Wednesday, December 29, 2004


This just in: Dimmu Borgir's Death Cult Armageddon (which I am listening to as I try to sort out who owns what government property because the woman in charge of it for the building is inept) reminds me of Star Wars. I'm not sure why exactly. It just does. I was trying to explain it to Ben last night to no avail. I think it's the "epic-ness" of it, maybe the drums sound like Vader's imperial march theme song, maybe it's the song-spanning synth in the background. I dunno, it just reminds me of Star Wars (the good ones, I mean).

I was doing so well in my college bowl pick 'em game, but I'm now 5-5, thanks to UVA choking in the Smurf Bowl, and Toledo not showing up for the UConn matchup. I really thought UCLA could beat Wyoming. Maybe they were paralyzed by the sight of Wyoming's hideous uniforms. And Marshall? Come on! Even without Byron Leftwich, you guys are a better team than you showed Cincy. Dissapointing Herd, very dissapointing. But my favorite incorrect pick so far is Miami (OH) losing to Iowa State. Hey, guess what, Iowa State is now bowl eligible! With their win over Miami (OH), they now have 6 wins over Div. 1-A schools this year! Prior to the bowl game, ISU had 6 wins, but only 5 against I-A schools. They had to get a waiver from the NCAA to help fulfill the Big XII's commitments after Clemson and USC removed themselves from consideration, leaving 55 eligible teams for 28 games. So ISU stepped up and whined enough and got an exception made. Congrats on winning your bowl game to become officially bowl eligible jerks. Next up: The Fightin' Mike Prices of UTEP vs the Scandal-laden Buffs of Colorado. Go Miners! Also tonight: OSU vs OSU as Oklahoma State takes on Ohio State. Go Cowboys! Show the world how bad Ohio State is, again!

Rock on! I'm the only one here today from my team. A couple of the Torpedo guys are around, but they're hardly working. Not that I'm particularly working hard today, but at least I'm not debating the differences between Jews, Muslims, and Christians, or explaining my neighborhood association's bylaws as they pertain to arbitration over fence-building during business hours. Of course, I have no one to discuss either of those things with, but that's somewhat beside the point.

In other weird news, Laura and Greg (Emily's cousin and her husband, who's wedding I attended in September) have moved up to the DC area. This is not the weird part, I swear. Laura sent me her new address last night. Guess who lives half a mile away from Caryn? Yes yes, Laura and Greg. I won't divulge their respective addresses here, but basically they live on opposite sides on King Street, which of course means that they live in separate counties (Caryn in Alexandria and Laura and Greg and Arlington). How exciting! To make matters more ironic, Laura and Greg live just down the road from South Taylor Street! Yay for amazing cooincidences! =)

Emily just called, she's on her way up here again. Hooray! I'll refrain from posting about it 10 times today though, maybe. It did however remind me of a dream I had this morning between snooze alarms that was quite bizarre (and I didn't even have garlic last night). Emily was coming up to see me, and I was sitting around a coffee table with my parents and Ben and they were telling me that I needed to do something that was a "spectacular failure" in order to "impress Emily this weekend." I was natually rather confused and asked for some explanation and they said "like the time in Cub Scouts." I had no idea what that meant, and Ben seemed to be in on the secret, but wasn't helping me out any. So again I asked for more clarification and all I got was some story about not lifting a tank once it's loaded, or something to that effect. I dunno. I was thoroughly confused by my dream, fortunately, my alarm clock ended it before it got any weirder.

Monday, December 27, 2004

UVA, why you make me gotta smack you? Fresno State? Are you serious? I'm sorry I ever picked you guys to win the ACC. I'm sorry I ever thought you were good. You couldn't even beat a sorry-ass WAC team in a post-season bowl game. The Cavs are by far the biggest dissapointment to me this season. So much so that I'm leaving work now because UVA made me so ashamed of them that I am incapable of containing my rage and must vacate the premises before I find someone to rip into who went to Charlottesville for school.

I forgot to follow my own advice last night. I had lunch at 2:30 pm, but then just had 2 carrots and a couple bites of Alcivar's chicken caesar salad at the party, so by 11:30, I was rather hungry. So I finally finished of fthe rest of my penne arrabiata from Macaroni Grill, which was still quite tasty, mostly due to the vast amount of garlic in it. I love garlic. The only problem I have with it, is when I eat it right before bedtime, I wake up all night long with whacked-out dreams. Last night was no exception. One of these days, I'll remember to stop eating garlic before bedtime, even if it does protect me from vampires...

The office is a ghost town still, and I kind of expect that all week. Dave is here, and so is Quyen. And myself of course. Scott and Lee, our 2 IT guys were around this morning doing server backups, but I don't expect to see them much the rest of the week since no one is here to do IT work for really. *shrug* At least it's quiet and I can get some work done this week that needed doing without any interuptions.

Kristin's engagement party last night was fun. At first there were 6 of us sitting at a table meant for 2 at the bar. This other big group looked liek they were leaving, but no dice. So by the time we had 16 people, we finally got a table for ourselves in the restaurant, which was much more conducive to talking. I actually talked to Rich, and he is such a nice guy! Until last night, he was just that tall guy attached to Kristin who never said more than 5 words. But now he's a real person and I like him. Seeing the way they interact in a group of mixed friends was a good sign that things will work out for them. Hooray! I also finally got to meet Bowers's boyfriend Anton; he was very nice too. Very big and intimidating though. ;) Olen showed up, which was nice since I haven't seen him in like 2 years or so (except for at church on Friday night for like 5 seconds). And Alcivar and Caryn came too, so it was nice to have so many of Kristin's friends from way back when show up. Anyway, we had a good time last night and I'm really happy for Kristin.

Sunday, December 26, 2004

In other news, someone left a poinsettia (but no card/note) on my door step today. It was an exciting thing to come home to. =)

Trying to plan things around my parents is quite annoying. I love them to death, but sometimes its very irritating schedule-wise. My dad is perpetually late. And I want to spend time with them, but they always want to do a million things and there just isn't time for it because everything always takes longer than they think it will. I would have been perfectlly happy to spend the afternoon at Bobby's and not go see a movie, but they wanted to do something just the four of us, which had to be in the afternoon because Kristin and Rich's party is at 7. So we agreed to go to Bobby's at 1 for lunch. Ben and I were there at 12:55. My parents show up at 2, we had just started having fun, and then we have to leave at 3 to make the 3:30 showing of The Life Aquatic (excellent movie by the way, if you're into the more existential humor of movies like The Royal Tennenbaums). Then I thought we were coming back to my apartment because my mom is spending the night here so she and Ben can go to the dentist in the morning. But I got home 40 minutes ago and no sign of them, so I have no clue what's going on anymore. And you know what? I give up. I'm just going to do my own thing, and if that interferes with their stuff, well, then maybe I should be kept a little bit more in the loop, which is nearly impossible when plans change every 15 seconds. It's just aggravating. *deep breath*
Okay, rant over. I really do love my family and want to see them, I just wish it was less complicated to do so, but when you live the lives my parents lead, nothing is ever simple. My mom has so sniff things (bleach, dish soap, etc) at the market in Tel Aviv to figure out what she's buying! So I guess I should be a little bit more tolerant of their whirlwind hecticness when they come back to visit, and I really do try to be accomodating, but sometimes it just really gets on my nerves. I suppose because I like to make plans far in advance and then stick to them. I hate last minute changes in plans and I hate rushing around in a tizzy trying to do a million things at once. *sigh*
Okay, time to regroup and then go to Kristin's engagement party. Maybe I'll actually get to talk to Rich for more then 5 words tonight.

Yay for presents! I got a nice sweater from my grandmother and a new set of flannel sheets. Ben gave me some GI Joe action figures (Snake Eyes!) and the Simpsons edition Monopoly. I got a duct tape wallet from my family in Atlanta. My parents gave me an aquarium decoration and a gift certificate to Petsmart, a gift certificate to Amazon, 2 video games, a book of NY Times crossword puzzles, and (drum roll please) the complete extended edition Lord of the Rings trilogy! It's 12 DVDs, 2 per movie and 6 full of bonus features. Needless to say, Ben and I watched The Fellowship of the Ring last night until 2 am. Some day, I'm going to sit down, hook myself up to an IV and a catheter, and watch all 3 movies back to back.
My mom, Ben, and my grandmother all got jewelry from Israel, inlaid with a coin from the time of Alexander. Quite cool, though all were gold, and not something I would ever wear myself. Instead I'm lobbying to have one cast into the face of a pocket watch, now that would be awesome.
All in all, I'd say I made out like a bandit. This has been a great Christmas, and I'm glad my parents were back in town to share it with and I'm glad Emily was able to be here last week and next week, as well as with her family for Christmas to share in the celebrations as well. And teh best part is that now that the insanity of shopping is over, the traffic in and out of the mall has significantly diminished! Now I can turn left out of my apartment again! Yay!

Saturday, December 25, 2004

I wish it was christmas eve every night. Coming home at 1 am to a half empty parking lot is awesome. That's the way it's supposed to be, not circling around and around over and over again hoping to find a spot I missed the first time. Yay for tons of parking still available! Also yay for seeing lots of old friends at church. Boo for getting scolded by some old biddy for talking (to my fellow usher) during communion while the rest of the congregation was singing christmas songs. Desipite all the good times, that is precisely why I don't attend that church anymore.

Thursday, December 23, 2004

Work is officially dead. The lab was locked down when we came back from lunch, so now it's just me, Dave, and Manish here on the entire floor. Woo.

There is no one here today. It's me, Dave, and Manish. And I saw Beth wandering the halls a little while ago too. That's it. Even when I rolled in at 9:30 this morning I parked like 10 spaces away from the building instead of my usual 30. It's like a ghost town in here. And the few other people I've seen around on other floors aren't really working anyway. They're (just like us) killing time until they can leave. At least it's getting close to lunch time, and the weather outside may be drizzly and overcast, but at least it's "warm" now (highs in the mid 50s) as opposed to earlier in the week (highs in the low 20s).


Cookie dough pop tarts rule so hard. Yes yes, they're full of sugar, and they're quite filling. But man oh man, are they ever tasty.

Wednesday, December 22, 2004

I sent out my christmas letter yesterday. If you don't get one, it's because I either don't like you or I don't have your address. Or possibly both. If you want one, give me your address or I can email it to you or something. Maybe I'll make it into a webpage for you instead.

Apparently the phone interview I helped arrange for Craig went well because GD invited him to come up for a face-to-face interview in January! Hopefully Craig will do well, it'd be fun to have someone else I knew at the company and in the area. And the subsequent referral bonus if he accepted a job would be fun too. ;)


2004 Tangerine Bowl

Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets - 51
Syracuse Orange - 14
Booyah.
The game started out awesome with a Chris Reis interception that he ran back for a touchdown, and it just got better from there, ending the game with a safety to break half a hundred. Reggie made a couple mistakes, but he also made some excellent decisions where he normally loses 15 yards scrambling to escape a sack. All in all, I'd say it was once of our more consistent games all year and a great win heading into the offseason. Go Jackets!

Emily's on teh way back to Savannah now. =( But we had a good time this week, and the best part is that she'll be back next Wednesday! =) Have you noticed how much less I blog when Emily is around? This doesn't bode well for me blogging, ever, when we move in together this summer. Oh well. I'll just have to change my habits accordingly I suppose, a sacrifice I'm more than willing to make.

Tuesday, December 21, 2004

I guess it's just as well that we decided not to go downtown yesterday. We would have gotten on at Vienna right about the time a guy threw himself in front of a Metro train down at Metro Center, although we only would have had to go to Farrugut West, no doubt it would have taken forever to get anywhere on the Metro yesterday afternoon/evening.

Monday, December 20, 2004

Poor Emily was sick all day. =( She seems to be feeling a little better tonight and was able to eat something at dinnertime. Hopefully it's just a 24 hour bug or something and she'll be right as rain tomorrow. And hopefully I won't catch it too. Although, a day off work (even if sick in bed) wouldn't be too bad while she's in town. Guess we'll see what happens in the morning.

Oh my god it's cold. I don't remember 12 degrees in this area. Especially with a nice steady strong wind. It's almost unberable to be outside right now. Obviously, if I was dressed properly it would be fine, but I'm dressed for work instead.
Emily and I have had a great time so far. Just hanging out and doing some shopping and going to the GD holiday party. We went down to the new American Indian Museum on Saturday. That was pretty cool, though I would have organized it differently, because it was almost information overload. We had Tommy and Steph over for brunch on Sunday and went to see the Lemony Snicket movie which was entertaining. My parents arrived over the weekend so we had dinner at my grandmother's house last night followed by a drive home through snow flurries brought on by the bitter bitter cold. We had planned to go downtown tonight to see the christmas trees on the ellipse, but it's far too cold to be outside. Emily's at home curled up in bed where I wish I could be. Anyway, apart from the bone-chilling cold, it's been a nice couple days and I'm looking forward to the next 48 hours before Emily leaves me again, but only for about a week this time. Yay!

Thursday, December 16, 2004

I guess I should apologize for my last 5 posts (6 including this one) all being about Emily. But I won't. She's such a huge part of my life, and besides, you should be used to me getting all sappy by now. ;) We had a nice evening last night and I'm about ready to go home and have a nice lunch. Yay for having someone to come home to! =)

Wednesday, December 15, 2004

Emily's here!! =) Too bad I'm still at work, but she's coming to drag me away.

Emily should be somewhere in southern Virginia by now! =)

Emily called me at 9:36 to say she was here, and with a little luck, she'll have made the trip up 95 to Occoquan before traffic gets too bad and then be only another 30 minutes away from me! Hooray!

Tuesday, December 14, 2004

So much for posting more today... Today has been probably more hectic than yesterday. Mostly because I've had Dave Latham (even scary and intimidating me is intimidated by him, mostly because I don't think he likes me one bit) breathing down my neck all day to get our stuff running for a 48 hour longevity test tomorrow. It kinda sorta works now. It worked this morning, just not teh way he wanted it. It's a long complicated story, and I'm tired. So now I'm going home. Then back out after dinner to finish some errands in the cold cold night (even for me, sorry Emily).

This time tomorrow, Emily should be somewhere in North Carolina, on her way up to come see me! Hooray! =)

There were snow flurries yesterday morning when I left for work, it was very exciting for the 30 seconds that it lasted. I would have posted yesterday, but I was busy non-stop all day long and didn't even get to eat lunch. I'll try to post more today, but so far today is looking quite busy as well.

Sunday, December 12, 2004

Mid-December is the only time that living this close to so many shoping centers really sucks. It's been a non-stop flow of traffic in and out of the mall all day long. It sucked when I woke up, it sucked when I left for Wamalug, and it sucked when I came home. My short trip to the mall today to look for a new winter coat (failed) and a few presents for my family (failed) was only short because I walked there. People get nuts around the holidays... I'm glad I don't like shopping or I'd have to put up with them a lot more frequently.

Saturday, December 11, 2004

Piece of crap collegesports.net gametracker doesn't work for our game so I can't see live updated stats and play-by-play. Oh well, at least I can get the radio feed off 790thezone.com.

Friday, December 10, 2004

Working past 6 pm on a Friday rules. If you replace "rules" with "sucks" and "." with ", so please kill me!"

The guys at Penny Arcade never cease to amaze me. After last year's smashing $250,000 success, they are again running their Child's Play charity. This year they're operating in Seattle again, but have added Children's Hospitals in Oakland, San Diego, Houston, and DC. At their charity auction last night, they raised over $17,000 alone. And with reader donations and corporate contributions they're already over $100,000. All toys, games, systems, etc can be bought on Amazon.com and sent directly to one of the 5 participating Children's Hospitals. Please help them out in any way possible. Buy something to make a sick, bed-ridden child's holidays a little brighter. Contact your local news media and convince them to run a story on Child's Play. And tell all your friends to help too. Donations are tax-deductible and are guaranteed to make an immediate difference in a child's life.

Blech. It's all foggy and rainy again today. Stupid weather. I miss seeing the sun. Now, I'm no meteorologist, but I predict a 99.9% chance of lots of sunshine in the late afternoon next Wednesday.

Thursday, December 09, 2004

Oh no!!! Dimebag Darrell (guitarist for Damageplan, formerly for the mighty Pantera) was killed last night at a show in Columbus, OH by a lunatic with a gun. The gunman killed at least 3 other people (and wounded others, including Darell's brother & longtime bandmate Vinnie Paul) before an officer killed the shooter as well. I have now upgraded my petty hatred of Ohio State University to hatred of everything in Columbus (except Brandon Elliot - even though he attends OSU). Heavy music lost an icon last night. And it wasn't to your stereotypical rocker deaths: drugs, alcohol, stupidity, STDs, bar brawl, feelings of invincibility, etc. At least not on his part. No no, it was to a psychopath with a handgun. His motive would only be speculation on my part, so I will refrain from posting my opinion on the subject. But have I ever mentioned before that I hate guns? Maybe not on my blog, but I'm sure I've made my views on the subject perfectly clear to many of my readers before. I guess I'm just not a very good American. More to the point however, the world lost one of the only good things to ever come from Texas in Darrell Abbott. He will certainly be missed (I would look for a Pantera-covers tribute album in his honor this time next year). My deepest sympathy to his family and friends and to those of the other concertgoers, bouncers, and staff who were killed or injured. I wish I had something nice to say about them too, but police haven't release their names yet and it's quite likely I didn't know them at all anyway.

Our internet server at work seems very flaky today. Some things work just fine (like Google, UPS, GenDyn). Some things take forever, but usually work eventually (Hotmail). And then some things don't work at all (Blogger - thank goodness for email blogging). It's possible they've disabled access to sites that are not business-related, and that's fine I suppose, but a little warning would be nice next time. Especially since I can't get to things like Germane, Dolch, or CSC that would be useful to me for my job. *shrug* Oh well. I'll just work on something else I suppose.

So much for the nice weather yesterday, today it's cold and rainy again. Boo!

I'm blaming my inevitable lethargy today on this. Damn you Stephen King for writing a book I can't put down. As I mentioned before, I want to find out what happens, but I don't want it to end. Especially since I've bene formulating my own way about how I think it should end, and tonight, in less than 100 pages 2 of my favorite characters died, destroying any hope for the ending I wanted. I still have a 1/3 of the book to go, but Pere Callahan died in the opening chapter, and Eddie, then Jake died last night, and Sheemie will be dead very shortly I'm sure. They saved the Beam, the saved the writer, and they seem to have saved the rose. All that's left is the Tower itself. But to reach it still, I presume both Susannah and Oy still have to die. =( Last night the book grabbed my attention something fierce and I couldn't put it down until nearly 3 AM. You'd think I was still in college or something. But I was here at work at 9:05 anyway.
As a result of all this course, I had some crazy dreams last night. I think I was Jake. Except I was on a spaceship, like in Star Wars, and we were trying to disable the ship. There were all these robots just like the Wolves that we had to keep fighting off. And then all the lights went out and we had to continue our mission in pitch black, never sure if our enemies might be sneaking up on us. When my alarm clock interputed my dream, I hit snooze and tried to return to it, but it was too late.
The way I'm going now, it's quite likely I'll be done with the story by the end of the weekend. Yes, I still have about 300 pages to go, but at the rate the story is progressing, I won't be able to put it down again until it's done or my heart is too heavy with grief for my fallen fictional heroes.
The great thing about books is how everyone pictures it differently. Although I think the Dark Tower series could be made into an amazing set of movies like Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings movies, I'd almost rather not see that happen. Stephen King's writings rarely become good movies, but of course, there are the amazing exceptions. A large enough sampling of his work has been filmed - Carrie, It, The Stand, Thinner, The Tommyknockers, Apt Pupil, Shawshank Redemption, Pet Cemetary, Hearts in Atlantis, Secret Window, Firestarter, The Green Mile, The Shining (just off the top of my head), some better than others of course. Yes, I would love to see a first-rate cinematic depiction of my favorite story of all time, but I fear for what might happen to it in the translation. A single mis-cast character or left-out scene could ruin the entire thing. And remembering how much Tolkien's novels were compressed to make the movies, I'm afraid of what would happen to a series of 7 books instead of just 3 (albeit longer ones, on average). Every detail is critical to the story (at least I think so and King's editor clearly agreed). So for now I guess I'll keep my books and my imagination and my late-night dreams. Next on the list: C.S. Lewis's The Chronicles of Narnia. All the most entralling literary series come in sevens. ;)

Why do I feel like today is Friday already? Not fair!

Wednesday, December 08, 2004

I'm temporarily gving up on my binary armband tattoo. I have never seen a shop as busy as Exposed Temptations has been the last couple days, at least in the evenings. Maybe after Emily leaves I'll give it another shot in the hopes that they won't be so overwhelmed in the couple days right before Christmas. I suppose I could always Comes a Time as well, but I really like the facilities that Exposed Temptations has. Oh well.

Only one more week until Emily comes to visit! =)

Now that the Hive's College Football Pick'em on Yahoo is over, I would like to point out that I tied for 3rd place with one other person, and the two people tied for first place were only one point higher than me. What about Brian you ask? He tied with 2 other people for 7th place, 3 points behind me. Sucker!

The bad weather last night was a blessing in disguise. When I left for work this morning it was nice and sunny and it must have been 55 or 60 degrees. Yay for early-fall weather! =) Though I expect it will be the last of it...

Oooo! Ghostbusters is on!

In other sleep/awake news, my mom is back in the states for a couple weeks over the holidays. After 24 hours straight of traveling, she called me at 6:30 to let me know she got into Erie okay yesterday, and then went to bed. Given that it was 1:30 in the morning for her and I doubt she slept much on teh plan, I think that's understandbale. My dad arrives in DC on the 18th or something and Ben and my mom get in from Erie on the 19th I think. Anyway, it'll be nice to be able to spend a little time with my family over the holidays. Ben's going back to Tel Aviv with my parents after New Year's, and I hope that I can get out there too at some point.

Best cure for sleepiness: Darkest Hour - The Mark of the Judas

Tuesday, December 07, 2004

It's been sort of a bummer of a day. My back hurt when I woke up, but that went away pretty fast. Then it was all foggy like dirty dirty Bremerton, that lasted most of the day. My morning at work started out okay. The morning meeting went well and then it was all downhill. So far I've accomplished none of the things I was supposed to get done this week. I know it's only Tuesday, but I haven't even made any headway. And the one thing my supervisor asked me to do today I couldn't figure out how to do it. With Dave and Manish gone, there's really no one else I can ask either, and they won't be back until next Wednesday, and this can't wait that long. So I know why the system isn't working, but I can't fix it. I know what needs to happen, but it isn't doing what I think it's supposed to do. *sigh* That was a couple hours well spent at work before I went to tell Moon I was hopelessly stuck. Of course, he can't help either. So much for impressing my superiors while the other 2 systems engineers are gone. :-\ Then after working on another bay trying to get that up and running to finish some testing, I ended up not leaving work until 5:45. Still plenty of time to cruise down to Manassas for my tattoo. Got there with no problem but they were way too busy for the rest of the night to squeeze me in. And then traffic sucked coming home. The fog turned into rain on and off during the day too. By the time I got home I was starving, depressed, tired, and I had a pounding headache. So I shut off all the lights and just lay face down on my bed for an hour. I woke up just in time to miss Emily as she headed out to trivia night at Rocky Mountain and now she's in charge of finals food at midnight. So I probably won't get to talk to her at all tonight. The one person who can make my whole day better with just a few words is unavailable. =( Bummer. The only upside is that the wind and rain is still going strong, so maybe I won't be able to fall asleep until after she comes back around 12:30 (probably closer to 1 realistically).

If this rain and wind doesn't stop before bedtime, I might need a severe sedative or something to go to sleep. It's way too noisy on the windows. I wouldn't be surprised if we got some hail overnight either. Stupid weather.

HAHAHAHA!! The Irish are so screwed! =) "A Kansas City Star report said that [Notre Dame] had initiated contact with a representative of Kansas coach Mark Mangino, who has a career record of 12-24." Spurrier, Meyer, Petrino, Stoops, Zook, Hawkins, Tedford... All shut down the fabled Irish. And now they're contacting the Lions's coach Steve Mariucci? Even crappy Syracuse held on to Pasqualoni... Notre Dame, what the hell were you thinking? No one wants to coach for you anymore. And all the available coaches are being snapped up by programs with more class and a better shot at a national title. You blew it big time. But seriously, are you so desperate you're after Mangino now? He had one mediocre (better than usual) season at Kansas and the rest have been awful, and you still want him? Hahahaha! Why don't you just take next year off from football to regain your composure. Suckers.

Holy heart attack on a bun, Batman! Even I wouldn't touch that thing, and I love the combination of beef and bacon... That's instant death right there is what that is.

Breaking News: The ACC is a powerhouse basketball conference. Oh wait, everyone already knew that. ESPN's poll has 5 ACC teams in the top 10 and 7 in the top 25. The AP poll puts 4 in the top 10 and 7 in the top 25. What other conference comes close you ask? Surely the Big East, dominant basketball conference that it was once, it on par with the ACC. They've got 2 in the top 10, and 3 in the top 25 in both polls. Big XII and SEC have 3 in the top 25, Pac-10 hasn't even cracked the top 10. Must be the Big Te(leve)n then? Nope, they're almost on par with the Big East. Everyone sucks compared to the ACC.

It's so foggy this morning that I'm having flashbacks of waking up in Bremerton... Yikes.

Monday, December 06, 2004

I'm expecting a package from UPS. It says it's scheduled for delivery on December 7. So all day today I've been refreshing the tracking info to see if it's been delivered yet. Except that tomorrow is the 7th. I guess I'm trying to speed this week up and get to when Emily arrives next week as soon as possible. Talk about wishful thinking! My package is currently in Richmond (as of 2:36 pm), so it's concievable (though rather unlikely) that it could make it to the Chantilly depot by 4:30 and be delivered before 7 pm today. When it still hadn't bene updated to say that my package left Richmond by 4:30, it finally dawned on me that it's actually supposed to be delivered tomorrow and UPS isn't just being lazy and not delivering it today. I'm so oblivious sometimes...

It's kind of weird in the office today. No one's here. Manish and Dave are on a sea trial all week. Quyen is out today and tomorrow. Todd went home sick this morning. Kartik is out today. The lab is like a ghost town. Billy is still here, Jenny's around, and I think I saw George this morning. With both Dave and Manish gone though, I'm the lone systems engineer. I'm kind of worried about this fact actually. I'm sure something will go wrong that I won't know how to fix. But this is also a good opportunity for me to get some work done (despite my last post - I just had to do it so I would stop thinking about it) and show Moon and Beth how valuable I am to the team when/if anything does go wrong. But it also means everythign is on my shoulders and there's no one I can even go to for verification that what I'm attempting won't break things worse. Here's to what should be an interesting rest of the week!

College bowl games worth watching:
In an effort to build my portfolio so I have something to show ESPN someday

12/21 - Tangerine (I will never call it Champs Sports) Bowl - Syracuse vs GT - features an inconsistent Georgia Tech team vs an even more inconsistent Syracuse team, both teams feature formerly highly-respected coaches who seem to have lost their edge. Adam's pick: GT
12/29 - Houston Bowl - UTEP vs. Colorado - Possibly the hottest turn-a-program-around coach in Div I-A, Mike Price pits the Miners against an ailing and scandal-ridden Colorado team that had national title hopes 3 years ago. Adam's pick: UTEP
12/30 - Continental Tire Bowl - Boston College vs UNC - What John Bunting did at UNC this year is amazing. UNC ended Miami's National title hopes and all but ended their conference title shot. BC eliminated any shot West Virginia had of doing the same. Two over-achieving teams duel it out in Charlotte. Adam's pick: Boston College
12/30 - Holiday Bowl - California vs Texas Tech - Think Cal is pissed about beign left out of the BCS? I know I am. In what world is Texas better than Cal? Cal lost by 6 to the number one team in the country, at USC, and would have one if that pass had been complete. Texas never stood a chance on a NEUTRAL field against the number 2 team and got shut out. Yeah, Cal is pissed. Wait and see what they do to Texas Tech in retalliation. Adam's pick: California
12/31 - Liberty Bowl - Louisville vs Boise State - Possibly the best bowl matchup of all time. Stefan LeFoors leads one of the best offenses in the country to a near upset of Miami (Louisville's only loss), foiled by a last second bad coaching decision. Boise State is undefeated and has annihilated all their opposition (except Tulsa somehow). Both teams finished in the top 10 of the BCS despite not being in a BCS conference. This is the best bowl game of the season hands down. Adam's pick: too close to call, so we'll go with geography - Louisville
12/31 - Peach Bowl - Miami vs Florida - A classic matchup. Both teams dissapointing this year after regularly contending for national title. Will UF, high on a win over arch-rival F$U, win one last game for the Zooker? Or will 3-loss Miami, reeling from a home defeat at the hands of the Hokies, get their act together again? Adam's pick: Miami
1/1 - Gator Bowl - F$U vs West Virginia - Both teams were heavily favored to win their conferences and flubbed it up big time. This will be a statement game for both teams to proove they're not as bad as everyone thinks. Adam's pick: dirty dirty F$U
1/1 - Capitol One Bowl - Iowa vs LSU - Can Kirk Ferentz's come-from-behind antics that won Iowa a share of the Big Te(leve)n title propel the Hawkeyes to victory over the defending co-national champs? Or will LSU's strangling defense be too much for the perpetual underdogs? LSU may not be the force they were last year, but the Tigers haven't completely lost their bite. Adam's pick: I can't possibily pick against the Hawkeyes even though LSU is clearly the better team.
1/1 - Fiesta Bowl - Utah vs Pittsburgh - Congrats to Utah, Alex Smith, and Urban Meyer. Condolences to Pittsburgh on their impending destruction and subsequent dismantling of the Big East. If Louisville weren't joining next year, the Big East woudl become defunct as a football conference. Expect Utah to make the most of being the first non-BCS school to ever appear in a bowl game. It's just too bad the Utes aren't matched up against any real competition, like maybe Auburn. Michigan would have made a good opponent to thrash as well. Adam's pick: no contest - UTAH!!!
1/4 - Orange Bowl - USC vs Oklahoma - *shrug* Auburn got screwed. Cal got screwed. Boise State got screwed. Louisville got screwed. Utah even got screwed by being stacked up against the worst BCS oppoent possible. The BCS is a piece of crap. Force the Pac 10 and Big 10 to exapnd to 12 teams and have a championship game. This will be the beginning of a true playoff system. Big East loses BCS status and then offer 3 at-large spots to the top ranked teams from the non-BCS conferences in an 8-team playoff. Problem solved. As for the current system and this game, both teams have outstanding defenses and Heisman candidate QBs and running backs, but OU has prevailed against much tougher oppoents all year. Adam's pick: Oklahoma

I had a nice weekend otherwise though. Didn't accomplish much that I set out to do this weekend, but whatever. I didn't get a christmas tree (yes, I still pay lip service because I like the festiveness and the presents), I didn't get my tattoo, and I didn't get enough shopping done. I did however watch VT beat Miami to win the ACC, which makes me mildly happy. I still wish it had been UVA instead. I watched a little college basketball, even though I couldn't watch my own game since Cox (a.k.a. Fuckers) doesn't carry Fox Sports Net. I had dinner at Tommy and Steph's on Saturday and watched Monty Python and the Meaning of Life. Sunday I had dinner at uncle Bobby's and watched the second half of the second-worst disaster movie ever The Day After Tomorrow (the worst ever being The Core). Talked to Emily until nearly 2 am again last night. I always love doing that, but now that I have to be at work at 9 am, it's really not such a good idea. Anyway, I had a very lazy weekend, and except for my continued hatred of Cox, and my irritation over the final BCS standings and the ensuing bowl game selections, it was a good weekend.

I hate Cox. It's a long long story I don't want to get into while I'm here at work or else I might get fired for throwing things around the office. I've never had anything but problems with them, especially with their internet service. Oh how I miss having Comcast... Yesterday Cox shut off my internet service with no warning whatsoever. And it took me 2 hours on the phone to get it turned back on. If they declared bankruptcy today, I would be on cloud 9.

Saturday, December 04, 2004

Four years ago I was introduced to this awesome band called Shutdown. I haven't really thought about them in a while. I saw them maybe 2 years ago on tour with Agnostic Front, that was such a good show. The opening chord to The Judged still send shivers up my spine and infuses me with such excitement for this music we call hardcore, and the song is easily five years old. It's got the same raw emotion and powerful message as so many Sick of it All songs, it's no wonder I like Shutdown so much.

Friday, December 03, 2004

I rock oh so hard. I came home from work at 5:15, sat myself down on the couch, fell asleep before the Simpsons even came on, just woke up, and now I'm going to crawl into bed. Despite having nothing better to do between now and the time I go back to work on Monday, I feel like this is mightly lame. Nights like this make me feel old.

Horay for pay day when that it includes 20 hours of overtime pay! Hooray for getting 125% of my normal paycheck! =)

This is post number 1030 I think. Because Blogger's database has been having problems recently, they turned off their statistics engine. So I'm sort of guessing and I might be off by one or two posts. But I missed historic post number 1000 and geekily-historic post number 1024. *sigh* On December 30th, this blog will be 2 years old. What do you think? Has this been a waste of my time and yours? Am I cool yet?

Oh great, now I have the sniffles...

Today has not been one of my better days recently. It's kind of sad when the best parts of your day occur at work, even when I had to work late. I mean, it's a huge plus that I like my job and on the whole enjoy being at work. But if my job is good, my life outside the office should be even better. Not today though. I lost my favorite keychain, the green and black one that I made myself. It had my grandmother's hosue key on it, so at least I didn't lose any immediately important keys. But I still really liked that key chain. And then my transmission made some nasty sounds whne I started the car. I'm hoping it's just because of the cold and adding a little extra fluid will take care of it. My brakes suddenly started makign grinding sounds when I slow down. Not squealing, they seemed to have skipped that altogether and went right to metal on metal. And then I noticed my tires are getting pretty worn. And then the CHECK ENGINE light kept flashign at me on teh way to work, adn on teh way home it was on solid. I unhooked my battery to reset teh errors and computer and that seems to have made the light go away for the time being, but I only started up teh engine, I didn't drive anywhere yet afterwards. So it might come back on tomorrow, which would suck. I really don't want to dump all that money into car repairs right before the holidays. I bruised my knee really badly on my desk at work. And I nearly knocked the knew anti-bacterial lotion dispenser (since it's cold/flu season now I guess) off the wall in the bathroom. It's right inside teh door and is teh same color as the wall, what were you thinking? It wasn't ther eyesterday, what did you expect to happen? There's no drugstore near my apartment. There's the CVS at Greenbriar, but that place sucks, they didn't have anything I was looking for. Then at the grocery store there was only one cashier for the regular lanes, and she was slooooow, and then the SKU on my bulk package of kleenex wasn't in the computer, so the price check took forever and all the eopel behind me kept giving me mean looks. I'm sorry for trying to save money you jerks! Anyway, I had some Oreos and milk, and talked to Emily, and took a nice shower, so I'm feeling better now. Hopefully a good night's sleep will complete the process. This weekend doesn't figure to be too exciting, but maybe I can get a lot of work done here at home instead.

Thursday, December 02, 2004

All these people with yellow ribbon stickers/magnets on their cars have got to stop turning them sideways. They look too much like the GT logo that way. Keep them vertical so I stop getting excited about how many GT fans/alums there are and then have my hopes dashed yet again when I realize that they're only "supporting" our troops (cause really, do magnet sales provide those kids with body armor?) instead of my school.

Wednesday, December 01, 2004

When did it become December? I suddenly realized it walking over to Dave's for poker (I grossed $50, and after pizza and buy-ins, a $30 net gain) last night because my rent is due today. Did I really graduate from college 7 months ago? That's crazy! I feel like, despite my "good god I'm bored" blog entires ove rthe summer, time has flown by. And here it is, 30.5 days before 2005. It's sort of incredible really. I've been working here at GD for over 4 months now. I've lived in my apartment a week longer than that. I guess it's a good sign that time is chugging right along. It means I'm busy and my life is interesting. Hooray! Also, I'd like it noted for the record that I have a wreath from Merwinds Farm on my front door. =)

I feel bad for Ty Willingham. I believe he's a good coach and I think he's done good things for the Irish (as much as I hate them). This just goes to show what a bunch of assholes run Notre Dame. The only thing I can think is that Notre Dame already has a new coach lined up or they wouldn't have pulled the trigger on Tyrone. The Irish may not be national title contenders, but they've gotten quietly better. Frankly, I think this whole 3 coaches in 10 years thing has to stop. Notre Dame, make up your damned mind and stop being such pricks. And while you're at it, swallow the measley bit of pride you have left and join a conference. You're not special. Ty Willingham was making you special, but now you blew it. Go to hell Notre Dame and take Touchdown Jesus with you.

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  • I'm Rev. Adam
  • From Oakton, Virginia, United States
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