Sunday, September 30, 2007

One more day

I suppose with this title, I could be talking about comic books, after all "One More Day" is the current Spiderman story arc. I don't know exactly what will come of it, I have heard rumors that Aunt May dies, I have also seen online some people saying that the story will conclude with the divorce/separation of Peter and Mary Jane. To e honest, I would rather just wait for the books to come out than spend time doing idle speculation. That means for now I will just await the conclusion of World War Hulk and continue to enjoy the story that is unfolding since the death of Captain America. The Fallen Son books were excellent, and for those that mock comic books, it was a prime reason that I read them. The books came out after the death of Captain America, and they dealt with his death by focusing on a hero or two and the stages of grief that follow death; denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance.

So if not comic books, then why the title? Well, there is just one day left in the baseball season, and it is looking like I will hold onto the $30 that I was hoping to win back. With one day left, I still lead in wins (by 2), strikeouts (by 19) and stolen bases (by 6). The one I would most likely drop would be wins, but I have two pitchers throwing on Sunday so I like my odds. It is also week #4 of fantasy football, here is hoping I can do better in my league by getting another win, though according to our point spreads, I am not the favored team this week. Not that the point spreads mean anything, they are just on the page as a lark of sorts. Stats geeks love stats, so the more the page can provide them, the better.

It may be my last day at Subway also. I went in tonight and the first thing I saw as a note on the wall. The note was basically there to berate those of us who close, saying what hasn't been getting done and threatening to write us up or suspend us if it doesn't get done. Mind you, I haven't worked since Tuesday night, so I have no idea what has and hasn't gotten done in my absence, but if I am not doing my job, then just tell me. There really is no need to hang a sign up for the entire store to see calling out everyone who closes the store simply because some people haven't done their job properly. Well, signs such as these often deserve a retort, and I was of the gumption to provide one, so I wrote underneath it "If I am not doing my job, then fire me", so we will be finding out on Monday if I am still employed or not. Personally, I don't care either way, I don't hate the place, but I can make the same amount of money anywhere else I go, it is not like they are paying some exorbitant wage or anything.

I am trying to stay up all night tonight, simply because come tomorrow morning I get to play Leonard Nimoy and go "In Search of........Bus Stops". Pittsburgh is holding the Great Race tomorrow, which I think is a 10K race through the city, which means streets get blocked off and places I would normally catch my bus will be closed in lieu of people running. I would rather they tried to run in traffic, would make for a far more sporting endeavor, but my idea of entertainment isn't the norm, so instead I will be detoured.

Am I the only one who noticed that vegetarians envy us meat eaters? Think about if for a second. Vegetarian burgers, tofu turkey, it would seem that vegetarians want their food to resemble, as much as possible, meat. After all, when was the last time you ordered a cheesesteak and told the guy, make sure that looks like tofu. You wouldn't because tofu sucks and no meat eater wants their food resembling something they can't stand. If the non meat crowd really wants to be non meat, then quick faking it. Your thinly veiled disguises on non meat product resemble meat entrees aren't fooling anyone, they just show how much you really envy the meat eating crowd.

I have been working on pogo badges again this weekend. I did the three challenges that were offered and I have added to my Mix and Match album, purchasing three more badges with gems that I had bought. The album is complete when you win 20 badges in it. I did a Dice City Roller badge (place 2000 dice) and am now working on a Fortune Bingo badge (Win 10 games as the only one to call bingo). So far I am at 5. I am sure I will get it, I have two weeks to complete it.

Can't think of anything else new to report, other than I am back on Doug's show this coming Friday. I was actually quite pleased with this week's show as well, though I doubt some of the people who listened online got some of the jokes I made, especially the Cyril Wecht one, but that is what you get for not living here, sometimes you are just out of the loop. Actually, Doug and I had a very good conversation or two off of the air. First, he invited me back for this coming Friday, to which I said if I was off Friday night I would be available, turns out I am off Friday night, so I guess I am available. Then he said he liked having me on the show, which I thought might be the case, but still it is better to hear it from the host and not that he is just scrambling to fill a chair on the Group show. The thing is, Friday's are the day where he does Doug and the Group. The group is usually either friends of Doug or people who listen to his show and get selected when he asks for people for his Friday gig. well, I had never asked to be on the show, Doug asked me, I guess based on our brief stint doing mornings together. That being said, he keeps inviting me back, I would say I am the most boring person I know, after all I have no social life, but in that regard I think Doug and I are more similar than either of us would like to admit. Not that we don't go out in public, but the fun stuff is saved for on the air. Some people when they see a radio person on the street, or TV person for that matter, expect them to be "on" regardless of the day or time. When I am not in the studio doing the on air thing, I really don't like to live it. In that regard I guess there is a radio me and a real life me, and rare is it that the two meet. Another thing that kind of set me aback was while Doug and I were having a cigarette on Friday, he mentioned that when he got bumped back to afternoons, he had asked about bringing me with him. As it turns out, schedules there wouldn't permit it, Greg can't do early mornings and I was working a part time job in the afternoons, but it was a little ego boost knowing that someone actually desired my talents, let alone someone who has been in the business for 25+ years and that I listened to quite often even before I had the chance to work with.

Oh well, I better wrap this up, I may be making a coffee run if I plan to pull the all niter that looks to be in the offing.

Friday, September 28, 2007

You thought I forgot

I know, I haven't done the Asshat this week, not that it slipped my mind, it hadn't, but I have just been posting other stuff this week, add that to my reading (I have finished 3 of the 4 books from my buying binge a week or so ago, and am into the fourth on the collapse of the WTC) and my schedule has been a little bit hectic, not to mention my computer was way slow in uploading yesterday's audio, something about uploading 40+ minute segmenst to the web that makes my Dell creep along slower than it normally would.

That being said, let's talk about kink for a second. I have always been an advocate of play in the bedroom, I think my cutoff point would be hot wax and ball gags, but some light bondage, yeah I could be up for that. The difference between me and this week's Asshat winner is I don't invite the local fire department to join in. Put your hands together kids, it's Asshat time.......

Kinky key catastrophe

A couple's bid to spice up their love life backfired when they had to call 999 after losing the key to their handcuffs.

It took the combined efforts of three policemen and 20 firemen to free Zoe Comaish, 32, reports The Sun.

She was handcuffed to the bed for two hours after boyfriend Stuart Fisher lost the key.

Three policemen came round and managed to cut the chain but could not get the cuffs off her wrists.

Sound engineer Stuart, 34, said: "They told us we'd have to go down to the fire station. Zoe was mortified. They were all laughing and wished us luck."

But when the luckless couple arrived at their local station in Southampton, Hants, one watch was coming on duty and another was going off.

It meant there were 20 officers keen to help.

Saleswoman Zoe said: "I've never gone so red in my whole life."

One firemen said: "She wanted the floor to open up and swallow her. The boys were arguing over who would use the bolt cutters. It took a few snips and she was free."

Stuart said: "We were just trying to spice up our sex life - but including three policemen and twenty fireman wasn't in the plan."

Thursday, September 27, 2007

Again with the radio

I will be on Doug's show again this week, starting at 3pm. The show streams live on www.1360wptt.com and will sound a little something like this (my last appearance on Doug's show)

Comments on Comments

Whilst I upload some audio for the blog bage, I figured I would do my second ever "Comments on Comments" blog. The first was met with rousing indifference, but then I did it largely because Angelique had went through the effort of trying to catch up on everything she missed on this page. The result was somewhere in the ballpark of 23 consecutive comments before she finally finished. I was left with the option of going back to each blog and commenting or just doing all of the comments in one blog. I opted for the latter and thus the first "Comment on Comments" was born. This time I am not going quite as far back, only ten comments so those of you who opted to not comment on the page, your loss.

Blog Comments

miss …

Blog Entry: Look it up

yea, im harsh, but maybe something needs to be said about those "kids". I mean, yea, its a sammich shop, but isn't this their "practice-for-the-real-world" job? (as opposed to the fact that its your "part-time-i-like-an-extra-check" job).

Since the management obviously values your opinon, maybe a few words from you about their unprofessional behavior - just vague mind you, nothing specific - might make your shifts less like the babysitter i assume you felt like.

Yea, beer is fine, hard stuff isnt.

And i agree with you about the lack of responsibility. I went thru that with my part time shelter job......my boss wanted me to live on-site and i couldnt tell her no fast enuff.

And hello, if that stupid radio comment woman REALLY wanted to express her view that badly, she should have a)called back as anonymous and b) used a different name. duh, dumb shit.

yay lo mein!

Thursday September 27, 2007 - 10:26am (EDT)

I doubt this is a practice for the real world job, I think Donny is in school for film making, and I get that most everyone I work with is going to be a college kid that is just trying to make some drinking and/or rent money. I don't even mind the drinking, you want to drop some vodka in a bottle of OJ and you can handle it, fine go ahead. We aren't exactly reinventing the wheel, we are making sandwiches. That being said, my threshhold gets crossed when you make my job harder by doing it. Ashley following me around asking what she should do next as opposed to actually doing something is quite annoying and counter productive, especially since she has more experience there than I do, having worked there last school year. That being said, I have no desire to rat them out, the fewer headaches I have at my part time job, the happier I usually am. It is also why I have no desire to manage, the fewer headaches, especially with nights like Saturday, the better.

If someone wants to be on the radio bad enough, I would suggest simply having some patience. At the end of the day, it isn't their show, it isn't even the Matt Pritt Show (oh how the world will rue the day should that ever happen), it's the Lynn Cullen Show, and she will get to the callers in an order she deems appropriate for the pace of the show.

howle…

Blog Entry: Look it up

good beer friday.....mmmmm.......gooood!!!!1

Thursday September 27, 2007 - 09:29am (EDT)

Rich, Good Beer Friday might have been one of the few good things we had working at Larry and Carol's. We should indirectly thank Mike for the inspiration, it was his purchasing of that horrid case of Iron City (I still have a can of it in my fridge to remind me to never buy bad beer) that led to making sure future beer wouldn't taste like Mon Water.

Empress

Blog Entry: Look it up

Feel better now? I hope so. You sure said a lot. About the co-workers, that made me laugh actually. I assume Donny and Askley are young. This behavior sound early twenties...ahh so much to learn still for them.

The 360 rumor. I never believe anything unless I research it. People are idiots and sheep and will be led wherever anyone says. Soooo while I did create a Mash site, I won't give up my 360. FWIW, the amount of spam has damn near doubled since I started my mash site. ALL from the children of the deposed kings in Africa. Yea, never got those before.

And about the Imus thing. I could give a shit. He said something I hear all the time. One of my girlfriends refers to her boss as a nappy headed ho on a regular basis. It really, was the least offenseive thing I've heard in a long time. If I was one of those women I would have laugehd it off. I mean, seriously...has anyone seen Don Imus's hair? And ho has been so overused its benign.

Hope you enjoyed lo mein, I love it myself...mmmm...maybe I should have some for lunch.

Thursday September 27, 2007 - 09:03am (EDT)

I actually do feel better, the weekend wasn't a complete loss, I did get to do Doug's show Friday evening (I am posting the audio of it later tonight) and an invite for this Friday's show as well. I just have a low tolerance for stupidity and it seemed to be coming at me in droves there for a while.

As for research, I get not everybody does it, it is part of what I do with the radio show, if something comes up, I go find it. When I first started producing a talk show, back when I was working with Jerry Bowyer, he always had a saying "Whenever possible, go to the original source material". I think he came up with that policy from home schooling 7 kids, but I try to apply it whenever I can. In this case, if it was something about Yahoo, I would like to get a comment from someone with Yahoo that can either confirm or deny it, and not rely Joe who heard it from Barb who got a mass email from a friend who worked on her car last week.

Wednesday is always a great lo mein day in Pittsburgh for me. I always get the combo lo mein and I can go one of two places, I can go to a Chinese restaurant downtown that has it as the special on Wed., with a side of steamed rice, an egg roll and a drink for like 5.50, or I can go to a little hole in the wall place here in Oakland that gives larger portions of the stuff a little cheaper, but without the sides.

Jean

Blog Entry: Don't open before breakfast

lmao well hell that is too funny and i wish i had seen it so i would have understood what she was saying.

Tuesday September 25, 2007 - 04:21pm (EDT)

A secret, ever since I saw the video the first time, no matter how many times I view it, I crack up. As soon as she spews, I just can't help but laugh, and not just for the visual of the projectile vomiting, but the microphones in the studio are so good that you hear it splash on the floor. It shouldn't but that added nuance just kills me. Greg, who produces Doug's show in the afternoon, and I have taken to greeting each other now, not by saying hello, but by going "Blaaaaaa".

miss …

Blog Entry: Don't open before breakfast

I saw this yeserday. hilarious. especially when she tells everyone on the planet WHY shes sick. I mean, its like a douche commercial. We all know it exsists, I just dont wanna know about it, okay?

Tuesday September 25, 2007 - 09:47am (EDT)

I did not know why she was sick, thankfully that is in a foreign tongue that I do not speak, but after this post I had to find out and I am wishing I hadn't.

Clair T

Blog Entry: Proving my points

Amen on the Squirrel Cage, good munchies, good beer, 'nough said!

Wednesday September 19, 2007 - 12:46am (EDT)

I don't go here nearly enough. I really should make it back more often, but schedule and finances do not always permit such luxuries. That being said, it was very much like seeing an old friend after many years, as opposed to an old girlfriend, since most of mine decide to park themselves at the Old Country Buffet after we broke up. It is one thing to take comfort in food, quite another to take comfort in seconds and thirds and fourths and fifths.

Empress

Blog Entry: Proving my points

My favorite part of this blog...'After going through the normal things a single guys does while online, check email, check messages, look for naked women' That made me nearly spit coffee across the monitor. Glad you got to enjoy a day off sans work.

Sunday September 16, 2007 - 09:11am (EDT)

Don't tell anyone, but sometimes even I think I am funny. I am not Wil Wheaton funny (his blogs on his old Star Trek episodes are priceless) but I would like to think I have my moments, at least when I am not ranting about something or other.

Empress

Blog Entry: Good morning

That's really a beautiful picture!

Thursday September 6, 2007 - 12:28pm (EDT)

More stolen goodies from the internet, which is good, because by the looks of the photo, it was taken from somewhere around the West End Overlook during day break, which means I would have been late for work. 5am comes much too soon for the likes of me.

Empress

Blog Entry: The draft

I know nothing about fantasy football. Figured I'd read so maybe I'd learn something. Mostly, I think I am jealous you can buy a large cheeze pizza for under 5 bucks. Wow.

Tuesday September 4, 2007 - 09:30am (EDT)

Hopefully I addressed this well enough by posting the actual rules on the blog page. As for the pizza, Antoons offers a large pie for 4.90, a place right next to them does a large for $5 even, and Fox's Pizza Den has a Mon/Tues carry out one topping for 6.99 and an everyday 2 topping and a 2 liter for 10.99, so I have plenty of specials to choose from. Usually it is just a matter of where I am which place I will go, as I usually pick the place that is closest to the location I am at when the thought of pizza goes dancing through my head, followed shortly thereafter by that old pre movie commercial where the snacks sing "Let's all go to the lobby......"

Wednesday, September 26, 2007

Look it up

I haven't been much of a nice guy recently, so in that regard, maybe it is better that I have stayed away from blogging anything of merit, for fear that I would be on one of my angry rants, and in the end, my blog would just end up pissing off the common folk who stop by to visit from time to time. That being said, what good is my blog if I don't say what is on my mind? Isn't this my forum, until some one pries it from my cold, dead hands? That being said, I have my lo mein with me, and lo mein is always a good "cheer me up" type food, so maybe my ranting will spare the populace at large, who knows.

I am still being pestered at the part time gig about not accepting the "promotion", to which I continue to say, really, I would like as little responsibility here as is humanly possible. Probably not the ideal thing to say to an employer, but then again, my idea of little responsibility is just doing my job, which is still far and away more than a lot of people there can say. Prime example would be Saturday night, where I was scheduled to close with Donny and Ashley. Well, the thing is, they apparently are something of an item I guess, I don't know how much, I could care less about their personally lives and all of that, but their interactions at work would lead one to believe they are more than coworkers. To the detail oriented, one would recognize that this is a clear violation of my "Animal Planet Rule of Dating", that being don't shit where you eat, and since most relationships end up turning to shit, don't bring them to the place that is paying the bills. Well, my sage wisdom falls on deaf ears this past Saturday, and worse, they thought it would be a good idea to mix both of those with alcohol they brought to work. Far be it from me to say drinking at work is bad, when I used to manage a pizza shop, I invented "Good Beer Friday", where we got a good import or micro and drank while we made orders, provided that no one got so drunk that they couldn't perform their job. If anyone got to that point, I warned, the Friday festivities would end forthwith. No such stipulation was handed out on Saturday, and it was alcohol much harder than beer. The result was that Ashley turns out to be a flirtatious drunk, and Donny when Ashley is flirtatious, turns out to be a pissed off one. If only I had a camera, we would have had video evidence of how much of a sage I really am.

That being said, I find I am being surrounded by idiots more and more these days, and unlike some people, I have very little tolerance for them. Friday I am screening calls for the radio show and all is going well, we are moving things right along and we are coming up on the end of the first hour when Lynn tries to get in one more call with about a minute left. She goes to the phone line and the person isn't there. I hate that, because it sounds like crap on the air to go to someone and have them not respond at all. That being said, we get out of the hour and do our top of the news thing and come back for hour number two. I am screening calls again and making sure anyone who was on the line from the last hour is still there when the phone rings again. It is the same person from hour one. Lynn and I have discussed this in the past and determined that if you call and we go to you and you aren't there, we aren't going to put you back on at a later time, partially because we gave you a chance to be on and you passed on it, and partially because it keeps us from taking someone who is going to do that as a crank, just keep caling the show and then giving us silence when we air the call. So, I am explaining to the caller that we went to them and they weren't there, they claim that the line went dead, to which I said, if it went dead, we would have had a dial tone or something, instead we just had dead air, which meant the line was still open on our end. That being said, I was going to give the caller a second chance when they said they didn't want to go on after all. Okay fine, you have now wasted my time twice this morning. Later we get an email from the caller saying that I have an attitude ( I admit when screening calls I do to better weed out the nutjobs) and that she was listening for her name on the radio and when she heard it the line was dead. I emailed back explaining that if she was listening on the radio, as opposed to the phone line, she was listening with a seven second delay, something that we run so that nobody can drop F-bombs on the air or go on a diatribe and once Lynn went to the line and no one answered her, it was because she was 7 seconds ahead of the audio you were hearing. My email brought a smart ass response about how they weren't going to call or listen again and that we need calls and good luck trying to get some. Technically, we don't need calls, the show is about the host, not the callers, we take calls because they can add to the over all show. That being said, I emailed back very simply that we indeed do like to take calls, and we like them even better when the person is on the line when we go to them. Fucking idiots.

Oops, I feel my blood pressure going up, better have more Lo Mein.

A quick diversion, that will help with the blood pressure. Maybe some fantasy sports stuff. I went 9-7 again in the office poll, for picking games, meaning that I will have at least one 9-7 in my final total. After three weeks, I am 20-12 dropping the low score, a good win percentage if I were betting on every game, not so good if I am trying to win a pool with about 80 other people in it. Fantasy football I went 1-1 again this week, but the win was in the yahoo league, 95-86, which means there I am now 3-0 and I take on the only other undefeated team this week, minus Clinton Portis and the Jacksonville defense, both of which are on a bye this week. In the bar leagaue, I lost 134-118 to fall to 1-2. As bad as 1-2 is, I am not sweating it yet because every week I have put up a good points total, which leads me to believe that the roster is sound, and it is not time to panic, especially with 6 playoff spots in that league. I do have the NFL leader in passing yards in Jon Kitna, receiving yards in Chad Johnson and rushing yards in Willie Parker, so no need to panic just yet. And in baseball, we are in the last week of the season and as of this typing, I could win back $30 of the $55 entry fee. I lead our league in wins (by 3), strikeouts (by 10) and stolen bases (by 9). Given how bad my team is, if I could get away with $30, I would consider it a minor miracle. I did draft a fantasy hockey team, but the season hasn't started yet, so not much to report there, other than I got the #8 spot in the draft order, and I hadn't followed hockey very closely in the off season, so I wasted two of my picks on guys considering retirement (Temmu Selanne, Peter Forsberg) that I had to address via the waiver wire after the draft. That being said, the 2007 Argonauts (I name all of my fantasy teams after the Toronto CFL franchise who used to have the coolest helmets) looks like this;

Pavel Datsyuk - C

Paul Stastny - C

Brendan Shanahan - LW

Tomas Holmstrom - LW

Martin Havlat - RW

JP Dumont - RW

Sheldon Souray - D

Wayne Redden - D

Michal Roszival - D

Ruslan Salei - D

Martin Straka - C

Jaroslav Spacek - D

Jordan Staal - C

Mikka Kiprusoff - G

Marty Turco - G

Dwayne Roloson - G

And while I am updating things, allow me to say that the change meter gets another 20 cents, so the newest total is $29.32. Since the acquiring of the level 50 badge in Hog Heaven Slot5 (Hoggy Archangel Badge), I have picked up the Go Team Go badge (Lottso), Round and Round badge (Phlinx), Double Six, Double Six badge (Backgammon), Balance Ball badge (Lottso), Tug of War badge (Lost Temple Poker), You Will Go Bananas badge (Word Jong) and Fall Fun Bdage (complete 5 challenges). I have barely started this weeks badges, mind you they just came out this afternoon, but I haven't had time to really work on them yet.

I have a question, maybe someone can answer it, because I am at a loss for explaining just why things are they way they are. When I work my part time job, they leave a local pop music station on, I think they go by the moniker KISS 96.1 FM, though for the life of me I don't know their actual call letters, not that they really matter to the question I am about to ask. They are one of the corporate stations in Pittsburgh owned by CBS. Mind you, CBS was the same parent company that recently canned Don Imus for his ill advised comments when he referred to the Rutgers Womens' Basketball Team as "Nappy headed hos" during a broadcast. The comments let loose a national outrage, how could he say that, blah, blah blah, The thing is, while stupid, I didn't see where they were necessarily a fire-able offense. That being said, our local pop station, owned by the same company, has a rather limited playlist, which means on any given shift at work, I can hear the same songs as many as 5 or 6 times in a 7 hr shift, including a song by some rapper who uses the moniker "Soldja Boy". Let's set aside his mangling of the English language for just a second and deal with the song itself. At numerous points in the song he recites the lyric "Superman dat ho". Me having little to no street cred, was perplexed by what this actually meant. I assumed it couldn't be good, but was unsure of its actual meaning. That is what the internet is for I guess, and after some research, I found it referenced a couple of different places where I got the same definition, one of which, Urban Dictionary, allows users to rate the definition, presumably so that we can understand if the posting is correct. Well, it was roughly 37 in favor of the of definition versus like 4 against, and another site also had this definition, so I am working under the assumption that this is the correct meaning of the phrase. Apparently "Superman-ing a ho" is the process where one ejaculates on the back of a sleeping female, then places a cover on them so that when they awaken, the cum causes the blanket to stick to the person's back, creating a cape like situation. While I can see where this isn't like crazy glue or anything, how is it that a company that fires someone for the phrase "nappy headed hos" because it is offensive, will also repeatedly spin a record referring not only to women as hos, but suggests one should ejaculate on a female while they are sleeping? Do I truly live in that much of a bizarro world?

Speaking of research, why is it that people can't spend two minutes anymore to look things up? I say this because numerous people on my list have mentioned the demise of 360 because of a project Yahoo is working on called Mash, another foray into the realm of social networking. First, kudos to Jen who didn't buy into the idle speculation and actually posted in her blast a link to the article from WIRED refuting that very rumor. I was curious about this rumor when I first heard it, having over 500 entries here, I was certainly concerned about any potential closing of 360, but after a whopping 2 minutes of research, I was able to locate the WIRED article that had someone from Yahoo stating that they were, in fact, not closing 360. This wasn't a trip to the library, or going through volumes of unintelligible stuff, this was a simple 2 minute Google search. Have we really become so lazy that while sitting in front of a computer, we can't be bothered to look something up anymore? That it is easier to traffic in speculation and innuendo than to look for simple facts? If we have reached that point, then our collective laziness indeed knows no bounds.

Speaking of laziness, I think a nap is in order, I have groaned on long enough.

Since nobody asked

Or answered for that matter, I promised I would bring this back until someone gave me at least a guess on some of the songs on this playlist. Today is just as good a day as any to play this game........

Friday, September 21, 2007

Stop reading my page

It was just a few days ago that I mentioned, in a long rambling blog, about how stupid I thought the MoveOn.org ad was. Nice to see someone was reading the page, though behind the curve as per usual around these parts, as the Senate yesterday denounced the ad on a 72-25 vote.

MoveOn Unmoved By Furor Over Ad Targeting Petraeus

By Perry Bacon Jr.
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, September 21, 2007; A01

A few weeks before Army Gen. David H. Petraeus's much-anticipated testimony on Iraq, the leadership of MoveOn.org, the Internet-based liberal group that has rallied its 3 million members around the country to oppose the war, decided on a change in strategy.

Rather than making another appeal to moderate Republicans to join Senate Democrats in passing an antiwar resolution, they would take on the credibility of Petraeus himself. Their weapon, they decided in conjunction with Fenton Communications, its Washington-based public relations firm, would be an ad in the New York Times that provocatively played off his name with this question in large letters: "General Petraeus or General Betray Us?"

Yesterday, an organization so small its 17 employees don't even have a central office, found itself under attack by not only President Bush, who said the ad was "disgusting," but also by the Democratic-controlled Senate, which passed a resolution 72 to 25 expressing its own outrage. Many Democrats blamed the group for giving moderate Republicans a ready excuse for staying with Bush and for giving Bush and his supporters a way to divert attention away from the war.

In an e-mail to its members last night, the group acknowledged that the content of the ad might have angered its allies but argued that a larger issue is at stake. "Maybe you liked our General Petraeus ad. Maybe you thought the language went too far," they wrote. "But make no mistake: this is much bigger than one ad."

And it turned its criticism squarely back on the Senate, accusing it of "spending time cracking down on a newspaper ad" after failing on Wednesday to pass a bill lengthening the home leaves of U.S. troops fighting in Iraq, a bipartisan measure that some regarded as pressuring Bush into limiting the redeployment of U.S. forces.

Many Democratic strategists were privately furious at the group for launching an attack on a member of the military rather than Bush, arguing that it gave Republicans a point on which to attack the Democrats and to rally around the administration's war policy. The displeasure underscores the uneasy alliance between MoveOn and the party. MoveOn, after its rather guerrilla start, has increasingly become part of the Democratic establishment in Washington. It has donated money and lent its Washington director, Thomas Mattzie, to a coalition of liberal groups with major funding from wealthy donors that organizes in an office on K Street to promote opposition to the war.

The group's conference calls often include aides to House and Senate Democratic leaders, and executive director Eli Pariser and Mattzie have also had meetings with some of the party's 2008 presidential candidates, although MoveOn is not likely to endorse in the primary process. Sen. Barack Obama (Ill.) and former vice president Al Gore have spoken at MoveOn events.

But, Pariser said: "We're not accountable ultimately to the Democrats. We're accountable to people who want a swift end to the war, and that's the end goal here."

In a conference call with MoveOn members last night, Pariser acknowledged that some of the group's members did not like the ad. But, he said, "MoveOn is going to be as strong as ever." He added, "We definitely will be putting pressure on Democrats, and especially those who voted against us, in the near future, and we are currently working on the best way to do that."

Since the ad appeared, Republicans have attacked MoveOn relentlessly. During the congressional hearings last week, several GOP lawmakers called on Democrats to condemn the MoveOn ad, and since then, a barrage of criticism has come from several Republican presidential candidates and, finally, Bush.

In response to a question at a news conference yesterday, the president said that few Democrats had condemned the ad, "which leads me to come to this conclusion: that most Democrats are afraid of irritating a left-wing group like MoveOn.org, or more afraid of irritating them than they are of irritating the United States military."

For MoveOn's supporters, the special notice from Bush may only serve to validate its confrontational style. "I think he just raised MoveOn several million more dollars," said Erik Smith, a Democratic media consultant.

This is not MoveOn's first controversy. In 2004, when the group held a contest on its site for the best ads bashing Bush, they quickly took down one that compared the president to Hitler. Later, Sen. John F. Kerry (Mass.), the Democratic presidential candidate, distanced himself from an ad that criticized Bush's National Guard service.

Founded as an online petition by two Silicon Valley entrepreneurs in 1998 to encourage Congress to "move on" from trying to impeach President Clinton, the group is in many ways the brainchild of Pariser.

After the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, Pariser, just out of college, started a petition calling for the United States to react with "moderation." This comment later drew criticism from conservatives but won him a large following that inspired one of MoveOn's founders, Wes Boyd, to hire Pariser as one of the group's first full-time staff members. As executive director, Pariser runs the group out of his home in New York. MoveOn's employees rarely meet in person, instead communicating by e-mail or conference call.

In 2004, MoveOn spent millions from wealthy donors such as financier George Soros, but it has grown into a force that has raised millions in donations from members and pumped more than $6 million into ads in this election cycle alone.

MoveOn and other antiwar groups have largely succeeded in helping to push Democrats to support a timetable for withdrawing troops from Iraq. The group has backed such a plan for more than a year, but this was a step many Democrats had been reluctant to take. But, like some Democrats, the group has been frustrated as Republicans have continued to embrace Bush's policy on the war.

Yesterday, almost two weeks after the ad ran, MoveOn found itself in an unenviable position: almost universally condemned by Senate Democrats and Republicans.

Once Republicans started circulating an amendment that would blast MoveOn for "impugning the honor and integrity of General Petraeus and all the members of the U.S. Armed Forces," Democrats wrote their own version that criticized the MoveOn ad but also denounced Republicans for attacking the military record of Kerry in 2004 through the Swift boat ads.

Between the two measures, nearly every member of the Senate had repudiated MoveOn, including Democratic presidential contender Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.) and Obama, who both voted for the Democratic version that did not include MoveOn's name but said there had been an "unwarranted personal attack" on Petraeus.

It's me again

More of me on the radio, I will be on Doug's show today from 3pm-6pm EST. As always you can catch the festivities either on your finely tuned radio at 1360 AM (Pittsburgh), or for those out of signal range, the addy is www.1360wptt.com .

Monday, September 10, 2007

It is Monday, isn't it?

Okay, we are recording the podcast audio, the recording for Laura Ingraham for tomorrow morning is working, the audio delay is operational and I think we are just about ready for air. Actually, as I type this, we are in our top of the hour newsbreak prior to the start of the show. I haven't tried blogging while the show was in progress, so this will take a skill or three that I may not have, we will see.

First, some changes to my pages, good and bad. A couple of new adds to the friends list, by all means go check out their pages, trust me, they are most likely better than mine. Second, I figured out the RSS feed thing for the fantasy football league, as a result, I replaced the NFL feed from Sportsline.com with my fantasy football junk. Anyone looking for stuff about yours truly in any of the feeds, the team name is Argonauts so my stuff will come up either under that name or under the title of Commissioner in the case of the message board, which is one of the things that will update in the RSS feed. Third and not so good, for whatever reason my page is screwing up again, once again going back to a post that is years old regarding Darfur and calling it my most recent. Mind you, once you click on my blog, the blogs come up in order, which means for those of you looking to read that particular post, you will have to go a ways back to actually find it. This dates back to a time when my account may have been hacked around a year or so ago. Because I use yahoo way too much (360, calendar, address book, fantasy sports, launchcast) I harassed the hell out of the yahoo people to get my account restored to its former glory. This came with some problems, being that I lost my original profile page on yahoo, only people signed into yahoo get to read my entire blog (the rest get cut off at the blog that is currently reading as my last post), so for those of you signed in congrats, for those not, you can't read this anyway, so I could insult you and you would never know it.

I do have fantasy football updates, where I lead in both of my games this week, but with two Monday night games tonight, victory is far from assured. In both leagues both myself and my opponent have guys yet to play but things at least have some hope as I type this, where as my fantasy baseball team is plummeting back down to earth, falling into 7th place, though I still lead in stolen bases and strikeouts.

We get to add another .22 to the change meter, the tote board now reads $28.85. If this were the Jerry Lewis telethon, I would now implore the audience to send in contributions with some video package about how last year Timmy got new crutches, but since I don't take donations for the change meter (that would mean I didn't find it, therefore it wouldn't count), the tear filled sympathy video package can be saved for some other rainy day.

Joe Random got demoted, back to AAA baseball for my PS2 baseball player. Not that I did bad in the majors, I was hitting around .359 with a couple of homers and 7 RBIs in 18 games and 39 total at bats. The bad part of being demoted is that on the current AAA roster, the team is stocked with 1st baseman (my primary position) and infielders (my secondary position), so for my first couple of games back I have been stuck in centerfield until I get one at bat, then a defensive replacement comes in for me. I don't mind, I haven't committed an error all season, and I don't want one simply because I have been played out of position. The AAA team did qualify for the AAA playoffs, so I will get to sneak some post season at bats in, even if I don't get recalled to the major leagues. Due to a technical glitch in the game, I got to add to my career achievements, ones that I didn't necessarily deserve, but will take anyway. For those that remember back to the beginning of season #3 of Joe Random's career, you will recall I started this year at the AA level for some reason. Mind you, I was only there for 10 days before the computer realized it's mistake and moved me back up to the AAA level, but when it did, it gave me the combined numbers of my previous two years in AAA as my current season stats, which meant at the end of the season for year three (stats for the year stop at the beginning of the playoffs), so it gave me credit for leading the league in literally every offensive category (save for stolen bases) which hopefully will be a good first step to starting season #4 in the major leagues rather than AAA ball again.

Well, I managed to type my way through the first hour of the radio show, I should start paying attention to my job now. I have three doubles this week, Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, thankfully it means I will be off entirely on Saturday, so there is light at the end of the tunnel. Too bad today is just the beginning of that tunnel. Blech!

Sunday, September 9, 2007

Saturday, September 8, 2007

Saturday walkabout

Good morning kids. Actually it is a pretty good morning here in Pittsburgh, all things considered. I managed to drag myself out of bed at a reasonable hour, 8:30 am. This is unusual for me on a Saturday, I tend to spend a large portion of them in bed recovering from the week that was and then getting up in time to go to work at Subway for what has become my normal 5-close shift Saturday nights. Apparently it rained last night, though I wouldn't know it, when my head hit the pillow I was out like a light. I turned on my Internet Radio Recorder last night and tuned in a station in Loretto, Pa which airs Sporting News radio, not that I paid much attention to the internet stream, I think I was awake for all of 5-10 minutes from the time I climbed into bed until I fell asleep.

I had the chance to make money a couple of times last night and passed on both. The radio station needed someone to work one of the high school football games, I passed on the opportunity. Like I said in previous blogs, I just have no desire to be at the station all day, getting in at 5am and leaving there at 11pm, just for an extra $50. Subway also called and wanted me to close last night, I told them I couldn't because I may be working Doug's show later that day, which is a half truth to be generous. Don't get me wrong, Doug last week officially made me his on call guest on his Friday show, pending my availability and his need for another member of his Doug and the Group Friday show, but I knew that I wasn't needed when I got the call from Subway. I was just being greedy and wanted an entire evening to myself.

First Friday went off without a hitch yesterday and lo and behold it wasn't pizza. Instead it was burgers and fried chicken and some really yummy pasta salad and potato salad. The burgers were actually pretty good, given the whole menu was catered by Attache Cafe. Usually when we have stuff like that catered, it becomes hit or miss whether the stuff that should be warm remains so by the time e are ready to eat. No such problem yesterday and the potato salad was particularly good, , which I didn't expect when I first saw it with shaved carrot in it, but damn if it didn't work. The only problem with the pasta salad was that it had black olives in it, but at least it was whole olives so they were easier to pick out than the usual sliced ones.

I opted instead last night to do the bar thing. I tried calling Rich earlier in the day, but couldn't reach him, though he did call me back after I had went out for one reason or another and missed his return call. That being said, I did head out to my favorite dive for dollar domestic bottles at Uncle Jimmy's from 10-12. The bar was busy but not too packed, so maybe the college kids haven't caught on to that special yet, which is fine with me, the fewer interactions I have with them during the school year the better. Jimmy's is very much the older guy/regulars type dive that I like for that very reason. It is nice going into a place where I know the bartenders and their schedule and can name a decent portion of the patrons. It is also the bar that serves host to our football league, as we have had a fantasy league there for better than a decade, with some changes in the structure along the way, and some changes in commissionership, going from one of the former bartenders who got married and is now almost never around to me who has held the mantle for a good 6-7 years.

The reason I got up so early this morning was that I needed to pay my internet and electric bills. I could have just put them in the mail, but I like to send in the payments electronically, where I get credit for them sooner, and there is a newsstand downtown where I can pay both at the same place, and me feeling refreshed from my sleep (and eats as I order mucho food last night after the whole bar thing) I figured a venture downtown would be a good walkabout Saturday morning thing to do. I don't know why, but I sleep a thousand times better when it is raining, even when it is storming. There is just something about the rain that relaxes me even more than normal, as I am prone most nights to wake up every couple of hours or so, when it rains that just isn't a problem. Couple that with a full belly, compliments of Larry & Carol's which was running a large one topping pizza, whole hoagie and 5 whole wings (as opposed to the half wings most places serve) for 16.99 and I was more than content last night. For the record, I didn't eat everything, I had some pizza and half of the hoagie, the rest I will put away for the Sunday night football game, that way I don't have to venture out for anything. Anyway, I got to roam the street of downtown for a little while, I actually got there before the newsstand opened, so I fetched me a coffee from 7-11. Sorry, but you will never get me in a Starbucks, far too trendy and expensive for my tastes. I am more of the Foamy the Squirrel type person on such places. Far be it from me to do what an animated squirrel does so well........

http://www.illwillpress.com/sml.html

Anyway, there was some good news in the paper today, we briefly mentioned it on the show yesterday, but the Pittsburgh Pirates have fired their GM Dave Littlefield. To think it only took 15 consecutive years of losing baseball to come to that conclusion. I guess the team's marketing slogan for this season "We Will" will now need to be modified to "We Will Be Hiring A New General Manager". Far better than the one I used for the team all year, "We Will Suck". Then again, they are 62-79 on the year and the only reason they are only 9.5 games back is because their entire division is bad. Figure this, the Cubs and the Brewers are tied for the division lead, and both teams have identical 71-69 records, so if the Pirates could have even fielded a team that could play .500 baseball, they would only be a game out right now. I get that with payroll considerations, the Pirates will not be a team that wins 100 games in any season, but is playing .500 really too much to ask? Thank god it is football season, and soon to be hockey season as well.

Well, think I will scoot now. I could blather on about our illustrious president and his verbal gaffes in Australia this week, referring to the APEC summit as the OPEC summit, even though the United States isn't even a member of OPEC and praising prime minister John Howard and the Austrian troops for their efforts in Iraq, but really, what is the point. One starts to think that growing up, George Bush was the kid you didn't want to take anywhere as a parent. He would be the one talking in the movie theater during the picture, or doing something embarrassing while trying to accomplish the simple tasks of the day like grocery shopping, or out playing in the mud after putting on his Sunday dress clothes to go to church. I think I would rather play Pogo than open that can of worms this morning.

The league

I promised a link to the fantasy football league, I believe this one is safe and will not interfere with any of the league rosters

http://football36.myfantasyleague.com/2007/home/48700

Friday, September 7, 2007

Glog Colts/Saints NFL Thursday Night Kickoff

Okay, the NFL season is just about to kick off, with a game tonight between the Indianapolis Colts and the New Orleans Saints. Much like the last time I glogged, we will start with a few pre game festivities. Hopefully, unlike last time, I will type just a tad bit better this time.

I will start the pregame with a quote of mine from June 29th of this year, from the comments section of my blog (which is why it sometimes pays to read the comments as well)

"Well, the main stream media is the ones jumping all over the steroid end of the story, while failing to approach most any other aspect of the story. I am not discounting the possibility that steroids were involved, though WWE did with their press release a day or so later, just noting the laziness involved in the reporting. Heck, they haven't even investigated what constitutes passing a drug test in the WWE's Wellness Policy, which doesn't require the wrestler to come up with no steroids in their system, only that they are kept below a certain amount, or the process of cycling, where people go off of steroids for a while to pass a test, only to go back on them after the test has been administered. It is just so much easier to scream 'Roid Rage" and think one has accomplished something than do the investigative reporting that the story may actually require."

The quote was from the whole Chris Benoit double murder/suicide that I blogged about a while back. I didn't understand how the TV media could be so irresponsible to just blindly attribute everything to "Roid Rage", with little accounting for what "Roid Rage" actually is, or any facts to back up that claim. It made for good theater for a bunch of washed up has beens who got to do the TV talking head circuit, while in truth they had no better idea what had happened than the average man on the street. We were treated to the likes of Steve Austin's former wife Debra, going through the tearful recollections time and again of how bad it was to be married to Steve. Everybody else who had an axe to grind was invited on the shows as well, it made for great theater and for lousy journalism. I bring this up because this week, the results of the examination of Chris Benoit's brain were released. It turns out, he had suffered so many concussions during the course of his career that his brain had damage comparable with that of an 85 year old Alzheimer's patient, according to the results. Does this mean that he was just mentally incapacitated during the times of the killings? Not necessarily, but it does put another factor into the hopper. What we have here is a man who was brain damaged on steroids as well as other drugs and drinking at the time of the murders. Once again, to those of you that visit the page frequently, you were ahead of the curve, to those of you who just went with the Fox/CNN/MSNBC/Nancy Grace spin on things, you get to go to the back of the bus.

We have another .31 to add to the change meter total. so we are now up to $28.63. This thing is just moving right along these days. The total for my online surveys has bounced up a little as well, it is now at $7.95. Mind you, I have already redeemed $100 from them, so in truth that total is $107.95.

From a fantasy perspective this evening, I will be playing Joseph Addai from the Colts, my opponent has Marvin Harrison, also from the Colts, so during the course of the glog, I may chime in with fantasy football updates as well, time permitting.

It is once again very toasty warm in my apartment. Thankfully, I have some custard left from Rita's that I am now snacking on. We made a swap at work the other day and I never had a chance to eat this, given how hot it is right now, I am glad I waited. Cappuccino custard is very yummy as far as cool treats go.

It is my understanding that Kelly Clarkson will be part of the pregame festivities tonight. I wish she were part of my pregame festivities but that is another story. It's not that I care for her singing all that much, truth be told I don't find her voice all that impressive, rather when she sings I feel sorry for her. And there she is on my TV, I guess I will have to settle for that instead. Also, she seems to have put on some weight recently, which isn't a bad thing, certainly better than the anorexic look that is all the rage these days. I just looked at the TV, she definitely has some jiggle to the wiggle. Okay, enough with my guilty pleasures, we are about 25 minutes from kickoff.

Pogo badges suck this week. First it is a challenge week, where we have 5 badges as opposed to the normal 3 so we get to pick 3 from those we haven't previously finished, and two that Pogo picked. Mine were easy, I blew through the three I picked in pretty short order, unfortunately, Pogo picked two games, Hearts and Spider Solitaire which both suck. They will be tedious to get, that is for sure, plus I am still trying to close out Hog Heaven, where I am about 2000 pigs away from getting all of the game award badges in there. All told, I have won 455 badges in there so far but I have never won all of the game award badges that go with any one game. I think I will work on one of the badges I still need this week until kickoff, it beats listening to the gentle wailings of John Mellencamp, that's for sure. Well maybe some Pogo and some smack talking on the fantasy league message board. It is one of the many features we have on our league page, we have both a message board and an online chat option, though I rarely use the chat, I did use it on draft day because unlike a messenger program, there was nothing to download, which made things much easier from a connectivity standpoint. And some of the kids are already posting on the page, this could be a mucho fun year if we needle each other during games. Last year the message board was okay, but we mostly used it for informational purposes. Maybe later in the blog I will leave the address and you can read some of our musings, but I just think it would be boring to most of you.

I almost made an event of this evenings kickoff, doing the traditional wings and beer with football route, but I need to conserve some cash for a rainy day, so instead I opted for reheated linguine and pepsi. Not quite the same I might add, but unlike hot wings, my butt won't feel like it is on fire on the crapper tomorrow morning.

KIckoff and we are underway, with the Colts taking possession of the football. ON the first play, Joseph Addai gets hit and is very slow in getting up, and in fact has left the field. The curse continues for my first round picks. The Colts go three and out on their first possession, after one carry by the backup running back and two incomplete passes. The Saints will take over after a punt by the Colts.

The Saints start at their own 20 and two carries, one by Deuce McAllister and one by Reggie Bush net 5 yards so the Saints have a 3rd and 5. And Drew Brees connects with Marques Colston for 9 and a first down. Two more Brees passes, one to Bush one to the tight end Eric Johnson and an end around by Bush and the Saints have yet another first down. The Saints have crossed midfield with a first and 10 at the Colts 48.

The Saints continue to march, on 3rd and 3 McAllister gets the first down on the ground, and Brees has yet to miss on a pass. Just as I type that, he misfires on 1st and 10, he is now 4 of 5 passing in the early going and have held the ball for over 6 minutes on this drive. The Saints try to covert on 3rd and 6 by running the ball but it fools no one and they are forced to try a 52 yard field goal which ends up wide left, meaning the game remains scoreless. Rumor has it Addai may be okay on the bench, but since he is a draftee of my fantasy football team, I will believe it when he is back on the field.

On the miss, the Colts will take over on their won 42 yard line with their second possession. Addai is back, woohoo, and he runs for 4 yards on 1st down. A third down pass by Peyton Manning connects with Dallas Clark get the Colts their first 1st down of the contest. The Colts continue to take advantage of the field position off of the missed saints field goal, they have picked up their second first down on an Addai run and are inside the Saints 30 yard line. 2nd and 7 from the 27 and Manning hooks up with Marvin Harrison for a touchdown, which is good for them, bad for me.

Crikey, I didn't even see that, my opponent is also playing Deuce McAllister of the Saints, now I have to pay attention to him too. By the way, I am trailing in the fantasy game 7-0 just as the Saints are trailing in the real game 7-0.

The Saints start their second possession from their own 20 yard line, and on 3rd and 3, Brees drops back to pass and the pass attempt is batted right back to him, so technically a complete pass to himself, but he only gets two after catching it and the Saints punt again.

Addai gets the first down carry and the clock runs out on the 1st quarter with the Colts leading the Saints 7-0.

The 2nd quarter gets underway the same way the last one ended and the result is a first down by Addai. The holes are starting to be there for Addai too, as two more runs by him get another first down. Addai leaves for a quick breather after carrying on four straight plays and his backup gets two carries as the Colts run the ball 6 straight times and on 3rd down, Manning completes a pass to Reggie Wayne, who promptly fumbles and the Saints pick it up and run it about 60 yards the other way for a score, so we are now tied Colts 7 Saints 7.

The Colts get the ball back at their own 20, hoping that the results are better than last time, when they fumbled away 7 points. Thankfully it wasn't one of my guys, fumbles in our league are -3 pts, which isn't a good thing at all. BY the way, in the fantasy game, I trail now 10-3, it took them an awful long time to catch up stats wise, considering that it is supposed to have real time scoring.

1st down and they go to Wayne again and he drops the pass. Not a good start for Reggie Wayne, two balls thrown to him, one drop and one fumble. The Colts drive ends quickly a 3 and out again. On the ensuing punt, the Saints get a 30 yard punt return and will start their next drive with very good field position at their own 47. On 3rd and 4, the Saints use the end around again, this time to Aaron Stecker and again it works for a first down. The Saints ultimately make the drive pan out for points, getting a 34 yard field goal, and they now lead the game, 10-7.

The Colts will once again take over on their own 20 yard line after the FG. The Colts manage one first down on the drive but again have to kick the ball back to the Saints .

The Saints on the other hand, didn't even manage a first down on their possession and for two of the leagues top offenses last year, we have seen only one touchdown between the both of them, with the other coming by way of the Saints defense. Not what one would expect from these two team with just 2 minutes left in the first half. In fantasy, I still trail 11-3.

We come back to game action, and the Colts are on the march. A long pass to Dallas Clark gives the Colts a 1st and 10 all the way down to the Saints 32 with 1:30 left in the first half.

First down and Addai runs for another first down on an 11 yard gain. An incomplete pass and another Aadai run and it will be 3rd and 5 from the saints 18 with :48 left, the Saints taking a timeout. The Colts fail to convert the 3rd down and settle for a 33 yard field goal, so the score is tied at 10.

Saints ball on the kickoff, they will have a 1st and 10 from their own 31 with 38 seconds left. Brees hits Colston for a first down on an 11 yard pass and we have another timeout. A penalty and then a run by Reggie Bush just runs out the clock and we go to the half with the score Colts 10 Saints 10. In fantasy, I picked up another point, I only trail 11-5, which I can live with playing only one guy versus my opponents two tonight.

I am making note of the fact that the league hasn't credited Reggie Wayne for the fumble in the first half. I hope I don't run into problems this year. Our first year with this particular service went without incident, last year we had issues with lineup submissions being accepted even though the lineups should have been illegal by league rules. I sent a trouble ticket in, but there is no guarantee that they fixed the problem. Mind you, we did change a rule last year, from having your entire lineup in prior to kickoff of the first game to letting teams change starters up until kicoff of each individual plaeyrs game and that may have had something to do with it, but avreview of the rules checked out, so it was definitely a technical glitch on ntheir end. I just hope we don't have more of those glitches this year.

I didn't pick an Asshat last week, I do have one I just haven't written it up yet. Might as well do that while I am here. 2nd half kickoff, the Saints get the ball on their own 33.

The Saints will go three and out on their first possession, which means I have more time to do my Asshat thing. The Asshat actually relates to my last glog, the preseason glog of the Steelers Eagles game. NBC covered the game nationally, but after the game came the late local news. One would think this would be time for news, right? Not on our NBC affiliate, Channel 11, which spent the first hree stories on the following, a recap of the game, even though the game was preseason and didn't count for anything in the standings, the second stories was going to bars to see what the local drunks thought of the game and of the Steelers chances this year and the 3rd was a breaking news story, their was low water pressure at the Heinz Field and the Steelers may not get to take showers after the game. Thankfully they had a sports guy on the scene to let us know in fact that the team could take showers. This was the first three stories of the newscast, news apparently losing it;'s m,eaning entirely but the Asshat is still quite defined and it is defined as the WPXI Channel 11 News.

The Colts have taken possession and after a short gain on first down, Manning throws a screen to Addai for a first down, a reverse to Dallas Clark also gets a first down and a deep pass to Marvin Harrison gets yet another first down and the Colts are 1st and goal at the Saints 2 yard line. On second down, Addai goes over from the 2 and we have a Colts touchdown. The score is now Colts 17 Saints 10.

The fantasy game is now tied at 15, thanks to Addai scoring for me. This is much better than when he was laying on the turf one play into the game..

The saints have the ball back after the score and on first down, Drew Brees is lucky to not have the pass picked off. On second down, a run by Bush for -2 and now 3rd and 12 and teh saints offense has yet to show anything after the opening dricve where they missed the field goal. A penalty makes it 3rd and 17 instead and the saints just opt to run the ball and will punt it back to the Colts.

Fantasy baseball update, I am now in 6th place, my hitting has went south again, thankfully my pitching is still holding up enough to possibly get me some money back this year, if not my entire entry fee.

Back to the game, the Colts are marching again, they have driven all the way down to the Saints 29 yard line after the punt and first and 10 from the 29 takes only one play to convert for the Colts as Manning finds Reggie Wayne for the TD, which is redemption for the earlier fumble and the Colts extend the lead to 24-10. In another fantasy note, on that drive, Joseph Addai goes for 100 yards rushing for the game, and I am feeling a little better about my first round pick right now.

The Saints take over, this time from their own 14 after the kickoff. Finally the Saints get a first down, their first of the second half. as they are being outgained in yards 140 to 25 this quarter. A 2nd and 4 gets coverted as well, and the Saints have a little bit of a drive going here, though even if they do score, they have to wonder if their defense can stop the Colts, something they haven't done since the middle of the second quarter. The Saints continue the march, Reggie Bush converting a 3rd and 1 by just getting past the first down marker. After two plays though, the Saints are looking at a 3rd and 9 and a false start will change that to 3rd and 14 with less than a minute left in the 3rd quarter. The Drew Brees pass on 3rd and 14 is intercepted and the Colts will take over with the ball at the Saints 47.

One play into the drive and its a pass to Reggie wayne again, and the Colts are down to the 16 yard line. That play will conclude the 3rd quarter with the Colts leading 24-10 and looking to score again. After 3 quarters I trail in fantasy 17-16.

The Colts face a 3rd and 9 two plays into the 4th quarter and they can't convert the 3rd down, so they will have to settle for a field goal attempt and from 33 yards out it is good and the score is now Colts 27 Saints 10.

The Saints get the ball back, starting from their own 20 after the kickoff. A short lived drive, the Saints go 3 and out again and will punt the ball back to the Colts, who have scored on all three of their second half possessions and 4 consecutive possessions overall going back to their last drive of the second quarter.

The Colts ahve a 1st and 10 from their own 33 to start their next possession. Two running plays later and it is 3rd and 3. The Saints need a stop here and they don't get it, the clock will keep running and the failure of the Saints defense to stop the Colts in the second half continues. On second a 6 the Manning throws deep again to Reggie Wayne and its another Colts touchdown on 45 yard pass. The extra point is good and I don't know if the fat lady is singing, but Kelly Clarkson may be coming back out really soon. Colts 34 Saints 10

The Saints will take over again on their own 20 yard line to start this drive and I am thinking I could go for a nice cold beverage right about now. A first down for the Saints on a dump off to the running back, in this case Aaron Stecker. The clock is down to 9:30 left in the game and finally the Saints are moving the ball, though on short passes underneath the Colts looser pass coverage, what with a 24 point lead in the 4th quarter and all. I sought confirmation on Kelly Clarkson's backside on the league message board and at least one other owner agrees with me, it is definitely bigger.

Just as the Saints put a couple of first downs together, Drew Brees has the ball stripped out of his hands and the Colts recover the fumble. This game could end at anytime now, we all know how it will turn out.

The Colts come out and two running plays later they have yet another first down. The advantage of the Saints not being able to stop the Colts at this point is that the clock should keep running at the point in the contest, which is perfectly fine with me. News flash bulletin, the Colts have to punt, for the first time in the entire second half. andthe punti is fielded on the Saints 11 yard line where they will take over first and 10 trailing 34-10 with 4 and a half minutes left in the game.

The Saints have managed a couple of first downs here, but nothing of any merit yardage wise and the clock is down to the 2 minute warning. And I trail in my fantasy league now 19-17. That not too bad since I stil have 10 guys left this week versus my opponenets 9.

Well, this just sums up the Saints offense tonight, Brees is picked off again, and the interception is returned 82 yards for a touchdown. Colts 41 Saints 10. Thankfully there is just 55 seconds left on this disaster of a game. And it's a final, I am sure I left some plays out there at the very end, probably because I had lost complete interest in this massacre of a game.

Now I just have to look forward to the eats at work tomorrow. It is againa First Friday in the office, which means we have a themed lunch of some sort, usually the food and the theme don't go together at all. The theme is, suprise, football and we get to wear jerseys to work instead of office attire, so I get to break out ye olde Dre Bly Pro Bowl jersey instead of a semi dress shirt. I just hope they go the classier route with the food and not pizza. last time they actually had a really good lemon chicken and lots of fixins so there is hope, but if they stay on theme and just do like tailgate food, pizza could rear it's ugly head again. That would suck unless they order some pierogi pizza, that might be enough to satisfy my palate. Anyway, bed time from here, no glog Sunday night, think I will just watch the game instead. Nite all.

Thursday, September 6, 2007

Good morning

Just a quick blog-by on my way to show prep this morning, snagged the photo from the Pittsburgh Post Gazette this morning.

Plans are to do another glog this evening, due to the NFL kickoff this evening between the Indianapolis Colts and the New Orleans Saints. Of course my #1 fantasy football pick, Joseph Addai, will be playing, so I have added reason to watch besides a simple glog.

Wednesday, September 5, 2007

For the curious

Some may wonder what this "fantasy football" is that I speak of. Rather than go into some drawn out explanation, I figure I would just post the rules for this year's league. Mind you other than the amended rule for receptions, the rest of the scoring and rules are crafted by yours truly. Enjoy!!!

Sincerely,

Your humble and lovable commissioner

Uncle Jimmy's 2007 Fantasy Football Draft

Rules and Regulations

I. Cost - The cost of this year's Fantasy Football Draft is $80 plus $10 for each pick you choose to keep from last year up to 2, so in essence the entry fee is either $80 (new teams and those keeping no one, $90 for one player kept from last year and $100 if you keep two.. Teams must be paid up by the conclusion of Week #6 of the football season. Any team not paid up by that time will have their money (if any is paid in) returned to them and their roster will be made available in a supplemental draft to be held prior to kickoff of Week #7. Players kept will also cost you either the pick they were drafted with last year, or if they were acquired via trade then 5 picks above where they were drafted during the draft, and free agents are slotted at 5 picks above the player they replaced on your roster last year.

II. Rosters - Rosters will consist of 25 players, 11 of which will be active on any given week. Game day rosters will consist of the following: one quarterback, one running back, one tight end, one wide receiver, one kicker, three defensive players and an additional 3 offensive players that can be any combination of running back, wide receiver, or tight end for a total of 11 active players. The website for the league this year is www.myfantasyleague.com, the league name is Uncle Jimmy's and passwords to access rosters will be emailed out as soon as the draft is completed and the rosters are entered into the computer.

III. Scoring - Scoring of points can happen in any of the following ways:

Touchdowns - 6 pts

Two point conversions (either rushing or passing) - 2 pts

Extra Point - 1 pt

Missed Extra Point - (-1) pt

Field Goal - 3 pts with an additional point on FGs of 50 yards or more

Every 15 yards rushing - 1 pt

Every 15 yards receiving - 1 pt

Every 30 yards passing - 1 pt

Every 50 yards of kick returns - 1 pt

Every 50 yards of punt returns - 1 pt

Every reception - 1 pt (rule added at 2007 draft)

Fumbles Lost - (-3) pts

Interceptions Thrown - (-3) pts

Defense only scoring

Safety - 5 pts

Interception - 4 pts

Opponent Fumble Recovered - 4pts

Solo Tackle - 1 pt

Sack - 2 pts (1 pt for each .5 sacks)

These points are per player and are not cumulative, so if you have one player with 2 yards rushing and another with 13 yards, you do not get credit for 15 yards rushing.

IV. Draft - Players wishing to keep players from last year will do so before the draft, thereby keeping anyone from getting a free draft pick by drawing the first slot and then not holding a player, knowing they would get him with the first pick anyway. The draft will consist of 25 rounds with a lottery determining who will draft first, second, etc. Every odd numbered round will follow this order with the order being reversed for the even rounds. If any team fails to fulfill their financial obligation by the end of Week #6, there will be an additional supplemental draft, with that draft order being determined by the fewest number of points scored to that point in the season going first. In the event of a tie, overall record will be the first tiebreaker, head to head meeting the second and a coin flip third. For each team that disbands, the remaining rosters will increase by one player, with the remaining players going back into the free agent pool.

V. Statistics - Statistics used for scoring will be those tabulated by www.myfantasyleague.com.

VI. Trades among Teams - Teams may trade players with each other until the completion of Week #9 of the NFL Season. The stipulations of trades between teams are that they must involve the same number of players going from one team to the other, and that the trade must be approved by a majority of the teams in the league, Any potential trade must be submitted 3 days prior to the week that you wish the trade to go into effect, and any protests to that trade must be made prior to roster submission for the coming week's games. Trades that are rejected by a majority of teams will be considered void, and the teams involved will be notified of such as well as the teams that disapproved of the trade. Any team that doesn't say whether they approve of a trade will be assumed to have approved it.

VII. Free Agents - Teams will be allowed to acquire one free agent per week, in exchange for someone on their roster. If the move is to replace someone who is injured, you may place the injured person on IR, but only if they are listed as Out for the coming week's games, you can not keep someone on IR that is listed not listed as Out, so pay very close attention to the injury reports prior to games as the server will identify you as having an illegal roster. The injury report to be used for this will be NFL.com. Www.myfantasyleague.com has drop down menus to places such as NFL.com that allow you to monitor the injury status of your players. When player comes off of IR, you must notify the league which player you are keeping, either the IR-ed player or his replacement. Keeping one or the other does not count against your weekly transaction. The acquiring of free agents during any given week will be broken into two segments. The first, which begins at 12am Tuesday morning (approximate time of the end of the Monday night game) until 12am Thursday is a bid process, where you can make a claim on a player, but teams with the worst record get first selection during this process. If you acquire a pick during bidding, for following weeks those teams that have an equal or worse record than you and haven't had a bid approved will move ahead of you in the selection of free agents. The second part of the free agent process, beginning at 12:15 am Thursday is simply first come, first served waivers, where whoever makes a play on any of the free agents not selected during the bidding process gets them. This is going to be a very short window some weeks, with Thursday night games and all, so pay attention to the schedule.

VIII. Season Length - The football season will run from Week 1 of the NFL Season through Week 13 (assuming a 10 team league), with Weeks 14, 15 & 16 being used for the playoffs. Six teams will qualify for the post season, with the number of division winners and wild cards to be determined on draft day.

IX. Prizes - The prize money for the season will be broken down again by points and playoffs. The first place team in the playoffs will receive 25% of the pot, second 15% and third 10%. In addition, the highest point totals during the regular season will also receive cash in the form of 1st getting 25%, second 15% and third 10%. In the event of a tie in points scored, then the two tied teams will share the prize, such that a tie for first will be a split of the first and second place money, a tie for second will split the second and third place money and a tie for third will just split the third place money.

X. Contacting the league - Like last year, we will keep a folder at Jimmy's for this purpose, though seeing George when he is there is your best option if that is the one you choose to use. You may also contact me via email at matt.pritt@excite.com or via phone at (412) 681-xxxx.

XI. Schedule - The schedule will be determined once we get an exact total number of teams in the league. Teams will play in a head to head format. In the odd chance that we end up with an odd number of teams, there are no bye weeks. During a week that you do not have a scheduled opponent, you will still submit a lineup for points purposes. No rest for the weary, sorry.

XII. Ties - Regular season games that end in a tie will be just that, a tie in the standings. Playoff games that end in a tie will be broken first by the total number of touchdowns scored in that game, with the team scoring the most getting an additional point, and the second tiebreaker will be offensive yards per team (passing yards + rushing yards + receiving yards). Ties in the standings at the end of the season in qualifying for the playoffs will first be broken by head to head results, second by division record (if more than one division is needed), third by points scored head to head and fourth by total points scored.

Table the label

This gem from this morning's show prep, fashion advice from none other than Mr. T. I pity the fool......

Tuesday, September 4, 2007

The draft

We start this morning a little ahead of the curve, it is not many mornings I can say that without it being a bald faced lie, but today isn't like most days, and I have my show prep already printed up and ready to go a full hour and change before show time, which means that I get to spend some time here, instead of elsewhere on the web.

I do have a lot of things on ye olde cranium, so if this comes off as a little disjointed, it is only because I lack a certain focus that other bloggers have, though I will do my best to keep you all up to date details wise to the best of my ability.

Last week saw me do doubles three straight days between the full and part time jobs, and worse they were consecutive days, Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. What constitutes a double you may ask? Usually it is a radio shift that will run from 5am until 12:30 pm followed by a shift at Subway from 5pm until 12am. Mind you, one of the days I did get out 45 minutes early (Tuesday) of the part time job, but it is a small respite in the grand scheme of things. By the time Thursday rolled around, I was pretty much beat when I finally left work, and was more than content to retire to bed at a decent hour. Not until I signed up for a fantasy football draft on Yahoo however. I use the yahoo football as sort of a prep guide for my money draft, which came on Sunday afternoon. It is free and it gives me a general idea of how other people are thinking when it comes to the drafting process, though this only works if you choose the realtime drafting option and have the opportunity to pick the brains of the people you are drafting against. It doesnt work as well if you let yahoo pick the rosters for you based on rating the players, you never see how anyone else rated players until after the draft is done, so for research purposes I choose the real time option.

Not that I don't take the yahoo stuff seriously once I have started it, I did win last year's league, but it isn't the primary reason for joining a yahoo league. Anyway, I went online and when it came time for selecting the type of league I wanted to join, there are three levels of play, casual for the casual fan, competitive for the people who take it a little more seriously and winners, which is only available to those that in fact won a league last year.I tried for the winners option, but the earliest available draft that I could have signed up for wasn't until the following Wednesday, and given I didn't know if I would be working Wednesday evening, that option was out. I then opted for competitive instead and low and behold, there were slots open for Friday evening. Of course, as those of you who follow the blog religiously (feel free to worship at any time, no guarantee that prayers will be answered however) know that I was doing Doug's show Friday night, so I had to sign up for a league later in the evening to accommodate my 5am-6pm radio shift.

With that out of the way, I finally grabbed real sleep Thursday night, as opposed to the two and three hour naps that I am more accustomed to. Hey, I will get plenty of sleep when I am dead, so no need to sleep my life away completely. Friday I did the morning show, then knocked off some production work at the station I needed to complete, and sat in on Doug's show. I thought I sucked, save for a bit on the new Viagra commercial and a personal favorite Klee Irwin and Dual Action Cleanse, but at least one of the blog frequenters, Clair, had tuned in and said I did a good job, so who knows? I know I am my own worst critic when it comes to such things and I can't remember the last time I have left a radio show completely content with the effort that was put forth. I just try not to dwell on the doubts too much, because there is always another show just a day away and dwelling on such things for more than a moment or three can affect the next show, so I try to put it behind me as quickly as possible.

By the time I got home, I realized I had some time to kill before the draft started (it was slated for 9:30pm), so I figured I could pull out the PS2 and sneak in a game or two of baseball with my Joe Random character. Joe had been doing very well in his third season in the minors. Coming up on the minor league all star game, I was sitting comfortably with a .500 average, over 60 RBIs and 60 runs scored and even a couple of stolen bases. I was a virtual lock to be starting in said all star game. So I fired up the PS2 and hit the simulate to next appearance option and low and behold, I got called up to the majors. This is good and bad, good because I made the major league roster without asking to be called up, bad because this meant if I spent any significant time in the majors, there went my all star appearance. Still, I accepted the call up, rather than turn off the PS2 and hope for a different result with a restart. I checked the transaction log to see why I was called up, was I an injury replacement or something else and as it turned out, I had merited the call up, they went ahead and demoted someone to make room for me on the roster. So, I went ahead and did the simulate to ext appearance option and my first appearance was as a pinch hitter in the 9th inning of a 3-2 ballgame, my team trailing and runners on 1st and 2nd with two outs. No pressure there and even less as I flew out to center field to end the game. Since playing one at bat really didn't take too much time, I went ahead and simulated again to my next appearance and again it came in the 9th inning, this time no outs but trailing 5-1. I was a little more successful, hitting my first ever major league homerun, but the team lost 5-2. Again, since one at bat doesn't take much time, I went ahead and played another game, this time I got a start and went 1-5 with my second homerun in a 5-3 win, thus meaning I hit two homeruns in my first 7 at bats. Yeah for me!!!!! That should keep me in the majors for a little bit of time.

The draft came and went, I wasn't overly impressed, but it served its purpose. It got me ready for Sunday's money draft where I am not only a participant, but league commissioner as well. It is something that I take pride in, not because I think I am the best league commissioner fantasy football has to offer, but because those people that play in the league treat the draft day event much like I do, very seriously. Most of the teams have played in the league for a year on more, and we had teams not only from the locals that frequent the bar that we hold the draft in, but we had some people make an extended drive just to be there, someone else actually took a Greyhound across the state just to be there and still another team owner moved to California, and yet was able to participate again this year thanks to the technology of the internet and the league's chat option which allowed us to stay in communication throughout the draft. Yet as the comimissioner, it is my duty to put together the previous season's final rosters, because we have a keeper option for up to two players from your previous year's team, provided you sacrifice the draft pick that allowed you to get them from the previous year, so if you wanted to keep your first round pick, then it cost you this year's first round pick. It is a nice option to have, but it creates a lot of work for me trying to track down the value on every player from the previous year and what it would cost to keep them this year. (There are stipulations for acquiring free agents and players from trades, which slot those players either 5 picks higher from the person they replaced or 5 picks higher from the place they were drafted by the team you traded with.) I had none of this work done, and it made for a pressing weekend, knowing I had to work Saturday and Sunday and yet find time to look oever every transaction in the league last year to get the numbers right, and the draft was Sunday evening. All told, the roject probably took 3-4 hours of time, plus lots of copy paper from work, as photcopying is one of the advantages of working at the radio statio, though ownership doesn't realize this blessed thing and I have no intent of telling them. Plus I had to reprint the league rules, adding minor changes to them, but it was another project to get things squared away for Sunday night. As an added bonus, because I am a benevolent commissioner, I sprung for pizza for the draft, which meant I had to pick that up as well. Before we go saying I am a font of wealth, I bought cheapie large cheese pizzas for 4.90 each, so I spent less than 15 bucks for three of them, but 36 slices of pizza seemed to be a decent call as it was all gone by the end of the draft.

As for how the draft turned out, well we selected draft order and I got to select 2nd, but as it would turn out, the guy who was to pick first had used his first two picks as his keepers, so I, in essence, had the first pick of the draft (my keepers were my 2nd rd selection Willie Parker, and my 3rd Chad Johnson) and with the pick I snagged Joseph Addai from Indianapolis. Before everyone says good pick Matt, I suffer a first round curse the last couple of years, two years ago I had Kevin Jones who went on to break his foot and be useless for most of the season, last year it was Domanick Davis who ended up not even taking a snap last year due to injury, so anyone out there who has Addai in their draft, you have been warned. As for how I drafted, here is the roster for this year, we play 1 QB, 1 RB, 1 WR, 1 TE, 3 Flex players (any combination of RB,WR,TE), 1 K and 3 Defensive players;

Argonauts - Matt Pritt

Garrard, David JAC QB - 4 FA

Green, Trent MIA QB - 9 FA

Kitna, Jon DET QB - 6 FA

Smith, Alex SFO QB - 6 FA

Addai, Joseph IND RB - 6 FA

Buckhalter, Correll PHI RB - 5 FA

Norwood, Jerious ATL RB - 8 FA

Parker, Willie PIT RB - 6 FA

Williams, DeAngelo CAR RB - 7 FA

Engram, Bobby SEA WR - 8 FA

Jennings, Greg GBP WR - 7 FA

Johnson, Calvin DET WR (R) - 6 FA

Johnson, Chad CIN WR - 5 FA

Lloyd, Brandon WAS WR - 4 FA

Welker, Wes NEP WR - 10 FA

Daniels, Owen HOU TE - 10 FA

McMichael, Randy STL TE - 9 FA

Gostkowski, Stephen NEP PK - 10 FA

Longwell, Ryan MIN PK - 5 FA

Hayes, Gerald ARI LB - 8 FA

Wimbley, Kamerion CLE LB - 7 FA

Barber, Ronde TBB CB - 10 FA

Hope, Chris TEN S - 4 FA

Taylor, Sean WAS S - 4 FA

Wilson, Adrian ARI S - 8 FA

Okay, the show is starting here so I better get running. Before I go, new change meter total, we break the $28 dollar barrier as it now stands at $28.32. Gotta run, be back later.

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