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.