to collect bats from different baseball stadiums I visit. On the horizon is a trip to Tropicana Field to see the Devil Rays...and possibly a day in/game/out flight to Atlanta in August or September.

Everybody's got to have a hobby.

I've just decided the next TV we get will be a DLP projector and screen.

There. I've said it.

I just gave Boots a pupperonni. Hopefully they're not made from ground up cats or anything.

Britain launches search for bombers.

Britain is our greatest ally, and an attack on them might as well be an attack on us.

In a way, yesterday and today have been what Warren Harding might call 'a return to normalcy' for me. I went into the office for work. I have to say, it's very nice to be back in the 'real world' career-wise. I have always missed my friends, but something about the simple task of driving into work, getting settled, and getting to work really made me feel 'normal' for the first time in a long time.

Though I've recently been assured to the contrary by the boss, I sometimes feel like less of a 'worker' when I work from home, or that I'm really just getting away with something, I guess. I don't know. I'm happy they're happy with my work, of course. Of course I'm happy that I wasn't told that I couldn't work from home under the last regime change as well. It has just always felt a little weird. I sometimes think that other people think I have a pretty easy job because I work at home...not that I particularly care what anybody thinks.

In any case, I am excited about what the future holds in terms of returning to IL. These last few days have been nice. We've had a good time visiting with everyone and seeing Tom off to start his journey towards serving our country overseas. Best of luck to him and God bless him for it.

In terms of things here--though I've seen that some things will not be exactly how they were before I left I am still excited. Maybe some things will go back to the way they were before. Maybe the things that don't aren't meant to anyway. Such is life. That's why they play the games, right? To see what happens.

CNN.com - Storm Cindy�tiring as Dennis rallies in Caribbean - Jul 6, 2005: "The models disagree, however on where it finally will make landfall -- anywhere from New Orleans to Tampa, Florida."

Ah, Florida. I can't leave you soon enough.

CNN.com - Bush tightlipped about high court candidates - Jul 5, 2005: "But he has said he won't have a 'litmus test' for judges on that or other issues."

Boy, I miss the days when the only time I saw 'litmus test' was when I had to find whether something was acid or base.

Visited with family today and had a very nice time.

In the 'I feel old now' department, I wore my 'Classicly Trained' shirt with the original Nintendo controller on it...only to have my second cousin's young son ask me..."Is that a radio?".

Oh course, he's got a PS2. But oh man.

With this I happened I noticed just how few of the Justices that were on the court when I originally learned the make-up (for school) are still there. Some have retired (Day O'connor, now) or died (William Brennan, Warren Burger, Thurgood Marshall) but some are still around, like William Rehnquist and Antonin Scalia (who replaced Burger).

Of course, this is a big political matter, as she will be replaced by President Bush. Also, I have to believe Rehnquist himself (80 years old) will be retiring soon. These are big political matters because the court can make pretty big decisions regarding our country. President Bush will have the opportunity to greatly effect the future of this naiton, for good or ill.

(of course, his pick will have to be confirmed in any case)