Pod!

Because I can't wait for Toast to post one.

1) Neil Diamond - "Cracklin' Rosie" The Neil Diamond Collection
This song is about getting loaded and is excellent for drunken sing-alongs.
2) Frank Sinatra - "Making Whoopee" Songs for Swingin' Lovers
Now, this is one of the more cynical pop songs ever.

He's washing dishes and baby clothes
He's so ambitious, he even sews
But don't forget, folks, that's what you get, folks
For makin' whoopee

3) Turin Brakes - "Clear Blue Air" Ether Song

Here she comes,
Buzzing through my memory,
Here's the ghost,
Perfume trickles through the...

Air... I need you like air
Water... I need you like water

4) Neil Diamond - "Done Too Soon" The Neil Diamond Collection
This song is fantastic for being simultaneously pretentious and stupid.
5) Stereophonics - "Looks Like Chaplin" Word Gets Around
Kelly Jones probably has one of the top ten rock voices I've ever heard. He's ranked far lower as a song writer, especially a lyricist. If you're not paying attention to the words, they sound fantastic.
6) Led Zeppelin - "Tangerine" Led Zeppelin III
In this wiki entry, you can learn that this is the second song title that references a fruit.
7) The Verve - "Drugs Don't Work" Urban Hymns
This band is most famous for being sued by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards for their hit Bittersweet Symphony where they "sampled" a Stones tune. But the rest of this album is fantastic, too.
8) Alice In Chains - "Nutshell" Alice in Chains Unplugged

We chase misprinted lies
We face the path of time
And yet I fight
And yet I fight
This battle all alone
No one to cry to
No place to call home

Man, that's some uplifting stuff!
9) Cracker - "Dixie Babylon" The Golden Age

I really must confess
Id like to get undressed with you
and though the thought had never really crossed my mind,
oh, but that was a lie so we went along

10) Screaming Trees - "More Or Less" Sweet Oblivion
One of my favorite Seattle Grunge bands. They never made it big. I think it's because they're pretty fugly.
11) Queens Of the Stone Age - "Someone's In the Wolf" Lullabies To Paralyze

Once you're lost in twillights's blue
You don't find your way, the way finds you...

12) Red Hot Chili Peppers - "This Velvet Glove" Californication
Is it weird that this is my favorite RHCP album?
13) Black Rebel Motorcycle Club - "Complicated Situation" Howl

The young must be our sacrifice, they say with crippled grins,
The eyes of youth must lose their way and stumble here within,
So the sleeping children were awoke, in time to haze their eyes,
So it's never known on which they choke's worth books of old and time,

This album is GREAT.

Help me decide. Is this awesome? Or does it suck?

The original cast of Karate Kid get back together for a video to a crappy song that's actually called "sweep the leg".



I'm leaning toward awesome.

I'm pretty sure that our Preznit going to buy it...

... but a 710 year old copy of the Magna Carta is up for auction.

The Magna Carta established rights of the English people and curbed the power of the king. The U.S. Constitution includes ideas and phrases taken almost directly from the charter, which rebellious barons forced their oppressive King John to sign in 1215.

Of course, once the dumbass-in-chief has his grubby mitts on the great charter, he'll take a big batch of white-out (yellow-out?) to the nasty bits about habeus corpus. Because, you know, King John was weak on Terrah.

No time for posting today

Sorry. Don't have anything interesting to say, I'm too busy listening to the new Foo Fighters album for the 3rd time.

In the absence of anything interesting to say of my own, let me post a pic of my little guys at Six Flags New England outside the gates of Thomas Town.

p
When we got to Thomas Town, we immediately boogied over to the replica of Knapford Station and Jonny (pictured on right, but whose eyes I couldn't pry from Thomas for the picture) ran with his sister down the winding path of railings that organize the line for the Thomas the Train ride. His sister navigated the serpentine path all the way to the front easily(the park was near empty). Jonny, however, wasn't so lucky. About two-thirds of the way there, he couldn't take his eye off Thomas as he pulled into the station and walked straight into a metal pole. There he stood for a moment contemplating a newly bloody lip. He wiped it with his hand and examined the blood. Now, I'd expect most three year olds would be retty dismayed at the sight of their own blood, no? And under other circumstances, I'd definitely be expecting an apoplectic meltdown from little JB. But, this is apparently not the case if you're in the middle of a Thomas euphoria. Even a bloody lip couldn't stop him from riding his favorite train. He kept right on running to the front of the line and paid no attention as I dabbed his lip dry with a napkin while he yelled "Thomas, Daddy! Thomas!".

That Thomas the Tank Engine is powerful stuff. Must be all the lead paint on the toys.

sidebar: See, it's the trump card of parenting. Even when you don't have anything interesting to say about yourself, there's always a cute little story about the kids to bore your friends with.

One game back in the all important loss column

Yoo Hoo! Anyone there?

Hello? Red Sox? Anyone home? It's us, the Yankees! We're just two games out of the loss column today and were just wondering if you guys would mind terribly if we kept our major-league-leading streak of winning division titles alive by winning our tenth. Just a few more appearances by Eric Gagne ought to do it. Thanks in advance! Btw, this is what it will look like. See you guys in October!

This piece of art truly sums up how I feel today

Interruption of Service

FYI, I've been mucking around with the Template and what not. In doing so, I inexplicably decided to switch comments from Blogger to Haloscan. I did this despite the fact that it's often a little goofy. They just look a little nicer and I'm superficial like that.

I was surprised to find that the comments that my millions of readers have dutifully typed into little misshapen Blogger windows were subsequently gone. I'm not sure why was I surprised by this - I am, after all, a software engineer.

So, to all my peeps who took the time to comment on my posts, I say this: BWAHAHA! Suckers! Those comments are gone forever! That's what you get for commenting on the crappiest blog in the internet. Serves you right.

I love Shelley Duncan

I'm sorry, I think this is hysterical. I liked it so much, I made my own motivational poster out of it. It now adorns the wall of my cube. Good times.

This Just In

The Giants suck. I have said for sometime that this season could go one of two ways. First, the defense would be better than last year, as they looked in the final three pre-season games, and the team might surprise for a playoff spot. Or, I'll be scouting college players by week 8. After an 0-2 start and a defensive performance that looks like it was schemed by Harry Reid, the Giants are officially bad. The over-under on the team completely tuning out lame-duck coach Tom Coughlin is one week.

Can they get better? Osi Umenyiora sets the bar hilariously low:

Is there any hope that things can get better as they head to Washington next weekend?

"We don't really have a choice," defensive end Osi Umenyiora said. "We're 0-2 right now, we're not going to get any worse, that I can promise...."

Ladies and Gentlemen...The 2007 Giants! We're not going to get any worse!

There is only one good thing to come out of this season. Eli Manning is legit. He played great in the first game (a loss) and well in this one with a slightly-separated throwing shoulder. He may look like a mama's boy, but he's a tough dude. There's maybe only a couple QB's I'd take over him. He's the franchise. Everyone else can go.

A Five-Year old comes to a difficult realization

The following conversation occurred between me and my daughter in the car on the way to catch the bus after dropping my son off at pre-school.

Daughter: Dad, how do babies get out of their mommies' tummies?
Me: [pausing to consider - Truth? or Lie? WTF!] Um, usually they come out of their vaginas.
Daughter: What the heck!?!?!?!
Me: Uh, yeah, sometimes a doctor has to take them out of the tummy, but ususally they come out of the vagina.
Daughter: [dumbfounded]... But, vaginas are so small...
Me: Well, babies are pretty small, too.
Daughter: NOT AS SMALL AS VAGINAS!
Me: [really hoping this conversation is over soon] Yeah, well, you're right. I guess vaginas get bigger when you have a baby.

With that, I was relieved that Emma had no further questions. She quietly pondered the implications of this. I would have loved to know what she was thinking, but was not at all prepared to go into further detail about it. I later called her Mom to let her know she should expect questions along these lines.

I guess the notable thing to take away from this is that, in addition to her increasing understanding of biology, it's pretty clear Emma also has a good understanding of spatial relations. So, that's good.

Slow Down, People

It's raining here on the beautiful Connecticut shoreline. When it rains and I'm driving, I'm always reminded of the words of a guy who was a regular at my Dad's bar.

This guy ran a very busy towing and body shop. During a big Nor'easter snow storm, he like many of the other guy who were out plowing came in for a few pops to shake off the cold. Thinking that icy roads were good for his business, I said, "You should be doing a nice business today, eh, Tony?" He said, "Nah, not in the snow. People stay home. I love it when it rains. People don't slow down."

There you have it, people. Right from a man who depends on you crashing your car to meet his payroll. Driving in the rain seems deceptively safe. It's not. Please slow down.

Happy Birthday to Me

I haven't been checking in much recently. There is just so much going on both at work and at home. It's safe to say that this week that I have been on vacation has been the craziest roller coaster week for me ever, sometimes in a good way, sometimes not so much.

So, instead of commenting on the week, allow me to take this moment to remark upon today, the 38th anniversary of my birth. Happy Birthday to me because I am clearly awesome. My arrival on this earth has been a boon for humanity with my life's work most profoundly affecting the arenas of smart-alec comments, fantasy baseball and software design.

The world would certainly be a lesser place in the absence of me and as such feel free to take a moment to reflect on how thankful you are that I'm here. Go ahead, I'll wait right here.

Right, well, thanks for the kind thoughts. You may now return to pretending to work.

I think we can all agree

That it's about time that the NFL changed it's logo. This one is much better.


Our long national nightmare is finally over.

Lancelot Link

This is funny now. Back in college and after a couple bong hits? REALLY FUNNY. I loved this show.

Michael Vick and the Science of Dogs

I've had dogs at different points throughout my life and never thought much about "the science" of them. They've mostly been just lovable dopes that became part of our family. Probably because we always had "mutts" I never thought much about the breeding aspect of dog ownership. That is, until my mom decided that she wanted a Basset Hound to cope with her empty nest syndrome. We won't discuss the possible implications of the fact that it was to replace me specifically when I went to college.

His name was Newton and he was an excellent beast. He had a willingness to endure all forms of good-natured physical abuse from little kids, such as being forced to wear socks or a hat. He had a sweet nature and was gentle and kind. But, damn, he was funny looking. Some human wanted him to look this way. He wasn't designed by God. He was designed by a bunch of wealthy dudes in France. They wanted him short and with droopy skin and ears to help him track scents. See, the shortness means he's closer to the ground for sniffing. The loose skin and floppy ears supposedly help fan the scent to his nose. Reading that this was what he was bred for, my brother and I quickly hatched a plan to "train him to track stuff". We tied a milk bone on a string, dragged it in a round about way around the yard and hid it. He did it the first time. No training needed. He was literally born to do it. Humans engineered him to do it.

I was reminded of Newton (who also answered to 'Boner'), as I was watching a fascinating show the other day called The Science of Dogs from National Geographic Explorer. In it, they examine the genetic impact to dogs of their many thousands of years long relationship with humans. They talk about the obvious effect of the incredible diversity of dogs as a species and how that hasn't always been beneficial to dogs. They can end up pre-disposed to deafness (Dalmatians), blindness (Briards) and even obsessive compulsive behavior (Bull Terriers). But what struck me most was an experiment they conducted comparing wolves and dogs.

They raised a group of wolves as if they were dogs. This meant, loads of human contact, walking on leashes, etc. The idea is to make the wolves as comfortable with people as dogs. Then they present the dogs and wolves with equal problems. The attached a tasty treat on the end of a towel and put the treat in a cage, with the towel hanging out. Both the dogs and the wolves were able to pull the towel to bring the treat out of the cage and eat it. Then they attached a stick to the towel so it could not be removed and brought the dogs and wolves again. The wolves worked hard to remove the treat and kept working on their own. They ignored the humans. The dogs tried and eventually gave up and looked at the humans for assistance (Dude, a little help?). They ran a couple other experiments as well (even some where dogs can pick up on human non-verbal communication - like pointing), and the results are the same. Humans are special to dogs but not to wolves. We've bred them to be this way by selecting those who respond to humans better for many years. We've bred them to look to us for help, depend on us and even love us. In exchange they serve us in amazing ways. It's like a symbiotic contract. As a result. dogs are literally (hu)man's best freind in the animal kingdom.

Which, in a bit of a non-sequitor, brings me to Michael Vick. He's pleading guilty to federal dogfighting conspiracy charges and will apparently even serve time in the penitentiary. His co-conspirators have made statements against him and that changed the case.

The co-defendants said Vick bankrolled virtually the entire "Bad Newz Kennels" operation in rural southeastern Virginia, including providing gambling funds, an act that could trigger a lifetime ban from the NFL under the league's personal conduct policy.

Two of them also said Vick participated in the brutal executions of at least eight underperforming dogs.

Facing those allegations and the prospect of a superseding indictment from a new grand jury that began meeting Monday, Vick opted to change his plea.

I'm really glad (and sadly, a bit surprised) that these grotesque acts will be punished. Here we have an entire species of animals that have been domesticated and bred with one purpose only, which is to serve humans. And yet, in a clear example of human depravity, we have a pampered NFL millionaire who will fund an operation which breeds dogs not for companionship or service but to fight each other for his pleasure. When they don't perform, he kills them. Why does he do this? Because he enjoys it. Because it makes him feel more like fucking Scarface. More Gangsta. What a fucking disgrace. All those dogs wanted, even those wild aggressive fighting dogs, is to love a person. It's all "Boner" wanted. It's all my two goofy hounds want. We know this because we've bred all dogs to want that. It's the dog's singularly unique characteristic. Michael Vick, and any other person involved in this kind of obscene activity - pampered NFL superstar or not, is a disgrace to humanity. It's perverse to use an animals genetic desire to serve to make it fight it's own kind. It's depraved and immoral. Mike Vick makes me ashamed of my species. Enjoy the pen, gangsta.

Crime is so totally screwed

Bats II:The Little Winged Bastards Strike Back

Allow me to provide an update on the bat saga. We had a bat specialist out to bat-proof the house. This involves sealing every crack like opening into the upper part of the house and then constructing "bat doors" over the entry points they are using. The idea of the bat doors is that the bats will not be able to get back in after they leave. The Bat Doors are basically funnel-shaped netting that leads away from the entry point (kinda like the reverse of a lobster pot). I know for a fact that it worked exceedingly well. How?

Well, when I brought in a company that specializes in such things to evict my bats, it never occurred to me to consider where the evicted bats might go. I guess I just imagined them flying around my house somewhat frustrated by not being able to get back in. Then, with a tiny bat shrug, they'd take off and move on to someone else's house or a bat cave or something.

As it turns out, that's not how it works. I found this out as I sat down to have a cup of coffee today on my deck. I looked down at our patio table and saw the unmistakable shape of bat droppings. Like a character in a "B" movie, I flashed back to the words of the bat dude (who, BTW, had one of the sweetest mullets ever). "They leave their droppings as they fly out to go eat. Basically, you find the droppings, look up and that's where they're going in and out." I did exactly that. I looked at the droppings on my table. I looked up, there was my closed patio umbrella. We kicked the bats out of my house and they moved into the umbrella. Bastards!

My deck had become a very unappetizing place to have a cup of coffee. Yuck.

I adjourned to my PC desk and fired up the scary Google. You see, in telling and retelling my story to my friends and co-workers, I got two useful tidbits of info. The first a helpful tip I'll share that's useful if you're ever in the same situation I was with a bat flying around the house and a screaming child. The second is a way to reduce my risk of this happening again.

1) If ever a bat is flying around your house, I am told that simply opening a window is not enough. You need to throw something small out of it. Bats, supposedly, are attracted to the motion. I don't know this for a fact. I do know a tennis racket works just fine.

2) If you put up a Bat House in your back yard, the bats are supposedly less likely to go in your house. Bat House? I said? Like a bird house? Yeah, exactly. Unbelievably enough, there are such things. Looks like I'm gonna buy one. The website says if I have a colony of 100 or so bats, I'll get "natural mosquito control". I'll also have the coolest house at Halloween.

You've won this round, you little winged bastards. But the war's not over.

Quick Hits - RIP Scooter Rizzuto edition.

Goodbye, Phil Rizzuto. You will be missed. In fact, let me say I'm already missing you. You were integral to the infancy of my Yankee fan tenure. I loved listening to you. Please let me recount some Rizzuto tidbits.

- When I first started watching the Yanks, Phil was no longer a great announcer. However you were a Yankee institution. But, back in the day, he was pretty darn good and a lot of fun to listen to. Here you are calling Roger Maris's 61st home run.
- You were also enough of an institution that Meat Loaf famously used you as the announcer in Paradise by the Dashboard Light. I always loved hearing how he didn't realize exactly what the song was about. He was just brought in to record a play by play. He did and only later found out how it was used in the song. His reaction? "That Huckleberry!"
- I even miss the Money Store.
- I'll always remember how Phil and many other Major League Players gave up several years of their careers to serve in the military during WWII. Can you imagine Barry Bonds doing such a thing? Hell, you can't even get Kobe to do a slam-dunk contest.
- One time, when my brother and I were watching a Yankee game, Scooter out of nowhere said, "I smell onions." He then became a bit obsessed with where the smell was coming from. He wouldn't drop it. We thought it was hysterical. From then on, whenever the subject of Rizzuto came up, one of us would say, "I smell onions." In fact, here's the email my brother sent me today:

Scooter has gone to the big Yankee Stadium in the sky.

*hangs head*

"Seaver, do you smell onions? I smell onions!"

- Scooter was also a pretty darn good player. He played a very good shortstop even with the gloves like these.


and in 1950, he batted .324, had an OBP of .418 and even improbably won an MVP. Coincidentally, Phil had 112 runs created that season which nearly matched even the magical 1987 season of Jack Clark (inside joke). He'd later get into the Hall of Fame via the "veterans committee" everyone loved Scooter.

Goodbye Scooter. The Yankee fan experience is worse without you. RIP.

Google Frightens Me.

We may eventually be longing for the days of Microsoft's ruthless marketing and licensing practices. Google is starting to freak me out a bit. Because they are so darn good at helping us find things on the web they have become an enormous influence on what we see. This, of course, is completely fair as they've earned that. However, as they continue to expand in every direction, we become more dependent upon them. What if they lose their apparent taste for benevolence?

I came across this tidbit the other day, when Answers.com had to answer their stockholders regarding why their site traffic all of a sudden dropped 28%. Here's what they said.

Answers Corporation (NASDAQ: ANSW) announced today that, due to a search engine algorithmic adjustment by Google, Answers.com has seen a drop in search engine traffic starting last week. As a result, overall traffic is currently down approximately 28% from levels immediately prior to the change.

"We are working diligently to analyze and address the recent algorithm change," said Bob Rosenschein, CEO. "We will update investors on the financial impact of this development during our upcoming Q2 earnings conference call on August 13."

Let's think about that for a second. Here's a relatively small $5 million company who, in the blink of an eye, lost more than a quarter of it's traffic and had it's stock pushed down to a two year low. Wow. That's pretty incredible, isn't it?

So if you're a company that relies heavily on internet traffic finding it's way to your site, you are at the mercy of some spoiled geeks at the Googleplex? Maybe.

Or, is it this really the business model that Google has been planning all along? They built the best search engine and rightly everyone started to use it. Google is a fucking official verb now. They have a huge portion of the mind share related to searching. It's an institutional part of the internet experience. To test that, just imagine if Google ceased to exist. Sure, there are other engines, but Google has almost half of all searches. If they wanted to steer the results in a particular direction for a fee, why couldn't they? If they wanted to steer the results away from a particular place in the absence of a fee (what could have hypothetically happened to answers.com), why couldn't they? Would anyone notice? How often do you run a search in Google, and then again in another engine? Ever done that? Would you know if you were getting slanted results? In many ways, this is potentially more insidious than Microsoft's aggressive OS licensing. Trying to control a desktop that will be obsolete in 4 years is one thing. Controlling a living, breathing behemoth like the internet is another. They don't control the content, they just control finding the content for a large section of the population like me.

Now realize that Google's method is also to continuously expand it's reach into every where that puts faces in front of monitors. Not just that, they've already branched out into 411-Phone information. They're driving around taking pictures of our cats. They're building giant data centers to store the pictures of our cats. The more they expand, the creepier they become.