5 Hour Injury Drink

5 Hour Energy has maybe the worst collection of spokesmen ever assembled:

• New York Giants DE Osi Umenyiora: Missed the entire '08 season with a preseason ligament tear.
• Cleveland Browns WR Braylon Edwards: Had a near-terminal case of the dropsies during the '08 season. Had his second-lowest total receiving yards ever and only 3 touchdowns for the whole year.
• Some loser NASCAR driver I've never heard of: I had to look this guy up, and it turns out he's Rusty Wallace's son. He's never won a race and is still in the NASCAR minor leagues. Oh yeah, and he also has Tourette's. Twitching, energy drinks, and racecars: it's a winning combination!

Goodbye, Paycheck...

...it was nice knowing you. No, I'm not getting fired (and no, it's not because I called in gay.) My problem going forward isn't going to be with receiving a paycheck--it's going to be with keeping it. You see, yesterday, I went to a meeting of my fellow network admins from the various departments at work, and one my colleagues had a cool site to show everyone--a techie site called DealExtreme, and more specifically, their "gadgets under $2 section". It's like iTunes--I start out just after one or two things, but the more I look, the more I want, greedy bastard that I am. Who wouldn't want a double-LED keychain flashlight shaped like a pig? Or a butane lighter shaped like a cigarette? The cigar snobs would FREAK if they saw me light a cigar with that! A 2-in-1 laser pointer and LED flashlight? Two ways to blind people! An iPod cable for $2 and change? I paid over $20 the last time I needed one! And the best part--all of these little toys ship for free. No "$10 shipping on a $5 purchase" nonsense here. So thanks a lot for showing me this site, Steve...maybe I'll come move in with you when my mortgage payment is spent on yet another shipment of cheapo gadgets.

3 Sixes

I've been tagged--challenged by Squidly to post the 6th photo from the 6th page of my Flickr stream. So here it is--an action shot of a Rangers game I was at nearly a year ago.



According to the way the game works, I'm supposed to tag six more bloggers to do the same, but like Squidly, I don't know that many, and the ones I do know don't use Flickr. Nonetheless, if you guys ever get it, I tag the Brooklyn Blowhard and the Outhouse Times-Picayune to post some pictures.

No, Wait, I'm Here

I have to make a post today--I wouldn't want anyone to think I called in sick. I'd've been at work today if I'd contracted a case of the Ebola virus. I wouldn't want anyone to get the wrong idea. Heck, even the indicted soon-to-be-ex-governor of Illinois made sure to bail himself out of jail and get his ass into the office.

Not that I have anything against the gays. As far as I'm concerned, whatever anyone wants to do behind closed doors is their own business. As long as you don't hit my nose, you just go ahead and swing your arms in big, giant windmills. But Prop 8 is a different story entirely. That was a referendum--perhaps the purest form of democracy there is in this country; the ultimate in majority rule. And in this case, the majority decided they didn't want gay marriage, by a 6% margin--in a state the size of California, that's a lot of people! This protest is all about using the courts and/or legislature to overrule the direct, stated will of the majority of the people. And no matter what the issue, that's just un-American.

Party Like It's 1999 (or 1993)

I had a longer drive than usual to my family's Thanksgiving dinner this past weekend, due to the fact that my parents are now happy retirees living in Tioga County, PA rather than Berks County, PA. Fortunately, I had good company for the ride--new albums by bands I used to listen to growing up: Guns 'N Roses, AC/DC, and Metallica. The latter two were and still are two of my favorite bands ever (Metallica's godawful "St. Anger" notwithstanding), and although I wouldn't count G'n'R in the "favorite" category, I usually don't turn the radio off when their songs come on. The results--well, they were pretty much as I thought they'd be before giving them a listen.

Best Overall Album: Metallica - Death Magnetic
Wow, these guys are back in a big, big way. Following the aforementioned piece of crap St. Anger with this is reminiscent of the New York Football Giants winning the Super Bowl last year after losing their first two games in embarassing fashion. This album has a retro thrash-metal feel, getting back to the long, epic songs Metallica was famous for in the '80s. There's even an instrumental composition--they haven't had one of those since "...And Justice For All" (not counting "Ecstasy of Gold" on "S&M"). Even the song I expected to suck (The Unforgiven III--songs don't need sequels, and they definitely don't need second sequels) didn't.

Best Songs: AC/DC - Black Ice
This one was exactly what I expected: fifteen new AC/DC songs with the same great sound this band has always had. You could take any one of these tracks, tack it onto the end of a copy of Back in Black, hand it to a non-AC/DC fan, and they wouldn't know it didn't belong. Great car songs that will be staying on my iPod for a long time to come.

Most Improved: Guns 'N Roses - Chinese Democracy
This group really shouldn't be called Guns 'N Roses anymore--more like "Axl and Friends", since he's the only member left. That aside, there were a lot of songs here that I really dug. Certainly not good enough to justify 15 years of production, but not bad. A very "modern" sound compared to a lot of early G'n'R stuff that hasn't aged particularly well. (Can anyone make it through a complete listening of "Patience" without changing the dial or hitting fast-forward? Didn't think so.)

These are all worth a listen, but ranking them is more a matter of personal preference than anything else. For me, I'll stick with the new Metallica, but would recommend any of these people like me who were fans of these bands in the '80s and '90s.

The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly: November Edition

Since I've been neglecting the blog updates lately, I figured now was as good a time as any to unveil a new feature that'd catch everybody up on what I've been doing and thinking lately. Of course there's two sections of bitching for every one of positivity, because that's just how I roll.

The Good: Fallout 3 I've been playing obsessively in between drinking binges, work, and drinking binges at work. I'm not going to give it a full-length review (there's a good one over at Squidly.com), but suffice to say that this is the best game I've played in several years. Great story, great voice acting, great graphics (even on a midrange system), and most importantly good gameplay that makes it feel like part of the Fallout family, despite being made by a new development house. Bonus points for moving the setting away from the West Coast (where I haven't been in about 15 years) to the Washington, D.C. area (where I was this past weekend). It's a cliche at this point, but if you only play one game this year.....yeah.

The Bad: Ben Folds - Way To Normal It breaks my heart to have to do this, but one of my all-time favorites has had this coming for a while now. His last album (Songs for Silverman) fell into that category of "OK-but-not-my-favorite", but this one sinks to a whole different level of suck. I committed to listening to the whole thing, but found myself wanting to just turn it off halfway through. Most of the songs are lyrically unrelatable (at least to me) and Folds's normally melodic piano rock is overlaid with obnoxious synthesized sounds through most of the album. I just hope this album is a one-time aberration and not a shift in direction.

The Ugly: The 2008 Election I sure hope I'm wrong about our president-elect. I hope so, but I don't think so. He's vowed to "share the wealth" and his standard of what defines "wealth" gets lower and lower with every press conference. You can't legislate charity, folks. America is the land of opportunity, but it seems like the Obammunists are confusing the definition of "opportunity" with that of "guarantee". And his promises to stop President Bush's new drilling and "bankrupt" the coal industry? Yeah, that's really going to help the economy turn around. I'm praying that I'm wrong and that the next four years go smoothly and successfully...but I think I'm right.

First, Kill All The Lawyers

I was eating my lunch and reading this little gem when I ran across the closing line:

The distraught family said they want to know why the unidentified neighbor was more interested in taking the pictures than trying to get them off the roof.

I want to know why the neighbors would want to try to get them off the roof. Imagine if one of those children had gone kersplat while you were up there trying to get them in. Now imagine the mother's ambulance-chaser(s) coming after you trying to get everything you own after said kersplat. Now thank John Edwards and other anti-tort reformers for giving us a society where doing the right thing just ain't worth it. And keep that in your memory a week from Tuesday when you vote for a new president and Congress.

Baseball Travelin' 2008

Three parks in two weekends. The last day game ever at Yankee Stadium. The first big league homer for a top catching prospect. And the Phillies clinching yet another division title following yet another epic Mets collapse.

And I still haven't gotten the photos up on Flickr because I'm out of upload for the month. At this rate, I'm going to have to go pro sooner rather than later.

Secret Agent Man

Join the Secret Service for a life of adventure, valiantly protecting the life of the President and various other world leaders.

Oh, wait.

Rewrite: Join the Secret Service to dig nickels out of a swamp. Hazardous duty pay for each one you have to clean blood and brain matter off of.

I Got Your F***ing NewsBuster Right Here

I'm a big fan of NewsBusters.org, the blog that exposes liberal bias in the mainstream media (disclosure: one of my closest friends is a former writer for the site; unfortunately, I couldn't find a link to his past columns in a 15 second search). In that spirit, I present this article from Slate (a subsite of MSN): "What's the Matter With Canada? [subtitle:] How the world's nicest country turned mean." They flat-out equate conservatism with "meanness". It's one step shy of putting a thumb on the tip of their nose, wiggling their fingers, and making a fart noise with their tongue out.

Read it (by "it", I mean the language) and weep, folks:

"After decades of encouraging countries to increase their foreign-aid spending, Canada cut its own, from 0.34 percent of GDP in 2005 to just 0.2 percent last year."

Because in a period of economic downturn, it's irresponsible to conserve your national wealth to help your own citizens. Assholes.

"Long a beacon of human rights, Ottawa announced last fall that it would stop advocating on behalf of Canadians sentenced to death in other countries."

Because convicted murderers and rapists, in the age of DNA, when there's seldom any doubt of guilt at all, let alone reasonable doubt, deserve such consideration. Douchebags.

"The Conservatives may not represent the views of most Canadians, but with four parties fighting for the left-wing vote, the Conservatives might win simply by sliding up the middle."

Because the middle consists of ignorant hayseeds whose opinions shouldn't count because they're wrong, wrong, wrong, even if they're in the majority, because they're wrong, right? Dipshits.

I've been done with MSNBC ever since they caved to the vocal minority and cancelled Imus, but I'm now seriously considering being done with MSN altogether, if this is the kind of "news" that they put forth. I didn't stumble across this on a deep search--the article was linked right off their front page tonight. These are the kind of shenanigans that make me think long and hard about changing my start page to ESPN. On all of my computers. And in an election year, that's just sad.

Oh Hell No

I've played Half-Life. I've seen how this story ends.

I've been having trouble sleeping lately as it is. This is going to make me an absolute insomniac.

We've pretty much gotten rid of Castro, and now apparently Kim Jong-Il, and for what? Just in time for the world to collapse in a resonance cascade series of black holes because some egghead forgot to carry a one somewhere.

Liveblog: NFL 2008 Season Opener

Thought I'd try a liveblog here tonight as I get ready to watch the Giants-Redskins opener here. For the uninitiated, that means I'll be posting a series of random and increasingly incoherent thoughts in this post as the game progresses. You can keep hitting refresh for my expert commentary. Newest update goes under this drivel, but above the previous updates.

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0:00 1-0 record, 1-0 division record. Not a bad start to the year. I hope Kiwanuka is OK--he got hurt on the last play and NBC cut over to the convention before they could find out how he is. Guess I'll flip over to ESPN News for Coughlin's press conference. Good night, everyone!

2:00 warning Jim Zorn is completely lost here. I've seen Pop Warner coaches manage the clock better. We got this, boys. We got this.

5:51 Same score since the second quarter, and Tuck just made a FANTASTIC stop following the late hit penalty. My confidence is returning.

10:53 The "meatatarian" Wendy's commercial almost makes me want to become a vegetarian. Almost.

12:55 We're up by 2 scores in the 4th quarter. If you'd offered me that deal at kickoff, I'd have taken it. Offense could have been better, but what the hell.

4th qtr, 14:18 The offensive line is doing their job. If the defense keeps doing theirs, we might just be able to run out the clock on this sucker.

2:14 Long injury time out. Fortunately, it's Fred Smoot and not one of the Giants.

6:30 A promising drive ends with Eli getting picked on a bad overthrow of Boss. And all three of my fantasy teams drop two points. Freaking awesome.

8:33 Three plays later and the Skins are punting, proving my histrionics premature as usual. Pretty literate sentence from me, but I'm only on my third beer since kickoff.

9:32 It's all falling apart as Portis busts off a 20+ yard run. If the Giants lose, this is where it all went to hell.

10:14 Giants' first punt. Not too shabby, but like I said down there, we need touchdowns!

12:50 Wow, he caught that with his yambag. Good thing Tom didn't try to challenge that (not that he would have with 4th down coming up.)

3rd qtr, 15:00 Giants website finally has a chat room back on their website, after a long hiatus. It's not the haven for knowledgeable football fans that it used to be. I'm disappointed.

Halftime and I'm nervous as can be. Taking a break from the liveblog.

0:13 16-7. One bad series pretty much negates a half that couldn't have gone better up till the two minute warning.

1:04 This isn't funny any more. If the Skins get a touchdown here, it'll be eerily close, despite the Giants' first half dominance on both sides of the ball.

1:10 Mark this down: Jason Campbell finally completes his first pass. If you have him on your fantasy team, YOU LOSE!

1:52 The Redskins finally caught a break on poor kickoff coverage by the Giants' special teams. That looked like Fassel's kick coverage teams, not Coughlin's.

2:25 No way was a run play the right call there. Now we have to settle for another FG, and a long one for Carney at that. He got it, though--16-0 G-Men.

4:52 Madden: "Laron Landry is not going to tackle [Brandon Jacobs] high again". Translation: Laron Landry is scared shitless of Brandon Jacobs.

11:03 Giants need to get some touchdowns on these long drives. If they're settling for 3 against the Redskins, what are they going to do against a real opponent?

2nd qtr, 12:43 These Coors Light "press conference remix" commercials are just about played out.

End Q1: The scoreboard doesn't do justice to how one-sided this game has been thus far. The Giants are pretty much moving at will, and the Redskins offense has more yards on penalties than on actual plays.

1:51 Hmmm. I wonder if the Eagles are still paying Jerome McDougle under the table. Nice penalty, jerkoff.

2:49 Redskins false start on the first play of their second drive. FACED on the next play. The 'Skins might be worse than even I thought this year.

2:53 I wonder how much the Giants have to pay for the custom small facebar on John Carney's helmet. I thought sure Morten Andersen was the last guy grandfathered in to use those. Oh yeah--10 to zip Giants. Boo-yah.

4:03 Wow--seven years of Madden and Michaels? Call me old fashioned, but I still miss Pat Summerall.

4:34 Jacobs is a BEAST. That hit he just laid on Laron Landry could make it to "Jacked Up" on Monday.

9:15 First play from scrimmage is a SACK! Justin Tuck isn't going to get through the whole season with that little attention, though.

9:54 TOUCHDOWN G-MEN! Nice drive, but you shudder to see your QB take on a defender and dive for the end zone on first down in the first series of the season. Ask Pennington how bad a shoulder injury can screw your career up.

10:01 And your referee for the evening is Muscles (or is that Mussels) Marinara, aka Ed Hochulie. Nice.

10:43 Heck of a throw and Plaxico is EN FUEGO!!!!~!

10:55 Watch the slapping, Jacobs. We don't need to be knocked out of FG range on a dumbass penalty.

12:20 WOW was the coverage on Burress blown there. The Redskins don't just suck, they su-hu-hu-hu-huck.

1st qtr, 14:00 Nice to see Steve Smith getting looks early. He was an important part of the Super Bowl offense.

Kickoff: Bad blocking by the G-Men on the return. I almost wish they'd kicked off so we could get a good look at the Osi-less D line.

Pregame 3: Strahan calls Giants fans the "greatest fans in sports." Not buying it, at least for the fans at the stadium. In my experience, the fans at the stadium are mostly douchebags who sit on their hands when they should be making noise.

Pregame 2: Also just realized that the game is on NBC, not NFL Network. I'm a mess tonight.

Pregame: When I tuned in NFL Network, I found Usher warbling off-key, so I threw on a Simpsons rerun instead. Would have loved to have caught some pregame but I didn't realize until shortly after 6 PM that the game was at 7:00, not 8:00 due to the Republican convention. Hoping my stromboli gets here before the game starts. Also, really, really hoping for a Giants win. Eli is the QB of all three of my fantasy teams, and I have the Giants picked for a LOT of points in my NFL pick-em pool.