NB Rant

Update - yellow warning

2010-06-22T08:24:00.002-05:00

We're in critical mass now. According to the official timer, I have 11 days left. This morning we read out at 199.1. So I've got 4 lbs to go in 11 days. I might need to cut off a leg. Teeball and baseball are over so we now have an 11 day project of dropping lbs.

The plan started yesterday.
- Ab ripper X: M-W-F
- 3x20 Pushups everyday.
- on days of no ab-ripper, go jog(except for Tuesday softball days).
- Seriously, STFE.

I can do it. I know I can. I'm just that good.

Editor's note: And by the way, just saw some old videos and I'm sure it was during my 220 days. Seriously, how did you guys not tell me I looked like that. I was fat ass personified.

Fuzzy Math Part Trois

2010-06-22T08:21:00.002-05:00

So myself, my wife, my 9 year old who eats like he's got 2 assholes, and my 6 year old go to Wendy's. Total bill was about 16.80 or something. Close to $17.

Later that night after dinner we went to Goodberry's. Each of us 4 got something. Total bill was 18.99. How the hell do you get a freaking $19 bill for some damn ice cream.

No way ice cream should cost more than an actual meal. Craziness.

Update

2010-05-05T07:42:00.006-05:00

So modified P90x has stopped. Its been replaced by teeball coaching, baseball coaching, and softball games. With a run every other weekend or so. And yard mowing.

STFE is still in full effect. 100 calories at 9:30PM vs. 600 calories has done wonders. I've now seen 199.x for at least 4 of the last 7 days. So its safe to say I'm 200. 5 lbs to go and less than 60 days according to the official Timer.

New Goal Update

So now I'm looking to get to 193. The new goal is to be 195 by the end of May. That's about a lb a week. That gives me June to knock down to 193. I figure I'll be 200 by the end of the beach week so I'm giving myself some room.

This blog has moved

2010-03-12T08:21:00.001-05:00

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Update

2010-03-12T08:17:00.002-05:00

205.3 and kicking this morning. That's either 5 or 7 depending on where you consider where I started from. Still doing 3 days a week 1/2 p90x workouts while lowering the nightly snack ritual.

200 by the end of march maybe?

Classmates

2010-03-01T09:31:00.003-05:00

So I still get emails from classmates.com. How in the world is that site still around when Facebook is out there and free? Wonders may never cease.

Fuzzy Math Part Deux

2010-02-22T10:10:00.003-05:00

So you go to Taco Bell. You get a #8 which is 3 soft tacos and a drink(a big drink, but a drink nonetheless). It cost 4.59 plus tax.

3 soft tacos are .99 x 3 = $2.97.
A large drink is 1.69 = 1.69
1.69 + 2.97 = 4.66 which means to get the combo you are saving 8 cents.

However, say your eating in and not drive thru. You can refill a small just as many times as a large.
Small drink is 1.39
1.39+2.97 = 4.36.

It's cheaper to buy separate than the meal deal.

Marketing genius's I tell ya.

Fuzzy Math

2010-02-19T08:44:00.002-05:00

I have long since lived by 2 notions:

1) Not everyone is cut out for college.

2) If you work at McD's, Burger King, Staples, Walmart, you work there for a reason. I.E. you're a teenager with few discernable skills looking to make some money, you're a senior citizen looking for a low stress job, or you are from #1.

I ran into the last one as the manager of a Staples store yesterday. So this past weekend I bought a 5370DW brother printer. I'll leave tax out of my numbers just to make things round easier. The printer was regularly $250 minus an instant rebate of $50. I had a $25 coupon off $150 so I effectively paid $175 for the printer right there. The catch is they also had a $50 off if you traded in an old printer. Once the printer came in, I was to take my old printer into the store and they'd credit me back $50 bucks. So I was prepared to pay $125 for this printer when I clicked submit.

So yesterday my printer came in. I went to the store and told the guy I need my $50 rebate on a trade in printer. So here's what he did. He credited me back $250 bucks for the old printer. I said you realize I only pay $175? He didn't say a word, said just sign. So i did some quick thinking and realized he was going to credit me $250 then charge me $200 again and I would net out my $50 bucks. So I sign my credit payback of $250.

Then he rings up the printer again with the $50 rebate. Only he rings up a Brother 5370D(not DW) which was regularly $250 with a $50 off instant rebate. Then he took off the next $50 for the printer trade in. So he only charged my $150 on the charge back.

So the final total was initial charge of $175, credit of $250, and then charge of $150 = $75 out the door plus tax for the printer. Dude just completely screwed Staples out of $50 bucks i was more than prepared to pay. I even pointed it out to him and he still did it. So either he's really nice and wanted to give me an even better deal than I had, or...

Seriously, not everyone is cut out for college.

WWW.STFE.COM

2010-02-18T09:20:00.003-05:00

STFE has officially begun.
The start - I saw 214 one morning on the scale. All the work to get to 200 gone.
The goal - 195 by the morning of July 3rd ( beach trip).

Tools
------
Modified P90X will start this Saturday. Only half of the 1 hour workouts, and only 4 days a week. The goal is to keep my wife engaged into it so that I have a partner, else we'll both fail.
STFE - Seriously, just stop the fuck eating.

Reset - Thursday we were 208 this morning. I expect 205 by next Thursday.

Fail!

2009-11-09T10:41:00.002-05:00

Link

All of the dot booms of the market show abundance.
Then the stock market barage would be selfishness.
Thinking it would never end is now complacency.

I think were currently in apathy, getting ready to step into dependence with this health care bill. Which means we'll be back in bondage before too long.

New things I've learned that are cool

2009-10-02T08:27:00.002-05:00

#1 is the Iatkos distribution for turning a regular PC running windows into a dual boot running Mac OS X. This shit is cool. It would probably run better on my desktop but I was scared to flatline that one accidentally so I did my laptop. Fortunately it worked and didn't kill my laptop. Unfortunately there aren't many drivers out there for the chipset on my video driver. So basically my laptop will dual boot and show nothing when I choose mac os x. However if I attach an external monitor I see good stuff. I havent gotten some stuff working like networking, but if you can believe it the webcam on my laptop which never gets used magically worked. Go figure. So I've effectively done nothing with the mac os yet, but its still cool I can.

#2 I got a dell mini for my sister in law's sister. She wants windows, its got Ubuntu. I've got XP Professional so I'm dropping that on there. So i read some stuff and found out about slipstreamming. You basically take your OS cd, put it on your hard drive(for example I have Windows XP service Pack 1a). Then you download service pack 3(or whatever service pack you want). This program called nLite will slipstream service pack 3 overtop of your image. Burn the iso out to cd and you now have your regular OEM Windows CD with all the service packs you want. So the next time you reinstall you dont have to download 1 million and 1 updates from windows. Pretty cool.

#3 Women drivers... Just kidding. They still suck!

Baseball Craziness

2009-06-16T14:33:00.002-05:00

Stage: Last game for the Pirates for 2009. One of my top players Josh, who loves to play catcher, decides he's gonna catch this game. Last game, what the hell.

Top 1st, were the home team, Josh catching.
First batter: pops straight up and back. Josh catches. Out 1.
Second, third batters: hits
Fourth batter: Pops straight up and back. Josh catches, again. Out 2.
Fifth batter: hit and loads bases.
Sixth batter: Pops up straight and back left. Josh up and moves over to catch. Out 3.
3 outs, all by the catcher. Number of outs by catcher preceding this in 2 years of coach pitch in my tenure...0.

Bottom 1st, we're hitting:
Batters 1,2,3: All hits, bases juiced.
Batter 4, liner to the pitcher. Out 1. Everyone runs. WTF?!?!?!? Go back go back. Pitcher throws to 3rd. 3rd is standing on 3rd so runner at 3rd coming back is out. Runner from 2nd is standing next to 3rd, not on it, not out yet. Much yelling ensues. All kids just stand there like what the hell, finally 3rd baseman tags said runner. Triple freaking play.

After 1 inning: 0-0(unheard of in coach pitch) with a catcher getting 3 outs alone, and a triple play.

All coaches needed a drink for this one.

Vista...WTF?

2009-01-02T15:22:00.002-05:00

Vista 64 bit sucks ass. My goal for 2009 is to create a windows application that takes advantage of the 64 bit-ness of vista. It may not do much, but at least it will be 64 bit.

New Machine

2008-12-19T15:33:00.003-05:00

Finally got a new machine after 5 years with my 2.4 ghz machine. Quad core for $350. Definately not up to Travis's alienware standards, but not bad.

1 Studio 540 Mini-Tower: Intel Core 2 Quad processor Q6600 (8MB L2, 2.4GHz, 1066FSB)
1 Certified Refurbished
1 No Speakers
1 Label
1 4 GB DDR2 SDRAM 800MHz (4 DIMMs)
1 Resource CD
1 16X DVD +/- RW w/dbl layer write capability
1 Operating System Label
1 500 GB SATA Hard Drive (7200 RPM)
1 Power DVD Software
1 Documentation
1 Software
1 Shipping Material
1 Software CD
1 64BIT Operating System CD
1 Genuine Windows Vista Home Premium
1 Microsoft Works 9.0
1 USB Multimedia Keyboard
1 64BIT Operating System DVD
1 Software
1 Image Restore Software
1 USB Optical two button mouse
1 Wild Tangent Gaming Client
1 Software
1 Roxio Creator 10

GNR

2008-11-21T13:49:00.002-05:00

New GNR is available for listening on MySpace .

Go Here.

Haven't got through it all yet but its okay. Nothing earth shattering.

I present...

2008-11-13T21:59:00.000-05:00

The Black Hole

The Black hole

2008-11-10T14:46:00.001-05:00

Anyone else think its funny you can click through all of our blogs. For example go to mine, you can then go to Mark's, then to Travis's, then to Jeremy's, then to Michael's, etc. Except for one: Jim's. Jim's is like the freaking black hole of blogs. Once you go there, your stuck. He should rename it the Black Hole.

I love me some "Civic Duty"

2008-10-30T07:34:00.004-05:00

I'm about sick of the f'ing election. Obama's a Socialist. McCain's well... McCain! Hagan's an athiest(I mean really). I voted. I voted Liberatarian. A vote for liberatarian is like a vote for a big middle finger to the dems and reps. And in all of this I am reminded of a great article written by a great American Travis Senter entitled "Civic Duty". I like it so much I've decided to post it, in its entirety on my blog so that my blog will be tied to such a poised, straight to the point manifesto for all of eternity(or at least until someone fdisks the internet). And I quote...

"Civic Duty
October 5, 2008

This election is really pissing me off. I don’t even have television and I’m getting sick of it all. Look assholes, you have exactly two civic duties as an American during election time:

1) Vote

2) Shut the fuck up

That’s about it, really. Anything beyond that makes you a pretentious douche that thinks your opinion means a jolly rat’s ass. News flash: the candidates do not care about you. Not in the least. Why the fuck do you waste so much time caring about them? Why do you expend so much energy espousing the virtues of one over the other? Get your ass out there, vote for your candidate of choice, and then sit down and be quiet. I’m serious. Your blowhard pre-election rhetoric isn’t converting anyone to your side.

And speaking of “sides”, when did we stop being humans and become Republicans and Democrats? What the fuck is that? If you lack an identity to the point that you start identifying with a bunch of rich assholes in DC, then your life must be pretty damn shitty. If you feel the need to pepper your conversations with the phrases “liberal bias” or “conservative agenda”, then you must have precisely jack shit going on in your head otherwise.

Look - I care about America. I really do. And the outcome of this election is vital to our future as a nation. However, I know my role. I filled out my absentee ballot last week, put it in the mail, and that was that. The end. My civic duty was fulfilled and I didn’t preen around like some political know-it-all to make it happen. You should try it sometime.

Thank you for your time, America. Fuckers."

"Vote". "Shut the fuck up". Makes you think don't it.

Chicken

2008-10-05T09:28:00.003-05:00

#1 Fried chicken was good
#2 Fried chicken was good
#3 Game was good except for the beginning and the end.
#4 If you didn't catch it the first time, Fried chicken was good.

It's a shame you don't like fried chicken enough to come to the game Droop. Fried chicken was good. Oh yeah I forgot to tell you what happened Saturday... We ate fried chicken.

And a reminder to everyone for the upcoming week... Saturday we ate fried chicken.

Solar power anyone

2008-09-26T09:00:00.004-05:00

Casey and I had a conversation today about how to run things off batteries from solar panels. I'm guessing someone who knows what the hell they are doing would either shoot us or themselves after reading this and finding all the incorrect hypotheses we came up with.

TheNatureBoy9 (8:57:22 AM): how much do you know about amps/ batteries/ watts/ solar panels things like that?

TheNatureBoy9 (8:57:31 AM): more specifically the math to determine how long it takes for things to charge?

caseyoman (8:57:56 AM): um, i know the sun powers solar panels

TheNatureBoy9 (8:58:01 AM): yeah i got that part

caseyoman (8:58:07 AM): truthfully, i haven't ever looked at it

caseyoman (8:58:13 AM): what specifically are you looking at,

caseyoman (8:58:19 AM): power for the car or for the water heater?

caseyoman (8:58:29 AM): did you get the link for the binoculars yesterday?

TheNatureBoy9 (8:58:31 AM): neither

TheNatureBoy9 (8:58:36 AM): just understanding of it all in general

TheNatureBoy9 (8:58:44 AM): maybe get a solar panel to play with for small projects

TheNatureBoy9 (8:58:59 AM): teach blake or the cub scouts some stuff

caseyoman (8:59:02 AM): there's a guy at work who talked about wiring up his 2002 prius to run w/ solar

caseyoman (8:59:08 AM): i'll ask him for some info

TheNatureBoy9 (8:59:10 AM): so i see a solar panel that is 40 watts

caseyoman (8:59:20 AM): ok

TheNatureBoy9 (8:59:23 AM): the current at max power is 2.48amps

TheNatureBoy9 (9:00:32 AM): if i have a UPS thats got a battery that is 220 watts / 350 VA how long will it take that solar panel to charge that battery

caseyoman (9:01:05 AM): VA is volt amp's?

TheNatureBoy9 (9:01:08 AM): i think

TheNatureBoy9 (9:01:19 AM): volt ampere rating

caseyoman (9:01:28 AM): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volt-ampere

caseyoman (9:01:29 AM): yeah

caseyoman (9:02:25 AM): isn't cory coming to the game?

TheNatureBoy9 (9:02:32 AM): yep

TheNatureBoy9 (9:02:33 AM): i may ask

TheNatureBoy9 (9:02:41 AM): surely theres a website i can find

caseyoman (9:02:44 AM): i would certainly

TheNatureBoy9 (9:02:45 AM): http://www.boatus.com/boattech/casey/30.htm

TheNatureBoy9 (9:02:46 AM): this might do it

caseyoman (9:03:30 AM): if it's like a science project, just rephrase the project

TheNatureBoy9 (9:03:36 AM): exactly

caseyoman (9:03:49 AM): "how long does it take to charge a battery with a 40 watt solar panel)

caseyoman (9:04:26 AM): hypothesis - 220 / 40 (5.5 hours?)

TheNatureBoy9 (9:04:58 AM): according to this

TheNatureBoy9 (9:05:03 AM): its 40 watts so divide by 15

TheNatureBoy9 (9:05:14 AM): gives you 2.67 amps

caseyoman (9:05:15 AM): so 2.6

TheNatureBoy9 (9:05:34 AM): * 5 hours of rated output per day gives you 13.3 amp hours from a 40 watt panel

caseyoman (9:05:54 AM): is that the rated output on the solar panels you have?

TheNatureBoy9 (9:06:23 AM): http://www.realgoods.com/product/solar+power/solar+electric/portable+solar/kyocera+40+watt+solar+pv+module.do

caseyoman (9:06:25 AM): plus it's only /15 at noon, so you are less effecient then advertised

TheNatureBoy9 (9:06:30 AM): this is what i was using as an example

TheNatureBoy9 (9:06:37 AM): 40 watts, 2.48amps max power

caseyoman (9:06:54 AM): cool

caseyoman (9:08:27 AM): so with 5 hours of daylight, you'd get about 13 amps

caseyoman (9:08:51 AM): so i think you'd be charging extremely fast

caseyoman (9:09:06 AM): 40/15 * 5

caseyoman (9:09:50 AM): so you'd charge the battery in less then an hour

caseyoman (9:10:02 AM): 2.48/(40/15)=.99

caseyoman (9:10:15 AM): assuming i'm reading the word problem correctly

caseyoman (9:10:38 AM): if it's just for a project, could you get a smaller solar cell?

TheNatureBoy9 (9:15:02 AM): yeah definately

TheNatureBoy9 (9:15:07 AM): just looking at this one for example sake

TheNatureBoy9 (9:15:12 AM): i dont think you would charge in an hour

TheNatureBoy9 (9:15:16 AM): the math is wrong somewhere there

TheNatureBoy9 (9:15:39 AM): you cant charge a battery in an hour if it takes 5 hours to get that daylight

TheNatureBoy9 (9:15:58 AM): i think that means you would get a max of 13 amp hours in a day

TheNatureBoy9 (9:16:19 AM): so it would take you 40/13=2.48 days to charge a 40amp battery

TheNatureBoy9 (9:17:29 AM): but to just top it off if you could leave it hooked up

TheNatureBoy9 (9:17:40 AM): it would constantly charge the battery and leave it topped off with no discharge

caseyoman (9:24:24 AM): i was thinking that the 40/15 was to handle the conversion to amps

caseyoman (9:24:59 AM): and the the 5 was to take care of the 12 hours of daylight

caseyoman (9:25:14 AM): so they're really only 5/12 max effecient

TheNatureBoy9 (9:25:27 AM): i guess

caseyoman (9:25:45 AM): so 13 in a day, like you said

TheNatureBoy9 (9:25:46 AM): that one site said expect 5 hours of good daylight of average per day

TheNatureBoy9 (9:25:49 AM): yep

caseyoman (9:25:58 AM): but 13 is way more then 2

TheNatureBoy9 (9:26:02 AM): true

TheNatureBoy9 (9:26:08 AM): but if you had a dead 40 amp battery

caseyoman (9:26:16 AM): yeah,

TheNatureBoy9 (9:26:16 AM): it would take 3 days to charge it

TheNatureBoy9 (9:26:20 AM): i think

caseyoman (9:26:26 AM): a dead 40 would take at least 3

caseyoman (9:26:38 AM): b/c the batter is discharging constantly a little

TheNatureBoy9 (9:26:57 AM): so i wonder how much your washing machine takes

caseyoman (9:27:13 AM): they're on a 220 right?

caseyoman (9:27:16 AM): or is that the dryer?

TheNatureBoy9 (9:27:22 AM): i know dryer is

TheNatureBoy9 (9:27:24 AM): not sure about washer

caseyoman (9:27:36 AM): i think my dryer is on a 110

caseyoman (9:27:45 AM): you thinking about going "off the grid)

caseyoman (9:28:07 AM): one of e's friends took a class on home design for that purpose

caseyoman (9:28:11 AM): from app state

TheNatureBoy9 (9:28:14 AM): no

TheNatureBoy9 (9:28:19 AM): no where near ready to off grid

caseyoman (9:28:24 AM): come on

TheNatureBoy9 (9:28:36 AM): solar panels need to improve efficiency

caseyoman (9:28:38 AM): you can be like the cdw guy on the island with the monkeys in those commercials

TheNatureBoy9 (9:28:45 AM): 16% efficient is bad

TheNatureBoy9 (9:29:01 AM): they get over 25% then it might be worth it, when payback is 5 years vs. 10-15

TheNatureBoy9 (9:29:15 AM): 15 year payback and 20 year warranties dont make much sense

caseyoman (9:29:15 AM): but it says "highly effecient:

caseyoman (9:30:17 AM): yeah, i've read about the "spray on solar" stuff

TheNatureBoy9 (9:30:24 AM): would be cool though to buy a battery that could handle an appliance

TheNatureBoy9 (9:30:30 AM): and just leave it hooked up to a solar panel all the time

TheNatureBoy9 (9:30:34 AM): do it yourself solar

caseyoman (9:30:39 AM): probably will work for our great grand kids

TheNatureBoy9 (9:30:44 AM): definately

caseyoman (9:30:54 AM): i've seen some people who have tons of daisy chained batteries

TheNatureBoy9 (9:31:10 AM): would be very cool

TheNatureBoy9 (9:31:17 AM): just buy really good deep cycle batteries

caseyoman (9:31:20 AM): the trick is to get them innitially charged and then get rid of all the vampires

TheNatureBoy9 (9:31:30 AM): yep

caseyoman (9:31:31 AM): ie no standby lights on dvrs,

caseyoman (9:31:41 AM): when it's off, make sure it is really really off

TheNatureBoy9 (9:31:42 AM): yeah

caseyoman (9:31:59 AM): there's some hippy commune in the mountains of nc like that

caseyoman (9:32:14 AM): read it in the washington post a while ago

TheNatureBoy9 (9:32:21 AM): i've begun plugging things into strips and turned off strips

TheNatureBoy9 (9:32:30 AM): but hard to do with DVRs

caseyoman (9:32:32 AM): but the guy was using insane amounts of energy (low amounts)

caseyoman (9:33:00 AM): http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/14/AR2006111400979.html

caseyoman (9:35:05 AM): skip to the section with this

caseyoman (9:35:17 AM): HE SUN WAS OUT, AND GREG GEIS WAS MAKING ENERGY.

caseyoman (9:35:32 AM): just do a search for it on this page

TheNatureBoy9 (9:35:42 AM): so i did some math

caseyoman (9:35:47 AM): ok

caseyoman (9:35:54 AM): what'd you come up w/

TheNatureBoy9 (9:35:55 AM): this one washing machine takes 197kwh per year to operate based on 8 loads a week

TheNatureBoy9 (9:36:02 AM): thats 473 watts per load

caseyoman (9:36:10 AM): ok

TheNatureBoy9 (9:36:14 AM): divide by 120 volts and you get 3.9 amp hours per load

TheNatureBoy9 (9:36:20 AM): thats freaking nothing

TheNatureBoy9 (9:36:43 AM): i'm doing math wrong somehow

caseyoman (9:36:43 AM): so you'd need 2 batteries to power the washing machine?

caseyoman (9:36:47 AM): i doubt it

caseyoman (9:36:53 AM): how about the dryer?

caseyoman (9:37:19 AM): and what's the cost analysis?

TheNatureBoy9 (9:37:40 AM): getting a little deep for me LOL

TheNatureBoy9 (9:47:30 AM): average dryer on this one site says 3.3kwh

TheNatureBoy9 (9:47:46 AM): which would be 3300 watts / 120 volts is 27.5 amp hours

caseyoman (9:48:24 AM): is it 120 or 240?

TheNatureBoy9 (9:48:38 AM): so if its 240 then divide down to 14 amp hours

TheNatureBoy9 (9:48:43 AM): still way more than the washer

caseyoman (9:48:55 AM): yeah, clothes lines may make a comeback

TheNatureBoy9 (9:49:00 AM): yep

caseyoman (9:49:03 AM): well, maybe not in cary

TheNatureBoy9 (9:49:17 AM): but still something a good 100 amp hour battery can handle

caseyoman (9:49:43 AM): or 100 1 amp batteries

caseyoman (9:49:51 AM): in a shed

TheNatureBoy9 (9:50:04 AM): true

caseyoman (9:50:08 AM): that'll look good on the moncure land

caseyoman (9:50:23 AM): if you convince e it's a good long term plan, i'll work on building it

TheNatureBoy9 (9:50:52 AM): lol

TheNatureBoy9 (9:51:05 AM): ill see what i can do

TheNatureBoy9 (9:51:12 AM): we can blog about it

caseyoman (9:51:26 AM): true, hell, just post this conversation.

TheNatureBoy9 (9:51:27 AM): how i ran my house on 20,000 double A batteries

caseyoman (9:51:36 AM): then have cory write up the retraction

TheNatureBoy9 (9:51:51 AM): yeah ill do that

caseyoman (9:51:51 AM): screw that, used hearing aid batteries

Some things are just freaking cool.

2008-09-19T09:49:00.000-05:00

Coolness personified

Clicking away...

2008-09-06T11:27:00.002-05:00

Not sure what's happened over the last week, but we've had a surge of almost $30 in clicks over the last 7 days. That's the best we've done since opening week. Currently we are up to almost $120 which is pretty good considering we started May 22nd. We did in less than 4 months what it took us over 1 1/2 years to do on the old account. If we keep the same route up, we'll be around $300 by next years beach trip. Not a bad score. That's a potential savings of around $20 to $25 per person at the beach.

If anyone has any ideas for sites, wants a blog, or anything else that they think might get us some outside traffic let me know. I have one idea already that I wanna do and can help with others. $300 is nice, but $the goal of $1500 for the entire beach trip is a long way off.

Holy Shit! Holy Shit!

2008-08-06T21:43:00.002-05:00

Finally... One... on Hard.... finished. By the hair on my ass. But I finished it. Lou's gonna beat my ass. But by god I beat Metallica's ass. Go suck that Kirk Hammett!

OMD OMD!

2008-06-27T09:23:00.002-05:00

One more day ... then i'm getting f'd up ... for a week solid ... and staring at beach boobies ...

The Magic Man Part Deux... well sort of

2008-06-19T08:17:00.003-05:00

My first softball game of the year was Tuesday and rusty wouldn't much describe it. Almost had a pdub but it rolled foul. So I grounded softly to 2nd base and flied out to right field. 0-2 and I looked bad doing it. I EH'd for a few innings then put myself into right field( hindsight I should have went in as catcher cause the guy I put back there was terrible). 5th inning - 2 outs - 2 on, shallow hit about 20 feet over 2nd baseman's head. And I'm off. I slow down a touch cause I think its gonna fall, then realize I can get there. So I speed up, probably tripped over myself a few times. Finally get there, realize I'm not quite there so...

I dive. Uh , jump. Uh, fall. Whatever I did I was in the act of somewhat diving/falling and snag the ball, bag handed. Do the little roll over and pop up, ball still in the glove. Just call me the Magic Man Part Deux. As the Magic Man would say... " You pay me to catch the ball, you get the style for free".

F the cyclist

2008-06-19T08:07:00.002-05:00

Yes, you are saving the damn world riding your bike everywhere. Yes, a rare few of the female persusasion actually look pretty hot with your ass all nice and tight in those spandex shorts. Yes, most of you deserve to live I guess and not be run over by a Hummer or other lightweight Army tank.

No, however, are you entitled to disobey the freaking rules of the damn road. If you want to ride your 2 wheeling, 5 mph riding piece of metal on the same road as said cars, I feel it is your moral obligation not to be a prick about it and follow the rules. Case and point, I'm pulled out into the intersection of Walnut and the entrance to the mall/Barnes and Noble trying to make a left into the mall. The car across from me is trying to make the left into Barnes and Noble. Both of us are just sitting there waiting for theres quite a bit of traffic so were both basically probably waiting on the light to turn yellow and the cars to stop to allow us to go before the light turns Red. Out of nowhere a cyclist pulls through the middle of the intersection, in front of ME, thus rendering me stuck unless I decide to plow her over(jailtime doesn't suit well with me so I decide to patiently wait). But she's not just right in front of me. No, not this dumb bitch. I'm sorry that probably wasn't politicially correct. How about stupid whore... yeah lets go with stupid whore. She pulls out a good 2 car lengths in front of me. So not only does she have me stuck waiting, the dude across from me is too. Light turns yellow, opening happens, and instead of me going and the other guy going, we have to sit and wait on her to get her ass out of the intersection.

So someone please tell me where in the rules of the road rule book does it state "When riding a bicycle on the road and 5 cars are in line to make a left, you - the dumb bitch/stupid whore - are allowed to pass all 5 cars and pull out into the middle of the intersection - praying the whole time some crazy fucker is paying attention and doesnt kill you accidentally - and make a left in front of all 5 of the cars who are actually following the correct rules for driving". If you have this rules for riding your bike on the road handbook, I would like to see it.

Go save the damn world somewhere else, I'm tired of of having to pay attention enough while driving not to run you guys over.

I'm too sexy for my...

2008-06-19T08:06:00.001-05:00

I'm old

2008-06-03T09:38:00.003-05:00

The old me would have stayed up till 2:00 AM if need be. The new me, 12:15 AM and having to wait 20 minutes before the 3rd OT started in the Pens/Wings series in Game 5, I just bailed. Sucks too cause I missed the Pens with the win. Such as life when you are old. 31 is just too damn old.

I couldn't f'n imagine being 32. I think I'd just shoot myself if I was that old.

Weekend of Wonder

2008-06-02T09:29:00.003-05:00

I thought 3 big wins for the Pack and moving on to the Super Regional next weekend would be the highlight of my weekend. And while last nights win was fun to watch, Saturday afternoon certainly was the highlight.

Everyone has a hit. All 12 boys. They aren't all pretty. Some have been long, some have been short. But all 12 boys have a hit. Ella, the lone girl(not just on the team, but in the league) had one hit. And we wouldn't even call it a hit. It skimmed off the bat, and went about 6 inches. Everyone knew she didnt have a "real" hit. She knew it, the crowd knew it, the teammates knew it, the coach's knew it. We tried changing bats, we got a good solid foul ball. Still, no hit. So Mark gave her a little one on one before this game.

First at bat, same bat time same bat channel. The slow walk to the dugout. 2nd at bat, crack. Well we dont use wood bats, more like ping. Well they are 7 year olds. More like thud. Down the third base line. I'm fairly certain I've never seen a kid more happy about anything in my entire life. It was as if the weight of the world had been lifted. 3rd at bat, crack/ping/thud again. Same place. All told she wound up 2-4. What a glorious 2-4.

Oh and Blake, 3-3. Yawn! Can he get a ball in the outfield?

Proud Mary Keep on Turning

2008-05-23T08:08:00.003-05:00

So I missed both of my kids hits last night. One was a hit to first that he got out on, but he hit it. The second was a hard hit somewhere that he made it to first on, later to get out at 3rd on a fielders choice(which i spent 5 minutes later that night explaining why he went 1-2 with 1 out rather than 0-2 with 2 outs). Both times I was managing kids in the dugout from 3rd base coach perspective. And by managing I mean, yelling at them to stay in the dugout, sit down, and quit climbing fences and throwing rocks, etc. So it was a kind of blah night for the Rudd household.

However the Pirates(my Pirates, not from the Burgh) had a stellar night. Braeden continued a torrid stretch of flat out mashing the ball. Would have been a double but I was an idiot and put someone, hmmm.... politicially correctly speaking ... less than impressive on the base paths. So he got about a 200 ft single. My fault on that one dude, won't happen again. Then 2nd inning, my leadoff hitter for the game Patrick steps up. Average hitter, makes good contact. We call him the wall cause he can't catch a cold, but no ball gets by him in the infield. Definately not afraid of the ball. Couple misses and then jack! Right over the middle infield. Would have landed in the grass but the other team(breaking the rules mind you- outfield should be on the grass) had stationed a player on the dirt behind 2nd base. Kid almost caught it off his head, but it hit the ground. Just a single, but man was it pretty. I'm sure the look on mine and Mark's face was priceless.

Then Ella, the only girl in the league, steps up a few batters later. Keeping in mind she's only nicked one ball all year. She's about 1-6 or 1-7 on the year with 1 2 foot p-dub, although not sure its a p-dub when you are 7, and the rest are k's. I hate to ruin the suspense, but she didn't get a hit. She struck out, again. But her 4th strike was stellar. Bat on the ball, solid contact. Just too out in front, and pulled it foul. But we have contact boys and girls, we have contact.

Lastly, upon looking back, I think they only got like 2-3 balls to the grass on us, and those 2-3 were both gobbled up by my outfield and promptly brought in. 2 of the 3 innings we got 3 outs well before 5 runs. We've had our share of slaughters this year, like game 1. But this time we were the dominators. We scored 14 of a possible 15 runs in 3 innings.

All I can say is, we're coming around boys. We're coming around.

Props

2008-05-23T08:03:00.002-05:00

Gotta give props to the wife. Randomly we watch stuff and we'll pick out an actor/actress that is familiar. Sometimes its a voice in a cartoon. We attempt to figure out who it is, then imdb to verify or tell us the answer. Last night was impressive. Watching Grey's there's a 20ish year old actress dying from cancer. I thought she looked alot like Jordan Sparks(which in my defense she does, even though I knew it wasn't her). Christina pulls out "the girl from Full house that was Denise who played Michelle's friend"(real name - Jurnee Smollett). Amazingly enough, she was right. That's impressive. Last time we saw her on tv, she was 5. That's a good 15 years of age progression to pull that off. Impressive.

2007-12-19T19:51:00.001-05:00

I feel I've been missing something lately. A little off. But I've finally figured it out. I need to join the

Snip Snip Mafia

I think we're at the low point, it should only go up from here

2007-09-26T07:33:00.001-05:00

So its official, I think we've hit another low point, a pre NWO time if you will, for the wrestling world. Effectively there are like 3 guys that I dont mind watching right now. CM Punk I think has actual talent. Unfortunately I think he should be fighting to the IC title rather than the world champion on a show(ECW) with about 10 guys on it. John Cena... cause well...dude has had the title for over a year now or something ridiculous which is unheard of in the modern day, post Hogan era. We've seen title reigns last shorter than 24 hours, so a one year plus title reign is crazy. And you just wanna be there when you see him lose it. I wouldn't put it up there with like the Kennedy assassination or the Challenger exploding, but its up there somewhere. And finally Triple H. Not because he is a great wrestler. But A) when he wants to be he's pretty funny and B) he stills tells the best story during a wrestling match. I still think he's the best bad guy, but at this point WWE needs him for anything.

Other than those 3 I can do without everything else. ECW has nobody worthy behind Punk. Smackdown is worthless until Taker comes back. And Raw is spinning its wheels around Cena and a little HHH right now. Nothing else is of merit. There are no secondary story lines. There are no good story lines for midcarders. I havent watched a non-dvr'd wrestling show in months, and I fast forward like crazy through what I watch. And buy a PPV? Yeah right. Couple all this with the fact that TNA is in the same boat and you basically have a the pre-NWO wrestling. Basically were back to wrestling not being cool. We need it to be cool.

So how do we fix it? I think everyone's got their own idea. In regards to WWE, I think basically they are being hurt by the WCW buyout. They bought their only competition, which when your are AT&T is great, but when you need to be pushed isn't so great. And unfortunately TNA isn't pushing them yet. Heres what I would do if I were running WWE or TNA:

WWE
#1 Kill brand extension. With the rash of deaths, firings, and suspensions the rosters are depleted. Also it sucks to have something big happen Monday, and nothing happen until next Monday. It used to be cool when the Rock or Jericho had something happen on Monday night, and then something else would happen Thursday(it would be on Friday now). Only do 2 shows a week - Raw and Smackdown. Kill off ECW. And make Smackdown live again. I know, I know Smackdown is taped to save money. But were fixing things here, so money is no object.
#2 Your set up for a 6 month story line by bringing the rosters together. You have instant feuds to consolidate all 3 world titles, the IC and US belts, and the tag belts. You instantly put more chicks up for the womens title. Bring back the hardcore title again. That just made for humurous tv(where is Crash Holly anyway).
#3 Do whatever it takes, but bring back Chris Jericho. As much as I hate to pin the hopes of WWE on one guy, dude is money. Plain and simple.
#4 Give us a reason to watch, which you havent done in probably 2 years. First off, make HHH the baddest ass on the planet again. He needs a stable. Orton and Batista wont work cause they are both top players again. So lets give him a chick, lets say Beth Phoenix(2007 Chyna anyone?), and a good tag team. It could be Deuce and Domino - with a changed gimmick of course. Or the Majors. Hell thats how sad it is, I cant think of anybody good to match up with him. Okay scratch the tag teams, change Kevin Thorne's gimmick a little, and make him HHH new henchman. Kind of like HHH was for Michaels for so long. Any rate, dont call them Evolution, or DX, or whatever. Call them something new. We need this to be new, not retread. We'll call them Game Over for now, just cause I'm not creative enough to come up with something better.
Secondly have Cena drop the belt crappily to Orton. Then let Cena cost Orton the belt to HHH. Then let Cena and Orton fight off in the side for awhile. Cena needs a rework for awhile without the belt. Give the dude a day off or something. Have Thorne win the IC title, and Phoenix take the women's belt. They go on merrily beating the tar junk out of everyone until Y2J shows up. Y2J earns a title shot, and almost wins at his first PPV, but Phoenix helps out HHH. Then Thorne fixes the next bout. All of a sudden we have a full blow chase for the gold. No one can defeat the 3. Then Monday night after the 3rd or 4th PPV this has happened, out comes Edge. Edge wants a fight, and he's got long hair like Jericho so they team up. So the next PPV is Thorne/HHH vs Edge/Jericho. Only Edge turns, joins Game Over and they stomp the holy hell out of Jericho(he came back for this?) 4 PPV's, four ass beatings for Jericho.
Now HHH is done with Jericho, he moves on to fight Batista as Jericho fights Edge. Of course Edge and HHH both when singles matches at the November PPV based on outside interference. I mean its gotta be like 6 months of this stuff. Horseman style. Fans still kind of like HHH and Edge, gotta make them hate those guys. Get tired of seeing them win. Finally its Royal Rumble time, and yep you guessed it Jericho wins. So we have Jericho/HHH at Wrestlemania. Its about the only way people are gonna watch wrestlemania. So we gotta fill February's PPV, so we get HHH/Edge/Thorne vs. Jericho/Batista, and another mystery partner. Come PPV night, out walks John " I've taken some time off,so all the girls are happy to see me and cheer" Cena. Phoenix tries to interfere, but Mickie James(schedule to fight Glamazon at Mania in the closest thing to Lita/Trish we can get nowadays) takes care of her. The faces almost win until , yep you guessed it. Orton shows up. Game over wins. We get 6 more weeks of HHH beating Jericho with a sledgehammer until Mania where we get Batista / Thorne for the IC title. HHH/Jericho for the world title, Mickie/Phoenix for the womens title, and Cena / Orton in Hell in a Cell.
Finally put the freaking Hardy's back together and have them do a similar push against Cade/Murdoch culminating in a win at Mania. Jericho/Hardy's both win. Thorne keeps the IC title and Glamazon keeps the womens belt. That right there is 4 big ass matches. Then summerslam we can go wargames with HHH/Edge/Thorne/Orton/John Morrison vs. Jericho/Batista/Cena/Punk/and the returning Deadman the Undertaker. Take Rey freaking Mysterio out of the world title hunt, dude is like 135 lbs. Its just not plausible. Give him the cruiserweight belt for god sakes. He's the reason we basically created the cruiserweight belt.

I agree there are holes in this story line. But I strongly believe its 20 times better than the stuff I've been fast forwarding for the last 2 years. We need something. You need a dominant evil, and a chase for the good. We havent had that in years.

I'll check back later when I figure out how to fix TNA. Its getting there, but way to slow for my account. And if you havent watched TNA, you should check out Nash. He quite possibly is the most entertaining person on either wrestling show right now, and he hasnt stepped foot in a ring in 6 months.

UNC Sucks

2007-02-22T08:29:00.001-05:00

That is all.

Wal-Mart vs. Target

2007-02-21T11:28:00.000-05:00

I've come to the realization the other day that I am a snob. I am not quite sure how or when it happened. I don't believe it has anything to do with money either. I figured all of this out the other day when I was walking through Wal-Mart, or as I like to call it "the shithole".

I just don't get it. Just because you have 30,000 square feet, doesnt mean you must carry absolutely every single thing one might want ever in life. Between the fact that the place is full of all this, half of it in the walkways cause theres just not any room on the shelves, and the fact that the place is crowded to the brim with the dregs of society, you can barely make room enough to walk in the place. While in there for 20 minutes, I did not see one person that looked like anyone I would want to know. All 15 lines open were at least 6 deep with customers because the workers were slower than my blind grandmother. I should have just given the gift card I got for Christmas from there to someone else just to save me the pain.

Now Target, there's a store. Milfs at every corner aisle. Nice big open aisle ways to walk through with nothing in the middle of them. 15 lines open but all nearly empty cause the cashiers actually act like they care. Actual security guard at the front gate instead of 90 year old man or woman. And the funny thing is, the prices arent that much different. In fact Target is cheaper in some areas. And has better quality stuff in most areas. And eye-candy wise, we're not even talking the same league.

So judging by my mere distaste to even drive in the parking lot of a Wal-Mart vs. actually even go into it and my mere joy when a Target trip is taken on Sunday Morning(best time cause all the hotty college co-eds are there and not at church - so you know there a big naughty!) I must deduce that I am just a snob. And if going Milf-hunting at Target is my pentance for that, then so be it.

Safe Driving != Good Driving

2006-12-18T14:42:00.000-05:00

So I have a question for all the ladies. I choose ladies mainly because I've never heard a guy say this. When someone brings up how shitty women drive, their retort is always "I've never gotten a ticket" or "i've never gotten into a wreck". This is all well and good, but this does not mean you can drive well. My hypothesis... " Safe Driving does not equal Good Driving".

Case in point #1: I'm at Crossroads in Cary waiting to make a left out of the BJs parking lot near Golden Corral onto Piney Plains Road. I'm behind a lady, stupid bit... but I digress. This lady has wasted a good 45 seconds trying to make a left where she had 3 -4 chances of ample opportunity to go between cars but is being overly cautious and not going. She hasn't even crawled into the intersection, she's still back near the line near me. Finally theres a huge break with one car coming WHO HAS THEIR FREAKING LEFT TURN SIGNAL ON. What does the lady in front of me do... she waits some more. Finally the light has turned yellow,the car coming toward us turning left which is the other way we are going makes their left and this lady finally goes when theres not another car in freaking sight and we are all left at the light for another cycle. I look in the rear view mirror and we are a good 20 cars deep at this point.

Now don't get me wrong, i'm happy she was safe and didnt get in a wreck thus causing me further aggravation. But I'll be damned if she's probably spouting off to her freaking husband who has to put up with this shitty driving more than I do about how "good" a driver she is. What she doesnt understand is that she is a "safe" driver. Not good. A good driver would have pulled further into the intersection giving herself less distance to travel, giving her the ability on multiple occassions to get through the intersection quicker. I equate good driving with understanding how to drive correctly and safely, not just safely.

Good drivers:

* know you dont ride in the left lane of the interstate if someone is behind you wanting to go faster
* know to move over to the left hand lane to make it easier to merge from the right
* know how to drive slowly and let someone merge in seamlessly in heavy rush hour traffic
* understand the concept that its tough enough to drive, but to do it with 1 hand on a cellphone while not paying a damn bit of attention is downright stupid
* how to drive through an intersection with *gasp* other cars around instead of waiting for every cotton-pickin' car to go by before they go.

So for my first blog post I leave you with Safe Driving != Good Driving. I'm sure there will be many, if not thousands more blogs to support this claim. Some will be men I'm sure, and some will be given the benefit of the doubt. I mean how can we expect a 16,17, or 18 year old girl to drive correctly when her dumbass mom can't drive her way out of a paper bag. Its almost inate for the fairer sex to suck at driving now.