Ah yes, good deals. I went into Best Buy just to browse (what, don't laugh, it's happened) and I managed to get Seasons 2 and 3 of Monk for $20 each. Ah, good deal.
And for the first time in about, well forever, I actually might have to pay attention to some basketball scores. That's right, my alma mater being a large sports power house made it to the Division III tournament this year for the first time since the 70's. So, after almost 3 minutes of careful studying and deliberation I filled out my little bracket. I'm guessing Tom and I are the only ones in the whole pool who have picked Carnegie Mellon to win it all. I think some of the games start Thursday, but most are Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. I guess by Friday night my entire bracket could be completely shot.
What's the antidote for Ritalin? Ritalout, of course. That way the children won't all want to go see the Phil Collin's show. Livin' a lie, Timmy!
Sorry, television interruption. Not much else going on. We have tickets to Wicked tomorrow night with Susie. I'm tempted to take the soundtrack with me so that I can be "that guy" in the parking lot.

I'm beginning to think that I can no longer judge a movie. So many movies that have been recommended or highly touted in the media come across as crap to me. Double case in point this weekend from two different ends of the spectrum. Tom was out for the weekend and he brought Wedding Crashers. Mildly funny, but certainly not the uproarious comedy I was led to believe. Another movie that I saw this weekend was Lost in Translation. Again, led to expect great things. It certainly had the Oscar hype it was nominated for four and actually won one. Not impressed. Not only did I not find any connection or reason to care about any of the characters, the general implausibility left me wondering what the casting director was sniffing throughout the picture. At what point could a couple as completely different as Giovanni Ribisi and Scarlett Johansson end up being married? He spends part of the movie rubbing in the fact that she has an ivy league education and yet she sits in a hotel room all day instead of exploring the culture. Most people would kill for the chance to be left alone in a new culture. Sure, I guess I can believe that if they were married she'd want to spend some time with him, but there's sightseeing out the wazoo for someone who's not been to that particular place. I'm also wholly unimpressed with Sofia Coppola's writing. The lack of coherent narrative thread might have been the point of the movie, but it was so distracting, I almost didn't care to finish.
So, maybe I have lost my ability to judge a good movie. Or, maybe there are no more good movies? Who knows?

There's a guy at work who is having truck problems. He wrecked his truck and decided that rather than fix it, he was going to get a new truck. Then he realized that maybe he should get a used truck. So, he went to PNC Bank for a loan. Since they are PNC, they jerked him around for about 2 weeks while they told him he may or may not qualify for a loan. When he tells us this story, my project manager loans him $20 and drives him to her credit union. He opens an account and 20 minutes later is approved for the loan for his truck. He's amazed and we try to explain the concept of corporate banks vs. hometown credit unions. We attempt to expand that out into broader things so he can learn, but it falls flat. So, instead of hitting a few used car lots, he talks to his dad (in Michigan) and his dad says, "Well so and so up the road is selling his truck, we'll haul it down if you want it." [Anyone see the problems inherent with this scenario, 'cause he didn't] So, after waiting about 2 months just to get his truck brought to Pennsylvania (while he's paying on the loan for a truck he doesn't have), it finally arrives. While he's trying to get it registered he finds out he needs a PA license. So, he goes to get a PA license. But he doesn't have his original birth certificate. So, he sends to Michigan for that. More time lost. Finally he gets his PA license and is just about to complete the registration on the vehicle when his girlfriend calls in a panic. Your truck is gone. So he leaves work early and finds out that his apartment complex has impounded his vehicle because they claim it's abandoned. So, I contact a friendly lawyer and find out that he might have a case, but it all depends on the lease. We get the lease and he has no case. In order to get it unimpounded it has to have an inspection sticker (which it does not) and he will have to have it towed out of there. Thankfully he's a AAA member and has 100 free miles of towing. Does he take our advice and have it towed to a garage to get it inspected. No, back to the housing complex that towed it in the first place, after dropping 200+ to get it out of the impound. Then he tells us he took it to a dealership to get it inspected. We attempt to tell him that's a bad idea. So this morning he gets a call from the dealership. Your truck is going to need the following to pass inspection...would you like an estimate? So, he tells them to get an estimate and he gets off the phone and tells us that there's a ton of stuff that needs to be done before it will pass inspection. Now, let's keep in mind that he only paid $3000 for the truck to begin with and with all the hassle he's already climbing into an extra $500. They call back with the estimate. Between $800 and $1000 to fix everything. We then find out that he took a chevy truck to a kia dealership. At that point, we've given up on helping. At the very least you take it to the dealer that matches your model car. So, we find a guy at work whose brother works at a garage and get him the number. Then he tells us that after paying for the impound and the failed inspection, he won't have enough money til he gets paid at the end of the month. So we tell him to make an appointment. But he thinks he may not have enough money when he gets paid since his girlfriend gets paid later and he might have to front her share of the rent. So at this point he thinks he's looking at 3 weeks before he can get it inspected. Want to hear the kicker (as though it could get any better)? The truck is a stick and he doesn't know how to drive a stick. Oh to be young and stupid.

So I finally took the space quiz. Pleasant results.

You scored as Serenity (Firefly). You like to live your own way and donâ??t enjoy when anyone but a friend tries to tell you should do different. Now if only the Reavers would quit trying to skin you. Serenity (Firefly) 81% Babylon 5 (Babylon 5) 75% Moya (Farscape) 75% Deep Space Nine (Star Trek) 75% Bebop (Cowboy Bebop) 69% SG-1 (Stargate) 69% Enterprise D (Star Trek) 69% Andromeda Ascendant (Andromeda) 63% Millennium Falcon (Star Wars) 63% Nebuchadnezzar (The Matrix) 56% FBI's X-Files Division (The X-Files) 56% Galactica (Battlestar: Galactica) 56% Your Ultimate Sci-Fi Profile II: which sci-fi crew would you best fit in? (pics) created with QuizFarm.com

So my friend's brother goes to a bar over the weekend. Not that odd. And while he was there he got involved in a rock, paper, scissors game. Again not that odd. I've seen many the group decide who buys that way. Here comes the odd part. The rock, paper, scissors game was a contest. And, he came in second. Now he has to go back in three weeks to compete against other regional winners. Odder still...the winner of that competition gets an all expense paid trip to Las Vegas for the national competition. And there's a $50,000 purse and some television coverage on either the Discovery Channel or A&E.
This is rock, paper, scissors. All you need to play is your hand and the ability to count to 3. 50 grand. 50 grand. Do you hire someone to watch the other contestants and coach you? Okay, this one, see him, he's shifty. He leads with 3 rocks, but after a loss he always comes back with paper. Okay, so if you manage to beat him, go with scissors. Hear me, scissors? Okay, the chick always leads with rocks. Must be a penis fetish or something? Can you remember that? Good, this 50 grand is as good as ours. Then we can break out of the bush leagues and into the big leagues. I hear the top prize in Canada is paid out in loonies. That's got to be worth something big.

I just can't believe it.

Not much going on today, fairly standard day at work, normal drive home, normal routine. It's such a relief to have a day like that. I'd like more normal boring days.

Hmmm, 1st and 43rd. Doesn't exactly make for a great start to the season. Thankfully there are 36 races, not just one. So, there's always next week. It's interesting to me how Tony Stewart can claim that bump drafting is going to cost someone their lives on Feb. 12th and then turn around and do the exact same thing thus wrecking Matt Kenseth. Um, Hello pot? This is kettle.

Ok, I'm done with winter. It's damn chilly and I'm shellin' out way too much already to turn the heat up. Welcome to the lose-lose situation. Maybe I could set my pants on fire. On the upside, I've gotten quite a bit of work done in the library and I'm on episode 11 of the first season of Veronica Mars. Interesting show, a few rough spots, but overall a good show. Hopefully season 2 will come out before season 3 so I can get caught up enough to watch in real time. And, gee I'm so sorry for the people of the Czech Republic. I guess Finland knows how to play a little hockey. I'm also guessing the people of New York aren't too happy with the hit put on Jaromir Jagr. Ah well, the cosmic karma.

Another random famous person sighting. Well, at least Pittsburgh famous. Don Cannon, a local news anchor was checking out books at the Half-Price book store. I have to give credit to Terri for noticing him first, since she was the first one in the store. Since most things come in 3's, I wonder who is next in this weird SAT question. "What comes next in this sequence...Jim Leyland, Don Cannon _____?" Thoughts anyone?
While I was walking around the book store, a few of the clerks were having a conversation about Cheney's little "incident." Apparently there's a conspiracy theory floating around that Cheney shot him intentionally to send a message to "Scooter" Libby about keeping quiet. Why didn't he just send one of the Area 51 aliens to suck out that part of his brain? It would have been easier.
Who sits around and dreams this stuff up? In addition to the fact that laziness, a decline in general intelligence, apathy, and things like ipods, audiobooks, and the internet have caused the decline of the written word it might be due to the fact that all the really good fiction is being passed on as fact nowadays. It's getting harder to dream up stuff more cockeyed than what the American public is being asked to believe by media whores like Oprah, Dr. Phil, and the White House Press Secretary. I'm just sayin'.

So I've been diagnosed with ADHDOCD, which basically means that I'm always switching what I'm obsessing over. Here's my latest in a long list of "What the *#@! are they thinking?"
When I buy a candy bar, I don't wait for instructions on how to peel the wrapper or consume the item. When I buy a set of batteries, I don't really think that Duracell or Energizer so tell me that I can't use them in blenders, alarm clocks, and portable cheese slicers. Mountain Dew doesn't call me on the phone and say, "Hey Jackass, use a glass."
So, why does the RIAA feel that after churning out an inferior product for years (and overcharging for it) that they can release this spew of bile and expect to get away with it?
My long term plan is to create an entirely digital library out of my vast collection. To that end, I've worked hard to keep the collections cataloged and arranged. I've looked into external hard drives for storage. I've investigated software that does similar things to dvdaf. I've picked up an imic in order to be able to translate vinyl, 8-tracks, and cassettes into mp3's so that I can enjoy my entire collection. I've watched the evolution of mp3 players (most notably ipods) go from hard drives to flash memory and expand to 60 gigs and beyond. Now, the RIAA is going to tell me that if, fuckin' if, I decide to part with anywhere from $11-$21 dollars for the newest release by Rilo Kiley, Barry Manilow, U2, or The Dead Milkmen I can't make myself a back-up copy, or pull down my favorite track to put on a drive mix, or move it over to my ipod so I can find a little motivation to exercise my fat ass, or perhaps just in case my son or wife accidentally scratches the hell out of my cd, it won't be a total loss.
If this shakes out badly, I'm writing a huge GFY to the RIAA. I may do it before hand. What the hell happened to this county? And more importantly, does the head of the RIAA quail hunt? Anyone? I'm just sayin'.

I apparently don't belong in outer space. I tried taking the quiz found on Adam's site. The results came back blank. I looked through the code and there were no results. Perhaps I'll try it again, but I'm a little ticked that I don't belong anywhere.
So my project manager called in sick yesterday as well. That meant there were 0 people present out of two. They guilted her into coming into the office for a couple of hours. It's nice to be needed, but damn.
So, Happy Valentine's Day to those that care. Happy Tuesday to those that don't. I've come to realize that the only thing worse than a bad movie, is the commentary for that movie on the DVD. I've had many good movies coupled with bad commentary, that's ok. You are left with just the movie to enjoy. Never have I had a movie bolstered by the commentary. And yet, I keep looking. So, who's the crazy one?

Man it sucks to be sick.

I don't want to jinx anything, but two weeks ago tomorrow we abandoned the crib/toddler bed altogether. We decided that we were going to keep the same bedtime routine, but instead of putting him into his own bed, he was going to sleep on the guest room futon. So far, he's been to bed every night somewhere between 9:30 and 11:00 and slept til after 5:30 every morning. He's really only been up one night and that was due to sickness. So, here's hoping that the entire problem was the fact that he just hated his crib. I guess Phil Bourque must have jinxed the crib when we picked it out.
In a little over 8 minutes of game play, barring a miracle comeback by the Caps, the Pens will win two in a row. And then we'll be off for the rest of February while the world participates in the Olympic games. The Olympics are a strange beast. One of the guys that I work with is in his late 30s/early 40s and one of those guys who never really grew up. He's a slacker coder who snowboards and drinks too much. He's single and seems to prefer it. What's funny is that in a discussion of Olympic events, he's the one who says he loves to watch figure skating because it's a chance for perfection in each program. A chance to land every jump perfectly, spin like a top, and glide into the hearts of the world. Bizarre coming from him.
6 1/2 to go. That means just to tie the Caps will need a goal every 1:37ish.
I watched some of the Olympic Women's hockey coverage today. I missed the early games, but apparently Finland beat Germany 3-0. I watched the United States beat Switzerland 6-0. I watched most of the Canada/Italy game. Ouch. 16-0 Canada. And Sweden beat Russia 3-1.
And the Pens beat the Caps 6-3. It's a shame Fleury had to give up that last one with 30 seconds to go, but I'll deal. It's a win. And it's two wins in a row. And now we go on hiatus for half a month. Grrr. At least there will be lots of Olympic hockey left. Russia vs. Canada and Germany vs. United States are on tomorrow. Men's hockey starts on Wednesday so by mid-next week there will be twice as many games.

The best team in the Eastern Conference against the worst team in the NHL. I almost watched the Opening Ceremonies. Yet somehow I just couldn't give up on the Pens. No matter how badly they get battered, they are still my team to root for. Win, lose, playoff, or golf I'm watching. And I only wish that was enough to ensure that the team was going to be here long enough for my son to do the same.
I just hope they fare as well tomorrow against the Penguin's favorite whipping boys, The Washington Capitals.
This article has an interesting quote from former Penguins goaltender Garth Snow. If you scroll all the way to the bottom you can see this...
"Mario was the best ever. Honestly, I have this argument with everyone. If you swapped him with Gretzky, and put Lemieux on that team with Jari Kurri and Glenn Anderson and Mark Messier and Paul Coffey, he'd be the one with all those records. Can you imagine him on that team?" - Islanders G Garth Snow
I'm just sayin'.

So the Grammy's were on last night. Mariah Carey didn't take home the number of trophies that she planned. U2 took home some major awards with an album that won Grammy's last year too. That's pretty good longevity. However, can anyone guess the Grammy winner that has the number 1 album on the United States Pop Charts right now? Oh that's right. None of last night's Grammy winners are topping the charts right now. Thanks to everyone who sent me this article. Mr. Manilow, hats off to you.
Oh and in the two+ weeks of the football blitz that was the Superbowl, I don't remember seeing any coverage of the Tokyo Raiders or the Berlin Packers. In fact, checking on the NFL's site, I see 32 teams all in the United States. So how are the Pittsburgh Steeler's "World" Champions? I gotta go out on a limb and say there's probably a group of guys in the Soviet Union that could hand the Steeler's their asses on the playing field. I'm just sayin'.

I'm not really thrilled with this new trend of releasing albums with one set of exclusive material for one store and a second set for another store. I'm also a little ticked about Trisha Yearwood's new album (though less ticked than if I hadn't heard about it first). I was about to select it as a free album through BMG but then I found out that they were re-releasing the album with extra tracks on it. Of course, I'd like the extra tracks, but the free selection has come and gone and who knows when it will be available again or if the new version will even be available from BMG. Of course, I could pick it up in the store, but as referenced above, how many different versions of the second album will there be? Does anyone see this as a potential flag for a large portion of the CD industry flushing itself down the toilet? You have the CD industry crying that it's losing money yet CD's are still 18 or 19 dollars a pop if you don't know how or where to shop. You have the movie industry crying foul over losing a ton of money and yet movie tickets are coming close to 10 dollars in some metropolitan areas. Remember when both of you could go the movies for 10 dollars? I do and I'm not that old. Is any industry in the United States comfortable? The jobless rate keeps dipping, but no one seems to be getting ahead.
Prince was the musical guest on Saturday Night Live this past weekend. Since Steve Martin was the host, I decided to bite the bullet and watch the show. Thankfully Martin was very funny, and Prince was superb as usual. One of the sketches was Martin at the table with one of the regulars and it plays as an infomercial with the pamphlet entitled, "If you can't afford it, don't buy it." (Or at least something to that effect) Follow that up with an MSN article Monday morning about Credit Cards being used for survival debt due to emergency or lack of planning and it adds up to a nation's credit card debt that is probably coming close to the budget deficit. And yet, we have a weekend, actually just about a 4 hour block of one weekend where people will spend 2.5 million on 30 seconds of time. Considering how lame most of the commercials actually were this year, I'd say it was money well wasted. 2.5 million would buy a lot of food for an under-developed nation. Hell, 2.5 million would go a long way toward making our own homeless feel less dehumanized.

Nothing much going on today. Although if anyone can explain to me how technology works in instance A, but stops working when copied into an identical instance B...I'd love to hear the theories.
I'm extremely worried about how this is going to turn out. Tocchet had ties to Pittsburgh and rumblings have already started about former teammates. I'm hoping that the NHL kind of washes out of it since allegedly none of the gambling was done on hockey, but it's still the kind of publicity that the league doesn't need right now. With Gretzky's wife being semi-accused, it makes you wonder how high and how far it goes.

It's over. Almost. Tomorrow is the rally and then hopefully things will get back to normal. And it will be, at a minimum, 2010 before I hear any idiot yelling, "One for the thumb."
We headed to Mitch's house for the Superbowl and realized we were pretty close to having an anti-football party. No one there was really a "fan" per se. I think we did pretty well though.
The ride home was pretty tame, lots of horn honking and towels flapping out the various windows. Of course, we didn't have to travel through Oakland, the Strip, or the South Side.
So, Tom wanted to make sure that he got hold of some Steeler's crap so I said I'd go out and pick some up. I managed to get the hat with no problem, but I couldn't locate the particular shirt right away. So, I decided to take a quick run out to the Pointe and check out the Dick's Sporting Goods store out there. Now, I didn't find the particular shirt but I did have a random sports figure sighting. Yes, I saw ex-Pirates manager Jim Leyland who is now the manager of the Detroit Tigers. Tom Selleck must be proud. I know he's 60, but the way he was wandering around the store, he kind of looked like he was in the later stages of dementia and couldn't find his way out of the store. Hopefully he'll look a little more coherent or Craig will be having the same type of baseball season that I'm having with the current hockey season.

So, yesterday was Groundhog's Day and our company had it's annual chili cook-off. A lot of varied entries this year. There was "Ulcer in a Jar," chili made with rabbit meat, a white chili with chicken, as well as many others. Of course, there were all pretty tasty.
Today, a few people in the office were distracted making it harder to get actual work done. Which on a normal day isn't a problem, but when you're trying to ship three major projects out the door, you need the people around you to focus just a bit.
Terri had a get-together this evening, so Gage and I went out and did a little running around. And, I just have to bring this up, if only to demonstrate that I'm not alone in some of my thought processes. As I'm standing in the Toys R Us putting Gage into the cart and composing my mental list of things to look for, I hear the two managers at the Service desk begin their conversation.
Female (early 50's): "Did you hear about the ship that sank?"
Male (late 20's early 30's): "No, I haven't picked up the paper or watched the news all week. You know, at this point, I don't care who wins or loses, I just want it to be Monday."
Female: "I know what you mean. I know more about Jerome Bettis than I ever want to or care to."
...At this point, I walk over, casually interject and completely agree and then continue on my way secure in the knowledge that a lot more people are swinging to my side of things...
Today I stumbled upon a poll that has apparently been around for 17 years, but no one I talked to had ever heard about it. Anyway, Dwight mentions a few of the highlights, but the one that I wanted to point out was the one I was emailing back and forth with Tom.

"Barry Williams (Greg Brady, The Brady Bunch) 'Steelers, 42-38. They are used to the cold.'"

Now, I'm not exactly a football expert, but there's certainly been enough coverage in this area to know that Ford Field in Detroit is a dome. Tom wondered which we should explain first... the fact that Seattle is also in the North or the fact that they were playing in a dome. I chose the dome option. If he's making statements like that, Geography is going to be lost on him. I'm guessing he's good at the math and science, right Mr. President?
Another news item that managed to make it though the aluminum curtain was this. It made me a little sad. I know why they are impractical nowadays, but it's such a large part of history that just quietly went away.
I guess that's all for now. Hopefully all this snow that they're predicting will hold off a little while so I can head down to the Pens rally tomorrow.

I missed the majority of the AHL All-Star game, but 9-4 isn't a pretty score. PlanetUSA got trounced by Team Canada.
Tomorrow is Groundhog's Day. A ton of people are going to pack into a tiny little town and watch a rodent predict the weather. Wonder if he'll be wearing a Terrible Towel. Man, I was kidding when I wrote that, but as I typed it, I realized that it might actually come true.
I managed to blog 23 out of 31 days in January. At that pace, I will hit the magic number I set for myself in 2006. So, one resolution is potentially safe and sound.
Hmmm, none of the websites that I accessed today for work seem to be working now. Wonder if that's something I should report?
***Update***
I should have kept my big mouth shut.