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Wednesday: Janauary 01, 2007 - Happy New Year! Happy New Year! I am in the process of moving my blog to a brand-new website and don't want to have any more pages get double-indexed so the Blog Formerly Known As Chompblog will be just this for the next two weeks while I finish up the transition. I will continue to update here so don't you worry.

I spent Christmas in Chicago with my family where I finished up my grad school applications and played Playstation 2 football with Steve. My dad and I stopped on our drive back to watch FSU crush UCLA. Go State! For New Year's, Jamie and I went to Chris and Amy's to play Wii and ring in the new year. In the time inbetween I have been regexing my old blog entries over and trying to make the last of tha major changes to the new site. [Comments: 1]· permalink · · ·

Tuesday: Janauary 02, 2007 - Piglets I stayed up late again last night to churn out another set of items on the new blog checklist including the comment section for the photos and moving the last of the old entries into the MySQL database. Still on the list are importing all of the blog graphics, setting up appropriate subdomains and setting up Prediction Lists for all the shows I now watch (Lost, Grey's and DH).

I left Publix last night and a woman, followed by a small stream of her children ran a cart into the front of the Taurus. The woman was petite, black and even though she had at least three children did not look any older than 24. Since I was about two feet away from her I simply said, "Excuse me, I think your cart hit my car." I'm sure I was more accusatory than I remember but I really tried to say it as more of a side comment than a "You f*ing b*ch". She replied, "So what cracker, we got(s) places to be." and kept walking. I kid you not, those were her exact words. She didn't even stop walking to address me directly.

First of all, who uses the term "cracker" except on sketches on late-night TV? I had never heard a real-life black person say it until last night. I figured it was some word invented by...crackers so they (we) wouldn't have to endure a real slang. Second of all, what if it had happened the other way around and I had called her and her kids a cross between a naughty N word and piglets? I'd be in big trouble Chompy--and rightfully so. I wasn't looking for an apology last night; it's not like the cart even left a scratch--it was the principle of it. Whatever, enjoy your lifetime of Kia Sorrentos and Welfare Carols you f*ing b*ch. [Comments: 2]· permalink · · ·

Wednesday: Janauary 03, 2007 - When did Family Guy start sucking? Ok, all of the old entries have been moved and all of the 2004 and 2006 graphics have been converted to jpg and moved successfully. This isn't going to take two weeks. In fact, I'll probably have the new blog live by Monday. Steve was kind enough to send me the latest Family Guy episode and, while it pains me to say so, the show just isn't as funny as it used to be. I believe the internet term for it is 'jumping the shark'. Five years ago or so, it was really clever. The humor was sharp and witty. Now though, it's just mean and mean without wit just isn't funny to me. They're trying WAAAAY too hard now so hopefully they'll get it out of their system. [Comments: 0]· permalink · · ·

Thursday: Janauary 04, 2007 - Poker Legend Can ANYONE beat me at poker? With the aid of a river-flush to knock out Ian I really ruled last night. By the time it got down to Ian, Chris and me the blinds were huge and they whittled Chris' stack down to give us a fighting chance. Jamie and Renee had bad cards all night. I knocked everyone out except for Jamie and I'm $20 richer. What more can you ask for?

Ricky pointed out that the new blog needs some fancier items (trackbacking, pinging, etc) so maybe I will launch before the site is formally done. Looking at it now the only things that are missing are fluff features so I'm shooting for Monday. :) [Comments: 0]· permalink · · ·

Friday: Janauary 05, 2007 - Gypsy Tears To Cure The AIDS Last night Jamie and I went to see the Borat movie. It was pretty funny and it felt good to walk away from it hating my own country. The poor University of South Carolina--wow. Talk about a school full of rapists. As if having Steve Spurrier as their football coach wasn't bad enough. Wow. I'm just glad it was frat guys from that school and not from FSU. Lucky us. Parts of it were pretty lame and I really had no interest in seeing it but I'm glad Jamie took me to it. I was surprised that they were able to show the...kibbles of Borat's son in the photo in the movie. I guess that kind of paled in comparison to the two guys wrestling in the buff but still. It wasn't really offensive (directly) except for the rodeo guy referring to me as an I-talian but whatever. It's just a movie. Except for the Americans. Stupid Americans.

This is my first entry using my new GUI instead of just sticking entries straight into the database so I'll cross my fingers that it works. Have a nice weekend! I know I will--I've had three different job offers in the past six months. Can you believe that? Wasn't it just a few years ago that no one would give me a break because I had a degree in music? My oh my Chompy, how the times change. The most recent offer is by far the most interesting and the guy who started MySpace is one of the investors--great potential. I would be able to work from home so that's fantastic of course. It feels good to feel wanted but with me going to get that damn Ph. D in six months I know I don't have the requisite loyalty--oh wait this new job would be cool with my leaving then. Decisions decisions. [Comments: 0]· permalink · · ·

Saturday: Janauary 06, 2007 - Nerding Out I only did two things on Saturday: Work on this blog and play video games. Why? Because I could. Now that life has calmed down again I figured it was as good a weekend as any to accomplish next to nothing and rest assured that I was able to do that. My brother Steve had tried to send me a game but it didn't work out so I settled for Civilization 4, a game I hadn't played in a couple years. Apparently taking a 700-day(ish) break makes you really bad. It was still comforting, since for whatever reason it's more fun to play video games from years ago than current ones. I think the blog is ready to go. There's still some AJAX stuff I need to do but that's not mission critical. I guess I'll see tomorrow if I remember how to write a 301 redirect htaccess file. [Comments: 0]· permalink · · ·

Sunday: Janauary 07, 2007 - Poker Legend Can ANYONE beat me at poker? I'm just kidding--lots of people can (although I can't think of any off-hand). Last night we formally shifted our poker nights from Thursdays to Sundays at 5pm. This will make my week a little sadder but it also opens some time up for all of us to work on dissertations and whatnot.

I won't go into the gory details of the game last night but, just as it did on Thursday, it ended up coming down to me, Chris and Ian with me narrowly knocking them out for the win. In the hopes of many similar entries over the next eight months, here are the stats from last night's game:

1) Mike (Slayed: Ian, Chris, Jamie, Christen)
2) Ian
3) Chris (Slayed: Renee)
4) Jamie
5) Christen
6) Renee
[Comments: 3]· permalink · · ·

Monday: Janauary 08, 2007 - 2006 College Football Championship Ugh, Black Monday. I guess Black Tuesday would be more appropriate since the true fallout of the University of Florida winning won't really hit until then. Anyway, in case you didn't hear UF won the 2006 College Football Championship after decimating an unpracticed OSU team, 41-14. Ted Gynn Jr. ran back the opening kick-off for Ohio State for a touchdown but that's where Ohio State gave up.

Outside of Ohio, I would have to imagine that Tallahassee was the largest city in the country rooting for the Buckeyes. I saw more OSU bumper stickers, flags, etc than I would have ever imagined driving home from work yesterday. I don't think schools like Tennessee and Georgia would really root as wholeheartedly against the Gators because while they are certainly rivals, at least someone from their conference won.

I gave up watching at halftime and watched a few episodes of Six Feet Under while working on the African Languages Club of Indiana University's new website and playing Civ 4. Steve also sent me a picture to use for my update today but I forgot to upload it. I'll get it tomorrow! [Comments: 0]· permalink · · ·

Tuesday: Janauary 09, 2007 - Welcome Let me formally welcome you to the new blog. I have been so busy addressing major life changes recently that I skipped this step in the relaunch. The biggest change, aside from the full-screen layout, is that there's just more...everything. So far it seems the most-liked new feature is the Time Machine--it pulls the entries from one, two, and three years ago into a little blurb. That way you can look for your name before officially remembering good times.

The photos section is growing but already has about 300 pictures including my tropical cruise from this year and 2007 New Years at Chris and Amy's. I am working backwards uploading photos and so far I'm through about August of 2006. The problem is I was never much of a photo taker until I received a digital camera from my mom for Christmas in 2005 so I've got a feeling I won't have to spend too much working on the photo section.

The Guilt Links no longer take years to load AND the cookies that tell the site whether you want them on or off actually remember them now. Same goes for the Ads section on the right. I still need to replace that section with random pictures of Chompy though (assuming you've turned the ads off). Since I built this site entirely by hand I decided to include the same spam-blocking script that I use on all of my sites at work. While the site was being graciously hosted on Brian's domain I would get between 5-20 spam messages a day and that just was not sitting well with me. I realize it's a little inconvenient but that's life. I also finished a very basic GUI for myself to create new entries that includes the one thing that I've always hated about keeping blogs--having to manually upload the image through an FTP program. I sucked it up and wrote an image uploader and I love it.

Still on the to-do list is add an AJAX polling section, which I have about 95% of the way done. Not too shabby. I'm also waiting to get reindexed by Google since I'm stuck in the supplementary results section. I also have to create the on-topic subdomains that the entries will point to--kind of like categories. So yeah, welcome. [Comments: 0]· permalink · · ·

Wednesday: Janauary 10, 2007 - Terror Mummy Even though my day was pretty boring at least I wasn't discovered as a really terrified mummy today. In other daily news, Barry Bonds was discovered to be a big fat liar who has been on steroids. I can't even fathom the number of people this must shock--1? 2? His mother? Cisco is suing Apple over "iPhone". I'm not a lawyer but I think the iPod was so big that it automatically branded every noun that has an unnatural i in front of it. (If you've never typed <i>i</i> it's weird.) Sorry Cisco. Also, some Indian guy was found guilt of cannibalizing and then having sex with some of his victims. I can't help but wonder if his priorities are in the wrong order.

Steve and I played a computer game online last night and we each won once. As someone who studies how armies attack at the U of C I would have thought he would have crushed me twice in a row. But the Romans didn't have zombies. [Comments: 2]· permalink · · ·

Thursday: Janauary 11, 2007 - Teary-Eyed President Unlike President Bush, I haven't spent any time crying in the past few days. A lot has been getting done recently--I'm almost done with Chris' African Languages site at IU, we finally went live with my baby at work, Cardtron and my house is quickly releasing its hold on the junk it has been storing for the past few years. I have high hopes for this weekend--going to see Kurt's soccer game on Saturday with some people from my office, continuing to fight the clutter in the office and get the rest of my CDs sorted into books. I also wouldn't mind watching the rest of Season 1 of Fraiser (thanks Steve!) [Comments: 1]· permalink · · ·

Friday: Janauary 12, 2007 - Kankles There are some words, that for no reason, I absolutely hate hearing. They make my stomach turn. First off, I hate the word kankle. I know it's a combination of calf-ankle and it's better than ankalf but still. I hate it.

I REALLY hate rural. While I hate other people saying it, I hate it more when I have to say it because it sounds so awkward. Ugh, I don't think anyone can say it in a pleasing way. It's just a terrible word.

I also hate the word hankering. This word (fortunately) is not widely used in the South but up north it means you want something. I have a hankering for hamburgers. I wish we could abolish certain words from the language--maybe Chris could take care of getting rid of these words for me. [Comments: 3]· permalink · · ·

Saturday: Janauary 13, 2007 - Oversimplifying On Saturday and Sunday I carried on with my life simplification going through the 1800 CDs I owned. I had completed the pop and jazz sections a few months ago and had been putting off Classical because of the sheer number of CDs I was going to have to sort through.

Fortunately the Bears game was on and believe it or not I was rooting for the Bears. I hate New Orleans more than Rex Grossman so I wanted the time with the greater likelihood of beating them to win. As I sorted the CDs I discovered that I am missing a few major works: Beethoven 5 and Beethoven 9 (even my parents have those!), any Mozart Symphony (how is this even possible--he wrote like four million), not even one CD by Schumann (whatever), Rite of Spring (yet somehow I have four recordings of Symphony in C)--anyway, you get the idea.

Far and away, I have the most chamber music. I have the complete strings quartets from just about anyone I can think of (except Marty Blessinger) and the symphonic stuff is pretty close--there are about 300 chamber music CDs and 250 symphonic ones. I didn't touch the boxed sets.

Zzzzz, what a boring entry. [Comments: 0]· permalink · · ·

Sunday: Janauary 14, 2007 - Happy Birthday Chris Happy 26th Birthday Chris Green! If you visited my blog yesterday on the actual 14th then you saw the newest feature of this site--the picture of Chompy whistles your face on your birthday. Isn't that exciting? If you are concerned that Chompy will not whistle your face on your birthday or that I have forgotten what your birthday is, please leave me a comment with it so I can add it. I won't list who I have because I don't want anyone to feel bad that I have forgotten them so just add yours! It will be worth it.

Last year we played poker on Chris' birthday and I won in honor of him not dying for 25 years. This year, T-Chris won a $40 pot, thus ending my streak of not losing in 2007. I had the stats but I left in them in the pants I was wearing so you will have to wait for the details of the game. I finished in 4th after upsetting the poker gods by referring to myself as both a poker god and poker legend last week. Oops.

Within the next month or so my brother Steve will start posting to a blog here. His life is pretty dull but his entries are only about two sentences so at least he doesn't talk about how boring his life is. Unlike some people. [Comments: 10]· permalink · · ·

Monday: Janauary 15, 2007 - MLK Day I'm pretty sure that with the exception of Gordo's Restaurant and possibly Brian's Top Secret Agency, we were the only company working yesterday. I have to be honest, I have no sentimental attachment to Martin Luther King because since day one in this country I've always had the rights I wanted. I do recognize his work and until last week, when I threw it away, a copy of a letter he wrote to Crazy Old Man Jack. In fact, because he had positive contact with Jack I probably don't like him as much as I should. Well, let me put it this way--I'm glad he was a champion for black rights but I don't think I can forgive him for making a crazy old white man even more delusional than he already was. I just wish we had the day off, that's all.

Google is slowly respidering this new site--it has a whopping 65 pages done out of the 1400. Of those 65 most (all but five) of them are in the supplemental index so I'm not expecting any traffic for a while. One of the pages that is in the regular, searchable index is an entry I wrote about some of my fish being dead and now I show up in the top twenty for dead cichlid. Pretty exciting, right? [Comments: 10]· permalink · · ·

Tuesday: Janauary 16, 2007 - Getaway Man, I can't wait to get out of here. Talking to (IU) Chris online and reading Elena's blog made me remember that Jamie and I are stuck here for another seven months. I'm not sure if it's because I'm just so jealous of so many people I know pursuing their own interests or the fact that my job description has become simply "bitch" for the past week but man, I am just clamoring (chomping at the bit, if you will) for something new.

I really don't mind the corporate world--I just mind doing things that "a middle school intern" (the phrase I believe I used yesterday) could do. I'd like to think I'm pretty darn good at a lot of workplace things so being used for data entry type things is a little bit insulting. Liz reminded me that I get my salary regardless of what I'm doing but even with the 50% raise I received last year after receiving several job offers in the past six months has reminded me that I should be rich. I'm talking Brian Uri rich (BUR[!]). And that's pretty rich. I know Brian's not as his desk doing Top Secret Data Entry. So come on. I'm no Brian and I'm no Ricky but I'm not a middle school intern either. Just look at this beautiful site! [Comments: 2]· permalink · · ·

Wednesday: Janauary 17, 2007 - Google Dancing The word around the office is that Google is updating again. With only 94 of the 1300 pages of this site indexed I'm a little bit bummed that it couldn't have come in another month or so. Oh well.

I was at the Publix pharmacy at the wrinkled woman in front of me smalled like Parmesan cheese. Maybe it's just because I hate cheese but I could not stop dry heaving. I eventually gave up waiting in line because I was afraid one of the times the "dry" in dry heaving wouldn't have been appropriate.

I keep having dreams with people from high school in them. Not just people from high school but people who I would have never thought of in a million years. Apparently my subconscious remembers their first and last names though and is kind enough to keep putting them on dream cruise ships with me. Maybe it's because my 10 year high school reunion is this year. I just wish it would stop since I'm not going and I'd rather have dreams about more restful things. [Comments: 1]· permalink · · ·

Thursday: Janauary 18, 2007 - Chuck The Chest In case you've been living inside of an FSU bubble, Chuck Amato has returned after his short career at NC State. This is good since FSU has found several different ways to lose to NC State the past five years and Tom O'Brien is not as in love with the trick plays as much as Chuck was. Now that FSU has good coaches there will really be no excuse for doing badly starting two years from now--it's in the players' hands and if they suck I guess we'll just have to root for Virginia Tech.

Jamie took me out to a nice dinner at Longhorn last night. Being even more irritable than I usually (if you can even imagine) I noticed the girl on the other side of our booth wall would not shut up. For ten minutes straight "bleh bleh bleh, English major, bleh bleh bleh, like, bleh bleh bleh, boyfriend, bleh bleh bleh, school, bleh bleh bleh". I assumed it was some college girl talking to some male companion. Likely one not attractive enough to be the official boyfriend. As we approached 15 minutes of (LITERALLY) non-stop talking I decided to get up to see what this yak-mouth looked like. Whoa Chompy! It's the WAITRESS talking to this old couple. That poor old couple! The looks on their faces said simply, "kill us, we're close anyway". I didn't though, so don't you worry. [Comments: 2]· permalink · · ·

Friday: Janauary 19, 2007 - Pets Peeves I am so happy this week is over. Jamie left for Ohio to see her ailing grandma so I am free wheeling this weekend--except for a few minor commitments: watching Abby, buying a few CD cases, watching Abby, appearing in a TV Commercial and uploading Chris' new IU site to name a few.

This entry was going to be about pet peeves but right now I can only think of two. Last night I had at least a dozen. Hmm. I guess that's how it goes. I guess I could talk about my pets instead--when I move to grad school I plan on keeping Chompy. The fish will be given to whomever buys or inherits my two tanks. Hmm. Chompy almost caught a squirrel this morning. I got Chompy a squeeky-sheep for Christmas and she and Abby play with it a lot. She used to really destroy those cloth toys but now she mothers them when she's not flinging them around the house. Ok. [Comments: 3]· permalink · · ·

Saturday: Janauary 20, 2007 - Lesser of Two Evils I guess I have to root for the Bears even though I hate Rex Grossman. I've rooted against Rex all season but tomorrow I have no choice but to root for him. Why? Because I hate all of New Orleans. I hate the city. I hate the people. I hate the Saints. I hate everything that has anything to do with New Orleans. I hate Mississippi and Alabama simply because they share a border with the state that houses the godforsaken city. I hate the SEC MORE because LSU is in it than Florida. I hate New York because it also has "New" in its name. I hate France for the original Orleans. I can probably take some comfort in the fact the Bears will likely win AND Rex will suck. That's been the second half of their season anyway. I guess time will tell. [Comments: 1]· permalink · · ·

Sunday: Janauary 21, 2007 - Bear Down Chicago Bears Well, the Bears won. As predicted, the defense won the game so I felt pretty good rooting for them. The problem is now that they play the Colts I'm not sure who to root for; or (more likely) root against. The only way I will root for the Bears is if the Colts have no players from FSU UNLESS they have no players from FSU AND Florida (Miami is ok). I don't mind players from Miami as much as players from UF because FSU has whomped Miami in most of the recent games at least they've tasted Seminole pride if you know what I'm saying.

Jamie has returned safely from Ohio and her grandmother is still alive. Over the weekend I did a commercial for Habitat for Humanity. You'll be able to pick me out because I'm trying to keep a bee from flying in my mouth the whole time. I also will look very short because the guys next to me are standing on boxes that are off-screen. Oh well. [Comments: 0]· permalink · · ·

Monday: Janauary 22, 2007 - Little Miss Sunshine Apparently there is some big to-do with movies coming up because all of my regular non-sports news has been replaced by things I've never heard of. While Little Miss Sunshine could I guess be the title of some Iraqi war propaganda film I somehow doubt it. Because of all the hype, dear readers, if you were charged with making a Pro-American Iraqi War Propaganda film, what would you title it? Just a little game today because all I did last night was watch reruns of Six Feet Under on Bravo. [Comments: 2]· permalink · · ·

Tuesday: Janauary 23, 2007 - You Buttholes Man, you guys suck. I had to beg for War Film Participation and even then I got my brother and my girlfriend. Both of the HAVE TO participate by unwritten law.

Speaking of buttholes, for the past three years I have been underpaying Comcast by $2/mo. Last night they shut off my cable internet and cable TV. They did not alert me to their rate increase and I had their bill set to autopay. According to the butthole on the phone, my services had not been shut off--they just wanted their money. I was quietly cruel on the phone, making sure the minimum wage earning salesperson wanted to find new work before giving them the money. He then insisted my services were not shut off (they were) and I ended having to call around 6pm to speak with another butthole who also told me my services were on (they were not).

We set up for someone to come out and look at it around 8pm. The phone rang at 8:10 and I missed the called by about one-tenth of a second because I was playing with the dogs. I immediately called back and they told me the tech was now out of my area and I'd have to reschedule. It is now about 8:11. ONE MINUTE AFTER THEY CALLED ME. Anyway, I still have no internet nor TV so remember...Comcast sucks. [Comments: 1]· permalink · · ·

Wednesday: Janauary 24, 2007 - Major Changes Yesterday was a big day in terms of changes. First, I decided to take a new job and gave my notice at RD. The conversation went well but truth be told I will miss working there. It was the first, and likely the last, place I will ever work where no one (not counting the fishing magazine) sucked. Everyone was really good at their job and easy to get along with. My new job is working for a start-up...from my house. Not that my .5 mile commute to RD was that bad but man, working at home is fantastic. I will set better boundaries than when I freelanced though--no more 14 hour days six days a week.

What is that picture you ask? It's American University, where Jamie was accepted for Law School. She was also accepted to DePaul. Awesome! Now she just needs the OK from Georgetown and she'll be able to pit them against each other for her attendance.

ALSO Chris and Mike are coming down for their Spring Break! Hooray! What a full day of exciting news! [Comments: 10]· permalink · · ·

Thursday: Janauary 25, 2007 - Prehistoric Shark In case you didn't see this shark in the news a few days ago it was pretty cool. I think they called it a Frill Shark and it apparently lives about 3/4 of a mile underwater off the coast of China. The experts say it's prehistoric and they actually took some movies of it swimming around before it died. They made it sound like it just happened to die which didn't really seem to fit the rest of the story AND it's China where they have Man Vs. Beast Zoo Olympics so I'm guessing some peasant wanted to eat it.

Last night I hung out with Ricky and we ate some TGIF. Their flat iron steak is not too shabby. It was really crowded with gang members, which are quickly becoming a problem in Tallahassee. I'm not kidding. This is another reason I hate Tallahassee--it has all of the problems of a big city without any of the benefits. Anyway, after TGIF we went back to Ricky's house and I got to see his new TV/DVD set up. I might actually watch movies if I had that so it's a good thing I don't. [Comments: 3]· permalink · · ·

Friday: Janauary 26, 2007 - Laid Souce Jamie and I went to Village Pizza for lunch. I don't really like but considering the other places she could drag me it's not too bad. It seemed like we had an off-the-boat Italian as our waiter judging by his speaking. Our meal was fine but then the brought the check. First off, in big red letters it said (in very curly handwriting) Laid Souce. Obviously he had attempted to phoenetically capture my saying Light Sauce and he apparently did a good job because the pizza did indeed have Laid Souce. The only other thing I can think of is that he wrote one sexual exploit per Guest Check--the people after us got something like Nailed Gina written somewhere on theirs. Then again Souce isn't a very common name.

I don't know how many times they charged us tax. This is how crappy restaurants like Village Pizza stay in business: they know you won't put up an embarassing fight over $1 around other people. If they do it to every bill, they probably make extra couple hundred dollars a day. Anyway, they clearly taxed us several times on the bill. Even though this was apparant by there being an extra three lines on the bill, none of which were more than a dollar when Jamie asked the woman-owner got really defensive over her precious dollar. Damn I-talians and their money. [Comments: 0]· permalink · · ·

Saturday: Janauary 27, 2007 - So I'm At Target So I'm at Target buying some timers for my aquarium lights. I'm not really responsible enough to care for animals that don't alert me to their condition (see the dog headbutting me) so I lie to myself about the fish, trying to believe I am training them to glow because that's what deep sea fish do because there is not light, right?

So I'm at Target buying some timers for my aquarium lights. And walking in at the same time is this beautiful girl of about my age. Very trendy in some sort of coat they'd make some unshaved man wear on Queer Eye for the Straight Guy. We both reach for a cart because hey, it's Target and who knows what you might need to buy. This girl then does something that can only be described as the Golly Green Giant stepping on an equally proportioned duck. I know that near-30 year olds aren't supposed to write blog entries about farting but this particular butt belch was one of legend. If fonts could have stink lines I would use them here.

So I'm at Target buying some timers for my aquarium lights. But now I'm in this cloud of gas. I leave the cart behind and start power walking towards the Home Improvement section and I am ready to be alone so I can laugh hysterically. I round the corner past the boyswear and I start laughing like a crazy person--I can't help it. I turn around to see who exactly I've embarassed myself in front of and lo and behold here comes the girl who looks as though she's about to tell me something urgent (like hey, pull my finger...well, pull this other one). I'm obviously busted in terms of laughing so I pretend I'm deep in deliberation on what novelty cap to buy--the one with a Nintendo Controller on it that says "Role Model" or the one with one of the South Park kids on it. Decisions decisions. So she comes up to me and without making eye contact says, "I am SO sorry" and walks away.

And that was that--got my fish timers and called it a day. [Comments: 3]· permalink · · ·

Sunday: Janauary 28, 2007 - New PCS Formula While Jamie finished off Ian in last night's poker game I was trying to think of a better way to score the PCS and I think I've got it. Last year it was simply this: your average position. Complex, eh? The problem with it was a) you were not rewarded for winning AND you were penalized for playing in big games--if you were 4th out of four that shouldn't count higher than finishing 8th out of 8. Anyway, I do believe I have the new system:

1) Take the inverse number of the position you finished (if you finished 3rd out of 6 people you'd get 4 points; if you finished 6th you'd get one point)

2) If you won, you get .x added to your score where x=number of players excluding yourself.

3) For each kill, you get .1 added to your score. If cases where one person kills everyone AND the number of total players is greater than four, then an additional .5 is added to the kill bonus.

4) From week to week the scores are averaged against previous weeks to prevent someone from missing a week being irreparably behind.

Unlike last season the highest average score is the winner.

Game 3 Stats:
1) Jamie (IH,MC,AA,RG) [8]
2) Ian (CE) [6.1]
3) Mike (TB) [5.1]
4) Amy [4]
5) Chris [3]
6) Renee [2]
7) Tim [1]


The totals thus far through the season will be posted tomorrow once I calculate them! [Comments: 6]· permalink · · ·

Monday: Janauary 29, 2007 - Stupid Fish For all the things and people that I will miss at RD, one thing I will not miss is the fishing magazine that goes with it. If there were ever an entrepreneurial bone in my body watching the plight of that magazine has ensured tumorous growths on it. I think the worst part about being your own boss would be hiring morons. They might not have been morons when you hired them, or they might mask it well but suddenly you're stuck with them. Like this fish--you're stuck with it. I know you don't care about the fishing magazine--you're here today to see the 2007 PCS Standings! Until we have a few more games under our belts I included everyone who has played with us thus far:

PCS RANKINGS: WEEK 1
1) Ricky [6.2]
2) Ian [6.1]
3) Mike [5.73]
4) Chris [5.36]
5) Jamie [4.66]
T6) AJ [4.00]
T6) Amy [4.00]
8) Renee [1.66]
9) Christen [1.5]
10) Tim [1.00]


As you can see, it's so early everyone is still all bunched up. That makes it exciting though--hope. [Comments: 1]· permalink · · ·

Tuesday: Janauary 30, 2007 - Hazing Ideas Here are some things I'd do if it were my job to haze someone.

Pretend like we were going on a road trip and then dump them off in the Everglades. I would also try to ensure they were naked by this point.

Punch them in the stomach every time they said a word OR, if they were tired of being punched, they could pay me $10 for each punch they wanted to get out of. Just FYI, if the tried to fight back I would beat them until they were unconscious and then bright them back to the Everglades.

Keep a ton of snakes in their closet, lock them in their bedroom (is that how frat houses work?), then pull a string to release all the snakes while they were sleeping. Yeah, they'd be poisonous. If they screamed in fear that would just increase the Stomach Punch or $10 counter. If they begged to get out they would be brought back to the Everglades because there is no way we'd allow pansies on my fraternity. They could make a film out of this.

I would dress them in long, white sheets then command my fraternity brothers to use them as toilet paper. If any of them removed the sheets before the month of wearing was up I would simply line ALL of them up, in the spirit of brotherhood, and hire monkeys to throw feces at them. Since monkeys probably would not be available to a frat house, we might have to do it ourselves but that's fine.

I would make them all sit down at long tables and force them to eat the pages of Playgirl just to mess with their heads. I would invite our sister sorority to come watch and throw feces at them while they did it.

After the pledge drive was over I would immediately decharter the fraternity so they would have gone through all of that for absolutely nothing. What better what to prepare them for life? [Comments: 52]· permalink · · ·

Wednesday: Janauary 31, 2007 - Carbon Neutral Lifestyle Being that Global Warming is the Topic De Année I thought I would dedicate this entry to how I personally live a Carbon-Neutral Lifestyle. It is not a particularly easy thing to do but at least I can sleep easy at night knowing I repay Mother Earth for her sweet bounty.

1) I never EVER clean up Chompy's crap. Ever. That's a big one--when available I leave Abby's to fester as well. Within their dung are tiny microbes that enable life for other plant-based matter and who am I to prevent those oxygen-producing lifeforms from proliferating?

2) I try not to wash my dishes more than every two weeks. Water is a valuable commodity and it would not be fair for me to waste Earth's water on such an unnecessary task unless I had no more dishes to use, which I can tell you takes about two weeks.

3) I do not unstop my toilets when they're full. Since the toilets in my 1870's apartment are not water efficient when I find they are not disposing their collections properly I leave them alone so they come up to 2007 grade in terms of water usage.

4) I make sure Jamie and I never waste precious gas going nice places to eat. Since Chick Fil A is just down the road I force her to go there or to cook. When she cooks I make sure she only cooks abundant, carbon-unfriendly animals such as chicken and beef.

5) I grow my own food. Not all my food of course, but each year I plant several hot chili plants and provided the carbon-unfriendly squirrels do not get their grubby paws on them then I am able to harvest the six or seven peppers at the end of growing season, thereby saving gas since I don't have to go to the store that one time AND I dump the plant remains in the backyard to cover up Chompy and Abby's poop--effectively doubling the amount of carbon-neutral benefit in my back yard. [Comments: 4]· permalink · · ·