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Monday: May 02, 2005 - Happy Belated Birthday Mark! Happy Belated Birthday Mark! Happy belated birthday Mark.

Man, did I get smoked in poker tonight. Was it cocky to assume that my poker winnings would always count towards my monthly income? Perhaps. Theory-Chris was our big winner tonight. We were joined by Elena and her husband...hmm. I need to assign him an adjective-Chris name. Well, I guess I have no choice but assign him to be Poker-Chris, since that's the only context I know him in. Sure, I could choose Marine-Chris or Corvette-Chris but odds are we won't have another poker Chris when I might very well meet a Marine-Chris or Corvette-Chris.

Anyway, Theory-Chris and Elena battled it out while Poker-Chris, Jamie and I were eliminated in a relatively short amount of time and had to settle for drinking the Champagne of Beers. Oh, work sucked. That's all.

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Tuesday: May 03, 2005 - 10,000 Hits 10,000 Hits With 46 hits today, I finally reached the 10,000 hit count. I'm sure the count isn't exact--since it didn't start until the middle of January 2004 but at the same time, that probably equals out the number of Mike-hits. I can't believe it--and all of it without the Trippi method. Sorry...inside joke.

I got a lot done today. I helped Kathy move her crap over to London Town and she bought us lunch at Quiznos but not before yelling at me over some stupid box. I had a meeting at 1:30 which went smoothly and then trotted over to the bank and to install Win2PDF on Jerry's machine. (It's really a handy program). I met up with Chris and Mike for some late-night coffee and well, here I am.
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Wednesday: May 04, 2005 - Local PHP Local PHP Why does setting up PHP on a local machine have to be such an enormous pain in the ass? Don't get me wrong--it's really convenient to upload things to the server every time I add a semicolon.

I think the demo this morning went really well. The comments that have come back have been generally small things and the consensus seems to be towards a more modern site. This is good. Alex and I went to Longhorn for dinner and then came back here for a little while to play some pan. Seriously. Chris was also kind enough to bring me some coffee from SBUX since I couldn't leave Dr. C home alone since she had been in her cage all day.
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Thursday: May 05, 2005 - Many Blogs Many Blogs I have to pay my rent today. It's storming. Not wanting to go out in the rain I started reading blogs. Lots of them. Some of them were from people I know, some weren't. Is there anyone left in the country that isn't depressed? According to Jamie and some big-ass manual I suffer from Paranoid Personality Disorder. Personally I think I just notice when things aren't lining up. I think it comes from a childhood full of lying. When you're a childhood liar you get really good at keeping stories straight so you can keep a lot of lie-balls in the air at once. You also get really good at sniffing out your own kind. What sucks is that once you get in that habit of lying it's a hard habit to break. I'm ashamed to admit that it wasn't until the past couple years that I broke the habit completely. I remember having a very frank head-conversation with myself in February of 2003 and the end result was a complete halt to the white lying. I never lied about anything big but the little ones added up. Not in severity--if I said I'd pick up something from the store, didn't, then ran and got it when asked about it--things like that. I think it stemmed from being terrifically unpopular growing up. At a certain point you get desperate for people to like you. For me, it was middle school but it's sad to see people in my rough age bracket (21-32) suffering from it now. What's even sadder is the value that people put on their relationship or a virtual-relationship to price out their personal worth. It's really both sad and pathetic when someone truly believes that someone else will magically make their life better. Like, "oh, if only I had a girlfriend/boyfriend with qualities A, B, C I would be so happy". No you wouldn't. YOU need to develop qualities A, B, C. It kind of goes back to a recurring theme--we live in an age where nothing is our fault. No one is fat because they eat too much. No one has bad kids because they don't take the time to raise them. Well now that the mega-eating, unsupervised kids of my age are grown up they (we) don't realize things are our own fault. "Oh, I'm depressed...it's all my parents fault". I've got news for you: tough shit. You can't go back in time and wear Nike instead of Stride-Rite. Sorry. If you're looking for a relationship where you need someone to be strong FOR you get off your ass and do something for yourself instead. I've got news for you--no one wants to be with someone that they have to pull up. Except maybe abusers. In a relationship, everyone wants to be with someone better than they are--that's how it works. No one wants to settle. So if you're looking for some knight/knightess(?) in shinning armor that will see through your failings in life for the deep down goodness you've lost touch with reality. Shut the hell up and do something about it. Go out and better yourself. Stop making excuses and be responsible for the life you're leading instead of worrying about what other people are thinking (as if they're even wasting their self-centered time thinking about your stupid shit--hah!). If you're depressed suck it up. I don't give a shit how bad you think you have it. There are billions of people on this planet that have it worse. Say: Why am I depressed? Then say: What can I do to fix it? Simplify your damn life. Get rid of all the obligations, people and crap you don't need. Focus on you and stop bitching. No one cares about your excuses. And stop blogging for crying out loud. Does anyone other than Brian keep an online journal that isn't based self-loathing and begging for pity?

Have a great day!
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Friday: May 06, 2005 - Clown Knifefish Clown Knifefish I finally found the body of my clown knifefish in the "safe" tank today.

Work was fine and Jamie and I watched Meet The Parents 2: The Fockers. It got some terrible reviews but I thought it was a solid B. I think it did so poorly because the parts that were bad were absolutely horrible. At least it had a big-name cast.
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Saturday: May 07, 2005 - New Books New Books I don't think I was in a standing position at any point during the day for more than three or four minutes. The way a Saturday should be. One of my new books on PHP and MySQL came so I cuddled into my suede chair and studied up on all the exciting things you can do with arrays (nothing). Things are popping in and out of text files ok but MySQL still gives me a headache. Not so much the queries but just setting things up. As you can see I finally implemented Brian's comment script. [Comments: 0]· permalink · Bookmark New Books at del.icio.us · Digg New Books · Bloglines: New Books

Sunday: May 08, 2005 - XML XML I was again reading a lot of blogs today and came across all those W3 HTML/XML/Insert-language-du-jour-here tags people proudly display on their sites. Since my page passes none of them except for the new RSS Feed I decided to make my own so that people will know that my blog is not going to talk about how I want to kill myself or talk about why no one loves me. [Comments: 0]· permalink · Bookmark XML at del.icio.us · Digg XML · Bloglines: XML

Monday: May 09, 2005 - Fish Fight Fish Fight Wow.

I just saw my fish kill each other. Sure, they've been chasing each other all afternoon but still. And now, ten minutes later, there's not even meat left on the bones.

I don't really understand how people can deny Survival of the Fittest. Obviously they're not living in a too-small fish tank with other really aggressive fish.
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Tuesday: May 10, 2005 - Hoopla Hoopla Hoopla is so much fun. Are we nerds for playing games with poorly drawn animations on the box? Maybe. But it's still fun. What's nice about Hoopla is that it's a team game. If you lose, everyone loses. Sure, there's the inter-team squabbling but at least everyone goes home a winner. And for only $16 you can't beat it.

Oh, look at me. I'm some bitch with the license plate X86 KFZ. My piece of shit boyfriend yelled for me to "just go ahead and park in that empty one" even though I don't live here. My 1998 LeBaron fit very nicely into that spot. The guy behind me? Well who gives a shit about him--not me, that's for sure. What do you mean it's his spot--just because it's the one in front of his apartment? Why should I let him park there--because he pays rent? Hah! That's a stupid reason. My 19 year old boyfriend and I have to go shoot up and then get it on because soon we're not gonna be able to hump--I'm pregnant at 18. You really think I give a shit that you have a ton of stuff to bring inside? Tough--carry it on from the other side of the lake--what the hell do I care? I'm just a stupid bitch so I should park in your spot. And I'm fat.

-Stupid Bitch whose boyfriend lives in B4.
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Wednesday: May 11, 2005 - Starbucks Starbucks Today was one of those days. Even though I got a solid seven hours of sleep last night and took a nap this afternoon I'm still tired. The molto-enormo-latte from Starbucks that I just drank didn't help much either and I'm probably going to go to bed despite it only being 11pm. On a normal night I'd stay up for another three hours and work but I'm just so tired. All my current projects are big and I don't really feel like working on any of them.

As I told Chris on the ride back from Starbucks I've had this recurring dream where I go to the Hebrides Islands. I've been having it since about November of last year. The place always looks the same and I could probably draw it perfectly assuming I had any sort of artistic ability. In the dreams I'm always in Orkney, which isn't part of the Hebrides but for some reason in the dream that's considered part of the island chain. It's always winter in the dream and I wouldn't consider going any time that it wasn't in the heart of winter. What makes all of this so weird is that I know nothing about Scotland nor its islands. My conscious brain has never heard of Orkney and would have only the most general idea as to where the Hebrides would be. I don't know where all this magical information was learned. Certianly not from Desperate Housewives, which knocks out television influence. NPR? The National Geographics in my bathroom? I don't think so. It's just there. The strangest part is this sense of need to go. I'm not sure why it all seems so familiar to me but it does. It's not like I have any family from there so even if there were angry spirits looking for me to do something they wouldn't be from anyone I know. It's just weird. I really don't think I'm insane though...even if I have priced trips out.
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Thursday: May 12, 2005 - Crazy Old Man Jack: Part III Crazy Old Man Jack: Part III I need to convert these pages to php.

I bought a couple new fish today after having lunch with Chris. They're in the big tank downstairs. One looks poisonous even though the guy at the store said it wasn't. It's got all these crazy spikes. When I was dumping him into the tank he got stuck and I refused to touch him in case he was going to shoot venom into me. I just kept shaking the bag until he plunked less-than-gracefully into the slate wall. Nice way to treat a $28 fish.

In other news my coworker Kelly should be canonized for taking care of Jack. Honestly, if I were a more violent person I would have punched him today. I'm not sticking up for him when other people he considers "colleagues" roll their eyes and make fun of him when he's not around. I'm also charging for every second of my time now--no more gift calls or emails. And most importantly, I'm not going to clean up after him when he humiliates himself in front of strangers that he alienates. I certainly won't instigate trouble but I'm not going to protect him from it starting...now.
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Friday: May 13, 2005 - Creepshow Creepshow Jamie and I have seen some terrible moves in the past couple years. Tonight we watched the absolute WORST movie: Creepshow. I bought it on Amazon because I saw on Bravo that it was both funny and scary. What they failed to mention was that it was the worst movie of all time.

Ok, that might not be fair since we only watched the first ten minutes before upgrading to the Iron Chef. Happy Friday The Thirteenth
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Saturday: May 14, 2005 - MySQL MySQL Now that I got MySQL working I'm feeling pretty good. This morning Jamie and I went over to her parents' house to help the sixty or so people from her church re-landscape the yard. With so many hands the resodding and replanting went really quickly.

In the evening Chris and Mike came over for some more Hoopla. We went through all the cards so now we're going to have to start making our own.
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Sunday: May 15, 2005 - Desperate Housewives Desperate Housewives How is May half-over? I feel like this year just started yet it's almost half-over. I feel like I've been out of school for maybe a summer instead of a year. Last night I was looking at Ph.D schools. All of them want the GRE. I took it before grad school and did really well on the math and analytical. With a verbal score in the high 500's I know I'd have to take it again if I wanted a reasonable chance of being accepted. The problem is that the analytical section is now gone, replaced by (gag) a writing section. It's no secret I'm not a terribly good writer and I would much rather solve problems than write about how to solve problems. Oh well. I'm sure I can get in somewhere.

I can't believe Desperate Housewives is almost over. At least in a week I'll have my Sundays free again. Right now we've been taping Family Guy and watching DH. The Family Guy episodes have been ok--just different. Like, you've been listening to Led Zeppelin I through IV and then *bam* Houses of Holy. Yeah, it's great but at the same time you can't help but wonder why it's so different.
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Monday: May 16, 2005 - Hypersensitive to Sound Hypersensitive to Sound Today was a weird day. For most of the afternoon I was hypersensitive to all sound. Every noise, musical or not, was painfully dissonant. The keyboard clicks, the water dripping from the filter in the tank...whatever. It was painful. I blame a Bob Dylan song for starting it but who knows. It faded away after about six hours but it was horrible and I hope it never happens again.

There was no poker tonight because I wasn't in the mood to beg people to play. I'd like to play this week though, maybe on Friday so it doesn't matter if the game takes forever.
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Tuesday: May 17, 2005 - Oh Booty Oh Booty The question is: Is it the single worst picture of me? Right now, without access to my childhood photos I would have to say yes, yes it is. As if I wasn't making the more horrid expression poor Booty has this look of fear/boredom.

Booty is the only cat that hasn't given me the jibblies. I don't really like cats--they scare me. They are always doing sneaky things and none of them are ever good. Whether it's wanting to smother a baby's face or just tear up furniture I still contend all non-Booty cats are evil.
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Wednesday: May 18, 2005 - Smoking Pot Smoking Pot 'Housewives' actor caught smoking pot

By Rocco Parascandola

STAFF WRITER



May 18, 2005, 12:22 AM EDT

He plays a troubled teen on "Desperate Housewives." Now, Cody Kasch has some real life troubles of his own -- he got nabbed by police Tuesday night smoking marijuana in the East Village.

The 17-year-old was puffing away outside a bar, at First Street and Second Avenue, just before midnight Tuesday when a cop spotted him and issued him a desk appearance ticket, police said.

Kasch, who plays Zach Young on the ABC drama, hails from California, but gave police a Jackson Heights address. Reporters were camped outside the home this morning.

He began his acting career at a young age in his parents' community theater company.

A casting director saw him starring in the play "God's Country" and cast him in a national commercial. Cody has been working regularly ever since.

On television Cody was a series regular on "Normal, Ohio."

He has also guest starred on "ER," "Nash Bridges," "Boston Public" and "NYPD Blue."
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Thursday: May 19, 2005 - Longhorn Steakhouse Longhorn Steakhouse I was going to write a real update for yesterday but all I did was work. Seriously, that's it. Work work work work work. Today Alex took me out dinner to Longhorn. Afterwards I met up with Chris for some coffee. All the rest of the day was filled with...work.

The new Mike N' Chompy exercise regime is in full effect. I've also implemented daily vitamins and have successfully banned pop/soda/coke from my diet. Even though it's only been five days I actually do feel a little better--a little more aware, for lack of a better word. Good for me.
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Friday: May 20, 2005 - More Hoopla More Hoopla Chris and Mike came over for Hoopla, as they usually do on Friday nights. While the game is very fun there aren't nearly enough cards to make the game work past about a dozen games. That being the case I took the liberty of making some new cards. I only have about 25 done but once I have another 300 or so I figure I hit the streets and sell them. Well, not sell them but put them online for other nerds to download and use.

Nothing blogworthy happened at any of jobs today.
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Saturday: May 21, 2005 - Shaved Cat Shaved Cat Who was more pissed--everyone who wasn't Liz or this semi-shaved cat?

We had a nice turnout of six for poker last night. Jamie's roommate Liz joined us. She had never played Texas Hold 'Em before but it didn't stop her from taking everyone's money. She tricked us into thinking she was very nice and quiet and then *bam* she's walking out the door with the loot. Elena, Chris, Jamie and I played a second that took about one hundred hours because Elena and I were very cautious after knocking out Chris and Jamie in about ten minutes.

Taco Bell was closed by the time the game ended so we got some McDonald's. Bad idea. I forgot what that crap does to my body. Yeah.
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Sunday: May 22, 2005 - Desperate Housewives Predictions Desperate Housewives Predictions I can't believe it's over.

Jamie and I went over to Elena and Poker-Chris' for dinner. Elena made some killer stuffed burgers. Jamie said she took good notes but I don't think she did. At 8:55 we settled in for the finale of Desperate Housewives. I think they did an excellent job of balancing the suspense of no new episodes for three months and answering enough questions to keep you involved. What I didn't not like was the fact the hour-long episode was about 4 minutes of show and 56 of commercials. It seems like they'd show a scene and then immediately cut to a LONG set of commercials. I know they're just trying to squeeze every penny from the advertisers but come on. We came up with a lot of good speculation including that Zach-Dana is Mike's kid. It all makes sense but wouldn't they have picked a better looking actor for Zack? Both Mike and Deidre are really good looking so how could they have such a homely kid? Maybe it was the drugs. Poker-Chris accurately called Rex's death. I personally was rooting for Mrs. Huber's sister but she was only bludgeoned and not killed. I'll miss Rex. He was such a flip-flopper between loving and hating Bree.

What's going on with the new black family? Is that the wife and kid of Paul Young's investigator? I know, I know, I'm only saying that because they're all black but it's not like we've seen any other non-whites on the show. Ah, suburbia. Speaking of Paul, how the hell is he going to get out of the desert? Here are more of my questions:

1) How is Paul going to get out of the desert?

2) Is Zack going to shoot Susan with Mike taking the bullet or visa-versa?

3) Is Julie going to be kidnapped by her dad?

4) Is Bree going to be convicted of murder since all signs point to her messing with Rex's pills? If so, will he get together with Carlos in jail and have a baby?

5) Seriously, how happy will Lynette be now that she's away from those kids? How long can Tom stand being at home? With all that free time is he going to bang someone other than Lynette?
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Monday: May 23, 2005 - Whose Line Is It Anyway? Whose Line Is It Anyway? Whatever happened to the show Whose Line Is It Anyway? Not that I have a wealth of giggly-happy-family memories to think back on, but watching this show was definitely one. Everyone in my family loved this show yet I don't think I've ever watched it with friends--not that it was on a lot but still. What a great show. Not like the crap nowadays. Damn kids and their music. [Comments: 0]· permalink · Bookmark Whose Line Is It Anyway? at del.icio.us · Digg Whose Line Is It Anyway? · Bloglines: Whose Line Is It Anyway?

Tuesday: May 24, 2005 - CSS For Fun and Profit CSS For Fun and Profit I think I've figured out the problem between the corporate world and the creative world. Let's say I was tired of having to make style sheets and flash stuff for the sites I'm making. I'd hire someone to do it for me so I could work on more challenging, or at least different, things. If I go to a play, I'm going to see things I can't do. I can't act. I can't draw. When I bought that painting it wasn't that I didn't have time to do one--it's that I flat out just can't. And that's why the two worlds will never get along. Ta-da. [Comments: 0]· permalink · Bookmark CSS For Fun and Profit at del.icio.us · Digg CSS For Fun and Profit · Bloglines: CSS For Fun and Profit

Wednesday: May 25, 2005 - Fish Frenzy Fish Frenzy It's true, today was a fish frenzy. Since My Boyfriend died a few days ago the algae was starting to become a problem in the office tank I decided to get a new suckfish. To prevent the swarm-to-death problem I had with My Boyfriend I decided to spend a little extra money to get a Chris Rix sized suckfish. My New Boyfriend was about 6" (eek!) so I figured no problem. Wrong! Within the first 15 minutes the convicts had eaten his eyes. If you've never seen something bleed underwater it's pretty gross. He seemed to be doing ok...well, for like another 15 minutes and then they finished him off. That sucks. I suspect he was sick when I got him because he really should have been able to fend off the other fish since he was twice their size.

Michael decided to abandon his tank-dreams so I inherited a number of new fish. They're all resting comfortable in the bedroom tank except for the suckfish, "W". He's in the living room with the three other suckfish and seems to be doing well. He already cleaned off a rock. Nice job. I gave Chris about 40 books to put on Amazon since he and Michael have been so successful selling things. Even if they sell for $3/each that's not a bad haul for things just taking up room in my closet. I figure if they all sell within a reasonable amount of time the four of us (+Jamie) can go out for a really nice dinner somewhere. Nice. Real nice.
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Thursday: May 26, 2005 - Dead Raphael Dead Raphael Damn! As I was crawling into bed I saw the bloated body of my prized stripped-Raphael resting face up in the basement of the hollow castle. I think he got too fat and stuck in the narrow passageways. Once the other fish saw he was helpless they failed to bring him food and he died. He started to decay and floated right out now though. Poor little guy. Let that be a lesson to me not to buy nocturnal fish--they're too hard to check up on.

Tonight we met up with Chris and Mike for coffee. This conversation actually started last time I was there but here's something terrible:

Let's say you're living in the middle ages as a chicken farmer or something. Someplace way out in the country. You're there, eeking out a modest life off the land when some lackey for the King comes to tell you you're now in the Army and to report to some city with armor and weapons. Yeah, you're pretty pissed. So your wife takes all the metal around the house to make you some armor. You show up to fight with your rake and you see all the other guys in their real armor. Reaching down to tug at your chicken wire outfit all you can do is rub your eyes and say, "Dammit".

Man, that was hysterical a couple nights ago. I can't say really why except that...well, I can't say why at all. It was funny, though. At least to Michael and me. Chris and Jamie didn't find it funny at all. I guess you had to be there. In the Crusades.
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Friday: May 27, 2005 - MLB TV MLB TV Well it's official. After wasting $15/mo to watch my beloved Cubs there's just no point. Arguably our best pitcher fractured his arm today on a line drive. What they didn't show, since he collapsed into a big white-striped heap, was that the 3rd baseman made a really amazing catch after it knocked out our ace. Anyway, our season is officially over. With the Cardinals already eight games ahead of us in first and with a bevy of better teams in line for the lone Wild Card spot, we're done; at least for this year. It's my only hope that the Cubs don't have a massive fire sale--I don't see a good reason for them to do so since it's not like they're bad because the current players are overpaid and suck--just overpaid and hurt. Ah, next year.

Jamie and I had "date night" tonight. After a romantic dinner at Ruby Tuesdays we got some painting supplies and got to work. Neither of our projects turned out to be very good but that doesn't mean we can't put them on eBay. Tomorrow we're hitting some big estate sales to find some books to put on Amazon. Maybe by the end of this summer Chris, Mike, Jamie and I will be able to buy a commune-style house with the money.
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Sunday: May 28, 2005 - More Starbucks More Starbucks Hey--what are you doing right now? Bowing down before my poker greatness? Well that's very kind of you.

I spent the afternoon repotting my new plants. They're looking pretty good--at least better than the dead stalks that were living there before. I've been tinkering with the idea of redoing one of my sites in all flash. I think the hardest part is getting the navigation to do what you want. Anyway, it took six hours later and I was finally able to get a button where the action kept going once your mouse left the area. Baby steps.

I had coffee with Chris and was able to talk him into coming to play poker...sorta. He made some pepperoni loaf for us which, while delicious, means the bar is now too high for me to ever serve stale Cheezits again. With Brian and Liz not there to slow us down, we flew through the game in less than two hours. Matt and Michael came over later and Jamie and I showed them the basics. Michael has the potential to be good but Matt...well, yeah--in his defense I have a sneaking suspicion he wasn't really trying. Jamie and I predict next week's winner to be: Elena. Why? She's due for some better luck.
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Monday: May 29, 2005 - White Trash Bash (Alligator Point) White Trash Bash (Alligator Point) Jamie went to the White Trash Bash at Alligator Point and I stayed home to rear the dogs. I don't know a lot about the White Trash Bash but I know it involves about a thousand people, all on boats, floating around, drinking beer and most likely farting.

That's why I stayed home to work on a new all-flash site. It's coming along nicely if I do say so myself. I'm impressed by my quick learning, even if it's not very impressive just yet. I'll put a link on here when it's presentable.
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Tuesday: May 30, 2005 - New Hoopla Cards New Hoopla Cards Nothing ruins a nice day off like lots of rain. Especially when it's raining so hard you have to change into new clothes every time you flip a burger. Chris and Mike came over for Memorial Day and they brought a ton of delicious food with 'em. The grill was out of gas so I had to con the nice girl at Albertson's into letting me exchange a Blue Rhino tank with an American Propane Exchange. I was pretty sneaky.

After we ate we tested out about sixty new Hoopla cards and I would say a solid 55 of them worked out pretty well. Of course, the five that didn't were terrible and it took about a half hour to guess them. Damn Word Whomps.
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Wednesday: May 31, 2005 - Crazy Old Man Jack: Part IV Crazy Old Man Jack: Part IV Work sucked. Big time. BIG time. At least the Cubs won. And I made some progress on the new flash-only site. Go State. I have nothing to say today--nothing nice anyway and since anyone can read this, well, it'll have to go in the offline version. Sorry. [Comments: 0]· permalink · Bookmark Crazy Old Man Jack: Part IV at del.icio.us · Digg Crazy Old Man Jack: Part IV · Bloglines: Crazy Old Man Jack: Part IV


Good Things Take Time... -2 days until FSU Football (2010)


Random Picture...
Ricky is sometimes shy around new people but opens up a little bit when taking their money.


Time Machine: 09-07-2009 · 09-07-2008 · 09-07-2007 · 09-07-2006 09-07-2009: I'll start with the good news: my death from the swine flu is no longer imminent. Now, onto the bad news.

WHERE THE HELL WAS FSU'S DEFENSE?! *I* could have been playing cornerback last night. I can easily ignore receivers as the blow past me or trip on my own two feet as a RUNNING BACK shoots past me for a catch in the end zone. Uggggggggh. On the bright side, the offense looked pretty good--at least Christian Ponder and the vaunted offensive line. The running game looked anemic when Jermaine was in there but his backup looked like a punisher. The fact our receivers c(w)ouldn't catch the ball made life rough. Fortson looked like the only guy who actually was willing to take one for the team and try to catch it, although Richard Goodman's catch on the two-point conversion ended with him getting blasted.

Anyway, where was the bloodthirsty FSU defense? Who were these cowards playing constant zone coverage? It doesn't take a PS2 NCAA Football expert very long to realize there's a time and a place for zone but if you want to win you need to MAN UP. Granted, the man coverage, when "utilized", made the secondary look absolutely stupid, with their coverage at least five yards behind the Miami receivers.

Whatever, we'll be good next year.
09-07-2008: It looks like my vice-like grip over NCAA Pick 'Em is officially over. After tweaking "the algorithm" I still finished near the bottom of the picks because I clearly overweighed the section dedicated to "do they like to get upset?". The numbers correctly picked the ECU upset of WV but unfortunately they also picked three more upsets and, knowing that no more than three teams ever get upset in a week, I released WV out of a personal affinity towards the school. I also, until the game started, thought USM was in fact Mississippi State which they are clearly not. Oops.

I went out to Virginia to watch the FSU game with Kathy & Co. The bar had a lot of FSU fans but none that were particularly into the game. It didn't help that there was over two hours in combined rain delays. FSU looked good but I think anyone would look good against Western Carolina. They're not East Carolina, that's for sure. Catamounts, for the record, are mountain lions. They are not horses despite containing the word "mount". We'll know for sure how good FSU is when vaunted Chattanooga rolls into town next week.
I took the day off blogging but only because I was thinking of you.09-07-2006: Although not as gratifying as some wins in the past, I was able to fend off tchris and jamie in a little three-way poker last night. At different points in the night we all had huge chip leads and somehow blew them. We're all big bettors so it was a lot of fun despite the low number of people.

I really need a new computer. Mine shuts off after about five minutes of use due to overheating and I still have not been able to find the right replacement fan. I'm hoping by the week after my birthday to have enough money to buy the new one from Dell, even though they won't let me get it without the video card. I talked to their retarded sales/tech guy and asked them simply if they could not charge/install a video card. They do not have dual-monitor options and I wasn't ordering any monitors so I didn't need the card. He replied that they could not and I was out of luck. I replied by asking him if the computers were really built by hand like they say in the commercials. He said yes. I then asked if they guy installing it could just "leave out" the video card (I'd be throwing it out the day I got it) and have the person hand-writing my bill leave off the cost of it. He said no. Oh well.