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Blog - October 2003 |
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This page stores my blog entries from October 2003. The entries are dated October 2, October 7, October 12, October 18, October 22, October 27, and October 30.
The PC World Series: The Winner Announced! / My Cy Young and MVP Picks / Voting Done! / Blog Decision 2003: Addendum / Rush Limbaugh Resigns; McNabb to Super Bowl? / Pictures of Me While at Gabe's Thursday, October 2, 2003 My dad and I tend to have fun with the Political Correct (PC) concept. Granted, I know it's important to show sensitivity to certain groups out there, but sometimes the PC ideology can go overboard. We tend to enjoy poking fun at it through sports match-ups. Given that the baseball playoffs are upon us, this is who I believe will win each series, and the World Series itself, based solely on the PC-ness of the team names: National League
American League
And now, the moment you've all been waiting for! The match-up in the World Series will be the Minnesota Twins versus the Florida Marlins. And, the winner will be... . . . .
***** On a more serious note, I thought I'd make my predictions as to who I think will win the Cy Young and MVP awards in each league.
- Cy Young: Roy Halladay, Toronto Blue Jays
- Most Valuable Player: Carlos Delgado, Toronto Blue Jays
National League: - Cy Young: Jason Schmidt, San Francisco
- Most Valuable Player: Barry Bonds, San Francisco
I would have selected Rookie of the Year possibilities, too, except that I have a very hard time judging rookies. Thank you to USA Today's Sports Weekly and Major League Baseball for the stats. ***** I finally got my voting stuff done and ready to be mailed. I truly hate it when I have to vote, since I can never make much of a decision on anything. Recently, I applied (and was accepted) to become a full-time absentee voter. My first ballot under that label will go out tomorrow. I actually read through both Proposition 53 and 54 to see what they actually said. I don't trust regurgitations of such things, and I certainly don't trust one's statements in trying to persuade me towards their view. So, I read through each proposition, and then I read to see if either of the positions posited fit what I read initially. It was a little tedious, but I understood both of them and made a decision. ***** In my previous blog entry (September 29), I mentioned the decision I'll have to make concerning the future of my blog and where it'll reside. I failed to mention one rather important detail. Blogger is certainly one possible blogging tool I could use in the future. For those of you who do not know, Blogger has a feature where I could have it FTP my blog entries to wherever I have my web site. Unfortunately, my web site here at Geocities does not have FTP access. They removed that for the free users. I'm sure I'll figure out something that'll work well. We'll see what happens. ***** In one of the more unfortunate occurrences in sports recently, Rush Limbaugh resigned from ESPN. It's unfortunate only because I know that Rush is a big football fan and must have truly enjoyed the opportunity to do commentary on it. He seemed to be an interesting addition to a normally-liberal-ish sports realm, only to have it cut short by a questionably-phrased comment. I can't say I necessarily agree with Rush with his criticism of the media concerning Donovan McNabb. Sure, McNabb may not have been the best quarterback in the NFL, but there are much better ways to express that he's overrated than to resort to using race relations. Sure, McNabb doesn't have the above-60-percent completion percentage of a Peyton Manning or the passing yards of a Dan Marino, but he still led the Eagles to a couple of very good seasons. Rush mentioned that McNabb's success with the Eagles was tied more to their great defense. Somehow, he needed to provide some stats to support that position. He could have also maybe pointed out a similar quarterback who was more successful and more significant for the team (e.g. Steve McNair). On the other side, I can understand what Limbaugh meant and certainly know he didn't mean it as demeaning to the African-American community or, as pointed out in something I read, discouraging to inspired and dream-filled youths in the A-A community. I just think he possibly had a legitimate point that he failed to adequately (or appropriately) support. ***** Shutterbug and soon-to-be-millionaire entrepreneur Gabe took a few pictures of me and Pam while we were at Gabe and Jen's apartment this past Saturday. He titles his work, "Dog Whisperer." Enjoy! NOTE: The images and writings contained within aforementioned link © Gabe Anderson, Inc. All rights reserved.
Current Results of My PC Selections / Once Upon a Time with Pam Tuesday, October 7, 2003 The Red Sox won! Granted, I doubt they'll make it much farther, but it'd be nice to see a Red Sox-Cubs World Series. For anyone keeping score, that means that my PC predictions put me at 50% success. That's not too bad! <grins> [I probably should have made some serious predictions to see how they would differ. Next time!] ***** Do you realize it's been over a week since I mentioned anything about Pam? <grins> Last Friday, Pam and I went to Willy's Burgers and saw Once Upon a Time in Mexico. Given the recent closing of Tiny's, I felt an interest to check out other local independent hamburger joints. A couple of people referred Willy's to me as a great hamburger joint to me, so I had to check it out. Pam and I both had a hamburger with cheese (mine without onions), french fries, and a shake (hers was a mocha shake; mine a chocolate one). They were very good, though I would rate the mocha shake as being better than the chocolate one. The french fries were slightly crispy with not too much salt on them -- a delicate balance rarely found. The only surprise I had was the size of the hamburgers, which were smaller than I expected. They were still good, and, after checking on the prices, realized that it was rather reasonable. (They're more than the medicre In-N-Out, but better.) If you haven't seen Desperado, then you might want to rent that before seeing Once Upon a Time in Mexico (OUTM). OUTM is the third in a series of three movies by the same director (whose name I can't recall at the moment), and some of the things that are presented and lead up to this movie come along in Desperado. Pam and I both rather liked OUTM. It had a good storyline with rather nice scenery involving Antonio Banderas (Pam) and Salma Hayek (me). I won't ruin any of it for those of you who haven't seen it yet, but some of the same elements that made Desperado such a cool movie come into play in this sequel. Johnny Depp did a great job in his part, too. Saturday, Pam and I arose early to peruse a rummage sale at the Fremont Presbyterian Church nearby. Basically, this sale included different groups (affiliated with the church?) who brought in assorted stuff to sell as a fundraiser. We found nothing of interest, though it seemed rather odd as to the number of canisters of tennis balls people were selling. From there, we bounded off to Manhattan Bagel for breakfast: Pam had a egg bagel with herb cream cheese and a non-fat mocha; I had an egg bagel with cream cheese, a cinnamon roll, and a hot chocolate. We enjoyed the people-watching, with me being approached by an old high school friend a bit before we left. The rest of our day consisted of hopping around to garage sales and collapsing at Pam's house for a bit. Pam defeated me in the garage scrounge, netting a small glass vase (which I bought for her), several books, and a pretty-much-new copy of Trivial Pursuit (though the questions, as we've found recently, are a bit antiquated; West Germany?!?). My snatchings included a few nice binders and a large poster of Brandon Lee from The Crow. One place had assorted software, including an older Adobe package (included Acrobat 4.0, Illustrator, Photoshop, and something else) and an older, apparently-shrink-wrapped copy of Corel Suite (which included Corel Draw). They wanted $2 each for them, which seemed incredibly suspicious; a close search revealed that the Adobe package lacked the CDs. So, I didn't get that. Sunday and Monday night, Pam and I had dinner together at my house. We shopped and made some pizza with a nice Waldorf-ish salad. On Sunday, we played a best two-out-of-three session of Trivial Pursuit, wth me squeaking out a 2-1 win. Monday consisted of us watching the Indianapolis-Tampa Bay game for Monday Night Football and checking on the fifth game of the Boston-Oakland AL Division Series. Coming up:
*****
Linked Memories Remembered by Links / Pro Site Pet Peeves / I Love the '80s!: a Fond Memory / 57th Annual Armenian Food Festival / Serving Pam: Our Weekend / Birthday Boy's Post: a Cool Poem Sunday, October 12, 2003
***** The web provides a wonderful set of information at your fingertips. Unfortunately, many sites don't always think about what their viewers want with functionality. One of my current major pet peeves is the tendency of some sites to force their page to pop up to the foreground. Sometimes I'll let a page load while I'm doing something else (like adding something to this blog). Some pages, like some on CNN or MLB's site, will force themselves to be viewed regardless of what you're doing. I seriously do not know why they do irritating things like this. I'm clearly aware that the page is loading, and I'll certainly take a look at it ... when I'm ready to do so. Another of my pet peeves concerns forms on sites. I have a few places where I have to sign in with a user name and password to get access to my stuff. Many sites, like Juno, have other things that load while the form boxes are accessible. Instead of waiting for things to finish loading, I know I can enter my information and hit "enter" to log in. Unfortunately, sometimes I don't finish typing in my password in time, and when the page finishes loading, it sends the curser up to the previous box! Naturally, I don't notice this until I've already typed in the rest of my password in the beginning of the user name. Why, oh why, do web programmers utilize such crappy, irritating programming? Granted, Juno did something to fix that, but Yahoo is still a culprit in this. ***** VH-1 has a show called "I Love the 80s!", and I recently watched an episode for the year 1983. I thought I'd watch a little before the news and, eventually, tonight's 49ers game came on. There were a few things I remembered being on, like Knight Rider. They had Andrew Dice Clay on there, declaring Tom Cruise and Ms. Pacman as Mr. and Mrs. 1983. Sadly, I really couldn't relate too much with either of these. Then, they brought up toys, and one of the ones they mentioned were the Wacky Wall Walkers. I had a few of these! In short, they were these sticky, rubbery toys, shaped like an octopus, that, when thrown on a wall, would look like it was rolling/climbing down the wall. They worked decently, though I remember the sticky parts getting gunked up with dust and hair. Apparently the inventor of this toy earned a cool $20 million for it, too. ***** The St. James Armenian Apostolic Church of Sacramento held its annual Armenian Food Festival yesterday. Pam and I attended and had a good time. The main attraction (and focus) of the event is, of course, the food. Given that I didn't know what to have, I followed Pam's little Armenian footsteps and had the following:
All of it tasted very good, too. We, of course, had to have dessert there, and that consisted of the following:
Besides the food, they had a small craft corner with assorted things. Some music played over the sound system, too; Pam assured me that some of the stuff wasn't typical of traditional Armenian music. I got to see a few of her family members there, too, and that was cool to chit-chat with them during our stay. ***** Now, you didn't think that was all I did with Pam this weekend, did you? I didn't think so! Outside of the aforementioned Armenian Food Festival, we also bounded off and played some tennis. Neither of us are exactly Pete Sampras and Serena Williams, but we're getting better. Actually, I can confidently say that we've graduated from "hitting a tennis ball around and chasing it" to "playing tennis". Pam said she hasn't played in years. I know I haven't played any sort of tennis since I was attending summer school at Merryhill Country School, and that was at least fifteen years ago that I must have had tennis lessons. The only recent racquet sport I've done recently was raquetball, and that's a whole different game. During our first attempt a couple of weeks ago, we had a couple of three-hit rallies ... twice. With plenty of time in between them. This time we didn't have much trouble at all. We had a few four- and five-hit rallies. I think we both got tired much quicker than before, but we did a lot better and had to exert more energy to chase down the balls to hit them (rather than chasing errantly-hit balls like last time). As I work backwards, last Friday I had Pam over for dinner with my parents. Hamburgers, 'tater tots, and a salad filled our vacant tummies with a coffee and biscotti ice cream from Thrifty as a topper in the end. Pam got to try this Pumpkin Ale that's available at the local co-op, too. After my parents went to bed, we snuggled together on the loveseat and watched "A Nightmare on Elm Street: Part 2". Pam has some thinking to do for our next two weeks. First, she needs to decide when we'll go to Apple Hill. It's completely her decision, because we initially were going to go on her birthday, which is October 25. If we don't go then, we'll go on the 18th and do something different on her birthday. It all depends on what she wants to do on her birthday. ***** To close off this entry, take a look at my friend, Jordan's, web site for an entry titled, "A Friend - by Charles Hanson Towne". I really liked this touching poem, since it really gets into the heart of how one should not become complacent about friendships. If you have a hard time finding it, at press time of my blog, it was the only entry without a date assigned to it (posted after his October 10 entry; posts closer to the top are most-recent on his blog, too).
Addendum to NL Cy Young choice / "Dustiny" not so? / Font Size not a Pet Peeve / The Past and Future with Pam / Why a Mac? / Music-lover in a Doldrum Saturday, October 18, 2003 An addendum to a previous blog entry: While making my choices for award winners in baseball for the National League, I didn't even think of the Dodgers' closer Eric Gagne, who should be a shoe-in for the Cy Young. Not only did he save 55 games (the second-highest total in Major League history behind Bobby Thigpen's 57 saves; tied with John Smoltz's 55 saves from last year), but he was perfect in save opportunities. Combine that with a 1.20 ERA and 137 strikeouts in 82.1 innings-pitched, and you have one dominating closer who deserves the award. "Dominating" is the key word here, since no starter in the National League outside of Jason Schmidt or Mark Prior really fits that term. Just the fact that Gagne's command was so tight the whole season, he really deserves the nod. ***** With any more post-seasons like this one, "Dustiny" will get a whole different meaning than originally intended by Giants fans. For those of you who don't know, Dusty Baker, the current Chicago Cubs manager, used to be the manager of the San Francisco Giants. While with SF, the fans saw Dusty as the answer to their World Series woes, believing he'd lead them to the Giants' first World Series win since the 1954 series. Thus, the fans felt the team's destiny (or "Dustiny", after Dusty) was to win it all. As the nation saw last season, it was not to be the case. Apparently it wasn't this year, either. For at least the third time, Dusty's team was eliminated. For the second time in a row, it was because of a complete collapse of the team when all they had to do was win one more game. Heck, the Cubs had a 3-1 advantage in the series, only to fold in their final three games. The Giants, last year, were only a few outs from winning the World Series, only to have the bullpen blow the lead and, eventually, the Series itself. Initially, I was annoyed, since I was rooting for the Cubs to win this. It's easy to blame Dusty for losing another series like this, given his apparent hesitation to take pitchers out when they're not being effective. But, other things factor into them losing, including the ball that Moises Alou would have caught if that fan didn't try to catch it himself. I'm not all that disappointed, though I really wanted the Cubs to win it. Instead, my National League picks in the Politically-Correct World Series selections are absolutely perfect for me. We'll ignore the American League, since political correctness didn't apply there. I don't know who I would have picked if I were picking teams to win in a normal manner (i.e. who I really thought would win). ***** I started writing about another pet peeve I was having with some sites: ridiculously small text size. For some reason, it never dawned on me that it would be a setting issue in IE on my end. Some site I visited recently actually had a link addressing this issue, since, apparently, the "smaller" setting for Text Font size is just too small. I wonder if this is a web programming difference, since normal HTML displays perfectly fine. ***** Pam and I had an interesting and fun day today. Due to an interview late today, we had to scrap our Apple Hill trip until next Saturday (Pam's birthday). Instead, we decided to play tennis and have lunch together. As we left her house through her garage, Pam's parents told her, in conversation, that the trunk she uses in her room to store stuff needs to stay there when she moves out. Apparently, these military-like footlocker trunks are rather hard to find and buy, so Pam was not too happy about this. When we got in my car, I mentioned that there seemed to be a half-dozen or so garage sales in her area, and she inquired as to whether I'd like to bounce around to them. Agreeing, we headed off to see what we could see. Our first couple of places didn't have much of anything, but I remembered that there was a sale on a particular street I passed while driving to her house. We found the signs and followed them through the heart of the neighborhood. While passing by many houses along this tree-lined street, we happened upon a sale at a different house. We stopped, and we saw exactly what Pam needed: two trunks! They were exactly what she needed to, eventually, replace the one she uses now. One lacked a leather handle, and the other had a bad latch. Both were still in decent condition, and we both saw how a little work on them would make them rather nice again. We talked to the woman running the sale, and she told us that we could just take them if we wanted them. Apparently, nobody had expressed any interest at $15 a piece or so, and she would rather that they go to a good home rather than end up in the huge junk heap they had. So, she offered them to us for free! Pam was so happy to have them, and hopefully they'll clean up nicely. Also at this garage sale, I found a fairly nice gravy boat and saucer in a cream-ware look (basically, it's cream-colored). My parents have been buying this stuff lately, so I bought this for them (at 50 cents, I couldn't lose). From our scrounging, we headed off to the tennis courts. We found a couple of rather new tennis balls there, and I think that'll make a difference in our play. We're certainly getting better, though we still need a lot of practice. I'm happy to see Pam get interested and excited about playing a sport; it's great exercise and a lot of fun. We're up to making six-hit rallies, so we're certainly progressing. I still need to work on the amount of force with which I hit the balls back over. My racquetball days at UC Davis have left me needing to work on how hard I need to hit the ball in order for it to fall in the court. In racquetball, force doesn't matter since I'm just hitting it against the wall. Force only matters if I'm just trying to drop the ball in on someone who's standing rather far back from the wall. Once we had our last six-hit rally, we packed it in and went home for lunch. Next weekend will be awfully busy:
On the following Tuesday, we hope to attend the Street Dogs concert at the Capitol Garage. For those of you who don't know who they are, they are a Boston-area punk-ish band led by Mike McColgan, the ex-lead singer for the Dropkick Murphys. Sure, seeing him with SD won't be the same as if he were with DM, but at least I'll get to see and hear him in action. ***** I've heard and seen many of my friends "ooh" and "aah" over Macs, and I cannot understand why. I certainly don't have anything against them or Macs. It's just that Macs simply wouldn't do what I needed, and I never believe that they are easier to use than PCs (a long-running claim of Apple). Given that my first computer experience was with an Apple IIe, you'd think I'd be a Mac person. I suppose I would have if I wasn't into games and had parents who bought computers. Since neither of those apply to me, here I am on a nice PC. A couple of things came up recently regarding Macs. One was a link a high school friend posted on our community blog. The title: "Crash Differently". (Right-click and choose "Save Target As..." in order to save it to your hard drive if you have problems playing it.) It's a commercial shot to be like those absurd Apple commercials where people claim that they had such amazingly ridiculous problems, claiming that they all disappeared when they got a Mac. This one, though, takes a shot at Macs and, to me, saying that they're simply not some sort of god-send that too many people make them out to be. They're certainly not complete crap, but nothing is perfect. Another thing appeared on Anandtech's site in the news section. It refers to reactions to the Windows version of iTunes. The part I agree with is the second part, where the Microsoft official claims that the sheer lack of choice when it comes to use of the sound files, mp3 players, and the lack of ability to use iTunes with anything but Apple's music store. Allegedly, Apple geared iTunes to only work with their music store. There's a reference that seems to imply that one cannot use any other portable music device with iTunes. Assuming this is all true, that's not a very attractive service to PC users. On the other hand, this wouldn't be very surprising at all on two sides. Of course Apple would gear their stuff to only work with their other products. Apple is a company, and they're always going to be out to make money. One of the best ways to make money is to offer the best things in the industry and make it so that you can only use one with the other. On the other side, naturally a Microsoft representative would be belittling their competition. They do have Windows Media Player that will (indirectly?) compete with Apple's iTunes. Normally, my complaints about Macs have been their lack of choice in hardware (and, possibly, software, too), and the other concerns the saccharine-sweet names given to software titles (I'm sorry, but "Toast and Jam" for a CD/DVD burning suite is just god-awful; entirely too simple and disgusting to me). The latter complaint really isn't a good one, though, to me, it sends a message as to how Apple appears to see their users: as complete simpletons and idiots. I know that Apple users are not complete idiots, so I tend to find such things rather insulting. The former complaint might be reasonable, though only on the hardware side of things. I know that, with current hardware, one can easily run a PC emulator and run programs on there. The only hitch comes with games, and, assuming I remember this correctly, games do not work on those emulators (either that, or some do but not very well). I'm completely certain that I'll stick with PCs until my needs drastically change. Right now, Macs just seem like overpriced desk ornaments. Sure, they look nice and certainly could be an influence on companies to make PCs look more attractive, but I would not have much use for one. I'm sure if any of my readers want to illuminate their desires and reasons for either sticking with a Mac or moving to a Mac, I'll let them know here that I'll be happy to hear any rational explanations. This topic might make a repeat appearance in a later entry as I might investigate some stuff about Macs and how people think and desire them. ***** I've been in this weird music-listening doldrum lately. I haven't been listening to much of anything lately, and I don't have too much, right now, that I want to get. For anyone who really knows me, you'll know that music is, normally, the center of my life. Whether it be a new CD or a concert, if it's something I'm interested in, I'm either listening to it or gearing up towards seeing the band live. The last concert I attended was the Iron Maiden / Motorhead / Dio concert in Marysville. The last CD I bought was the "greatest hits" CD from Pantera, but I haven't listened to that much at all (I have all the albums of theirs I want, so there's not sense in listening to the songs they selected for it when I can just listen to a whole album with that song on it). Music tends to not always be the center of my life. Naturally, my girlfriend, Pam, tends to be the center of things for me, though I certainly have time for many other things. Usually, if I'm not listening to a new CD, then I'm playing a computer game. If you've been reading my blog, you know that I'm currently playing Dungeon Siege. I have recently beaten that game and have created a new hero to take through it again. It's not that I don't think about music, but that it has taken a back-burner seat to my computer game. I still want to check out some new stuff, including some Iced Earth, Vader, and Wumpscut. I still need to get the older Iron Maiden and the rest of the older In Flames stuff and the rest of the My Dying Bride albums. I should continue getting the remastered Black Sabbath albums, but a soon-to-be-released box set with all the Ozzy-Sabbath albums might put that plan on hold. I know there are other things I want (like the first Suicide Machines album), so it's not like my music interest is dead.
I Don't Get It II: Differing Cartoon Humor / What's a Mac Gamer? / I've heard of Spoons, but TV Sets?!? / Primates Running Churches / Yankees Win = Bad / Friendship Reflection Wednesday, October 22, 2003 I have a feeling that I'm going to have a series of "I Don't Understand" or "I Don't Get It" posts, with my first one being the "Why a Mac?" section from my last post. I guess these posts would be more for displaying previous attitudes and how they might have changed. Or, better yet, how differently I think about them. Naturally, some things in the world I would probably never really understand. One of those things is the attraction to certain senses of humor, including comic strips. For anyone who hasn't had the time to read the Dilbert cartoons this week (just yesterday's and today's strips), you might want to wait to read this until later. . . . As any Dilbert fan knows, Scott Adams had some fellow cartoonists draw some strips for him this week. I don't know if he's on vacation and using this as a creative way to bring in new strips, but it seems to be going well so far ... until today. Today's strip was painfully obvious that it was drawn by Darby Conley, author of "Get Fuzzy". Ever since the Sacramento Bee had been carrying this strip, I have never understood why anyone would find it funny. I do think it has some of the best artwork of any strip I've seen, but the strips are routinely not funny (I tended to attribute the horrid humor to something that should be relegated to university comic strips, given their similarity in blandness). Heck, the Sunday editions of this strip say so itself in the title image! Frankly, I've always thought the "humor" in it was just as awful as college newspaper cartoon strips. With "Get Fuzzy", I do believe I have read one or two that were mildly funny, but, most of the time, the delivery is overdone or is lacking comedic timing. It seemed insulting, actually, to have this person do a Dilbert cartoon. Fortunately, it was only for one strip. I don't know what I'm missing in "Get Fuzzy" in general, but maybe it's just not in my range of sense of humor. Besides, not everyone can find everything funny, right? <grins> ***** My "I Don't Get It" series has already received feedback. Contrary to my gut feeling, it wasn't hatemail or a description on why a person would like Macs over a PC. Rather, it was something much more fun than that. Jordan e-mailed me, giving me a link to another site with a commercial in parody of the (in)famous Apple TV ads. This one addresses the sheer lack of games on the Mac. (Be forewarned; the file is over 10MB in size!) Due to the sheer size of the file, I have yet to see it. From the site itself:
Enjoy! ***** Finding jobs to which I want to apply has not been too easy. The need to be selective tends to fight with the need for income. On occasion, I find a posting that states a qualification that I know removes me from consideration. Submitted for your approval. A seemingly-interesting position with a major, nationally-known (and, possibly, infamous) company in which one would work with customers while working from one's home. While I read through the lengthy description, I see the following requirement:
I seriously doubt they'll get too many applicants for this position, since I don't know anyone who can bend a TV set. If only I could begin to master bending spoons with my brain waves, I could take a stab at TV sets as well. ***** I'm just beginning to see and understand why there are so many christian sects out there. Naturally, I knew there were a large amount of sects and knew there were reasons of some sort, but I never thought about it much until recently. I'm sure many sects are rather happy with the part of the Anglican Church's stance against the gay bishop. Many of the hard-line conservative groups out there herald that as a major issue for them, for whatever reason. I read something in an article today that made me see something a bit funny that would certainly keep the fundamentalists away from the Anglicans. Apparently, the leaders of the global Anglican Communion, the general group of all Anglican followers and members of the Church of England (I believe), are called "primates". Granted, a bishop-like leader is one of the meanings, but I immediately thought of the more common sense of "primates" in the form of apes and monkeys, to which humans are a member. I thought this would be entirely too close to evolution, which I know many christian sects greatly oppose. From what I can find, the Anglican Church does support evolution (to a degree, I'm sure), so that kind of shot a hole in my "hypocrisy" angle for this section. But, if other christian sects interpret "primates" for the Anglican leaders as I did, then I can only see that as being more fuel to their fire against that church. ***** Other people have probably expressed this opinion before, but I'll do it myself: the Yankees winning the World Series would be the worst thing for baseball. Granted, it's not exactly going to be all that bad for baseball, since it's seeing a bit of resurgence in the past few years. Hitters like Barry Bonds, Mark McGwire, and Sammy Sosa have injected some interest and adrenaline into the heart of baseball fans with their record-breaking and landmark-setting performances on the field. Pitchers like Pedro Martinez, Eric Gagne, Dontrelle Willis, Mark Prior, and Jason Schmidt bring (or, continue to bring) excitement on the pitcher's mound. Granted, I'm not a Yankees fan. Actually, I'm one of (I'm sure) many who are sick of seeing the Yankees in it all the time. I was sick of the Braves being in the playoffs and, seemingly, the World Series all the time, too. Baseball is certainly on an upswing, but it needs variety and serious challengers in the sport. This is nothing against the Marlins, who have achieved much more than expected (even though the doubt should not be there). I'll admit that, also, I'm being a bit premature in my claiming of the Yankees eventual win in the Series, too. Maybe, once things are final, I'll say more on the subject. ***** The hallmark of a good relationship or friendship is the desire to have it back. It doesn't have to be with the same person, even though that could be easier and, possibly, more valuable, depending on the individual. On rare occasions, I reflect on past friendships and the good things that made them so. The more distance I have from those friendships, the easier it is to think about them in such non-emotional terms. I had a friend in high school with whom I got along very well. I believe he was the first person I got along well with on multiple levels. I think it was the first friendship where I truly felt I belonged somewhere, rather than a complete outcast. Sometimes, it seemed like we thought the same on several issues, which made the discussions fun. We could talk about all sorts of things, either surface-level or personal stuff. We spent a lot of time together on things of similar interest, ranging from music to Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay and similar stuff. Sadly, due to issues on both sides and changing interests, that friendship collapsed. Nowadays, I realize the good qualities that were present in that friendship and see them as things I seek in others: trust, respect, and non-judgement. "Non-judgement" seems like an odd thing to toss in, but it's still important, since too many people will judge people on all sorts of items and issues. Were there bad things in that friendship? Well, yeah, but there's no sense in dwelling on such things. One can certainly learn about humanity through such things, but one needs to seek out the good elements in people. One quality that seems to stand out with those I consider my very close friends, besides trust, is the sheer amount of time we can spend talking. I have a different friend who fit that bill. This person is, actually, someone I've never met in person. She wandered into my site one day and contacted me. From there, through numerous lengthy, enjoyable e-mails, a good friendship grew. We eventually talked on the phone, leading to many long conversations about assorted things. I rather appreciated her concern and interest in me and things going on. Also, I loved the energy she had in everything, even though others might think of her as being too emotional or something like that (which wasn't the case). Sadly, I do not know what the situation is with us now. The difficult thing about long-distance friendships is keeping in contact, and I'm sure that has a lot to do with my uncertainty about things. I know she still cares about and appreciates me, as I do for her. There's been a lot of silence recently, and, I fear, our own schedules have kind of prevented any fluid contact that we had before (no, not bodily fluids! Make that "consistency of communication"). This is one friendship where I do miss the friend along with the friendship.
Google Position / Puss in Glass, not Boots / Job Hunt: Thoughts on Apple Site / Creed Sued, but for Wrong Reason / Support Rush / They Don't Get It: My Blog and Site / Foreshadow of Next Post Monday, October 27, 2003
***** I rather enjoyed this picture of a cat in a pub glass. If you want to search for a different image, it was, apparently, originally named "tightpussy.jpg". ***** One of the ironic twists of my job search is in looking for a position with Apple Computers. I think it'd be cool, even if I were not to use a Mac on a full-time basis. While poking through their job search feature and watching the page refresh with my selection of job location, I wondered:
After a quick thought on the subject, I think it'd not only be an absolutely huge Flash file, given all the job information it might have to store, but also that it could be a horrid pain to update. I kind of removed the thought of using Quicktime, since I don't believe it has the ability to do what would be needed, to where Flash could be programmed to do some the updating of information on-the-fly, rather than having to refresh the whole page. ***** It's unfortunate that I didn't catch wind of this one earlier. Some show on VH-1 had something about a lawsuit against the band Creed. Four people who went to the concert sued the band due to an, apparently, awful performance where the lead singer "was so intoxicated and/or medicated that he was unable to sing the lyrics of a single Creed song". The suit claimed that "Stapp left the stage on several occasions during songs for long periods of time, rolled around on the floor of the stage in apparent pain or distress, and appeared to pass out while on stage during the performance", said the story on CNN's site. Assuming I heard correctly, this suit was dismissed in court. Despite the fact that I'm not a Creed fan, this suit should never have gone to trial at all. I'm glad it was dismissed, even though it sounds like the fans got ripped off. Admittedly, I would certainly rather have them sue the band than, say, start a riot like certain Guns N' Roses fans. But setting the precedence on suing bands for horrible performances would not be good for the industry. I think too many people would feel free to sue their band over their performances, and one's perception of a performance is rather subjective. It can depend on where you are within the venue, the quality of the acoustics in the venue, and the quality of the sound system. Sometimes, good reasons to sue bands come up, like when the Mayhem fan got hit by a goat head during a concert -- certainly unexpected and unreasonable to experience for a concert. (Actually seeing a goat being slaughtered is something different, though. I guess that'd depend on personal beliefs and preferences.) Bands tour daily during their U.S., European, and American/Asian tours. Every once in a while, that band will have an off-night. Does it suck? Sure, but given the amount of pressure bands and individuals within the bands experience, we need to give them a bit of a break. They are only human, of course. So, their lead singer is getting some help with his drug/alcohol problems, and that's a good thing. Hopefully, no more of these lawsuits pop up. Sure, some bands deserve to be sued merely for spitting out horrid albums, but it just shouldn't happen. ***** Speaking of drug/alcohol problems, I was reminded of Rush Limbaugh's plight with OxyContin. Despite not being one of his fans yet finding him rather funny, I'm happy that he owned up to being addicted to his drug of not-quite-a-choice. Some of his critics might label him a hypocrite, but I think that's an unreasonable label. Instead, he should be praised for admitting it and taking care of his affliction. Rush can use this as an opportunity to be a great role-model for much of the U.S. and teach kids and adults to beware of addiction. Depending on how he handles this once he completes his 30-day treatment program, Rush could come out looking better in the public eye than before. Certainly, Rush didn't admit his addiction immediately, but there were legal problems that could have arisen from it. Any such delay was probably due to that and setting up guest hosts for his talk show. Either way, Rush should be supported for doing the right thing. ***** While talking with my mom, she inquired as to why I had a blog, or even a web site, as it is. Generation gaps can be defined by so many things, and I guess a blog will now define that gap between us in some way. Regardless, it made me think about the "why"s for myself. "An unexamined life is not worth living," as I remembered from a theology class from Jesuit, came to light in my life again. Examining the purpose of a site or blog helps to make sure that one's purpose and focus remain consistent over time. Or, if old themes seem out-dated or non-applicable, then one needs to update it. As many have read in my About page, my web site started with the vision of making it Young Ones-themed. I became a big fan of the show while in high school, and it was my first inspiration for a theme when at UC Davis. So, I had my theme figured out. "What was I going to put on it?" A question that floated through my grey-matter, what would be on it or how it would tie together became a problem. I remember seeing many sites that my fellow college students made, and nearly all of them were horribly lame with no purpose. They usually had images of their university and always had the lame paragraph that started with:
(BTW: yes, sometimes the punctuation, grammar, and other stuff was that bad on those sites.) I truly, truly detested such sites and didn't want to create something equally pointless. I had to think about what I could provide to the web community. One of the earliest incarnations of my site brought some items of humor (e.g. Application to Live in Rio Linda, CA), stuff on a then-continuing WFRP campaign, some music reviews, and a page I called the "Gripe Vine", where I would complain about whatever ruffled my feathers at the time. It was a rather interesting, yet slightly disturbing, site, in which the color scheme was red text on a black background. I had pictures of a devil and pentagrams, yet I had happy music in the tune of "Summer Holiday" playing. Certainly, much has changed in six or seven years. My page has undertaken many different forms, slowly evolving through rough colors (the red/black theme), to a frames version, a street-sign with a dull yellow and green color scheme (using similar oval page-title images as above), to the current version. The current version was an attempt to de-clutter my site, tighten things up a little, make it look nice, and make it a little more user-friendly. Also, the desire to use the current theme came from wanting to preserve the site design I had for a site I made while in the credential program. With this version of my site, the blog eventually appeared. The answer as to why I started writing this isn't so easy. I had a few years filled with horrible experiences, and, after those years, there followed many years of not doing anything to help myself from them. I had slowly drifted into a funk that turned my thoughts towards rather negative viewpoints and mind-sets. As a consequence, I had a hard time thinking positively and thinking about positive things. Sure, I am a person of sarcasm, which can be seen as negative, but sarcasm has its place, timing, and appropriate volume of use (as in "amount of time used"). Sometimes, when friends asked what I've been up to, I couldn't say or would only think of something bad. I did keep some personal writings to help myself out with a lot of the negativity and general conversation difficulties, but I needed more than that. Now enters the purpose of my blog. When I first started writing this blog, I wrote it for myself. Not nearly as selfish as it seems, the blog served two purposes: it gave me a convenient forum to let my high school and other friends know what's been going on with the enigmatic, quiet Dave. With this in mind, it made me think about what really went on in my life, keeping it all positive in the process. Granted, the latter purpose came first, but the former purpose became the greater benefit. Gradually, I grew to enjoy the whole writing process for the blog, and it became a hobby, in a sense. I imagine that I might offend someone here or there, depending on the subject of my postings. It's never an intention, but it'll happen. I just try to do my best to give a solid viewpoint on whatever I'm writing. ***** I know my friends will be scratching their heads and thinking, "but, what about Pam?" Well, I'll have to write about that for Wednesday. Much will be going on between me and the Birthday Girl. Expect a full report in the middle of this week. Also, there'll be a posting on love, my prognostication of the World Series winner, and insane women driving while high. We'll see how that goes.
Birthday Girl Parties all Weekend / "Wasn't Me Driving by Six Times..." / Medieval Medicine Reincarnated / Crappy Officiating: NFL Ref Follies / Carl's Jr. Commercial / The Prognosticator Speaks / Site Changes / Future Blogging Notes Thursday, October 30, 2003 This weekend was full of Pam. No, that's not some sort of cuss, but rather an expression of just how much time Pam and I spent together. I don't know where all that time went, but it went by in a hurry with lots of fun. Friday, Pam and I bounded off to the Old City Cemetery for their Lamp-light Tour. We got there in plenty of time, and we had a lot of fun. The tour started near one of the gates near Broadway and 10th St., winding around the graveyard and ending where it started. A few volunteers, led by a husband-wife docent team, dressed in 18th/19th century garb and recited bits of lore on numerous people buried at the cemetery. A few things made it a bit interesting and, probably, a little longer than anticipated. At one mausoleum, a few animals scared two of the volunteers, and that flight of cats led to their discovery of a skunk in the mausoleum itself! They read the poem, something written by one of the deceased, a bit farther away from the mausoleum than planned. This tour attracted a lot of people, and it took a long time to wait for everyone to congregate around the next attraction. Although it was a lot of fun, some of the stories seemed a little confusing, but I had my attention split between a few things as it was (the story, Pam, other tourists, and other headstones/mausolea). Saturday was Pam's birthday. We ended up bounding up to Apple Hill for a part of the day. Pam and I brought lunch with us and enjoyed some people-watching over at Boa Vista Orchards. While poking around the craft booths, she found a toy keychain that had a pull-back Volkswagon Bus on it. The bus, when pulled back on its wheels, would wind up and roll across a good, hard surface. We also visited Mother Lode Orchards, where we got some very, very delicious apple cider made from Golden Delicious apples. The cider there is rather sweet, but it tastes so good. In total, I brought back a gallon of the aforementioned cider, a bottle of Boa Vista apple wine, two frozen pies and a gallon of Boa Vista cider for my parents, and an apple brownie. Pam bought the keychain for her sister's birthday (also Saturday), a gallon of the Mother Lode cider, and a jar of pumpkin butter. That night, Pam and I had dinner with her family. Her dad and I watched the end of the Tennessee-Alabama football game, which ended with Tennessee on top after the 5th overtime. Pam and I bounced off to fetch the pizzas from Papa Murphy's, some hard apple cider, and some Cherry Chocolate Chip ice cream for dessert. That night found Pam and I watching the first disc of the 4-DVD Extended Edition of LotR: Fellowship of the Ring (her birthday present from me). On Sunday, Pam's family had a birthday dinner for the twins. This included Pam and Leann (the birthday girls), her parents, her grandparents (maternal set), and Jose, Leann's boyfriend, and me. Dinner consisted of Armenian moussaka ("potlejan"?), which is a lamb, tomato sauce, and eggplant dish. Also, we had some rather long-ish string cheese and crackers. For dessert, we had spice cake and ice cream. Champagne helped to ease people into comfort, even though we drank only 1.5 of the 6 bottles we put into the refrigerator. <grins> Pam and I kind of expected her parents to either take a few bottles out or to tell us to remove a few; neither occurred. On top of the LotR 4-DVD set, Pam received some money, a small jewelry bureau, and Sense and Sensibility on DVD. After the gift-opening and much talking, Pam and I settled down and watched the second DVD of LotR. Pam and I never seem to run out of things to do or ways to spend time together, and that's certainly a great indicator of our relationship. At the moment, we have these activities lined up for the future:
So, we certainly won't run out of things to do anytime soon. <grins> ***** While Pam and I were standing out near my car, something very unusual happened. It's not like unusual things don't happen here in Sacramento, nor is it like nothing unusual happens around me. This one certainly earned the Weekend Weird Award. Pam and I chatted near her house Sunday evening. While chatting, we noticed a woman in a car driving by. Ok. It's not like this was anything unusual. Nearly a minute later ... the woman drove by again. She drove by another three or four times, making six times total within maybe 5 or 10 minutes. On the final time, I decided to wave as the woman passed. About 3/4 of a block away, the woman stopped, popped it in reverse, and drove (rather fast) in reverse straight back up the street to where Pam and I stood. "Is there a problem?" the woman asked, slightly hunched forward. "No. But, I saw you passing by here at least six times now, and I wondered if you were looking for something or had lost something?" I replied. A pause of several seconds passed, in which the woman said nothing but still looked like she was trying to hide behind her arm. "That wasn't me," she slowly replied back. "Ok. Just wondering." After that, the woman drove off, never to be seen driving by the house that night. My initial thought was whether there was a full moon that night, since people's driving seemed to be worse than normal. Then, the solution popped into my mind: she was either high, drunk, or both. My guess is that she was high. I had never had an encounter like that before. The unusual silent pause between my inquiry and her response just seemed spooky. We weren't sure if she was just joyriding while high or, possibly, stalking someone. I'm sure the latter possibility was just our fears playing on themselves. ***** I wonder how much time and care some companies spend on their job postings. A recent find seemed to need the knowledge of medieval medical procedures and body contents:
I thought the study of the body's humors left medical schools some 400 years ago or so. ***** I watched a couple of NFL games this past weekend, and the horrible officiating amazed me. The first game I watched, which was the only morning game available on TV, was the Denver-Baltimore game. Things seemed fine, until this one play. A receiver caught the ball, clearly had control and two feet down, but, while being tackled, lost the ball. The ball bounced out-of-bounds. The referees ruled it a catch, which it certainly was. The other team challenged the call of it being a catch, and after review, the referees overruled it! I had never seen such a clear catch get over-ruled, until ... ... it repeated itself in the San Francisco-Arizona game. Granted, the 49ers suck this season, and I don't believe that Dennis Erickson will make all the difference in only one season (if he makes any difference at all). But, just like the shoddy missed field goals, this play was very much not his fault. Terrell Owens caught a pass in the end zone, had one foot in, but he was pushed out. It was very clear that he was pushed out, so the call of "touchdown" was certainly correct. But, the Cardinals challenged it. Apparently, the referees never ruled that Owens was pushed out, so the play was reviewable. Naturally, after review, they said that he was not in-bounds, so the call was reversed! Normally, if a receiver was pushed out when he would normally have been in-bounds, the refs would rule it a catch. But, for some hair-brained reason, the referee never ruled that he had been pushed out. Then, how in the world could that umpire rule that it was a catch if it were obvious that Owens didn't get both feet down? I really wonder if and how those officials think. ***** This note has been brewing for some time now. I'm sure all of my readers/friends have seen the most-recent dose of Carl's Jr. ads. That's right. The one with the hot, skinny woman riding on the mechanical bull. Now, being a male of the norm, I rather like the commercial for the obvious reasons. But, why would that commercial even remotely make me think about buying a hamburger? Wouldn't that commercial be better suited for something like Trojan Man condoms, a local strip club, or something similar? I don't know how any heterosexual man would think about buying a hamburger after that ad. ***** Ok. I know I can't take too much pride in this since I wasn't being very serious with my selections. But, take note that the Florida Marlins did win the World Series. Why do I bring this up? I predicted it in a previous entry. ***** A few changes have occurred on my site. I have added the Clan Donnachaidh crest to my Index Page of the site. My Clan Scott heritage, represented by the dress tartan in the background of every page, only covers a part of my Scottish lineage, so I solved that. Also, I have new pictures! These are not of me, though, but of a couple of friends of mine. The tall, lovely woman that is Ariane is represented with a picture from her visit to Madame Tussaud's in London. The second new picture is of Beth, someone I know who lives down in Bakersfield (don't hold it against her, though). She's in a nice, relaxed pose in this picture. Both changes, and more notes, are on my What's New? page. ***** My god this entry is long! I was going to write a piece on love, but I'll save that for next time. On an unrelated note, I think I know what I'll do with my old months of blogging and how I'll incorporate newer months. Once I get it set up, I'm going to create an archive page for previous months' blogging. Frankly, not much of anyone is going to be all that interested in what I've said here unless they're looking for something in particular. For that, I may work on an index for my postings. Have a Happy and Safe Halloween, everyone! |
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