The goodness of the "Prodigy"

In case you were wondering the "Prodigy" is BJ Penn and the sport is MMA. I had seen on the Yahoo! rankings that Penn was in the top 10, but to look at the guy he really doesn't look like he belongs or that he should even step in the octagon. That is until you see him in action. Before this weekend I saw maybe part of one of his fights and he didn't look that impressive. But this weekend I saw two different fights and he is every bit of the #3 ranking. He just has a different look when he is fighting, he looks right at his opponent the whole time, and he just peppers them with jabs until they make a mistake and then he just clobbers them. One fight was against Sean Sherk and Sherk is smaller, but just super ripped and it looks like he would just tear BJ apart, but he never really gets close to him. They make it through the first round, and by the end Sherk is tore up with some bleeding and what not, while Penn looks like he just stepped in the ring. In the second round with 10 seconds to go you can kind of see that Sherk is just waiting for the bell to end the round, but before that happens Penn just unleashes a flury of punches that knocks Sherk back against the cage and just as he is coming off the cage Penn catches him in the face with a knee and then hits him about 10 more times in four seconds. It was impressive, and even though the ref didn't stop the fight before the end of the round Sherk is unable to go any further. He gets back to the back and is asking people what happened, because he didn't even know. And the crazy part is Penn looked the same stepping out of the ring as he did getting in, not a scratch on him. Uriah Faber's (WEC feather weight Champ) only loss was to Penn and before I would have said that Faber would probably beat him now, but I really don't think that he could. Penn is just too good and I really didn't see and weak parts of his game. Faber definitely wouldn't want to stand toe to toe, but I think he would have a hard time bringing him down. The toughest fight for Penn now might be the Welter weight champ St. Pierre (Rush) who has beaten Penn before. Did I mention though that Penn has held the Welter weight belt before too. Yeah, that dude is good.

4 gallon Monday

I reached the 4 gallon blood donation level the last time I gave. Not all at one time though, that would be a record or something. For my efforts I got a pin with a '4' on it. Now it will be another 8 donations until I get to the 5 gallon plateau. Only 305 more donations and the all time record is mine!

The New Worst Race in NASCAR History

I started typing the worst race in NASCAR history, but that title was taken for the Kansas race last year. The new worst race is the debacle (yes Mom, I had to use the old spell check for that one) that was Sunday's Indianapolis 400. Goodyear managed to send a crappy batch of tires, that were wearing right down to the cords after about 12 laps, so what does NASCAR decide is the right thing to do... throw competition cautions, 9 of 'em to be exact. This was terrible for several reasons. 1) Goodyear sucks. This is, I'm guessing due to the fact that they use inferior carbon blacks in their tires. I'm not sure exactly what kind they use, but I definitely know what kind they don't use and Columbian Chemicals' carbon black wouldn't fall apart like that I guarantee!!! 2) If you want to throw competition cautions through out the race then do it so that you don't end up throwing one with 10 laps to go. I would have thrown them until about the last 25% of the race and then I would of let 'em race for the win. The way it worked out there were about 30 cars on pit road with 10 laps to go and conveniently it worked out for Jimmy that he got off of pit road first, and due to the nature of Indy unless your car is just flat out better than the person in front of you or they make a mistake it is unlikely that a pass will occur. It reminded of the first worst race in NASCAR history from Kansas were Tony gambled on fuel strategy and was leading the race when it started to rain and then the rain let up, but rather than just concede that the race day was lost they restarted the race. Shortened the length of the race though, and one of the Hendrick cars ended up benefiting again. Anyway the most disappointing thing about the race Sunday was the comments afterwards from Goodyear when they were asked about whether they could stop a scenario like Sunday from happening again they said, "No." That's a good response. Here is another question, should NASCAR keep Goodyear as the lone tire provider for races? "NO." If Goodyear isn't willing to put the time and effort into have a tire that will hold up and make a good race, then NASCAR has an obligation (to the fans that are still willing to watch a race) to open up the series to competitive tire brands. They should seek a breach of contract with Goodyear for lack of competitive racing and let other tire manufactures in. Sunday was terrible, I'm glad I didn't have to watch the whole thing. And at the end, instead of listening to Jimmy talk I watched the end of the Arena Bowl. Arena Football is kind of interesting when you set down and actually watch it. I like how they keep the games competitive at the end by not allowing the clock to run unless the play nets positive yardage. The teams scored 3 or 4 touchdowns in the last minute, it was hard to keep track with all of the scoring. Maybe someone from NASCAR should watch some arena football so they can learn how to keep events competitive.

Peach Picture

Here is Peach's picture.







50% Ornery
25% Spoiled
25%Rotten
100% Cute

1 Corinthians 13

This just seemed appropriate after the weekend. I actually had verse 11 in my head, but I thought it was from a poem or something. I did a search for it on the Internet and low and behold it was from the bible.

Love
And now I will show you the most excellent way. If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing.
Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil, but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
Love never fails. but where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when perfection comes, the imperfect disappears. When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me. Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.
And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is Love.

Tony Stewart Delima

I was hoping I wouldn't have to write about this, but as soon as I heard the rumblings that Tony wanted to be a team owner I had a feeling he wouldn't be back with Gibbs next season. You see it was kind of a perfect storm for Tony to get out of his contract through 2009. First Tony is a Chevy guy and driving Toyota's kind of put him in a bind. Second Tony has essentially been replaced by Kyle Busch as the #1 at Gibbs. Third Joey Logano. Gibbs is trying to bring him along in the Nationwide Series and in his first 3 races I think he had a win and a second place, so Gibbs probably felt like he could let Stewart go and replace him with someone with crazy talent and youth. Fourth, for some reason Tony really wants to own a NASCAR team and was willing to go with HAAS/CNC to get back to Chevy. Sadly Tony may never win another race. He could go the rest of this year and not win, if Gibbs starts to pull equipment off of him in favor of Busch and Hamlin, and with HAAS being what the 5th or 6th best Chevy team, it is unlikely that they will get any help from Chevy running behind the likes of Hendrick, Childress, and Earnhardt, who all have legit chase contenders. The best I can hope for is that Gibbs will let Tony take the #20, but if not I guess I will just be a huge Lagano fan. Or Kyle, I kind of like Kyle. He is more like Dale Sr. than Dale Jr. is, which is ironic because people don't like him because he wrecked Jr. at Richmond. But oh how they forget when Jr. wrecked Kyle at Kansas or how Jr. jumped in Kyle's car at Texas last year. Probably haven't seen the last of that feud, but at least I know what side I'll be on....

1st half fantasy update

Well the old baseball season is 1/2 over and my climb from the depths topped out at 3, and then all my players had to play on the road this last week so I am back to 5th. That's OK for now, it looks like Stevie is comfortably in first for the all-star break, so I've already formulated a plan for the first week of the second half. I only have about 6 moves left, so I am going to have to take a couple of chances and hope that no one ends up on the DL like in the first half. For having Pujols, Dice-K, Figgans, Hairston (dropped, and then picked back up), Pena, E. Aybar (dropped), Byrnes (out for season, probably) end up on the DL, I have done pretty good holding my own picking up people and managing with the injuries. My best acquisition so far is Aubrey Huff, who is having a great year. Other than that my pick-ups have pretty much been off the scrap heap. For next year though I may or may not play, but if I do then their definitely is not going to be a limit on moves when you are already limited by games and innings. It just makes it impossible when you get struck with injuries.

I have learned a couple of things since I started this fantasy stuff too. 1) The catching position is only gonna be good for about 5 teams in your league. If you don't have one of the top 5 guys then you might as well call that position a loss and try and find somebody decent who is going to play a lot. I got Jarrod Saltalamacchia out of the draft and he didn't play the first quarter of the season so I had to drop him and pick up somebody from Pitt who isn't playing any more, then I got J.R. Towles because he was great on MLB '08 the show and he ended up getting sent down to the minors. Then I got the bright idea to trade for Mike Napoli who is a platoon guy, but had 10 home runs and was on pace to have another 10 or 15 by the all-star game. Alas he ran into a major slump and then got dropped for Chris Ianetta of Colorado. Right now Chris is being platooned with a guy who is hitting .235 with 4 HR's, and I can't for the life of me understand why the Rockies aren't playing Chris more. It is maddening!! 2) It is worth the effort to go through the draft and deselect people you don't really want. 3) Pitchers deserve a couple of starts before you drop 'em, unless they've gone through something that is going to change their season, because they are going to have good games and bad games and when you are limited by moves you are going to have to take some bad games. 4) No matter who I target, when I wait to pick somebody up someone else will grab them. The latest person is Hiroki Kurodu. Who? Exactly, but as soon as I put the sights on 'em and come up with a plan to snag them, another team will come out of no where and grab them first. It did work out for me once when I was a day from picking up Elijah Dukes and somebody else grabbed him and then he tore up his knee. That's what you get though. So in a nut shell, wait for people just not to long and then cross your fingers.

WALL-E, A Review

Well for July 4th we went to the movies. We took the kids along with Ricco and Savannah and Sophie's mom and dad to see Wall-E. This was a movie Peach has been begging to see, but I think she fell asleep, I'm not really sure I couldn't see her that good from where I was setting. See it was so packed and we had so many people in our group that we couldn't all set together, so Peach had to set with the kids in a row and we sat behind them and Ricco and Savannah set up front. Anyway this movie is one that can definitely wait to be rented. I guess the kids enjoyed it, but man there is absolutely no dialog. It reminded me of 'I am Legend' except no Will Smith and the premise for the movie is way, way, way out there. Apparently something happened on Earth, you never actually know what it is, but there aren't any humans on the planet and there was a ship that was keeping everyone alive out in space somewhere. Robots were doing everything for the people (which sounded pretty awesome, come on science let's make that happen) and they didn't have any idea what was going on on Earth. Basically the movie follows Wall-e, who is a trash robot tasked with cleaning up Earth and some other robot shows up, E.V.E, and then it kind of takes that old stand by story of boy robot meets girl robot and girl robot is way too advanced for boy robot, but boy robot continues to stalk girl robot and finally gets her to start turning his way, but then inexplicably locks up and. . . blah blah blah. Like I said, wait for this to come out on DVD or something. This was the kind of movie where someone should have stood up in the planning stages and said 'I'm not sure that this is such a good idea for a movie'. Coming from Pixar you kind of expect something pretty grand, but this is about the worst effort they've put forth. I guess when the two main characters can only say about 4 words between them the plot advancement is going to be a little slow. Anyway I think the gap between Pixar and the other digital animation studios has officially been closed, especially with the likes of Kung Fu Panda which was hands down better than this movie. I give Wall-E a 3 out of 5, only for the fact it was Disney and Pixar and it was pretty high quality with the robot graphics. Human graphics and plot were terrible. Hey at least nobodies Mom died. Sophie says that is because there wasn't a mom, but I say that is the difference between 3 stars and 5 stars.

Sophie won't rate the movie, but will rate the men of the Ohio Valley as pig-headed because 20 of them can walk out the door while a woman is holding it open, but none will offer to do it. Did I mention it was raining. What a bunch of jerks. Oh wait, I guess I didn't get the door either, but I had to high tail it to the car, I didn't want to get too wet.

being an Idiot

I bought the new Gran Turismo game for the PS3, well what I thought was the new GT game. Apparently 'Prologue' means that it isn't the full version of the game. They still manage to hit you for 40 bucks, though. It isn't all bad just terribly disappointing. You think it would be more pronounced that it was only a partial game, but nooooo. Anyway it is still pretty decent and I guess I can always trade it when the full version comes out. 'Prologue' had about 60 cars and 30 different races, plus the individual car make races, but the cars aren't customizable at all. The only thing you can change is the auto traction and control, so winning races is completely on skill. I guess that is a good thing, but the fun thing about GT is building the cars and setting up the car for different tracks to make them run faster. I kind of liked that it didn't have all the crappy little cars, because I could live without all of those races. But when it didn't have the licenses the little light bulb above my head went off. Well the goal now is to beat all 30 races and then race online some. The good news is the cars and credits are transferable to the full version. After I get the full version I'll be sure to rate the whole game. For now 'Prologue' is about a 4.5 out of 10, the best features are the online races, which aren't all that great, and the idea that what you do will transfer.

Happy Birthday America!!!

Happy July 4th everyone, and happy birthday America. Every July 4th is when we celebrate telling the English to 'shove it' and ventured out on our own. The original signers of the Declaration of Independence actually thought the celebration would take place on the July 2nd because that is when the actual vote for independence took place. But the actual document didn't get a ratification vote until the 4th, the day we now celebrate. The original discrepancy was over 'taxation without representation', good thing we don't have to worry about that anymore. We must get represented like crazy now.

Interesting fact: Both John Adams (our 2nd president) and Thomas Jefferson (our 3rd president) died on July 4th in 1826 on the 50th anniversary of the nation's birth.

V - B - S

Well Vacation Bible School is over for this year and it was pretty awesome. The theme was "Jerusalem Market Place" and it was different from previous years because the kids weren't divided up by age rather all the children were put together in a giant pool and were drafted (much like a fantasy draft) into a tribe. Each tribe had kids of all ages except I think the teens kind of lost interest a little bit, but I'm sure they'll tweak it a little for next year. The crafts were different too. Instead of doing just one type of craft every night the tribe could choose whether it wanted to do pottery or carpentry stuff or basket weaving and the snacks were like fruit and cookies. Sophie and I both helped and we thought it was very well done and the kids really liked it and learned a little about Jesus, which is the most important thing.

Fantasy Update

Well the old team is starting to click. I went from 8th to 5th so far and I am within a point of 4th. Look out the Ninja Frogs are coming. Oh and Stevie is begging me now to help him with his other fantasy teams. Not because of how awesome I am, but because he is having trouble getting at them from the desert. I could have told him that, sand is a terrible modem. Don't worry brother, I'm working on a deal for Hanley Ramirez Ha Ha Ha (evil laugh).

What am I going to Spend my Stimulus Money on...

TAXES!!! That's right the old extra money from the gov't will be here just in time to pay for local taxes. YEAH!!! So I guess my stimulus money from the federal gov't will help stimulate the local gov't. It is like stealing from the rich, giving to the poor and then stealing back off the poor to give to the government. Yeah, democracy. I guess this is kind of like trickle down economics. . . and then trickle back up. Darn it a preposition, how's that get in there. Oh well at least Mom got to spend her money on a new computer. I will try and fix the old one, thanks to some tips from Stevie. It is definitely a good idea that she got herself a new computer though. She must have got one because I tried to call her and it just rang and rang and rang....

Another Fantasy Update

I pretty well bottomed out in eighth place and now it is time to start my long climb back to first. I'm up to seventh and I picked up Billy Wagner, so hopefully I can start closing the saves gap. Although Stevie's team can't blow a save. Kerry Wood comes in and ends up getting a win, and now he picks up Lohse from St. Louis. I was really considering picking him up, but not now. Well look out people here come the Ninja Frogs!

Random Thought #3

People say, 'You end too many sentences with prepositions."
I said, "What are you talking about?"

Our new Addictions

Well Sophie is addicted to the show "John and Kate plus Eight" on TLC. It follows the life of a family of sextuplets who also have twins. Anyway I can tell she is obsessed because she even set a reminder for a new episode tonight. That is why I am not fully taking advantage of my new addiction playing PS3 online. Well the blog entries will probably be a little less free flowing here for about 2 months, I'm guessing. Oh and by the way Mom, get ready to watch the show when Sophie, me and the kids come out.

T-Ball season Ends

Sampson's final game was last Thursday's double header. His game Saturday was rained out and he said good. I guess it was a long season for him, I think we ended up having more games than practice, but he really did seem to get better each game. He was really cracking the ball there at the end of the season. I think he had fun, I know it was fun for me to watch.

Fantasy DL update II

Did I mention Albert Pujols landed on the DL. Oh yeah. Figgans is finally back and hopefully Diasuke will be back by the weekend. Well as much as I can root for a Red Sox player. Mark Reynolds is batting a svelt 0.222 with a homerun, 5 rbi's, and 4 runs. Not terrible, but I'm going to need a little more Mark. thanks.

Hillary Quits and so does Barack

Well Hillary dropped out of the Democrat race on 6/7/8. I wonder if we should take that as a sign. Also Obama quit, no not the presidential race he just quit his church in Chicago. Now he'll have to find a new church, to you know, not go to on Sunday and then not listen to the pastor.

Fantasy DL update

Well Jerry Hairston Jr. managed to break his finger last night, and I'm guessing it was about the time I was making the post about the people going on the DL. So I had to drop him and pick up Mark Reynolds who is ranked 37 right now. It seems like whenever I pick someone up after they are doing decent they begin laying a series of eggs. So now we can watch Mark Reynolds' demise together. If this trend continues I will load up my roster with as many Yankee$ and Red $ox as I can.

Fantasy Disabled List

In the last 2 weeks, 3 of my 'better' players have ended up on the Disabled List. That is after 2 of the crappier players I had were on the DL. So I lost my best pitcher for at least two weeks and Figgins is back on the DL, but he is supposed to start a rehab assignment today, and Carlos Pena broke his finger. Next some body's arm will fall of or something, and to top everything off the people I have left are turning the fantasy season into a nightmare. I went from 3rd to either 5th or 6th, but these guys can't even stop the bleeding right now. Stevie is finally in first and I guess that is OK since he left for Iraq yesterday. He is going to camp "cupcake", but it doesn't look like much of a cupcake to me. Be careful bro.

sandstorm at camp "cupcake"

Peach gets sick

Peach has some type of viral throat infection. Sophie had to take her to the doctor's because she had a fever of about 102°. So if you get a chance, pray for her please. Thanks.

Worm Inflation

Well even worm prices are getting ridiculous. Yesterday for the fishing derby we got 2 dozen worms at the bargain price of $2.09 . . . per dozen. That's right we spent about $4.48 (after tax, that's right there is tax on worms) for worms. Where will the madness end. People are worried about $4/gallon gas, but $2.09 for worms! This worm inflation may be the straw that breaks the camel's proverbial back. I mean come on congress, we need some legislation, now. Hurry right your congressmen today. Tell 'em we won't stand for these prices and they need to step in and subsidize the worm market for goodness sake. This could be the wedge issue that decides where the candidates take their final stand. It's clear and simple people, cheaper worms or high priced ones, who you gonna vote for. And don't fall for that fuel surcharge B.S. either, worms already run on bio fuel.

Covered In Fish Poop, but I still had fun

Yesterday was the parent child fishing derby that my church puts on the Sunday before Father's Day. I fished with Sampson and Peach and I gotta admit when I was fishing with Peach she was carrying the team. Sampson also got to fish with Uncle Bo who caught the largest fish of the tournament. Sampson had the smallest, but we had to leave and someone else caught an even smaller fish. You get to fish 15 minutes and there are awards for Largest, Smallest and Most Inches. The first group caught 27 between the parent and child. I think we caught 11 or so, but the first group really has an advantage in this category because the fish are so hungry. The dad in the first group broke his line and just start casting the line out without the rod and I think he caught about 7 or 8 that way. So while the other groups are fishing I try and help. I'll take the fish off the hook and measure it and then is when one of 'em got me. I guess I squeezed him a little too hard and some poop came out. Or at least some type of fish waste. It just happened that the child that was fishing right then was a girl so the next one she caught I tried to spray her with the fish "waste". That'll teach 'em to try and catch more fish than me and Sampson. Anyway Sampson and Uncle Bo get their pictures taken next week at church. The fishing derby is definitely my favorite event that the church puts on.

Kirk_Helfen makes Debut

Well with DSL I'm am able to play PS3 online. See that is why I didn't fight Sophie when she wanted to get DSL. Anyway this will be the summer of Resistance and if anyone wants to battle just look me up under Kirk_Helfen I am part of the 'Last Spartans' Clan. I was part of another clan before, but they gave me the boot.

MMA over the weekend

Well MMA or Mixed Martial Arts for some of you, made its debut over the weekend on network TV. If you missed you are really lucky, because maybe just maybe you still have a chance to like MMA. They had the fights on CBS on Saturday night and it was an eliteXC card. As far as MMA goes eliteXC is like a regional NASCAR series if there was nothing else on, sure you would watch but it is nothing like the Sprint Cup (UFC) or even Nationwide/Busch (WEC). And the last thing that would happen is someone would televise it on network TV. I thought the fights were terrible especially compared to the live WEC event that was held on Sunday Night. Sophie's brothers Hans and Ricco came up and watched the fights on Sunday and they were some of the best I had seen. I have been following MMA for about the last 4 months and can't get enough. Enough good fights that is, I could definitely do without the crapfest that was CBS's poor attempt at displaying the sport. Here was a sport that was right on the verge of blowing up and now it is set back a couple of years. If CBS likes the ratings they could have another fight night, but they really have some work to do. First you introduce the fighters ONCE, not twice, there is no need all this does is waste time. Two, schedule the fights so that there is more than a minute of action in the first 40 minutes of the show. Two B) if the show is going to have such a small amount of fighting have the show end when it is scheduled. I don't want to see some crappy dancers and I don't need Frank Shamrock showing me different holds, people will pick it up as you go, I did. You don't explain the rules of football before every game. Three, actually schedule some MMA fighters to be on the show. The main event looked terrible and I thought Kimbo tapped too. It really did look like they wouldn't let Kimbo lose and maybe he is getting better, but right know it looks like he would get beat by legit welter weights. I would like to see Carlos Condit fight him. I would also like to see Condit fight Georges St. Pierre. Four, Let 'em fight. The guy gets an accidental thumb in the eye and they stop the fight. This was turning out to be a legit MMA fight and the doctor comes in and stops it?!? Give the guy a minute, let him shake it off and if he says he can go, let him fight. That is what happened in the first WEC fight on Sunday. Then two of the best fights I've seen back to back to end the show. Two title fights and if you ever get the chance to see the reply of the Torres - Maeda fight you gotta watch it, I get goose bumps just thinking about it. They were trading kicks and punches and then it went to the ground and at one point both fighters had each other in an ankle lock at the same time. And the crowd was yelling and applauding both fighters when they would get back up. The fight finally ended after Torres swelled Maeda's eye shut and the ref had to step in, but in a true show of class Maeda lifted up Torres' arm after the fight. Then the headline fight of Pulver vs. Faber. I have never seen Faber have to go past the second round before he either knocked his opponent out or made 'em submit, and Pulver had never been beaten in the Feather weight class. Well it went all 5 rounds and came down to a decision, but it was still a great fight because of the back and forth. Faber did enough to win every round, but every time he tried to take Pulver down Jens just through him off or stood back up to neutral. Pulver just never took to fight to Uriah and I think that is ultimately what cost him. It seemed like he was just trying to react and counter punch, but I thought if Pulver would have been more aggressive and maybe tried to take Faber down that he could have won. Either way it was still pretty great. I can't wait 'til August 3rd to see the next live fight on WEC, as for CBS . . . I can wait.

Update to the Energy Drink List

I recently checked out Deton-8 (play on the word detonate). It is the generic Kroger energy drink and it is actually pretty decent. And for less than $1 it is definitely the most economical. It has more caffeine and sugar than full throttle, so at least on the measurable side it stacks up. Check out the rankings at left.

DSL update

DSL is up and running... at light speed... well maybe not quite that fast but when you were running at the old "snailsky" speed, "slowsky" speed looks like "ludicrous" speed.

DSL

Well DSL is finally at the Helfensfelder household. It isn't hooked up yet, maybe tomorrow... Sophie finally decided we needed it after she started getting into snapfish and started her own My Space. Alright that will do for tonight, I see Harrang laid a huge egg for me to night. thanks buddy. It will be great having DSL, then I can see just how crappy my players are doing much faster. You know those commercials for comcast with the "Slowsky" family of turtles that have DSL, I told Sophie we were like the "Snailsky's" and we were moving on up to the Slowsky level.

0.071

Wanna know what 0.071 is? That was my "fantasy" team's batting average yesterday. They screwed me again. We were making positive gains for the last week and got within 14 points of Stevie for second place and then the go out and lay a gigantic egg. You know how to get a BA of 0.071? You get a group of guys to go 2-for-28. And you know who had one of the hits? Good old Adam Dunn. Man I really like that guy. I do have to give myself credit for picking up 8 team points in one day on Sunday.

Basketball End Game Strategy

I'm watching the NBA playoffs and what the teams are doing at the end of the games doesn't make any sense to me. I sit there and look at the time remaining and the point deficit and I am screaming at the TV for someone to start fouling to stretch out the game. After a certain point I can tell now if a team has a legitimate chance to win or not. Here are the basic rules.
Deficit - Time to start fouling
10 - - - - - - - - 2:10
8 - - - - - - - - - 1:45
6 - - - - - - - - - 1:15
4 - - - - - - - - - 0:48

Some people will say, "Oh that is too early you can play defense and shoot 3's", but realistically if you foul and get the deficit down to 2 points with a minute left that is what you need. If the scenario plays out perfectly and they miss every foul shot and your team is able to come down and score in less than 10 seconds, then your team will tie the game with a minute left. These guys are pros, just because you force them to use 24 seconds is not a guarantee they won't score. And if you give up two points with less than 5 seconds left you could have saved 20 seconds by forcing them to make 2 foul shots. I base my estimates on the leading team having the ball and being able to run at least 20 seconds off the clock during each opportunity and the team that is behind using at least 10 seconds to try and score. I believe that if you are going to foul then you should count on the opposing team making some foul shots down the stretch. That is why you can't wait until less than a minute left to start fouling to try and make up a 10 point deficit, and you can't sit back and play defense down by 10 with less than 2 minutes. By my scenarios the 2 minutes would result in only 4 offensive opportunities to try and make up, realistically, 5 possessions. So until one of these coaches reads this or comes up with their own plan (and praying to hit miracle 3's is not a plan) I will continue to scream at the TV.

Funny Bob Evans Story

Sophie and I got to go on a date on Friday to the new Indiana Jones movie, and we decided for dinner to go to Bob Evans. I pulled up to the light in front of Bob Evans and there was a car in front of me. The light was red and we were both stopped, when the other car decides to just start going through the red light. This is about 7:00 P.M. so the road isn't exactly empty. Anyway the light turns green, for the people on the right of us. Luckily they see the car creeping through the light, that's right creeping - if you run a red light at least run the light don't just coast through like this car did. So I said "Gee that car must really be in a hurry, good thing they didn't wreck right in front of us or else I would have had to turn right and go around the wreck to get to Bob Evans." Well wouldn't you know it, after the car makes it through the light it turns into, where else, the Bob Evans' parking lot. So after waiting to go through the intersection legally Sophie and I pull into the parking lot and quickly spot the offending car. Sophie and I then have a brief discussion as to the age and gender of the driving before deciding that this is an elderly woman. We get out of our car and hurry into Bob Evans to get a place in line, but we figure this woman would just skip the line anyway and go set down if she wants. Well after she sits in her car for about 5 minutes (kind of makes you wonder why she was in such a hurry to get through that light) she comes in and goes right over to the counter. Here she had ordered to pick it up. Of course, after all she doesn't have time to waste eating in the restaurant. Sophie and I thought this was hilarious, I mean yeah it could have been serious, but it was just really really funny.

Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull - A review

First let me say that Sophie and I view the Indiana Jones movie as an event more so than just your run-of-the-mill sequel. So if you really enjoy the Indiana Jones movies than go see it in the theatre you really won't be that disappointed. This was the first time I have seen one of the Indy movies in the theatre so it was kind of a treat. Now to the stuff that makes the movie less than spectacular. Harrison Ford does a good job being Indy, but he isn't the same. The time frame is sometime around the 1950's after WWII and you get a little background that Indy served during the war, but some of the exploits are just glanced over. His new enemy is the Russians, the series has dumped the Nazis as the old enemy since they would no longer be relevant in the time frame. Anyway Harrison does a good job because he is 20 years old than the last time Indiana Jones appeared on the big screen. It is noticeable, but I think you have to look at Indiana Jones as a bigger than life personality and someone who could transcend the aging issue. So yeah Indiana is older, but it's cool. The movie starts to fall apart around the skulls in my opinion and don't get me wrong it isn't a total collapse, but the idea is that the skulls are from space. I won't go into any more detail than that other than to say that I thought the plot was on the edge of believability and the ending put the movie way over the edge. WAY over. Other than the ending I thought it was around a 4 to 4.5 out of 5 but the ending took the final ranking down to 3.5 out of 5. If you're just a casual Indiana Jones fan I would say definitely wait 'til this comes out on DVD, but it is good enough to watch. I don't know if them bringing Shia Lebouf on as Indiana's "friend" in this one is prepping him to take over the series, but he did hold his own in his action scenes. The swinging through the jungle was a little over done though. Also Indiana's dad died, which if you saw the third movie didn't make any sense because he drank from the holy grail, right? I mean I guess if he got caught in some horrible combine accident that makes sense, but the cause of his demise is never touched on in the movie. Oops I guess.

Iron Man the Movie - A Review

I should have blogged about this movie earlier, but it is really a good movie. It is along the same lines as the Transformer movie only with a little less action. It is another good Marvel film, and the only real criticism is that Robert Downey Jr. is cast as Tony Stark. I really don't remember seeing anything where Tony Stark is as brash or arrogant as Downey makes him seem. Stark to me is a much more humble character who is still awesome, but not over the top. Also there is a little too much dialog for my taste and the action towards the end of the movie seems to fly bye because it seems rushed. I still would give the movie a 4.5 out of 5, but would advise seeing it in the theatre only if you're a big action fan or a big Marvel fan. Conveniently that is the category that Sampson and I fit in.

Sophie Ruins The Coke 600

Well Sophie strikes again. If you remember my blog about people that Tony Stewart Owes, you recall that Sophie's name is on that list. And now it should be doubly on the list. I won't say that it is completely her fault, but she did several things very deliberately today to cost Tony the win. First she wouldn't let me wear my Tony Stewart jersey.
Second she "rooted" for Tony. This is always bad because whomever she roots for is doomed.
Third, after getting back from the cook out today she comes back and puts on my Tony Stewart jersey. The first time she tried I wrestled her to the ground and then she claimed her arm was "hurt". So I left her alone, mistakenly with the jersey because I figured she learned her lesson not to touch the jersey, but no. Sampson came down and told me she had it on, but only briefly, and with two laps to go, sure enough Tony blows a front tire... while he is leading the race ... by 5 seconds. Thanks Sophie.

Obama's new controversy

Well by now everyone knows about the Rev. Wright deal with Obama. Which is kind of funny when you think about it. Here he is saying he goes to the church for 20 years and his book title is based on one of the sermons that the good Reverend has, but he is some how unable to recall the racial hate filled sermons that have sprinkled the services basically throughout. Then he defends Wright, which he should and he says he could no more deny Wright than he could deny his own Grandmother, who is white. Then Wright goes to the NAACP meeting and reiterates all these old hate speech ideas and suddenly Obama dumps him. Which is nice to see the character behind this guy, if someone gets in his way or causes a little difficulty in his life he'll just dump 'em. Which leads to the next controversy, Michelle Obama. You see while she was out stumping for her man she said that "This was the first time in her adult life that she has felt proud of her country" and she didn't just say it once either, she said it multiple times because there is multiple videos of her saying it. So the GOP has jumped on this and is making it seem like she was never proud of her country before, and maybe she hasn't been. My only warning to her is WATCH OUT. You could get dumped next. It's comical, I mean it shouldn't be, but this election process is becoming a joke. Obama is the most liberal senator in congress. He is to the left of Hillary the left of Ted Kennedy, and left of John Kerry. He hasn't once reached across the isle to help pass legislation and yet people think he is going to be some great uniter of people. He is not going to change. If he gets elected president he will have gotten elected because he never had to change. He never had to go towards the middle to work with other congressmen, and he never had to vote on a wedge issue that put him more to the middle. No he'll get elected by being a major league liberal, and if you like that sort of thing good for you, and he'll stay a major league liberal he won't change.

Sampson Wins

Sampson got the game ball from Monday's game. He had three hits without the tee. Way to go Buddy. Sophie and I didn't even know they did such a thing. Now all he has to do is get the game ball in the rest of his games. No Pressure. I did feel bad, I missed the first inning because I thought the game started at 5:30. I am going to have to start checking the old blog at work to make sure that doesn't happen again.

Sampson's T-ball Schedule

At the request of some readers here is the upcoming schedule for Sampson and the Pirates.
May 19th 5:00 PM - Fodor Field, M.F.
May 28th 5:00 PM - Fodor Field, M.F.
June 1st 7:00 PM - Fodor Field, M.F.
June 7th 9:00 AM - Fodor Field, M.F.
June 12th 4:30 PM - Fodor Field, M.F.
June 12th 6:00 PM - Fodor Field, M.F.
That will do for now.

Resistance Fall of Man for the PS3

Well I finally broke down and bought Resistance Fall of Man. This is hands down the best first person shooter I have ever played. The levels are so full of action and I really like the all out battle scenes. This game is definitely a 9.5 out of 10. The only thing that would make it a little bit better is if they told you how to accomplish the skill point rewards. Other than that the controls are great and I love the 2 player co-op mode. It reminds of Halo that way. Which I haven't played Halo 3, so maybe it is better, but only until Resistance 2 comes out in November. And I will not wait a year and half to get that game.

5 Reasons Boston won't win the Championship

1) None of the regular players have actually made it to the finals. These guys have long histories of losing in the playoffs.
2) Doc Rivers is terrible. Sometimes it looks like he is trying to lose the game. Not playing your best players during the last two minutes of the quarters when all you anyone preach about is closing out quarters. He stinks.
3) I hate Boston.
4) They haven't an easy series yet. All of these seven game series are going to start taking a toll on a team filled with "veterans".
5)They flop too much. It is like watching a team of Vlade Divacs out there. Seriously I thought Paul Pierce was trying to win an Oscar. I haven't seen that much over acting since I saw Jessica Simpson in "The Dukes of Hazard"- which I did not pay money to see.

Visit from the Assistant Fire Chief

For Mother's day my brother Willard decided he was going to burn down the old doghouse that was plaguing my mom's yard. Unfortunately he picked the windiest day he could, and did I mention that the dog house was actually converted from my old playhouse, by the way, thanks a lot Willard for burning down my old playhouse. Anyway what with the wind and the excellerant that was applied to the fire the smoke solicited a visited from the assistant fire chief. Well it was no big deal because the previous weekend Willard had burned down an old house so the Assistant Chief kind of looked the other way. Oh did I mention that the Assistant Chief is also my brother Bo. Who didn't even try to save the old play house. Thanks a lot bros. Next time Assistant Fire Chief appointments roll around my vote goes to anyone not related to me. Also Willard had to charge Mom a $6.00 fuel surcharge for the use of the fuel during the fire. Happy Mother's Day.

Response to some comments

Well recently there have been some comments posted and I would like to address some of the questions that have been raised.

Sampson has the eating ferocity of a rabid wolverine when it comes to corn and the capacity of a seven stomached bovine.

I never, nor would I ever dump a flagon of cap'n crunch whistles on the M&R department.

Also I agree that Deep spaCe fire Suppression is quite silly. I mean really think about it.

A Quick 2 week update

Sampson's T-Ball - Got his first hit without the tee in his second game. Got two home runs off the tee in his third game. (I use the term home run quite generously here, as he was the last batter of the inning and the last batter gets to run around and touch all the bases.) He also played in the pitcher circle and then played the hot corner at third. He has his fourth game tomorrow and his Maw got to come down this weekend and see him play for the first time.

Sampson also graduated from pre-school on Friday. He got some cards and some cash which he had to promptly spend on marvel figures. I took the last week off for vacation and got to go on his field trip to the zoo.

Peach continues to use her face for a battering ram for pretty much everything. She fell off the couch and landed face first on a plastic crayon box, then during the fire we had Friday for the graduation she ran her face into some wood and left herself a nice little scratch.

During vacation I also tore out the little flower bed that was in front of the house. I got all the castle wall block and plan on putting a fountain out front.

I also have about reached my threshold for fantasy baseball. It turns out I can only stay interested in it for about 2 months. It seems everyone I pick tanks, but some of the guys are starting to come on. I got about 5 home runs in the past two days, which is good because I had about 5 the whole week before. Stevie keeps trying to get me to make silly trades and before it is all over I might give in, since he is going back to Iraq. He says he can work there for a year and be done working for good. He told mom that on Mother's day - good thinking Stevie, that makes my gift look really good.

Back Home ... and not soon enough

Well the kids were waiting for me, but now they are yelling. That took less than 2 hours. When I opened the door Sophie was just rocking back and forth on the floor with a blank stare (I think the kids might have gotten to her a little this week). I guess your anxious for me to tell you what all I learned while I was gone.

1) The PA turnpike sucks. The road is terrible and you can't see anything over the giant barriers. The closer you get to Philly the worse the road gets too. And how the heck is it legal for them to charge me $16 to drive on a road that I pay for with taxes from gas and what not. Turnpikes should be outlawed.

I remember something my Dad said about turnpikes. He asked the guy at the booth if he had a gun and the guy said "no". And Dad said something like "that is pretty good, you can rob people and not even carry a gun."

2) If you think people from PA drive fast, people from New Jersey drive even faster.

3) Some DCS stuff.

Well that's about it, I gotta check on the old fantasy team.

1 More Day at Camp!!!!

Sophie / Kids,

You gotta get me outta here. My back is killing me from that evil mattress, and last night for dinner I felt like I was on Survivor. I never had that many things at one meal where it was just kind of don't look at it and just try and swallow. And I think I was 1 of 5 people in the whole place who was under 50. fun fun fun. I think the people came there just to be around other people that they thought would kick the bucket before them. Seriously. Well now it is just rainy so I can't even try and go outside, I guess I'll just get my stuff packed so I can get out of here as fast as possible. Well love you and I really really miss you guys.

Desperately,

Kirk

P.S. How mad would you be if I got a speeding ticket coming home.
P.P.S I got the kids stuff. Little Liberty Bells and what not. I got Peach a Hannah Montana Pillow she can hang up. I debated getting it because of the incident this week, but she apologized so we should be good, right? It will probably be 50% off next week cause Disney's gonna dump her.
P.P.P.S. Also while I was "shopping", some lady tried to sell me some snake oil thing for my skin. I told her no, but she put it on me anyway and now my wrist smells like a woman. She was gonna "give" me the stuff for $29.99, but I felt too violated to give her any money. Like it was some kind of sting or something, well I am going to up to my room and cry now. See you tomorrow.

Seriously it was just some spray stuff, I know if you read it again it kind of sounds dirty, but it wasn't. More creepy than dirty.

Day 3 at DCS Camp

Dear Sophie and Kids,

Today was a little harder. I didn't realize how physical it would be here. I was a little sore this morning when I woke up, I guess the bed here isn't quite as comfortable as the one at home. Then they filled up a puddle full of water and made us do push-ups with our faces over the water while reciting different methods for making tags. Then at lunch I thought I would try something different because the food has been OK, but they put a bunch of olive oil and stuff on the sandwich and I didn't really like it. So I gave have of it to one of the people back at the training "complex". That is what they make us call it here now the "complex". Well that is about all I have time for Ming and one of the "S" guys are going to take me out for dinner, I hope they bring me back. What with all the murders here in Philly over the past weekend. I'm sure I'll be fine and hopefully I'll be able to pick you and the kids up something today. Also I got gas for my car, I finally found a filling station, so I should have enough gas to get home.

Love,

Kirk

P.S. Can't wait to come home.

A Letter from DCS Camp

Dear Sophie and Kids,

DCS Camp is really great so far. I miss you guys a lot, but I am having a lot of fun. We are learning soooo much and the people are so nice. I can't wait to get home, but the people here really make it hard to want to leave. We are learning about tags and graphics and today we started our own graphics for our projects, I made an agitator that really spins!! Well I am going to eat dinner (did I mention how good the food is) and then try and get to bed early, but I bet it will be difficult because it is just so exciting here. Well see you soon.

Love,
Kirk

P.S. I am going to get you and the kids something great before I come back.

Helping M&R

Today I helped out the old M&R team. Well actually only one person, Dean Markham. I found some old speakers in my office and gave them to him for his computer. Enjoy Dean.

Happy Earth Day

Today is Earth day. Please Enjoy. Sorry the post is so late. Enjoy tomorrow.

Thanks for the Prayers

Unfortunately Adam Dunn has managed to screw me again. If he would of hit a homerun last night I could have played him today, but instead he was on the bench. So he proceeded to go 2-for-4 with a homerun, rbi and 2 runs scored. Thanks, just let me know when you are praying for him so I can get him into the lineup.

T-Ball Update

Well Saturday is our first exhibition. Sampson gets to ride in on a firetruck and then play a couple of innings of exhibition T-Ball. He is getting better practice by practice. I told the coach he should fill a hole full of water and make 'em do push ups with their face over the water, but then the police cruisers pulled up so I just went over and sat with the rest of the parents. But if that coach ever goes down in practice, they'll be running foul pole to foul pole and doing push ups. Unless you know the "authorities" show up, then we'll remain with his civilized practice. But when they run bases they'll have to do it holding a bat over their head.

Sampson the Corn eater

Sampson really loves corn on the cob and he was begging Sophie to get some so she got some and we had our first corn of the year. It was very good and Sampson remarked during his second ear that,"I'm attacking this corn huh Daddy." Yeah, buddy you are tearing it up, literally. His little 'Future President' shirt might be ruined, he'll be lucky to be a junior senator someday. Which of course means he could run for president, but probably not win the general election.

Sampson's comment about corn - Delicious.

Fantasy Update

Well I'm officially a type A fantasy baseball player. That means I tend to be a "control addict" when it comes to adjusting my lineup and getting players. I even put players up on the trading block I'm such a nerd. I'm still third in the standings, but Joba Chamberlain being off for a week kind of hurt, so Please pray for his father to get better. Oh wait that isn't really a good reason to pray for someone, you know to help the old fantasy team, but don't you kind of feel obligated ow. Ok, well I don't have much time to blog I gotta check my starting lineup for tonight and I swear if Adam Dunn doesn't start producing I will trade him... seriously... I'm not joking... one, maybe two weeks... just pray for Adam Dunn too. Thanks.

Post #200

Well I promised something special for old post number 200, so here goes. I got nothing. I know I said I was going to do perpetual motion, but it turns out the Hero's fountain is based on pretty sound fluid dynamics, that can't be easily manipulated. So basically I decided that "perpetual motion" is kind of a misnomer. See you could have motion that lasts for a really really long time, but that just doesn't sound cool. I came to the realization that perpetual motion doesn't exist for a few reasons. One is erosion. If the pieces of this perpetual motion machine are made of solids eventually the solids will "rub" together during the motion causing the machine to fail. Two is vapor liquid equilibrium. If fluids are used, i.e. the Hero's Fountain, eventually the fluid will evaporate, unless there is a completely closed system free from the outer atmosphere. The only way I know how to do that is to weld a metal box around fluid system, but then you can't see the motion. Hey, that's it, I'll just weld a box closed and I'll have perpetual motion, or is it? I'd probably have to have someone from M&R weld the old box up though.

Random Thought #2

E! Entertainment television is not all that 'Entertaining'

P.S. - The next entry will be #200, so I'll try and do something special.

Happy 18th Birthday... to ...Me

See I bet you all thought I was older than that, but good old Gillette knows better. They sent me a razor for my 18th birthday, so that means Sophie married me when I was 10. Oooh gross. It is like we were in that cult out West where that guy was marring the kids and stuff, only worse. Any way, Thanks Gillette your the betterest. Well that's what the guys from the old M&R department would say.

Sampson's First Pratice

Sampson says he really enjoyed his first T-Ball practice. It was pretty good, it is funny watching kids practice for the first time because they don't know what baseball is or what to do. The 6 year-olds were hitting first and knocking the ball through the infield and the other kids that weren't batting were fielding standing between 1st and 3rd. Well when the ball went through everyone would go get it. It looked like somebody throwing bread to ducks and all the ducks go and try to get that piece of bread. I will try and put a video up of it that I have. Good Times.

Presidential race ' 08 - Update

The democratic primary is still going on and it is getting really testy. I was going to post this 3 weeks ago, but what is sad is that the subject matter is still relevant. The Pa primary is tomorrow and the candidates are a slinging mud like there is no tomorrow, and well there sort of isn't you know if you don't count the general election. I think that when historians look back at this election year and the Democrats end up losing they will attribute it to several factors. Number one is the decision by the states Michigan and Florida to move up their primary dates to make them more relevant and the decision by DNC chairman, oh crap the yelling guy from 2004 what's his name oh yeah Dean. Howard Dean decided to not let Michigan or Florida's votes count at all since the moved their primaries up. Big mistake. He would have been well advised to do what the Republicans did and count only half of the delegates. That way everyone counts the first time and there is no talk of any costly revotes or discussion of how to count votes in a state where Obama wasn't even on the ticket (Michigan), but since you are splitting the delegates according to the popular vote just seat 50/50. The second factor is going to be the Republicans and talk radio. Rush Limbaugh, love him or hate him, has started operation "Chaosis" for later voting states. Basically states that have open primaries are being targeted by Rush to vote for Hillary since she is behind, and it is working. She carried Texas and Ohio two big open primary states, and in some of the other states where the primary is not open Republicans are crossing over and voting democrat. The third is the fact that the democratic candidates have given into dirty tactics to try and win the nomination and are essentially doing the job for the Republicans for the general election. The funny thing is they are still pimping themselves as uniters of the people they are going to bridge the divide, but supporters of the respective candidates have said they won't vote for the other candidate if the one they are supporting doesn't win the nomination because the primaries have gotten so nasty. Oh well I really got do some fantasy stuff now, hey I know they should have the presidential race into a fantasy game, you select a President and a V.P. and you get points according to how many votes they get.

"the Grid"

This is the first update for the "Grid". The Grid will eventually overtake the Internet because of technology and speed. The old Internet is based on older telephone technology and the Grid is all new with high speed stuff. I will keep you updated as this technology comes to the forefront. Right now they are saying movie could be downloaded in a few seconds rather than a few hours. Not sure just who "they" are though, or where "they" get "their" information.

Dollar coming back?

It looks like the old dollar might be making a come back. It looks like the really good time to buy stuff might be coming to an end. I figure once the old gov't comes through with those checks prices will go up a little bit so that the old consumer loses out. Right now the dollar is coming up against some of the other foreign currencies, but it will take more time to see what is really going to happen. It kind of makes you think that this whole recession thing was a little overblown. From my understanding recessions are tied to job growth and not necessarily incomes or money changing hands. Oil continues to increase and is at over $107 a barrel, and it looks like it won't get back below $100 either because hedge folks have set up automatic buys for anything under $100 so unless the stockpile just shoots up you can forget about prices going down, especially before the summer driving season.

MLB '08 The Show - Update

Well it turns out the addictive power of MLB'08 the Show is actually closer to 9.5. The 'Road to the Show' mode is pretty addictive. You play as one player in one position and you only have to bat when it is that player's turn and you only have to play in the field when the ball is definitely coming to you. You start in AA and work up through AAA and then you are in 'The Show'. Then you have to get enough stats to be a H.O.F. So far I have made it to the Indians and am doing pretty decent the first month. The addictiveness is starting to wear off with the warmer weather and I am hoping to get it out of my system in the next few weeks. That is the funny thing about me, I pretty much throw myself into a game or activity for about 6 - 12 weeks then it is on to something else. The only thing that I have kind of stayed up with is the old blog, and Thank you for your support.

Raining and Reigning

Well the first T-ball practice was rained out Saturday, so hopefully we'll have practice tomorrow although the forecast says rain. Don't worry though I've been practicing with Sampson, I made him throw with left hand yesterday. I figure that's were the money is. Just kidding. Also I was (WAS) the reigning leader of the fantasy team the first week, but have since settled back into 5th. The stupid catching position is killing me. I picked up the Pirates catcher, but he is being platooned and he has played like twice. So I had to pick somebody else up and I decided to get Yadier Molina. Yeah. Well at least I wrote the check to Stevie, he can probably just go ahead and cash it and keep it.

Science finally comes through

Well I saw a commercial touting the 'healthy' goodness of Mayonnaise. That's right I had been waiting for science to say that Mayo was good for you, but I never thought it would happen. Apparently mayo has Omega-3 fatty acid. I'm not sure what it does, but I always new there was something good in there. I guess it can lower triglyceride count and lower your blood pressure, which makes sense because I don't eat all that healthy and my b.p. is like 120's over 80's. I haven't had my cholesterol checked in a while, but it was good the last time. The only bad thing is that if you have Congestive heart failure omega-3 turns out to be a bad thing. It can keep the electric signals around your heart down and when you have the congestive heart failure that can be bad since you don't have that many cells firing already. Just in case any body out there has that condition. So now all we have to do is wait for science to say it is bad for you, so eat as much as you can while it is still good for you, I know I will.

The Fantasy Draft

We'll I didn't get the guy I wanted, but I must not have picked 1st, I did get Albert Pujols. On the front page of Yahoo fantasy sports though, there is an article saying 'Take a chance on Pujols elbow or give somebody from K.C. a shot.' So that is basically it, you can pretty much track who is on my team because they will either get hurt or suspended. I dropped Melky Cabrera who was set to serve a 3-game suspension at the beginning of the season, but since I dropped him that will probably get appealed. Then the other guy I wanted- B.J. Upton - gets beaned with a baseball in his arm on draft night and can't hold a bat. That's encouraging. I figure he got hit about 5 milliseconds after I drafted him. Anyway Stevie was already trying to make a deal with me to get Carlos Pena for Todd Helton and some catcher on the D-Backs. I looked up the stats on MLB '08 the show and there projected spots in the line-up and then shot him down. So basically Pena will probably get hurt and Helton and that catcher will have all-star years. Right now I figure if my catcher doesn't do very good I could just pick up another one, since he is pretty far down on the list. I don't know much about fantasy sports, but I figure I'm in for it.

A Week of Drafts

Well we're pirates now. Sampson got drafted by the Pirates on Sunday, so that is who we will be playing T-ball for. It was pretty simple, you just go and set there, they read the names of the 6 year-olds already on a team and then you go and sign up for a team. Sampson's little friend from down the street was there and his mom said he was going to play on the pirates since she knew the coach, so that is where Sampson wanted to play too. We start practice in April, but it is just an instructional league so they don't really keep score, they must just let the kids play and then after everyone gets a turn they switch places. I guess we'll find out.

MLB 08 - The Show

I got 'MLB 08 The Show' this week and so far the addictive factor is about an 8 out of 10. I got the game because it had more favorable reviews versus the other baseball game for PS3 (I can't remember the other game). Anyway the things I like are the jukebox feature where you can take songs that are on the PS3 hard drive and incorporate them into the game. So if you don't like the music on the game you can change it. The graphics are great and the pitching is good. The rookie mode is useless in my opinion, it is completely different from the veteran mode. In veteran mode you can try and guess the pitch and location and if you do the screen lights up and you can load up and try a heavy swing. The only thing I don't like is the field and base running controls. The game has a habit of not switching to nearest fielder and you have to make a split decision and recognize who you are controlling and whether you need to switch and then whether you need to dive or jump for the ball. Running the bases is no easier. For some reason the controls seem really unintuitive for me, although I played Sampson a game and he hit four home runs. He didn't win though, I couldn't let that happen. But when you run the bases you have to point to the base where the base runner is starting from and then you have to tell them which base to go to. There is an advance all runners and send all runners back control with one button, but when you want to send the guy from third home and leave the other guy at second you have to really think about it. I would have been simpler if you could just point at the runner and either advance or return, I mean come one we had the controls with the old Nintendo remember, all we had then was the 'A' and 'B' buttons and those controls were fine. Anyway the ballparks are awesome and they seem to have done a good job on scouting pitchers for the capabilities, it just seems like no matter what I throw the computer will foul it off. The computer gives you a pitch to throw, but you are better off knowing what your pitches strengths are, throwing that 1-2 fastball with Paul Byrd is not his strength. Overall I give it a 7 out of 10. Once I figure it out it will probably be one of those forgettable games. Oh well. Maybe 'Resistance fall of man' will come down in price since it has been out for over 14 MONTHS. I have never seen a game hold that kind of price since its original release.

A truely Blessed Week

Usually people here about the bad things that happen and rarely the good things. Well we had a really good week and I hope it continues. I have chronicled the recent downturn we experienced with deaths, but when the Lord taketh away he often giveth back, which is what we were on the receiving end of this week. The old triple C came through for a very good week, then Sophie was on the phone with Discover and when she paid the bill last month it was one day late (because of you know everything that was going on) and we got hit with a finance charge, but since Sophie had never had a late payment in 12 years and our extenuating circumstances the lady took the charge off, so there was an extra 40 bucks back. Then I won the monthly safety drawing, the first time I had won in 22 months. We got our state income tax back, and yesterday when we were at WAL*MART the guy who was going to rotate our tire said that the tires looked good and the ones that were on the front were actually a little bit better so we didn't need to rotate them and he saved us $6 bucks. Also Sophie and I actually got to go out just the two of us and have a meal together sans children. Oh and I got a new game for the PlayStation (I will blog about this separately). Anyway, thanks God!!

Milestone - 1,000 views

Well the old blog has reached a milestone of 1,000 page views. Thanks everybody, hope you've enjoyed it. And in just a shade under a year too. Also the old AdSense has come in for a tidy little profit of $5.44, and since I have re-upped with AdSense hopefully the ads will be back for your clicking pleasure.

New Element

I am going to start updating the old blog description at the top of the page a little more frequently, but if you miss one I will keep an archive of the old descriptions over there at the left... near the bottom... keep on going ... way way down there.

Beowulf: the Movie - A Review

This movie wasn't bad, but it caught me off gaurd that it was all digital animation or as they say 'digitally enhaced'. It had the same stuff as Polar Express, but I don't think the technology is quite there for a feature film that doesn't appeal to kids, at least not to be profitable. My brother in-law Hans went to the theater to see it in 3-D and there are definetly some parts that would have been cool in the theater in 3-D, but when you are watching at home it kind of loses some of the effect. Not all, but some. You still sit there like, 'Whoa, that was cool,' but a couple of cool shots don't make a movie. The digital stuff loses too much effect up close, but it does allow for some great actors AKA Anthony Hopkins to step into a role easierly (check that word out), but what you pick up in having his facial features and overall ability you lose, by not having the full body interaction. The story wasn't bad, but after watching it was no more out of the range to do in a traditional manner than say Lord of the Rings or Harry Potter. It is pretty much your old stand by story of Boy kills monster, boy hooks up with evil monster mom, then boy has to kill his own demon offspring who turns into a dragon, pretty standard really. If you have the capability to see this movie for free I would recomend it, otherwise view at your own discretion. I say 3 out of 5, Sophie says 2.5 out of 5.

WWVA Question

I was listening to WWVA the other morning and they were doing a call in thing for listeners to call in with the answer to a question. The question was 'How many times a day does a normal man fart?' The correct answer was 13. I said the normal amount for a 5 year-old male is about 40 times and the normal amount for a two year old female is about 75 times, these figures are based on independent research. For a 30 year old female the average is 0, women don't fart they only fart in the bathroom where you are supposed to fart you disgusting pigs. That is also based on independent research.

Ice Truckers and Diamonds

So Sophie and the kids and I are pretty much snowed in today, and we are watching Ice Road Truckers on the history channel. The premise of the show is that the truckers drive across frozen lakes during the cold weather in Northern Canada to deliver supplies to the diamond mines up there. It looks like it would be crazy to do and also very cold. Sophie said she wondered if the people that work in the mine take a little bit for the themselves. She said she thought the best way would be to shove the diamonds up your nose to make it out of the security checks. She said the kids would be good at getting it out since they act like they are digging gold out most of the time, diamonds wouldn't be that big of a change. I said if you developed a little capsule that wouldn't dissolve in your digestive system you could fill it with diamonds and then just dig it out when you know... you go to the bathroom. Just make sure you don't go at work!!!

Forgetting What Bush Did

Lots of people have bad mouthed President Bush during his tenure and sometimes rightfully so. But the criticism he gets for NAFTA and the local manufacturing industry isn't so well deserved. People seem to forget that he signed the steel tariffs in 2001 or so and that is one of the reasons that Wheeling Pittsburgh Steel is still around. Sure it took a lot of other things to happen to keep that company around, but I guarantee that if the steel tariffs had not been put in place those facilities would have been shut down over 5 years ago. I remember being in some of the salary meetings with then CEO James Bradley and he was telling us just how close the Company had been to idling the plants. You know that is the other thing I don't understand about people's criticism of companies. They say the large corporations need to be taxed more, but these companies employ people and create a lot of jobs. So what if they can make a decent profit, at least then there is a chance that money can be shared with the employees that made it or used to improve the facilities to keep them running for a longer period. If the government takes the money it will go to people that don't work or are illegal or something, but it definitely won't come back to the workers.

Nippert gets Nipped

So much for the blog bump. Hillary won Ohio and Texas on Tuesday. But the real winner was the republican party. Now the democratic race will likely continue until the convention. In the mean time they may have a redo in Michigan and Florida where Hill won the first time, but because the DNC dissallowed their delegates, they don't actually count towards her total. It will be interesting to see what happens now, because the Clintons have really been in attack mode, and that is always kind of off-putting the longer an election lasts. If McCain can pick a conservative V.P. it may bring some more people to his cause and really may swing the general election in his favor regardless of what the democrates settle on.

Visit from the Tooth Fairy

Apparently the tooth fairy visited last night and left Sampson $2, again. But this time Sampson had open up the plastic bag that the tooth was in and when the tooth fairy went to grab the bag the tooth fell out on the floor. Then the tooth fairy had to spend a half an hour looking for the tooth in the dark with the tooth fairy's book light.

Note: I thought this story was hilarious, but the tooth fairy didn't seem to think it was very funny since it happened at about 1 in the A.M.

Rendition: a Review

This movie was terrible. It had one thing going for it and that was at the end of the movie you found out you weren't watching what you thought you were. There were basically two different time lines and you don't find out till the end. I don't want to ruin it, but oh what the hey if you really want to see it don't read the next part. The boy and girl that hook up at the beginning are actually the explosion, but you don't realize that until the end when they show that they were the ones getting blown up. It is kind of like deja vu when you watch the scene and your like 'hey this already happened' and then your like 'what the hell just happened'. Anyway I didn't like it because the main character is a Chemical Engineer that gets kidnapped by the federal government because they think he is a terrorist and it is all done under the law of rendition. Thus the name of the movie. The other thing I didn't like was the guy was making $200,000 a year. And he went to NYU. It was like they didn't even try to do any research on salaries that make sense for as vague of a job as he did. They might as well of said he made a gillion dollars. Also Reece Witherspoon is in it and she is "pregnant" except it looks like she is pregnant with a half deflated soccer ball. It looked like this whole movie cost about $200,000 to make. There was one big explosion and they milked it for more than it was worth. You saw the same explosion 3 separate times in the movie. So the final tally is : One crappy explosion (shown 3 times), a ton of subtitles, one ChemE that makes a gillion dollars, and Reece Witherspoon giving birth to a soccer ball. That equals one out of 5.

T-Balling

Sampson is signed up for the old T-ball, wanna know how I know, there is $40 worth of chocolate sitting on the counter to sell. You know I was a bit of ball player back in the day. I once pitched a 1/3 of an inning in reserve ball, so that basically qualifies me to coach and stuff. Or at least I could go around and pick up the bats after the kids get done and make sure there aren't any big rocks in the base path. Yeah, that's probably what I'll be doing.

Another one bites the dust

Sampson lost his second tooth today. That means another visit from the tooth fairy. Yeah (sarcasm). Last time she left $2. I think I used to get 50 cents. And no not the rapper.

The Fantasy Starts Here

Well Stevie talked me into playing fantasy baseball this year. I have held out as long as I could before playing any fantasy games, because I don't want to become addicted. I will chronicle my progress throughout the season. I have a funny feeling they could probably just go ahead and divide up my money now. Of course if they want to come and check out the old blog they could always click on one of the adds to give me a little cash, then we could all win. Wait that is starting to sound like a fantasy, oh well let the games begin!

Random Thought #1

I hate that show 'Everbody loves Raymond'.

The Webkinz addiction

I can't quit playing that stupid Webkinz. It is addicting with all the gem hunting and going to the academy, working and playing at the arcade. I am stuck on Goober's Lab and Goober's Atomicolicious. That's right it's chemtastic. Oh and Sampson plays too. But so does Sophie. She says she is about to kick the habit though, we'll see. All she does is talk about getting a new one.

Two More go Belly up

Well we lost our replacement fish this week. The two fish we bought to replace Goldie died this week. Little Princess (Peach's fish) and Goldie II (Sampson's fish). Something about when we buy fish we can't seem to keep them alive. I remember when I bought Sophie a Beta fish that could live in a vase with a plant and you didn't have to feed it or anything, it lived off the plant and the plant lived off the fish waste. Seemed pretty simple. That fish lasted a week. Then we got another one, since it died in less than a week. The next one lasted 10 days or so, and I think it committed fish-icide. That is when a fish commits suicide by getting stuck in the root of the plant. I don't know maybe it's us, maybe we drive the fish to it. Oh well, maybe we need to try a land animal, then again....

The Cecil Blog Bump

After my endorsement of Donnie Nippert for Sheriff in Belmont county, I heard one of the local radio hosts also throw his endorsement Donnie's way. I can only figure that after my blog some of the other local talent wanted to hop on the bandwagon after the enormous boost given to the campaign after my endorsement. This is called the Cecil Blog Bump. David Bloomquist will probably get more of the credit if Donnie goes on to win, but I'm OK with that. It is kind of like the guy who stepped on the moon first and said, 'yeah, it looks safe Neil come on out.' Actually that may not be a good analogy.

Game Night

We have been playing different games for people's birthdays, and one of the crowd favorites is Balderdash. So far the best answer I have come up with combined several answers. I think the category was Movies and the name of the movie was "the Pickle". You have to come up with an idea of what was covered in the movie and my answer was as follows: Two hikers get stuck under a foumart covered in furuncle.
This was funny because foumart was a word we had to make up definitions for and I said it was a rock that was so heavy it required two or more people to move. Then I said Furuncle was another name for the moss that grows on the north side of trees. I don't remember what either of the real definitions were, but from now on this blog will refer to words by my given definition.

Continued downward spiral

Well it looks like the downward spiral of the Steel-towners is picking up steam. This past week one of their former annoucers, Myron Cope, died. In the last six months two of the biggest Steel-er fan I know passed away and then Myron Cope, the guy who invented the terrible towel passed away. The let Alan Faneca leave via free agency, meanwhile not signing anyone themselves and they really aren't in a postion to get a high impact player in the draft. They are one terrible draft away from falling apart. I will continue to monitor the situaiton from a distance.

In a side conversation I had with someone at work, he said the 'terrible towel' was actually invented by Myron Cope's mentally handicapped son. Which means the train is just rocketing down.

Tony Wrecks :-(

Tony Wrecked on Saturday and then wrecked again on Sunday. Needless to say it was not a good weekend in Las Vegas. He looked pretty shook up when the talked to him. He didn't even bash Goodyear for the crappy hard tire they made for that track. Then Jeffy wrecked later, and it was Junior's fault. Well Hendrick, how do you feel about letting Kyle Busch go now, since he is setting third in points and you don't even have a driver sniffing the top ten. And it seems like every week you have at least one of your drivers wreck one of your other drivers.