Quote Monday has gone soft
Me: “Can you teach me to purl? I want to knit tonight when I’m watching football.”
Sara: “Quote!”
In case you’re worried I’ve gone soft, I’ll have you know it wasn’t all knitting…I also folded some laundry. Then, when everything went bad, I even consoled myself with a ginger beer.
You have no idea how many statements in this house are followed up by, “Quote!”, “Now there’s a quote!” or “Put that on your e-blog daddy!”
Me: “I thought I’d make some oatmeal for breakfast today.”
Evie: “Looks like we’re back to our natural habitat!”
Sara: “Who’s that actor who was in that movie where he was a violin teacher?”
Me: “No idea.”
Sara: “He’s older, black, super famous…sort of rotund?”
::me throwing out every possible suggestion::
Sara: “Never mind, I’ll find it.”
::Internet searching::
Sara: “Finding Forester!”
Me: “Wait a minute…wasn’t that Sean Connery? Your rotund black man is Sean Connery??”
- The Blackest Man in America
Superbowl Champions
Superbowl XLV is in the books, and the Green Bay Packers are officially the world champions!
The sun is brighter, the air is sweeter, traffic was lighter, and there were even Bears fans complaining on the radio. Life is good!
What a game it was. I don’t even know if I could say that I enjoyed the game, because it was so nerve wracking. In retrospect, now that everything is said and done and the Packers won it all, I can say that the last 6 weeks or so were about as fun of a ride to the Superbowl as anybody could ever want.
Having to beat the Giants and then the Bears the last two weeks of the season to squeak into the playoffs. Coming in as a 6th seed and beating both Philly and Atlanta on the road. Beating the Bears AGAIN in the NFC championship game. And finally winning the whole shebang, and putting up awesome numbers against a very good Steelers team.
The game itself was a nail-bitter for me. After all the injuries this season (15 guys on IR! Many of them starters!), then to see Woodson and Driver leave the game, along with Shields and Collins (who both ended upcoming back), was almost too much to bear. I told Sara, “Thank god this is the last game of the season…I couldn’t take another one.” Watching the Packers jump out to a 21-3 lead and then slowly squander it away through dropped pass after dropped pass. Just writing this paragraph is raising my blood pressure.
Evie caught my excitement and was pretty excited:
Evie: “Go Packers! I’m so excited I let some drool out of my mouth!”
I might have been a little overly enthusiastic myself, especially in terms of high-fiving:
Evie: “Ow, you hurt my hands!”
Overall, what a good year for football! I won my survival league, I finished the regular season in 1st place in my fantasy league, and even though I only ended up in 3rd after the playoffs, it still payed out. And now, the Superbowl of course. You cannot beat the trifecta of football wins!
In fact, I can only thing of two football related things to complain about:
- Due to some setting on either my Tivo or my digital converter box, the score board is off the side of my tv, making it impossible to see the score or the game clock. The score isn’t a big deal, but not knowing how much time is on the clock at the end of the game is a very bad thing!
- The Packers have a sore lack of a theme song of some sort. There are plenty of songs out there, generally of the one off, super-cheesy (no pun intended) variety. But I’m talking an official, Packers’ authorized chant or song, similar to Fly Eagles Fly, Bear Down Chicago Bears, or even J-E-T-S-Jets-Jets-Jets. Preferably something old and classic. Some kind of rallying cry that every Packers fan everywhere would know. The closest we come are the ultra-generic, “du-duh-duh-ch du-duh-duh-ch GO PACK GO” and playing “I want to bang on the drum all day“, which is used by several other football teams. You’d think a team with this much history and tradition would have picked up some sort of unique fight song somewhere along the way!
One more funny quote during the game:
Sara: “Don’t have another [diet caffeine free] pop. You’ll be up peeing all night.”
Am I really that old?
Bacombardi Trophy
The only thing more awesome than the actual Lombardi Trophy (what you get for winning the Super Bowl, for you non-football types), would be if someone figured out a way to have the Lombardi Trophy made completely out of bacon:
This is from BBQ addicts, the same people as the bacon explosion. That’s two ridiculously awesome bacon products, and counting. For serious, some people are destined for greatness. Some people are destined for saint hood.
Brett Favre vs. the Green Bay Packers
I think I do a pretty good job about not talking about football on this blog, but I would be remiss if I failed to mention the big game last night. Of course I am referring to Brett Favre playing against the team he played for for 15 years.
I think I’ve made my feelings on the whole Favre thing pretty well known, so I won’t go into all that again. But I sure was excited about this game. I was listening to some of the pre-game coverage on the radio in the morning and I literally got chills. I even bumped all of our Monday night shows off the TiVo in anticipation.
In regards to all the hype, I’ve noticed that some people seem to have their facts a little mixed up. I kind of think they know that and did it on purpose to make it a better story. But let’s be quite clear – the Packers did not run Brett Favre out of town. The Packers begged him to come back. The disagreement was over when exactly Favre was going to decide if he was going to play or retire. Remember every football fan in the universe? You were all pretty annoyed with that too. I’ve even heard McCarthy’s now famous “that train has left the station” quote used out of context to imply that he was referring to Favre’s ability. So it’s a good story to pretend like the Packers told Favre, “You’re washed up, we don’t want you anymore!” but that’s not really how it went down.
So the actual game began and I was very excited. Everything quickly went downhill. The Packers put the “offensive” in “offensive line”, taking 8 sacks. They had many, many opportunities in the red zone that they didn’t convert. Overall, however, with the exception of the o-line, they played pretty well. They contained the best RB in the NFL. They moved the ball fairly easily. In fact, between the two, I think Rodgers might have played better than Favre, considering he was scrambling for his life the entire night. At the end of the day, Minnesota was just clearly the better team in almost every aspect, so the fact that they managed to pull within a touchdown at the end was quite impressive.
Watching Favre play against the Packers was not nearly as painful as I thought it would be. In fact, I felt really good for him when they pointed out that Favre became the first person to beat every team in the NFL (obviously he had never beaten the Packers before). I felt good about that, the same way I felt when he got most wins, most yards, and most touchdowns. Like somehow I was a part of that. And quite frankly, I think I am! I might not have caught any passes, but don’t tell me all the positive vibes I’ve sent his way for 15 years didn’t amount to something cosmically.
But man-oh-man did I want the Packers to beat him! Still, everyone is saying, “Oh, Favre really showed them!” I don’t see it that way. The only thing you can compare Favre to is Aaron Rodgers, because that is the only consideration you have if you’re thinking about whether you need to appease Favre or not. And I think anybody watching that game could see that Rodgers is a pretty good QB. The Vikings’ o-line being better than the Packer’s o-line has nothing to do with it.
Every great football unit needs a great nickname. So, in the spirit of the “Gang Green” of the late 80′s Eagles, the “Steel Curtain” of the 70′s Steelers, or the “Purple People Eaters” of the 70′s Vikings, I am now nicknaming the Packer’s offensive line the “Wet Napkins“. Hopefully this new nickname will give them something to aspire to.
Misc.
I just have a lot of random miscellany to update on, so here you go, in no particular order:
Some Norwegians came to visit. Meg, I really appreciate the effort you put into keeping in touch with me. I can’t count the number of friends that I’ve regrettably lost contact with since college. And giving me bacon / cheese popcorn doesn’t hurt either (although it wasn’t all that bacony, mostly just tasted like cheese popcorn).
Evie finally learned how to jump on Friday. She’s a little behind schedule on that one, so I was working on it with her. I’d like to think that my excellent advice to “put your feet together, bend your knees, and push with your toes” are what put her over the top. She’s going through a bit of a trying phase at the moment, so, after our initial giggling and hugging fit, the fact that we wanted her to jump again pretty much guaranteed she wouldn’t. She did jump some more on Sunday though.
Everyone was sick, back to back. It took each of us about 4 days to shake it, so we had a rough patch for about 12 days.
American History X, good movie! Really good! Has anyone seen it? Oh yeah, Sara and I were the last people on earth who hadn’t.
We finally checked out the Harry Potter exhibit at the MSI. It was pretty cool, and well done, but not exactly what I expected. It’s pretty much a tour through a bunch of movie props. Since it was in the museum of SCIENCE and INDUSTRY, I kind of thought it would be like explaining about the special effects, or like “real life invisibility” exhibits or something. Not just, “Here’s the clothes Ron wore in this scene…” Also, our scheduled time was before the museum opened, which was pretty confusing to begin with, but they had a lot of trouble getting people lined up for the right times and stuff. You’d think for the money they’re pulling down, they could have invested in a couple of signs or something. Still, it was fun. I can’t say if it was worth the price of admission or not, since it was free for us.
Football is officially underway, and what better way to start the season than to beat the Bears? And the best part? I get the double win in the morning when I get to ride to work and listen to Chicago sports talk radio rehash the game!
We had fun at the 57th Street Children’s Book Festival over the weekend. Every year that we go, Evie enjoys it a little bit more as she gets old enough to appreciate the events. We listened to a story teller, made a crown, dug for pirate treasure, attended a music class, watched a dance troupe, painted and glued a paper box, and danced to some music (including jumping on some bubble wrap). Side note, Sara said, “Jeeze, there sure are a lot of pirate themed things here.” When will people realize, it is not me who is obsessed with pirates, but rather all rational human beings who are obsessed with pirates when confronted with their awesomeness.
Finally, the other day I opened the back door to discover an enormous spider web over the opening, trapping us inside. Right in the middle of the web, directly at eye level, sat Lillith the spider queen, bigger’n a quarter. I quickly slammed the door shut before she could spray venom in my eyes. Now I ask you, what could that mean with the web directly across the door opening like that, other than this enormous spider was trying to catch humans? Finally I took it out with a broom, shrieking and cursing the whole time. The spider sat for a while on the porch, memorizing my face before slowly sauntering under a potted plant. I could have squished her with the broom (at least so I told myself…that was a big spider) but do I really need the wrath of all the spiders in the world for killing their queen? No sir, I do not. So I let her go and the next day she had spun her human trap over Evie’s chair on the porch. That’s right, I put a little fear into her and she decided to try for smaller prey. Me 1, spider queen 0.
And now Favre is a Viking
I thought this would have been the last time I had to make such an announcement.
After publicly declaring several times that he was retired, wanted to stay retired, and would in no way be joining specifically the Vikings, Favre surprised no one by signing with said Vikings.
Despite what many people would have you believe, I don’t much care about Favre signing where ever he wants. And if the Vikes want to have the drama that will be surrounding this whole thing, more power to them. In fact, that’s really the tragedy about this whole thing…my apathy. This was a guy who was a god, and now I hardly even care, other than to say, “Ha, good luck with that you idiots.” How the mighty have fallen.
Oh well, at least this will distract some of the media from the Michael Vick thing in Philly.
Now that’s Throwback
Shutdown Corner is reporting that the 49ers will not just be wearing their throwback jerseys for the game this sunday, they will be making an additional nod to the past…
That’s right. They’re all growing moustaches. How awesome and throwback is that?
“Every single day that we walk through here, you just can’t help but admire John Ayers’ mustache. It’s awesome.”
- Shaun Hill, QB for the 49ers
First Football Weekend
Well, the first weekend of football is over and my fantasy football season is already sunk.
I’m only in one league this year. That league is my keeper league that I’ve been playing in since 2002. Every year you select the 2 best players from your team the previous year and keep them into the next season. Last year I won the league and the main reason why was Tom Brady. Obviously I kept him for this season. After netting me a grand total of 2.53 points he received a season ending knee injury. I don’t mean to be callous about a guy with a serious injury, but lets face it, he is paid extremely will because of the risk. But consider how his injury affects ME! An entire season of fun down the tubes. And not just me, it has been estimated that Brady’s injury will shift $150 MILLION dollars of Fantasy Football winnings to different people. Economics are weird.
In other football news, I watched the first quarterback since 1992 not named Brett Favre start a football game for the Green Bay Packers. And actually, he was pretty awesome. Not awesome in the fact that he was unstoppable, but considering it was his first start ever he looked like an old hand. Despite the fact that many penalties put him in bad situations, he played very well and against a team that many people picked to go to the superbowl. Certainly against a tough defense. He made plays when he had to, he never looked rattled, and he displayed traits (especially eye techniques used to freeze or move safeties) that some veteran quarterbacks never master.
I always had complete faith in Rodgers, but I think the rest of the world now sees what most of the Packers’ faithful saw a long time ago…that the team is honestly really good and in no small part because of Aaron Rodgers.
Update Post
So I haven’t been posting much for the past week or so, but we’ve been really busy what with the holiday weekend and all.
So last week we had some friends from Philly (well Jersey really) visiting and staying at our place the whole week. (Although I did mention our trip to Maggianos) They have a daughter about Evie’s age, so it was nice for Evie to have someone to play with, or at least follow around and imitate. It worked out pretty well for them to use our house as a base of operations and strike out from there all around Chicago. We didn’t get to do all that much with them since we were working and all, but we did manage to go to the zoo with them. Their daughter is really cute (maybe even a match for Evie, although exactly the opposite…dark hair and dark eyes) and smart as a whip. Ever since they left all I can think about is, “Will Evie really be able to do all of that in 10 months??”
Then, last weekend we went on our semi-annual camping trip in Michigan. It was the usual camping trip with Evie, which is to say, exhausting! It is a lot of work running around after her in general, but it is like 10 times as much work when you are camping. Especially this time because she wanted to be walking around (and into everyone’s campsite) from sun up to sun down and anything you wanted to do to get in the way of that was not appreciated! So I didn’t have time to play any cards or any sort of games or anything.
We went on a hike and we saw two sets of deer bounding out of the woods onto the path in front of us. It was really quite amazing considering we were singing childrens’ songs at the tops of our voices to keep Evie happy! As a side note, I did have some outside confirmation that my family has a preternatural ability to spot deer at any time. I always thought I had a knack for it, but compared to my dad, I’m pathetic. Anyway, we also managed to make it to the beach one day. You know, it’s funny, every time you go in Lake Michigan, or even swimming in general, you say, “Once you’re in the water it’s not so cold!” But then the next time you’re like, “Oh yeah, well not this time because it is COOOOLD!” And then you get in and say, “Once you’re in the water it’s not so cold!” Plus everybody around you is repeating the same thing. How many times does that have to happen before it really takes? So we went to the lake and the water was super super cold but then we got in and were surprised to discover it wasn’t that bad.
Only tangentially related but, when I was little we always had 2% milk. When I would go to someone else’s house and they had skim milk I just couldn’t stand it. It just seemed like colored water to me. (Of course now all we have is skim milk, but that’s not my fault). Well, when we were camping, Chris (who was the main skim milk house that I went to when I was growing up) said that sometimes he just puts water in his cereal and it tastes exactly like skim milk. Aside from sounding completely disgusting, I think this upholds my theory that skim milk really is just colored water.
In terms of an Evie Update, she has really been surprising me lately. I think she is entering into a stage where she is just learning everything so fast and picking up things you don’t realize she is picking up. This might be fatherly doting, so if you don’t want to hear it skip a bit, brother.
Three times today when we were going through a book she pointed at something I didn’t know she knew and said the word for it aloud: house, apple and flower. Sara told her to knock on the door and she went over and knocked on it just the way you would. When has she ever knocked on a door? Today she took Sara’s keys and went over to the door and tried to reach up to where the keys go. Probably the funniest thing was I had her little horse and I was pretending that he was telling me secrets. I would just put the horse up to my ear and whisper, “spsh spsh spsh” and she would laugh hysterically. So I just kept doing it because she thought it was pretty funny. Later I gave her the horse and she put it up to my ear and sort of “spsh spsh spsh”ed. That really cracked me up, that she copied that part! I didn’t even really realize I was doing that. Now in retrospect I think she wasn’t laughing at the idea that a horse was telling me secrets like I originally thought; she apparently understood much better than I knew. She was laughing at what an idiot I was making of myself sticking a horse in my ear and making funny noises!
Evie also has two new tricks. The first is making herself so mad that she pukes. That is a fun one, let me tell you. The other one is farting in the bathtub, which she is not too young to think is funny. She gets a little devilish grin on her face and heeeeaves up her stomach and really cuts one. Then she looks at me and laughs. She gets good resonance out of the tub. Sometimes she tries to lift up her legs to see the bubbles. This is now a multi-night occurrence.
And finally, football season is finally upon us! I’m only in one Fantasy league this year for the first time in a long time. I think that will work out nicely though since I have less time then I’ve had in a long time. I really get giddy with excitement when I think about the Packers on MNF!
Musings on Favre
As a Packers’ fan and specifically a Brett Favre fan, many people have come to me for my reaction about all the things going on lately. I don’t claim to represent every Packers’ fan, and in fact I assumed that most of them would disagree with me. But the more I talk to them and the more informal polling I do, I find out that in fact many of them do agree with me.
Let me start by saying I think Brett Favre is absolutely qualified right now to be a starter on an NFL team. Probably his best years are behind him, but that being said, he’s easily in the top 5 of current QBs. Even if you only put him in the top 10, that is still better then about 2/3rds of the starting QBs. So I was not a person that was saying he was washed up and needed to go, even before last season’s renaissance. I am also very protective of his legacy and I sort of breathed a sigh of relief when he went out on top.
I honestly believe the Packers’ organization (or at least McCarthy) when they say that they didn’t want him to retire and that they flew down to his home after the season to try to convince him to come back and he said no. I honestly believe that they made the best choice available to them at each juncture and tried to do the best thing they could not just for the franchise but for the fans and for Brett. Brett says that they forced him to retire. I don’t think that is true. They may have forced him to make a decision, but not that decision. And quite frankly, he’s the one who put the idea in thier heads in the first place with his talk of retiring at the end of every season for the last 4 years. Every year the drama gets dragged out longer and longer and you just can’t wait until a week before the season starts to find out who your QB is going to be. So yes, they forced him to make a decision one way or the other and he went with the other.
I don’t blame him for wanting to come back. I think there are very few of us who can put ourselves in his shoes, but I’m sure everybody who retires misses it. And they aren’t super famous with thousands of fans screaming for them every week. I’m sure when you retire it is hard to imagine your life without something that you feel defines you as a person. So I don’t blame him for that. But I just can’t figure out why he can’t understand where the Packers are coming from. They had to have a decision from him and then having that decision they made all the necessary arrangements to carry on without him. He doesn’t seem to remember that he works for them, not the other way around.
When he announced that he was coming back, it seemed like a nightmare scenario. There was no good way out of it for the Packers. He set himself up so he couldn’t back down, which meant he was definitely going to play somewhere. It would have been hard for them to welcome him back as the starter and throw away all of the preparations and plans and commitments they had made while he was away. It would have been bad to pay him $12 million to sit the bench, although maybe they should have out of spite. It would have set up a terrible situation for Aaron Rodgers (whom I like and think will do quite well) to be second guessed to the point that he would be unable to perform. It would have been hard to trade Favre away because you couldn’t hope to get much for him considering the other team could only really count on one year out of him at the most, after which he may retire again. So do you want to be the guy who traded away a superstar for a 4th rounder? No, there really wasn’t any easy way out of the situation.
I think the Packers’ organization handled it about as well as it could possibly have been handled. First off, they ran the risk of the fans being pissed that they traded away an icon, but they let it go on long enough and they were (at least on the surface) nice enough that all the fans are just fed up with Brett. Second off, they got a 4th rounder that could hypothetically go all the way up to a 1st rounder based on the Jets going to the superbowl. So it’s probably not going to be much but it’s something and it will be something even better if Favre ends up being good. But really the main thing is that they traded him to a really sucky team! They have practically guaranteed that Favre will look worse than Rodgers, which was really the danger of the whole situation. Even on the Bucs (and certainly on the Vikings), Favre could have potentially shown up Rodgers. The Packers have a really good team and especially really good receivers that will tend to make a QB look even better than he really is. Also, everybody and his mother knows that Favre didn’t want to go to the Jets which means a) everybody knows the Packers forced him to go, meaning he lost that round and b) another thing stacked against his success since his teammates and the fans all know he didn’t want to go there. And something tells me a New York media storm isn’t exactly like a Green Bay media storm, so he’ll have that to deal with. So maybe the Packers did find a way to salvage the situation after all. And to top it all off, you’ve subtly sent the message to Rodgers that you have so much confidence in him you sent BRETT FAVRE packing. That’s got to feel pretty good.
So, to summarize, I wish it had never happened but I put most of the blame on Brett. I think the Packers never wanted to upset him but really tried to make the best possible decisions at the time. I think Brett has put them in a tough spot time and time again and yet they have never bad mouthed him. Although I understand why he wants to come back and I empathize with him, I think he has lost a lot of respect and gained very little.
That is all.
Happy Birthday!
Happy Birthday Sara!
Not too many plans for her birthday. We were going to try to go out to eat, but now as it gets closer we are too nervous about Evie crying and stuff I think. So I don’t know what we’ll do.
I haven’t had much of a chance to post in here lately…we’ve been pretty exhausted. We’re still getting used to things and not sleeping as much as we are accustomed to! Nothing new to report really…he days sort of run together!
What happened since the last update? Sara’s mom stayed with us for a week and helped a lot with the cleaning, laundry, meals and dishes. She also found time to do a lot more sewing! What’s left you say? A window seat for the baby’s room, sewing the edges of tons of flanel squares for wipes, re-sewing by hand one of the curtains, and making several throw pillows.
Two Sundays ago I went to the Cubs game for a friend’s bachelor party. Well, I should say I *tried* to go. We saw 3 innings and then stayed in the rain for 2 hours before the game was canceled. There’s $80 down the drain! One friend collected up all the ticket stubs and is going to try to sell the rain checks together, so maybe we will recoup some of that. It wasn’t all bad though, it was fun hanging out with everybody and being inside Wrigley Field for the first time.
Last weekend my mom came. I was worried she would try to steal Evie when she left! 
She obviously enjoyed her time with the baby and also helped with meals and dishes and helped me clean the condo from top to bottom (including bathrooms!). She also made a cake for Sara’s birthday that was delicious. I hope she has a chance to come more often but she is always so busy.
Okay, so let me clear out some items I’ve been saving up.
First off, the British military actually had to send out a press release denying that they released man eating badgers in Iraq!
UK military spokesman Major Mike Shearer said: “We can categorically state that we have not released man-eating badgers into the area.”
Second, this is a little old. Read this article about a bank scare in the computer game Second Life. It is a very strange/scary article because if you ignore the picture it sounds like it could be happening in the real world. But it is a video game!! I don’t know, I just found it odd.
Finally, this is pretty funny. It is 2007 football standings predicted in the form of assigning a Star Wars character to each team. For example, Cleveland is likened to Jawas because “They are small, brown, and constantly trading for junk.”
Guess who’s back….back again (and again and again)
Well, it’s official, Brett Favre is back for another season with the Packers! A lot of people will not understand, but here in Packerland (and by here in Packerland I mean here deep in enemy territory)(I guess I mean Packerland here in my head) we are very exited about this.
I don’t know any other way to explain it than 10 postseason appearances, six division titles, three NFC Championship games, two Super Bowl appearances and one Super Bowl win.
You can say whatever you want about the decline of his playing ability, but he’s still easily better than 1/2 of the QBs starting in this league. So do you go with someone you know for sure is at *least* in the top half of QBs and at best one of the greatest of all time, or do you go with some backup who has never gotten a chance to play?
As far as the Super Bowl this weekend, gooooo Colts! I’d love to see Tony Dungy and the city of Indianapolis get a title, but more importantly I don’t think I can handle living here next year if the Bears win. On the other hand, I would enjoy living here next year if the Bears lose! 
Hmm
Okay, this must be my cat in another life! She doesn’t look that fat, but it’s only because she doesn’t have an unlimited food suply! I can totally imagine her doing that!
In keeping with the animal theme, doesn’t this just totally creep you out??? Dogs should not walk!!
Aaaanyway, not much going on here. Didn’t really do much for my birthday, just went out to eat. Going to my mom’s for her birthday next weekend. Sara’s parents are coming first week of Feb. and her sister is coming a different weekend in Feb. Going to lunch with Dabuki tomorrow…havent seen her in awhile. There is tons of stuff to do around here, but we just haven’t been able to get things done lately it seems like.
Great football games last weekend and this weekend! That Colts/Ravens game was just fantastic.
Does drinking by yourself mean you are an alcoholic? Even if it’s during the playoffs??
Obligatory post while I’m watching football
Since I always post while I’m watching football, I felt the need to do so now.
Nothing much to report. Been very busy with all the traveling over the holidays and everything. We had a good time, saw everyone in our family. Everything’s good here.
I thought I would have something to say, but I guess I really don’t!
I grew a huge viking beard.
quick update
It sure is nice having football start so early here in the Central Timezone. Here it is only 10:00 and the game is already almost over!
Went home for the weekend and said goodbye to Rachael before she goes to Japan. We played some games with my mom and then on Sunday we went to see Reid’s baby Lillian. She’s a really good baby! I think she has more hair than me!
Best quote of the weekend:
(I was beating up on my mom in a game of Acquire)
Mom: “Shane, you are an S.O.B.”
Sara: “What does that make you then?”
I also want to say that Fort Wayne has some sucky grocery stores! We had a recipe we wanted to make for my mom and we went to THREE DIFFERENT grocery stores trying to find fresh shrimp (not frozen) and a box of green and white fettuccini and couldn’t find them. Finally at the 3rd store we were like, “okay fine, I guess they don’t have it, I guess we can just get some gnocci and vodka sauce” and they didn’t have THAT either!! Those things are not that exotic, I didn’t think we were asking for much. It didn’t even occur to me that there was a possibility that they might not be there.
Fantasy Football Draft #1
Ah! The first draft of the season is now in the books. Is there anythng better than fantasy draft day? This was my work league, so everybody got together at Mike’s house and I just joined via Vetrilo. It wasn’t as good as being there, but it was a lot better than just going over AIM or something. I feel really good about my team, but overall everybody drafted this year. In the past there had been a lot of people who were doing it for the first time, but this time everybody did pretty well, other than Steve who just took Eagles’ players. What a homer. Anyway, here’s my team (8 man league):
Round. (Overall Pick) Player
1. (1) S. Alexander
2. (16) L. Jordan
3. (17) T. Owens
4. (32) C. Chambers
5. (33) A. Crumpler
6. (48) P. Burress
7. (49) C. Taylor
8. (64) D. Culpepper
9. (65) D. Foster
10. (80) D. Bennett
11. (81) D. Stallworth
12. (96) K. Warner
13. (97) E. Wilford
14. (112) New York
15. (113) S. Graham
16. (128) D. Rhodes
Yeah, that’s right, I had #1 overall. That was really tough this year, but I took Shaun Alexander. I don’t care to explain why, IM me if you really want my reasons.
Now let the season begin!
Clearing house
::sniiiiiiiiiiiifff:: Ah, I love the smell of football in the morning!! It’s just preseason, but still. I’ve got a fantasy draft in only a week! Ironically I still haven’t received my winnings from my league last year. Damn you Dave Brown!
I’m going to take this opportunity to share a ton of links:
You have to go watch this video of the “Time Fountain”. It’s a really simple concept, but it looks way cool. Basically drops of water fall and you can adjust the speed of the strobe lights such that the drop of water looks like it’s falling in slow motion or even falling up! Watch the video, it will make sense.
So Heinz is letting you order custom ketchup bottles now. I have no idea what I’d put on a label, but it seems like an opportunity for hilarity to ensue. I don’t know if I want to eat ketchup any other way. Too bad Alexis and Jen are both already married, this strikes me as the perfect Pittsburgh wedding favor!
Do you ever get tired of playing boring ‘ole Rock/Paper/Scissors? Why not spice it up a bit? This version has 25 total symbols, including Nuke, Alien, Cockroach and Dragon. Here is a cheat sheet to explain how the whole thing goes together. I would think you would need it, it seems so complicated that I don’t know how anybody could effectively play it, although it may add a bit more strategy to the whole thing.
I’m sure we’ve all seen cool illusions like this before, but they never cease to amaze me.
Okay, I probably came across Zombo Com about 4 years ago, but it still remains one of my favorite websites. I can’t believe I’ve never shared it on here before, or maybe I have and I just couldn’t find it. I’m fairly certain that they could pretty much get me to do whatever they want, it’s so hypnotizing! “Welcome to Zombo Com! WELcom to ZOMBO COM!”
Speaking of hypnotizing things that I can’t stop watching, how about Slow Batman, another fine webpage from “you’re the man now dog”.com. After listening to it for awhile, check out the web address….you have to admit there has never been a more aptly named webpage.
Finally, I will leave you with these fine instructions on how to turn a tee-shirt into a sweet ninja mask!
This is not the money you’re looking for…
Okay, I know I’m a few days late on this, but this is one of the greatest stories I’ve ever heard!! Basically, a couple of armed guys tried to steal David Copperfield’s wallet and he thwarted them with magic! Of course he did. Don’t screw with David-freaking-Copperfield! He should have been like, “How are you going to escape with no getaway car?” and then *poof* their car disappears. Someone at work pointed out that if this was the 80s, Copperfield would get his own crime-fighting cartoon show.
So Sara is on her way to Chicago for a job interview and also to look at apartments. This is the one and only job that’s seemed interesting in the past 4 months or so, so hopefully it goes well. I’m not worried though…apparently the interviewer asked her boss, “What do we have to do to get her out here?”
So today was the annual Tredyffrin Library book sale. Paperbacks are 3 for $1 and hardcovers are $1…seriously, it’s better than Christmas. So, with no Sara to interfere and rein me in, I bought 26 books! This is kind of a problem because I still haven’t read all the books I got for Christmas yet and also because we’re moving, but hey! Buying 26 books would have cost me over $200 regularly, and instead they cost me $15!! I also bought 4 books for Sara, so hopefully she’ll like them.
They had this book set there written by Vince Lombardi. It was SOO cool! It was actually written by him and it’s about how you play the game of football, including hand drawn diagrams about how certain plays should work. It was full of full page color pictures of old school Packers like Bart Star, etc. It was leather bound and in a protective box. It was the coolest thing, but unfortunately it cost $50. 
I couldn’t justify that, so I didn’t get it. It would make a great present though!
Finally, today is the day of the NFL draft! (How was that for a segue from books to the NFL?) The Packers have never drafted this high as far as I can remember (basically because they’ve never been as bad as they were last year as far as I can remember!) so this is more exciting than normal. All of the pre-draft analysis is completely asinine, but despite that I’m still looking forward to it. However, every year I’m all excited and then after a few hours I’m like, “Oh my god, could this BE any more boring.” We’ll see how long I make it this year.
That is all.
Superbowl Drinking Game
http://www.noobsports.com/2006/02/official-noobsportscom-super-bowl_01.html
Highlights include:
- Every time they say that Jerome Bettis is from Detroit, or mention something about him coming home.
- The announcer refers to Willie Parker as “Fast Willie Parker.”
- Whenever an announcer mentions that Hasselbeck is bald.
- Whenever the announcers refer to Big Ben’s career record (regular season and playoffs).
Any my personal favorite:
- The announcers say that Mike Holmgren looks like “a walrus.”
Ah, Sunday
I’m writing this post from my new football command post in the spare room with my desktop and the small T.V. It’s everything I hoped it would be! AND the Packers game is actually on T.V. here in PA since they’re playing the Stillers.
Ugh, the Packers. What a mess. They’ll be lucky to win another game this year. It’s gotten so bad that they had to pick up a WR named Taco! No seriously: Taco Ordered (their title not mine, I can’t take credit).
I’ve been working overtime the past few weekends and this week was no excpetion. I don’t mind though because I get a lot done and I get paid for it too. But one thing that makes work a little more bearable is konfabulator. You install this program and then you can download widgets which do all kinds of things. Each one is sort of like a little specialized web-browser window. For example, I have one that showes me football scores, one that showes me the weather, one that gives me a daily Dilbert cartoon and one I can double-click for a Napolean Dynamite sound clip. How can you beat that??
So next weekend is going to be awesome. Sara’s friend from home is visting her brother in Baltimore so we’re going to go hang out all day followed by a Ben Folds concert!! It’s going to be a cool concert too, he’s playing with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra. I’m excited to see which songs he’ll play.
::sigh:: This is just rediculous
And I’m not even making this up:
“McNair’s Sack Pain Lingers”
P.S. Congrats to my sis for 4 years of not eating meat. If you’re into that sort of thing.
You just can’t make stuff like this up
How’s this for a football headline:
Johnson unhappy with how little he was utilized
Great football headline
Buccaneers: Cox out for week two
Interesting strategy, I’m not sure how it helps in football…
Damn you Detroit Lions
First you beat Green Bay in the season opener robbing me of my dignity, but then you break Javon Walker and screw the Packers over for the whole season!!
Damn you!!
Posts
Recent Comments