Tuesday, January 30, 2007
DIY Brain Damage
I made a garden burger (supreme) and some fries (deep fried in the wok) tonight, and shortly after eating I noticed that my eyes were itching. I rubbed them like a five year old, but they just got itchier, and were soon watering and burning, to the point that I could not keep them open. I figured I'd gotten something on my hands and went into the bathroom to wash them with soap. I then splashed water all over my face and flushed out my eyes.
They felt better, but shortly after I returned to the living room, they started to itch again. Figuring that was a sign, I retreated to the bedroom and laid down for a bit, closing my eyes and pressing my head into the pillow. It helped for a bit, but when I sat up and looked out into the lighted living room they started to itch again. Plus I could smell something, like a faint burning/melting odor. At last realizing I must have left on a burner, or the toaster oven, or something, I scooted into the kitchen to find that the wok was still on; its bellyful of well-flavored canola oil simmering along as a toasty 400 degrees. Blinking through my tears, I pulled the plug, turned on the exhaust fan, and retreated again, cracking open the sliding glass door for some ventilation.
My eyes kept hurting and watering though, and I ended up taking a long (hot) shower while ignoring the devilish whirring hum of the bathroom exhaust fan. That at last did the trick, and when I returned to the bright part of the apartment, my eyes were once again servicable, or at least as servicable as they get, ravaged by time and excessive monitor-staring as they are.
The question then, is what in the oil, or perhaps the metal and epoxy of the wok itself, was causing the problem? I've left it on for hours before and never had a problem, and my eyes were fine while I was actually cooking in it. It was only half an hour afterwards that they started to hurt and itch, and it took at least fifteen more minutes for the burning aroma to permeate my dwelling. The wok looks/looked fine, there wasn't anything weird floating in the oil, there wasn't any smoke or signs of electrical shorts, etc. Did some unknown insect suicide into the cauldron, sacrificing its tiny existence to spread an unknown pestilence via its incinerated molecules? Is the wok disintegrating and this was just the first taste (so to speak) of its inevitable and carcinogenic demise? Have I been masturbating to excess and am now reaping my just reward/side effect?
Worst of all, if the unseen, odorless smoke did that to my eyes, what did it do to my brain? You know I was breathing it in all along, even while hiding in the bedroom, Jinxie reclining upon my right thigh. If they find me wandering the streets later today, drooling and muttering (worse than usual), you'll know what to tell them at the emergency room, right?
Labels: cooking, misc
Wednesday, January 24, 2007
Catching Up.
So, as I mentioned in the last post, I've been entirely off of the Internet for a week. Not surfed a bit, not read any email, not even looked at any porn! There's an interesting story behind this, but I can't get into it since it involves personal info about other people that they don't want mentioned online.
At any rate, I'm back on now, and while it's very late and I need to be in bed about 2 hours ago, I will catch up on recent events tomorrow. Or not.
It's interesting to get back online after some time away. All the little soap operas and dramas and blogs and controversies that you've been following have continued to play out without you (the nerve!) and when you get back on, after a vacation or technical problems or whatever, you have a chance to decide if you really care. Sure, you've read every post on Perez Hilton for six months, but now that you've missed a week, do you care enough to actually swim back through the archives to see what happened while you were away? Do you even care enough to start reading the site again, knowing that you never really missed it while you were offline?
I don't mean to single out that one gossip blog, but it's a useful question across the board. I think most of us end up reading a lot of sites we don't really care about (including this one) just out of habit, or because it's the Internet, and they're free. And what else are you going to do to kill time at work? Besides actually working, I mean.
Really though, how much would you miss them if you deleted half the sites on your bookmarks? And more importantly, what useful thing could you do with the hour or more you'd save a day by not looking at webpages you wouldn't really miss if they vanished from the Internet tomorrow? It's something to think about, anyway.
One thing I did miss while offline was email, and I got some odd examples. One long time reader had a baby (well, his wife actually did the grunt work) but I don't know if he wants that news attached to his online name, so no public "congrats" from me. Well, aside from this semi-anonymous one.
I did get a few other emails worth quoting, and here they are, without the sender's names attached. The first one is pretty NSFW, but how likely are you to have the boss reading over your shoulder right now anyway?
Female Input
I've got one you've missed off of your list...
While my guy is straddled over my face as I suck his dick a girlfriend inserts an ice cube into his arse, he spasms as it goes in, his rectum tightens on the cube and the melting sensation as he shoots his load drives him crazy enough to let me and my girlfriend get some quality time together without him needing to be part of it all... It's called the ICE BUCKET!
Rachel
Xx
P.S. feel free to send me a complimentary T shirt from 'Get Offended' I'd like the one that says I do all the things your girlfriend doesn't.
Great site, needs more input though LOL
I deleted her email and myspace link from her signature, even though I doubt she would mind the attention. Speaking of myspace, I'm not going to get into a rant now, but seriously, and no offense meant to people who set up their myspace pages with fuscia and aquamarine color schemes, but has anyone
ever seen a myspace page that wasn't jaw-droppingly ugly, and/or mispropotioned? I mean ones by real people, not
corporate extensions that import their own design aesthetic.
Email #2:
Back in the days of heavy diablo 2 LOD gaming, i stumpled upon a short (well.. rather long, actually) story, following a single char. (a barbarian, with a 4-letter name, Thug or something) throughout the acts and quests of Diablo II. I have tried going through your fiction and The Dark Liberary on Diabloii.net, without luck..
I'm not 100% sure that you wrote it, but allmost. And if I am mistaken, I'm hoping you can help pointing me in the right direction in my search..
I only remember parts of the story..
It starts with a flashback to Harrogath, there "thug" looses a battle for the lady he loves, and therefor ashamed must leave.. He comes to the rouge camp, and starts helping them against the dark forces that hold the land.. In tristram his appointed merc dies, due to greed, in the monestary he finds a deadly wounded scorcerer, and swears revenge on the smith..
Act 2, joined by a paladin, they find Duriel, the paladin dies.
act 3, joined by a necromancer, they trace down a sorc empregnated by the witchdoctor Endigu, battles against a paladin-turned-bad (Trevinon or something), and "Thug" takes on Mephisto alone.
The story, as I remember it, ends with our hero arriving at Harrogath.
As you can tell, I don't remember the charecternames, wich makes a google-search difficult, so I am hoping you can help me.
I don't know if he wants his online name attached to this, so I didn't include it. He's from Denmark, though, and English is probably his 4th language, so we won't sweat the typos. I find it interesting that people still remember/stumble over D2 fanfic, but I'm mostly posting this in case someone knows the story he's talking about. It's not one I wrote (I never hewed anywhere near the actual game storyline) and I didn't read many others, so I can't help him. Can anyone else?
Email #3:
I just wanted to say that Marie Callender's is one of my favorite chains in existence. Your initial comparison to Denny's shocked me (although it was before you visited, so that's forgivable). IMO, Marie Callender's ranks about as high as a chain possibly can among all restaurants, and it is in the highest tier of its type. I suppose more visits might help sway you, and more of a love for pie. ;) Pie is my favorite dessert, and of all the bakery restaurants, MC makes them the best. I will agree with you about the old people.. what the hell is up with that? And also, breakfast is extremely hard to find. Most MC restaurants don't even serve it. However, if you can find one that does, they are a cut above everyone else. Since no MC will serve me breakfast in my area, the current breakfast winner is Mimi's Cafe (their lunch/dinner is just par, but their breakfast shines).
My chain restaurant scale system:
Fast food: big 4 (McD, BK, Jack, Carls), etc
Borderline fast food: KFC, In-n-out, El Pollo Loco, etc
Quick food: Baja Fresh, Quizno's, Fatburger, Subway, Thai Spice, etc
Crap, but open: Denny's, IHOP, Norm's, Mel's, etc
Average: Coco's, Baker's Square, Ruby's, etc
Good: Red Robin, Islands, Mimi's Cafe, BJs, etc
Excellent: Outback, Olive Garden, ** Marie Callender's **, Claim Jumper
Just one man's opinion. Get the beef stroganoff or turkey dinner. But yeah it helps if you are a pie lover. :)
Think I'm gonna go stop by today and pick up some muffins...
--Justin
Now there's a man who knows what he likes, and has put some thought into it. Honestly, he should post up a webpage with discussions of all the restaurants, pros and cons, recommended dishes, etc. I'd look. In fact, there has to be a website like that somewhere now, doesn't there? One that's mostly about user input and comments, with ratings, voting options, etc?
At any rate, I wasn't entirely sure I'd ever been to Marie Callendars, but his mention of the old people jogged my memory. Mostly since the only MC's I've ever been to is on a major road in Walnut Creek, and since I drive past there with Malaya all the time -- at which time one or both of us makes a joke about someone's grandmother coming out with a take out box perched on her walker. We
did eat there once, in November of 2003, and here's a link to prove it. Looking over that "review" now... eh. I don't remember anything other than that I had a turkey pot pie, and that the side dishes were plentiful, and the corn bread hunk was elephantine. I've never been back, but thanks to Justin's email I might consider it. The problem isn't so much the food quality, it's the selection. Neither Malaya or I ever eat that kind of Middle America cuisine; and it seems like glorified TV dinner stuff to me. It is, literally -- compare old style aluminum tray TV dinner options with a MC's menu if you doubt. They have stuff like plain pasta dishes, turkey with mashed potatoes, salisbury steak with peas/carrots, beef stroganoff, etc. Those types of dishes are just not found on the menus at non-diner restaurants in Northern California, and since Malaya or me grew up eating those "meat and potatoes" type meals we never think about cooking them, or going out to eat them.
Why not? Good question. They're certainly hearty fare, filling and relatively balanced in nutrition, although the way they make them at restaurants like MC's (huge servings and filled with butter, cream, salt, sugar, etc) ups the calories to frightening levels. Still, we find a way to fit Claim Jumper into our diets every few weeks, (though we usually get sandwiches and take half home to eat the next day) so why not glutton out on a meal with meat, veggies, and some kind of bread, especially when we don't have to fix it ourselves? Maybe next week.
Email #4:
I'd like to buy an ad on your page:
http://www.blackchampagne.com/articles/email-scams.shtml
The ad would be for a website which offers business e-mail hosting.
I don't have a huge budget, but I'm sure that I could pay you something.
Please let me know if you're interested.
Thanx,
Rebecca
Believe it or not, this is the first email I've ever received asking to place an ad on this website (IIRC). Well, the first mail from a real person; I get plenty of spams with various ad exchange options, but those don't count. I'm not going to take her up on it, since I don't want to put ads on my website, but it's interesting that someone would ask. I haven't checked my hit counters in months, but I can't imagine that articles page gets that many loads, or shows up anywhere near the top of any Google search -- not to mention the fact that it, like all my articles pages, hasn't been added to in more than 2 years. (Automation of archiving by subject, you say? Good idea.) I wonder how she found it in the first place?
The ironic part is that I'd probably have put in the link to her whatever right in this update, if she'd included the link in her email, and it would have been seen by far more people in this update (for free) than would likely ever see it on that old article archive page.
That's it for the interesting emails of the past week+. I may post more if/when they appear, but I'm doing some time-consuming real life stuff that I can't talk about yet, and I'm working steadily on rewriting my novel, and I'm dabbling in finding an agent via query letters, and I'm way behind on work on the HGL site after a week without online access. Plus, with the HGL beta (allegedly) about to get underway, I've really got to put in some work on that to get all caught up before the beta info explosion brings countless new readers.
In other words, spending the time to post long updates (or flesh out some of the two dozen+ backlogged reviews) on this site is going to be scarce for the immediate forever.
Labels: mailbag
Football Follow Up
While it might appear that I was so gutted over the football results that I quit blogging, it was technical difficulties. I did see the games last weekend and wrote a bit about them on Sunday evening, while they were fresh in my mind. I even included a Superbowl prediction. So here's that, just to get it out of the way before I post something new(er).
------I didn't have internet access all last week, and I was super busy in RL anyway, so I'm not sure how much I would have read if I'd had the chance. I was disheartened and depressed at San Diego's loss -- well, more by how they lost, than that they lost. Being beaten isn't any fun, but all but giving a game away with flukey mistakes is harder to swallow.
At any rate, as a result of my distaste and disinterest and technical difficulties, I didn't read a word of preview about the Championship games, and since I refuse to watch the substance-less idiocy that passes for "analysis" on ESPN and elsewhere, my ideas on the games were untainted by outside sources. AKA objective information. I didn't make any actual predictions, and even if I had it would be pretty pointless to post them 4 days later, but both games actually went pretty much as I expected. If I had made predictions, I would have been half right. I don't know what the spreads were, but I would have picked Chicago to win pretty handily, and NE a close one on the road. Chicago did, NE didn't, and I assume they failed to cover. Something like, oh... 27-24 NE, and 27-13 Chicago.
I thought Chicago's tough defense and sloppy field would neutralize New Orleans' flashy, speed-based offense, and that Chicago's offense would be just decent enough to score some short-field points after New Orleans' mistakes. And that's basically what happened, though Chicago tacked on 2 or 3 garbage time scores as N.O. kept fumbling and trying for 4th downs deep in their own end in the 4th quarter. Watching the game (which I did live, for a change) it seemed like New Orleans was about to get back into it and perhaps even pull away several times, but they never could quite get over the hump, and then things got out of hand late. In retrospect though, having yet to look at any analysis or stats, they were murdered. Even without the late Chicago scores in garbage time, N.O. only managed 14 points, and half of that came on a 90 yard short pass that was all Reggie Bush's legs. If the safety makes a play at the 30 instead of whiffing and letting Reggie run another 70 yards, New Orleans probably doesn't even break double digits on the scoreboard.
In Indy, I thought NE would score a fair number of points, and win a squeaker. Indy's defense had allowed like 15 in the whole playoffs, but they hadn't played a real offense yet; just the horribly-coached Chiefs and weaponless Ravens. New England had weapons and a smart QB and a good game planning coach, and I knew NE would put up around 28. I figured Indy would probably lose around 28-24, but thought they could win if Peyton could play like it was October, instead of January. I was surprised at how bad/nonexistent each team's defense was, and especially how helpless NE's defense looked in the 4th quarter, but the outcome wasn't a real shock, once I got over the fact that Peyton had actually played well in a playoff game. And really, wasn't he due? He was awful in the first two this postseason; he'd just lucked out playing two teams without any offense or smart coaching of their own, and won anyway. KC or Baltimore puts up 20+, what the Colts' defense was allowing all year, the annual "why can't Peyton win in the playoffs?" debate has been in full swing for 2 or 3 weeks by now.
Superbowl! So now it's Indy against Chicago in the warm Miami superbowl, where Peyton's got a chance to shut up all the office chair critics like myself. I wouldn't give him a chance if the game were in Chicago; it would be N.O. getting out-muscled and slipping on the snowy field all over again, but in Miami, even on grass, I think Indy's got a chance. And just to go with the momentum of my non-picked, "1-1 but accurate on the flow of the games" choices from this weekend, I'll make my Superbowl pick now. Plus doing so now will give me a better excuse not to waste time reading endless previews and news about the Super Bowl over the next two weeks.
20-16, Indy. I don't really care who wins, mostly since I don't much like either team or any of the players on the teams, but not enough to really root against either of them. My gut tells me to pick Chicago, and I won't be surprised if they do the same thing to Indy that they just did to N.O., and win despite their horrible offense/quarterback. I don't think Indy will fall apart as badly as NO did though, and if they don't give the Bears 20+ free points on fumbles and short field possessions, I don't think the Bears can score enough on their own to keep up.
Best of all, with his team in the Superbowl, perhaps Peyton Manning will finally get some media attention and recognition? It would be cool if he got some sponsors and maybe filmed a TV commercial or two; you hardly ever see the guy except in his Colts uniform and helmet.
Labels: football
Saturday, January 13, 2007
NFL Divisional Round
Just to make my pics before the games start, this weekend.
Indy (+4) @ Baltimore. I'm actually kind of shocked at the odds on this one; I figured Baltimore would be at least a TD favorite, the way Indy finished out the season. Did their easy win over the uncoached Chiefs win all their wavering fans back, or what? I'd thought to pick Baltimore to win but Indy to cover, just figuring Indy's defense might remain charged up after finally playing a good game, but with Baltimore just a 4 point favorite, that seems foolish. I can't see Baltimore scoring more than about 24 though, unless they do some of it on defense, and surely Indy can manage 20 so long as Payton doesn't actually get knocked out of the game? Who knows, maybe his annual playoff stinker game was last week, with 3 picks, but an easy win thanks to KC's ineptitude? I can't pick 24-20 since that would be a push with the spread, so I'll go
23-17, Baltimore.
Philly (+5) @ New Orleans. They played earlier this season when both teams were doing well and New Orleans won by 3. I don't see this one being all that different. Last week everyone thought KC@Indy would be a wild shootout with 30+ required to win. It was something like 23-8. This week everyone thinks this game will be a shootout, and maybe it will, and maybe it'll repeat last week's history. I'd love a 40-35 barn burner, personally, but teams often get conservative and defenses stiffen in the playoffs, so I'll moderate.
27-20, Saints.
Seattle (+8.5) @ Chicago. I would strongly consider picking either Philly or New Orleans over the disintegrating Bears, but Seattle was by far the worst of this year's playoff teams, and they did little last week to change that perception, despite winning on a fumbled field goal snap. This game is by far the least interesting matchup of the weekend, and I wouldn't be surprised to see one of those 6-7, 7 interception, 14 punt puke fests that make me very glad I record the games and watch them later, rather than sitting through 3.5 hours of failure. I say Chicago plays well at least for one week of the playoffs, then prays for bad weather next week to make the visiting Saints or Eagles as slow and bad at offense as they are. That's their best hope, though since the Superbowl is in Miami, that'll probably be the end of the line for them.
18-10, Chicago.
New England (+5) @ San Diego. They played last year and San Diego destroyed the Patriots something like 44-20. LT ran wild, SD's pass rush ate Brady alive, SD threw the ball well, SD's defense came up big, etc. That was about the low point in the NE season though, and that was the regular season, and that was when Brees was the SD QB. Rivers is in now, and this is his first playoff game, and NE's coach is a master schemer at thwarting opposing QBs in the playoffs. I don't think he can outcoach the talent edge SD has on the offensive and defensive lines though, and I don't think Brady's nickle and dime passing to no-name receivers will be enough to keep up with SD's offense. SD scored like 8 points more per game than NE did this year, I think Schottenheimer has learned from his past overly-conservative playoff failures, and this game will be the surprise blowout of the weekend.
42-20, San Diego.Update: Late 3rd quarter of the NE@SD game, and man, I thought the last Chargers' playoff loss was painful, when they gave a game away against NYJ 2 years ago. This one is going to hurt far worse. SD is still winning 14-10, but they just fumbled a punt when there wasn't a coverage man within 20 yards of the return man, and there's no earthly way SD should have less than 24 points at this point. They've been past midfield on like 7 drives, twice been sacked out of field goal range (any hot reads in the playbook when NE lines up 8 guys to blitz?), dropped passes, caught a TD a yard out of bounds, and kept NE from doing anything except when SD went into a dubious prevent defense during the last 2 minutes of the half which led directly to NE going 70 yards in 2 minutes. A team can not screw up this many scoring opportunities in a playoff game against the Patriots and hang on to win... can they?
Update #2: As I hit "post," SD sacks Brady, he fumbles, it's 4th and forever, and some random SD defensive back nowhere near the play gets a personal foul, giving NE the first down and putting them back in FG range. *sigh*
Update #3: San Diego stops NE on 4th and 5 with an interception, then fumbles on the same play giving NE a first down that turns into a TD and a tie game. So that's 11 of NE's 21 points on a fumbled punt and fumbled interception. I'll be shocked if this goes to OT -- NE will win in regulation the way their luck is holding.
Update #4: Malaya got home from the gym while SD was on their final "try to tie the game" drive. I gave her the litany of ridiculous, once-in-a-season outrages SD has faced today, and we watched as SD managed a long pass to get into long FG range. As the graphic came up showing their kicker had made 25 straight kicks at home, I said, "I guarantee you he'll miss this." There was no way SD would make a clutch play in a game that had gone this way. And of course he left it wide right.
Meanwhile, Malaya's chattering away about how she saw NE's last TD at the gym and how it was pretty... this is why hospitals call SuperBowl Sunday, "Domestic Violence Day." I suppose this makes up for all the times I've made, "but can they save the cheerleader's virginity?" jokes and heckled the comb over while she's watching Heroes or The Apprentice or other shows she enjoys and I tolerate.
Labels: football
Thursday, January 11, 2007
Procrastination
Here's
a news item you have to read right now. Or maybe tonight. Tomorrow at the latest... That requisite joke out of the way, check out this article on procrastination. It's a good read.
"Essentially, procrastinators have less confidence in themselves, less expectancy that they can actually complete a task," said lead researcher Piers Steel of the University of Calgary.
Steel analyzed more than 200 past studies on procrastination, dating back to the 1920s through 2006. He found a strong link between impulsiveness and the "I’ll-do-it-tomorrow" phenomenon. The research is detailed in the January issue of the journal Psychological Bulletin.
Impulsive people value today far more than tomorrow. "So they can’t feel motivated, deadlines don’t feel real, they have no energy until just before they happen," Steel said. These people have the best of intentions, aiming to get started right away, but they don't end up following through on their self-promises.
I procrastinate myself, but only on things I don't want to do, or that don't seem essential. Making me exactly like everyone else on earth. Does anyone procrastinate things they want to do? "I'm dying to play some video games, but I don't want to start right now. I'll mop the floor and make up a shopping list first."
The article offers some more info and warning signs.
His analysis also turned on its head a widespread notion -- one reported in many self-help books -- that people put off work because they are perfectionists and fear they will never reach this perfection.
"In fact, perfectionists tend to procrastinate slightly less. They just worry about it more," Steel said. And perhaps they report it more. Perfectionists tend to feel guiltier about the delay so they complain and even seek clinical advice for it.
People who dislike their jobs or find themselves twiddling their thumbs due to boredom are more likely to put off tasks than those who are passionate about their jobs or schoolwork.
Other predictors of procrastination: high distractibility, lack of self-confidence and a low level of intrinsic motivation, or the drive to check things off the to-do list.
I don't procrastinate everything, but I'm kind of manic on long term projects; working 12 hours one day and 0 the next three. Overall, I definitely work better with a deadline, but I have trouble setting them myself. I tell myself I need to finish a chapter next week, or whatever, but I know that it's not a real deadline, just a motivational tool, and that lets me blow it off. Which is why I'm still here, noodling away at this novel and query letters, while real life passes me by.
Labels: misc
Sunday, January 07, 2007
NFL Playoffs
I've made a (relatively) successful effort not to blog about NFL football much this year, but now that the playoffs are on, I guess I should at least offer some predictions. Of course I'm writing this late Saturday night, with two games already played, but it's not like anyone's coming here for betting advice or anything. I don't even know what the spreads were/are.
As for Saturday's games, Malaya and me were out running errands all day. Literally; we slept late, ate breakfast around lunch time, and then took off to Ross, BBB, Target, Tuesday Morning (closed for post-xmas break), Fry's, and a few other places. Got back from that in the early evening, unloaded the car, patted the cat, and took off again, this time to Ikea. We stayed near there for dinner at Rubio's and then made a couple of more stops on the way home, and by the time we got back it was nearly 9pm and the playoff games were long over. Which was exactly my plan, since I just can not sit through the endless delays and commercials of live sports anymore. Watching a game on tape is a vastly-superior viewing experience, so long as I can keep from seeing or hearing the score, thus preserving some measure of suspense.
As it turned out, I was damn glad I hadn't watched the games live, since both of Saturday's contests were pretty lame. The Chiefs @ Colts was especially bad; Payton did his usual playoff choke job with 3 interceptions, but for a change he threw a lot of good passes too. The big surprise was that his team won easily since the KC offense simply did not show up. Horrible play calling, as though they'd read all the articles about how the Colts couldn't stop the run, and thought they could just hand off up the middle and waltz to victory. They tried, and after gaining about 15 yards in the entire first half they mixed it up a bit more in the second half, but still only managed a measily 8 points. A truly pathetic effort. And a boring one, too. I can't imagine how painful this game would have been for a Chiefs' fan, with the defense doing miraculously well stopping Payton, and the offense laying repeated "3 and out" eggs.
The late game wasn't a great deal more entertaining, at least not until the 4th quarter and the crazy, overturned first down pass, fumbled snap, missed field goal ending. I won't recap the events; anyone who cares has seen/read about them already, but my thought after Romo was tackled inches short of the first down/end zone was the old, "so that's why teams kick on 3rd down at the end of the game." You always see teams take a knee to kill the clock and then call a time out with like 8 seconds left just in case, as the announcers always say, "there's a bad snap." And finally there was one, and the team kicking would have been fine since they recovered the fumble... except that the review had taken away their first down pass on 3rd down, and they were kicking on 4th down, rather than killing time on 1st and 2nd and then going for the win on 3rd. "It's like raaaaa-ain... on your wedding day..."
Anyway, my picks, made around 10pm but before I watched the games, were unwittingly accurate. I said Indy over KC 28-17, and Dallas over Seattle 31-20. Indy actually won 23-8 and Dallas lost 20-21, but Indy was a 7 point favorite and Seattle was a 2.5 point favorite, so I actually got the spread on both, though I was 1-1 on winners, and nowhere near accurate on either score. As for tomorrow's action, I might as well make a prediction
before the games begin this time. The Eagles host the Giants and the Eagles are 7 point favorites. The Patriots host the Jets and the Pats are 8.5 point favorites. It's a boring pick, and one that's usually wrong, but I dislike both NY teams and don't think either belong in the playoffs (not that KC, Sea, or Dallas appeared to belong either), so I'm going with the home favorites. That's how I'll be rooting anyway, after not really having a favorite in either of Saturday's games.
Philly over NYG 27-15, NE over NYJ 30-17.
I don't have a strong feeling about either game. I also can't believe I'm picking the Eagles to beat a team with a strong running game, since the last Eagles game I saw was their week 12 "effort" against Indy where
they lost 45-21 and showed absolutely no inclination to tackle anyone in a Colts' uniform. The Eagles obviously improved after that; they
won their last five games to win the NFC East, but I fully expect them to revert to form. It's hard to say though; the NYG seemed like they were trying really hard to quit on their coach and miss the playoffs, but everyone else in the crappy NFC kept losing and the last week of the season they finally ran into a team (Washington) that had even less desire to win than they did, and won to make the wild card spot. So do they now figure what the hell, we're here and our division sucks; we might as well try hard and maybe make the Superbowl? Or do they continue their tank job and make Hawaiian vacation plans for next weekend?
Update: Eagles won 23-20. Patriots won 37-16. I was right on both winners, but missed the spread since Philly failed to cover. For the weekend I was 2-2 on winners and 3-1 and the spread... or almost exactly what you'd expect if you made your picks throwing darts at the sports section. Which is why bookies live comfortably and sports books/casinos are constantly building more luxurious expansions.
Labels: football
Wednesday, January 03, 2007
Rules are for people who can not think...
A friend of mine is looking for a new apartment, and after he emailed me this story I had to share. (I removed lots of curse words, as you'll soon understand.)
He's a student, with some assets and his mom is helping him financially, but he doesn't have much income. He's a full time university student, after all. Looking at a new apartment, he found a nice one for around $1000 a month. The problem is that the apartment requires the person who signs the lease to have a job paying at least
3x the monthly rent to qualify. Tenants can co-sign, but the co-signer must make
6x the monthly rent. (They're obviously thinking the co-signer has their own rent to pay, hence doubling the total.)
That's their rule, and there are no exceptions. So despite the fact that my friend has $10,000 in his checking account and could pay the entire lease in advance, they won't give him the lease. His mom has plenty of assets and doesn't owe a mortgage, but she's retired and therefore doesn't earn $84,000 a year (6x the monthly rent) so even if she were willing to co-sign and let the apartment idiots run her credit history, she still wouldn't qualify -- despite the fact that she owns a million-dollar house outright, has a healthy retirement pension, no debts, plenty of assets, etc. (Yes, of course it's 6x the rent for a co-signer even if the co-signer doesn't owe their own rent/mortgage.) So he can't get the lease, despite the fact that he would happily write a check for the entire six or twelve month's rent. In advance. Giving the apartment people a half year or full year's interest gain.
Yet the assistant manager of a local Best Buy, earning $38k, with $15k in credit card debts and $500 a month alimony would qualify, since after all, he's earning 3x the monthly rent.
My friend said he tried to get some logic in an explanation about this, and it was just impossible. The manager, a walking blond-joke come true (minus the pretty part) was just blank-eyed and confused, and answered every question by saying she'd have to check with her regional manager, who may or may not be
a magic eight ball in her sock drawer. I wasn't there, but I laugh when I envision the conversation in her blonde-infused office.
Potential tenant: I don't make $36k a year. I'm a full time student. I have assets though, my mom has plenty of assets.
Blonde Manager: You don't qualify for the lease terms, though.
Potential tenant: I know that. I told you that. I have money, but not the required income, and I can pay the entire six months in advance.
Blonde Manager: You don't qualify, though.
Potential tenant: I don't need to qualify if I've already paid the full amount!
Blonde Manager: But you don't qualify.
Potential Tenant: But I don't need to qualify...
Blonde Manager: But you don't qualify...
And so it goes. He's looking for another apartment now I guess, one not managed by a fembot and her magic eight ball.
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