We are kickers, we kick ball...

The Dallas Cowboys just signed a punter to an $8.5 million deal over five years. A punter! You figure he's not even out on the playing field enough to break a sweat during practically any game, and he's going to make $1.7 million a year.

I am truly in the wrong line of work.

Put that down!

Last year I wrote an email to my friends describing how Le Chiffre in Casino Royale got himself into a position that required the poker tournament. He was trading options in the stock market. More specifically he was trading put options which make you money when a stock price falls. Today I got a sense for what he was hoping.

I happened to be in 3 put trades today, and I made quite a bit of money. Of course this is not real money because I am practicing, but I can say that I have never been this excited to see the market drop like it did.

Lovelife digest, Virginia Woolfe style

It's time for the skinny on my continuing adventures with the opposite sex. Hopefully you all actually care, since I am now the odd man out. If you don't, know that my feelings are officially hurt you heartless bastards.

Where to begin? So many women, so many rejections. Not to worry though, because like sparring once you get used to taking a beating, it's not so scary anymore. It's been quite a couple of weeks for everyone's favorite verbose box turtle. I have to say this in defense of Houston - there are chicks everywhere.

So I had a surprise this morning in my email inbox. A match I closed on eHarmony actually asked that I reopen the match. This for me is a complete jaw-dropper. The only reason I closed the match is because I hadn't heard from her in a few days, which in my experience means that I'm not going to hear from her again. The girl I was all excited about a few weeks ago (the one whose answers I posted) is a good example of that. No wait, I take that back. She just closed our match. Eh, at least she was considerate enough to not leave me hanging.

However, unlike the girl I just mentioned, I opted to reopen the match I closed. So, we'll see what happens.

Thursday night as I'm getting ready to leave the office, my boss says to me, "so what are you doing tonight?" I tell him "laundry," to which he replies, "too bad, me and my buddies are going to shoot pool with a bunch of hot girls." So, I put off laundry, got my mom to go let my dog out, and headed out for the pool hall. Now, when I asked about the hotties, my boss's friends said, "You actually believed him?" And then they all had a good laugh.

Jackasses.

Anywho, I did however get a phone number from the girl they were all hitting on. The beauty is that I was about 3/4 drunk (which means two beers in the same hour) and completely off my game. Not only does she choose me over three others, when I give her my phone number, she immediately calls it to give me hers (which also lets me know that the number is legit.) I must be just too pretty - I should wear my hillbilly teeth more often to give others a chance.

Of course, I called her Saturday and have yet to hear back from her. But, who knows? People get busy.

The funny thing is, when I called her and left a message, I damn near called her Christine (the girl I met Friday night) instead of her name, Katie. Yet another potential disaster averted because I've learned to think before I speak. I must be the man my father always dreamed of being.

So anyway, Friday night I was out bar hopping with a group of folks I know. And as I've mentioned I meet Christine, the 23 year old Vietnamese girl. She claimed at one point that Asian girls have no boobs or ass, which made me wonder what was I staring at all night. I'm no genius, but I think I know cleavage when I see it.

Now, some of you may have read the last paragraph and thought, "23? Dang, isn't she a little young?" Well, considering that I fell for a girl who's not yet 21 a few weeks ago, not really. After debating it back and forth for two weeks, I finally decided to not worry about the chronological age and ask her out. Well, she dug me but she just got out of three year relationship and a bad break up, and is taking time to be by herself before dating again. Considering that I wasn't smart enough to do that at 31, it reinforced for me that she was more mature than most her age. Anyway, she has my email address.

Come to think of it, the vast majority of women I've dated have been older than me, some by several years. See what that has gotten me? Hmm, maybe this is a new paradigm for Firecracker George.

Then, I've been chatting with Heather at work, but the more I talk to her the less I think we would be compatible. Nothing earth-shattering, just not many shared interests. Don't get me wrong, no one would have to twist my arm to go out with her, I just don't put her at the top of the list of possibilities.

All these girls, and I STILL can't find a date for the Red Hot Chili Peppers concert on the seventh. Fate mocks me.

I nearly committed a major faux pas this morning.

So, I'm pumping iron this a.m., and I see someone wearing a shirt emblazoned with the logo of my alma mater. She was a tall, built, black woman, and I was practicing a conversation in my head as I wanted to walk over and say hi. After the "hi" and "So you went to TCU?" in my imaginary conversation, I imagined that I said, "You must have been a basketball player."

Now of course, I'm thinking this primarily because she was tall and muscular, and probably a little because she was black (to be honest, if she were the same but white, I'd think basketball or volleyball - hey, stereotypes are hard to escape sometimes)

Regardless of how I meant it, that statement could have very well sounded like, "Oh, a black person at TCU. You must have gotten in on your athletic ability." Holy crap am I glad I thought that out before I said anything.

The end of this story is that I went back to my work out, but before I left I made sure to give her the sign and say "Go Frogs." She laughed politely.

She was pretty cute, too.

Hate to have been that computer programmer...

Remember that scene in the Battlestar Galactica miniseries when the Cylons first invade Caprica? A squadron of Vipers are launched to intercept the incoming enemy, but are rendered helplessly floating in space after a Cylon computer virus crashes their onboard systems. Seems that such events aren't so much science fiction fantasy after all.

A group of eight F-22 Raptors, the most advanced aircraft in the world, set out from Hawaii to their new home in Okinawa, Japan. Unfortunately, two of the planes ran into a bit of trouble. As reported on CNN:

The F-22 Raptor is our frontline fighter, air defense, air superiority. It also can drop bombs. It is stealthy. It's fast and you want it all to go right on your first deployment to the Pacific and it didn't. At the international date line, whoops, all systems dumped and when I say all systems, I mean all systems, their navigation, part of their communications, their fuel systems. They were -- they could have been in real trouble. They were with their tankers. The tankers - they tried to reset their systems, couldn't get them reset. The tankers brought them back to Hawaii. This could have been real serious. It certainly could have been real serious if the weather had been bad. It turned out OK. It was fixed in 48 hours. It was a computer glitch in the millions of lines of code, somebody made an error in a couple lines of the code and everything goes.

Speculation seems to blame either the time change or the change in longitude from W179.99 degrees to E 180 degrees upon crossing the International Date Line. All this, because of a faulty line of code. Considering passenger aircraft are becoming more and more reliant on computer navigation and control, as well, my fear of flying has just jumped to another level.

H.R.G. Man has a heart after all...

What a great episode of Heroes tonight! It's amazing how well this show translates into the feel of a comic book. We get all kinds of background into Mr. Bennett, but still are left with all kinds of mysterious connections yet to be revealed. It's like reading the X-Men and one of those classic convoluted crossover plotlines by Chris Claremont and company that would run over a dozen issues and spill over into other titles.

I hope this episode got it out of Wild Willie probation for a little while, although I still have to remind myself it hasn't even finished up its first season yet. In another year or two, this could get as complicated as trying to figure out the whole Scott Summers-Jean Grey-Phoenix-Rachel Summers-Cable relationships from the X-Men.

Anywho, if you didn't catch it tonight, they'll be putting it up for online viewing pretty soon on their website.

An annual tradition that I just can't bring myself to stop...

Yet another year that I found myself watching the Academy Awards. I know I thrive on procrastination, but the Oscars are just a pure waste of time, listening to each winner thank everyone from their castmates to their parents to their pet turtle George. I'm a sucker for hype, though, and I end up watching nonetheless.

It's a rarity (actually, never) that my favorite film of the year wins the Oscar for Best Picture, so it was nice to see The Departed get the grand prize for the night. Even better that Martin Scorsese finally got an Academy Award for his work, although the fact that they got Steven Spielberg, Francis Ford Coppola, and George Lucas up there to present the Best Director Award kind of took all the suspense away.

Sad, though, that Peter O'Toole yet again was denied an eighth time for an Oscar. Granted, I've never actually seen any of his Oscar-nominated work, but he's just one of those actors that you just assume has won an Oscar (or actually, many) when you see him in movies. I know he was awarded a consolation prize i.e. Lifetime Achievement Award a few years back, but you gotta feel for the guy who you know wanted to win one outright, especially when he looks like he could croak at any minute.

Then again, what does the Academy know? After all, this is the group that voted Driving Miss Daisy the Best Picture of the Year back in the 80's. Does anyone honestly still even remotely remember that movie? Field of Dreams and Dead Poets Society were up for the same award that year. Yup, a waste of my time. A waste of my time. Damn you, pop culture hype machine!

Yup, those were the days...

In response to Wander's post below, is this the movie you speak of?



Apparently, Robotech: The Shadow Chronicles is available on DVD now, and even was showing in some theater for a couple of days last month in Firecracker George's neck of the woods. There doesn't seem to be enough sappy romance in this one from what I can tell based on the trailer, which I hate to admit is probably why I liked the original series so much.

Anywho, I liked the video Wander posted. Makes me think of less stressful days when I actually looked forward to getting up at 7:00 AM on a Saturday to watch that show. Oh, the things our kids will never understand with things like TiVo, YouTube, and DVDs. I'm surprised Cartoon Network hasn't broadcast reruns of Robotech. I feel the need to go get the original series on DVD now, though. Actually, I've been meaning to do that for years. Maybe I'll get around to doing that when I go purchase that Lotus I keep talking about.

The War Machine Springs To Life

Had this show on my brain lately, and I thought this video is pretty cool. New movie, show, role playing and video games by the end of the year I hear.

Trying to enjoy the nicer weather...

So the weather is warming up a bit, and the sun is out here in the Gateway to the West. Feeling a bit like a sloth and having avoided pretty much any physical activity short of the walk from my car to the lab or the effort it takes to lift a burger from the table to my mouth all winter long, I decided to take my bike out for a ride today. Now I've haven't even sat on my bike for about six months now. Basically, it has stood against a wall in my condo looking nice and shiny all year.

To further enhance my poser stance, my bike is a Bianchi, which would have made Wakinoffee drool uncontrollably back in the day. Sounds fancy, until you take a closer look and realize that mine is not of the legendary Italian-made lineage, but a cheaper line made especially for the American market with frames made in Taiwan. Not that M.I.T. bikes aren't made well, but it's kind of like comparing a Lexus to a Toyota. Like any decent poser, I also use clipless pedals (the bike came with them), which actually haven't been that problematic for me...until today.

If you haven't used clipless pedals before, basically your shoe has a specialized cleat that locks into the pedal. This improves your pedal efficiency, but also makes it a bit more difficult to free your feet for stabilization during a stop or fall. Stop without your feet "clipped out," and you remain literally attached to your bike, making for an extremely embarrasing situation for yourself (or quite a humorous one for onlookers).

This is what happened to me this afternoon. I seemed to forget this important principle, and ended up on my back with my bike held up in the air, still attached to my feet. Luckily, there were no eyewitnesses to my goof (at least none that I saw), and I heard no uproarious laughter erupt. Oh well. At least I finally made an effort to get some exercise.

Another election cycle, another term without a viable female presidential candidate...

The New York Times has a nice graphic on their website today which summarizes the stance of each presidential candidate on Iraq, and selected quotes illustrating their viewpoint. Probably the only real solution offered as an alternative to the strategy that's currently being used is from Senator Joseph Biden, who has repeatedly voiced his suggestion that Iraq be divided up based on their Islamic sects, and allowing each group to have some amount of regional control with a weaker central government. I have no idea if this idea would work, or if it would create even more sectarian conflict, but at least it's a bit more than the lip service we're getting from just about everyone else in Congress. Simpling saying we have to get out of Iraq, cap troop levels, or continuing to bash the current Presidential administration doesn't seem to accomplish much in my mind.

I was listening to some NPR story last night where someone used the recent problems revealed about the Walter Reed Army Medical Center as an opportunity to talk about failures of leadership in the current administration. Now, I don't disagree, but I've pretty much become numb to such dialogue. Short of calling for an impeachment (which wouldn't do the country any good, since Cheney would now be President), I just can't understand what anyone is trying to gain from such statements anymore other than some extra political capital or to give them some personal "I told you so" satisfaction.

A prime example of this political strategy seems to come from Hillary Rodham Clinton. Unlike every other Democratic presidential candidate, she still has not openly stated that her Congressional vote in support of the President going to war in Iraq was a mistake. Instead, she's manuevered quite adeptly around the issue by instead turning the conversation to the hot-button issue of Bush and his failed role as Commander in Chief. The quote this NYT graphic uses for her:

If I had been President in October of 2002, I would have never asked for authority to divert our attention from Afghanistan to Iraq, and I certainly would never have started this war.

Granted, this quote is a bit out of context, but her vote in Congress back in 2002 seems to contradict her statement. Seems like an easy thing to say after the fact.

My wife has been off the wall excited about the prospects of Hillary Clinton becoming the next President. I would like to be enthusiastic, as well, as I think this country is ready for a female in Oval Office. But the thought of Hillary being my President frankly disgusts me to the extent that George W. probably did it for most Democrats. It has nothing to do with her being a woman.

My wife would probably say that this is the way women have to play the game. After all, are we talking about any other women running for president right now? And haven't men been playing the exact same way all this time? I guess she has a point--women sometimes are judged a bit harshly when they play like the men. And being the sole woman in this field singles you out, and puts any political games you play that much more in the spotlight. The difference, though, is that she's the wife of a former president who was a bit of a controversial figure himself. Perhaps another woman running for president without the historical baggage of a Clinton would run into some resistance, but certainly wouldn't be as polarizing a figure as Hillary.

As you've probably heard, Hollywood heavyweight David Geffen was quoted by Maureen Dowd in her editorial column for The New York Times saying just that:

Not since the Vietnam War has there been this level of disappointment in the behavior of America throughout the world, and I don't think that another incredibly polarizing figure, no matter how smart she is and no matter how ambitious she is -- and God knows, is there anybody more ambitious than Hillary Clinton? -- can bring the country together.

This, of course, made headlines yesterday because Geffen is publicly supporting Barack Obama in his presidential campaign. The Clinton camp denounced the remarks as personal attacks and mudslinging. Unfortunately for Hillary Clinton, this is what most of America is probably thinking.

Looking back at that NYT graphic, only three of the presidential candidates were opposed to going to Iraq from the beginning. The most prescient quote from the three? Obama:

I know that invasion of Iraq without a clear rationale and without strong international support will only fan the flames of the Middle East and encourage the worst rather than best impulses in the Arab world and strengthen the recruitment arm of al Qaeda. I am not opposed to all wars, I am opposed to dumb wars.

We probably won't be seeing a woman taking over the Oval Office in 2009, but perhaps a man of color isn't that farfetched.

Am I sexist to think this way?

The big news in the world of tennis today is the announcement that, starting this year, women will be paid an equal amount of prize money as the men at Wimbledon. Perhaps I'm just an ignorant male, but if men play five set matches and women only play three, shouldn't men be paid more? Over the course of an entire tennis tournament like Wimbledon, those potential two extra sets per game can eventually add up to a lot of playing time on the court. It seems the fair thing to do would be to have the women play five sets, too. To pay women the same amount of money for what amounts to less work actually seems to make women look weaker, not stronger, like they can't handle the increased playing time. Maybe someone out there with a better perspective about the difference between male and female athletics can explain this to me.

A pitch that geeks can love...

For some reason, I'm completely fascinated by the legend of the gyroball. This isn't the first time I've posted something about it. Even if one really was thrown during a nationally televised game with the aid of slow motion to review the pitch, though, I'm not sure I'd be able to identify it. Heck, differentiating between a fastball, curveball, knuckleball, slider, changeup, etc. is still a bit difficult for me to pick up during the course of a ballgame.

Strangely, Daisuke Matsuzaka, the $50+ million Japanese import picked up by the Boston Red Sox during this offseason who purportedly is the only ballplayer able to throw the pitch consistently during play, denies he even has this in his bag of tricks. But to clear up the mystery, The New York Times ran a story complete with some nifty graphics featuring Kazushi Tezuka, the Japanese trainer who invented the pitch over a decade ago:

Tezuka used a standard fastball grip. He went into a basic motion. Only at the end of his delivery did he deviate. He turned the inside of his throwing arm away from his body and released the ball as if it were a football, making it spiral toward home plate.

The pitch started on the same course as a changeup, but it barely dipped. It looked like a slider, but it did not break. The gyroball, despite its zany name, is supposed to stay perfectly straight.

Is it a myth? Is it real? I don't know, but I'm kind of excited about the start of the upcoming Major League Baseball season.

News from around the Empire...

Something I found on the Internet today that Wander probably was already aware of a long time ago--is there anything Star Wars related that man doesn't know? I also noticed they were looking for writers. Sounds like a gig for our aspiring writers, Wander and 'Cracker.

An in-depth look at Frank Miller...

I don't normally watch the G4 network since I don't own any computer games or gaming consoles, but I happened to have it on today and saw a commercial for a show called Icons that will be focusing on Frank Miller on March 4th. Thought a few of you might be interested. I'm setting my TiVo now.

We LIKE you very much...

I'm sure most of you have heard or read about the homophobic remarks made by NBA player Tim Hardaway last week. Now watch the response from George Takei (aka Sulu from Star Trek) on Jimmy Kimmel Live!:

If only my house were at risk of being overrun by bear, I might have an excuse to buy one...

So as I mentioned in a comment to a post earlier in the week, I spent an afternoon this weekend shooting what amounts to an elephant gun. The .50 caliber revolver shown above is similar to what I got to use except I had the additional advantage of a telescopic sight attached to the top. The picture doesn't really give you any reference to how big and heavy this thing is, but I'll just say, I was a bit scared to even shoot the thing, and it took a bit of coaxing before I was convinced to even pull the trigger once. With the right ammunition, this gun is capable of stopping an elephant, and with the rounds I used, I supposedly could have killed a grizzly bear.

This experience was all thanks to a guy I know through one of my wife's friends who's been offering to take me out to the gun range for quite a while. To say he's a gun connoisseur might be an understatement. Not only does he have an impressive collection of firearms, he regularly takes gun courses that probably puts the typical policeman to shame, and even reloads his own bullets from spent casings. As a result of all his training, though, gun safety always seems to be on the top of his mind, and in fact, he probably spent 99% of the 30 minute drive up to the range reviewing such things with me.

By days end, I had the chance to shoot a 9mm pistol, two different models of .45 caliber pistols, a simple .22 caliber rifle, an AR-15 rifle equipped with a holographic sight, a vintage M1 rifle from World War II (complete with the "pa-ting!" as the clip flies out the top after shooting your last round), and finally finishing out with the "elephant gun." Now, you might be a bit concerned that I'd be exposed to so many firearms at one time. It sounds a bit nutty, and in truth, it was kind of strange unloading that arsenal from the car. But I think I learned a few things that day, and even erased some preconceived notions I had about firearms:

1. It's not easy to hit things with a pistol - I usually spend many a television show rolling my eyes because someone like Jack Bauer on 24 can't simply shoot out the tires of a fleeing car with his Sig Sauer. Little did I know that, gosh darn it, it's really hard to hit a stationary object, let alone a moving one. I was shooting steel targets from probably 25 yards away, which I hit pretty consistently, although with a considerable amount of time spent thinking about my aim, my grip, and my trigger pressure. I moved out only 10 yards, and hitting targets was exponentially harder. I've been told that a police officer recently had her pistol stolen off of her by a guy she was trying to bring into custody. The guy, standing over her, emptied out the entire magazine and only hit her twice.
   
2. Ammunition is heavy - I always seem to forget that bullets are made out of lead. Pile all that lead in an ammunition box, and boy, it's heavy! Yet again, more appreciation of the soldier in the field carrying around ammo.
   
3. Guns are still a bit scary, but not quite as scary as I first thought - Shooting something that can stop an elephant still scares me a bit, which is why he loaded it with the bear-stopping rounds instead. Still, it seems unlikely that a gun would just go off spontaneously. You still have to have someone put their finger on the trigger and pull. As long as you're always aware of where your gun is pointed and where your trigger finger is resting, shooting can be a relatively safe endeavor. Unfortunately, there are enough idiots out there to make this dangerous in the wrong hands. Perhaps mandatory gun safety courses, extensive background checks, and wait periods aren't such a bad idea.
   
4. Shooting something 100 yards away is A REALLY LONG WAYS AWAY - Again, one of those things I never really appreciated until I tried it myself.
   
5. Shooting is kind of relaxing - Trying to hit a small target from a distance certainly takes some concentration, and can be relaxing as you focus on your mark instead of whatever worries have been troubling you for the day. It's actually a bit like golf, except you don't have to go chase your ball. Granted, you can't easily kill someone with a golf ball (unless you're Tiger Woods), but still...
   

Now after this whole experience, I'm not sure I'm quite ready to go buy a gun or join the NRA. However, it has given me a whole new perspective on the issue of gun control and a very minute glimpse of the challenges of the U.S. Armed Forces in battle that, at least, makes me a more informed citizen.

UPDATE: My friend/firearms instructor just emailed me a picture of my day with the scary revolver. You can probably imagine the goofy grin I had on my face under the censor (since I still am holding to my relative anonymity on this blog)--the gun is practically bigger than my head!

Why wait in line when there's a perfectly good Baskin-Robbins across the street?

I've never actually had the opportunity to enjoy a cup of Pinkberry yogurt, but I seem to read about this thing everywhere. I'm not sure what the fuss is all about. Apparently, all it amounts to is some frozen yogurt with fruit or a handful of Cap'n Crunch sprinkled on top, but it seems to have become the "it" treat in Los Angeles/Hollywood. Pictures of celebrities with a Pinkberry cup in their hand are pretty commonplace now in the weekly paparazzi magazines, and the buzz around these things are so hot that people have been known to wait in line for unusually long amounts of time to get their fix.

The New York Times today has it's own story about Pinkberry. As is usually the case with anything so simple and yet so popular, it has spawned a number of copycats. The idea behind the yogurt started in South Korea, and the competition sounds like something out of some cross-town tae kwon do school rivalry.

Why does my mind automatically think of something dirty?

The Dark Side Beckons

My friend in the 501st, shown above in his custom made Mandolorian armor painted in the original white Boba Fett was going to be until the day before his scenes were shot for ESB, has all but talked me into joining him in his dark crusade. We're working on my Stormtrooper armor right now, well I should say he is; I don't know my hydrospanner from a motivator, and we're hoping to have it done in time for me to march in Denver's St. Patrick's Day parade (along with around 50 other troopers) and a visist to the Denver Children's Hospital afterwards. I think I may have just joined the Empire!

I'll post pics of yours truly in my 'white's' when I get them taken.