Excess in everything, moderation is for monks

That's what they call it, the semi-annual party that is currently held in Virginia. Friends I met in college (which means we've known each other 20 years or so – scary, isn't it?), friends they met in grad schools, and locals they met along the way ... as time goes on, there is less drinking by the regulars (which is a good thing, we were a pretty scary group back in the day) but usually enough done by the unsuspecting locals. And there are epic amounts of food. I'm surprised that their septic system survives. (One year they actually rented Port-o-Lets.)

Thursday

The trip commences. Cloudy day, which is great for an early start, because it means glasses are OK for most of the trip. (I can switch between those and prescription sunglasses all right, but it's obviously not as easy as taking sunglasses on/off.) Off we go out I-70, which distresses the navigation system because she wants us to go a different way. (This is pretty much the story until we're on I-64. At that point, she realizes that because the hotel is on I-64, we're probably heading in the right direction.)

Not a bad drive, as drives go. A little slow, but we miss rush hour in whatever cities happen to lie between here and there. (Not many.) The hybrid doesn't like the mountains, so we lose a bit of time there. About 45 mpg on the trip, which is nice, even though every place east of Indy has cheaper gas than we do.

Somewhere along US-35, we see rest area cat. He's sitting outside the rest area, watching people going in, presumably to ensure they don't cause trouble. He has no time to be petted, but instead settles himself on his side where he can still watch the entrance. Nice work if you can get it.

We listen to baseball about half the trip. The Padres are nice enough to entice bees to delay their game so that it finishes after the 7:00 games start. Naturally, when we arrive and share the news, people have no idea what we're talking about. Apparently bee delays are not common.

Arrive at the hotel, I check in, we head out to the house, we eat some fried stuff and catch up with people. I head back to the hotel, log on, and sleep.

Friday

The last day for party prep. I'm back at the house around noon. The gravel arrives about 12:30. Our hosts have a gravel driveway that is such in name only at the base and head of the drive. The newly-arriving gravel is to be spread at each end.

The kind driver does what he can to distribute it somewhat reasonably at each end, although we end up with a nice pile at the base of the driveway. Rakes and shovels in hand, we begin.

It's clear after not much time that most of us are desk people, not outdoor people. The gravel weighs more and more as the task continues, although thankfully it did not rain. Apparently this makes things much worse. I'm the first to concede defeat, so I go inside and sit in front of the laptop, carefully managing my tycoon teams and mafia whilst the others foolishly pretend they're in the 20s.

Eventually it's all spread adequately, so food prep begins. Chopping, dicing, deboning ... there's usually enough food for three times the number of guests that show up, but it's all fun stuff to cook and to eat. (Also, most of us worked in the cafeteria at one of the dorms at Purdue, which is where we met, so we had institutional experience prior to having our own kitchens. Of course it doesn't help a ton, but at least we'd been exposed to a number of kinds of food and ways to cook it. I miss the convection ovens.)

Eating, talking, and sending off one of the families. Apparently they had a birthday party in Baltimore on Saturday. This is kind of like planning movie night during the first weekend of the NCAA tournament, but they're long-timers, so somewhat forgiven. (Plus they're coming back on Sunday.) Late night Friday means movie night, so this time it's Superbad. Surprisingly funny, but then again I think it's the atmosphere. Perhaps not so funny watching it myself.

Back to the hotel, two of us this time. We see a few deer on the road back to civilization; it's a state highway, so the speed limit is 55, but it's a winding two-lane road in the dark, so we don't go quite that speed once we've seen the deer. Most people use a little caution at night around there.

The other traveler checks himself in; he's trying to be more careful with money, so he's staying elsewhere Thursday and Sunday. Of course, he's delayed because the person at the front desk, well, isn't at the front desk when we arrive. Eventually he gets his room. (Separate rooms, of course. I prefer to sleep in my own room unless accompanied by a willing woman.)

Saturday

Party day. We meet around 11 and head back to the house. Food is heating up and people are starting to show up. I stay outside for a bit and play bags ... we lose the first match, but our conquerors include the host, who has to attend to newly-arrived guests, so we stay and a new team takes their place. We run off four wins or so as I find a nice stroke (holding the bags vertically, a little backspin, aim right of the hole and watch them roll left and in), and then my teammate has to attend to ribs, so we step aside and I go back inside. Plus beer pong and such has started up, and I tend to stay away from those things, not being able to partake myself. (Having a non-drinker participate in a team drinking game can be a problem for his teammate. We did it once. I thought it was funny.)

The DSL is holding up nicely, so I go through a few weeks of OOTP and check my Facebook games. It's nice and cool inside, a pleasant change from the 90-degree heat ... but then again it's raining pretty much everywhere west of Virginia, so we're thankful.

Night comes, fireworks are launched, people drink more, and suddenly I have to build a fire. (Well, not entirely accurate. I have to light a fire. The fire was built yesterday. There are three or four resident pyros ... one is the host, and another is in Baltimore now, so that leaves me. I like fire.) The host lights it, I feed it, and the drunks sit near the fire for about 30 minutes or so until they realize they need to drink more. (I kind of built the fire hot. No one really sat near it.)

We burn some more wood (no weird things this time, like wood of questionable origin or strange chemicals that ought to burn well). The drunk people return, there are discussions about who ought and ought not to have been drinking where and when, most of them are sent inside to play more drinking games, and the rest of us hang out until 1. We leave the fire to burn itself out (it's designed for that), I get the very intoxicated traveling companion, and we return to the hotel. (The next day, he conceded he'd been rather drunk. He doesn't drink that much any more, but he certainly did on Saturday. We blame the mojitos.)

Sunday

Post-party day 1. Locals are gone, people from Cincinnati have left, so there are three small groups here, and we're awaiting the return of the people who braved DC-area traffic on the 4th. Eating of random things, more Facebook, sports on TV. Another Grand Slam event, another Federer win ... we were somewhat limited in what we could watch because we swapped out their DVR for a better one, and of course that doesn't transfer the content. Oh well. Acrostic puzzle to finish, wrapping up things, goodbyes said, I head back to the hotel.

Monday

Time to head back. I swing into Richmond and pick up the traveler, and we head back to I-64 and west. Warmer weather this time, so the air is on and the mileage drops a touch.

Construction isn't bad, but an accident on the turnpike, I think, slows us down, costing us about an hour. Somewhere in the construction, though, we see a crew sanding down the surface of the road, or something ... except when we close on it, we see it's actually a car burning merrily on the side of the road. No obvious flames yet, but enough smoke to make driving hazardous. Everyone's slowed down in the single-lane traffic. Several cars have stopped to help, including a semi driver who looks like he's got an extinguisher, so we keep going.

US-35 is a nice four-lane divided highway in Ohio, but it's only two lanes for most of the West Virginia segment. Fortunately, they've upgraded part of it (the navigation system is horrified that we're driving through the grass and refuses to talk to us until we're back on the two-lane part) and are working on another part of it. Unfortunately, the middle section is unplanned and unscheduled. Tolls are going up to $2 on the turnpike in August. I'll be happy to double that if it means we get better roads soon.

Back home ... I drop off the traveler and arrive at last. The cats are a bit surprised to see me. Their usual cries of near starvation are useless now because of the care ems has taken; they were good to her and only left one small spot of cat puke that could easily have been created Monday. (A real hairball, too, and not the I'm-mad-at-you-here's-unchewed-food-to-clean-up kind.)

Unpack, clean up, and off to bed.


It was a lot of fun, but it's not something I'd care to do too often. Someday I might consider flying again, but only after the airport Gestapo have been removed and when US airlines remember that customer service is important.

Weigh-in: Week 18, +1.8 pounds

No surprise here. This was the week of the party in Virginia, where there is more food than a normal person can possibly imagine. While I may get partial credit for not actually gorging myself, clearly I consumed a lot more calories that I burned. (Note: shoveling gravel does not equal burning massive amounts of calories, not when you only have the stamina and strength to do it for an hour or so.)

Let's see. I ate french fries, onion rings, popcorn chicken, Mongolian beef, Korean beef, salmon, sushi, pasta, brisket, ribs, peppered pork, fudge, Rice Krispies treats ... and I only tried about half of the food that was there. (I mean, really, is there room for all of it?) My friends are excellent cooks, and the ones that host the party grow their own herbs, peppers, and vegetables, at least some types of vegetables. (And by peppers I mean the kind that you have to pick wearing gloves. No, really. Also, detergent is good for removing the oil from your skin.)

And there were donuts on the way out. And McDonald's. And Wendy's. (Although I did bring protein bars with me.)

So it could have been a lot worse, or maybe I'm starting to figure out how to eat bad foods occasionally and not gain as much weight as I would in the past. (That's right. In the past, this would have been more like 3 or 4 pounds, except for the time that we all got food poisoning from something.)

So now it's off to exercise again. Volleyball is moving off the schedule, though. We just don't have enough people with enough free time to make it a regular thing, so I'll have to visit the Y more often. No, really.

Another dumb marketing decision

this.

The "New Xbox Experience" is stupid enough as it is: it takes up way too much space, shows very little of value, and hides most things well away from where you'd actually look for them. Basically, it's like Office 2007. And what a coincidence!

So now they're going to put ads on it. Even for paying members. (Yeah, it wouldn't surprise me if Office 2007 did the same thing eventually.)

The dumbest thing about it is that it's not like the 360 has a browser, so you certainly can't click through anything, and really, when was the last time you saw an in-game ad and thought neat, that's so cool, I need to go buy that stuff?

right.

So now Silverlight will be drawing more cycles on the 360 (which is so awesome because there's no risk of it overheating, none at all) just to serve us ads.

jerks. Microsoft, meet backlash

Weigh-in: Week 17, -1 pound

More good news: down a pound this week (18.1 overall) and half an inch on my waist (4 overall). I gave up on the thigh for now because a) there isn't a ton of fat there anyway and b) it's difficult to measure accurately. Besides, I have strong legs, so they're not going to shrink much even when my weight does come down.

So anyway, a good week, lots of volleyball and bicycling. This week, however, may be more of a challenge: four days out in Virginia with friends. In the past, I would probably have eaten 20 pounds of food or so in four days. This time, hopefully it will be much less. (I will confess to having donuts from Long's Bakery for breakfast. yum.)

I'm not tracking my calories – too many homemade meals to do accurately anyway – but I am trying to stay conscious of what I eat. The 8th will tell that story.

Either that or I'll be riding a century on the 7th. lol.

Weigh-in: Week 16, -1.6 pounds

This was more like what I was expecting. More exercise, less eating ... eventually it will develop into results. Next week should be good too: tonight I am supposedly playing four hours of volleyball (regular match, makeup match, subbing for two separate four-person teams).

Measurements did not go down, though ... what I figure is that for my waist, I'm slowly getting to the point where I can relax it completely. (Sucking in my stomach as a habit over the years of carrying excess weight leads to it not wanting to relax completely, and that can change it a half-inch or more.) My thigh probably did shrink and I just found the spot that is really the biggest to measure this time. When I did the Discovery Health Challenge, their book suggested that I measure my thigh three inches from the top of my knee, I think, so that I'd get a consistent measurement each time. I might do that, not sure ...

Additional measurements:
waist 39.5 (+0.25, -3.5 total)
thigh 23.375 (+0.125)

Problem

Well, not like you might think. I mean, the job thing, sure, but that's not a problem for right now.

The problem for right now is ... what's my reward? You know, for losing weight. It was going to be a Kindle (I think ems suggested this), but see, there's this thing about DRM, and mysteries (not the book kind), and Amazon not clearing them up for you.

Now, I'm not allergic to DRM like a lot of techies are – I mean, I have a 360, and of course the DRM is terribly executed there (it cost me hundreds of hours on Bejeweled, just as well, that achievement probably wasn't worth it anyway) – but I do have my limits. And I like to read. I have books from some of my college courses, probably even from when I was a kid. I might want to keep books for a while.

And when there are still all these limits around that Amazon doesn't really know about in the first place and can't clarify for you in the second, well ... I'll probably like the Kindle, and at some point in the future I'll probably want another one. If I can't be sure I can read my books on both devices (or on alternate devices) ... the last thing I need is another pile of outdated electronic crap in my house. (No, really. Would you like a 100-disc CD changer? How about a two-deck VCR? A 20-year-old analog TV?)

sigh. Back to the drawing board ... perhaps literally, now that I have Photoshop ...

Weigh-in: Week 15, no change

Well, something threw a wrench into my weigh-in plans, so this week, my weight is based off my last week's weight at home. It seemed as though my work weight in the afternoon had been about 6 pounds heavier than my home weight in the morning, but last week, I weighed 174.4 at home and 182 at work. I wrote it off to daily variation and figured this week would clear things up ... but now without a work weight, we'll just have to use home weights.

Obviously I did work out this week, and I was careful with my calories, so it might seem as though I should have lost weight ... but my home weight climbed up right after last Wednesday and has been gradually dropping down. I suspect I'd weigh about 180.5 this week at work if I went back to weigh in.

No matter. Even if this is less progress than I've made, if I keep working, the weight will drop from here.

Additional measurements:
waist 39.25 (down 3.75 overall)
thigh 23.25 (first measurement)

Epic ride

104.96. That's where the odometer stands today. (I may go back and recalculate the 64 miles, knowing that it was less than that, but anyway ...)

It was 64 on Monday morning. Decided to meet some friends and ride the Monon a ways. Now that I have this free time, I thought I'd ride out the 146th Street ridepath to the Monon and then down to meet them. No big deal, it's 8 miles from here to the Monon, so an extra 16. If we ride for 10-15 miles, that's 30 at most. I've done 30 before, but at a leisurely pace. Then again, I wasn't tired afterward, so I could do 30 quicker miles.

I set off at 3:45 or so, intent on beating the traffic. (Unfortunately, I have to cross 37. There's no bridge or underpass. not fun.) Cut across, up through a neighborhood, onto the ridepath. It's pretty good for the most part; quite a few driveways, six or seven intersections, but it's very doable.

And then I realized my error. We were meeting at 96th. It's 8 miles to 146th.

oops. So tack an extra 10 miles onto that trip, and now it's 40. Doable, probably, at least if I ride it carefully. So I use a little more caution, and I end up at the 96th trailhead at 5:30. The trip calculator says 13 miles in one hour at 12 mph. Right. I'm assuming the clock stops before the speed indicator does ... anyway, I wait as we gather. ems is caught up at work, so we leave a little later than planned. (This would be somewhat important later on; fortunately, not nearly the complication it could have been.)

So then we ride down to the Central Canal towpath and out toward Michigan. Not so much fun - it's considerably narrower and is light gravel over packed, hard dirt, because, well, it's a towpath. (Which is how things went up and down a canal in the old days. Not sure why it isn't paved now.) I say I need to turn around, we head back in the other direction, ems parts way so she can head home, and Candace and I head back to 96th.

I take a quick break, Candace goes back to her car, and I head home. First problem: it's somewhere in the neighborhood of 8:30. Dusk is falling soon, which means I should get off the Monon to avoid the magic barriers that close it. (joke.) Actually, it means I need to head home quickly, so that I'm not out in the dark with nothing to show myself by. Second problem: 13 miles again. No way can I make it in an hour.

I speed off up the trail, making really good time, but I can tell that my legs aren't as fresh as on the ride here, and the Monon heads generally uphill toward 146th. I clear the last hill and make it onto 146th. 9:00.

hmm. Oh well, the die has been cast. Off I go, watching traffic more carefully (right-turning traffic now approaches from behind me, making side roads more dangerous) and making better time, at least I think so.

146th is much more hilly than the Monon, though, and each hill seems higher than the last. I use the last of my water, feeling a little dehydrated (should have filled up at 146th), and push on.

As I cross intersection after intersection, I notice it's slowly getting dark, but it doesn't seem too bad ... until I realize my vision has adjusted well and it is dark. I can see headlights before I can see cars. And I have a black T-shirt, dark shorts, a dark backpack ... at least I have reflectors.

Allisonville is the first tough crossing, but I catch a break: no one turning right or left across my path. I struggle up the final hill, then back through the neighborhood.

The path ends on 141st, and now I must cross and ride on the road for half a block, then cross 37. I wait for a break in traffic, and again my luck holds: no cars approach from behind, and a car on my left waits to exit the frozen yogurt place until I pass.

Wait in the lane for the light to change ... on green, the car in front pauses for what seems like a minute. I can't accelerate yet lest I hit it, but I can't wait for long or else I'll never make it across. The car finally goes, and is turning right: another good sign. I am somewhat visible from the headlights behind me, and with the car turning in front of me, it has to slow down so I can catch up, and it slowly reveals me. I sprint across, onto the shoulder, and then onto the ridepath on the south side of 141st. (Another lucky break: no one waiting to exit the strip mall.)

The rest of the trip was easy. I pull into the driveway, open the garage, put the bike away, and ease inside. Change into comfortable clothes, refuel (Calorie Count says I burned 2000 calories: I won't be eating all that in one night) and rehydrate, put a hot water cat on my lap to soothe the muscles, and then head off to bed after the Advil kicks in.

Verdict: 40 miles in 5 hours of riding. Average speed on the 13-mile trip home: 11.7 mph. Time: 1:06:54. (Again, the time doesn't match the speed and distance.) Calories: 1415. (Yeah, I might believe that, but not without a monitor. I'll stick with 600 or so per hard hour of riding, thanks.)

I'm glad I did it, but won't do it again any time soon. My legs are a bit sore today, and I doubt I'd sit on the saddle very well. I still felt a touch dehydrated. We'll see how I feel tomorrow. (After the weigh-in. Hope this gets me back to making progress: I think my home weigh-in was too light for some reason, but it'll balance out eventually.)

Stanley Cup Finals, Game 7: Pittsburgh 2, Detroit 1

Well, yeah. So. Marc-Andre Fleury was not awful (actually, he was really good), Chris Osgood was not great, the Wings were not precise, the Pens were not rattled. (The Wings fans are booing, which is disappointing. I think they should simply be quiet.)

Malkin gets the Conn Smythe, easy choice. Crosby was neutralized most of the series and Malkin more than carried his share. (Including in PIM.)

Not sure what Babcock didn't get done this game. Seems like some of it was coaching, at least. Got to hand it to Bylsma, keeping Pittsburgh on track after a disastrous Game 5.

The five-year rule is still in effect, so that's really all I have to say. (And yes, that means I'm limited in what I say about the Wings until 2017.)

If you're a Pittsburgh fan, congratulations.

So.

Here we are again. For the second consecutive June 12, I have my time to myself again.

But what a change it's been. A year ago, my severance had run out and there weren't a lot of fish on my lines. This time, well ... I have a few more resources.

My boss is very, very angry. Basically, someone well up the chain decided that my position is no longer needed. Unfortunately for him, that's not the case, but unfortunately for me, right now his opinion is the only one that matters.

So he had to let me go. But he did very right by me. Our paths may cross again, should things turn around. If not, well, it was 11 very nice months, and I've learned a lot from working there. I also have more people I'm proud to call friends.

Monday, or perhaps a little later in the week, I'll be back on the hunt. For now, I'm watching a miserable hockey game ...

but hey, look at the bright side ... I've got lots of time for riding!

Weigh-in: Week 14, -1.5 pounds

A pretty good week this week, but that's to be expected considering that I rode 30 miles on Saturday and didn't crack 2000 calories once, not even on that Saturday. (Context: my target is 2000. Calorie Count estimates that I burn 2320 in a normal day, so from a metabolic perspective, I'd be losing about 0.6 pounds per week plus what I get from exercise.)

At home, I've finally dropped below 175. My waist is still in the neighborhood of 40", which actually is to my benefit in terms of a weight goal, because that suggests I still have a reasonable amount of fat to lose. I would guess I could get down to a 34" waist or so. 160 as a weight goal was somewhat in question, especially as a work weight, because of the weight I would add through muscle, but it seems as though I might get closer to 160 than I thought.

Not as much volleyball this week ... I've yet to play more than one match in a day, and we didn't get a full match in this week because we lost the first two games and couldn't stick around for a third. (Something to keep in mind: if you count team sports as expected exercise, keep in mind that you don't have as much control over the exercise you get ... especially if it's formal competition with a coach and everything. We don't have that.)

I think my summer appetite has arrived. Slightly bigger meals make me feel very full, and some days I just don't feel like eating a ton. If I keep riding and get back to the Y regularly (with hockey ending Friday, I should stop making excuses next week), I might be making some good progress the next few weeks. It'll be interesting to see what I look like for the family reunion in July.

Stanley Cup Finals, Game 6: Pittsburgh 2, Detroit 1

Once again, Pittsburgh won the game it had to win. This time, it was a one-goal game ... the Pens jumped out in the second, added an insurance goal in the third, and then clung to their lead for dear life as the Wings roared back.

The goaltending was pretty even: I thought Osgood played better overall, but he allowed a soft goal and a somewhat weak goal; Fleury gave up only one goal, a tough play that probably wasn't on him. (To be fair, without help from Scuderi and a post, it could been 2-2 in regulation ...)

Once again, the role players didn't contribute much. Staal is not quite a role play. Kennedy's goal definitely counts, but you could match that with Draper's first of the playoffs. There was one play where Crosby fought valiantly in his own end to blunt a Detroit rush, worked the puck free, laid it to center ice ... and watched as it slid to a Detroit defenseman. He can't be at both ends at once, guys.

The officiating was dreadful. Apparently Bettman has slept through the entire series, either that or Brian Burke is now in charge of officiating. They don't call anything any more: blatant trips/holds/obstructions ... at least it's terrible both ways, so the Wings don't have to stretch their weaker PK unit and the Pens can shut down Detroit's faster players, but still, if I wanted to watch '90s hockey, I'd break out the VCR.

Each team has defended home ice, and here we are ... for the first time in 54 years, Hockeytown will host a Game 7. (Believe it or not, that counts all three sports: the three seven-game series the Pistons lost and the '68 World Series all ended on the road.) Strangely enough, in 1955, the home team won the first six games as well.

Game 7, 1955? Detroit 3, Montreal 1. The Wings outscore the Canadiens by 7 in the Series and win back-to-back Cups against Montreal.

Detroit holds a four-goal edge over Pittsburgh in the series. Is a three-goal win possible? I'd say not, barring a cataclysmic breakdown, and the Pens already had that in Game 5.

I stick to my early prediction: Wings in 7. Detroit 2, Pittsburgh 1, Osgood gets the Conn Smythe.

NBC sucks

So ems texts me and asks me if I'm watching tennis on NBC. Of course I don't notice because I'm out of the room or whatever. So she calls, all excited, it's in the fifth set. I'm thinking hmm, Federer let Soderling hang around for two more sets? She says no, Federer's losing in the fifth set.

Whereupon I discover that she's watching last year's Wimbledon final. Except that she doesn't realize it. (She's not much of a tennis fan, so it's understandable she didn't pick up on details about the match.)

The problem is that Federer dispatched Soderling quickly, and of course the guide will show French Open Final for the entire time ... but instead of showing a crawl at the bottom of the screen to let you know what's going on (like every other network in the world would), or putting something up on the screen, NBC stupidly airs part of that match unedited ... complete with their "LIVE" text at the bottom of the score.

Why is this bad? Well, imagine that you don't know much about tennis, so you figure you'll watch the French Open for a bit. You tune in to see this. You don't know clay or grass or what, you don't know any of that, so you're watching this epic match, and all excited ... and then when it's over, NBC cuts back to Federer talking about the jackass fan. You don't realize what happened. In fact, you might be confused. Why is Federer smiling if he just lost? And if there's no one to explain it to you, it might discourage you from following the sport.

Okay, that's a lot of words. A better explanation? It's bad because it's clearly incorrect. That was absolutely not live. NBC should know better, except that they haven't done a good job on sporting events since they lost the AFC games to CBS. The only reason they do NHL games is because the NHL is desperate and NBC isn't paying rights fees, and they're doing the Olympics because they tricked the IOC into a long-term deal back before the IOC knew what it was doing. (I mean, not that they know now.)

So anyway, NBC Sports sucks. again.

Update: ESPN sent me a survey about tennis coverage. I told them "don't be like NBC", oh yes I did.

Stanley Cup Finals, Game 5: Detroit 5, Pittsburgh 0

Wow.

Okay, first of all, Pavel Datsyuk is not worth 3 goals per game. He's not. Second, you can't draw too many conclusions from a single game.

However, if you look at what happened in Games 1 and 2, and then look at this game, I just don't see how you can say Pittsburgh can win in this building. I'm not even sure they can beat Detroit in Game 6.

For the first few minutes, Pittsburgh played well, as they have in virtually every game. Kronwall took a silly penalty early in the first ... and the Penguins did not score. In fact, they didn't have many chances. The presence of Datsyuk on the penalty kill made a huge difference.

After one, it was 1-0 Detroit, with Kunitz in the box for a silly penalty (somewhat questionable). The Pens kill that off, and ... give up a goal on that shift, even-strength. That might not have been too bad, but then Gonchar took a dumb penalty, and it was 3-0. Malkin penalty, 4-0. Kunitz penalty, 5-0, and that was that.

Well, Pittsburgh had a few more penalties left in them, including 3 misconducts in the third period, and once again, they're lucky the NHL doesn't care about discipline - imagine if Malkin had been suspended for Game 3?

I'm not really sure how much of it was youth, how much was frustration, and how much was the realization that they simply aren't good enough yet. (They can still win, sure, but they're not the better team.) For that, you could forgive Crosby and Malkin a little frustration. If Hossa had stayed in Pittsburgh, this would be an even series at least, and with Datsyuk out, the Pens might have won it by now. But he went to Detroit, and right now, it looks like that was a good move.

I think Bylsma has to throw this entire game out. None of this ever happened. He has to tell the team that Datsyuk will be healthy for Game 6, so the Pens have to come out hard, keep the pressure on, take the lead, and hold on. Fleury has to be solid. One of the "grit" players has to step up. (That doesn't narrow it down much ... which is the problem with filling your roster with that kind of player.) I don't think Pittsburgh will take stupid penalties at home, but then I thought they'd come out tough today, and they only played 18 minutes of good hockey.

Emrick is talking about how the Wings have made statements against three teams this season: against San Jose twice, against Chicago twice, and now. I can't argue with that. The Wings showed how well they can play at home, and with one on the table if they need it, they've put up a pretty convincing case for their 12th Cup.

Stanley Cup Finals, Game 4: Pitttsburgh 4, Detroit 2

Better get this in before Game 5 starts ... it's a little more difficult because the 'p' on my keyboard doesn't want to work. No, really. Not sure what that's about ...

This is the game that I thought Pittsburgh would have in Game 3. Unfortunately, it means that the Penguins are the team with momentum coming into Game 5. The one positive thing Detroit can take from the game is that Pittsburgh had to win it: witness the 2008 Finals, when Detroit stole Game 4 and basically ended the series.

Having said that, it was the one game in the series so far where Pittsburgh clearly carried both the flow and the score. The second period was a series of Detroit mistakes and Pittsburgh goals ... something that the Wings could not do in Game 3, when Pittsburgh left the door open.

It's possible that Detroit is feeling the fatigue of the schedule, but somehow I don't know that this is any different than past years ... 4 games in 6 nights vs. 4 games in 7 nights on some occasions. Sucks a bit, but then Pittsburgh had the same schedule, and even if some Pens are younger than some Wings, Pittsburgh has older players too and they didn't seem to suck.

I also think it does a disservice to the game Pittsburgh played, implying that if the Wings were fresher they would have been toe-to-toe with Pittsburgh. (Now that entire part of the keyboard is going out. sigh. Probably a cord problem. Back to typing on the laptop itself.)

Detroit has laid eggs in the playoffs before, and they have the experience to put this behind them. Pittsburgh still has to win four of the last five games in the series, Detroit only had to win two. Win tonight, and they've got two chances to wrap it up. With Datsyuk coming back, I wouldn't bet against them.

Weigh-in: Week 13, -1 pound

The unofficial weigh-ins begin. I figured this would be a good week from what I'd seen at home, and I was right ... of course I've only lost 0.5 pounds over 2 weeks, but then it could be worse, right?

14 pounds in 13 weeks, just staying ahead of "even". Caught a tough break tonight in terms of weight loss: volleyball was rained out, so zero matches instead of three. Next week we make up our sixes rainout (well, one of them, that leaves this week to make up). Not sure what happens with ems' fours team.

Of course I ended up shopping instead – semi-necessary stuff, that is. Couldn't find our book for book club, but I did pick up a couple of classics (A Separate Peace and Of Mice and Men; I've read the former, don't think I've read the latter) and a teach-yourself-guitar program for the laptop. Then it was off to Costco, which wasn't my fault, it just happened to be on the way home from the bookstore, and I do need to go. (Razor blades. boo.) Now I need a chest freezer.

Looking forward to another good week ... if the rain keeps up, I'll have to hit the Y something fierce. After the Cup finals are over, of course!

Stanley Cup Finals, Game 3: Pittsburgh 4, Detroit 2

Well, nothing much really changed: the officiating was pretty bad (inconsistent calls at both ends, both refs and both linesmen inexplicably missing too many men on the ice for 20-30 seconds), neither team really played well, and the home team caught a couple of breaks and won. Or put another way, the visiting team did not make enough breaks for themselves.

The only thing that really surprised me was that it wasn't a blowout ... but then again last year's Game 3 wasn't either. Pittsburgh just isn't good enough to blow out Detroit unless the Wings flat-out collapse, and they've shown no signs of doing so. Case in point: two-on-one, Crosby draws the D and feeds ... Chris Kunitz, who whiffs badly on the shot.

Pittsburgh acquired too many "grit" players; granted, there weren't many Hossas around, and the one they had chose less money to play in Detroit, but still, they don't have enough talent around Malkin and Crosby. They can win this series, but they'll have to grind it out. No wonder Malkin was frustrated in Game 2 ... he just doesn't have the luxury of playing with the same talent that Zetterberg does.

Fleury was better in this game. I don't think either goal was really his fault, and he played well during the part where the Wings were basically holding Pittsburgh shotless.

Just like in 2008, this was a winnable game for Detroit, but they got outplayed. Hopefully Game 4 will also be like 2008.

Weigh-in 12: +0.5 pounds

Sorry, this is very late ... ems bugged me about it Friday or maybe even Thursday and I ended up forgetting again.

Anyway, this was the last of the official weekly weigh-ins. The next official one is the 24th, three weeks from tomorrow. We're doing unofficial weigh-ins weekly, to keep the rhythm going, so I'll continue to blog weekly.

My home numbers are staying pretty consistent, so I'm not too worried. As we getting into biking some more, that'll be more burned calories, plus I have three volleyball matches tomorrow (two of them are fours).

Overall, 13 pounds in 12 weeks. Mostly consistent, no really bad weeks, not the pace I'd hoped to set, but then again, I haven't tried to set a faster pace, so I'm getting out just what I'm putting in.

We'll see if I can drop 4-5 pounds a month ...

Stanley Cup Finals, Game 2: Detroit 3, Pittsburgh 1

Second verse, same as the first: two games, two nights, two wins, and the more things change, the more things seem to stay the same. The Penguins did manage to get on the board in both games, even taking the lead in Game 2, but they just don't have the talent to play with Detroit, and that's clear when you look at the job that the Wings have done on Crosby and Malkin. They're both special players, and Malkin has done an excellent job, all things considered, but Crosby has disappeared again ... he just can figure out what to do against the Detroit defense, and really, the other two lines aren't exactly helping (although to be fair, I guess Pittsburgh usually rolls three lines, so you can't expect the fourth-line guys to contribute).

The officiating was bad again. I guess there's been a directive from Gary Butt-man to roll the clock back 15 years ... if I squint, I can almost see Rangers-Canucks or Devils-Wings, complete with holding, grabbing, and interfering. Until the game was clearly over, at least there wasn't any bad physical stuff, and even at that point McCreary had to give the Wings a power play after Malkin threw his cereal on the floor and screamed. I mean, the second Detroit goal came after Hossa committed a couple of uncalled penalties, players are getting pulled down right in front of a ref with no penalty ... who knows what the series would be like if Pittsburgh's power play was on the ice?

The outburst by the Pens at the end was expected, I guess. Olczyk (former Pens head coach) in particular seemed to like it and trotted out the old "sending a message" line. And I always respond that the message is on the scoreboard. In a sense, it was really stupid of Malkin ... if he jams a finger on Zetterberg's head and can't play in Game 3, you know? But he was frustrated, and he probably felt this was the best way to express himself.

And like Anaheim and Chicago before them, the Pens can take their Philadelphia ways home with them. (The Flyers have been playing like that for 35 years or so and the NHL has practically embraced it, which is a shame. It's much better to watch talented teams playing hockey than to watch semi-talented teams playing rugby on ice.)

The Pens just can't compete with Detroit's depth, and at some point, the talking heads are going to have to acknowledge the job the Wings' defense has done. We heard the same blah-blah-blah about Kane and Toews, the two youngsters unlike anyone the Wings had played so far, and five games later, the Hawks were done.

Come on, Datsyuk and Draper, two of the three best defensive forwards on the Wings, have missed the first two games, and Detroit's won two two-goal games. How much more do they need to show to prove they're the better team by far? If Pittsburgh were missing Malkin and, say, Staal had missed the first two games, and Detroit were perfectly healthy, it might have been 4-0 and 5-0 like last year.

Pittsburgh has three games left, max. I think they'll split at home and lose Game 5 on Saturday.

Stanley Cup Finals, Game 1: Detroit 3, Pittsburgh 1

I'd love to give a more detailed recap, but frankly WTHR sucks balls and I can't do it. I still don't understand why they spent so much time giving us so little useful information. It was pathetic, really. (Especially when they actually went off the air for a bit, and not my satellite either: DirecTV had no signal to transmit. Embarrassing.)

And this is why networks are working themselves out of the sports business. For one thing, they cover sports so infrequently, they have to borrow guys (and gals) from the networks that do cover it. For another, they're at the mercy of the local stations: there are thousands of stories during NFL season about local affiliates screwing over the fans in various ways. Here, it wasn't NBC's fault that WTHR ruined the broadcast, but it happened nonetheless, and it reflects poorly on NBC.

You see, the networks used to be everything to everybody, and they still think they can do that. The problem is that for cable and satellite customers, specialized channels long ago eclipsed most of what the networks offer, and the irony is that digital channels will do the rest. Why bother to watch the regular weather on WTHR news when you can watch their weather channel 24/7?

The networks are just sheep any more, only bothering to feed people whatever the other networks seemed to have done well. I think if Fox decided to put on dead air between 8 and 8:30 on Thursdays, the others would follow suit because they'd think there must be something to it.

I never thought I'd look forward to Vs covering the Cup finals, but I guess I am now.

Anyway, the Penguins played well, but the Wings played better. We heard the same tired storyline as last season (Can the veterans hang with the young, fast Penguins, especially Crosby and Malkin?), and it played out pretty much the same as before. The Wings also have fast players (remember Helm's breakaway) and the Penguins also have old players, so let's put that one to rest. The Penguins have health and the Wings don't, that's about it ... but it was the Wings who had the depth (yet again) to win Game 1. Lidstrom played only a little bit under his usual numbers, and Babcock was able to roll four lines the whole game.

The extreme lack of penalty calls might favor the Pens a little (or not - Detroit's penalty kill has been atrocious so far), but aside from that, unless Bylsma has something up his sleeve for Game 2, we're going to see a repeat of last year's Finals.

I have to admit that I didn't think Detroit would make it this far when the playoffs started, but honestly, they've just done the same things they did last season. The talking heads want this to be an exciting series and want Pittsburgh's young guns to carry the day (everyone loves an underdog), but I just don't see it yet.

Game 2 tomorrow night. A Detroit win forces the Pens to win four of five; a Pittsburgh win means the Penguins can hold serve to win the series.

WTHR = Worst Television Here. Really.

Why does local TV suck so much these days? Example #1472: all throughout the first period, WTHR keeps breaking in to tell us that there are tornado warnings and severe thunderstorm warnings.

Oh no, that's not the bad part. That's actually helpful. The problem is that they don't show where the warnings are in effect! All they do is show us where the storms are. No boxes on the screen, no text at the bottom ... the idiot announcer doesn't even say them himself! But he'll keep us posted throughout the game. Oh joy.

I get 10 times this information from websites and other channels, and frankly, with the digital channels available, if this is the best WTHR can do, they should just take their entire weather department off the air. Stick them on 13-4 or whatever it is and leave the rest of us in peace.

Winner winner chicken dinner

At Discover Card, blah blah blah. We are sorry to see that you fail to use our crappy card with our crappy service. We are closing your account.

I WIN!

P.S. Don't worry, the credit line was quite small compared to the credit that I have. I doubt it will make much of a splash, and if it does, I don't care. They have always sucked.

P.P.S. I win.

So there

ESPN's Sheldon Burnside has a nice little post about the NHL playoff schedule.

You remember the NHL? No? Oh, well, there was a playoff game on Tuesday. There's another tonight, but in the other conference. Don't worry, we'll get there eventually.

I posted a long reply ...

Back in the day (early to mid '90s), games were every other night until the series was over, and it was great. You knew when each game of the series was, good series got to keep the momentum going, and the best series seemed to end too soon.

Now, particularly during the conference and Stanley Cup finals, it's easy to forget that hockey is still going on, especially when it's on a third-tier network (at best).

The NHL's excuse about breaks is ridiculous ... if anything, spacing out games makes it even more likely you'll wait forever for the next series. If the Wings sweep the Hawks and the Pens-Canes series goes 7, Detroit will be waiting 9 days just for the series to end, never mind for the Finals to begin! Game 4 of the East is 2 days after Game 4 in the West.

A good commissioner would regain control of the schedule and tell the minor networks how it's going to be. Vs doesn't have that much that it needs to show, and the ratings for NHL playoff games are bad anyway ... of course on a real network like ESPN, there would be options other than delaying by days (moving a game to ESPN2, News, Classic, whatever).

Of course this one is too concerned with not letting THAT MAN have an NHL franchise to care. Hey, it's the same guy who thought fans would come streaming back after the lockout. Why expect anything better from him?

Weigh-in 11: -1.5 pounds

Not exactly a breakthrough, but that could be coming ... on the other hand, it matches my weight loss from the last three weeks combined.

This time, I really only changed two things. One was that I was careful about what I ate on the weekend: Friday through Sunday, I ate about 5300 calories, compared to 6900 calories the week before. Granted, those are estimates, but that's about half a pound right there.

The other was that I bought a bike. I determined that the bike in my garage that was the result of drunk shopping was not likely ever to meet my needs, so ems, candace and I went to the store. I played Uncertain Customer while they were Inquisitive and possibly Future Customers. I left with a lighter wallet and a better exercise plan.

In fact, the plan started almost immediately. With no bike racks in stock (good weather = bike-buying season), they couldn't give me an easy way to get the bike home, and Civic Hybrids are not made for carrying any kind of cargo. Fortunately, the bike shop was 1.8 miles from home. (I drove it that night to check out the distance.) I raced for home as ems and candace followed, meeting me at my place so we could go out to eat and then gather cars afterward.

So ... here's this 40-something in a polo shirt, jeans, and loafers, riding a new bike on secondary roads to his house. The last time I rode a bike was, hmm ... something with a 9 in it. Probably two of them. I mean, balance and such was no trouble, and it was late enough that traffic wasn't bad (I figured if my first ride was on the road, anything after that would be easier), but still, it wasn't my finest performance.

I made it home and had time to catch my breath before we ate. I did a bit too much sprinting (not in quite the right gear at times, I'm afraid), but it was fun. We're going riding tomorrow and Sunday, and I'm looking forward to it.

Work weight of 180, here I come ...

Ooh, and I almost forgot. They had a nutritionist here yesterday and I got my blood pressure taken. 124 over 88, which doesn't sound that good (it isn't, borderline hypertension if you take it at face value), but the last couple times I took it at the in-store kiosks, it was higher than that.

Stalking teh innernets, update

So, a few weeks ago, I made another attempt to get a short-term gig writing stuff on demand to be torn apart by internet sports fans.

Turns out I didn't make the cut. Email was sent to the ten finalists this morning. Assuming they all accept, then the contest has begun, and I am not in it.

There are a couple of possibilities. One is that at least one contestant is a raging moron, declines the opportunity, and I happen to be 11th on the list. (Not likely.)

The other is that there are some people who didn't make the cut, but may get honorable mention and a one-time flash of spotlight. That is barely possible.

I'm not holding my breath. I feel like I wrote poorly for the contest anyway, I always feel that way. Oh well, better to have writer's block/remorse/whatever as part of a hobby than as part of a job ...

Random thoughts

• On the way to work today, I saw a GMC Yukon with US Government plates (cool) ... and an EPA sticker in the lower left (huh?) ... and EPA on the plate itself.
  Really? A Yukon? How about a Highlander hybrid, or maybe an Escape hybrid? What exactly are you protecting?
• A nice article a few days ago on ESPN.com by Pedro Gomez about cheaters and the Hall of Fame. Sometimes it seems obvious, but it's good to hear it in the "mainstream" media. You cheat, you're out. No questions asked.
• On a similar note, E.J. Hradek strongly disagrees with the NHL's decision to remove the suspension on Scott Walker. Maybe the league wouldn't be such a joke if it decided to penalize thuggy behavior and cheap-shot artists.
  Sure, there are the marginal fans who watch hockey only for fights, but honestly, the sport is better off without them. You don't see NASCAR catering to the crash fans, do you?
• Peggle is fun.
• Game 7s are much better when your team wins.
• So has the NBA orchestrated the Lakers-Cavs Finals yet, or am I asking too soon?

Weigh-in 10: -0.5 pounds

Three straight weeks ... on the one hand, I think I'm limiting my caloric intake reasonably. It looks like I'm down to about 2150 calories a day, assuming that I need about 2400 to maintain my current weight. (Sometimes being a guy is nice: higher metabolism, more calories needed.)

On the other hand, Calorie Count thinks I should be around 2000 calories a day, which would cut out about one additional pound every three weeks. Also, the exercise has been tapering off. I keep finding excuses not to work out, although honestly it's almost always poor planning on my part.

Today it's not my fault, though. I will get to exercise, just not as much as I'd planned. With the rainout, instead of volleyball, I get a Y workout. And by volleyball I mean one fours match with one extra (at most) and one sixes match, possibly with extras ... but in any event, lots of cardio. Oh well.

Next week, I have the week of syzygy: volleyball, ColdFusion meeting, and homeowners' association meeting, all at once (literally - it's not even like I could go from a to b to c), and on a day where I have SQL class during the day and then have to drive down here for weigh-in afterward. yuck. It'll probably be the homeowners' meeting. I've lived there almost seven years and haven't been to one yet.

Volleyball will help, that's extra cardio on Wednesdays, especially if I ever do sub on the fours team. I just need to plan my days better, that's all.

And get my bike fixed, for reals. Then I can go riding with my readers. (Isn't that cool? For all you know, it would look like the Tour de France ... well, it will anyway, but more like the time trials than a normal leg.)

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

So, while the business world continues to beat at my brain, the "outside" world is having a go at me.

Tonight is volleyball, which means we owe money. Fine, I'll bring a check or my checkbook ... except that of course I was running late and I forgot to bring it.

Okay, so I'll go out at lunch and get cash. Fortunately, B ended up going somewhere else and I didn't have her get me something. That would have been awkward at 6:00 when I had 30 minutes to get to the match on a 30-minute trip with little gas in the tank.

Well, I filled up, finally found a non-Chase ATM (not only does Chase suck in general, but the branch where I'd go has about four entrances, only one of which leads to the ATM machine. I tried the other three last time and gave up) ... and suddenly remembered that when my old debit card expired, I set a new PIN on the new one.

No idea what it was, and I didn't want my card eaten, so I gave up and came back to work. I can reset it online ... except I changed my password recently and couldn't remember it. So I had to reset that password to log in to reset the PIN. Which I did.

Now I can go get money. maybe. Normally, I manage this stuff well, but man, when I forget the wrong thing ...

One website, extra fail

So the e-commerce site on which I'm working is in "beta" now, and by "beta", I mean whatever comes before alpha. (I know the Greek alphabet, I rushed a fraternity once. Hey, they had free beer. The irony was that I wouldn't have made grades even if I'd got in.) Small company, no testing department, a language not well suited to unit testing (well, two languages) ...

I'm working through the first round of bugs and tracking them in JIRA (we took advantage of the Stimulus Package offer, a five-user license for $5), and one of them was a tricky one, or so I thought.

Like most places, you can register before or after you order, whichever you like. Unlike most places, we want to require all information because we have a very limited customer base and need to be able to get in touch with them for important things like pricing and confirmation. Thus, when they submit the registration form, I wanted to indicate which fields had been omitted (in case they weren't sure). Easy enough, I'll just highlight the label next to the field, like so:

Username:

Except it didn't work. No matter what I checked, the page refused to highlight the missing labels in red.

Today, I figured it out. You see, computers are very good at doing what you tell them to do. If you're very good at programming, they do exactly what you tell them to do, regardless of any differences between what you said and what you meant. (I like to think of them as having the mindset of disgruntled twelve-year-old boys: don't tell them to pour a glass of milk unless you also say "in the glass".)

In this case, I was telling it to highlight the field in red, not the label, so it did ... and I had no way to see this in practice, because the only way to tell was if there was text in the box (to turn red), and if there was text in the box, then it wouldn't be an error and wouldn't be marked as such ...

d'oh.

And to think I'm working on my master's. (That reminds me, I need to get moving on that application. Yeah, I do like not having any homework ...)

Weigh-in 9: -0.5 pounds

Sorry for the late post ... decent progress last week. Definitely reasonable for maintaining a lower weight, and also considering the work I've (not) been doing, but not exactly on target for August.

I mean, I'm not far behind – my weekly pace should be 1.6 pounds – but it doesn't take too many weeks behind pace to really mess you up. (It's like a project.)

So ... part of it is that I'm difficult to motivate. And lazy by nature.

I need to work on that. I did go to the gym last night, and I tried interval training ... I just don't have the stamina to go as hard as I'd like for the intervals. 2 minutes on, 2 minutes off for 30 minutes (starting and ending off to make it work in 30 minutes). Decent workout, probably better than if I'd done my usual.

I need to get my heart monitor fixed (the receiver definitely needs a new battery, the transmitter might as well). The funny thing is that the closest repair place is in Ann Arbor. Of course it's not worth an 8-hour round trip, and I'm not going there until July, which is far too long to wait. Oh well. At least I know where to find them if there are any problems.

Strung out on Crystal Light

"You look exhausted."

I think I do a lot. I figured it was just my eyes. But yeah, I was dragging all day yesterday. The sleep I was getting didn't seem to be helping enough, and I couldn't figure out why.

Then later that day, one of the bloggers I regularly read posted about how she was changing from Diet Coke: aspartame to Diet Coke: Splenda. That made me curious, so I looked up the caffeine on this handy-dandy page.

And as I was looking (it's a difference of 11 mg, by the way, with the Splenda version having less caffeine), I came across this gem:

Crystal Light Energy 16 120 7.50

(That's ounces, milligrams, and, well, mg/oz.)

Hey, that's funny. I drink Crystal Light Energy. More than one, sometimes. (For the sake of comparison, Diet Mountain Dew has 55 mg.)

oh ho. Now it becomes clear.

Take two Wild Strawberries (that's the brand above), a Citrus Splash (80 mg), and a Peach Mango Green Tea (50 mg), and no wonder I have trouble sleeping now.

Part of the problem is that Crystal Light pulls the same half-container crap that soft-drink manufacturers pull: according to them, Wild Strawberry has 60 mg caffeine "per serving." Sorry, we may be friends but you may not share my bottle.

So now I have to scale that back. I was wondering why sometimes I'd drink 100 ounces of water or more and still be thirsty ...

No Consequences League

Here's proof.

No suspension.

I suspect part of it is that they didn't want to "hurt" the Ducks' chances. No word on whether the tactics of a player like Brown hurt the Wings' chances. Franzen's postseason struggles last season were largely caused by a blow to the head. The Wings were lucky. (Feel free to look up any number of NHL players who were forced to retire due to head injuries. I would guess few, if any, were the result of legal hits, because, you know, it's illegal to hit someone in the head.)

That's why you have teams like the Ducks and Flyers. Why bother to follow the rules if you don't ever have to pay?

Wings 1, Thugs 0

And so it begins ...

So here is a guy who was averaging almost 5 PIM a game for Vancouver (you'd think Crawford was still coaching there). Anaheim acquires him, and surprisingly he drops to "only" 2ish a game. I'm sure Carlyle had a talk with him ...

After picking up a mere three minors in six games against San Jose, he nearly triples that on a single cheap shot to Jiri Hudler's head. The only question was whether the stick was involved, or if it was simply a straight elbow.

To the referees' credit, Brown was summarily ejected: major plus misconduct, which IIRC means an automatic review. He'll probably get a one-game suspension. (It's his third misconduct of the season, but the other two were fighting-related, one for instigation.)

He should get a 20-game suspension. Guys like Brown and teams like Anaheim are the main reason why the NHL is what it is today. Instead of prattling about how it's the instigator rule that is mysteriously causing all this, the NHL needs to sit with the NHLPA (which needs to remember it represents the injured as well as the thugs) and put an end to this behavior.

You would have thought that the McSorley and Bertuzzi incidents would have been enough, but no. Apparently the NHL is waiting for a player to be carted off in a coffin. That sounds like hyperbole, and I really hope it is, but if they do not make the penalty for intentional blows to the head severe enough to stop the behavior, it's going to happen.

Teams like Anaheim, Philadelphia, and Calgary have been doing this for years, and Bettman hasn't seen fit to address it. (Obviously it wasn't going to change with Brian Burke in charge of "discipline". Toronto was 16th in PIM this season. I wouldn't be surprised if they were in the top 5 in 09-10.) We saw what happened the last time his hand was forced ... or maybe we didn't because we can't find Vs.

Weigh-in 8: -0.5 pounds

So, I have a confession to make. I'm falling into the same old traps. I'm being a bit more careful about what I'm eating, but I'm not really exercising much, and I suspect I'm eating more than I should. As a result, I really haven't dropped much this month, and the only reason I have is because I had the one good "week" right after my first bad week.

We talked a lot about this at book club tonight, and honestly, for me it's two things. One is that heart, I really am selfish, which means that I really don't care that much about what you think of me. I mean, I try to do the right thing and be a good guy and all, but ultimately it's not because I want you to think better of me. This kind of defeats accountability.

The other is that I'm really difficult to motivate. When I put my mind to something, it gets done. There are plenty of examples I can show for that. However, if I don't put my mind to it ... see, I think the root cause is that I've already achieved my main goal in life. Odd as it may seem, ever since I was a kid, all I wanted was to get out of my parents' houses and be self-sufficient. So, I did. That kind of defeats most reward systems ... that and the fact that I'm not terribly careful with my money. If I want something and it's reasonable, I probably already have it. If it's not reasonable, it's probably not something that should be a reward.

See, it's not that I'm difficult, it's that I don't make anything easy.

I'll get there. I know it's important to be healthy. I'd love to reach my goal weight. I vaguely remember what it was like to be that light. I just have to figure out how best to motivate me ...

No service needed

So, now that real spring is here, it gets warm. I remembered this during the day, wearing shorts and a T-shirt and having the ceiling fan on, but I forgot at night.

Sometime around the second period of the Anaheim-San Jose game, I remembered again. Looked at the thermostat. 80 degrees.

oops. I like it closer to 75 when I'm sleeping. Oh well, late night. I turn on the AC and go back to the game.

Fast forward an hour or so ... getting ready for bed, about to scoop the cat boxes, when I go through the hall and see ... 80 degrees.

hmm. How long ago did I turn on the AC? More than a minute, right?

Uh-oh.

Fortunately, I remember the last time this happened. I call for service, the guy comes out, gets the AC working, and tells me "see this? The fan blades weren't moving. Pretty much all I did was stick a screwdriver in there and knock them loose. If this happens again, try that first and save yourself some money."

So I did. And it seems to be working ... well, at least the compressor is running. The fan seems to be running, although a little weakly. And it's 90 minutes later, which means it'll take that much longer to cool down ... mind you, I enjoy my Facebook time, but I'd rather not be spending it now ...

I love it

Follow-up on Commodore: he was the one cross-checking Hudler through the crease while Franzen came in behind him, unmarked, to score the series-winning goal.

Mark it down to inexperience. Someone has to be responsible for keeping that player on the bench just in case, well, a Wing clears the puck right to the extra guy on the ice.

I just hope it's not Anaheim next. I hate them.

Weigh-in 7: +0.5 pounds

No big surprises here: I didn't exercise much, I had at least one evening (poker night) where I wasn't as careful as I could have been (although I was pretty good), and I didn't get as much sleep as I should. I didn't do what I needed to do and the results bore that out.

Then again, I wasn't particularly good and almost maintained. It's possible I could have another 3.5-pound week next week. Also, my home numbers have stayed the same or dropped a touch, and I lost another &14frac; inch from my waist, which is really my big concern. If my waist gets down to where it ought to be (which is, um, I don't know ... 34?), we'll see where my weight and body fat are.

Overall, I earned what I got and I'm not too worried. I feel good about the choices I've been making ... while the contest only runs through August (I can't win the February prize, so I'm not that worried about that part; if we get a reward for maintaining at or below our goal weight, that's a little different), this is more about changing life habits, and so far that's working out pretty well for me.

Ha ha

Want to know why "tough guys" like Mike Commodore are a liability to the teams that have them?

In a thirty-second span, Commodore dove into the Red Wings' bench trying to check someone, then stayed behind his own net trying to give Franzen the business ... while Zetterberg was in the slot firing the puck past Mason.

Low points, high PIM, average +/- ... sounds like a typical Calgary player.

There are quality players who also have a physical aspect to their games, but there are a lot of guys taking up space on NHL rosters who are helping to keep the league a second-tier league, and it's a shame. (Of course, part of that is from GMs like Brian Burke - the fact that he was once the guy in charge of suspensions is about all you need to know about the current state of the league - and coaches like Marc Crawford ... if you play for a guy like that, you're going to learn cheap hits or you're not going to play.)

Sure, my opinion might be biased because I'm a long-time Detroit fan, but it should be pretty obvious now that you can build a very successful team that doesn't have many thugs on it, yes?

Stalking teh innernets

Last year, Football Outsiders auditioned for a new guest writer. I entered the competition, but did not win, perhaps because the editors looked at my screen name and realized that linking the Lions and FO would be a bad move at that point. Technically, it would be an indirect link, because I would have posted under my real name – no, I haven't changed it yet, people can't spell zlionsfan any better than they can spell my last name, so not only would I not change it, I'm still hoping that someone like Angie Harmon comes to her senses and falls madly in love with me so I can marry her and take her name – but now you've made me ruin the joke by explaining it. Thanks.

Anyway, Baseball Prospectus is doing a similar thing this year: basically, an online writer's version of American Idol. Casting call, 10 writers chosen. Write on a selected topic each week, subscribers vote, lowest-ranking person is removed, repeat as needed. This one's a little different in that it pays $1000 plus $75 per article to the winner. (I'm guessing the $75 kicks in after you win. No back pay.)

I have no illusions. I have an excellent command of English, I'm a huge sports fan and a decent writer, but those don't necessarily produce what people want to read, and if I can't get through the initial gate, well, the rest won't matter. Submissions are due by next Wednesday, so I suppose I'll find out a week or so after that.

It's too late to wish me luck. I've already submitted my article. :) Not that it should come down to luck anyway. I'd rather get the gig because I'm the best writer in the group ... if I don't get this, there's always Puck Prospectus for hockey ...

Weigh-in 6: -1 pound

Strange result this week. It looked like I was going to gain up until Tuesday or so, at least at work. At home, Wii Fit had me pretty much level, although it was hard to say because I missed a couple of days. (I'm definitely getting a dethatching tool at some point, and by "tool", I mean "machine".) And I may have affected the outcome by not eating as much at work. But still, it was another pound.

Next up: increasing my cardio work. A bit longer each time, plus more consistent visits to the Y (so I can keep that discount). Once I get that down, I'll probably drop off the cardio here and there to work in more weight training.

Didn't get the free lunch at Applebee's, though ... ha ha, too bad last week's result didn't count toward that!

Circus baseball

Watching the Angels-Red Sox game, hoping Josh Beckett can put up some fantasy points for me.

Bottom of the first, runner at second, one out. Abreu calls time, for some reason the home plate ump grants time as Beckett is in his motion, so Abreu backs up and the ump signals time ... but Beckett has nowhere to go, and ends up throwing pretty close to Abreu's head. (Which is, in part, because hitters have been setting up on the plate for the last 20 years and not one umpire has ever taken the initiative to enforce the batter's box rule.)

So of course Abreu cries, Beckett walks toward him to explain something, or to tell him to suck it, or whatever, and of course the benches empty, because baseball players are more than willing to avoid being disrepected as long as it doesn't involve actually fighting.

And the umps separate them.

And then as they are separated and sent to their respective dugouts, someone on the Angels starts yapping again, and the benches clear again ... and then there is more yapping ... and more yapping ... and then Torii Hunter is ejected (although that was by Joe West, so it could have been for looking at him funny) ... and then there is more yapping, and finally everyone has been sent back to their dugouts, and we can play again.

Doubtless this would happen much less often if umpires actually enforced rules pertaining to the batter's box, which tends to lead to a lot of these root causes, or possibly if they would have better rules for calling time ... but it's like a basketball game where you start seeing a lot of hard fouls. That usually happens when players get away with a couple of early ones (either uncalled fouls or flagrant/intentional fouls that are not called as such) and the refs suddenly realize what happens when you decide to ignore things in the rulebook.

At least all the Angels doing the ump-directed yapping were ejected (Scioscia, the hitting coach, Speier, and Hunter). I mean, it wasn't like Beckett threw at Abreu with no extenuating circumstances. (That's another thing that needs to be changed, once they fix the Charley Lau syndrome: no more Pedros. Hitting a batter should be the equivalent of a card. Hit one, you're at least warned. Hit two, or one in the head or certain other ways, you're gone, no questions asked. Make a habit of it, and you'll earn some time on your own.)

sigh. Baseball could be much better, except that the commish is a dumb owner, the umps pretty much refuse to improve (although they're better than they were), and the players are still kind of the same group that were responsible for the Roid Days.

XM

Today, I got another reminder of why satellite radio has a dim future, at least under its current providers. (Usually, I think about things like DJs who WON'T. SHUT. UP. Because, you know, that's what we loved most about terrestrial radio, so we really need that on XM/Sirius. Or combining forces to save money and then still being unable to provide a full lineup.)

I was heading out to feed Evil Cat and trying to listen to the Tigers' pregame show on XM. Unfortunately, the wires they set up to pick up the Detroit feed must have been crossed, because I couldn't clearly hear the people talking ... there was a hard-rock station playing in the background. When the game started, they must have got that fixed, because it wasn't a problem.

Sometime in the bottom of the second, though, the signal just went dead. I checked the other stations - no problem, so it must be the feed. Of course, XM/Sirius just puts on a few extra commercials for their own stuff, just seeing if we notice. (Yes, we do.)

Eventually, after 5 minutes or so (when we should already have been in the third inning), they change the text to read "Tech Difficulties." (Another thing I don't like: they never use more than half of the text area on my display.) o rly?

In the bottom of the third, the signal comes back ... well, not really. It's the Rangers' feed. Okay, whatever. (Obviously, it would be smart to do what DirecTV does, and carry both home and away feeds, particularly when you think about all the channels they have and what they're not using. So they don't.)

Then, in the top of the fourth, we finally get the Tigers' feed back. Except that when they break for station identification, XM/Sirius plays the clip of Ron Washington telling us we're listening to the Rangers' radio network on XM.

When my contract expires in October, I'm renewing for the shortest possible amount of time. Hopefully whatever replaces XM/Sirius will work with what's in my car.

Weigh-in 5: -3.5 pounds

We had a team lunch today: healthy crock-pot enchiladas and a nice make-your-own salad, complete with fat-free croutons and real bacon bits. I'm the only afternoon weigh-in on the team, so while everyone else was enjoying the food, I was a little careful. (Not much, though. I don't really focus a lot on the scale itself, other than within an hour or so of the time, and then only to ensure I don't drink a pound of water right before I go in.)

Good thing, too, because as 5:00 drew near, my team had gained 1.75 pounds, with just two of us left to weigh in. No pressure. (Well, I did gain last week ...) I felt pretty comfortable, though, because I'd worked out last night and had eaten carefully most of the week. My weight the day before was around -2, so I figured I'd lose a pound, 2 at most.

But no. The scale shot up to 188 and held steady (it's a digital scale and usually goes right to your weight, with maybe an occasional .5 here or there). Down 3.5 from last week ... so for competition's sake, it was an excellent week. Right now, I'm tied for fifth this week with two people yet to weigh in. Subway, here we come! (Plus 45 cents, of course. 7% tax + 2% local, whee.)

A more realistic view is that I lost 3 pounds in two weeks, which is basically right where I've been to this point (10 pounds in 5 weeks, 4 pounds that first week). Maybe last Tuesday or Wednesday wasn't as good as it should have been, and it just affected me on the scale that day.

Plus, I tempted fate by stopping at Starbucks afterward (light tall caramel frappuccino, which was made more difficult by the fact that the Starbucks guy thought my friend was saying "white" instead of "light"), but even with whip, it's only about 300 calories. And it was worth it.

So. 20% in, 26% of my goal to date. Yo, more of the same, dude.

Weigh-in 4: +0.5 pounds

So, not my best effort ... but if you will indulge me, I did have two unexpected events this weekend, and I did choose poorly at times when I was there.

On the other hand, I was "too tired" to work out Monday night. (I did nap for about 90 minutes, but it wasn't like I couldn't have pulled out Wii Fit afterward.)

Besides, I know that I'm making progress. One of the things about weighing myself in the afternoon (we have morning and afternoon weigh-ins to catch people on either side of the workday; I pick afternoon because getting here early is not my idea of fun) is that I know it'll be more variable: what I had for lunch, how I've been drinking water, etc. But when I weigh myself at home, it's in the morning, and I do use Wii Fit often enough that it gives me a decent picture.

Still, it would have been nice to hold steady last week ... then again, I weighed myself here at work this morning, and I was 3.5 pounds under what I weighed yesterday. :)

pause for breath

So, continuing my weekend of excitement, Saturday was my fantasy baseball draft. (Non-sports fans may wish to skip ahead ... search for the words "parking lot".) This is the fourth year I've been in this league, I think. 25 players per team, $350 in auction money to use. $2 per transaction after 7 or so, I think, and the pot divided among the top three teams. In the past, it was AL-only or NL-only, alternating years, but this year, we had 12 people, so we did an MLB league. Roto scoring, but with a nice mix of categories: R, HR, RBI, net steals, fewest K, TB, AVG, OBP, SLG for hitters, IP, W, fewest L, SV, K, HLD, lowest ERA, lowest WHIP, K/BB. Lots of fun.

The draft tends to run quite a while because of the depth of the league: in the past, the late rounds dragged on because we had a shallow pool from which to draw. No such problem this time (for example, my 25th and final guy was Manny Parra).

But it would not be a normal draft. At around 6 or so, the power went out. Hey, just a blip, right? Well, no. It was the power in the whole building, so no more wireless connection. We pack up our laptops and move to the room with the most windows to finish the draft. (It actually went more quickly once most people were down to $1 bids, plus none of us wanted to run out of battery power. No problem for me, with power-saver mode – thanks, Vista – and a spare battery in my pack.)

So we get done around 7 or 7:30, most of the guys head out, and the rest of us go out to the parking lot. One says to me "Hey, that isn't your car, is it?"

yep. it's mine. That's never a good thing.

Flat tire, right front. (So at least I knew I hadn't driven down on it.) They jack up the car and put the spare on while I call Honda to see if I can get someone out here ... but it turns out there's just a nail in the tire, so I can probably get it patched and get back on the road, no need for a tow (the spare was fine). I cancel the service call, and two of the guys go on their way, while a third hangs out for a bit to see what to do.

We decide to head to BWW just down the road, so we can use the wireless to check for an AutoZone and check out the Pitt-Villanova score. It turns out there's one about a mile away, so we cash out and head down there to see if they can fix it for us.

Well, they don't fix tires, and unfortunately there wasn't another place open at that hour who could, but they did sell Fix-a-Flat. So I get a can of that, we jack up the car again and switch the tires, and in goes the magic glue. We head down the road a couple miles and check the tire: not so bad. I fill up the tire to 32 psi, and then it's time to decide ...

1. Head home Saturday on the previously-flat tire.
2. Head home Saturday on the spare.
3. Spend the night in Cincinnati, get up Sunday and get the tire fixed, then head home.

Obviously, the safest option is 3. However, Sunday's game tips off at 2:20. Odds of me getting to Indy in time for the game with a new tire? Somewhere between 0 and a very small number. (If necessary, I could have my friend stop at my place and pick up the tickets, and then I could meet them downtown. Assuming someone had a key. Otherwise, it would be exactly 0 chance.)

Also, I mentioned Cincinnati. And now it's 9:15 or so. There really aren't ways to get home from there without interstate travel, and on a spare?

So I pick #1. We decide on this plan: take 275 to my friend's exit and stop at a gas station. If the tire looks bad, we try to fill it; if it holds, repeat the process till I get home. If it looks good, I head home. Fortunately, that section of 275 is under construction, so going 50 was no big deal.

Paying attention to the tire was difficult, though, because Villanova was trying very hard to knock out my final Fracas team. Fortunately, the tire held out, even though the Panthers didn't. I send my friend on his way with effusive thanks and get back on the road.

Three hours later, I'm home. No problems at all from the tire, but driving all that way with my flashers on, waiting to feel the car pull to the right, well ... I was tired. Said hi to the cats, cleaned up, grabbed a snack, went online, and then off to sleep.

The alarm went off about 10:30 or so. I guessed correctly that I'd need to be ready by 11:30, but I also was still tired, plus I had a cat on my pillow, guarding my head, so we stayed in bed and listened to Prairie Home Companion for a bit. Got a call from ems, talked to her for a while, checked Facebook, confirmed travel plans, got cleaned up and ready to head downtown again.

Oh yes. The weather is now miserably cold and wet. woo. We go downtown, park in the garage (the wrong one, I could have put us a couple blocks closer), and head to the stadium. coldcoldcoldcoldcold.

We get nachos (I got a whole order this time and ate almost all of it, oh yes I did) and sat down to enjoy the game.

and wow. A great game for about 30 minutes, until MSU decided to pull away ... it's hard to describe what it was like to be in the Michigan State section, while maybe 30,000 fans are rooting for Louisville and maybe one-fifth of that are rooting for the Spartans, and watching the lead get bigger and bigger ... Louisville couldn't do anything to stop it. wow.

So after seeing all that, we spend the next hour or so figuring out how to get a car to the stadium to pick up people who aren't suited to two-mile walks in cold, windy weather (answer: don't know. we sure couldn't find a good path). Then it was off to Castleton BWW, where we figured we could find a seat and get some food. Of course, being Castleton BWW, the service was inadequate and the food was mostly right, but we did get seated immediately. There was this game on, you know.

And so now I've got to get a couple of new tires (unfortunately I was only about halfway through these), but hey, it could have been a lot worse.

Also, I need to sleep. Maybe tomorrow night.

Lucky

There have definitely been parts of my life that have not been particularly smooth, some of them not my fault, but I will say that I am one of the luckiest people I know.

Today at work, I'm on the phone with ems, brilliantly failing to convey whatever's left of my physics knowledge (apparently now we're getting to concepts that I fell asleep to in the big lecture halls at Purdue), and the help desk coordinator asks if there are any NCAA fans here.

uh, yeah. trick question.

Then she says okay, there's one?

hmm. curious. I tell ems I'll call her back.

Help Desk lady says, do I want two tickets for tonight?

umyes. please.

Our Verizon rep had called (we are in the process of switching to Verizon from Sprint) and had tickets. I'm in, I have a good friend who's an MSU fan, done.

Oh wait. Actually, there's four tickets.

Oh wait. Actually, it's for both sessions.

alrighty then. Instead of trivia and hoops at BWW, it's live action at Lucas Oil Stadium. Louisville crushing Arizona and a nailbiter between MSU and Kansas, thankfully with the "good guys" winning. (I still have difficulty rooting for MSU - you can take the boy out of Ann Arbor and all that - but Kansas cost me about $1400 in missed profits in 1991 and I will never forgive them for that.)

Fantasy draft Saturday, hoops on Sunday ... yeah, I'll sleep next week.

Oh yes, and go Pitt. I need them or I will be hurting in our fracas. explanation later.

Eureka!

Sometimes, I get a burst of insight at the most peculiar times ... like after I get home from a long night downtown.

Chirp ... chirp ... two minutes doesn't seem like a long time, unless it's the amount of time between beeps that your smoke alarm uses to tell you to change the battery. So I do my usual: stand in the hall facing the detector there. It's either straight ahead (hallway), left (computer room), or right (extra room). Of course, it's the extra room.

Funny, I just changed that a few months ago. So why is it that one and not the other two?

I get up on the stepladder with the light off, because I can see from the light in my hall. (Apparently Arbor Homes screwed up the wiring in the third bedroom: it's opposite the lighting in the laundry room, hallway, and second bedroom. Turn the switch on in the third room and the others turn off. This is why they didn't install a fixture in that bedroom, so I wouldn't notice.)

Hey, wait a minute. If the lights are off ... what if the wiring for the smoke detector is messed up too, and so it's always running on battery power, so it drains the battery faster?

Now, that may not be the case ... but it sure is a coincidence.

Weigh-in 3: -1 pound

Sorry for the delay, I forgot to post it Wednesday, and then last night was basketball ... another solid week, 7 pounds total.

I know, 1 pound doesn't seem like much, right? But look at it this way. This was my schedule from Thursday through Sunday:

Thursday - get up at 10, watch basketball from 11 AM to midnight. (I got there early.)
Friday - get up at 10, watch basketball from 11 AM to midnight.
Saturday - get up at 10, watch basketball from noon to 10 PM.
Sunday - get up at 10, watch basketball from 11 AM to 8 PM.

No workouts, lots of food, some of it bad for me, and I still lost a pound. That's a maintainable pattern, and that's really what I'm working for.

On the other hand, if I'd lost three pounds instead of one, I'd have finished in second place among men that week ... and this week, the top man and top woman get a $25 Speedway gas card ...

Questionable judgment

Now, obviously you can't get the full story from a single post or page, but this link on ESPN.com makes it sound like someone almost got a DWB.

And if you read the article on the Dallas Morning News site, and when you learn that the police have apologized and will be investigating, well ... sure, the cop was young, but that's no excuse. I mean, he basically pulled the guy over in the hospital parking lot. It's not like getting pulled over when you're five miles from the hospital.

It makes you wonder a) how often this happens and b) what would have happened if the guy in question didn't happen to be a professional athlete. (The News would probably do a story on it anyway, but ESPN obviously wouldn't have picked it up ...)

You can't spell Microsoft without WTF ...

except for the W. Of course, you can't spell it without MF ...

Today, I "picked up" a couple of the Hasbro games to play on the 360. The quarter's over and I'm not taking a class next quarter (applying for full admittance and saving some cash), so I figured I'd get some extra gaming in between workout days.

Red half-ring. Awesome.

What's it mean? Overheating.

WTF? I haven't played a 360 game in weeks.

Like other people have experienced, it's happening right away (in fact, the first time, it didn't even turn on). The last time, I got in about five minutes of playing. After that, I listened for the fan. It seemed to be off at first, then turned on, then went faster and faster, then stopped abruptly.

I don't know, man. I mean, I like this thing and all, but shit, I still have my ORIGINAL NES. The one I bought in college because Patrick had one. I probably even have the receipt for it. I have an Atari 5200 that works.

And I'm expected to buy a 720 here in a year or so? NFW. Not unless you're giving me full trade-in credit.

Of course the warranty's expired. (EDIT: Sorry, I forgot, this is the one I bought because, ha ha, I didn't trust the refurbished one. But still, it's 18 months old. Warranty expired.) This one is now two years old (in this incarnation). So my options are a) fix it myself, ha ha ha, or b) use the old one, or c) buy another new one, ha ha ha, or d) pay to have this one fixed while I try b) or c), and of course pretty much all those options require me to transfer my DLC licenses AGAIN.

Trustworthy gaming, my ass.

Stupid commercials

Up until today, I thought that Taco Bell had locked up Worst Commercial of the Tournament.

Then I saw the Coke Zero ad with Troy Polamalu.

I mean, the average Coke Zero ad is really dumb. The whole Coke-suing-Coke-Zero thing was stupid even before they made the first ad. The fact that it's still around shows how little effort it takes to make an ad campaign.

But this commercial, wow. The only good thing about it was Polamalu supposedly tackling Annoying Coke Guy #1. Too bad that part wasn't real.

Never mind lawyers. Ad agencies should be put on boats and sunk.

P.S. Honorable mention goes to Axe for changing from "Women hanging all over you" to "Spraying perspiration".

Weigh-in 2: -2 pounds

192, 6 pounds and 3.03% lost. Good progress ... we'll see what happens after four days of watching basketball 12 hours a day. I've got a plan, though, so I should be in a decent position come next Wednesday.

I will probably have to work out a little harder on Monday and Tuesday, though.

Go Vikings!

ESPN Insider has an article (subscription required) about first-round upsets it thinks you should pick. One of their best recommendations?

That's right. Portland State over Xavier.

Go Vikings!

Bumble

Good to know they're alike.

"Ohio State, just finished winning the Big Ten Conference championship ..."

No they didn't, idiot. They lost. ON YOUR NETWORK.

fail.

Duke sucks

The sway that Duke seems to hold over ESPN is silly. I'm watching the Southland Conference championship (note to ESPN: the championship is the final game, not the whole thing; it looks dumb when you show stats that say Big 12 Championship: 3 games for a player on a team there for the first time in years), and they're showing highlights from other games at halftime.

They cut to Duke-Florida State, and the studio guy says "Gerald Henderson gets it goin' from behind the arc". But I see the shot and I think hmm, looked like he had a foot on the line to me.

I stop it, rewind, and go frame-by-frame. Both feet are on the line. Clearly not a 3. The ref standing six feet away, of course, calls it a 3. ESPN doesn't even question this.

Remember when Duke was the new power on the block? Now they're the Red Sox of college basketball.

Weigh-in 1: -4 pounds

A decent start. 194, 4 pounds lighter, 2.02% lost. Of course half of that was probably from pigging out the weekend before and the other half was from not eating entire sleeves of Girl Scout cookies at the same time, but still.

Also, I finally got to reset my goals on the Wii. I couldn't tell if it was after a certain number of days or a certain number of visits. I also don't know why you can't do it whenever you want, or set more aggressive goals. whatever.

I'm looking forward to having a Mii that doesn't look like, well, what I look like now. When I'm not sucking in my gut. I had no idea how good I was at that until we started this and people were surprised at how much I wanted to lose. Hey, it's easy to hide when you never have to tuck in your shirt ...

Beatles. Rock Band.

Of course it's coming out on a weekday.

And I have no extra vacation days to use.

oh well. I guess I'd have to find three other people with vacation days anyway.

I can haz hotfix?

Microsoft sucks.

I can't paste from Excel to Access.

Actually, I couldn't paste from Excel to SQL Server until I figured out that you have to select the entire row, not one field, and you have to include a blank column in your copy if you use an identity column.

But in the meantime, I was trying to paste from Excel into a linked table in Access, because, you know, you've been able to do this forever.

Apparently you can't anymore, and this is by design. Why? Because Microsoft sucks. They don't seem to care that a "security fix" disabled one of the most important interconnectivity features in Office.

But it's okay. They have a hotfix. "Hotfix" is Microsoft code for "We don't really care about fixing the problem, but if you insist, you can beta test this for us. Oh, and if you whack Office by testing this, not our problem."

Also, you have to jump through these hoops to get the hotfix, because otherwise it would be convenient.

So anyway, I'm not installing it, now that I have my original path defined. But they still suck.

160 by August 26

The gauntlet has been thrown.

So I kind of alluded to this before. Unfortunately, that's all I did. I wrote down a goal, brushed off some of the cobwebs on my blog so I could set this somewhere, and went on about my business.

We're doing a Biggest Loser contest at work, which I may have mentioned before. There are going to be prizes and such. Pretty decent ones. Anyway, I've kind of been "training" the last week or so.

Today, we had donuts for breakfast and Stuffed Crust pizza as a "last meal". I weighed in this afternoon ... 198.

Now, it was in regular work clothes, stuff in my pockets, shoes on, all that stuff, so you can say that maybe I weigh 194, and maybe in the morning on an empty stomach, that's 192 ... maybe.

Or maybe I'm a buffet away from the most I've ever weighed, which is not cool if your age doesn't start with 2. (Well, it's not cool ever, but it's less cool now.)

So. My goal is a "work weight" of 160. I figure if I actually weighed 160 as a non-drinking, close-to-middle-age adult, I can do it again. Plus I need to, or else I'll end up carrying an extra 50-100 pounds like my dad and his dad did.

Our contest has weekly prizes, monthly prizes, a six-month prize, and a grand prize. We do weekly weigh-ins through three months, and monthly for the next three, when we do the six-month prizes. Then we're on our own, either maintaining or continuing our work. Before the next incentive meeting, we do a final weigh-in. Biggest percentage loser gets $750 toward a gym membership or his or her pocket.

There's also a rumor that everyone who kept weight off will get $5 or $10 a pound. Yeah, our president is really hoping this will spur us to get and stay healthy. They recognize the value of healthy employees around here (at some point, our grounds will actually become smoke-free. Did I mention we're a construction company?) It's pretty cool.

38 pounds. 25 weeks. Not as easy as gaining the weight, but it can be done.

Who's with me?

Lucky dog

So I'm playing bingo on Facebook, and as I usually do, I've got two cards going in the popup window while I read in the main window. (I don't yet have the setup for two screens, so this is all on a standard monitor. Maybe I'll get a widescreen at some point and then have them side-by-side ...)

Basically, I read a bit, switch, check a couple of numbers, switch back, repeat. It's easier this time because it's clover leaf, so a long game, and not many people in the room.

We're getting pretty far into the game, and I switch back to the game, check the numbers, mark the last one that came up, and look at my card.

XX.XX
XX.XX
..O..
XX.XX
XX.XX

And the next part happens about this fast:

Oh hey. That's the cloverleaf pattern.

I should probably click Bingo.

There we go.

And I got a gold medal and first place. The trophy isn't necessary, I've won a few games before, but it was weird to have it happen so slowly and still get first place. Normally I'm poised on the button as soon as I'm down to one number left. This time, I didn't even realize it and still got the win.

I know I'm lucky. (In most ways.)

Whatwhatwhat?

Watching the IU-MSU game, hoping for an interesting result. Indiana down 4, 11 seconds left. As they bring the ball upcourt with about 9.5 seconds left, Musberger says "They don't have to shoot the 3, but they have to work quickly."

o rly? I wasn't aware there was a four-point shot in NCAA play. Because, you know, if there isn't, they really need a 3, because THEY'RE DOWN 4 WITH LESS THAN 10 SECONDS TO PLAY.

The funny thing is that I was just thinking that Indiana had blown the previous possession (down 4, 30 seconds left) by taking 10 seconds to shoot a 2. Most coaches don't seem to realize that you aren't going to win by trading possessions, and even if they do miss some free throws, at that point in the game, you don't have time to gain a point per possession. With 30 seconds left, I think you shoot 3s. With 10 seconds left, only an idiot would say you shoot 2s.

oh wait.

I guess maybe he thought Larry Johnson was on the court.

oh wait. That would still require a three-point shot.