Seahawks Win Again, Now 2-0*

*In order to maintain my sanity, I've decided to only acknowledge games against the Rams this season.

This is actually just a continuation of my policy as a fan of the Washington Huskies, whereby even the worst season is considered a success if we beat the Cougars.

Taking these two policies together, the Washingattle Huskhawks are 2-1 this season against their hated rivals, the St. Louigton State Ramgars, proving once again that they play great football in my home city-state of Washingattle.

...and nothing ever happened in science again.

Oh my God! Two posts in one day? Are you dreaming? Pinch yourself. Right now, do it. Nope, you're awake. The Ninjaneer must be on a crack high.

I couldn't resist passing this on. One of my favorite rant subjects, CNN.com, just did something so beautifully asinine I'm actually gleeful. Seriously, I'm grinning like an idiot with the potential for ridicule. Where to begin?

As you may have noticed over the course of forever, CNN.com's science reporting has always been the equivalent of a five-year-old watching 30 minutes of Discovery Channel and then explaining what it was about. They catch some key phrases and the general gist, but usually butcher the details or leave them out altogether.

Well -- No more! That's right, CNN.com will never again post another horribly inept science article, because as you can read here, they're SHUTTING DOWN their entire Space, Science and Tech section!

Can you imagine the conversation in the board room? No? Allow me to help:

CNN.com President: How are things in Science and Tech?

CNN.com Sci/Tech Editor: Der, gahhhhhhhhhhhhh-thppt.

President: What?

Features Editor: Sorry, sir, he was, like, totally leaning against the stairwell door this morning trying to clean his ears with, you know, those scissors he's always running around with, and--

President: Yeah, Okay. Anyone know how things are in Science and Tech?

Opinions Editor: Sir, Science and Tech has never received a single complimentary Letter to the Editor, and this chart shows our customer feedback ranks it the worst Science writing since--

President: Is that chart in crayon? What happened to those laser printers we ordered?

Opinions Editor: The...Oh. We thought those were really big, slow laser toasters.

President: Okay, we need to seriously improve Science and Tech. Suggestions?

Features Editor: Could we, like, get a new geek? Who, like, knows about light bulbs and fancy gizmos and stuff?

Opinions Editor: We should get a robot to do it. I bet the Apple Store has something.

Sci/Tech Editor: Blub-blub-blub-blub motorBOAT!

President: Ugh. Never mind, lets just shut it down, fill the Science office up with sand, and get some Tonka Trucks in there or something.

Everyone: Yay! A sandbox!

I'll miss you, CNN Science section.

Hey, careful, man, there's a beverage here!

I got some well-deserved shit over Thanksgiving for having abandoned my blog for the last several months. I wasn't really sure what I wanted to post when I got back though. Lucky for me, Dan sent me a great link, so in true lazy Dude fashion, I'm just reposting it here for everyone else.

What is it? Oh. Right. Well, for some reason the New York Times published a ridiculously in-depth article about the supposed return of the White Russian beverage to the, ahem, *hipster* scene, crediting its return to The Big Lebowski (yeah, they're a bit late on that one), and delivering several funny anecdotes about the yearly Lebowski festival that somehow I've never managed to attend. It's a good read!

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/03/dining/03lebo.html?em=&pagewanted=all

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm off to In-N-Out Burger for lunch.

They're Made Out Of Meat

I am a big dork.

I came across this really short story (like 1.5 pages), a conversation between two aliens who have discovered humanity and are repulsed and confounded by the fact that...we're made out of meat.

I laughed.

You should too.

Dr. Evil is involved in this somehow...

Check out these insane pictures of the nearly-completed Large Hadron Collider. I could try to explain what it does, but since I don't really understand it I'll just say it's an evil genius physics machine that smashes particles together and might possibly destroy all of mankind by creating a black hole on Earth. But that last part is really unlikely. And the pictures are really cool.

Happy 50th birthday, NASA.

And next time some jackass says to you "Why the hell are we spending money on the space program," point them at this article listing 50 NASA technology contributions to the world. Okay, they snuck one or two non-tech items onto the list, but for the most part it's a list of technology spinoffs that have benefited non-space industries and average people on Earth for decades.

But hey, if you still think half a cent per tax dollar is a ripoff, you're entitled to your opinion.

Gummy Bears that fight plaque

I'm not kidding.

Just one question: Of all the candies they could have chosen, why gummy bears? The only worse choice I can think of is (ugh) Red Vines. Put this stuff in Starburst and I'd have the best teeth ever.

Lost a Great, but we get one back

At the time of his death, Tim Russert was my favorite journalist on television, to the point that I actually had Meet the Press on my DVR. Yep, I'm a dork. Anyway, with Russert's death, I was pretty much looking at the anchors on the major networks...and not liking any of them.

But hey! It's not all bad. It turns out that Aaron Brown, former anchor at CNN until about two or three years ago, returns to television journalism tonight. For those of you who knew me when CNN fired Brown and replaced him with Anderson Cooper (for the following reasons, in this order: 1) Cooper looked cool standing around pointing at Katrina damage and looking solemn, 2) Cooper makes women and gay men feel happy in their pants, 3) Brown steadfastly refused to take part in the rest of CNN's slide down into pseudo-news and empty-headed journalism, 4) Cooper didn't, and 5) low ratings), I was pretty ridiculously outraged for about two weeks. Once again, I'm a dork.

Anyway, Brown is back as the anchor of PBS's weekly show "Wide Angle," which is not so much a weekly summary of news as it is an in-depth look at one international issue each week. For example, it looks like this week is all about Darfur. Anyway, I like this guy, so I'm donating my modest advertising skills to his cause.

I think Wide Angle is on Tuesdays at 9pm on PBS, but really, your DVR could tell you better than I could.

Gas Price Bitching

I'm one of those lucky people who work from home and live within walking distance of 90% of the places they regularly go, so I'll just pre-emptively apologize for bitching about the price of my once-or-twice-a-month fill-up.

That said, it should never, ever cost $52 to fill up the tank on a two-door hatchback. That shit's just wrong.

Oh, sorry. As you were.

A few minutes ago, at the stroke of midnight, I heard a rustling in the bushes outside my apartment below my balcony, followed by some sort of animal squeal. I've only ever seen two kinds of animals back there -- my neighbor's cat, and a gigantic raccoon. So when I heard this noise, which did not sound pleasant, I scrambled for my flashlight and ran out onto my balcony to see if I could save my poor neighbor's cat.

I shined the light down along the path of bushes between my building and the next, and saw nothing. Then I heard a grunt to the right, and swung the light that way. Two heads rose up - a big raccoon head and...a smaller raccoon head. One above the other. It kind of looked like the smaller raccoon's head was sticking out of the larger raccoon's chest, with the larger raccoon standing in a sort of wide stance....

....Ohhhhhh. My bad, Mr. and Mrs. Raccoon. Didn't mean to barge in on your romantic evening. As you were.

I retreated back into my apartment, feeling oddly guilty. They had resumed before I got through the door. I think getting caught was a turn-on for them, because the really started going at it after I left. Hilarious.

Kickball is ridiculous

You probably already knew that, but it got ridiculously ridiculous last night for the back-to-back semi-finals and championship game.

First, the punchline -- we won.

Why was that unlikely? Where to begin...

1. Due to the games being rescheduled twice, we were missing 4 guys and 2 girls, leaving us with only 10 players (11 play the field in kickball).
2. Of those 6 missing players, one was our captain/lead-off kicker, and another was our bigfooted homer-smashing RBI machine.
3. Then, in the first inning of the semi-final game, our co-captain/awesome fielding catcher pulled a hammy trying to avoid a tag at third base. Down to 9 players.
4. Somehow we eeked out a 3-0 win in the semi-final.
5. Then things got retarded. First inning of the championship game, we gave up 6 runs. It's a five inning game, folks. That's a lot of runs. As far as I can remember, we scored 7 runs or more only once all season.
6. Down 6-0? No problem. We won 7-6 on a two out, bottom of the fifth bloop single.

Kickball is ridiculous.

Oh, did I forget to mention the bunt home run?

Why are we encouraging a Monkey-Robot Alliance?!

Monkeys: Cute, lovable, mentally-deficient ancient ancestors who we dress up in funny costumes for our entertainment, and who we occasionally find useful as test subjects for the next wonder-drug. But one look in their tiny monkey faces reveals the same warning which is found in their DNA; within their genetic code lies much the same potential that is found in our own, for good and ill.

Robots: Do not be fooled by the innocent prototypes that vacuum your carpet, or the more complex versions that build cars in giant assembly lines in Detroit; these, too, are but idiot cousins to a possible future enemy of all mankind - intelligent, evil machines, bent on destroying their creators and seizing the planet for themselves.

Hollywood has tried to warn us of these twin dangers countless times. Who can forget poor Charlton Heston, and his eventual and much-less-competent successor Marky Mark, in their losing struggles against a planetful of super-evolved apes and their anti-human bigotry? Or Keanu Reeves' valiant fight against a race of machines of our own creation, turned twisted and evil, and with an insidiously annoying penchant for talking way, way too much?

These movies showed us that both of these evil beings would enslave us: Monkeys would use us as beasts of burden; machines see us as an upgrade to the lithium-ion battery. Surely, then, it would be the sheerest folly for humanity to thrust these two potential destroyers of men together, to provide them with an opportunity for communion and conspiracy.

And yet, somehow, science has failed to heed these warnings. I ask you, if we continue down this path, how much longer will it be before someone utters the dreaded words of two combined nightmares: "Take your cold mechanical hands off me, you damn dirty robo-ape!"

It may already be too late to stop such an alliance, which means we have only one possible path to survival. Initially, at least, the strength of robotic apes will be confined to the digital and tropical realms. We must, therefore, strengthen our currently shaky relationship with polar bears, who have no love of the robots themselves, and work in secret to perfect vacuum-tube and other analog-based technologies, so that when the future war comes, we are prepared.

Yeah, work was slow today.

New Barbeque, Part II: The Grrrr Continues

The "No Knobs" problem was resolved amazingly well today; the store said "Oops, our bad" and, since they had no replacement in stock, they just GAVE me a barbeque worth about $100 or so more than the one I bought. It's the same brand and uses the same cart, just nicer barbeque equipment and performance. Sweet!

So I take it home, and begin to assemble the cart. I got 95% of the way through the cart assembly, which took about 2 hours. Last step: put on the front panel. Problem: The holes in the legs for the front panel are on the back legs not the front legs.

Oh man, I thought, I must be an idiot. How did I put the front legs on the back? Looking at the drawings, I found the problem in the first fucking figure in the instructions. The one that shows you how to put on the back legs. The back leg in the picture, labeled "rear leg," is the fucking front leg! Grrrrr! And of course, I didn't catch it when I put on the front legs, because the only difference between the rear and front legs is an extra hole on the in-facing side of the leg, and Figure 2 helpfully shows you only the out-facing side of the front leg. Did I say Grrrr? I meant GRRRRRRR.

Okay, I think, calm down. All this means is your front panel goes on the back. It's just a screen to hide your gas tank, so who cares. Just put the panel on the back so you can mount the shield-thingy to it and you're done.

Nope. Physically impossible. It turns out the front end of the barbeque is a quarter inch wider than the back end. Which means, so is the front panel. Which means you can't mount the front panel in the back, because it's a quarter-inch too wide.

So an hour later, and 3 hours after I started, I got the entire cart disassembled so I could swap the front and back legs. Yeah. Fun night. Tomorrow I get to do it again.

When I finally get this thing assembled, I'm gonna cook me a giant steak, drive it to the barbeque store, walk in, eat it in front of the guy who wanted $50 bucks to assemble the thing for me, and then shout "Ha! I win, motherfucker! I win!" And in honor of Natron, I might even throw in a "Game over, man, Game over!" Maybe. I still hate you, Bill Paxton.

I have no knobs.

I bought a barbeque tonight. Unassembled, cuz you know, my car is tiny, and cuz, you know, I didn't want to pay the store to assemble it. I'm a freaking ninjaneer, I can put together a barbeque.

So I took all the big parts out of the boxes and started going through the instructions. I hit a minor snag on step 5. Actually, my problem had nothing to do with step 5, which looked pretty simple -- attach stuff to the barbeque frame. The problem was that my barbeque frame was missing something that was shown in the picture. Three things, actually. Three very, very important things.

The knobs. You know, how hot do you want the damn thing to get? Turn the knobs. No knobs. I have no knobs.

So I flipped back through the directions, looking for the step where I was supposed to put the knobs on. There is no such step. Oh well, I'll just put them on now, I thought. At this point, most of the stuff was unpacked from most of the boxes. I figured that I must have not unpacked the panel with the knobs on it yet, so I took out the rest of the stuff from the rest of the boxes.

Still no knobs.

So I went down to my car with a flashlight and searched for any boxes I might have forgotten to bring in.

No boxes. No knobs.

So I went back to the instruction manual and looked at that exploded view picture that shows all the parts, and there's the frame in the picture, with the knob-laden control panel already attached.

Everything else in this thing has been exquisitely, painstakingly packed, with detailed and easy instructions. It's not like IKEA. So you're telling me that somehow, the guy in charge of putting the biggest piece of the barbeque into the box didn't noticed the control panel was missing? The knobs? The freaking knobs?!?!?!?

I'm going back there tomorrow, and I'm not leaving without knobs. I've been in the showroom, I know they have knobs. I'll leave that place knobless, if need be. No knob is safe.

No
Knob
Is
Safe.

I will have my knobs.

Old hat, new hat...

Old hat, new hat
Clean hat, dirty hat
White hat, yellow hat
'Hawks hat, 'Hawks hat.

Wear the old when dirt is near,
Wear the new when we go for beer,
Wear either one when it's time to cheer,
Wear 'em both if you're a ninjaneer.

The Limbaugh Effect

I just posted this in the comments section of someone else's blog, so I figured I ought to post it to my blog as well. For people who doubt the possibility of the Limbaugh Effect being significant in Indiana, here's the math that I did from CNN's election and exit poll data. (Note: I still hate CNN, but I do like their election tracker stuff.)

Total Indiana democratic primary votes (99% reporting): 1,272,471

Given the choice of Clinton or McCain, 16% of democratic primary voters chose McCain, of which 41% voted FOR HILLARY in the primary -- So that's 1,272,471 * .16 * .41 = 83,474 McCain/Republican supporters who voted for Hillary in the primary, even though they won't vote for her in the general.

Given the choice of Obama or McCain, 18% of democratic primary voters chose McCain, of which 12% voted FOR OBAMA in the primary -- So that's 1,272,471 * .18 *.12 = 27,485 McCain/Republican supporters who voted for Obama in the primary, even though they won't vote for him in the general.

Net gain for Hillary: 83,474 - 27,485 = 55,988 votes

Hillary's margin of victory: 14,413 votes

So without the votes of people who will vote McCain over their own democratic choice in the fall, Obama wins by about 40,000 votes. Obviously, the numbers above are estimates because they're based on the exit polls, but when the estimated net gain for Hillary is almost four times the margin of victory, that's a legitimate concern.

--

Incidently, this also allows us to put a lower bound on complete assholes in Indiana at 83,474 + 27,485 = 110,959 complete assholes, or 1.76% of the Indiana population. Go Hoosiers!

--

Update:

I've seen a few places reporting that Obama's camp is saying that 7% of the Indiana democratic primary turnout is attributable to Limbaugh's Army. That is also supported by the same exit poll numbers, though admittedly it rounds up to the nearest percent, and ignores the 2% of the turnout who did the opposite of Limbaugh's suggestion and voted for Obama even though they won't vote for him as the nominee. The 7% number from Obama's camp is calculated as follows:

Percentage who would vote for McCain over Clinton: 16%
Percentage of that 16% that voted for Clinton: 41%
Percentage of total electorate who voted for Clinton but would vote for McCain over her in the general: 0.16 * 0.41 = 0.0656 = 6.56% (rounds up to 7%).

--

Update:

Most of the media articles I saw on this topic today poo-pooed the idea that the Limbaugh thing had much of an effect. Here are the arguments I saw, and why I think they are less compelling than the argument I posted.

Argument #1: Hillary won self-declared Democrats 52-48 by exit poll data. Some sites just stop there, saying "See, she won democrats straight up, so forget Limbaugh's people, democrats got what they wanted." That's a very solid argument…as long as you think independents don't matter. Since I’m registered as Non-Partisan, that idea naturally offends the hell out of me. Obama won independents 54-46.

Argument #2: Hillary also won self-declared Republicans 54-46, and some sites argue that the data shows those Republicans picked her as genuinely the better candidate; better on actual issues like the war and economy, or on qualities such as leadership. There's a major problem with that analysis: The questions about the issues and leadership in the exit polls asked voters to pick from Obama and Clinton only. McCain is nowhere in those questions, so while some of those people certainly were being genuine in their support, that analysis completely fails to detect those who still think McCain is better than either one of them. Just because a group of people likes Candidate A over Candidate B does not mean they like Candidate A over Candidate C. Limbaugh voters are a blind spot in this analysis, so can it really say much about the effect of Rush Limbaugh? Nope.

Argument #3: Some articles I read have argued that it is legitimate for the Republicans to vote in the Democratic primary even if they intend to vote for McCain in the fall, because they are just trying to give themselves the best two options. I can see how that might occur to people, but it's still unethical. If you intend to vote for McCain, but then vote in the Democratic primary as a Second Choice, you're manipulating the nomination process. You're injecting your second choice vote into the count of Democrats' first choice votes, without any real intention of backing the Democratic candidate. If you intend to vote for John McCain in the election, congrats, he's on the ballot. The Republicans had a primary in Indiana too, as meaningless as it was, and if your first choice is McCain, then your place was there. This argument is morally crippled.

This whole thing has interested me more in a Data-versus-Media Perception way than in a political way. I have a friend who pointed out that it is not particularly tactful for Obama to make a big deal out of this, and I would agree with that – his performance last night all but seals the nomination for him, and there is no need for him to irritate people by saying “Oh yeah, by the way, I should have won Indiana too.” Even by my analysis, he only would have won by a percent or two, hardly anything to brag about.

More irritating to me, however, is that for all the dismissals in the media of a significant Limbaugh effect in Indiana, I have yet to find a good counterargument that provides its own compelling data and/or a reason to dismiss the data that I (and the Obama camp) used. If you see one, send it my way. I think the real reason it’s being dismissed is the same reason I was skeptical at first myself – it’s ugly, and we don’t want it to be true, because of what it says about some voters and about the vulnerabilities of our election system. Maybe the exit polls were way off, absurdly off, maybe they were incompetently run, maybe the sample size was too small (1881 respondents, 0.15% of total voters), I don’t know – but based on the data we have, I think Limbaugh voters just might have flipped the Indiana primary election.

New players to hate: Rams, Cards, Niners

New names to file under "Booooooooooooooooo!"

St Louis:
1st Round: Chris Long, DE -- Stay away from my Hasselbeck, Mouflon!
2nd Round: Donnie Avery, WR -- Good luck getting open before our D-line eats your quarterback.

Cardinals: The Cards drafted three (3!) (trois!) defensive ends. They know you can only play two at a time, right? That weirdness aside, a good looking draft...
1st Round: Dominique Rodgers-Cromartie, CB -- Bad news: He's good. Good news: The Cards will coach that out of him.
2nd Round: Calais Campbell, DE -- Many teams had him rated above Lawrence Jackson, who we took, so we'll have a front row seat twice a year to see whether Ruskell made a good decision there.
3rd Round: Early Doucet, WR -- see Donnie Avery, WR, above

Niners:
1st Round: Kentwan Balmer, DT -- Some are already picking him to be a big 1st round bust. Great athlete, though, apparently. Lots of mock drafts had Seattle taking him, and we passed. Again, a twice-a-year front row seat to see if that was a good call.
2nd Round: Chilo Rachal, OG -- eh. He's a guard. Hard to hate. Must try harder.

Seahawks Draft 2008

1st Round: Lawrence Jackson, DE, USC -- this is looking more like a really solid pick -- 4 year starter at USC, will work in a rotation with Kerney and Tapp. As evidenced by the Giants last year, you can never have too many quality pass rushers.

2nd Round: John Carlson, TE, Notre Dame -- The anti-Jerramy Stevens. Hopefully. Won't stretch the center of the field like Stevens, but should be as good or better at everything else (i.e. blocking, not being a total dipshit).

4th Round: Red Bryant, DT, Texas A&M. I thought this was a big need -- a run-stopper in the middle -- and some sites are saying this was a big steal in the 4th round. Apparently this guy hasn't ever really been outside of Texas, which means I probably would hate this guy in person but I'll take it in a defensive tackle.

5th Round: Speaking of people I couldn't stand in person but will be more than willing to cheer my ass off for...Owen Schmitt, FB, West Virginia. This guy is the subject of one of my favorite sportscaster calls of all-time: Introducing Seattle's new Runaway Beer Truck. Other things to know about him: He has a mohawk, set an unofficial team record with ten broken facemasks, he really likes to hit people very hard, and he's a ridiculous quote machine. Just the crazy sumbitch you want lead blocking for your running back.

6th Round: A long snapper. We drafted a long snapper. I know we had problems with long snapper last year, but...seriously? A long snapper? Oh, his name is Schmitt too. Tyler Schmitt. ***BAD PUN ALERT *** Better a Schmitty draft than a Shitty draft, I always say.

7th Round #1: Justin Forsett, RB, California. Let's recap the RB's and FB's on Seattle's roster right now: Julius Jones, T.J. Duckett, Maurice Morris, Leonard Weaver, Runaway Beer Truck, David Kirtman, and now Justin Forsett. That's a good 2-3 too many. Kirtman is gone for sure as the third-best FB on the team. I'd be surprised if Forsett makes the team, and I think the only way he does is if Morris gets traded or released. Otherwise he's probably headed straight to the practice squad. Looking at this YouTube clip, he looks a lot like Morris, actually.

7th Round #2: Brandon Coutu, Kicker, Georgia. Kicker of the future? Will he compete with Olindo Mare this year?

This is a hard draft to get too excited about, since TE, FB, LS, and K are not typically very exciting positions. That being said, the TE, FB, and LS that we drafted were ranked best at those positions by many for this draft, so they'll be good role players. Add in a top-quality defensive end and perhaps a run-stuffing steal at DT in the 4th, and it looks like a solid draft class, if also a weird one. Everyone except Forsett and Coutu will probably contribute this year, which is also nice.

Break out your Jackson jerseys...

Anyone who has a Darrell Jackson jersey collecting dust in their closet should be happy -- they just received a free Lawrence Jackson jersey, courtesy of Seahawks GM Tim Ruskell. Send him a thank you note! (Yeah, OK, the numbers will be different....)

Did anyone else think that was a weird first round pick? I hadn't seen that guy mentioned in a single mock draft or pre-draft article. He's from USC, though, and that's like the unofficial 33rd professional football team in this country, so I'll take him.

Bye, Shaun.

Shaun Alexander to be cut today or tomorrow.

Man, it was stunning how quickly he lost his skills. Lucky for me, ninjaneers don't have the same drop-off rate when they turn thirty. I'll be holding out for a HUGE contract. My skills and resume remain cloaked in shadows, but trust me, I'm worth it.

Shaun's not. Good luck to him wherever he ends up.

CNN.com now offers T-Shirts of their crappiest headlines!

Just when you thought CNN.com's lead headlines couldn't slide any further toward Entertainment / Offbeat News hell...they found a way.

The headlines at the top of CNN.com (to the right of the main story with the picture) previously were called "Top Stories," but recently changed to "Latest News." This was probably because so many people questioned whether stories about Britney Spears could really be called Top Stories, and as we all know, when faced with a decision between improving content or renaming content, CNN always choses renaming.

Anyway, you can now click a T-Shirt icon next to the wackiest CNN headlines and be redirected to a page where you can order a T-Shirt with that same wacky headline! And below the headline, they'll print "I just saw it on CNN.com" along with the date and timestamp!

Act now, you can get the following headlines on a T-Shirt RIGHT NOW for only $15, plus 4.99 shipping:

"Waste food dished up to hungry diners" link
"Prince drops copter in gal pal's yard" link
"Weird fish leave sea, spawn on beach" link

I hate you, CNN. I fucking hate you.

Missed celebrity sighting

Last week I missed trivia night for the first time in, I don't know, months and months. I was sick. Boo hoo. Apparently, that meant I also missed seeing Matthew Perry show up with some mucky-mucks and kick the crap out of every other team at the bar. That's OK, I haven't seen him in anything recently, he can probably use that $20.

2008 Seahawks Schedule released

Here ya go:

Week 1: @ Buffalo. The only player I can name on the Bills is Trent Edwards. Is he still the starter? 1-0, or I'll be grumpy for a week.

Week 2: San Francisco. Weeeee!

Week 3: St. Louis. Josh Brown is gonna hear about it.

Week 4: Bye. Early bye. Blegh.

Week 5: @ N. Y. Giants. Didn't they win some big game last year?

Week 6: Green Bay. Awww, no more Favregasms.

Week 7: @ Tampa Bay. Sunday night game, national TV. You know how good the Hawks are on those 3000 mile road trips.

Week 8: @ San Francisco. Weeeee!

Week 9: Philadelphia. I have absolutely no opinion on this game.

Week 10: @ Miami. Think they'll have won a game yet?

Week 11: Arizona. The Cardinals are really gullible. They always listen to everyone say "They're gonna be good this year," and they believe it for a while. Reality should have set in by Week 11.

Week 12: Washington. Jim Zorn will be on the wrong side of the field. No! He's a Cylon sleeper agent! Hawks win, a million to zero.

Week 13: @ Dallas. Thanksgiving game! Huge!

Week 14: New England. Yikes, did this schedule get really tough all of a sudden?

Week 15: @ St. Louis. Depending on how weeks 11-14 go, this game may have a larger effect on my sanity than it should, whichever way it goes.

Week 16: N.Y. Jets. Ahhhhhhhhhhh.

Week 17: @ Arizona. It's nice in December.

Bank of America takes over top spot on my Shit List.

They started out doing so well. On Monday, Bank of America fraud services called me to ask about suspicious activity on my credit card account. It turns out someone had my card number and was using it to buy stuff online. I was impressed; the first fraudulent charge was Monday morning, and here was Bank of America calling me a mere 4 hours after that first charge. I closed that credit card account over the phone, and they said they would ship a new one overnight. It would be here by Wednesday.

Did I mention I just moved, and had changed my address with them that morning? Well, I did, so I doublechecked with the woman on the phone, who assured me it would go to my new address.

Here's what apparently happened next. Someone else at Bank of America saw that the address change was made on the same day the new card was being sent, and said "Whoa, that's suspicious, I better put a hold on that until we can verify it's actually the cardholder who requested it." So they slapped a hold on it. THEN NO ONE DID ANYTHING FOR THREE DAYS.

I called them just now. "So where's my new card?"

"Well sir, we placed a hold because of this address change."

"Yes, I confirmed the address at the time I requested the card."

"Yes sir, well, the address change on the same day looked suspicious, so we wanted to make sure you were actually the cardholder before we sent the card."

"That was three days ago."

"Yes sir, we wanted to make sure it was you who ordered it."

"How were you going to make sure?"

"We needed to talk to you."

"Then why haven't you called me in the last three days?"

"I'm sorry sir, I'm not sure."

"You would think that if the cardholder really did request an overnight shipment of a new card, that means he needs it sooner rather than later, right?"

"Yes sir."

"You can see why I'm upset. This is fairly incompetent."

"I'm sorry, sir. I can ship it to you now sir. It will be there on Saturday."

Grrrrrrrrrrrrr....Must....smash....something....

France + Olympic Torch + Protesters = Hilarity

This article is comic gold. You must read it. Or just read my Top Quotes, below.


Olympic Torch Run in Paris Halted as Protests Spread

Top Quote #1: "Despite heavy security, at least one activist got within a meter of the pack of Rollerblading police officers crowding around the torchbearer." I'm pretty sure that "heavy security" and "Rollerblading police officers" do not go together.

Top Quote #2: "Around the same time, the flame went out for a first time — for "technical reasons" unrelated to the protests, a police spokeswoman said, speaking on condition of anonymity in accordance with policy." If your torch goes out for technical reasons, your torch is too complicated. Also, is it French Police Policy to ALWAYS speak on condition of anonymity, or just in reference to torch-outages, and which of those two options is less dumb?

Top Quote #3: "About an hour later, the flame was being carried out of a traffic tunnel by an athlete in a wheelchair when the procession was again halted by activists who booed..." Come on, don't boo the wheelchair guy!

Top Quote #4: "The I.O.C. has expressed serious concerns and calls for rapid, peaceful resolution in Tibet." Well Gee, if the I.O.C. calls for rapid, peaceful resolution, I'm sure it's just around the corner. Can we harness the power of the I.O.C. next time by having the next Olympics in Iraq?

Top Quote #5: "Protesters came to Paris from all around Europe, including four busloads from Belgium. " This detail tickles me.

Top Quote #6: "The flame moves to San Francisco on Wednesday, its only U.S. stop." Good thinking, pick a U.S. city that doesn't have a huge population of young affluent liberals and college students with a bent toward hippydom and a fetish for massive displays of public outrage...wait...note to self, watch the national news on Wednesday night.

Oh, and, uh...Free Tibet, and stuff.

Three crazy videos

Three crazy video links from Fark, worth watching:

Elephant paints self portrait. It's not fake. There was another video link in the comments section that showed a wider view.

Asian flying fish invade Mississippi river. Bonus: Reporter gets hit repeatedly when they start jumping into the boat.

And lastly, Monkey riding tiny motorcycle. Because who doesn't want to see that?

Follow-up: Obama man-on-the-street video

In one of my first posts, I posted a link to a man-on-the-street interview with a young Obama supporter where the interviewer clearly was expecting to get emotional but factually clueless responses to his questions, and the interviewee knocked all of his questions out of the park. Well, it was officially legit, and it received a writeup in the New York Times:

NY Times Article



It's an interesting article, and it has a link in it to a follow-up video the same guy made after 800,000 people watched the You-Tube clip. Aside from some shameless promotion for the guy's band near the end, it's pretty good, though he makes a more emotional rather than factual/policy-based argument.

Kickers are hilarious

Former Seahawks kicker Josh Brown, now a St. Louis Mouflon, gave a rather hilarious interview wtih KJR, about the process, circumstances, and reasons he declined Seattle's offer (which would have made him the highest paid kicker in football) in favor of the Mouflons' offer (which makes him the highest paid kicker in football). Here's the link:

Josh Brown Interview Transcript

It is particularly funny because I think Brownie (who did a heckuva job for us last season, no doubt) starts out being refreshingly honest about the whole deal:

Q from Mahler: What were they offering you that the 'Hawks were not? Money?

Brown: Oh, yeah.

But then he thinks to himself, "Wow, sounds bad, I better qualify it," so he adds:

Brown: Oh, yeah. It was not necessarily just the money, but it was the breakdown of the money. The breakdown of the money. The way I'm getting it and when it's coming. I felt like I put myself in the situation in the way that I played as to where I couldn't be kind of a prisoner to the businessman and go off what he thought was best for me.

But that still didn't sound quite, what's the word I'm looking for...non-assholish. So later he declares:

Brown: It is important because this isn't necessarily about money. It's about winning. It's about winning plain and simple.

Uh-huh. Brownie left the Seahawks (4 straight NFC West titles, lost in second round of playoffs last season) to go to the Mouflons (3-13 last season) because it's all about winning. And because apparently Seattle has a problem with psychotic prisoner-taking businessmen with a fetish for NFL kickers.

42

I watched The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy again recently, and it occurred to me that someone somewhere needs to do a metal/punk cover of So Long And Thanks For All The Fish.

That is all.

Blatant hypocricies and obvious bullshit

Last September, my preferred Democratic candidate for President was Hillary Clinton. It's now Obama. What happened? Two things: Obama showed me he's a politician to be excited about. And Hillary showed me that she's got a share of those negative characteristics that are commonly found in the worst polticians: A willingness to pander, commit blatant hypocrisies, and look right in the camera and deliver a smiling line of obvious bullshit.

Three examples from this week:

1. Obama says: Release your tax returns. That's something that politicians routinely do. Hillary has so far refused, saying she'll release them in April after the tax deadline, but not now. Why not? Forget that for a moment, because there's probably nothing there to get excited about. Here's the blatant hypocrisy: In her 2000 Senate campaign in New York against Rick Lazio, she demanded for months that Lazio release HIS tax returns, which he was refusing to do at the time. Definition of hypocrisy.

2. In the two weeks prior to the Texas/Ohio primaries, it is undeniable that Clinton began to get very critical (most would say negative) in her campaigning against Obama. There was the red phone ad, the line in a newsconference saying "I (Clinton) and John McCain have foreign policy experience, Barack gave a speech in 2002," etc. She talked more about Obama's shortcomings, even sarcastically mocking his lofty speeches to her own crowds, than she talked about her own strengths, and won 3 of 4 states after doing so. Here's the hypocrisy: In the aftermath of this week's primaries, Obama said he would begin to get more critical of Clinton in response. Hillary's spokesperson promptly responded by comparing Obama to Kenneth Starr because he is now going to "attack" Senator Clinton. Pot, meet kettle.

3. Here's the obvious line of bullshit, being spouted by Clinton and her campaign officials: Michigan's delegates should be seated because Michigan residents have a right to participate in this process and make their voices heard, but hey, there's no need for a make-up election! Just use the early Michigan primary results! Why it's obvious bullshit: Obama's name wasn't even on the ballot in Michigan. If you think the Michigan residents should have a voice in the process (and I agree they should) then OF COURSE you need a make-up election with both candidates' names on the ballot. Otherwise they have not had a chance to vote for Obama. Saying otherwise makes it blatantly obvious that you don't really care about the rights of Michigan residents to make their choice, but that really you just want the delegates from an obviously tainted election.

I really sincerely hope that Hillary knocks this shit off, backs off the panic button and returns to running the intellectually honest campaign she was running late last year, in which she ran on her intelligence, experience, and mastery of the details of policy, rather than a negative campaign focused on tearing down and delegitimizing her Democratic competition. She's said several times that the most important thing is that a Democrat defeats the Repbulicans in this presidential election. It's about time she started acting like she meant it.

ESPN's Farvegasm

Man, ESPN outdid itself with the Brett Favre retirement coverage. No, seriously, they didn't just engage in the regular obsessive man-crush over-coverage. Here's a list of the articles CURRENTLY linked on ESPN's NFL page:

Ready or Not? (Top Story, about Farve and Aaron Rodgers)
Thomspon: Missing No. 4
Sando: Gunslinger mentality defined Favre
Keating: Buying No. 4
Listen: Favre voice mail
Football Outsiders: Measuring Favre's greatness
Wojciechowski: Favre worth the price of admission
Chadiha: Favre's decision doesn't make sense
Yasinskas: Majkowski recalls birth of Favre's legacy
Clayton: Welcome back to the pack, Packers
Clayton: Five questions surrounding Favre
Where does Favre rank?
Price of Favre signed items expected to go up
Wednesday Afternoon Hash: Favre Collector's Edition
ESPN writers who would go gay for Favre

Okay, I made that last one up. The rest are all real and separate articles. Holy crap.

The new Rock-Paper-Scissors

Clinton beats Barack
McCain beats Clinton
Barack beats McCain

If you know your opponent is going to throw Scissors, why WOULDN'T you throw ba-ROCK!

Also, for you fans of the Claw (Claw beats everything), the new Claw is Superdelegates.

The next seven weeks are going to be loooonnnnnnggggg.

Yay, AT&T!

It's been a fun week of talking to customer service people trying to get out of paying extra money because their crappy products broke. The problem with my cousin's ACER computer (described in the previous post) turned out to be due to a Vista update that killed lots of computers, not just my cousin's, and has so far involved a three-way conversation between Microsoft, my cousin, and myself that ended with the decision that my cousin should drive to Best Buy and get the Best Buy rep on the phone and call us all back. That hasn't happened yet, but it should be fun.

This post is titled "Yay, AT&T!" because happily, and unlike the combined to-date efforts of Best Buy, ACER, and Microsoft, AT&T recognized they were the ones who fucked up and acted in fairness to the customer! Here's the chronology of what happened, and how AT&T fixed it.

1) On Jan 2nd, 2008, I upgraded my cell phone for the first time in five years. It cost $70, with a $50 rebate (remember this for later...$20 net cost to me).
2) Three weeks later, the LCD screen on the front of the phone (it's a flip phone) broke. The screen cracked, showing a line down the middle. I did not drop it. I did not dump it in water. I did not chew on, jab, bang, or otherwise molest it. I just pulled it from my pocket and it was broken.
3) I explained this to AT&T warranty services, who told me they would send me a replacement, and to send in the broken one when I received the new one. Which I did.
4) Two weeks later, AT&T sends the broken phone back to me, saying "This phone is broken! The LCD is cracked! You owe us $115 for the new phone!"
5) A large vein began throbbing in my head, my eyes got squinty and murderous, steam poured from my ears, and I picked up the phone. I explained to the AT&T rep who answered that I had absolutely no intention of paying. I was then put on hold for 20 minutes, with the rep coming back every 2-3 minutes to tell me to wait another 2-3 minutes.

Now, this is where AT&T earned this post...because eventually the rep came back and said, "First of all, you shouldn't have been charged $115 because the phone only cost $70. Secondly, because you told Warranty Services exactly what the problem was and they replaced the phone anyway, we're going to credit the charge to your account. Sorry about that."

So...they owned up to their mistake and waived the charge, and thus avoided permanently losing a customer. That's not just fair business practice, it's SMART business practice, and what's shocking is how many companies completely fail to grasp that concept.

Yay, AT&T!

Don't Buy Anything ACER

To some, this might be obvious, since ACER is generally a lower-end computer manufacturer, whereas if you want something reliable from a company with good customer service, you'll probably buy from Dell or another, more reputable manufacturer. But if you don't have the extra money, ACERs are cheap and even they will have to honor the 1-year warranty.

That's sort of true. With two big caveats:
1) Expect it to break early.
2) Expect ACER to pretend it's your fault and refuse to pay anything they can get away with.

I base this on a sample size of one event, but talking to them on the phone for my non-tech-savvy cousin basically has me thoroughly pissed off and fervently hoping they go bankrupt tomorrow.

Why? Well, she bought a computer from them less than two months ago. Yesterday it started displaying arcane error messages on startup, and auto-shutting down a few minutes later. Calls to tech support only made things infinitely worse: now it won't start up at all. ACER says they'll fix it, but refuses to even attempt to pull the files off the hard drive without a $100 fee.

Now, clearly it is good practice to back up your computer periodically, but come on...no one backs up their personal computer on say, a weekly basis. My cousin had recently dumped the entire contents of her camera onto her computer to make room for more pictures, and had not yet backed it up to a CD. The computer is less than two months old -- it's covered by a 90-day software warranty and 1-year parts warranty -- no reason to expect imminent and total system failure.

ACER's warranty, like most warranties, specifically excludes loss of data from coverage, so legally they are in the clear. Their 90-day software warranty, I was told by phone "only applies to up and running software," to which I asked "What good is a software warranty that only applies when the software works?" The reply, and I'm not making this up, was "Basically, it has to work when you turn the computer on the first time, beyond that the software is not covered." I doubt this is actually the policy, but it is the policy as ACER's support staff understand it.

So in conclusion, ACER is at the top of my shit-list for terrible customer service and warranty policy. Avoid them like the plague. If you have the plague, drive to ACER headquarters and cough on someone, preferably someone in Quality Control or Warranty Services, or anyone in a really nice suit. And don't buy their stuff, ever.

"It was unclear how close the satellite will be to the space station when it is shot down"

Sometimes, the media reports on science topics very well. Other times, it assigns a complete idiot to the science story, and hilarity ensues.

A shining example of the latter (from an AP reporter, posted on CNN): http://www.cnn.com/2008/TECH/space/02/16/shuttle.ap/index.html

The gist: There's a damaged spy satellite that the Pentagon wants to shoot down, right? The satellite is in Space, in this place called Orbit. It occurred to an intrepid AP reporter that there's something else up there in Space, and also located in Orbit...the International Space Station! Oh no, thought this reporter. What if the Pentagon misses with their missile and hits the International Space Station instead?!? Oh the humanity! I need to break this story!

So the reporter dutifully asked NASA and the astronauts currently on-board the station if they were concerned about being accidently shot down by the Pentagon. To which they responded, because they're not complete idiots, "Um, no. We are not worried."

Open letter to Scarlett Johannson

Dear Scarlett,

Sorry for missing your calls, and thank you for calling to urge me to vote for Barack Obama. Your message was very insightful, both times you left it. I am not sure how you got my number, but clearly we have a mutual friend who thought we might see eye-to-eye on this one. I actually did vote for Mr. Obama, and I would love to discuss him with you. I tried calling the Obama campaign to get your number, but they refused and have since blocked my calls. Leave your number next time!

Recommendation: King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters

Add it to your Netflix. It's a documentary about a bunch of 80s arcade game nutcases, focusing on an epic battle over the all-time Donkey Kong record.

It's every bit as nerdy as it sounds, and hilarious. 96% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes, too, so I'm not totally smoking crack on this one. And the camerawork is steadier than Cloverfield, so you won't want to barf :)

Exercise (Warning: This post contains bad jokes, even for me.)

If you haven’t exercised in a few months, let me give you some tips I have learned for getting back in the habit:

1) Don’t.

Look, if you want to try it, go ahead. Just don’t say I didn’t warn you, it's gonna hurt. What's that? It adds ten or twenty years to your life? Pah. The universe is billions of years old, what’s ten or twenty years compared to that? Over that time period, ten or twenty years is well within the margin of error of your supposed exercise-extends-your-life study.

(Note: Ninjaneers are not required to take statistics. I did, but I rejected it based on my own definitive study of its effectiveness, which had a sample size of two coin flips. Fifty-fifty is a myth.)

Okay, okay, I hear you evangelicals hollering about that “billions” number. Not that I know any evangelicals (…that I know of! Wink, wink) but I can hear you anyway. God gave me psychic powers. And you’re saying “Hey, ten or twenty years looks a lot bigger when you realize the universe is only six thousand years old, not billions!”

Two things.

A) You just used math to compare two numbers. As you know, math is the devil’s tool and it is totally unreliable.

B) To God, time isn’t time. It’s just the fourth dimension in this whole space-time thing he created. Imagine a three dimension coordinate axis. There’s the X-direction, the Y-direction, and the Z-direction. Three arrows. But God, in his infinite hilarity, made this fourth arrow, and it’s invisible to everyone but him, and it points in a direction that no one can imagine. And then he created us, and made it so no matter which way we turn, we’re always walking in the same direction down that freaking time arrow. He think’s its funny as hell.

Still with me? (Seriously? You must be bored.) Here’s my point. Say God exists and is responsible for all the content of the modern Bible. He would have had to convert the age of the Earth from God units to human units. Look, humans can’t even keep human units straight, and we made them up. Remember when NASA lost that Mars probe a few years ago? Units are a bitch. So it is totally reasonable if God got a decimal place in the wrong column when he was editing that book of his. Trust me, he told me so when he gave me the psychic powers. It’s billions.

Anyway, I digress. To recap, if you haven’t exercised in a while and you are thinking about starting up again, follow these steps:

1) Don’t.
2) If you somehow fucked up tip #1, you might be okay. Just don’t ever, ever stop exercising again.
3) If you fucked up tip #2, what can I say. You’re retarded or something. Get a beer and go back to tip #1.

P.S. The reason this post is so long is because I can't freaking walk right now. I fucked up tip #1.

How'd Heath Ledger get all those drugs? Umm....

Gotta say, I'm rolling my eyes at the "How did Heath Ledger get all those prescriptions" question that the national media and, apparently, the DEA are asking. Why? Well, I have three of the five in my medicine cabinet right now, accumulated over the course of a year, and I'm a reasonably healthy guy:

1) Hydrocodone - sprained ankle, never actually took one, still in the cabinet
2) Xanax - Needed after a 5-day Vegas bender to be capable of sleeping through the ensuing withdrawl and catch-up work stress. Took it just one night, still in the cabinet
3) Ambien - Recent insomnia episode

Obviously, Ledger royally fucked up by taking them simultaneously, and why the hell he would do that is a valid question. But as far as how he got all those drugs in the first place? I'm guessing he had a series of incidents like mine and simply asked his doc to prescribe something. That shit accumulates, and its not like you need to venture to the bad part of town at 2am to get them. Or maybe his doctor belongs in prison, we'll see.

Hey, this guy looks like a clueless Obama supporter...

Great video clip of a young-ish Obama supporter being approached by a guy with a camera who obviously expected the young Obama supporter to be completely ignorant on issues, but ends up shutting up and letting the guy give some of the best man-on-the-street answers I've ever heard. Possibly fake, of course, but it seems genuine.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kica8hmSdAM

The Fay Buchanan email

Dan suggested I start a blog, and then Dan demanded this be my first post. Sounds like Dan should get a blog. Anyway, originally written as an email on Super Tuesday...

---

I've got MSNBC on in the background while I work (not CNN...CNN is dead to me), and I thought you might like to know that the Republicans are cannibalizing themselves to an insane degree that is coming to a head in the physical incarnation of Fay Buchanan, who is currently working for the Romney campaign, and who I predict will be dead by the end of the night from one of the following causes:

1) Her fangs clog and her venom sac ruptures, and she chokes to death on her own venom.
2) In her zeal to explain how life-long Republican McCain isn't conservative enough and 2-year Republican Romney is the heart of the conservative movement, she forgets to inhale and suffocates.
3) A studio aide closes the door to the room she is in, and the accumulation of smoke from her fire-breathing kills her by asphyxiation.
4) The depth and contortion of her scowling frown continue to grow at the same exponential pace as her bitterness until it tears her face in two.
5) Angry evangelicals form a mob, grab their torches and pitchforks and break into the studio to burn the witch who dares call their preacher candidate a self-serving lowlife who is selling out the unborn.
6) Death by pretzel.
7) Lynn Cheney enters the studio to aide the Smear McCain effort in person, but their shared passions draw them inexorably into a horrid bestial lesbian romp, which is cut thankfully short when their husbands arrive to first ogle and then stone them to death as Jesus would demand.
8) Dick Cheney mistakes her shrieking for a captive bird and unloads with his shotgun.
9) Huckabee calls in a favor. Lightning, a falling satellite, or a spontaneous plague of locusts do her in.
10) Someone spills water on her. She leaves behind only her clothes, smoke, and an uncontrollable horde of flying monkeys.

--

Now that Romney has done the graceful thing and ended his candidacy to prevent the terrorists from winning, maybe Fay can find something more relaxing to do and escape these fates.