Red Zeppelin

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Weekend: April 01, 2007 - April Fools! This weekend Jamie and I headed over to Christine and Erick's for some ping pong and nerf arrow shooting. Although the fire pit was not full of burning furniture we did have a good time out in the country. Their dog Zeke could put the fear of God into any living thing. Unlike Abby, Zeke is a real German Shepard: all black and 100+ pounds of bone-rattling fear. He was trained really, really well though (fortunately) and I'm pleased to report that the most dog-damage done to me is still from Jamie's sister's Springer Spaniel.

I think the sad reality of poker is that I am simply unstoppable. Granted, it's hard to lose when you're getting four 9s so I can't really attribute my winning to any sort of discernible skill aside from not folding four of a kind.

Week 9
1) Mike (AA,CE,RG)
2) Renee (CP, IH)
3) Ian
4) Christian
5) Chris
6) Amy


PCS Standings
1) Mike (2.00) [20]
2) Ian (3.00) [6]
3) Chris (3.22) [9]
4) Amy (4.00) [0]
T5) Jamie (4.83) [4]
T5) Christen (4.83) [2]
7) Renee (5.00) [3]
8) Tim (7.00) [0]
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Monday: April 02, 2007 - Bad Sports Day If I wanted your team to lose, you won. I hope it feels good. Not only did I have to endure a 5-1 Cubs loss in the home of two loyal Reds fans, OSU blew it again. Watching the NCAA Finals last night, and I hate to say it, but Florida deserved to win. They just decimated Ohio State with all of those back-breaking threes. Three. Three. Three. They just kept nailing the three-pointers like they weren't even trying.

Speaking of not trying, the Cubs got whomped to start the 2007 season. The only solace I can take is that the White Sox got hammered even harder by the Indians. Carlos Zambrano was just bad and even after giving up two booming homeruns to Adam Dunn he didn't even plunk Griffey in retaliation. Come on! Where's your passion for the game? I'm calling it right now--Matt Murton will be in Single-A before season's end. He is just awful. Watching him "hit" makes me sick. At least he didn't make any errors yesterday.

I stole this graphic from Steve. [Comments: 2]· permalink · · ·

Tuesday: April 03, 2007 - Play Desktop Defender Ok, I know I wrote about Desktop Defender a few weeks ago but they've gone through two updates since then. So far the only person that has been hooked is the Desktop Defender himself...and he's a lot better than me so if you're going to join try to be worse than me so you don't go bumping all my scores down.

For Easter Jamie and I are going up to Chicago to see my family, visit DePaul and take in a Cubs' game (in Milwaukee the day we fly in). The Brewers look pretty good this year and it's hard to root against seeing as I went to college right there. I really don't mind the Reds and Brewers winning (except against the Cubs of course) as long as the Cardinals and Astros stay at the bottom of the division. [Comments: 13]· permalink · · ·

Wednesday: April 04, 2007 - Happy Birthday Michael! Birthday wishes (and graphics) go out to Michael Rittling on his special day! Maybe your Indiana-Birthdays be as exciting as the ones you spent with us.

Last night I went out to coach soccer practice and was recruited to help out a girls' team. After I got back I watched the last four innings of Ted Lilly shutting down the Reds and then Jamie and I settled into Lost.

Was that a snoozer or what? From the previews it looked like it was going to be really exciting but Sawyer trying to make people happy (how long did it take you to figure out there wasn't really a vote, like 5 seconds?) and after Kate and Juliet were handcuffed and muddy they didn't even make out! Isn't that what girls do after they fight? Make out? At least we got to see the intertwining of Kate and Sawyer's stories; those are what I'm really interested in seeing at this point. [Comments: 4]· permalink · · ·

Thursday: April 05, 2007 - Happy Easter! Jamie and I leave for Chicago bright and early Saturday morning so please do not to be too heart-broken waiting for my insightful commentary on life until Tuesday when we return.

I've been playing some Euchre online and the personalities that exist in Yahoo Games is just ridiculous. In the Advanced rooms everything things everyone else is cheating and about 60% of the people will let you know it. It doesn't matter if you've never played a game with your partner--you surely must be cheating because it's simply out of the realm of possibility that someone else might be able to take a trick from you. Now, when Jamie and I play together we totally cheat. Since we're in the same house it's easy to confer suits or what to lead on a loner to ensure some trump coming out. Really though I don't think we win any more games with each other than we do with other people when we're not cheating so many we should spare my neighbors the yelling of "HOW MANY HEARTS DO YOU HAVE" (got any sheep?). [Comments: 2]· permalink · · ·

Friday: April 06, 2007 - Tacky Music I thought today I would feature one of my favorite bands: Alice in Chains. I listed to them a lot in high school and only recently really re-discovered how awesome they were. Take a list to Don't Follow below.

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Weekend: April 10, 2007 - Happy Easter! For Easter Jamie and I flew up to Chicago to spend some time with my family and take in a Cubs game. As promised I posted the photos here. As soon as we got off the plane we immediately hopped in my parents' minivan and drove through the snow up to Milwaukee to see Carlos Zambrano and the Cubs whomp the Brewers. On Sunday we spent the day at my grandparents' house and then Steve, Jamie and I drove up to the University of Chicago to spend the night with him. We were all asleep by midnight and the next day Jamie went to Chicago, Steve went to class and I sat around. On Tuesday we flew back to Tallahellsee to relieve poor Ricky of Easter Chomp duty (thanks Ricky!). [Comments: 0]· permalink · · ·

Wednesday: April 11, 2007 - Oh, Juliet Why! Why?!?!?!?! Juliet, how could you??? Look at all that punctuation. That's how upset I am that Juliet is a traitor. For as many things in Lost as I have predicted accurately I really thought Juliet was one of the "good guys". Maybe I just really wanted to believe that she was. Either way, I was shocked last night to see the scene where she and Ben were going over their plan. I thought she hated Ben! Poor Jack, I wonder if they'll kill him once it's revealed he was helping out Juliet. Speaking of Lost-Death I'm glad they didn't bring back to life the sand-eaters from a few episodes back. In fact, I'm glad they just kind of glossed over the fact they were buried alive. No one cared about them anyway. What did I do before Lost? I seem to have Lost nightmares a lot: two nights ago I dreamt Sayid was torturing me while Jack and Anna Lucia (remember her?) watched. That was unfortunate. Last night I dreamt I had $60 bill in my pocket and an arcade change machine wouldn't accept it. I wonder what that means.

I'm still in the process of resizing all of my Easter photos but once I have those done then I'll do my back-post for the past week, which was way more interesting than most of my normal weeks. [Comments: 9]· permalink · · ·

Weekend: April 12, 2007 - Belated 12 of 12 Ok, I messed up my 12 of 12 and I had a choice: doctor all of the photos or make a dog-o-llage. Obviously, I opted for the second entry method. My underlying goal is simply to make you say "TOO CUTE" while looking at the adorable pictures of my dog. Since this is a weekend entry:

On Saturday we Kicked Rape in the Balls and were the last place team at the Refuge House kickball tournament. Thanks to: Ricky, AJ, Christine, Erick, Vince and Joe for coming. We lost 2-1 despite my stellar 2/3 at the plate and an inning of shutout pitching. The wind was absolutely howling so while we played small ball on our field, the teams playing diagonally across from us (with the field facing the opposite way) played a 19-10 slugfest. Our team was more suited for power so we'll just have to make sure we get the good field next year. After the game I took a nap because I was so sore. It's embarrassing when you hit a point in your life when you're sore from kickball.

Since I've given up on watching DH on Sunday and didn't want to be stuck watching only one TV show a week I've filled the void with Planet Earth on Sunday nights on the Discovery Channel. It's a total nerd show but has been pretty cool so far. If nothing else it enables me to see commercials so I know what people are talking about in civilized conversation. [Comments: 2]· permalink · · ·

Monday: April 16, 2007 - Virginia Tech Reading over Brian's blog this morning it looks like all his friends, family and friends' families are okay. Scary stuff. [Comments: 5]· permalink · · ·

Tuesday: April 17, 2007 - I know I'm like 8 Years Old Ok, I know that picture should only make a 4th grader chuckle but I couldn't help myself. I had a pounding headache all day that didn't really clear up until around 10pm. I tried to nap it away in the afternoon but all my dreams involved me carrying things (in one of them, a telephone pole) so I didn't really get a very relaxing sleep.

Notice on Brian's blog his header graphic is all fuzzy now? He should change domains from the urizone to the blurizone. Hah! I am too clever.

In other news, the Cubs lost in 14 innings to the Padres. Because of my nap I didn't wake up until the 5th inning--who knew I'd get another full nine? With Alfonso Soriano hurt they brought up phenom Felix Pie who did a pretty darn good job in center. Maybe they should have saved the $136m they spent on Soriano and gotten some people to replace Murton and, my most hated player, Ronny Cedeno. Thankfully they're both bench players so I don't have to look at their ugly mugs very often but I still hate them. Ryan Theriot can stay because hey, he's Ryan The Riot. [Comments: 2]· permalink · · ·

Wednesday: April 18, 2007 - Jump For Joy My Good Samaritan status went up considerably last night after providing, that's right, two engine jumps last night. The first was for Ricky whose car stalled out in the middle of a downpour downtown. The next one was after soccer practice--some guy who just flew back into town and had to jump his car at the airport. He apparently turned it off out of habit. Oops. I figure I still have about 100 jumps left to give before I've broken even.

After soccer practice Jamie met up with me and we trotted over to Gordo's to meet up with Ricky & Co. for some grub and general revelry. We hung out with them for a couple hours before cruising home for Lost.

I knew Charlie wasn't going to get shot with the arrow but I was hoping he'd still find a way to die after tampering with the "natural flow of things". I'm not sure how many episodes are left of Jack being the main character before Desmond totally takes over. I don't really understand why he had to recruit Charlie, Hurley and Jin to go with him into the jungle though--wasn't it going to happen anyway with no provocation?

What are you doing, figuring out who's your favorite Other? -Sawyer [Comments: 3]· permalink · · ·

Thursday: April 19, 2007 - Shuffling for Aces Three years ago Mark Prior and Kerry Wood were simply the best. Then they got hurt. Two years Carlos Zambrano and Greg Maddux were the best. Then they got traded or went nuts. Last year no one was the best. And this year Rich Hill and Ted Lilly are awesome. I wonder what terrible thing will beset them?

Last night Matt came over and we worked on some songs including a transcription of this West African buzzing-xylophone song. Maybe I'm just out of practice but I had a terrible time transcribing it. Eventually got done but deep down it worried me that I have been out of music for so long that even the ol' perfect pitch is rusty. I didn't think that could get rusty. In my inner ear's defense, these notes weren't really Western and none of them were a real European note but I still think I should have been able to get within a half-step. The whole night I was probably an M2 off. Scary. [Comments: 3]· permalink · · ·

Friday: April 20, 2007 - Abby Birthday Like most creepy pet owners, Jamie and I celebrated Abby's birthday on April 20th. She's the big 4. Unfortunately my dog mistook the event for her birthday and decided most of the new toys were hers. Oh well. Happy Birthday Abs!!!

Christine and I went out to lunch at the Red Elephant and I think they're starting to think I show up with a different girl every few days that I make pay for me. Haha. Too bad I don't know many more girls or I'd keep doing it.

Haven't had much luck finding a new job. Several interviews but some of these jobs are for very entry level programmers and, while it's frightening to think my career path has spread out this far, I'm solidly mid-level now.

Finally, you will notice that Mark and Ricky have been re-added to the Guilt Links. [Comments: 1]· permalink · · ·

Saturday: April 21, 2007 - Habitat n' Playing Out On Saturday I drove over to Jamie's around 7:30am so we could ride over for Habitat together. I was so tired I was rapidly moving from wanting to cry to wanting to yell. Thinking back to previous people we had worked on houses with, I was fairly confident that the mood du jour was going to be yelling. I was very pleasantly surprised when we found ourselves siding the house with two self-deprecating lawyers. They were just as incompetent as we were and the three hours flew by.

At 1:30 we met up with Matt and Joe for a gig downtown. I've resized all the pictures but haven't yet uploaded them. It was really fun and we all saw a lot of people we knew. Gave out 6/10 fliers too; hopefully to the really wealthy. [Comments: 0]· permalink · · ·

Sunday: April 22, 2007 - FSU Baseball Jamie picked up me around 11am for our Date-Day. Our first stop was Dick Howser Stadium to take in a baseball game. UNC won in a blowout and I was reminded why there's a good two/years between college and the pros. Slop City.

As we left the game Jamie got word that her grandmother had passed away. She was 91. Rough couple years. [Comments: 0]· permalink · · ·

Monday: April 23, 2007 - Guitar Hero I am not a Guitar Hero. Last night I went over to Ricky's for a night of relaxing and we worked out way through a lot of the songs on both GH and GH2. Although I played with Steve once the previous experience didn't really help me. Neither did the fact that I knew how the songs went. Neither did the fact I was playing the bass part. On easy. Believe it or not, I actually learned a little bit about my regular musicianship while playing--if there is a section of music I can't play I fake it. I have caught myself doing that at various times in my life on practically every instrument I've played but it didn't really sink in until I saw the percentages of right/wrong notes. I'm a faker! What's weird about the game is that some of the songs are easier to play on a real guitar than on the guitar-like-controller. For example Cheap Trick's Surrender is a piece of cake for the rhythm guitar but on GH you have to pick up more lines which ultimately makes it harder to play. Anyway, it was really fun and I'm starting to see what it's such a popular game now. [Comments: 4]· permalink · · ·

Tuesday: April 24, 2007 - Dear ColdFusion Programmers Stop programming. Please. I have inherited another CF site and it makes me want to barf. You Java/.NET can slam PHP all you want--I at least recognize the power of your languages and can totally understand why people use them. ColdFusion is beyond me. Oh that's right, because an Office Assistant can make "updates" to your database without any sort of real knowledge. I hate the way your variables show up in #my.code# and how HTML-y it looks. I hate everything about your stupid language so stop using it! For the love of God! [Comments: 7]· permalink · · ·

Wednesday: April 25, 2007 - Jin and Sun There's no way Sun is going to die. I'm calling it right now. No way. Their story is way too interesting for either of them to die. As a side note, when did Jin and Sun find time on the island to hump? Right after they got there? I like how Jin is somehow able to pick up random English words and use them. I really think he'd still be talking in one word sentences but that's just me. Where are Michael and Walt? Why did the Others let them go so easily? Because they knew they would die? Why would they take that chance? What's going on! [Comments: 3]· permalink · · ·

Sunday: April 29, 2007 - Poker Legend I am a poker legend. I cemented this status by beating several tables of total strangers and am now a mere one game away from Fifth Street Poker paying by Buy-In at a World Series of Poker event. Awesome! The last time we played I made both of the final tables but was one of the first two out each time. On Sunday Ian called to assemble a group to go back. The first two games I made the final tables and finished fourth but the last game, after all my friends had left, man I kicked ass. When it came down to heads-up it was over. You just can't compete against the check-raise. Sorry. That's my move.

On Saturday Jamie got back into town from Ohio and picked up her and her mom from airport. Before that I had been working on building my SimCity and writing a couple new songs. Awesome!

On Friday I watched the Cubs game and bought some new websites and started work on a mass RSS aggregator. XML isn't exactly my favorite format to work with but since I need sites that can automatically update little pieces of themselves it's a crucial step. I also did a major reworking of Modest Funk Bus Line to turn it into a jazz trio. It's actually pretty awesome. I was pleasantly surprised.

I have tasked my vicious guard dog to ensuring the safety of my poker certificate. [Comments: 3]· permalink · · ·

Monday: April 30, 2007 - Spidy Senses For the long list of bugs that scare me I always find it strange that spiders never make it onto that list. I was reminded of this when this big guy (that's a bath towel next to him) was lathering up in my bathtub. I think it's because spiders have small, non-boney-looking bodies where roaches, grasshoppers and crickets all have bodies you can definitely feel through the paper towel. The best thing about spiders, though, is they can't fly into your mouth. For whatever reason I am terrified of bugs flying into my mouth when I go to kill them. Anyway, I'm not sure what kind of spider this is but he met an unfortunate end with a bottle of Windex (to stun him of course) and about six sheets of paper towel.

Chris and I went back to play some poker and we didn't do so well. In my last game of the night I sat without a face card for 40m before going all-in with a suited Jack/six. Oh well. You can't win them all. [Comments: 6]· permalink · · ·