Who Dat? Geaux Saints! (Dedicated to Carey Alice Tews)

First, congratulations for the New Orleans Saints on winning the Super Bowl. I wanted them to but didn't expect them too. I'm glad because they deserve it, and dare I say are entitled to one. In spite of their mostly crappy defensive showing at the game.

(I have lots of pictures but they may not be on Flickr for a few days.)

As late as Thursday morning I was still unsure I could go to the game. I was told I might have ticket(s) available to me but not where or how many or even a guarantee. I wasn't worried because even if I had one, I knew some other people who were going to the game. I ended up going -- if you know where Evan usually sits, it was two sections over and five rows higher: just under the scoreboard on the far side even with the sideline. Pretty much the worst seat in the house. But, it's the SuperBowl. I wish I had gotten a ton of tickets because I had lots of friends who wanted them, but my Dolphins rep said I was lucky to get even one ticket considering the waiting list had over 5,000 people on it for just a few hundred tickets for the home crowd. Most were singles scattered about the arena. Again, it's the SuperBowl.

I ended up going in one car with Evan. With parking passes at $75 for the parking all the way at 199th Street and the Turnpike in the lots on either side of the Turnpike, two cars was a joke. The closer lots were $250 and $500. He was due at my house at 10am, but arrived at 930. We went to breakfast at Original House of Pancakes, then to Publix to buy food thanks to the slight relaxing of the no-tailgating rule. We then went back to my house to load the car.

We left my house a little after 11am, arriving at the stadium parking area near noon. The lot wasn't that full despite having opened at 11am. It didn't get full until close to 1pm. Note to self for next time. We ended up having a French Canadian park next to me, and I only point it out because after the game he was pissing on my tire. Seriously. (Evan claims it was the tree near my car, but I disagree.)

We prepared to go in, ditching all camera cases, binocular cases, and everything else that was on the banned list. The list that they changed three times this week. Not cool. We finally decided to go in to the fan area and kill time as you can only sit in the parking lot and be bored for so long -- without a tailgate it's just not so fun. And we kept getting pestered by people selling legitimate items (lanyards, programs) and counterfeit items (hats. T-shirts, towels, lanyards).

We went in, got in the security queue. They first make sure you have a ticket, then they glance at your for obvious no-nos such as large bags, coolers, mortar shells. Next up they check your ticket again, make you throw away all food, water, etcetera (in spite of the instructions saying sealed bottles of water were okay). Then you get patted down. Then you go through airport style security. I emptied my pockets and threw everything into the bucket as instructed. Went through, all was well. Evan's belt buckle (smaller than mine) kept setting it off so he got a hand-wand search. We collected our stuff and went through. Only then did I realize in my other pocket I still had a pack of 4-AA batteries. Nice job by the metal detector. Fail. They were handing out Pepsi Max Zero for free on the way in.

We then went to the port-a-john which was repulsive by any description. I only mention it because you figure the NFL which is so image conscious, might have had someone there to clean them. After that, I showed Evan the Super Bowl Ring collection (see ProBowl post). We meandered about, watched the tail end of the Daughtry concert (from behind the stage as we didn't have a ticket). Next we went into the shlock shop merchandise store. Sadly they had nothing left in my size. Judging by the $35 t-shirts, $80 and $130 polo-shirts, and $150 hoodies,  and $600 jackets walking out the door, you'd never know the economy was in bad shape.

After that we went into the stadium where our tickets were check again. We wandered a lap around the lower bowl peeked out into the Stadium and shot some photos. I found an $80 shirt in my size that should have cost $25 tops but I bought it anyway. Then after that, we went up to our bowl where we took a lap or two. A number of Saints fans were thanking us for our city showing them hospitality. (I should mention that we didn't coordinate it but both wore Dolphins stuff -- maybe 20 people in the arena did). I like the Saints fans and it's cool to hear those Cajun accents.We eventually worked our way to our respective seats.

In the arena, they showed a tape of parts of the Daughtry concert and also the Steve Winwood concert. Later, there were warm-ups and finally Queen Latifah came out and sang American the Beautiful. She was followed by Carrie Underwood performing the National Anthem. So boring a singer is she. They should have reversed them. That was followed by a fly-over by F18's (I think they were anyway). Then kickoff. One fan mentioned the stars were aligned for a New Orleans win, and I hoped he was right.

We were in the Saints half of the stadium -- most of the tickets clearly went to the Saints organization. Maybe 90/10 Saints fans. Oddly, in the Colts section it was 70/30 so the stadium was very Saint heavy. I never want to hear ""Who dat? Who dat? Who dat say dey gonna beat dem Saints? Who dat? Who dat?" again. Ever. Seriously. The guy next to me (left) was ornery as hell. He became more and more friendly as he consumed more and more beer. I think his wife grew jealous because as he got drunker and drunker he kept hugging me (something I don't like strangers to do). She was pregnant and he was very happy I gave her my fries when she got tired of the glacial concession lines. On the right side I had two Eagles fans. I mentioned my long-suffering friend Tom and we talked Jeff Feagles, Pumpy Tudors, and Donovan McNabb.

Q: Why is Donovan McNabb always shown eating his Campbells Chunky Soup straight from the can?
A: Because he chokes every time he gets close to a Bowl!

Thanks to the Eagles fan for that fine joke. Halftime was The Who in a spectacular light, laser, and fireworks show. Evan and I took lots of pictures and I'm glad he did too because this is when my batteries died and replacing them in the dark was difficult. Two minutes may not sound long but for a ten minute show it is.

The Saints decided to play football the second half, thank the football gods. Their defense was still weak but overall it was a more balanced game. If their defense had played harder it could have been a blowout. I felt very detached from the whole game and it was a bit tiring since our entire section stood the entire game. As the game ended, with about 30 second to go, Evan and I headed down stairs trying to stay in sight of each other as we made our respective ways to the down ramp. We made it to the bottom of the stadium ramp at about 10pm and ran to the car. Because of some fancy and possibly illegal driving we got home before 11pm.

I'm tired so I'm not posting more but thought I'd get that first post out there.

Never Get Into A Battle of Wits With An Unarmed Opponent

I'll say it again. Most hockey fans in South Florida are bags of wind who don't know shit. Some are very knowledgeable (Bill M) whose Facebook page this came from. Bill and I often agree and sometimes don't. But he knows what he's talking about. I've removed all last names except mine and the idiot I wish to mock. I've also removed posts unrelated to the topic at hand. But what's here is not edited.

A good fan of any sport will make impassioned statements of opinion. That's cool. You should. Sports journalism is somewhere you actually get to throw opinion into your story. I'm all for it, and when I wrote for LCS I did the same thing. However, if you're going to state something as a fact, you best be ready to back it up. And if you're going to issue a challenge, you better make sure you have it right.

I took umbrage at Shawn Morin's statement because it's a direct attack on me and my integrity. Fortunately, Shawn is a blowhard with, apparently, no hockey knowledge because he'd have kept his mouth shut if he had any. So I've marked in purple where he insults me. Now, you will see I have included opinions that do not agree with my own, because not everyone agrees with me. I don't mind that. But Shawn opened his mouth. Then, he throws down the gauntlet of a challenge also marked in purple. Conveniently, because he's a lazy fan, he didn't do any research at all. First, as a writer, I could use my own name as a legitimate reply to his absurdist statement. But, it so happens I had recently made fun of J-Blow's work ethic -- he's a lazy player, plain and simple, and his hockey sense is often weak -- and in that I had referred to a writer at CBS Sports who had the same opinion. That's a second writer and the one I used to shut his sorry ass up. Of course, that writer referred to another writer at TSN who also had similar comments.

So, Shawn Morin is the exact sort of sports fan that makes people in Florida look like asses. As much as I hate fans of the Rangers (or Leafs and so on), I just don't have this sort of problems with them. We never agree but I can have an intelligent conversation with them. It's sad because he's not alone. I'm picking on him because he happened to open his mouth and spew his ill-informed thoughts at me. I use the term "thoughts" loosely. I find hockey fans in this market to be generally either Pollyannas with no grip on reality, or worse blowhards full of 'facts' that just aren't facts. It's why most fans in our market are blasted, and they are right. I would like to offer up Shawn as a sacrifice.

Bill M: All you Panthers fans trashing Jay Bouwmeester and wishing him ill-will upon his return are playing right into his hand. I say kill him with kindness. Or better yet, indifference. Let's treat him like just another random visiting player. After all, that's all he is. We have much bigger concerns around here.
Evan B: Sorry Bill, we upgraded our seats in order to trash the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man.
Murphy B: I felt bad about sincerely wanting to boo him down the stretch last season when he tanked on us... I am booing him with a clear conscience tomorrow night. No disrespect meant to anyone.
Josh B: When he was a panther, he was a customer at the drycleaner I work at. He attempted to run me over with his pickup truck once because his suit had a stain we couldn't get out. Ever since then I've been booing him. Even when he was on the panthers
Brian M: Yeah but I would run ya over if I had the chance and you never touched my clothes lol. But to the point. Like him or not he is a very good player and was a big part of the good play we had last season. I'm with Bill on this one. Moving on like he did was just business.
Eric Seiden: @MurphyB unlike you My disrespect to J-Blow is intended and I'm proud of it. @BillM treating him like this is returning the favour he paid us by not making any effort to play in our playoff run @Brian, sorry dude. You're totally wrong. He's not a good player which makes the heckling feel all that much the better.
Shawn Morin: Eric if you don't think jay is a good defenseman then how can anyone take anything you say seriously... (There's where the idiot opens his mouth to insult me)
Dylan R: i think hes a great player.. but he is full of himself.. quit on the team.. as did Martin the GM last year did. cowardly acts. im sorry.. but .. .like any other fans or players that come to town.. hes gonna be another one to bite the dust as the song goes.
Bill M: I'm disagreeing with you that he "tanked" on us last season. That's ridiculous. Underachieved? Yes. But the whole team failed to come through under the pressure and the heated competition. Playing poorly on purpose would be a physically dangerous thing to do. I don't think he did that.
Eric Seiden: @Shawn, lots of people do. That you don't is your problem. However I don't feel the need to insult you. Jay's stats speak for themselves. Look 'em up. He's an underachieving, whiny, marshmallow. @BillM I didn't say he tanked. I said he didn't make any effort. In fact I can't say that he did anything.
Shawn Morin: Eric. Find me a hockey writer who thinks jay bouwmeester is a bad defenseman. And the panthers lost the playoffs in Nov-Dec last season. (Here's the idiot's challenge)
Eric Seiden: @Shawn URL HERE  (There. CBS Sports. I accept your apology, Shawn.) If you want to argue hockey, we can. But Mr Murphy's blog isn't the place. There's plenty more to back my side but you said to find one. I didn't even need to look further than my OWN writings to find links. Oh, yeah, I was a sports writer for three years. BTW, Brown's article links to others.

Yeah, so there ya' go. The nice thing about a personal blog is I get to rip on idiots. Shawn Morin is an idiot. I've stopped reading that thread and I certainly apologize to BillM for anything in that which may have bothered him. In theory, Shawn is his friend which is why I walked away after my last post. Unfortunately, I should have never gotten into a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent. (Yeah, never piss off a writer, especially one with an audience. Ask Alan Price.)

I heard back from Roto-Rooter today. I got a very, very long apology. They explained what went wrong and said they'd be willing to send someone out at a specific time. I declined -- had they offered me a hefty discount I might have reconsidered. I explained "never again" means what I said. What I did find commendable was that they actually listened to the recorded conversations that I had. They know what went wrong and who was responsible. And they definitely agree that their response to "I'm calling to cancel" which was "okay" was most certainly not okay. They thanked me for complaining so they could fix it so nobody would ever go through that again, and we had a brief discussion about the SuperBowl.

Speaking of the SuperBowl I have a ticket. I am going. No idea why I'm putting myself through that ordeal, but I will have fun. Especially if the Colts lose. Geaux Saints (dedicated to CAT).

Panthers Autograph Session (And Idiot Roofers)

First, I had a fight at work today with Murton Roofing. I was already in a bad mood because of last night's incompetence with Roto-Rooter*. We have a roof at work that was installed 2004 by Murton Roofing. It has a 20 year warranty (2 years with Murton and the rest with GAF who made the roof). We also had that extended by five years by having a special inspection done to get their diamond protection. A year ago, the seam / expansion joint had a leak and it was fixed in April 2009 by Murton. The roof started leaking again Monday in the same spot. The roof is under warranty. We called GAF. They sent Murton out to look at the problem. So far everything's okay.

The inspector guy comes down with his digital camera and shows me pictures of the seam and it's clearly a mess. He agrees it's a mess. He says, it's not covered. Why? Wait. Wait. Wait.  Because whomever fixed it last time did a really bad job and they won't fix work done by other people. I explained to them that nobody else has done work and why would we pay someone else to do work on a roof that is pretty new and covered by a warranty. Logic doesn't work well on stupid people, apparently. He said his boss would call me to discuss it.

We called GAF and their response is that they were told Murton didn't do the shoddy work. Unfortunately for Murton we have a copy of their work order proving they did. Only, despite promises, nobody at Murton has called us for two days. This is beyond my ability to understand. I gave it to the lawyer and said "sic 'em" -- we need to slap them down now so they understand I have zero tolerance for stupidity. Seriously, they make Bush Junior look like a rocket scientist. You all know me. How often am I at a loss for words?

Still no Super Bowl tickets. Face value or I ain't going. I'm close though.

Back to normal news. Today was the official autograph session for the Florida Panthers. Much like last year's this was remarkably well organized. As last year there were some food give-aways (chips and ice cream).

You came in (opened a bit late), walked through Pantherland in case you wanted to spend money, then checked in. I checked in my group of one and Greg's kids while he bought a poster to be signed. They give you a team magazine to use to collect autographs. We were near the front of the line so it went pretty quick. This year the players were in numerical order instead of alphabetical because that's how the magazine was ordered.

They started the actual signing a few minutes early (yay) and you could have one personal item to have signed in addition to your magazine. My official one item was the Clemmensen gloves (picture now on Flickr) but I was wearing a plain hat and my Vokun jersey. I got all the players to sign the magazine and the hat except for the two goalies mentioned before where they signed my item only. I got Vokun to sign my jersey after I took it off at his table -- actually it was a re-sign since his old signature had faded away. I put it back on. Clemmensen was pretty happy to see I had bought his gloves and actually hauled them back for him to sign. I only asked him to sign one, but he volunteered to sign both of them without me asking so I took the other out of the bag. I explained they made me buy the set. He told me how he had them custom made and we talked for a moment before being shooed along.

Most of the players were friendly, chatty, and signing full names when we came in. I'm sure the autographs would continue to get messier. There were some 500 people there (2 signatures per person mind you). A few were less chatty, other awkward, and some bored. Only one was downright surly. I tried to give most of the guys some happy words of encouragement. I made sure I thanked every single player -- sadly many fans didn't. Done from time in to time out in about 40 minutes.

Greg decided to terrorize the last signer in line: Stanley C Panther, the mascot. He asked for a hug and Stanley clicked his fingers together as if expecting money. Greg said "but that makes you a prostitute" and I threw in, "No, that makes you an ice cat**." Stanley laughed. I got my program signed and asked him, again, why he doesn't skate. He got frustrated and wrote me a note saying I must not come to all the games. I said I mostly did and only saw him skate once. He signed my program on the cover too, we shook hands and that was that. (The whole Stanley bit was caught by the official videographer.)

Then I stood in line next to John and Liz (who were about 30 people behind us) and chatted with them as they waited their turns. Liz forgot to torment Barky*** about his picture. We left and went to Stevie-B's for dinner and ran into DavidW from my message board. After that we went to Ice Cream Club, then parted company. And traffic wasn't the nightmare it would have otherwise been.

Then we have this link of the twelve most insane things you can buy on the Internet. They are crazy, but I'm sure we can all think of worse. Maybe.

And the greatest quote of its kind: "I wish my lawn were emo so it would cut itself." That is just perfectly awesome. I wish I knew who really made this one up.







* Shout out to Andy Marquez for offering up his plumber. Hopefully he'll squeeze me in tomorrow. Roto-Rooter did reply to my testy email. "You can expect to hear from XXXX or someone from his office within the next two business days. I hope this can be resolved to your satisfaction." If they don't go out of business, I can't imagine they will do anything to my satisfaction. I'm going to pay someone else -- even if it's more -- because they suck.
** Many people have impugned the Ice Cats (our "cheerleaders") and made comments about them. Thanks to Evan we now know you can, indeed, buy them by the hour as many have long suspected. Here's a scan from the Panthers themselves as proof. 
*** Barky? If you're wondering what the deal with the famous Radek Dvorak avec chien picture is from which is nickname is derived, you can see it for yourself. This is the infamous photo in the 1999-2000 season calendar from the September page. I've scanned it in, cropped it, and added a caption. It was and is much talked about to this day.

Roto Rooter Sucks: DO NOT USE THEM

This was just emailed to Roto-Rooter

Dear Sir/Madam/Etc:

You may notice it's 10:28pm as I write this. Why, you may ask? Good question since my appointment was at 530pm.

I called you guys on Saturday and set up an appointment for Tuesday from 530 to 730pm. I'm a long-time customer and I gave you, in advance, a list of all the work to be done. That would take about 3 hours.

I arranged to leave work early so I could be home in time and I arrived at 505pm. At 715pm or so you called and said he'd be 30 minutes late. I never got another update, so I called at 830pm, was put on hold for 9 minutes (my phone has a timer) and then disconnected. I called back and got apologies and was told he was running late. The apology was weak and I asked for a supervisor and spoke to a nice guy.

We spoke, I explained the situation. He apologized and said that the tech had to move a tub or something like that. (You only have one tech?) He aid the guy was the same one who did my last job and that made me happy. He said he'd find out the story and an ETA and call me back.

He didn't call me back but he had a lady call me and say the guy was wrapping up and on his way. It's 1028pm. Nobody came and at 1015pm I called you and said I wanted to cancel. The lady said "do you want to reschedule" and I said "I'll never use you again." Her reply "Okay"

That is some fine, upstanding, excellent customer service. I am sure you're proud of it. Tomorrow, I will call a reputable plumber who will show up. And I will never use you again. The best part is I will tell everyone how excellent your service is. (And since I decide on the plumbing contractor we use at work, you've lost my company's business too. Lucky you -- two for the price of one.)

You know, I understand 'shit happens' -- but Roto Rooter is a national chain. They show (via Google) over a half-dozen offices in Dade and Broward county. They only have one technician working? ONE? They have nobody who can call regularly with status updates? They think sending someone after 10pm to do 3+ hours worth of work is a good idea? Why would anyone put their trust in these folks? (I don't impugn the quality of their actual work, mind you -- just their customer 'care' attitude.)

I'm looking for a plumber that doesn't suck. If you live in South Florida and can recommend one, email me. I will, otherwise, begin my search tomorrow. I am very irritated.

What is the purpose of an appointment with a two hour window when they're three hours late and still haven't shown when I cancel? Why is it my job to keep calling them to find out where the tech is? Why is that okay?

In happier news, Ed Rice shares this URL with me entitled "The Greatest Story Ever Told" -- good for a laugh.  And relating to my often amusement with Led Zeppelin fans, I present The Onion's take on the Led Zeppelin's fanatical fan base. Good for a laugh also.

In other great amusing things "Team Logo Urinal Pucks" when used as a Yahoo Canada search term lists my blog as number one. Well, at least Michael Yormark will be pleased.  This blog is rated number one in some useful areas, "Led Zeppelin Sucks" being one of them (they don't suck for the record) as well as some medical posts and other things. That one, however, is just very amusing.

I posted a Pro Bowl picture of Karen and myself over at Flickr for those interested.

Weekend Update (Slightly Late)

I saw the Pro Bowl Sunday. Let me tell you how fun it was. ..... Well, there ya' go. It was an experience that doesn't come around very often, so I felt obligated to try it once. The tickets were relatively inexpensive, my seats were good, and I wanted to see what it was about.

Evan's Blog sums it up nicely. Since we went together, it'll save me a lot of typing. Karen and I left about 10 minutes before Evan. And another thought on Shane's backpack. Shane is 6 and while he's been known to terrorize people, he's not a terrorist threat. Oddly, inside the gate if you bought a program (I didn't) it came with a free HUGE tote-bag. The point being, they opened Shane's backpack, every single pocket, found nothing in it of any issue. Then they told his parents he couldn't bring it in. Absolutely stupid.

The "Fan Experience" was boring as all Hell. There were a few neat things, though. They had the Vince Lombardi trophy. Never saw it in person before. Unlike the Stanley Cup, they don't let you close to it so you can't touch it or take your picture with it. And it's ugly. They had a nice exhibit on the history of the ball itself, the NFL logo, and they had one of every SuperBowl ring. That was some impressive hardware. Other than that, my experience matches Evan's so read his blog post. Now that I know what happened beforehand, I know why he was Mister Grouchy Pants. After I got home I read half of my new book Iorich the new Steven Brust masterpiece in the Vlad Taltos trilogy until I couldn't keep my eyes open.

I won't discuss the Monday night Panthers loss as it was sad. At least we played hockey and lost as opposed to our usual losing. We still have some tickets for our special group outing to give Jay Bouwmeester (J-Blow) a very special welcome home.

After the game, I came home and finished reading Iorich. I did that at the expense of sleep but it was well worth it. This, the twelfth Vlad book, is one of my favourites. It's a light read, to be sure, but it's got lots of personality and Vlad is very 'himself' and Brust is in his groove. We also get to spend a little time with Vlad's son and get to know him. I'm getting a huge sense he's going to be a major character in the next book or two. I'll avoid spoilers except to say Vlad survives the novel so you know the assassins on his tail will still be at it come the next book. I rather enjoyed the chapter openings which are part of military investigation. Also, Brust, in a witty mood to be sure has included "deleted scenes" in the back of the book. Nice touch. Adds nothing, but still.

I still have House and Heroes on my Ti-Faux. And I'll add Lost to what's sitting there since I'm going to spend many hours tonight as the plumber works in my house. More on that later.

Many years after Concorde's fateful crash that took the plane out of the sky, manslaughter trial against Continental Airlines has opened in France. The claim being a Continental plane that was not properly repaired dropped a scrap of metal on the runway which punctured Concorde's tire and that steel belted tire blew apart, puncturing the fuel tank causing the fire. That ultimately led to Concorde no longer flying. Continental claims they can prove the plane was in flames before it hit the piece of metal. (There is no defense that the piece of metal was there. Only whether it was the precipitating cause.) BBC News reports with all sorts of related links.

I wasn't posting this until I was done but Sue is badgering me.

Rick Rolling On The Subway Floor With a Chicken

We'll start with technical stuff. I have patched the Firefox extension Timetracker 1.2.5 to work with Firefox 3.6 -- there was no work done to the code. I fixed the version check line and added a 1 to the version so it read 1.2.51 but it appears to work fine. So if you're waiting to upgrade to 3.6 now you don't have to. It's available for download here. This, like the original, is public domain but all I ask you link to this blog post and not directly to the file, this way if I make changes and the file name changes your link won't break. In an amusing note, after sitting dormant for a long, long time (years), after I made Googlebar work the original author suddenly came out of the woodwork and released a new version. I guess he didn't like someone else messing with his abandoned work. I'm glad. This really isn't my thing. I would encourage everyone to go get the real one and not the hacked one I made.

In more interesting news, a voice from the past contacted me looking to buy my Manatees practice jersey. Not decided on how that will pan out yet, but it was serendipitous because the next day I was looking for a file I had lost and thought I had backed up to a zip cartridge aeons ago. I found the file (yawn) and also found my original Miami Manatees WHA2 web page. I pulled it mid-season when Waronker, the arsemunch, showed his true colours because I had no desire to support someone who makes Michael Yormark look like a beloved saint. I've decided for posterity it should be reinstated, so that's what I've done. I am sure there are errors and omissions and I would encourage anyone who can add to this to e-mail me directly. The pages are here. They aren't in the Google index yet, but I suppose they might be at some point. (There's a photo with a much younger me, Karen, and Timmy which may have been the coolest surprise find.)

I also have a bunch of videos for your amusement:

• First, we have "We Didn't Start The Flame-War" which is a 3 minute video set to the tune of Billy Joel's We Didn't Start The Fire. If you're an Internet Geek you will absolutely love this video. I've watched it four times because it's so relevant. Sadly, I have experience in this sort of thing. No comment.
• Second, we have Nick Pitera's cover of Journey's legendary Don't Stop Believin' which is remarkable for one thing and one thing only. He recorded it twice -- singing both the male part and female part as done in the TV series Glee -- and then ran them together. The result is remarkable. Seriously.
• Lastly, I hate Rick-Rolling. Hate. Hate. Hate. Only when someone does it live, to a Evangelical Christian television station and the first guy doesn't get what's happening, then, well, it's pretty funny. Kudos to the host who did get it for handling it gracefully.

That should cheer the lot of you up. At least if you have an odd sense of humour like me. And by odd, I mean a story like this amuses me. "New York City's transit agency is investigating a video posted online that shows a man kissing and snuggling a live chicken aboard a subway." That link is to the story and not the video which I do not want to see.

And lastly, Delta sucks. I am getting really tired of the run-around. After over 10 years, I removed my recommendation of them from my personal page on my website. While I was there, I also updated it because it hasn't been touched in quite a long time. I am certain there are lots of typos.

Lastly, whenever you think my blog isn't subversive, sublime, or funny enough, I direct you to this URL which is a really, really funny blog entry. And oddly, you may wish to read it right after viewing the Flame-War video mentioned above. Allow some time because the comments are almost as funny as the original post. I'm sure this won't be appreciated by everyone because it's definitely a bit skewed toward geek humour, but as far as I'm concerned, that's a good thing.

JD Salinger Buys an iPad. Not.

First, RIP to legendary author and recluse Jerome David Salinger who died today. In an AP story today humorist John Hodgman was quoted as saying, "I prefer to think JD Salinger has just decided to become extra reclusive." Mr Salinger was most famous for introducing world to Holden Caulfield.

Next up, a quick nod to all my Lost fan friends who will appreciate this link that I got from Sue. It pretty much sums up all of our questions. Not only is it done to the tune of Petula Clarke's Downtown making it very catchy, but it's very cleverly done. The complete lyrics can be seen in the "more info" section of the video's description. I love Lost and am excited about its return.

I have been listening to music today. First Monkey: Journey Into The West which was done by the same people as Gorillaz. I still want to see the play in spite of the fact I cannot say I enjoyed the music thoroughly. It was a like a watered-down Cirque production. I am now in the middle of TSO's overwrought Night Castle which I am enjoying a lot more though it's very uneven. After such a long wait, I expected more. This very well could be my favourite album of theirs. After a second listen, I'll know for sure. Then again so did people who bought Guns-N-Roses Chinese Democracy.

I have no new news on the Nucor front but had to share a link to this post about a prospective Nucor job-seeker. It's all to be taken with a grain of salt but this quote stood out "It's a stressful, fast-paced, and dangerous culture driven by greed more than anything else, so be careful if you do get on."*

The buzz about iPad iTampon continues to be mixed and the buzz about the name continues to be universally derisive. However, there's a new survey that portends ill for Apple. You can have a great name and make a lacklustre product do well. You can have a poor name and a great product break free. But can you have a horrible name and an average product and expect to do well? Not likely. Before you click on the link keep in mind that this site is populated almost entirely by Apple's most loyal and faithful customers: people who are predisposed to by the iPad. Only 54% said they would be getting the iSlate, er, iTablet, er iPad with a full 46% giving a flat-out no answer. This might be an Apple failure in the making, like the Apple TV which has yet to penetrate any market in any noticeable way.

And for my friends with a fascination for all sports Canadian from hockey to curling and the CFL, here's an official Canadian government website with a collection of links.

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* Fixed punctuation, spelling, and syntax.