Bigger, Stronger, Faster, Christmas

12/26/10

10:46:57 AM

Let's start by stipulating the following, I will not be doing this entry in one sitting. Being on vacation has given me the luxury of being able to come and go as I please for a few days, and I have no problems with that whatsoever. I hope that the holiday finds everyone safe and surrounded by those they love, I know creepy sentimentality is not something this blog is known for, but I am just hoping my contentedness is not an isolated thing. I am in one of those good frames of mind right now, so much that I don't really want to go back to work come late next week, but will have to anyway. All good things and all that jazz.

Funny thing happened on my way to vacation, actually a couple things, but I will deal with them in the manner I remembered them. For instance, I have added three years worth of books to the Shelfari thing to the right, not that it is the only books I have ever read, those are just the ones I paid attention to for sake of the blog. I will be adding more books to it eventually, as I have time and as I remember other books I have read, but for now it is just the last three years. I know there is some Dan Brown, Michael Crichton, Andrew Vachss, and Lawrence Sanders missing over there just for starters. That is not the reason I brought this up however, I brought it up to say simply “I was wrong.” Those words don't often accompany this page, but in this case I will gladly make an exception.

As I was adding books to Shelfari I was rereading the comments to the first Neverending thread and the discussion of the merits of Kindles and Amazon between Angie and myself. I wrote that then I wasn't likely to purchase stuff from Amazon because I liked the notion of actually having stuff in my hands after making the purchase. Well kids I was wrong. Maybe it has something to do with me using Swagbucks, where so far I have earned $210 in free Amazon cash, and ever since then a large portion of my book buying has come from Amazon as a result with mostly positive results. That being said, it hasn't been perfect, my most recent purchase has proved most troublesome. I ordered from them on Dec 15^th, a small Christmas order that I figured I would have in plenty of time for the holiday, at least that is what they claimed on the webpage. So I ordered another book for myself, since I was out of good reading material, and a couple of digital keychains as stocking stuffers for my parents; keychains where you can download digital photos onto them. All seemed squared away, as a matter of fact I received an email the following day saying that the order was already out for shipment. Cool, cool and more cool, since I didn't spend any extra money on faster shipping. Then I get an email saying there would be a slight delay, a problem in shipping as it were. No problem, they still had plenty of time to deliver. Then the problems start. On the 21^st I get an email saying delivery was attempted at 1pm, but I wasn't home. That would be correct, usually at 1pm I am at work, but with all my previous Amazon orders it would usually be left on the front porch or inside my screen door if no one was available. I was left a phone number to call the delivery service (Prestige for those of you looking to find a company to avoid in the future). So I call them and state that if no one was around they could feel free to leave the package, I will get it when I came home. Dec 22^nd according to the tracking information and again a failed attempt to deliver. After having given them instructions I can't imagine what the failure would be, the front porch didn't go anywhere, so the only possible failure is the driver was incapable of actually lifting the package and setting it down on the porch. Still, I was starting my vacation on the 23^rd and maybe they would show up before I left to go home for the holiday. It would be cutting it close, seeing as how my family was coming in the morning, but not beyond the realm of possibility. Well, the phone rings at 10am on the 23rd, I am thinking it will be my family, instead it was something else, which I will deal with later in this blog entry (if you thought this would be short, you really don't know me) so I am still sitting in the confines of my apartment. Timing was not on my side as it were, I had talked to my mom the previous day to see what time they would be showing up, she said in the morning, which dictated how I was to approach the 23^rd. If they were coming in the afternoon I was planning to do the last of my Christmas shopping in the morning before they arrived, if they were coming in the morning, I would go home first and then finish my Christmas shopping when I got there, since I still had a present to pick up at WalMart via their Site to Store service, which was already in the store up there waiting for me to pick it up, so my schedule was flexible enough I could go either way. So when I talked to my mom, she said they would be coming down in the morning, no problem I do my shopping there. Well the 23^rd rolls around and after the first phone call, the second is my mom, and they are going to be delayed because they have to take the dog to the vet. So now I have wasted the morning when I could have shopped and I don't know the exact time they will be coming in the afternoon, so what was a flexible schedule just became pressed for time because I can't leave and do my shopping now for fear they show up while I am away, and I can't not shop because I am not done yet. The plus was that at least I would be home for the Amazon delivery, which according to the tracking info was out for delivery again. But again I look and there is a failure to deliver message stated at 1pm, which is damn near impossible because my family didn't pick me up till after 3pm, so Prestige can claim they tried to deliver my order, but I know better. I know that no attempt was made and their claim to the contrary was ludicrous, so I fired off a not so pleasant email to Amazon. They are offering to credit my account for the order, which is pretty much all they can do I guess. It is the only really bad experience I have had with Amazon to this point, I just wish it hadn't happened during the holidays on the one time when I needed a package to arrive on time.

12/27/10

09:32:27 AM

Told you I wouldn't be doing this all in one sitting, here is just more proof of that. Besides I have plenty of stuff to get to yet, but my schedule here at home hasn't let me write as often as I would like. For instance, in the last section I mentioned a phone call I got on the 23^rd that I was going to deal with at a later time. Well this seems as good a time as any.

As I was waiting for either my family or my Amazon package to arrive on the 23^rd I get a phone call. Because I thought it may be the family I went ahead and picked it up right away as opposed to checking the caller ID on my phone. It was a telemarketer, one for a phone company of some sort, but it was the lying sales pitch they used that set me off. Not that I am all that kind to telemarketers to begin with. My last encounter with one on the phone, someone trying to get me to buy a subscription to the Pittsburgh Tribune Review, went something like this;

Telemarketer: Is Matt Pritt home?

Me: This is he.

TM: We see that you used to subscribe to the Tribune Review.

Me: No I didn't, I received four free Sunday editions for doing a survey for the Yellow Pages, but I have never had a subscription.

TM: Well we wanted to tell you about a subscription offer we have.

Me: I am really not interested.

TM: But wouldn't you like to receive the paper on a daily basis?

Me: No, I think I already answered that question.

TM: But we can offer you a significant discount on the cover price of the paper.

Me: What language would you like me to converse in, because it is apparent you don't understand English?

TM: How do you normally get your news on a daily basis?

Me: I fail to see how that is really any of your business.

TM: Wouldn't you like......

Me: I think we are done here. 'click'

That is usually how my phone calls go with such people, yet here it was with me waiting on a phone call and I am stuck on the line with someone from a company called “Online Services Incorporated”. The representative is telling me that come January 1^st they will be taking over the billing of Verizon long distance customers and the good news is that because of the switch I will be receiving a discount in my phone bill, a savings of $10-$15 a month. I was skeptical, but trying to keep an open mind, so I asked how this would affect my DSL service, since I have everything going through Verizon at this point, and she said my DSL would not be affected, there would just be an additional page on my phone bill explaining the change, but that everything else would remain the same. So I asked what I needed to do next, and she said she would patch me through to another person, one who would simply record my responses for FCC purposes saying that I authorized the changes, which was probably the last red flag I needed to hear. In my dealings with Verizon, if there was ever a problem I could always just deal with the representative on the phone, not be passed off to someone else who would then record my responses. Nonetheless I stay on the line while they wait to patch me up with the other person, a process that took almost 5 minutes meaning they were probably busy being effective in their scam with some other people, but finally I was connected to this second person, who began reading questions on the phone to record my responses. I did the whole name, rank and serial number thing when they got to the million dollar question, do you agree to switch your long distance provider, to which I said a resounding “No!”. This led to my questioner saying she would have to put me back in touch with the representative, to which I said it is really not necessary and hung up the phone. About a minute later my phone rings again and I leave the machine get it and the representative is on there saying, well it looks like you will have to find your own long distance company then.

I could have left it drop there, but now I am pissed that you tried to scam me, so I call Verizon directly and explain what just happened. They assured me that they are not farming out their long distance service, given the size of their company they have no need to deal with independent contractors in such a fashion. Which is pretty much what I expected, so I gave them a Christmas present, I had *69 ed the last incoming call before calling Verizon, so I had the phone number of the people who were running the scam if Verizon wished to pursue it in any fashion. The Verizon rep asked if she could look at my account for a second, to which I said sure, and then she proceeds to tell me I have been paying too much for my service to begin with. It seems that I have been a customer so long that I actually predate all of the bundling options, so I had been a DSL subscriber when it was at the worst possible price, $34.99 a month and because my account had been set up a la carte as opposed to being offered any sort of bundle I was overpaying by $10 a month anyway. So she asked if she could bundle the services, it would require a one year commitment on my part, but I had been a customer for like 7 years and I don't see me going anywhere any time soon so I agreed to the one year deal. Then she said, you know, for the very same price you can be getting DISH Network too, which I kindly said no to, I have seen those offers before, and while you get the TV free for one year, it requires a two year commitment, and on the second year you take it up the pooper on the TV end of the deal, and I am not home enough to be paying an additional $30-$40 a month for a TV I barely watch. Lastly she said, well according to our records, you have a 1 Meg modem, but you should have a 7 Meg one, so we will be sending you a new modem free of charge. Merry Christmas to me indeed. Now I can annoy you online 7X faster than I used to.

So how is this for typical, I haven't even gotten past Dec 23^rd yet and I am a full three pages into a blog entry. It is for this reason that I don't blog every day, I just don't have the time for long drawn out entries like this.

Lest we get all topical here and start talking current events, this thing could get even longer without me getting any closer to the end of the entry. I will say this though, the more Julian Assange speaks, the dumber he sounds. He is almost becoming the Paris Hilton of the blogging set these days, once the camera slips away from him he has to say something, regardless of how stupid it may be, just so that people will still pay attention to him. With Hilton, she just flashes her over used disease riddled crotch, with Assange it is just another “oh woe is me because....” pronouncement. Of course the person who will suffer for Assange's actions, Pfc Manning, is at best a mere afterthought in this melodrama. Not that Manning, if guilty, shouldn't be punished, but for all of the whining and crying coming out of Assange's mouth, one would swear he was being made someone's prison bitch, as opposed to profiting handsomely from his endeavor, first by selling the story to newspapers and now signing a book deal. Oh, if only all of us could suffer so greatly.

Okay, enough soap box stuff, back to my story.

So my family finally arrives around 3:30pm or so, again there was no delivery from Amazon and I refused to stay there any longer waiting on a package that I am sure Prestige had no intent of delivering. So off for home for the holidays I went. Of course since I was with the family they felt a need to stop at Golden Coral for dinner on the way home. Not that I am against eating, truth be told I hadn't eaten all day, but by the same token I now had to figure out a way to finish my Christmas shopping without the parental units learning of what I will buy them while I was in their company. I had one gift already at WalMart, thanks to their Site to Store option online, where you pay for the item online and then they ship it free to whichever store you wish to pick it up from. The advantage being that you don't pay for having it shipped to a residence, since Site to Store is free and you can pick which store you want it sent to, so just because I live in Pittsburgh, I could order it and have it sent to the Indiana (PA) store, where I was going to be, to pick it up. Of course that didn't help me with the rest of my Christmas shopping, and I knew that my parents would want to be home for the Steeler game Thursday night, so all I was realistically going to have time to do when I first got home was unpack, go pick up my Site to Store item (a high def TV), figure out a way to hide it and then go home for the football game. With my family gettogether slated for the next day, I wasn't going to have time to shop on Christmas Eve, so I was going to be sneaking out some time after the game, without my parents in tow, so I could finish shopping for them.

12/31/10

12:51:23 AM

Well now, I really need to finish this, because every time I put things off more stuff just piles up. So instead of just putting this off for another day, which I have done for a couple of days now, I will see if I can sit down and just bang this out all at one. But before I get started I should say Happy New Year's Eve for those celebrating. I will be working this morning and New Year's Day as well, but Sammy and I are doing the breakfast sundaes at DeLuca's on New Year's Day, so my year is going to be off to a good start regardless. I am eyeing up the Granny Smith Apple one myself.

Okay, anyway I was in the middle of a story. The problem with me sneaking out to shop for them is since I usually live in the city and take public transportation everywhere (something that may be revisited this year if bus fares continue to go up and service continues to be cut as is once again the plan) I couldn't just hop in my car and take off for the store. And I didn't want them with me, even though I had their larger present bought (a HDTV) I still wanted to get them a few extra things. Yeah, Christmas is the one holiday I actually make a better than average effort for. The problem then was getting to the store, WalMart is open 24 hours which is a plus, and it is of the Super variety so I could get some groceries as well for my dishes for the family shindig, but it is probably a good mile and half walk at least. So now I have to sneak out after they have went to bed, put on ye olde hiking boots and start a walking. Of course this would be the night that creatures, namely parental units, would be doing too much stirring, so I didn't get out until around 3am. By the time I hike over to WalMart, buy my groceries and assorted Christmas gifts and lug two large bags of stuff home it is around 5:30am. I didn't even bother doing any wrapping, I figured I could save that for Christmas Eve night, a rush job on wrapping presents on Christmas Eve wasn't going to drastically affect the quality of my wrap jobs anyway, I suck at that task.

So instead I took a little nap, until 10am or so on Christmas Eve, and then I was up again doing some cooking for the family event later that day. I grabbed some stuff to throw together a quick spinach dip, but like I said before in the blog, I don't want to be the “dip guy”, I decided to make something else as well. The problem being I had never tried this recipe before but nonetheless I decided my family would make the perfect guinea pigs for my first ever attempt at broccoli casserole. And so I went about throwing it together and it came out pretty damn good for a first attempt if I do say so myself, since I tinkered with the recipe a bit, adding more rice and bacon than is originally called for and picking a lesser known cheese sauce that turned out to be quite a decent substitute for the standard Velveeta or Cheese Whiz that I am sure most people would employ.

The thing about Christmas Eve is that, with my grandmother no longer with us, my aunt Amy had decided to host the event this year. If I were in Pittsburgh that actually wouldn't have been to big a problem, I could have taken a city bus or two and made it there with no problem (and it also would have allowed me to Christmas shop during normal business hours on the 23^rd as opposed to going out in the middle of the night) but since my family picked me up on the 23^rd they also offered to take me to the Christmas Eve party, though they weren't going to stick around for it. It is something that bothers me I admit. If there is anything that I have learned this past year it is simply that you never know how many of these things you are going to get. I guess technically we all know that fact, but there is a certain taking it for granted that also accompanies that thought, that if I miss this one I will make up for it next year, or my petty grievance is reason enough for me to not see the bigger picture, and the significance of the moment is lost over lesser concerns. So I made an effort to convince my mom that she should attend, but I wasn't going to let hers or her husband's indifference about it dampen my overall enthusiasm over having many of my family under one roof for an evening. I gave it the old college try as it were, beyond that I washed my hands of making a bigger issue of it. If they just wanted to drop me off and then leave and then come back, it was on them, not me.

And lets not kid anyone, it was an awesome time. As it turned out I had Amy's name and one of the things I learned from having our monthly breakfasts was that as we were window shopping in the Strip District she had been eyeing some of the knit sweaters in this one shop we went into which is mostly Native American apparel. Usually I don't have that good of an idea of what to get people and I usually end up guessing. I had also gotten an FM clock radio with Ipod dock from one of the vendors at work, which I also gave her, so I think I did okay in the gifting department. My cousin Sarah had my name, and she got me a framed Winter Classic print and a Penguins fleece jacket, both of which are awesome I might add. At one point my parents called to see if I was ready to come home and I pretty much disappointed them by saying “No.” We hadn't even eaten yet let alone exchanged gifts and I wasn't about to let their pettiness rush what was a most pleasant evening.

Eventually I did make it back home, and again I had to wait for the creatures to quit stirring, this time so I could wrap presents and I think I finally finished around 4am. So if I want to blame anything for my current messed up sleeping schedule, I guess I could blame it on my vacation. I don't know how many nights I was up until ungodly hours only to wake up at 9 or 10 am, as opposed to my normal 5:30-6am wakeup ritual.

07:53:19 PM

Well I finally turned in last night. I made it until about 2am before crashing and then getting up for work this morning. I haven't the stamina of my younger years where I can pull off an all niter at the drop of a hat, so I blogged as long as I could before realizing my body might need some sleep.

On the plus side I spent the better part of today at work counting down to breakfast tomorrow. Waffle sundaes sound so good right now. I have been spending enough weekends at DeLuca's so I might as well leave you a link to all of the goodness you are missing out on

http://www.allmenus.com/pa/pittsburgh/275793-delucas-restaurant/menu/breakfast/

So far I have tried a few items off of the menu and they all kick ass. Not that I have a discriminating palate or anything, but I have managed to bounce around the menu a bit and everything I have tried so far has been pretty amazing for diner food.

Anyway, if I am ever going to get to the end of this blog entry I had better get cracking by continuing with my vacation saga.

Christmas morning came and with it the airing of the grievances. Oh wait, that's Festivus. Instead it was the exchanging of gifts. I got a few things on my list, mainly my new leather jacket after years of asking for repairs to the old one on my list. And I hope that the family likes the HDTV, they hadn't hooked it up yet by the time I left, but they were due for a new TV. The old one is the non HD variety and there are some lines showing through on the top of the screen, so I knew a TV was needed, but I wasn't sure how big of one I could get because the cabinet they have the TV in has some limited space. Since I didn't have time to measure it ahead of time, I was working off of memory and went with a 22' model, which will work as the space in the unit couldn't fit anything bigger than a 27' TV. Then again I got them a Blu Ray player last year and I don't know if they even took it out of the box yet, so I guess I will find out on my next trip home if it was a useful present or not. The rest of Christmas was pretty uneventful, just lounging and being lazy, with a good home cooked meal thrown in for good measure.

The next real exciting event probably took place the following day when we all went to visit some family, my aunt and uncle Mouse and Mary. They were the ones that, when my grandmother passed away, Mouse was given her house in the will. He hasn't been staying there, instead his two sons Bob and Scott have moved into it, but they have sunk quite a bit of money into it since taking over. New windows were put in, walls were replastered after getting built up moisture out of them, the kitchen floor was redone, lots and lots of repainting. It was weird being in the house and having it look so different to what I was accustomed to, but at least it is being taken care of rather than left to go to pot. Of course there was the all too much complaining and gossiping about who got what and who did this and that which is what I was hoping to avoid this holiday season, but I did my best to just keep my mouth shut. Now you see why another reason why I wanted nothing from my grand parent's estate, someone would have found a reason to bitch about it even if I did ask for something. When I am dead and gone and there is some tabulations of all of the smart versus dumb things I ever did, not taking anything is going to end up way high in the smart column. This blog page might not be so lucky.

I also got to break out my pool game a couple of times over vacation. It seems Mike has joined a league somewhere in Indiana, and as part of his Christmas presents my mom got him a couple of new sticks to shoot with. So we went out a couple of times to shoot with his friends, one of which was on the pool league with him. Let's just say, if ever I committed myself to shooting pool, I could easily be the best person on their team. I haven't shot in 6 months and there many were times where I actually felt like I was the best shot there.

The only really bad part to the vacation, save for the gossiping part, was that my run as fantasy football league champ came to a end after two straight seasons. The regular season ended with me finishing with an 11-3 record, the best record overall and good for the #1 seed in the fantasy playoffs. Being #1 meant I got a first round bye, so my first playoff weekend was Christmas weekend. Then I went and over thought things. As a general rule when people ask me for advice on fantasy football I tell people that your first few picks are guys that you should expect to play every week they are available, if not then you shouldn't have drafted them in the first place. Sure injuries can come into play, a guy may tear an ACL or something and miss the season forcing you to scramble to find an adequate replacement, but as a general rule if you are drafting them you should be playing them. Enter my #1 pick Adrian Peterson. I drafted him in the first round, second overall, and while he wasn't my best fantasy player this year (that honor would go to Arian Foster), he did nothing that would make me believe he was a bad pick. A solid if unspectacular year, he was still amongst the league leaders in rushing yards and rushing touchdowns, I got exactly what I was expecting out of him with a #1 pick. Then the first week of the fantasy playoffs, with me sitting out with a bye, I see that Adrian Peterson doesn't play due to an injury in the Vikings matchup against the Bears. Since it wasn't something that had shown up on any injury report as to be something to concerned about, the benching caught many people off guard and I am sure cost some people some fantasy playoff games out there. But not me, I was off. And I wasn't going to get fooled like everyone else, I would make plans. Glorious plans. Plans that would show that I was indeed the smartest fantasy football player to ever walk the face of the earth. Three peat here I come. I start scanning the waiver wire to see who I can pick up in lieu of AP being off a second straight week. After all, the Vikings were out of the playoff race, playing a Philadelphia team that was still trying to get themselves a bye in the playoffs, why would the Vikings risk a franchise player in a game that meant nothing if they didn't play him the previous week. So I looked and I see a gentleman by the name of Rashad Jennings, running back of the Jacksonville Jaguars. Normally Jennings is a second string guy, but the starting running back in Jacksonville was doubtful for the coming week with a knee injury. And Jennings was running against Washington, one of the worst run defenses in all the NFL. This had the makings of a steal of epic proportions. Fantasy gurus know what I am talking about, grabbing that one unknown quantity that vaults them from mere afterthought to fantasy greatness. A couple of years ago Tyler Thigpen rose from the depths of obscurity to such a station, only to fall back into those depths shortly thereafter. But I didn't care if Jennings had a Hall of Fame career, I was looking for a starter who could amply fill in for Adrian Peterson for a week or two. So scoop him up I did, and I benched Adrian Peterson. And a voice rang down from the fantasy heavens asking if I was worshipping some false god and why I was violating the commandment of benching a first round pick. The gods spoke and I was smote. Jennings scored 3 points, Peterson had 13. If that wasn't enough, the gods then proceeded to kick the ass of the rest of my team as well. San Diego's defense, playing for a post season spot, absolutely imploded against a 2-12 Cincinnati squad minus Terrell Owens and Chad Ochocinco. Matt Ryan gets credit for a fumble (-2 pts) when his center bounces a snap back to him. Chris Cooley has multiple drops, including a touchdown pass. My team, save for a couple of performances, became a black hole of suck. As a result I lose by 10 points and am relegated to the 3^rd place game, and if 2^nd place is the 1^st loser than the best I can hope for is being the 2^nd loser.

That being said, I made it back to Pittsbuugh and work yesterday, and for all of my worrying that things would go horribly wrong in my absence, nothing of the sort actually came to pass. Not that everything was perfect, and my first order I put in will be a large one, much to Brian's dismay, but the wheels didn't fall off the wagon as it were, Sammy did a more than capable job filling in for me. Enough so that I actually got to focus on catching up on office work as opposed to fixing screw ups. And trust me, there was office work to be had. Ed may be in Florida, but that didn't stop him from sending 4 different faxes of things he wanted me to do which were waiting for me upon my arrival. Plus I had a project or two I wanted to get out of the way, and being we are very slow during the holiday season and most everything was caught up on, I had a chance to do just that.

And with that I think we are almost caught up until current day, at least as caught up as I plan on being for the time being. I am thinking that some changes may need to come to this page again in the coming year, after all I have to have a hook for the audience in some way, shape or form. I just haven't decided on how exactly to go about it yet. Well, that is best left for another day, like tomorrow. For now I am content in that I have bored you for 8 pages, so my work here is done.

Promo video for the Winter Classic

Still bummed I couldn't get tickets.  Guess I will just watch it on TV like everyone else.

Quiet time

  It is one of those periods of relative calm here in my section of Pittsburgh.  Last week was finals for the college students, so most have packed up and headed home for holiday, those that are still here are less inclined to throw parties outside when the temps dip into the teens and single digits at night.  It is times like these, when the place clears out a bit that I get a little more reflective.  Things enter my head, which lead to other things, which lead to yet other things.

My neglect of the page and the site in general being one of those things.  So we spruce up the place by changing the background photo and adding a little something something called shelfari over on the right as a place to add the books I have read (as well as the Neverending Threads).  So far I have entered the 2010 entries and the 2009 entries onto the bookshelf, but I still have 2008 plus many assorted books that are laying around my apartment onto the list, so for now we will consider it a work in progress and leave it at that. 

But while on the page doing the editing I was caught up in a little more nostalgia for things that have happened this past year.  The advantage of having people never visit your site is that things don't go away all that easily.  Even though I only let my comments go 5 deep on the homepage, and since I have blocked any form of html on the comments themselves, I was nonetheless surprised to see that the last visible comment was from Donna way back on June 28th, to wish me a happy birthday.  That of course then led me to this, given the time of year and all that jazz.  I am not sure what to make of Christmas this year.  On one hand I got an earlier start than normal on my Christmas shopping, not that I am finished by any stretch, but at least I have a few things bought already.  Yet I wonder how it will all play out, I have time off from work so I am not going to be rushing around, I have a week to do all of the visiting and just take in some down time, but at the same time this will be the first Christmas without either one of my grandparents around.  There was just something about being in their house on Christmas Eve with the family sitting down to a nice meal and the kids not wanting to eat because the sooner we stopped eating the sooner they could open their presents.  My aunt Amy is trying to step into that void, doing the hosting of the Christmas Eve getogether and what not, and I truly love her for it, but there is still that void of the first holiday with grandma no longer with us. 

Okay, I refuse to let this blog be a complete and utter downer, even with the less than stellar start to it.  After all it is Christmas time and just because I have my brooding moments doesn't mean I am not looking forward to the season, just tempering my enthusiasm somewhat.  It still is what it is, and I have been listening to Christmas carols at work for better than a week now.  Not just the schlock that comes on the radio either, I have went and brought all of my Christmas CDs in to play on the radio as well, as has Sammy, so it is not uncommon to hear either one of us strolling through the basement singing along with anything from your more standard fare to me firing off a little "Santa's Beard" by They Might Be Giants. 

I'll be honest, I have become at best an influence on Sammy, and at worst a bad influence on him.  Not that I can't be a role model, I am not going all Charles Barkley here, but there are limits to what I would say is a good and bad influence out of the things I do.  It's one thing to have a similar work ethic, and I think mine is pretty good by most standards, and Sammy tends to follow suit in that regard.  At the same time, I speak in a certain vernacular that I would call unique and I am finding Sammy is copying that as well, which may not be as good.  Prime example would be this morning he and I were in to do the Saturday order, it was my last chance to train him on it before my vacation, and the process usually goes as follows.  First we will order anything that Rick leaves us on a list for the deli section, next will be the cigarette order, followed by the grocery order and last we will get a list from Belinda regarding any other tobacco related products we need (i.e. snuff, chewing tobacco, lighters, etc.)  Well we bang out the deli order pretty quick, I do the cigarettes because I am much faster at it, Sammy does the grocery order on the floor and then we go see Belinda and she doesn't have the tobacco order ready yet.  She says we got everything done too fast for her when I bust out one of my many work phrases "That is because of our cat-like quickness" when Sammy steals the rest of my line and goes "Meow".  I question how much of a positive influence that really is,

Sammy is cool though, we have continued to go to breakfast through his training, almost always at DeLuca's, where I am making an effort to see if they actually have a bad breakfast item on the menu.  I have been there four times now, each time I have tried something different; 1) blueberry hotcake special with chorizo sausage, 2) Mixed grill with eggs over easy and kielbassa, 3) Steel City breakfast, eggs over easy with a waffle and 4) cheeseburger omelet, and every time the food is just awesome.  Today was the best and worst so far, the best because the cheeseburger omelet was fantastic and worst because I finally saw one of the breakfast sundaes being made I previously blogged about, and had I not had a completely full stomach from the omelet I might have hopped the counter and stole it from the waitress before she ever got it to the table.  A waffle the size of a plate with a scoop of vanilla ice cream, surrounded with strawberries and topped with whipped cream, drizzled with hot fudge and hot caramel and served with a cherry on top.  Needless to say, Sammy and I are getting breakfast sundaes on our next visit after I get back from vacation, though I am leaning toward the granny apple sundae myself (waffle, ice cream, apples, caramel, cinnamon and whipped cream). 

Before I forget, mentioning the waitress brought something else to mind about this page.  I was sitting around the other day thinking about what I could do that was holiday related when I thought about the idea of doing a week long Karaoke blog series with nothing but Christmas carols, or at least holiday themed songs, if I could find the videos.  One of the first ones I went to look for was "Christmas Wrapping" by The Waitresses, but I couldn't find the video to the song, instead I found this



It was just so cool that, while it isn't an actual video to a song, it is worth some form of inclusion in a blog entry.  Let this be that inclusion.

Only .76 gets added to the change meter since I last posted it, leaving the total at $193.15 with two weeks left in the year to try and come up with the 6 bucks and change needed to get to $200.  It is looking less and less likely, but as another example of my bad influence on Sammy at work, he has also started picking up change on the floor, so now it has become almost a daily competition  between he and I as opposed to my own personal little project.  It is hard enough to real that $200 milestone to begin with, now I have made it even moreso.  Why am I so cool that people wish to copy me?  I would say "Because all I do is dominate" but I think Sammy would say the exact same thing.  Actually I should have put that on my Christmas list, a  t shirt with that printed on the back.  Someday maybe I will do a blog entry that is just a lexicon of the things I say, because me typing it without going into some long drawn out explanation of what it means makes it seem like I am typing an inside joke that only I get.  Then again, that might be one more person than the number of people who will actually read this.

Well I should call it a night.  I am off tomorrow, but I have plenty of tasks that I have plans to get to (Christmas shopping, cleaning, laundry, wrapping gifts, doing Christmas cards) and Monday night is the hockey game I have tickets for, so there will be no work done then, though I might be back here posting pictures from the game (and the new Consol Energy Center where the Penguins play), but for now I think sleep is the best option.

Titit #5

Welcome back to another fine episode of "Things I think I think" starring less that impressive opinions from yours truly.  Truth be told I should probably be asleep right now, but because I fell asleep watching The Simpsons earlier I find myself wide awake at almost 1am, dreading the thought of venturing out into the cold outdoors in about 5 hours to go to work.  To help pass the time I figured I would go ahead and try my hand at blogging again, how that attempt actually turns out, well I will leave that for you to decide. 

While I have marketed the last few months as "The Fall of My Content" in hopes of recovering from the "The Summer of Suck", I would be remiss in stating that the fall hasn't been content for all.  fate has not smiled on one of Pittsburgh's own blogging community, a community of which I am a member if for no other reason than a) I blog and b) I live here.  beyond that I really doubt any of the greater known literary types really know I exist, let alone stop by to read the page. Then again by the looks of the globe-o-meter off to the side, not that many other people have been reading the page either, good thing I do this more for myself than for any sort of public reaction or acclaim, because then I the process would be a lot more disheartening.  But back on topic, and quickly at that, That's Church blogger Virginia Montanez and her husband suffered through a setback when their restaurant in downtown Pittsburgh caught on fire.  No word on when (or if) a reopening will be taking place, the process is in the hands of insurance people and people with far greater minds and salaries than yours truly.

Likewise I should also note the passing of Bruce Keidan, a  former local radio show host and columnist for the Pittsburgh Post Gazette.  In my realm of classification there are basically three types of talk shows (though the circles are not mutually exclusive), those that entertain, those that piss people off and those that are informative.  Bruce's shows certainly fit into the first and third categories on that list and I had the opportunity, albeit briefly, to work with him during his short tenure as program director of WPTT.  It was a humbling experience for one such as myself, barely having gotten my feet wet in radio at the time, yet working with what many would consider the smartest guy in the room, often I was just hoping I didn't screw up too much.  And the job probably wasn't what he had signed on for, in many ways he was a program director with little or no say in the programming of the station, so I knew he wouldn't be long for the job.  Sadly I didn't get much of a chance to pick his brain while we worked together, we may have had three or four meetings tops before he went on to bigger and better things but as he was going out the door he pulled a handful of people aside to let us know that if they ever needed anything all they had to do was pick up the phone and give him a call.  Job references, career advice, or just emails to bitch about serving our radio overlords, he listened to them all and offered whatever assistance he could and I was one of the lucky ones he included in that list.  Many thanks Bruce, you will be missed.

So last might I didn't opt to glog the football game between the Steelers and the Ravens, and I am sorry I didn't.  The Steelers-Ravens rivalry has been one of the best in football, especially in recent years and I don't say that just because I live in Pittsburgh and the Steelers are the hometown team, but because the scoreboard and the physicality of the games bears that out.  But in the last 5 meetings between the two teams, 4 have been decided by three points or less.  The fifth you ask?  That was decided by 4 points.  This meeting was no different.  With Baltimore nursing a four point lead late, Troy Polamalu sacks Ravens QB Joe Flacco and causes a fumble, which Pittsburgh recovers and the offense scores a touchdown and Pittsburgh wins 13-10.  As for the physicality of the game, four players left the game due to injury, two of them will not play again this year.  The other two will miss at least one more game.

As much as I liked doing radio and being on the air, let me tell you there are some things about the business I really don't miss.  Take the example of The Spy, one of my favorite alternative stations, even though I am well out of their broadcast range, living here in PA while they are broadcasting in Oklahoma.  that being said, let me tell you a little story of how fucked up the business is.  The Spy originally existed years ago, but the owners of the station opted to  dump the format in favor of something that one would assume was more profitable.  That's all fair and good, and it is their right.  But whatever they tried to do on the station didn't seem to stick, so the station was put up for sale.  In steps one of the old Spy DJ's, who puts together a financial plan to purchase the station, pending an appraisal of what the property is worth.  With the deal pending he begins to program The Spy again.  The appraisal comes in and it is far less than what the owners thought they should be getting, so they back out of the deal.  But the kicker is that The Spy opts to go internet only to keep themselves on the air.  And what do the owners do now that the sale has collapsed?  They start programming the station as an alternative station under the moniker of, you guessed it, The Spy.  Never let it be said that those in the radio field are of noble spirit and deed. 

Speaking of radio, I am getting ready to take my first vacation since my departure from said medium almost two years ago.  One of the things I do not miss personally happened this past week when I received a Christmas bonus at work.  A decent bonus too ($100), when you consider what it is that I do.  What makes it more decent is that I can't remember the last time I received a Christmas bonus in radio, though I can guarantee you it wasn't in my last 5 years there.  So far at the new gig, if it can really be considered new at this point, I am two for two in the Christmas bonus department. 

I know there has been a lot of hullabaloo over the whole Wikileaks story that has come out recently, including the sexual exploits of one Julian Assange, which while good tabloid fodder has little to no bearing on whether or not he had the right to publish what was confidential information.  While I am not 100% set in stone on my opinion, I tend to believe he most certainly has the right to do so.  Truth be told, far too much attention is being paid to him in this matter, the truly guilty party is the person who gave him the information to begin with, Army Spc. Bradley Manning.  Whatever happens to Assange, Manning should be tried for treason.

What I suggested should happen in a previous blog entry has in fact happened, Pitt fired head football coach Dave Wannstedt.  here is hoping that the powers that be that are given the responsibility of finding the next football coach don't trip all over themselves looking for the next "Pitt guy" to take the reigns.  Here is a novel concept, how about just looking for the best person, rather than the parochial mentality of the best guy that had a previous connection to the university or region.

I hope you liked November, because for all of the talk of fiscal responsibility that was blathered about, it is December now and that train has passed.  Now we are left with two groups, one of which wants to extend an unfunded mandate in the form of the Bush tax cuts, the other wants to extend the benefits of a government program by tacking on another year of unemployment compensation.  Nothing says fiscal responsibility like cutting revenue and increasing spending. 

On that note, I think we will call it a wrap, because tis the season for wrapping and all that jazz.    Speaking of wrapping, if you can't afford wrapping paper that is perfectly fine with me, you can leave my present in the box or bag from the store, but please don't wrap my gift with yesterday's edition of the newspaper, that is just tacky and cheap.  If you are that hard up for cash, save the newspaper and take it to the recycling plant so you can start saving up for next Christmas, the plastic WalMart bag is just fine with me.

The list (Christmas edition), finally

     As it an annual occurrence around these parts, it is time once again to post ye olde Christmas list.  You will note some similarities to previous lists, I do keep a back up after all so all I have to do is edit, copy, paste, thus cutting down on the time actually spent generating a list.   Before I begin however, I want to address something, what has become almost a yearly tradition around this time, almost as much as decorated trees, shopping, snow, etc. and that is the nonsense of Xmas, the idea that by writing that word one is "crossing Christ's name out of Christmas" and the whole war on Christmas idiocy that comes with it.  Fact is, Xmas and Xian and Xianity for that matter very much are part of Christian tradition and it is fucking morons who don't know the history of their own religion that perceive such words as attacks.  I will say something that I have said before on this page, that if you believe that by people celebrating Christmas or Xmas in their own fashion, by exchanging gifts and spending time with their loved ones is somehow an attack on your sacred holiday, feel free to stay home and bake your savior a fucking cake and leave the rest of us the hell alone.  With that said, I believe a list is in order.

Chistmas list 2010
Notebooks
Pens
A massage
Light bulbs 
Garbage bags
Diablo 3 (if Blizzard ever gets around to releasing it)
Washington Post subscription
Money
Groceries
A haircut
A quiet breakfast of an bagel with cream cheese and coffee
DVDs (TV - TV show, M - Movie)
     Any season of The West Wing but the first or last (TV)
     Chuck (TV)
     Momento (M)
     Pi (M)
     Homicide: Life on the Street (TV)
     Star Trek (the new movie) (M)
     X Men Origins: Wolverine (M)
     Band of Brothers (TV)
     A Midnight Clear (M)
     Boondock Saints (M)
     The Dark Night (M)
     The Wrestler (M)
Some motivation
Pogo stuff (membership, albums or gems) 
A Philly Cheesesteak 
Books
     Zeitoun by Dave Eggers
     The Wilderness Warrior: Theodore Rossevelt and the Crusade for America by Douglas Brinkley
     Satchel:  The Life and Times of an American Legend by Larry Tye
     The Ground Truth:  The Untold Story of America Under Attack on 9/11 by John Farmer
     The Good Soldiers by David Finkel
     Under the Dome by Stephen King
     Denialism: How Irrational Thinking Hinders Scientific Progress, Harms the Planet and Threatens Our Lives by Michael Specter
     Sweet Thunder:  The Life and Times of Sugar Ray Robinson by Wil Haygood
     The American Civil War: A Military History by John Keegan
     The Book of Basketball by Bill Simmons
     When You Are Engulfed in Flames by David Sedaris
     The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins
     Ocho Cinco: What Football and Life Have Thrown My Way by Chad Ochocinco and Jason Col
     Crazy Horse and Custer: The Epic Clash of Two Great Warriors at Little Big Horn by Stephen Ambrose
     LBJ: Architect of American Ambition by Randall B. Woods
     The Johnstown Flood by David McCullough
     The Death of American Virtue: Clinton vs. Starr by Ken Gormley
     The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine by Michael Lewis
     Matterhorn: A Novel of the Vietnam War by Karl Malantes
     War by Sebastian Junger
Pants (38X30)
Socks
Shirts (including T shirts, sweatshirts and turtlenecks, preferably XL or larger, I like them droopy)
PAT bus pass
A maid
A pliable female
Gift cards (Barnes & Noble, Target, Walmart, Giant Eagle, Amazon)
Hockey tickets
Boston Creme donuts
Better results for my fantasy hockey team and a playoff spot for my fantasy football team
Postage stamps
Case of Red Stripe
Josh Gibson Homestead Grays jersey
Joe Sakic Quebec Nordiques jersey
Breakfast at DeLuca's
New England Clam Chowder
Leather jacket

A little bit of everything

Saturday, November 27th

I guess I am cheating a bit here, using a larger type (16) than the default (12), and while that trick works when doing papers for school, I don't know if I need to be so worried about space when it comes to a blog, after all, it's not like this is being graded for length or something. Besides, when was the last time anyone complained here that my blogs were too short? Exactly.

Instead I am just using a larger typeface because I am using Open Office, and while it is a decent enough program for shareware, I have found sometimes that when doing ye olde copy and paste thingy, sometimes part of the letters get cut off, so I just want to make sure this is legible enough. Not King George legible, that would require 48 or 72 point font, but just enough that it is readable after the copy and pasting is done. Hopefully this will do the trick.

The other reason for Open Office is that it has a spell checker built in and if I am going to blog, given how long I have been away, far better to do it with a spell checker than for me to go back and reread this tripe. Typing it is bad enough, I shouldn't be expected to read it as well. That's your job, and last I heard you get paid handsomely for it.

Because it has been a while since I blogged, chances are that a couple of comments are going to be mashed together in this entry, not Mash-ed like that sorry social networking concept of Yahoo that lasted all of a millisecond before being rendered useless, as most Yahoo ideas are, but mashed as in I may throw in a few “Things I Think I Think” as I go. After all, plenty has occurred since my last foray into this medium, far be it from me to fail to type about those things as they come to mind. For instance.....

Titit #1 – Don't say I didn't warn you Democrats. Way back around primary season I said that the big winner in the Arlen Specter/Joe Sestak race would be Pat Toomey, because unlike Specter, Sestak had zero crossover appeal, he may get loyal Democrats to vote for him, but he had no chance of getting of getting anyone to cross party lines and pull his lever. Sure enough, during the landslide elections that took place with the Republicans taking over the majority in the House and gaining seats in the Senate, one of the losers was indeed Joe Sestak. Now Specter may or may not have won in a head to head battle with Toomey this time around, but it was just 6 years ago he beat him in a Republican primary, and he would have offered a better chance at winning than Sestak did. Don't get me wrong, Specter has shown in the past that he isn't always the most loyal of party line voters, but if having a choice between a guy who might vote with you 60-70 percent of the time or giving the seat to someone who will almost never vote on your side of the issue, Democrats would have been wise to take the 60-70 option and been happy about it, instead they get guaranteed nay votes for the next 6 years. Good job guys, real good job.

That might have been the first time this blog went political in all kind of months, not sure if that is a good or bad thing, but I suppose it is as good a place to start as any. After all, most of the other stuff I talk about is just mundane, boring as all hell, day to day stuff that happens at work, so maybe a change up was good, even if it was only for one paragraph.

I have started my Christmas shopping, probably the earliest I have gotten about it, but with so much free stuff on the web, it is just even easier for me to start now while I am at home and just doing the point and clicky thing. I managed to pick up a couple of presents from MyCokeRewards, where they have a bunch of stuff at half off on the Coke points. I finally have reached the place where I am no longer maxing out the points I can redeem on a weekly basis (120). All of the excess caps from work have been redeemed, including a bunch of Powerade caps that I save for double points day and ended up getting 240 in one week with the bonus. The last two weeks have been far slimmer pickings, 40 some points last week, and so far this week just 26. Since I am off tomorrow, I may make at least part of a day of going out and seeing if I can find a cap or two. I know I want to do breakfast again, last week was such an awesome breakfast that I need to do that again, and I need to pick up a Christmas present that I located and it is near the breakfast place, so hi ho, hi ho, it's off to breakfast I go.

Breakfast last week was part of something I mentioned in the past on the blog, where my aunt and I are going to take in a diner breakfast once a month, because we both like such breakfasts and this gives us a chance to hang out and b.s. While doing some exploring of the nooks and crannies of the region's diners. So far we have went three times, I believe when I last mentioned it we had gone to Pamela's in the Strip District for the ever so awesome banana and chocolate chip pancakes, since that time we have taken in two more diners, Jo Jo's and most recently DeLuca's. DeLuca's was just awesome, at least food wise, the service could have been better, but the food was so good. I got the hotcake special, which is your choice of pancakes (2), two eggs and meat for $6.99. I went with the blueberry pancakes and chorizo, and it was all so yummy. The pancakes may very well have rivaled those at Pamela's, and the other pieces to the meal were better. And there were so many things on the menu to choose from, that I have to make a second and maybe third and fourth trip just to take it all in. They have a breakfast pig in a blanket meal where everything is wrapped in either a crepe or a pancake, they do versions of ice cream sundaes with pancakes, mixed grill breakfasts, bionic breakfasts which include 6 eggs (my arteries are clogging just at the thought) and much more. If I get a chance I will add a photo to this blog of one of the hotcake sundaes, but for some more of the menu you can follow the link http://www.allmenus.com/pa/pittsburgh/275793-delucas-restaurant/menu/breakfast/

Hopefully that will copy and paste when the time comes, if not then I will add it late, though early experiments are not promising.

The breakfasts with my aunt haven't been the only thing on my social calendar of late. Not that I have started dating, let's not get all crazy here, it is me after all. Rather one of my friends on Facebook, Richard Goldinger, is someone that I went to high school with. Probably our most lasting memory was the night where he rolled his Camaro with a few of us in it. When the last we had hung out he was working for Alltel in Kittanning, PA many, many moons ago. Even the last time I saw him, he was seeing someone seriously, Robin, nut it was still in that dating phase. Now they are married and their oldest son is 15, so logic would dictate that it was at least 15 years ago, if not longer since we had spent any significant time together. His job took him to Ohio, compliments of the many phone mergers and changes in phone technology since then, but he messaged me on Facebook about a month ago, saying he was coming to town for the Sunday night football game between the Steelers and the Patriots and wanted to know if I would like to hook up for lunch to hang out a bit. Since they were visiting Pittsburgh, of course we had to go to Primanti's, another place that has been featured on this blog before, where I got the capacola with egg sandwich, my favorite on the Primanti's menu. And while I live here, I tend to take such places for granted and don't visit them nearly as much as I should, so it was good choice by Rich for a place to have lunch. Sadly we didn't get to catch up as much as I would have liked, they still had to go check into their hotel and get situated for the game, and getting around Pittsburgh was proving a little troublesome for them because their GPS cut out once they got into the city, so they wanted to have enough time to get find their hotel in case the GPS still wasn't working.

Sorry I took a break there, after talking about food for so long I decided that I was hungry, so off to the kitchen I went to fire up some tuna helper. Not exactly fine dining by any stretch, but I am just cooking for me, so it will suffice.

Titit #2 – Every day that Dave Wannstedt remains the Pitt football coach is a day that he is stealing money from the school. Let's not kids ourselves, this was the year that Pitt was supposed to be something. Maybe not a national title contender, but at least in a BCS game after winning the Big East. The problems started in the off season, when 4 different incidents involving Pitt players and the local constabulary showed just how little control of the team he had. This being year 6 of the Wannstedt regime, it could no longer be blamed on the fact he was using players that he didn't recruit, these were all people he deemed worthy of playing for the Pitt program. Then the season began, and a 2-3 start where the two Pitt wins came against suspect competition (New Hampshire, Florida International), while matchups on the schedule were meant to show how good Pitt may be this year (at Utah, Miami, at Notre Dame) resulted in losses, the Miami one being particularly painful, as many alumnae were in attendance and Pitt wasn't even competitive (3-31). Still, none of those games were conference games, so while Pitt was 2-3, a strong run through their Big East schedule would still get them the automatic BCS bid that comes with winning the league. And a 3-0 start in conference play, plus the rather weak competition in the conference left Pitt with a 3-0 conference mark and a two game lead in the standings, the the proverbial wheels came off the wagon, with losses in two of the next three conference games and while Pitt is not mathematically eliminated from still winning the league at 4-2 they now would need to win their last game and have Connecticut and West Virginia lose their last games in order for that to happen. This is not what was signed up for 6 years ago, when Wannstedt was coming in, saying he was going to rebuild the program to national prominence. His alleged ability to recruit better athletes has not panned out. One would be hard pressed to find a single, solitary player in the last years that chose Pitt over another big name school. And no, it doesn't count if someone picks Pitt over, say, Akron. Sure there have been a couple of players that have had nice seasons at Pitt that were unexpected, like Dion Lewis last year, but a prtogram can't be built based on getting lucky and signing guys nobody else wanted, eventually someone has to pick your school over a Florida, or Ohio State, or Penn State, and that hasn't happened under Wannstedt. Instead we see disappointment after disappointment, last year losing the last two games to miss out on a BCS bid, including the last game of the year to Cincinnati at home after having a 21 point lead, and this year blowing a two game conference lead with 4 games to play including a 35-10 loss to West Virginia at home. In 6 years Pitt has earned 0 Big East titles and at some point trips to the Humanitarian Bowl, or the Meineke Car Care Bowl can't be considered accomplishments. For all of the criticism of previous head coach Walt Harris, his last 5 teams made bowl games, including a Big East title and an appearance in the Fiesta Bowl. How good would those days look now? But as long as Wannstedt is allowed to coach the Panthers, those days are not going to be seen any time soon.

Sunday, November 28^th

Sorry, I ended up going to bed instead of finishing this blog entry, something that happens from time to time as readers of this blog well know. And worse I overslept for breakfast, at least if I wanted to go to DeLuca's. Usually if I am headed over that way I catch the 7am bus and arrive in the Strip around 7:30am. By that time many of the places in the Strip are already starting to fill up, so if I miss the first bus I run the risk of getting over there and standing in line for food, something I am not likely to do for breakfast. So instead I climbed back under the covers for another hour, the went to my corner store for a cup of coffee and headed off to Rite Aid to see what was on sale. I had a couple of things I needed as well, bread for starters, and deodorant is always a good buy, so it wasn't a wasted morning. Plus they had Christmas cards on sale, buy two boxes, get one free, so I snagged some of those as well.

That being said, I still could have snuck in breakfast in Oakland, Pamela's still hadn't had its line going out the door, due in large part to the students being on Thanksgiving break. But I opted against it, maybe because DeLuca's was too goo, maybe because I just decided to save money, I am not sure which. I know I will probably do a little more shopping for Christmas online today, I have bankrolled almost $80 in Amazon gift cards so I should be able to get a couple more free items. Plus I do have lots of other projects that I need to work on, like cleaning my apartment, getting my Christmas list together for my mom and for the blog page, finishing getting stuff squared away for my upcoming vacation and at some point finding something for lunch. So there is still lots on the docket today, besides finishing this particular blog entry.

I had mentioned that I needed $9 + for the change meter in order to pass $200 by the end of the year. While I haven't quite gotten there yet, $200 is still somewhat in play, as another $1.46 has bee accumulated since my last posting, so the new total is $192.39. I would say it is still unlikely, but then again all it would take is for one person to be careless with their money and I could be over the top, and given the public's need to be all sheeple-ish when it comes to shopping this time of year, finding money laying on the ground is more of a possibility this time of year. That brings me to …....

Titit #3 Let's stop kidding ourselves that Thanksgiving is a holiday for anything more than people to go shopping for two days. I know what the original premise was behind the holiday, but we have far since evolved beyond that, and what was once well intentioned day of giving thanks for that which we have has become a four day festival of excessiveness and greed. At what point was the meaning of the holiday switched to, hurry up and eat so we can get a good spot in line while we camp outside WalMart, Best Buy, Target, etc, so we can be the first one in the store once they open. I used to be upset that for most Thanksgivings I would end up working, whether it be my current job, or my previous one in radio but seeing what has become of the day, where it is less about giving thanks and spending time with family and more about a moronic attempt to see who can spend their money the first and fastest and now I can honestly say that there is no place I would rather be than as far away from such ass clowns as in humanly possible.

I will probably end up being distracted again for a while, I am watching the Steelers game, though I am not glogging it. Instead I am just posting score updates on my Facebook page, so you have been spared more of my sports blathering that sometimes accompanies my entries on this page. Instead all you have to look forward to is that I am still two Penguins videos behind, but when I checked yesterday the NHL channel on Youtube hadn't posted the highlight packages yet. I realize that the videos are probably annoying to some, but as I have stated previously, hockey has some weird superstitions, like playoff beards for example, and my own superstition is that since I have started posting the videos 3+ years ago the Penguins have made the Stanley Cup Finals, won a Stanley Cup and made the second round of the playoffs, so if it is working you just keep doing it. I will quit posting videos when the Penguins quit making the playoffs.

I should make note of the fact that Ed has officially left work to fly south (Florida) for the winter. Not that it means I have been left to my own devices, he has been gone one week and already I have taken two phone calls from him on work related issues. Plus I have an added problem, one I didn't anticipate but now have to deal with, that being I have been training Sammy to place orders for when I go on vacation. I made a slight mistake, I told him that since we are only getting two orders the week of Thanksgiving, make sure he ordered a little heavier to make up for it, get a couple extra things on those items that sell. Well he went a little bit order happy, leaving us with a basement full of products that I have to now sell. It should cut down on what we order for the next month or so, but I did catch a slight bit of grief for it. Oh well, if that is the worst Sammy does, I can live with it.

Before I let this blog come to a conclusion, I need to mention something, that being the most recent book I read, “Every Man Dies Alone” by Hans Fallada. The fact that I have waited this long into the blog entry to mention it means by now most of you have tuned out, but for those that haven't let me say this is by far the best book I have read this year, and maybe one of the best books I have ever read. Yes it was that good. I would label the bookma work of fiction, though it is based on a true story. There were a few too many liberties taken with the actual account to label it anything but fiction, but the story was fascinating regardless. The story mainly revolves around a couple, the Quangels, who are living in Berlin during the time of World War II and Nazi Germany. While originally not politically active, if anything they would be politically indifferent, they come to disapprove of Hitler and the Nazi party after their son is killed during the war, fighting for Germany just before the capitulation of France. Whether it is just anger at their son's loss, or a greater awareness of all of the wrongs that are being committed in the name of Germany, the Quangels decide to offer up their own little resistance campaign, consisting of dropping postcards in stairwells and buildings in and around Berlin, with messages of dissent written on them. The belief being that if others read the cards, the same sort of coming to Jesus moment that the Quangels had will be shared by others, and the postcards will be handed around to still others and slowly the movement and the resistance to the policies of Nazi Germany will fester and grow. The problem with their logic is that everyone in Germany is so paranoid about the Nazi party and the SS in particular that no one wants to be caught with one of these postcards, let alone share them with others for fear that the result will be placement in a concentration camp. So while the postcard campaign goes on for a few years, it becomes wildly ineffective, with almost all cards turned over to the authorities as soon as they are found, and eventually the Quangels make a mistake and end up being put to death for their efforts. It is a fascinating read of the paranoia that gripped Nazi Germany, where no one could trust anyone for fear of being turned over to authorities. Rarely to a do reading recommendations on this page, but this is a book where an exception is called for.

Of course the problem with me finishing a book is that I now don't have any reading material. I have a couple of books laying around the apartment, but nothing that I am all gung ho about reading. I tried picking up one the other day, but I haven't even gotten a full chapter of it read yet.

Not too shabby, I managed to get better than a page written while still watching most of the first half of the football game. Of course now I am getting to the point where foraging for food is starting to take up a large part of my brain, I can't decide if I want to cook, order in, or go pick something up. All of which would require me to once again get dressed, and I am hesitant to do that just because it requires more effort than I am willing to put forth at the moment. Maybe after the game ends I will get more motivational.

I have been tinkering with another Marlboro contest recently, “Outwit the West”, where every week Marlboro asks five trivia questions and you get points for each one you get right. Technically you can form teams of players, as many as 4 players per team, and each correct answer adds to the each member's point total. Of course I didn't form a team, I screwed up when it first started so I am flying solo in this endeavor, and I am sorry that I did, because some of the bigger prizes include such items as a notebook computer, which would be nice, not because I need one, but because it is free. Instead, given how I have done so far, and the fact there are a few weeks left, I am probably going to get somewhere around half of the points needed for that prize, but I am eyeing up what looks to be a nice set of darts that I should be able to get. They are only 115 points away and we are getting a bonus 10 points for every answer submitted the rest of the way, regardless of whether or not it is correct. That is good, because the trivia questions are not easy by any stretch of the imagination, usually I am spending the better part of an hour just looking up the answers, or at least the best guesses that are available to the questions.

There was the distraction I warned you about. The football game went into overtime before Pittsburgh won, 19-16. I even got some good fantasy news out of the game. I have Steve Johnson, a wide receiver for Buffalo, on my roster and have been using him occasionally as my flex player in our league, but left him on the bench today. All he did was drop 6 passes, including what would have been a game winning touchdown pass in overtime. Far better to leave that type of display off of my game day roster.

I also took some time to spend some of my Amazon gift card money on a couple of Christmas presents, nothing major, just another gift for my mom and one for her husband. I was browsing some of the specials that are on Amazon and found a couple of things that were on sale for 50% off, and since I bought two, my bill was over $25 so they throw in the shipping and handling for free if I am willing to wait a couple of extra days. Not a problem, I have a few weeks to play with yet. With all of that out of the way I walked over to the Cuban place and got a sandwich and fries so I didn't starve. Then again if anyone has seen my stomach recently I am sure they would say starvation is not a problem with which I suffer.

Well I should probably wrap this up. My first attempt at getting this to copy and paste was a hit and miss proposition, the photo didn't copy and paste with the text, so I will have some work to do before this is officially finalized. Plus I have gotten myself into another money saving mess here that I am still tinkering with. I have been using an application on Facebook called Hotspot, where as you complete offers you are awarded cash, but you can only cash out when you reach $5 or more and then it is credited to a Paypal account. Mostly the offers I do are just watching videos where you earn anywhere between .03 and .10 per video. But as I was checking out some of the other offers on there just recently I saw that they were awarding $1.10 for any album purchase on Amazon of $5 or more. Funny thing is Amazon just a couple of days ago issued a code for $3 off of MP3 purchases. So now I am getting $1.10 for spending $2. Add to that I still have $40 in free money from Swagbucks in my Amazon account so no real cash has left my hand. So all told, I just purchased “The Very Best of Prince” for .90. Now I have the job of burning it to cd, which isn't all that bad, I know I have a disk or two around here some place, but that is going to take up some more of my time this evening and I really don't want to turn this into a three day blog, so I will just stop now.

Asshat - Again urine for a treat

This might be the best Asshat thing I have seen in ages.  It literally has everything, a pregnant woman smoking, a man making threats with a bucket of pee,  and a shirt ripped open just for starters.  I just don't know who wins in this particular instance, but I now have a better understanding of why Fark has a Florida tag.

Husband threatens to throw urine at pregnant wife (ARREST REPORT)

November 12, 2010 9:12 PM

Daily News

DeFUNIAK SPRINGS — A man faces felony charges after a night of escalating battles with his pregnant wife, according to an arrest report from the Walton County Sheriff’s Office.

Gary O’Don Newell, 42, was charged with aggravated battery to a victim known to be pregnant. His wife of three years is 15 weeks pregnant. A deputy was sent to their Trout Drive home Wednesday at 1:43 a.m.

Earlier that night, Newell locked himself in his shed and threatened his wife when she tried to get him to come out. The woman pried the door open with a hammer and smoked her husband out by blowing cigarette smoke into the structure.

The fight escalated after the wife hid all of the vehicle keys in her pocket. When Newell exited the shed, he pushed his wife into the woods, held her down and threatened “to throw a bucket of urine on her” if she did not return the keys, the report said.

She got him to let go of her by saying she would go get the keys. Newell chased his wife around the home when he realized she had the keys on her. He wrestled her to the ground and ripped off her shirt to retrieve them.

Newell’s wife ran for help and flagged down a van. The unidentified man said he did not have a phone but would make the call at home.

The wife returned home and found Newell sitting in his car with her purse. When she tried to retrieve it, Newell pushed her to the pavement.

Newell said he had thrown her belongings into the creek behind their home. He starting walking to the creek with the purse but stopped when he heard his wife on the phone with dispatch.

Newell promised his wife he would not throw her purse in the creek and asked her to tell dispatch not to send anyone.

While being placed under arrest, Newell requested an ambulance because he said he could not breathe.

Once in the hospital, he told the staff that the deputy “manhandled” him; dragged him out of his bathroom; kicked him into his living room; threw him on the grass; and refused to call for an ambulance.

“He was complaining to the hospital staff that he could not breathe but during the whole time at the hospital he would have enough breath to curse the doctor and myself for ‘inadequate’ treatment,” wrote the deputy in Newell’s arrest report.

Newell requested a cardiologist but was cleared with good health. Newell said he would sue the WCSO and the doctor for abusing him.

Once at the jail, the deputy let Newell out of the patrol car.

“So how did you like my act?” Newell asked him. “Your ass is mine.”

The first glog on the NFL season, Steelers - Bengals

Well, I haven't glogged yet this NFL season, so I guess it is time to see if I still have those skills in my mental tool set. Not that I couldn't be blogging about a dozen or so other things, but for now I think we will concentrate on the upcoming football game tonight, featuring the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Cincinnati Bengals. A little background on tonight's contest, Pittsburgh enters the contest with a 5-2 record, a half game behind division leader Baltimore, who has a 6-2 record. Meanwhile the season has gotten off to a poor start for Cincinnati, as they have a 2-5 record, good for last place in the AFC North. Cincinnati won the division last year, as well as sweeping the two meetings with the Steelers. On offense the teams have posted similar numbers this year, Pittsburgh is averaging 21.0 points per game, while Cincinnati is averaging 20.9, the difference is on the other side of the ball where Pittsburgh ranks first in the NFL in points allowed per game at just 14.6 per contest, Cincinnati has been allowing 23.3 per game, which goes a long way to showing just why the are separated by three games in the division.

Since I still have 30 minutes or so before kickoff, I guess I will go ahead and open the required windows on the computer and do a little poking around the web before the game gets underway.

The think about Monday Night Football is that the games by and large are broadcast on cable channel ESPN, but when the Steelers are involved the local ABC affiliate, Channel 4, also carries the ESPN feed for those like myself who do not have cable television. This is both good and bad, it is good because I don't have to spring for cable TV or go scouring the web in order to watch the game, but it is also bad in that as an added bonus, Channel 4 treats the game like a news event, sending their anchors and reporters out to do a local pregame show that really shows just how much many of them don't know about sports in general and football in particular. Just last night, as a lead up to their coverage of tonight's game, because when it comes to the Steelers, one day's worth of coverage isn't enough, they went to a Steelers bar in Cincinnati. Yes, that is what they considered news. Who cares that there are Steeler bars all over the world, the fact they uncovered one in a city that is just a few hours away was apparently newsworthy enough to waste time on the local newscast. For a list of Steeler bars, one need only go here http://www.post-gazette.com/steelernation/steelerbars_list.asp#International and scroll either up or down to get a general idea of the where's and when's people can go to catch the game. Now they are wasting news resources to cover a football game, one would think those resources might better be served covering actual news, but then Steeler coverage, regardless of just how poorly it is done will garner more ratings than actually covering stories like , say , the mayor coming out today saying the city on it's current course faces a “financial nightmare” by 2016. Not that that matters kids, the Steelers are playing.

So we are now 5 minutes away from kickoff. I will tone down the ranting a bit here and say that another $1.16 have been added to the change meter, bringing the total up to $190.93. $200 by the end of the year is still reachable, but coming up with $9 in less than two months means I am going to have to find some serious coinage (or billage) in order to make that plateau.

And before the game gets underway I am also going to head over to my Madden Facebook app and try to send out some more gifts. I have 111 friends that play now, and I try to send everyone on my list a gift at least once a day. I don't get as many as I send out, but I am not one to hold grudges over a simple game, nor do I have the desire to keep track of who does and doesn't send me gifts, it is easier to just send to everyone and not worry about such things. I am at a point in the game where I am just collecting gold anyway to buy more players, I have defeated all of the NFL teams twice and they haven't come out with the third season yet. I can still play scrimmages or in season mode, I just can't square off against real NFL teams, so I am busy collecting gold to buy even better players and to fill out card collections.

Okay, we are just about underway here, just an opening theme from Hank Williams Jr from getting to actual game coverage. Pittsburgh will kickoff to start the game, meaning of course that Cincinnati will get the first turn on offense. Then again, maybe not, as Cincinnati fumbles the kickoff return and it is recovered by the Steelers, so Pittsburgh will have the ball first deep in Cincinnati territory, 1^st and 10 and the Cincy 25 yard line.

The first play is a good one, a Ben Roethlisberger pass to Heath Miller, good for 9 yards. After a two yard loss on second down run by Rashard Mendenhall, a third down screen pass to Mendenhall takes the ball all the way down to the 1 yard line.

One play later and we have a 1 yard touchdown run by Mendenhall, so Pittsburgh takes advantage of the game's first miscue and turns it into points and a 7-0 lead.

Not much in way of commercials to insult during the break, buta spot from Corona beer has me thinking nonetheless. Many times you will see people with a lime wedge stuck in the top of their bottle, and I would argue that the minute you need to add fruit to a beer in order to make it taste good, then the product has failed in its fundamental task of tasting good to begin with.

Second kickoff of the game and it is handled more successfully by the Bengals, and they will have their first possession of the game, starting from their own 25 yard line.

Two carries by Cedric Benson net 11 yards and the Bengals first first down of the game. Two more plays and two more runs by Benson, get about 9 yards, so we will have a 3^rd and 1. Carson Palmer attempts his first pas sof the game on third dwon and it is incomplete to Chad Ochocinco. Fourth down and the Bengals set up to punt and it is miscue #2 for the Bengals as the punt is blocked, and Pittsburgh will have the ball on the Bengals 30 yard line to start their second possession.

An incomplete pass on first down means little as on second down Mendenhall runs for 20 yards and a first down. Two plays net -2 yards and the Steelers have 3^rd and goal from the 12 and a dump off to Mewelde Moore only gets 5 yards, so the field goal unit will come on the field, looking to extend the lead. And from 25 yards the Jeff Reed field goal attempt is good and Pittsburgh leads 10-0.

Third kickoff return for the Bengals in the first quarter and for the second time they will start their drive from their own 25 yard line.

A very short drive, a three and out and here comes the punting crew for Cincinnati, and for a change their special teams manage to not screw up, the punt travels 45 yards, so Pittsburh will take over 1^st and 10 from their own 28.

Possession #3 for Pittsburgh and on first down a dump off pass to Moore gets 3 yards. Two plays later and a pass to Antwaan Randel El gets a first down for Pittsburgh at the 42 yard line.

Two running plays plays net 4 yards so Pittsburgh is faced with another third down and Pittsburgh takes their first timeout to consider the upcoming play call.

After scrambling around avoiding two potential sacks, Roethlisberger manages to find Heath Miller on a dump off but the play only gets 5 yards, so on 4^th down Pittsburgh will punt for the first time tonight, and the punt pins the Bengals deep, they will take over possession on their own 12 yard line.

1^st and 10 for Cincinnati and Palmer back to pass and he finds Terrell Owens for a first down at the 28. Two carries by Benson garner another first down and Cincinnati is starting to click a little bit on offense here.

And one Benson carry later and we are at the end of the first quarter with Pittsburgh leading 10-0.

I used the break between quarters to send some more Madden gifts and collect a few as well. Benson gets another carry leaving a 3^rd and 4 and Palmer throws a two yard pass to Jermane Gresham so Cincinnati is forced to punt again. And the punt is a good one, getting down all the way back at the Steelers 1 yard line, where they will take over for their first possession of the second quarter.

Isaac Redman gets his first carry of the game, but it only gets 1 yard. Second down and Roethlisberger finds Miller again and gets a first down and moves Pittsburgh out from the shadow of their own goal line.

1^st down and Mendenhall with the carry and he picks up 22 yards and another first down. And for the second time on this drive we have an injury time out, this time it is the Steelers starting center, Maurice Pouncey. The previous injury was to the Steelers left guard, so the offensive line has taken some punishment on this drive.

Two wide receiver screen passes to Hines Ward get only two yards, but worse on the second, Ward fumbles the ball and the first miscue by the Steelers this game has taken place, leaving the Bengals in good field position.

First down and Palmer finds Owens for 14 yards and a first down at the Steelers 24 yard line. Two runs by Benson get 5 yards, bringing up 3^rd and 5and Palmer finds Owens again, this time wide open in the end zone for a touchdown. With the extra point the score is now Pittsburgh 10 Cincinnati 7.

Cincinnati kicks off and Pittsburgh returns the ball to the 32 yard line, where they will take over with a first down.

Pittsburgh goes three and out and Cincinnati has definitely taken over from a momentum perspective, even if they are still trailing by 3 on the scoreboard.

Pittsburgh punts the ball away and Cincinnati will take over with the ball on their own 30 yard line. So far all of the scoring in this game has been a direct result of miscues (two fumbles, blocked punt).

First down and Palmer again passes to Owens for another first down. Owens already has 61 yards receiving and a touchdown tonight in about a quarter and half of work.

3^rd down and 13 and Palmer back to pass and he throws an interception so we have the game's third turnover, let's see if form holds up and it results in points.

3^rd down and 8 Roethlisberger looks deep and finds Mike Wallace for 36 yards and a first down. Wallace loses the ball going out of bounds, but it appears he had possession for a complete pass, nonetheless Bengals coach Marvin Lewis threw the challenge flag, under the belief that Wallace never had control of the ball but it looks like Lewis will lose this challenge.

And the verdict is that it was a catch, Cincinnati will lose a timeout for the failed challenge. Pittsburgh has the ball first and goal from the 9 yard line.

A false start penalty and a Mendenhall run for -2 and it is second and goal from the 16. An 8 yard pass gets half of that, leaving third and 8. Roethlisberger finds Ward on a slant route for the touchdown and Pittsburgh increases their lead to 17-7.

Pittsburgh kicks off and Bernard Scott gets loose on the kickoff return, bringing it back all the way to the Steelers 43 yard line. The return also brings us to the two minute warning of the first half.

1^st down and Palmer passes to Brian Leonard underneath for 4 yards. An incomplete pass brings up 3^rd down and just when Pittsburgh looks to have stopped Cincinnati, a defensive holding penalty gives Cincinnati new life with an automatic first down. Three more plays get only 1 yard, so Cincinnati is going to try a 51 yard field goal attempt and the kick is up and no good and Pittsburgh maintains their 10 point lead, 17-7.

Pittsburgh gets the ball back and on first down Roethlisberger finds Wallace for another big gain, 24 yards and now Pittsburgh is looking to score before halftime.

Two incomplete passes and Pittsburgh lines up for a field goal attempt and from 53 yards Jeff Reed hits it to extend the Steelers lead to 20-7 before the half.

And with the kickoff and return we have reached the half with Pittsburgh leading by 13.

I can't speak as to how you spent the halftime break, I sent the last of my Madden requests out, played the last game in season #40, bought some more player cards to add to my collection and smoked a cigarette, proving that I can make use of my free time if I need to.

It could have been worse, I could have spent halftime blogging about the midterm elections. Now that would have been fun, wouldn't it? Far better I just find something else to with my time. I can do the midterms as part of my next blog.

Cincinnati kicks off to start the third quarter, which means Pittsburgh will have the ball first here in the second half. And with the kick return Piitsburgh starts from their own 27 yard line.

Two runs, a reverse by Randel El and a Mendenhall carry combine for a total of -1 yards, so Pittsburgh is faced with a 3^rd and 11 here. And Roethlisberger is sacked by the Bengals, their first sack of the night, which brings about a Pittsburgh punt.

Cincinnati starts their first drive of the second half with pretty good field position, starting at their own 43 yard line.

Second down and Pittsburgh returns the favor, sacking Palmer before he even has a chance to set his feet and attempt to throw the football, but on 3^rd and 12 Palmer finds Jordan Shipley open down the middle for a big gain, picking up 26 yards and keeping the Cincinnati drive alive.

Third down and 2 yards and they hand the ball off to Benson who is stopped for a loss on the play, bringing up 4^th down and Cincinnati will try a 45 yard field goal and again the field goal attempt is no good, so Pittsburgh remains up by a 20-7 count.

Two runs by Mendenhall account for 8 yards, so Pittsburgh will have a 3^rd down and 2 to try and convert and it is Redman getting his second carry but it looks like he will be short of the first down marker, meaning Pittsburgh will once again have to punt. The punt is a good one, and because Cincinnati picked up nothing on the return, they will take over with the ball on their own 14 yard line.

First down and Cincinnati's drive gets off to a dubious start, Palmer taking his second sack of the game.

And the next two plays aren't much better, which leave s Cincinnati punting the ball right back to Pittsburgh, and the kick is a short one, not even making midfield, so Pittsburgh will have the ball in excellent field position at the Cincinnati 45.

First down and Roethlisberger looks deep to Wallace but the pass is broken up in the end zone. Third down is a short pass to Wallace, not enough for the first down and Pittsburgh will punt the ball right back to Cincinnati. The punt goes into the end zone, so Cincinnati will get the ball at their own 20 yard line and Pittsburgh fails to capitalize on a pretty good scoring opportunity, which could still come back to haunt them in this contest.

Palmer finds Ochocinco for a first down on 2^nd and 5, but the play is nullified by a penalty and two plays later Pittsburgh gets their third sack of the third quarter to bring to a quick end the Cincinnati possession. Pittsburgh gets the ball back after a Cincinnati punt.

Two mendenhall runs set up a 3^rd down and 1 and Roethlisberger runs the quarterback sneak for a first down to keep the Pittsburgh drive alive. One play later, a pass to Miller and that is the end of the 3^rd quarter with Pittsburgh still leading 20-7.

First play of the 4^th quarter and a reverse pass by Randel El finds Wallace in the end zone and Pittsburgh is on the board again, pushing the lead to 27-7. That might be the final nail in the Cincinnati coffin.

Pittsburgh kicks off and with the return Cincinnati will start their next drive from their own 34 yard line.

2^nd and 10 and Palmer finds Shipley for 8, but a penalty on the Steelers gives Cincinnati a first down. Two completions to Owens and Cincinnati gets their second first down on this drive. One play later it is a deep pass to Owens again in the corner of the end zone for a Cincinnati touchdown to cut the lead to 27-14. After playing a scoreless third quarter, less than two minutes into the fourth we have seen two touchdowns.

Cincinnati kicks off and the coverage on the return is very good, as Emanuel Sanders gets no further than the Steelers 14 before being tackled. On one hand, Pittsburgh has to be happy having a two score lead in the 4^th quarter, but we learned last year that they guarantees nothing, after seeing them blow 4^th quarter leads in 5 of their 7 losses and so far tonight they haven't had any extended drives, despite scoring 27 points.

Two plays get 5 yards for Pittsburgh and on third and 5 Roethlisberger scrambles for 12 yards and a first down to keep the drive going and the clock running. Two plays later however, Roethlisberger floats a pass to Miller that is intercepted and Cincinnati has the ball back. To make matters worse, Pittsburgh is called for a personal foul after the play is over, adding 15 yards onto the interception return and a lead that was 20 starting the 4^th quarter is in danger of becoming single digits in a matter of minutes.

Cincinnati has the ball with a 1^st and 10 at the Pittsburgh 36 yard line. Another personal foul on Pittsburgh gets Cincinnati another free 15 yards.

How about another penalty, pass interference in the endzone and Cincinnati has first and goal at the 1. Two plays later and Benson goes over from 1 yard out and the score is now Pittsburgh 27 Cincinnati 21.

Still plenty of time left as well, with 9:05 left in the fourth quarter what was once a 20 point lead is now down to 6.

Pittsburgh has the ball back after the kickoff, starting at their own 29.

Two Mendenhall carries get 10 yards and a first down to get this drive off to a decent start. Mendenhall has been the only player to touch the ball on this drive, two more carries get another 27 yards and another first down.

Mendenhall gets two more carries, getting three yards total and Pittsburgh faces a 3^rd and 7. Again they try Mendenhall and it is stuffed for no gain, so Pittsburgh will attempt a 46 yard field goal. And the kick is no good, so while Pittsburgh took better than 5 minutes off of the clock, at the end of it they couldn't increase the lead and Cincinnati is one TD away from taking the elad.

Foirst down and Palmer is hit and fumbles the ball, but Cincinnati recovers the fumble to maintain possession. After a pass to Shipley, Cicinnati faces 3^rd and 14 and a pass to Benson gets 15 and a first down. The pass was actually deflected but Benson managed to pull it anyway and scurry forth to get the needed yardage.

Two minute warning.

Second and 10 and again the defense gets flagged for pass interference which gives Cincy an automatic first down.

1^st and 10 and Palmer finds leonard for 9, down to the Pittsburgh 40. A short pass to Owens gets 3 yards and a first down. More important he gets out of bounds to stop the clock.

A deep pass to Ochocinco is incomplete. 2^nd and 10 with 1:09 remaining. A deep pass down the middle hits Owens in stride and he continues to victimize the Steelers, this time for 20 yards and first down. Owens now has 10 catches for 141 yards and two touchdowns. A holding call on Cincinnati on first down pushes them back 10 yards, back to the 28, where it will remain 1^st down.

2^nd and 20 and Ochocino catches a 15 yard pass while sliding out of bounds to stop the clock and bring up 3^rd and 5.

Incomplete pass over the middle and Cincinnati needs 5 yards to keep the drive alive. The pass from Plamer goes to Shipley who is hit and can't hold on, meaning the ball will turn over on down and Pittsburgh should hold on from this point, with just 34 seconds left.

And its a final from Cincinnati, Pittsburgh holds on to win 27-21. Time to review all of my spelling errors and copy and paste. Nite everyone.