Multiply 365 Day 37 - Pregame

T minus 8 hours and change till kickoff round these parts.  I am all tucked away in my apartment, where hopefully some semblance of sanity will prevail.  Security measures have already been put in place should Pittsburgh win the Super Bowl later on today.  Forbes Avenue in Oakland and Carson Street in the South Side will both be closed after the game for the expected revelers would will be drunk and disorderly.  Notes have been plastered in Oakland warning those that may get out of line, such as the burning of furniture or other acts of vandalism.  One of the things that some people do around here is that when they get new furniture for their apartment and what not, they will take the older couches, chairs, etc. and use them as patio furniture.  Then, when something of what they deem is worth celebrating, they will take said furniture and throw it out in the street and light it on fire.  Don't worry if you don't understand the logic of it, I really don't either, I just know it happens.  And remember, this is the same town that said they should delay school tomorrow out of safety concerns for the students, when in actuality we all know what the real reason is, so faculty and staff can get drunk during the game.  They can coddle it in whatever verbiage they wish, anyone with an iota of common sense knows exactly why the delay is taking place.

I am just sitting here, getting ready for the hockey game that will be on TV first, the Penguins and the Capitals, and watching a couple of videos to pick up some free Swagbucks.  I just cashed out for another $5 Amazon card yesterday (I told you I would have it before the weekend was over) so I am back to the beginning of trying to build up points to get to the next one.  I am at 48 of the 450 needed so far, but I am getting 2 for each video I watch.  Watching is a subjective term in this case, I have them running, but muted and off to the side while I am working on this blog entry, so I am almost multitasking, getting Swagbucks while blogging.

I mentioned previously that I had submitted my blog to the people at Swagbucks, I don't know exactly how that program was going to work, if it was featured bloggers or whatever, but since I haven't heard back from them I have to assume I wasn't selected.  Just as well, I don't need people coming around the page who have no desire to be here.  I have bigger, more important things to worry about.

I have to admit that recently this blog has paid almost no attention to politics whatsoever.  That really wasn't a conscious choice on my part, but rather a matter of self imposed priorities, what I want to talk about takes precedence over what else is going on.  There are other places to get ample fixes for those that are jonesing for politics.  And the biggest issue of the day, what is taking place in Egypt, is something of which I can claim enough ignorance that any opinion I may offer should be tempered with the notion that I really don't know what the hell it is I am talking about.  And let me say something, I wish far more people would take that approach, I know I would have more respect for them if they did.   There are plenty of things of which I do not know, I have a vague understanding, but not nearly enough for me to go running my mouth or my keyboard as if I know more than I do.  And I lack the requisite inertia to go on a crash course fact finding mission to come up with an opinion on the matter.

10 bucks so far while writing this.  Multitasking indeed.  I wish I could be this productive all of the time.  I got most of my Facebook apps out of the way already this morning, after consuming a fine breakfast from Pamela's.  The breakfast wasn't something I planned on, but I woke up early enough and I wanted to start my new book, so book in hand I ventured up there and grabbed me some eggs, ham and hotcakes and sat down for a little light reading.  I did the same thing yesterday after work, when I went out to lunch after getting the order done for work, I hopped a bus and had lunch at the Squirrel Cage.  I wanted to do some grocery shopping and I read or heard somewhere that it is better to shop on a full stomach so as not to buy things that aren't needed.  I don't know if that is true or not, but it was excuse enough for me to have a lunch of a cajun chicken sandwich and french fries. And it did keep my buying down somewhat at the grocery store.  I bought some things to throw together a lasagna before the game, or after depending on my motivation.  I am planning  a little trick with this lasagna that I am not sure will work or not.    Usually if I add meat to a lasagna it is almost always ground beef that I fry up ahead of time and then add to the layers as needed.  This time, rather than go that route, I bought the initial ingredients at the grocery store, plus some veggies I want to add (mushrooms, onions, green peppers), instead I stopped off at my local Italian store and picked up some heat and eat meatballs.  They have two sizes, the larger ones for things like spaghetti, and the smaller one for things like wedding soup.  I am going to try replacing the normal ground beef with the smaller meatballs instead.  The price is roughly the same, I get the meatballs for $3.99 a pound, but much less of a hassle from the cooking perspective, instead I just have to add them to however many layers I want ground beef in and assume that the oven will provide the requisite heat for the heat and eat portion of the recipe.  How it will actually turn out is yet to be determined, but I am eager to try my experiment.

I am also watching "Meet the Press" as I type this, adding to my list of multitaskings.  The funny thing is, of all of the things I am doing, I can honestly say that they all have a value of 0 in the grand scheme of actual work.  But today is technically Ronald Reagan's birthday, he would have been 100 had he lived, so of course that was the overwhelming topic of the show.    

Sorry, I took a bit of a break there.  Decided to play a few games off over on Madden on Facebook.  They finally opened Pro League 3 for those of us that have been playing a while now, but in 3 you can only play one game a day.  The bonus is that if you go the entire season undefeated you get a bonus exclusive card.  Exclusive cards are very hard to come by, usually you have to complete an entire team set in order to get one, something that I am not even close to doing, I think the most players I have from any one team would be Cincinnati, where I have 27 of their cards collected so far.  So far I have played 9 games in pro league 3 and am still in the running for a Aaron Rogers Exclusive card since I am 9-0 to this point.  I am also close to picking up a few more achievements, a couple of social achievements for sending and receiving gifts daily, In need one more New York Giants card to get the bonus for owning 25 of them, and my team ranking is 99, so one more point and I get the bonus for a team ranking of 100 or more.  

We are getting closer to the start of the hockey game.  I am not going to glog it, this entry is long enough without going there.  The game between the Penguins and Capitals is the NBC NHL Game of the Week, and I am betting that the NBC execs are a little disappointed with their choice of game right about now.  Usually they tend to air games between teams that have a little more of a national following or some name (as much a name as can be had in hockey) players, so the game of the week teams tend to be rotated amongst the likes of the Penguins, Capitals, Red Wings, Blackhawks, Flyers, Rangers and maybe one or two other teams would get thrown into that mix.  Thing is, a couple of the stars that I am sure NBC was looking forward to having on TV from Pittsburgh will in fact not be playing.  Sidney Crosby has been out the better part of a month now with a concussion, and Friday night Evgeni Malkin tore the MCL and ACL in his knee on a freak collision with Tyler Myers in the Penguins-Sabres game that likely ended Malkin's season.  Should Malkin have surgery he would be out at least 6 months, which would be the remainder of the NHL season (and then some).  There was no intent to injure on the play, it was just one of those things that happen when playing a contact sport.  

Okay before I get distracted by cooking and watching hockey I should probably post this.  T minus 6 hours and change now until the Super Bowl, which means rough T minus 10 hours and change until civil unrest in Pittsburgh should the Steelers win.  I can say that I can wait.