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Thursday: November 01, 2007 - Years Past In years past I would have defaced the graphic of the opposing team before a big FSU game and devoted a whole entry to the many ways FSU would win. With each passing year those entries have gotten shorter and shorter and this year I'm not even going to deface Matt Ryan. I don't think it's a question if FSU is going to lose, it's by how much. The problem, of course, is that FSU will take it on the chin from teams like UAB but then step up against good teams. Last year they *almost* beat Florida despite being absolutely atrocious. This year they're arguably worse but stepped up against Alabama and Colorado. BC is better than either of those teams but after watching them almost lose to Virginia Tech I think a good team could beat them. Too bad FSU isn't a good team.

I'm probably going to have to work both days this weekend which is unfortunate. I feel like Ricky two months ago. Go State! [Comments: 2]· permalink · · ·

Friday: November 02, 2007 - Way to go Chris Congratulations to Chris Green, the newest Ph.D Linguistics candidate at the University of Indiana. He was unanimously approved for the program as was his dissertation-to-be: Sexual Undertones of the Bi-Labial Click.

I'm working all weekend except for a few hours on Saturday while Tim and T-Chris dismember me in football and BC dismembers FSU in "football".

I have a totally different playlist on Winamp at work so I can branch out my tastes. Here's what I've learned so far: Bob Dylan has some absolutely terrible songs and there were a lot of Hendrix tunes I didn't know. That's all I got.

Whey two go Chris! [Comments: 4]· permalink · · ·

Sunday: November 04, 2007 - Hail To The Victors Although I am very, very happy that I lost the seven points I had on Boston College, I am now soundly in second place behind Elena The Pick 'Em Goddess. Jamie won the week and now, with a mere two weeks to go, it's on. There are six of us still clustered at the top and it's really going to come down to the last week--the rivalry week. Not that points can't be won or lost until then, they obviously can, but Rivalry Week and Conference Championship Week will really force you to make some touch choices. Which FSU team is going to show up against Florida? The one that beat BC or the one that literally handed the game to Miami?

I ran a lot of errands over the weekend and worked a lot too. On Saturday Chris came over and we played some imaginary football before watching FSU stick it to Boston College. Did Weatherford look good or what? And the defense--wow. Go State! You're Bowl Eligible now so you don't have to worry about beating Maryland or Virginia Tech but if the good version of your team shows up, you have a really good chance. Awesome! [Comments: 0]· permalink · · ·

Monday: November 05, 2007 - Pupples I did a ton of laundry last night, including everything from my trip to Bloomington. I figured after a month it might be time to take that stuff out of the old suitcase and give it a good washing. In other news, I'm going through another purging phase and getting rid of a lot of stuff. It's pretty amazing how quickly it builds up and it always feels good to get rid of it. I wish I could pay someone to rip all of my CDs to mp3 so I could get rid of them. They take up a lot of space, even though I got rid of all the cases during the last major purge.

You'll be pleased to know I finished my NCAA 2008 season by beating #8 Hawaii 115-7 in the Orange Bowl. Even though I finished the season undefeated and beat teams ranked: #2,#5,#6,#8,#10,#21,#25 during the season apparently my schedule was too weak to compete with Virgina Tech, Wisconsin, and Oklahoma, all of whom finished higher than me. Sure, my non-conference games were LSU, Texas, and Mississippi State (I wanted one gimme) and theirs were like College of Charleston, but whatever. Even though my QB had 48 rushing and 28 passing, they decided he should only finish in second place in the Heisman to a wide receiver from Hawaii who caught 16 TDs. Whatever. I'd never scored more than 100 points in a game and it's tough to do with five minute quarters. I can only imagine what the score would have been had Hawaii not dominated Time of Possession 2:1 and had I not thrown four interceptions in the first half. Alas. [Comments: 5]· permalink · · ·

Tuesday: November 06, 2007 - Conjunctivitis Ok, so I've got conjunctivitis--pink eye. Considering it was in both eyes and "severe" I can't help but wonder why there were not symptoms (other than the blurry contact wearing) at all. My eyes were nice and white and they weren't spraying out eye snotties. Oh well. Now $200 poorer, I finally have the drops I need (eight a day[!]) to rid me of this infection and I can go back to wearing contacts.

If you're not grossed out by all the eye talk already I have something even grosser issued by the FDLE. I'm warning you now, this is sick. Really, really sick. And it's hurting the youth of Florida. [Comments: 0]· permalink · · ·

Wednesday: November 07, 2007 - No Sympathy I know you have no sympathy for me--I have no sympathy for you in the summer. Please know that it is damn cold down here in the mornings. Both this morning and yesterday morning it was only 38F. Before you start thinking/saying "Oh big deal it's XX here..." take into consideration that I have paid my dues. When I was living in Milwaukee there were days I would walk to school when there would be two feet of glacier on the sidewalk and with the wind chill coming of Lake Michigan it would feel like, and I mean literally, -40F. It hurt to be outside and that was through an undershirt, t-shirt, sweater,sweatshirt, zip-up hoodie, and a coat. I've paid my dues, believe you me. That said, I've been shaking as I walk to me car in the mornings because I'm so cold. Granted, it's not Milwaukee cold but it certainly feels similar since the temperatures are so much hotter proportionately.

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Thursday: November 08, 2007 - Screen Writers Strike I just wanted to voice my support for the striking screen writers right now. If it weren't for their abundant talent, incising wit, and cunning skills, we wouldn't have hilarious shows like Saturday Night Live (hysterical), Two and a Half Men (hysterical), and syndicated Simpsons (hysterical). It is the drawing power of these dedicated men and women who, through the power of their words, make each and every one of us sit on our couches and watch TV instead of doing whatever it is we should be doing. It's easy to heap praise on them for shows like 30 Rock, Ghost Whisperer, and Walker Texas Ranger but don't forget about the little guys--the one writing the insanely funny lines of Howie Mandel on Deal or No Deal? Or the ones who write the insightful commentary for the host of any bloopers show? If you haven't done so go and please, please, thank a screen writer for their work. [Comments: 0]· permalink · · ·

Friday: November 09, 2007 - Oh, Ford It's been a while since I complained about the ol' Taurus but today seems like as good a day as any. On Thursday, the driver's side power window stopped working. Well, it half works: it goes down without any problem. This morning I got up at 7:15 (not bad for a Saturday) and left to get some Starbucks and *bam* battery's dead. I don't have anything plugged into the slots--I'm really good about taking out Jamie's RoadTrip and my iPhone charger. I know the car is seven years old but it only has about 52k miles on it. I'm thinking it's probably because of the "cold" weather but come on. It was 42 when I tried to start it this morning. Maybe Chris or Tim, before we really get settled into our Saturday football festivities, will be kind enough to jump me so I can go get it tested/get a new one. Ford Sucks! [Comments: 0]· permalink · · ·

Saturday: November 10, 2007 - It's On! Another week, another series of bizarre outcomes to our Pick 'Em games. This week's results were essentially the reverse of the total standings, with everyone "in it" appearing at the bottom of the week's rankings. Even though there have been some tough weeks, I really like last week's picks were the most difficult. I would have felt comfortable picking all upsets...but when you're behind you can't do that. The most shocking game (I think) was Miami get whomped in a 38-0 loss in their last game in the Orange Bowl. I try to pick the team that has more to play for and I thought for sure the sentiment, coupled with UVa's best player being out for the season, would result in a Miami win. Oops.

In other news, Chris plays killer offense. Tim plays killer defense. I lose a lot. Chris and I played the best sloppy game of all time (not to be confused with the sloppiest game of all time nor the best game of all time) as the last one of the night--a triple overtime slopfest with both of us trying our absolute best to let the other person win. It was eerily reminiscent of the FSU vs. Penn State Orange Bowl. Regardless, the two of them handed me my ass all day (until around 10:30p).

Virginia Tech really stuck it to the third string FSU squad last night in the fourth quarter. Considering it was quite literally the third string, they played pretty well and I think Christian Ponder could be the man...I'm not sure I'd want my first game to be against Virginia Tech either so I'll cut him some slack on the mistakes. For a freshman, though, I think he's already demonstrated more skill and maturity than either Lee or Weatherford. Start the kid now! We're going to lose anyway so we might as well start preparing for next year by getting him some tough snaps now. [Comments: 0]· permalink · · ·

Sunday: November 11, 2007 - Contest Day! It's time for a contest day! At stake is a $20 gift certificate to your favorite merchant (assuming you can buy a gift certificate online). The challenge is to take the text below and spin it: make it positive as humanly possible. The only catch is that you can't directly lie; you can only manipulate the data to portray it as positively as possible. Let W. be your inspiration.

The current state of the union is as follows: we are headed for the worst recession since the 1930's with mortgage markets having lost nearly half a trillion dollars this year alone. The value of the dollar is at an all-time low; less than half of the Pound Sterling and each day hitting new lows against the Euro and even the Canadian dollar.

The divorce rate in America is 50%, the average credit debt is over $8,000, and despite having spent almost $5b in Iraqi and Afghanistan we continue to spend about $3,000 every second. Americans consume 850 million trees a year on paper alone. Please help.

Leave your answers in the Comments box! [Comments: 9]· permalink · · ·

Monday: November 12, 2007 - 12 of 12...wait! I got cocky and decided to take all the 12 of 12 pictures on my iPhone. Everything was going fine until I had to use iTunes to take them off and get them on my computer. Long story short, I think I deleted them all. I will give it another try tonight because surely there is some secret back-up location for that sort of thing either in iTunes or on the iPhone itself.

In other news, P(oker/SU)-Chris has a new blog at BigfootCheese.com. It's like a regularly-updated version of his old blog except missing the now-famous "speaking of..." and substituting in Pro-Ron Paul videos. I'll be re-adding it to the ol' Guilt Links when I get home from work so in the mean time go check it out now. [Comments: 0]· permalink · · ·

Tuesday: November 13, 2007 - Purging Ok, the 12 of 12 pictures are gone so you'll have to use your imagination. Here's the recap of the 12th. I woke up at 6:50, ate a package of ho-ho's [picture 1], let the dogs out, took a brief shower, went to Starbucks [picture 2], went to work [picture 3], met up with Chris for lunch at Ted's (my new go-to restaurant) [doctored picture 4], went back to work [picture 5], had Ricky explain to me really fancy SQL stuff [picture 6], went home, fed the dogs [picture 7], played a game of Playstation football that I quit after halftime since I was losing 28-0 [picture 8], worked on my personal stuff, put my last set of eye drops in for the day [picture 9], played with the dogs [picture 10], threw away a bunch of crap [picture 11] and went to bed [picture 12]. The bonus picture would have been of a small, bright green lizard who was clinging to the brick outside my window.

I've been in a purging mode recently but I'm quickly running out of things to get rid off. I think the next few things are bigger ones--the fishtanks that I don't care of, the lotus lamp I got from Angela Oh, and maybe the drawing table I asked (and received) for Christmas about four years ago. I hate to get rid of it but I can't tell you the last time I used it for something other than holding dozens of empty Starbucks cups. I really need to go through my clothes, specifically my pants. I apparently have gained some weight and need to get rid of the jeans that no longer fit. Sure, I could lose some weight around the ol' belly but it's much easier just to throw out the pants that don't fit. That's me, the model of efficiency. [Comments: 6]· permalink · · ·

Wednesday: November 14, 2007 - Praying For Rain In case you don't live down here, we're experiencing a very lengthy drought. I can't tell you the last time it even sprinkled--but it was months ago. In Georgia it has gotten so bad that Governor Sonny Purdue has decided it's time to pray for rain. As someone who is not very religious, I can't believe the resistance he's getting. His people are thirsty! The way I see it, there is absolutely no harm at all in assembling a multi-religious group to get together and pray for rain. You should probably have all the religions there though not only for political reasons but because scientists are not in consensus that it is indeed Brahma that controls the opening of the clouds. As Tim said last Saturday, "get a freaking Buddha in there". Anyway, it's not like politicians don't spend money on things you don't agree with every second of every day so even if you're not religious just shut up about this. I hear so much of it I can help but draw a relationship to Al Sharpton--if you just shut up about the things that didn't matter when you did open your mouth people might actually take you seriously: there are enough conflicts of church and state to let it go. So suck it up, and let it go.

Pet Peeve of the Day: When there is a double-out in a parking lot (one for right turns, one for left) and you're trying to turn right. Someone then comes up in the left lane ALL the way up and blocks your view to see if you can get it.

Remember there are only two days left to submit to the Spin It Contest. Do it today before you forget! The winner will be declared on Monday! [Comments: 2]· permalink · · ·

Thursday: November 15, 2007 - Barry Bonds The Liar On my list of people not to lie to, the US Government is #1. Apparently, Barry Bonds did not have them on his list. Yesterday he was indicted for perjury for lying about his steroid use. Even though it dominated every sports-related site/show, who cares? Was there anyone who believed him when he said he didn't knowingly take steroids? Except for a small sect of poor black people--the same ones who blindly supported Michael Vick and think every time a famous black dude gets in trouble it's racist--no one did. It's almost funny to me that people think this is a race issue. You don't see people supporting Mark McGuire do you? Sure, he's not in the limelight but only because he's out of the game. You really think he's going to be voted into the Hall of Fame? Hell no. And it's not because anyone has a problem with red-headed white guys--it's because he's a damn cheater just like Bonds. Unless you're Bill Belichick, you can't cheat. And believe me, I would love to see him banned from the game for cheating too. You get paid millions of dollar a month and there's no question about the rules. Everyone has access to a copy. Stop cheating, and maybe we fans will stop hating you.

Your SPIN IT Contest (see Tuesday's entry) entries are due by midnight tonight so get them to me!!! [Comments: 6]· permalink · · ·

Sunday: November 18, 2007 - Going Green First of all, I'd like to say I walked to work today. It's about 1.5m and that's right, I walked it. It took about 15 minutes and while I wouldn't say it felt good, it wasn't as painful as I was anticipating either. In other news, the Taurus won't start (again).

With only two weeks left in College Pick 'Em, we've all moved into safe mode. Elena picked up a point on me as everyone who picked Hawaii for a lot got the Lucky Break of The Week. Except for Jamie, the "leaders" all put between -1 (Nevada) and 4 on Hawaii and we were almost right. Alas. The next two weeks are going to be hard because the Utah States and Notre Dames aren't going to be playing the LSUs and West Virginias. Just taking a glance at next week's picks, they're all pretty tough except for maybe FSU at Florida. Sorry Noles, I need a win.

On Saturday, with Chris at Baltimore to cuddle with Marty, Tim and Ricky came over for NCAA Football and...vacuuming. Ricky just got one of those Animal Death Dysons and I wanted to see it in action against the Death Valley of Vacuums. My last vacuum quite literally was smoking as it choked on the volume of dog fur. I'll cut to the chase right now: get a Dyson if you don't have one. Yes, the cannister had to be emptied after cleaning two stairs. But, and believe me I tried to find some, there was no dog fur anywhere that vacuum passed. Yes, it took three passes and a dozen emptyings but my stairs were sans fur when it was done. I'll tell you this, that's what Chompy is getting me for Christmas. [Comments: 5]· permalink · · ·

Monday: November 19, 2007 - Contest Winner! Although it was a hard-fought battle, the immoral majority voted for Chris V. to be the winner of the 2007 Spin It Contest. He wins not only this fabulous picture for use in his next campaign (can you tell I've never drawn a suit and tie before?) but a $20 contribution to said campaign or to the merchant of his choice. Congratulations Chris!

My Fellow Americans, we live in wonderful times. The cost of housing is dropping dramatically giving the poor more of an opportunity to buy a house. The United States has lowered the price of the dollar to undercut high priced European and Canadian currencies. Americans are spending more and more and our wonderful system of credit has allowed for the average American to borrow much needed funds to begin a fruitful life and secure the American dream. Families are strong, with an astounding 50% of all marriages succeeding. Economic growth in the military sector has exceeded all expectations. We are also winning the war against Global Envirofascism. I’m happy to report that millions of previously useless trees have been turned into much needed paper, creating more jobs in paper mills and office supply stores. On another note, in 2008 we intend to help the people of Iran curb their future overpopulation problem.

Best lines from the other contestants:
From Steve: Not only do we have our eye overseas, but thanks to our progressive land improvements you can see coast to coast a lot easier than you used to, as we've gone ahead and removed many of the visual impairments between.

From T-Chris: I’m happy to report that half of all marriages in America stay together. That’s one out of every two: not one out of every three or four or five, but 50%. I’ll take a .500 batting average any day!

Happy Birthday Dad! [Comments: 3]· permalink · · ·

Tuesday: November 20, 2007 - Happy 4th Blogiversary! Happy Birthday Chompblog. It's hard to believe it's been four years since I envied Brian's popularity to the point where I decided to make my own blog and hosted you on the FSU server as part of the Mas N' Steel site. It seems like just yesterday I was pointing and clicking to make you "work" and hiding links as periods at the bottom of the page to see if I could get you indexed. I remember teaching "web design" at FSU and only knowing how to make a link. I remember Brian advising "just type <peon /> and that will win over all the people who know more than you do". Who knew that almost 1500 days later I would have written downloadable PHP classes and XML parsers that chop through millions of records a day and could make a fully database-driven website in about an hour using only notepad. I also can't say when exactly I raised my expectations from "hooray, someone visited my site other than me today" (2004) to "I wonder why traffic dipped to under 200 people today?" (now) but it happened.

In honor of the four year blogiversary, here are some uninteresting statistics you might find uninteresting.
· I first put up a stat counter on January 13, 2004 and since then the blog has been viewed 58,612 times.
·: The blog ranks in the top ten in Google (and gets a lot of traffic from): U2 sucks, manpower sucks, ecolab sucks, teksystems sucks, clemson sucks, sibelius sucks, why u2 sucks, bono sucks, delta sucks, and (ta-da) ford sucks.
· Each month, over 700 terms are used to get here.
· After Google Images, the largest referrer of traffic is the Urizone.
· The most inappropriate comment was left by a KKK-affiliate and was promptly deleted.
· The most views in one day was 662, on September 19th of this year, the day I wrote about my brother getting hit by a baseball.

Share your favorite Chompblog moments below! Please. [Comments: 4]· permalink · · ·

Wednesday: November 21, 2007 - Happy Thanksgiving Happy Thanksgiving! [Comments: 0]· permalink · · ·

Thursday: November 22, 2007 - Thanksgiving Happy post-Thanksgiving. I want your pictures, so send them to me. With Jamie in town for the long weekend (not for me, but for her and everyone else on the planet), we went over to a family friend's house for a pretty fair Thanksgiving. The company was pretty hot-cold and the three people ate dinner with should all be exiled just for being the way they are. Because we always went to my grandparent's farm for Thanksgiving growing up my standards for the meal are exceedingly high and last night's...well, let's just say not quite up there. After the "feast" Jamie and I went back to my house to bicker over if Kathy really had attended WVU and watch USC/ASU and Grey's Anatomy. I only caught the last five minutes of Grey's and I was quickly reminded why I hadn't watched it since the days of Chris and Michael. That show is ridiculous. Speaking of ridiculous, why can't anyone spell that word? I think I see misspelled more times than any other word.

With the Taurus in the shop I walked to work again today and I thought I had frostbite on my fingers because it was so cold. That's right--45. While I know I don't have frostbite my fingers still hurt for a good fifteen minutes after getting here. In other news, before she went home, Jamie said last night she was going to Target at 6am today. I'm curious to know if she actually went. And if so what she bought me. [Comments: 4]· permalink · · ·

Sunday: November 25, 2007 - Ouch Dude Another Thanksgiving has come and gone. It just wouldn't be a modern Thanksgiving without the annual whomping of FSU by Florida. It's hard to say for sure, but I think I may hate Urban Meyer more than Steve Spurrier. At least Steve Spurrier knew he was a total asshole where Meyer still tries to pretend to be a nice guy. Gary "That Thing Got a Hemi?" Cisemsia should be the season MVP since he had to have scored like 95% of our total points. Whatever.

For the game we went to Beef O'Brady's where we met up with Chris and Amy and a bunch of Jamie's DC friends. We left with about five minutes to go in the fourth quarter so Chris and I could get a head-start on our single game of NCAA. Since he was out of practice after two weeks West Virginia put a hurting on his Dixonless Oregon team. He got his redemption in poker afterwards and knocking out Jamie for the moolah.

There's only one week left in Pick 'Em and, knock on wood, things are looking pretty ok. Except for Texas and LSU (like everyone else) I picked the whole week correctly and picked up a few points on everyone going into the last week. The lead is far from a safe one considering next week almost every team playing has a chance of winning but at least it's down to five people instead of seven. Every little bit helps.

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Monday: November 26, 2007 - Christmas Card Day Don't want to fill to have to write out Christmas cards this year? Now you don't have to--just plug in the information into the form below and the Chompblog will write it for you!

Your name:

Other Family Member's Name:

Adjective:

Something Gross:

An Object:

Location:

Emotion:

Something Expensive:

Something Stressful:

Adjective:

Another Adjective:

Something you might find on a camel:

A Literary Figure:

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Tuesday: November 27, 2007 - Need Motivation Since yesterday's entry got so much feedback, I wrote out a madlibs function so now I can toss them in there more regularly so you won't have to read about Chris beating me at football or FSU losing nearly as much. Cool dude.

A few days ago, Brian wrote about November of 1997. I don't know how he can remember with that much detail because I certainly can't. I was a freshman in college but I don't "remember" it as much as I "know" it to be true. It's frightening to think that was ten years--it feels more like five. I've been trying to break up my life different eras to help me place things chronologically and this is what I've got so far:

Unknown Period (Age 0-7): I really remember almost nothing from that span.

Good School Period (Elementary School): I remember a lot about elementary school and they were all pretty positive memories. Unhappy Period (Grade 5-12): I was just generally unhappy during that period of time.

Rebound Period (College, Grad School): Very happy, except for my freshman year of college I remember a lot of it.

Poker Period (2003-now): It sounds ridiculous but poker really has been the most constant thing since I entered the "work" world. The time has gone by the fastest here and when I'm on my deathbed I'll be able to pinpoint the exact years that were completely and totally wasted.

Weirdy. [Comments: 0]· permalink · · ·

Wednesday: November 28, 2007 - Big Blue 6:00pm yesterday: I call AAA to schedule a tow to the mechanic at 6am this morning. I am told AAA is only for emergencies and to call back again tomorrow morning an hour before I need to have it towed.

5:45am: I call AAA to schedule a tow for 7am so it can be at the mechanic by 8. I am told because this is not an emergency they can't schedule a future assistance call. I tell them I have ESP and that I'm about to have an emergency in 75 minutes. They do not believe me.

7:00am: I call AAA with an emergency and tell them I will need a tow truck immediately. They tell me someone will be there between 7:40am and 9:30. My ESP told me to expect that bullsh*t.

Happy Thursday! [Comments: 2]· permalink · · ·

Thursday: November 29, 2007 - Challenge Day Today is your favorite day--contest day. Today's contest, worth $0, is to find a one-word term in Google that has the fewest amount of results while still having at least one. It doesn't have to be a real word--it can be gibberish but it has to only be only one word. The best I could do this morning was 3 (see image). You can submit multiple answers and the winner will get...something. I'll think of a prize as I write the form handler. Now, hold on a second...

Your Term:


Your name:

...Ok, the prize today is that you can post your Christmas list on here and maybe I'll buy you something. Good luck beating three though. [Comments: 2]· permalink · · ·