Dear Hasbro

Stop making fucking Transformers toys that don't fucking transform. I told my son I would buy him a couple of new Transformers, so we went to Toys R Us, only to have to explain to him that his first three choices didn't actually transform. Then I had to watch as his face got sad and he said "Aaaaawwwwww." Actually, now that I think about it, I'm pretty sure there were more Transformers there that didn't transform than ones that did. It's hard enough trying to explain things I actually understand to a four year old, but when he asks "why do they make Transformers that don't transform," all I can come up with is that the people at Hasbro are fucking idiots.

Golf stupidity

This is ridiculous. I get that golf is a game where honesty and sportsmanship are valued, certainly more than our other major sports where cheating is ok as long as you don't get caught. But this scorecard thing isn't about honesty, it's just red tape. Clearly, the PGA is big enough that they can have someone else keep score. Obviously, they have someone else check the scorecard. They could just correct these mistakes and notify the player. Intent and circmstances should count for more than crossing some imaginary "scoring area perimeter".

My greatest live sports moment

I haven't been to nearly as many live sporting events as I would have liked to, but even so, I was lucky enough to see a few really amazing games in person. This one was the best.

The Setup: Florida State had been ranked #1 all season long until a terrible loss in South Bend against Notre Dame. Notre Dame was ranked #2. Fortunately we scored a late garbage TD to get the game within 7. The relatively close score on the road meant that the voters only dropped FSU one spot. We swapped spots with ND.

So we fucked it up again, just like 1991 and 1989 and 1987. But then, out of nowhere, Boston College beat Notre Dame in South Bend on a last second field goal. We were back in business. Now we had one game left, at Florida, who were also ranked in the top 5. Michelline and I had never been to Florida so we decided to go down and try to get some scalped tickets

The Game: We got to Gainesville and waited outside the stadium with about $100, I think. We couldn't find anything until midway through the first quarter when we were able to get a pair of tickets while we were trying to get to a sports bar. If you've ever been to a big time college game, you know that they oversell the stadium, and nobody pays attention to those numbers on the bleachers. It's usually standing room only, standing sideways. So we found our way over the the FSU section and got in on the edge.

We dominated early, getting into the red zone 3 times, but only getting 13 points. We went in at halftime 13-7, but felt pretty good because we had been moving the ball great and shutting the Gators down.

And we came out the same way in the third. Scored 2 more TDs to go up 27-7 and let a 3rd get away when Charlie Ward threw an interception in the end zone. That's when things started to turn a bit for the Gators. They scored a TD to pull back within 13, and when we were just about the score another TD to most likely put the game away, William Floyd fumbled inside the Gator 10. The Gators took it down for another TD and suddenly the score was 27-21.

So now it's under 6 minutes, FSU has the ball on their 21. Gators can take the lead with a TD and they have all the momentum. The crowd's going fucking nuts. First and 10, incomplete. 2nd and 10, incomplete. Now the noise is unbelievable. It's the single loudest place I've ever been in my life. The stadium is throbbing with the noise. The air is kind of shimmery, like you can almost see it. I can't talk to Michelline, even if I yell into her ear. My stomach is in knots because I know we're letting it slip away. And then this (Watch out for the sound the last 2 or 3 seconds, it kind of breaks up) -



It was all over after that, even after our shitty kicking game reared its head and we missed the XP. I've never heard a crowd go from so loud to so silent. Of course there were a few thousand of us FSU students screaming like crazy. We finished 33-21, and went on to win a National Championship, finally.

That was the best. I'm all drained now from writing about and watching the video (thank you, YouTube). Anyone else out there have a great live sports moment?

Maybe I'll do a post about my worst live sports moment, if I can dredge through the trauma. All I remember is wide something or other.

Eight is Enough Meme

Toast tagged me with this blog meme, so I figured I should give it a shot, even though I'm way too lazy to post much normally these days. Also, I'm very bad at any kind of self analysis, so don't expect anything earth shattering. Certainly nothing as disturbing as Toast revealed. I also won't follow his lead of posting geeky pictures from 20 something years ago for everyone to laugh at. I'm supposed to post some rules, but I'm with Angelos, fuck the rules. If you really care, you can see the rules at my brother's post below.

1. I'm really bad at any sort of self analysis. See, I already stole the first one right from the introduction.

2. I eat almost nothing. Not quantity, I mean, but variety. I don't like much. Someone at work made a list of things that I will eat, and it has around 50 things on it. That's probably a little high as it has redundant things on it, and also has a lot of things that I will eat, but never do. In reality, I normally eat just a handful of things. Other than it not being particularly healthy, which I'm starting to worry more about as I get older, it doesn't bother me at all. But for some reason other people are very concerned with what I eat (or don't eat).

3. I hate abbreviations. I almost never abbreviate anything. I just don't understand the point. I'm a pretty mediocre typist, and I have no problem typing things out in full. Standard abbreviations, like states don't bother me so much, but when people start abbreviating things like video game and movie and book titles, it really irritates me. Especially when the context doesn't make clear exactly what the abbreviation stands for.

4. I'm very calm and easy going in real life. By the amount of shit I complain about online, that might not come across so well. But the few people who know me both online and in real life say that I'm very different in real life, and I suppose that's pretty true.

5. I hate poetry. I've never read a single poem that I enjoyed, and have no desire to try and find one if there perhaps is one out there somewhere.

6. I've worked at the same company for all but 4 months of the last 17 years. I got hired before I graduated from high school and started a few days after.

7. I never wanted kids growing up. I always like them, but never had any desire to have any of my own. My wife had three kids already when we got married, and as I realized all the neat parts of their lives that I missed when they were little, I realized I did want my own kids. We had to do IVF to have one, but luckily it worked out perfectly and my son is now almost 5 years old. I can't imagine now why I didn't want kids before.

8. I'm really, really cheap. I buy the generic Wal-Mart brands whenever possible, and I buy as much stuff as I can at the dollar store. I think some of it comes from not having much money for a significant portion of my adult life, but even if I made a million dollars a year, I still think I'd buy the cheapest thing possible in many cases.

Ok, there you go. I'm supposed to tag eight people, but since I doubt I have eight readers left, and most if not all of those would have been tagged already by Toast, I'm going to tag the first eight people who find this through a Google search. You're on the honor system.

Eight is Enough Meme

It's been a while since I did one of these. This one is more interesting than some of the others that float around. Toast's list was enlightening (and mildly disturbing :)). Here are the rules -

1. We have to post these rules before we give you the facts.

2. Players start with eight random facts/habits about themselves.

3. People who are tagged write their own blog post about their eight things and include these rules.

4. At the end of your blog, you need to choose eight people to get tagged and list their names. Don't forget to leave them a comment telling them they're tagged and that they should read your blog.

5. 8 is a magic number. Not three.

1. I don't wear deodorant. I don't need it. Certainly, there are times when I get sweaty and a little odiferous, but I just wash. Generally I smell the same when I get home from work as I did when I left in the morning. I believe there are a lot more people who could get by just fine without deodorant or antiperspirant, but they've been brainwashed by the hygiene establishment.

2. I have a hard time relaxing if there's work to do. You might not know it if you saw all the shit there is to do around my house because, well, there's a lot of stuff to do, and I had to come up with a coping strategy. So, in order to really relax in the afternoon or evening, I have to do something productive that day. Right now I'm sitting amongst several piles of debris from our office, which we're in the process of cleaning out. I'm ok with it because I have a plan to deal with it, and I got other stuff done this weekend. So I rarely have weekends or even single days where I do absolutely nothing. Even on football Sundays, I'll mow the grass or something.

3. I am extremely hairy. About the only place I don't have much hair is the top of my head. I'm not sure why it happens that the spot that people care the most about having hair on is the spot most likely to lose it. I mean, have you ever heard of someone losing their back hair? I'm fine with my baldness though. I cultivate a distinguished bald pate, like Captain Picard.

4. It's nearly impossible not to like me. Now I know you're thinking 'I already don't like you, you arrogant ass', but honestly, I get along well with everyone. A large part of that is that I'm non-confrontational, to a fault, actually, so I don't often give people overt reasons to dislike me. The rest, of course, is due to my sparkling personality.

5. The first novel I remember reading was Starship Troopers by Robert Heinlein. I was probably 10 or so. I didn't like that one much. My Dad really likes a lot of Henlein's early stuff, and gave me Glory Road next. It was better, but I never got into Heinlein much. I'm more of an Asimov guy.

6. I love to travel. Everywhere and anywhere. In my ideal hedonistic dream life, I would have a nice little place to live where I would spend almost no time. Even now, I get antsy if we don't have at least a weekend trip planned in the near future. We generally go on 3 large vacations per year - cruises, Europe, weeks in the mountains, interspersed with several long weekends to Orlando. We're saving up for Christmas and a December cruise to celebrate our 15th wedding anniversary and it's so far away it's killing me (and my wife).

7. I'm a Dallas Cowboys fan because my dad was. We didn't have a home team (Atlanta and Miami are both 5 or 6 hours away), and my dad liked the Cowboys of the 70's. Like most boys, I wanted to be like my dad, so I picked them up. Of course, my dad is a lukewarm football fan now, and has shifted his allegiance, such as it is, to the Jaguars. Stinking traitor.

8. I was blessed with what some may call a tin ear. All my music is ripped in WMA format at 48 kbps. Any audiophiles reading this would now be apoplectic probably, but I've played these 48 kbps files side-by-side with their uncompressed parents, on fairly decent sound systems and heard no difference. Maybe under ideal conditions, in some special sound room, I could appreciate the differences, but honestly, I never listen to music under ideal conditions. I listen in the car, at the gym, doing yardwork, at work at my desk. I figure I get just as much enjoyment out of my music as an audiophile, with far less hassle and grief.

Ok, since everyone I know in the blogging community has already been tagged by Toast, I'll just tag my wife, Michelline, 8 times.

Our Fridge

Here is our fridge, prompted by the Question of the Moment over at Toast's place. I'm not sure if this is the window to the soul of our home, but I think you certainly get a sense of what's going on by looking at our fridge.

First off, you'll notice we have great taste. This is evidenced by the Harry Potter and Florida State magnets, the "Broadway in Jacksonville" flyer, and the Pizza Hut coupon. (Quick aside - I'm listening to some French rap song on XM U-Pop. French is usually a beautiful language for music, but I think it's met its match with rap. Really a jarring sound.)

Second, you see that we have kids. If you open the large version of the pic, you might be able to make out the two blank chore charts in the upper left hand corner, one each for Tori and Libby. What you can't see is that these are several weeks old. The kids generally do their chores, but we suck at keeping track of them. Then there 's the summer camp sheet (that's the orangish one), and the Hillary Duff magnet.

A lot of the rest is just stuff we stick up there that we need to keep track of but can't find a better place for. On the magnetic board, you can see our reminder for our dental cleanings. All 4 of us go together every 6 months. That's coming up tomorrow. There's also our vouchers for our NCL cruise coming up in December. At least we got something from the bloodsucking credit card we carried nearly full for years.

So that's us. And in case you're wondering, we're going to be getting rid of that god-awful wallpaper next month. As a bonus, I've included the side of our fridge below. It's the home for the unused magnets.

Beer Blogging

This isn't something I normally do, since my beer tastes are pretty normally lowbrow and not worth the trouble. But I won (suck it losers) Toast's 100000th visitor contest, the prize for which was a beer. So, yesterday, I got beermail, and after putting it in the fridge overnight, I tried it out today.

Berkshire Brewing Company Steel Rail Extra Pale Ale

The Bottle: I mention this because first of all, it was some kind of weird size, I don't know if they use the metric system or something, but it was bigger than the 12oz Icehouses I normally drink. Also, I tried to open it for a few minutes with no luck, the cap just wouldn't twist off. I was about to give up on getting it open, but then I discovered that the end of my can opener doubles as some sort of archaic bottle opening device, so I was able to get it open with that.

The Pour: As I'm not into this beer blogging stuff, I'm not sure what this section is supposed to be about, but I always see it in other people's beer blogging posts. Needless to say, I didn't pout it, I drank it straight out of the bottle like normal people.

The Taste: It was pretty good. Smooth, no aftertaste. I liked it. Not enough to start drinking high quality beers instead of Icehouse, especially considering the price, but I enjoyed it.

Anyway, thanks Toast for the beer. Maybe I'll have a similar contest when my counter gets to 100000. If either of us is still alive by then, maybe you'll win it and I'll return the favor.

Dear Network Television Executives

When I turn on your channel and see that something is not being broadcast in HD, that tells me that you don't think that broadcast is important enough to show in HD. And if it's not important to you, then why the fuck do you expect me to watch it?

Disposable Printers

My wife's last job, she worked at home and had a computer and printer to use, so we used that printer for personal stuff as well. Before that, all the printers we have had have been broken by one kid or another. Anyway, we need a printer. Not badly, as we don't print much stuff these days (seriously, I think I could live the rest of my life without needing a hard copy of anything), so I look around at printers occasionally when I'm out.

So today, I was at Wal-Mart and I see a printer for $44, and I think that seems pretty good, then I wonder how much it will cost to replace the ink, so I look at the cartridges necessary for the $44 printer and find out that to replace both ink cartridges, it will cost about $55. So, if I buy this printer, when I run out of ink, it would be cheaper for me to buy another one than to replace the ink. What the fuck?

Anyway, then I noticed that they had a couple of printers for under $30. Now, these didn't come with a black ink cartridge at all, but it would still be either cheaper or as cheap to buy a new printer than to replace the color ink that comes with it.

Something tells me these ink cartridges are way, way overpriced, or the hardware in a printer costs almost nothing to manufacture and distribute.

Studies: Restless legs syndrome a 'real' condition - CNN.com

I found this interesting as I have had some relatively minor symptoms of RLS since I was in college. It's odd now that RLS getting so much attention, although I'm sure that's primarily due to big Pharma pushing their new wonder drug of the day. For the longest time, I figured it was just some freak thing and nobody else would even know what I was talking about if I tried to tell them.

I first time I remember any symptoms was my freshman year in college. I was lying in bed and started having a nearly uncontrollable urge to move my legs. I see now that people try to describe it, but I really think it defies explanation. How do you describe what an urge feels like? It'd be like trying to tell a eunuch what it feels like to be horny. Fortunately it went away, but over the years it would come and go. It never got bad enough that I was tempted to try to get help, but apparently others aren't so lucky. In fact, I don't believe I've ever mentioned it to anyone, even my wife, and I tell her everything.

I see that the Dartmouth guy in the story (gotta have that balance, heh) believes the diagnosis is overhyped. It may be, but I can't imagine how. If someone has ever experienced it, they'll identify with the commercials right away, if not, they probably don't have it.

Dear ESPN

I don't give a fuck about David Beckham, and neither does the rest of your audience. Please adjust your programming accordingly.

P.S. We also don't give a shit who is 'Now'

Traveler

Apparently I was one of only 5 or 6 people in the country watching this show. First the bad news, I'm all wrapped up in the show now, and I find out it was basically canceled before it even started. The good news is, unlike Reunion, where the network there gave the finger to everyone who watched it (yeah, fuck you too, Fox), they actually let the producers wrap the storyline up. So instead of a possible ongoing show, what we basically got is an 8 episode miniseries.

Which is all too bad, in the grand scheme of tv. Ok, you can certainly pick out problems with the plot, the implausible evidence that just happens to be in the right place at the right time, but that's not the point. It's a fun show about a couple of decent guys on the run from a massive govt conspiracy. It's fast paced and fun with a lot of twists and turns, explosions and bad ass rogue agents. What's not to like? I've DVR'd plenty of shows over the last few years that I just never cared about watching, but I've been watching Traveler as soon as it's recorded each week. If you get a chance to get the 8-episode run on Netflix, I would recommend it.

Fat Rant

Apropos the post below, I ran across this on CNN just a few minutes ago. It's a good rant. One thing that I especially liked was her comment about the 200 pound barrier. Listening to a lot of sports radio and reading sports blogs (believe it or not misogyny is still rampant in sports, who knew?), I see and hear a lot of disparaging comments about fat women and how gross and disgusting they are. Often reference is made to 200 pounds as some kind of obscene number. There are a whole lot of 200+ pound women out there, and believe it or not, many of them are actually attractive. For one example, watch the video.

Woman drops 110 pounds, 8 dress sizes - CNN.com

I think it's great that she lost all this weight, and I hope she can keep a good bit of it off, although we've been hearing recently that it's very difficult to do. What I found interesting about this story were the comments about her husband -

Adding to her misery, Twitchell says her ballooning weight was also wreaking havoc on her 31-year marriage.

"We were literally just co-existing together, like roommates," recalled Twitchell.

"Friends asked my husband to e-mail them a picture of us. Later, I discovered that he had sent them an old photograph taken when I was much smaller. Even though he loved me, he was embarrassed at how much weight I had gained."

...

How has this changed her life?

"I have a marriage again," says Twitchell, who recently retired and relocated with her husband from New Jersey to their new home in the mountains of western North Carolina.

"When I finally reached my goal (weight), my wedding ring was two sizes too big. I had already had it resized twice and the jeweler was hesitant that I might lose more weight. Rather than resize it, my husband bought me a new beautiful diamond ring and when he gave it to me he said this was a renewal of our wedding vows," she recalled.

Twitchell says her husband keeps telling people that he's got his wife back. This August, the couple will celebrate their 33rd wedding anniversary and they couldn't be happier.

Maybe I'm wrong, but this certainly sounds like her husband was more embarrassed about his fat wife than concerned for her. Hey, to each his own, but I wouldn't want to be married to someone who would drift away from me for aesthetic reasons. Was he there for her while she was gaining weight? Was he encouraging and concerned? Maybe, but it doesn't come through that way in this article. I just found it disturbing the way the article comes across - their marriage was suffering when she was overweight, and now it's great because she's skinny. If she goes from a size 2 to a 10, is he going to love her 50% less?

Wal-Mart Sucks

Ok, so I know that's not exactly an astonishing revelation, but I'm not talking about a general hatred for Wal-Mart and their poor business practices, this is more of a specific complaint about a Wal-Mart in Orlando. I shop at Wal-Mart at home in Jacksonville all the time, just because it's easy and cheap, and I don't give a fuck if the store is cluttered or the people working there know anything about what they're selling. So, we're on vacation at Universal Orlando, and decide that if we want a snack, we don't want to pay $12 for a jar of nuts, or $5 for M&M's, and we need a few things to wear when going on the water rides, so we decide to make a quick trip to Wal-Mart. Now of course at home, you can't drive 10 minutes without running into a Super Wal-Mart, but here we turn the wrong way and drive for an hour before eventually finding one.

So, we get there and go in, and of course all Super Wal-Marts are laid out almost exactly the same, but that doesn't help me from feeling like I'm in the Twilight Zone any time I go into one where the groceries are on the right instead of left like I'm used to. Anyway, we get some snacks, and some water shoes and stuff, and we go the register, wait in line for about 15 minutes, then finally get to the front of the line. When the cashier gets to a bottle of wine my wife was buying, she asks for ID, and I start to show her, but then she points to my 16 year old daughter and says "No, her ID." So we explain that she is 16 and the woman says she can't sell us the wine. Of course we're flabbergasted and try to explain that we're not giving her the wine and she tells us that Wal-Mart policy is that everyone in the party must be 21 to purchase alcohol.

Now, I don't know if that is actually Wal-Mart policy, or if it's just their local policy or just that particular store's policy or what. I do know if it's Wal-Mart's corporate policy, every Wal-Mart I've ever been to has the good sense to ignore it. And I don't mind anything that discourages underage drinking, but this policy is so asinine that's it's unbelievable that anyone could have ever thought this was actually a good idea. Mostly, because it's so easily circumvented. Anyone who knows about the policy will simply leave the underage people somewhere else when paying, and the people who don't know about it will simply take the alcohol to a different register after finding out about it. The only people that will be dissuaded by it will be people like us who are legitimately purchasing alcohol and just say fuck it when confronted with their retarded policy. Anyone who actually wants to give underage people the alcohol will just do one of the things I mention above. Also, I could understand this a little more in a liquor store or some kind of smaller store where they had any chance of enforcing, or at least where underage people had no business going anyway. But this is a store that sells everything from tires to toothpaste, and where I'm likely to buy a bit more stuff and shop in a more general fashion.

Anyway, the fact that I actually was motivated to post this should show you how irritated I was with this crap. Anyone else ever heard of this ridiculous policy at their local Wal-Mart? Or any other poicies you want to bitch about?

Oh, and otherwise, we're having a great time.

Flickrvision

This is kind of interesting.

Yes, I realize I'm just posting links to shit lately. But that's better than nothing. I haven't got much to say lately and my contributors don't seem to pick up any of the slack.

Optical Illusions and Visual Phenomena

Some of these are pretty neat. Some of them give me a headache.

'Hate Crimes' Bill Moving to Full House

I'm sure this makes me a bad liberal, but I just don't get hate crimes legislation. Now, I'm 100% completely and totally in favor of rights for everyone, including any and all minorities, and even "enemy combatants" (though that's another topic). What I don't understand is why a hate crime is any worse than the exact same crime committed for different reasons.

If someone is stabbed or shot or beaten because they are black, a woman, gay, or whatever, that's terrible and I think the person who did it should be punished severely. However, if I get stabbed or shot or beaten, just because someone wants my wallet, or my car or whatever, I think that's just as terrible, and I want the person who did that punished just as harshly as the person in the first case.

I hate to agree with Republicans, so I must be missing something. Someone please explain it to me.

Atheist offers to send letters post-Rapture

I just thought this was funny.

Heroes

Great show, maybe the best on TV. Tonight's episode was great, with a lot of cool stuff and good information. However, much like anytime people start messing around with time travel, I think they may have fucked some things up. Either that or I just missed something. First, if future Hiro hadn't yet traveled back in time and told Peter to save the cheerleader, then why does Mohider still remember it. And now with future Hiro dead, does that screw up the past timeline that we've been watching all this time, since it seems that he never did get around to going back to meet Peter? And more importantly, if Claire never did get killed by Sylar, then how did Sylar regenerate when future Hiro stabbed him, since he obviously never got Claire's power? And how is it going to help now that they've saved her, if she was never dead to begin with? Also, when did Isaac get around to drawing the future 9th Wonder comics? Especially since he apparently did versions set in each of the two timelines, one of which happens five years after his death. Did he write 5 years worth of comics before he died?

Also, NBC ran it over by I don't know how long since my DVR cut off when Ando told Hiro he believed in him, so I don't even know exactly how it ended. Though I assume Hiro was able to get back to the past somehow.

Best-selling Author Will 'Prove' God's Existence

Well, this should be good. Ever since I saw that banana video with these two geniuses, I've been questioning being an atheist, I'm sure this debate will make me a believer once and for all.

I hope when he's done proving the existence of god, that someone remembers to quote The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

The argument goes something like this: 'I refuse to prove that I exist,' says God, 'for proof denies faith, and without faith I am nothing.' "'But,' says Man, 'The Babel fish is a dead giveaway, isn't it? It could not have evolved by chance. It proves you exist, and so therefore, by your own arguments, you don't. QED.' "'Oh dear,' says God, 'I hadn't thought of that,' and promptly vanished in a puff of logic.

Unfortunately, I think we'll discover a real Babel fish before Kirk Cameron says anything that even suggests the existence of god, much less proves it.

National Boring Association

I haven't really paid any attention at all this season to the NBA. That wasn't surprising considering the Lakers suck, and Georgetown was very good this year which made me focus more on college basketball. But, even when the Lakers aren't even in the playoffs at all, I've always been able to enjoy watching them anyway. But so far this season, I've seen nothing that interests me even slightly. I tried to watch several games over the weekend, and was bored by all of them, including the Lakers. I have a mild interest in the Heat because I like Shaq, but other than that, there's no team out there that is compelling to me, and no individual players that really pull me into a game just to watch them play.

Any NBA fans want to tell me about something great that I'm missing? Because I just can't get interested.

Gen Y shaped, not stopped, by tragedy

Stupid articles like this one make me want to repeatedly bang my head against a wall. What is this fascination we have with naming generations anyway? It's a pretty vague thing to use for distinction, but once you put a name on it, then people seem to want to try and apply hard and fast rules to each generation.

More annoyingly, in this article, they decide to use two stupid names for the same generation.

Millennials — also known as Gen Y — are typically described as those born since the early 80s.

Millenials? That's ridiculous. It wouldn't sound nearly so bad if the author hadn't used it over and over again like it's a widely accepted term. And I know Generation Y is a pretty crappy name, being a lazy sequel type name derived from the slightly more creative Generation X, but that speaks more to the need to stop making up silly names for generations than a need to come up with a new one.

And how do people born in the 80's qualify as millenials? Also, born since the early 80's until when? Until now? That would put my son in this generation, and I'm pretty sure he's affected by none of this. It also puts grown men and women in the same generation with little kids, which is another reason these distinctions are stupid. If people were only born every twenty years or so, these generational distinctions would be significant and worth talking about.

The timeline in the sidebar starts with 1986 and the shuttle explosion. How did that affect anyone born in the early 80s in any way? What four year old pays attention to the news?

Aside from the above, the premise of the article is stupid. For what generation can you not put together a list of disasters that they lived through?

I can see the logic in whoever came up with the label for the Baby Boomers. After the war, with people coming home, and with a lot to be happy about, it made sense to point that out. But just because one generation was named doesn't mean we have to name the rest from now on. I guess it's just another annoying thing we can blame on the Baby Boomers.

50 Questions

Haven't posted much lately, and these things are always good when I can't come up with anything interesting to say. Saw it at TwoGlasses and Laughing Wild

1. How tall are you barefoot?
About 5'9"

2. Have you ever smoked heroin?
No

3. Do you own a gun?
No, guns kill people

4. Who's your best friend?
Mike

5. Do you get nervous before "meeting the parents"?
My parents? I don't remember, but I doubt I realized I was going to meet them. Ok, I guess this is about my wife's parents. No, I didn't get nervous, but when I met my mother in law, she didn't say a word to me and looked at me like she wanted to beat meet to death with her bare hands. She loves me now, of course.

6. What music are you embarrassed to admit that you listen to?
Nothing, I'm not easily embarrased, and I don't listen to a lot of music.

7. What's your favourite Christmas song?
The one with the wind, and the sheep and the king and all that.

8. What do you prefer to drink in the morning?
Chocolate Milk

9. Can you do push-ups?
Not many

10. Why does one question always disappear?
I have no idea what the fuck this means.

11. What's your favorite piece of jewelry?
My wedding ring. It's the only jewelry I wear, though it would probably be my favorite anyway.

12. Do you like painkillers? When I'm in pain.

13. What is your secret weapon to lure in the opposite sex?
My wife's kids read this occasionally, so I'll spare them having to read about it.

14. Do you own a knife?
Who doesn't? Not like a crazy killing knife or anything. Just regular knives.

15. Do you have A.D.D.?
No

16. Middle Name?
Randall

17. Name 3 thoughts at this exact moment?
Who the fuck cares about three random thoughts. I'm embarrased that I'm wasting time on this stupid meme that probably started on some preteen girl's MySpace page. The Sopranos was kind of lousy this week.

18. Name the last 3 things you have bought:
Coffee, Milk, Coke

19. Name 3 drinks you regularly drink:
Kool-Aid (actually Great Value flavored drink mix, I'm cheap), milk, Mountain Dew

20. What time did you wake up today?
7:45 a.m.

22. Current worry?
I usually only worry about money

23. Current hate?
Whiny bitches

24. Favorite place to be?
Skiping my first choice for reasons mentioned above, I'll go with at home, just because I'm too lazy to put any thought into this.

25. Least favourite place to be?
Church

26. Where would you like to go?
Rome, New York, probably a million other places

27. Do you own slippers?
No

28. What shirt are you wearing?
Black Nike T shirt

29. Do you burn or tan?
Both

30. Favorite color(s)?
Blue

31. Would you be a pirate?
I don't think so. Why would I?

32. Last time you had an alcoholic drink?
Sunday

33. What songs do you sing in the shower?
I don't.

34. What did you fear was going to get you at night as a child?
Burglars

35. What's in your pockets right now?
Nothing

36. Last thing that made you laugh?
My son, he's funny

37. Best bed sheets you had as a child?
What the fuck? Even if I was weird enough to have favorite bedsheets, I sure wouldn't remember them anymore.

38. Worst injury you've ever had?
Dislocated thumb.

40. How many TVs do you have in your house?
Five. For three people, seems excessive, but what am I going to do throw away perfectly good TVs?

41. Who is your loudest friend?
I don't keep track of my friends by volume.

42. Who is your most silent friend?
See above.

43. Does someone have a crush on you?
I seriously doubt it.

44. Do you wish on shooting stars?
No

45. What is your favourite book?
I'm not good with favorites, there are a lot of books I really like.

46. What is your favorite candy?
Miniature Reese's peanut butter cups.

47. What song do you want played at your wedding?
This reinforces my thought above that this came from some girl's MySpace page. I already had my wedding, we played All My Life by K-Ci and JoJo along with a lot of other songs.

48. What song do you want played at your funeral?
What the fuck do I care?

49. What were you doing at 12 AM last night?
Sleeping.

50. What was the first thing you thought of when you woke up this morning?
I have no idea.

Buckeyes drop Hoyas

I wasn't going to say much about Jeff Green's disappearing act in the Final Four, because they're just kids, and even with all that talent, can't always come through. But then I read the quote below, and it almost made my head explode.

"I wouldn't change anything," Green said. "I didn't want to force anything. ... You've got to credit their defense. They had great weak-side defense. That made it tough on our teammates to try and throw the ball down to me."

Huh? You didn't want to force anything? Why not? Because your teammates were having such success? You were losing most notably because you were not a factor in the game. Hibbert had foul trouble, but still managed to put in 19 points. You went stretches of 17 and 14 minutes without taking a shot. Ridiculous. You need to make your own shots sometimes. Obviously, you already know that, because you wouldn't even have been in the Final Four if not for forcing your way through a double and nearly triple team to hit the game winner against Vanderbilt. Your assertion that it was tough for your teammates to get you the ball is patently ridiculous. I watched the entire game very closely and continually saw you run away from the ball, and in fact immeadiately give it up almost everytime you got it.

And, sure the loss is not all your fault. DuJuan Summers, who has been very good lately only scored 3, but at least he was out there trying, taking 10 shots, and he's a freshman, not the Big East Player of the Year. And the bench was nonexistent. But they're the bench, you're supposed to be the star. If Allen Iverson were dead, he's be rolling over in his grave after that performance by a fellow Hoya in the Final Four.