Another blog for me

Sorry kids, I yaven't added music to the page in a couple of days and it has been even longer since I posted music I listened to growing up, that is about to change.

Back to the future, Monday's blog on Tuesday

I believe it was an episode of Star Trek:TNG in which Picard was taken captive and about to be tortured when the famous line was uttered "Prepare for the insertion of the instrument of obedience." Put aside the sexual connotations that can go with that sentence for just a second and it pretty much sums up the week for me in fantasy sports. On the bright side, I did start the hockey season with a respectable 6-3-1 effort due in large part to Paul Statsny, who had 4 goals and 4 assists this week. I did okay in the office outing as well, with tonights game being the last one for the week, I am currently 11-2 on picking games. A week after I write myself out entirely I come up with an effort like that. On the flip side of the coin, I have already lost in fantasy football in the bar league, dropping my record to 2-3 and in yahoo, I still have two guys going tonight, but it looks like the 72 Dolphins will be popping the champagne as the last undefeated team during an NFL season, I trail by a wide margin 81-30. Well as it turns out, Dallas helped me a little bit, I managed to add to the office pool and go 12-2 for the week, and both Jason Witten and Patrick Crayton scored for me, so I managed to soothe the asskicking I took a little, losing by an 81-59 count.

That having been gotten out of the way, it was a good sports weekend. The Steelers absolutely dominated Seattle on Sunday, far more so than the 21-0 score would indicate, holding the ball for over 40 minutes of the 60 minute contest. The backbreaking moment had to be the first drive of the second half. With the Steelers leading just 7-0, they took the opening drive of the third quarter and held the ball for over 10 minutes, running 18 plays and scoring a touchdown to make it 14-0. Anyone who is familiar with the weather here knows how draining that drive was, as the temps were near 90 degrees and the humidity hanging in around 50%. It was very summer like, which is odd considering we are well into fall now.

The Penguins season got underway Friday night, a season opening 4-1 at Carolina, followed by a 6-5 win at home against the defending Stanley Cup Champion Anaheim Ducks. I'll take a 1-1 start to the season, it is certainly better than 0-2 and there are high expectations for the Pens this year. Wednesday night they have the Montreal Canadians. I don't know if I will watch the game or not, my free pass on NHL.com runs out tonight, but I noticed that yahoo is once again airing the games online as well. I caught part of a game on Saturday night via yahoo, hopefully I will have better luck with the technology this year. Last year, many times I would try to pull up a game only to get no video.

Pitt football had a bye this week, amazingly they didn't find a way to lose then as well. God are they just awful. Jim Tracy, the now former Pirates manager may have been the first coach in Pittsburgh to get fired this year, but the way the Panthers are playing, Dave Wannstedt may be a close second. As if to rub salt in the wound, Stanford upset the #2 team in the country this weekend, USC under first year head coach Jim Harbaugh. Given that this is Harbaugh's first year, many of the players there are not his recruits, but recruits that the previous head coach brought in, namely one Walt Harris. And just where did Walt coach before Pitt's three year run of futility under Dave Wannstedt? If you guessed Pittsburgh, give yourself a cookie.

The funny thing is, the week I am a Neilsen family is the week I am watching stuff on the computer instead of on TV where what I am watching is used to determine TV ratings. Since Thursday when I was asked to keep a diary of my watching habits for a week, I have watched 2 hrs on Thursday night and the football game last night, the rest of the time my TV has been off. Probably not what the networks were hoping for when the diaries were sent out.

I am not going to be on the radio this Friday night, my presence is not required which is fine with me. Last Friday didn't go as well as i would have liked. Mind you, from a strictly listener standpoint I am sure it was fine, but it was contentious for a while when Doug and I were talking about the Rush Limbaugh "phony soldiers" controversy. we took up different sides on the issue, he was defending Rush, I was not and he starts throwing left wing conspiracy at me, and stuff about Media Matters taking things out of context. I wouldn't know, I don't read Media Matters, I find them to be as much left wing nutjobs as I find NewsMax and WorldNetDaily to be right wing nut jobs. The kicker though was when he suggested that he knows better simply because he has been doing radio longer, as if I have had my head up my ass for the last 11 years and therefore couldn't put together a coherent opinion. That one stung, I will admit. I'm a big kid, though, I'll shake it off and it did make for decent radio and the show is the thing.

Friday wasn't a complete waste however, it was First Friday at the radio station and the eats were pretty good. We had some chicken romano thing, which was quite tasty, mashed potatoes and corn. There were also pork chops, but I didn't partake of any and given that they were left out after the lunch thing, they quickly went from being just pork chops to potential Trays of Trichinosis. For those in the D&D set, that would be a d20 saving throw vs poison.

I still haven't gotten around to watching the DVDs I purchased yet. Not that I have been overly busy, just haven't really gotten up the urge to sit down and watch TV for an extended period of time. But I plan on adding to the TV diary this evening, a little "Chuck" and "Heroes" will help fill out the booklet a little more than it currently is.

I haven't picked an Asshat yet, I think I need to get a definitive schedule about this whole blogging thing. I know some people designate certain days for certain topics, I need to find a good asshat day and try my best to stick to it,. Mondays would seem to make the most sense, but that would require me to show some responsibility about this whole blogging thing, and I haven't yet, so why start now?

Well, I guess I can put a wrap on this, I'll be back with more to report at a later date.

In the drink

Reports of my demise have been greatly exaggerated, as once again I am blogging, not over anything in particular, just to get some things out of the way.

Baseball season is final, and I did win the $30 back that I was hoping for to recoup some of my losses. Since it cost $55, I can live with spending $25 dollars and getting a season's full of enjoyment, which is something not many people in Pittsburgh can say given that the Pirates stink.

As for those guys on my team that helped me recover my losses, well here is a list of the statistical leaders on my team as of the end of the year (mind you it is American League only)

(Note: Stats only reflect while the player was on my active roster and therefore may not actually equal the players season total if I had them in reserve status for any amount of time)

Homeruns - Frank Thomas (25) - I probably missed another one or two the last week of the season, but a decent number from a guy getting up there in years

Runs Batted In - Bobby Abreu (101) - A bad start and a poor slump of sorts (only 16 HRs) made him a bit of a disappointment for me. That being said, anyone in the Yankees lineup is a good bet to have an inflated RBI total, this is no exception.

Stolen Bases - Ichiro Suzuki (37) - I never understand why he lasts in drafts as long as he does, while he doesn't hit for power, but he does hit for average, steals bases and scores runs, which are usually three things to like in a fantasy draft.

Runs - Bobby Abreu (123) - Another benefit to getting on base in the Yankees lineup, someone is bound to knock you in on a regular basis.

Average - Ichiro Suzuki (.351) - See above and as for the runs that I mentioned, he scored 111 of them.

Wins - Josh Beckett (20) - I'll admit that I blew off saves in my league, playing instead for wins, figuring that if I snagged 9 starting pitchers that had the chance at 10 wins, I would be competitive in wins and strikeouts (it worked, I won both categories), but the 20 wins was far more than I expected, but a boon I was more than happy to receive.

Saves - (0) - I told you I blew off this category, and I didn't lie as I recorded none.

Strikeouts - Josh Beckett (194) - I drafted Beckett more for this number than wins, but gladly took both.

Walks/Hits per Inning Pitched - Aaron Fultz (1.043) - This number is misleading as I only threw him a total of 15.1 innings all year.

Earned Run Average - Aaron Fultz (1.76) - Again a benefit of limited innings pitched.

I still have my fantasy football to worry about, I entered tonight down in both my yahoo and bar leagues. In yahoo, I trailed 91-65 but with four guys playing in tonight's contest (New England vs Cincinnati) and the bar league I was down just 7, 91-84 with Chad Johnson, Wes Welker and Steven Gostkowski yet to play and my opponent has Shayne Graham. I just fired up the football program for the bar league and I have cut that 7 point lead to two points, early in the first quarter, compliments of two catches by Wes Welker and a field goal by Gostkowski. I think I like my chances, even trailing at this point. Oh well, I will deal with final scores at a later time, otherwise I will be blogging to well in the night.

We do have a change meter update, another .19 cents to the total, so the grand total is now $29.51. I have been given a few more surveys to fill out online as well, and my total there is now $8.35.

I was thinking of who to make the Asshat, and I was thinking along the lines of the New York Mets, whose collapse at missing the postseason in baseball this year will be remembered for years, blowing a 7 game lead in the division with only 17 games to play. Not only did they play themselves out of the division title, but the wild card as well, leaving the Metropolitans much like you and I in that they will be watching the post season from home.

That being said, there is something also to be said for video, and because I was able to find the video of the Asshat in question, we will go the visual route. For those that don't know, the President's Cup is a golfing event that pits an International group of golfers against a team of Americans, much like the Ryder Cup event. The Americans won this years President's Cup (unlike the Ryder Cup, which they can't seem to win) but not without it's moment of asshattery. Enter Woody Austin, he of the American team. Let me first say that after the shot in question, Woody was able to compose himself (something he hasn't always done in the past, in one tournament he broke his putter over his head) and fired off three consecutive birdies and gain the Americans a half point in the competition. That being said, Mr Austin saw one of his shots go right of the fairway, finding itself lying directly in the water. Most golfers would, seeing their ball is now in the drink, opt to take a one shot penalty and drop the ball on the edge of the fairway. Woody chose the path less traveled, which may be good philosophically speaking, but not so much from a sporting perspective and chose to play the ball in the water. Let's just say the results were less than spectacular. Wait, forget saying it, I said there was video to be had and video you shall receive. Without further adieu, your newest member of the Halls of Asshattery, Woody Austin........