Now that the Red Sox won the World Series, some people have to pay up...

(Video clip is a little over a minute long.)

My Saturdays over the course of 2004:

January to August:
-Sammy Sohn would come over, and so a bunch of us would always play poker and video games.
-Random events such as snowboarding, BBQs, Monterrey, biking across Golden Gate bridge, KCPC softball tournament, Mejeld and Gower's wedding, etc.

September:
-Museum of Modern Art, watching baseball, being lazy.

October and November:
-Going to Cal football games.

December:
-Being lazy, doing some reading.

From Time Magazine:

"Taking work home from the office may crimp your lifestyle in more ways than one. Researchers at the State University of New York at Stony Brook say the heat from a laptop computer--when used on the lap-- can disrupt sperm production and affect fertility."

For all you want to say about Billy Beane and Paul DePodesta, they've certainly made the last few days as a baseball fan very interesting.

For one, it appears that other baseball GMs are starting to get a clue and that Beane isn't able to rob most other teams the way he did at the beginning of the decade. Certainly he didn't rob the Braves or Cardinals.

In fact, it seems that he should've gotten more for Tim Hudson and Mark Mulder. However, only he knows what circumstances he faces (ie, ownership demands to slash payroll) and what he has up his sleeve. Label me a Billy Beane-apologist if you want, but he has earned the benefit of the doubt.

When a baseball team diversifies their risk with a large number of high quality prospects, it's extremely likely they will earn great returns on their investment. Yes, that is a comparison to stocks, and that is what the A's are planning on with these 2 trades. Considering they have a very strong player development program, it's very possible that no one will be complaining about these trades 10 years from now.

But more to the point, I can't complain because I'm an Angels fan, and the trades don't appear to help the A's in 2005.

I just bought Jon Stewart's America (The Book), which was named book of the year by Publishers Weekly.

One excerpt:

"With recent travel bans, a slumping economy, and our nation's love affair with xenophobia, your exposure to other systems of government is limited at best. In fact, odds are you could name five fictional US presidents more readily than one foreign prime minister. Quick, try it. See?"

I've done about 10 minutes worth of work today, and I've been here for 6 hours.

You can also check if you have any medical records that have affected the cost of your health insurance. Only 20% of people have such records, and these records are supposedly very accurate.

Nevertheless, I called the disclosure phone number, (866) 692-6901, and it took about 10 minutes to give them the info they needed. It'll probably take 3 weeks for them to mail me back. It's an automated system, so you don't get to talk to a live person.

For more info, you can check out the MIB consumer website.

Thanks to the Fair Credit Reporting Act, consumers have won the right to access their credit report once a year from each of the 3 major credit bureaus.

Access was granted on December 1st for people in Western states through the Federal Trade Commission.

I pulled up my report yesterday, but I was only able to access 1 of them online (my TransUnion report). It did take a few minutes, and there were some verification steps that didn't seem to work well (it didn't recognize my American Express account number).

But credit reports are notorious for being inaccurate, so it's definitely worth checking to see if there's something wrong on your report.

Here are some things I noticed when I pulled up my credit report:
-Because I consolidated my student loans, I have a bunch of closed student loan accounts.
-My credit report has an account that I co-signed with my sister a few years back, that I totally forgot about. (If you have mysterious accounts on your report, it might be that a family member has included your name on the account.)
-I have a Discover card currently open that I didn't know about either.

I should add that requesting your credit report doesn't affect your credit score (which isn't free). The free credit scores you may see in ads are only estimates of your FICO credit score. Your FICO score can be purchased at www.myfico.com

Thanks to James' suggestion, I'm going to become a member of www.audible.com's audiobook download service.

I get 2 books for $22 each month plus $100 off an Ipod (which will be used for my brother-in-law).

Some books I'm looking forward to reading in the near future:

-America by Jon Stewart
-The Art of War
-The DaVinci Code
-Eight Men Out
-Fast Food Nation
-The Five People You Meet In Heaven
-I May Be Wrong But I Doubt It by Charles Barkley
-More Than A Game by Phil Jackson
-Seabiscuit
-The Screwtape Letters by CS Lewis

More Cal football links:

Cal/Texas vote distribution shift in the ESPN coaches' poll

California (number of voters this week, last week)
2nd: 0, 0
3rd: 1, 0
4th: 27, 39
5th: 17, 16
6th: 10, 6
7th: 4, 0
8th: 2, 0

Texas (this week, last week)
2nd: 1, 1
3rd: 3, 1
4th: 18, 8
5th: 23, 33
6th: 8, 10
7th: 5, 6
8th: 3, 2

Considering that all Big 12 teams share the BCS money that Texas got for going to the Rose Bowl, I have a few guesses on who voted Texas #2 & 3, and bumped Cal down to #7 & 8...

JJ Arrington for Heisman video
This 3 minute clip features some of Arrington's best carries of the season.

These last 2 days have had a lot of mixed emotions about Cal football:



But coach Tedford is staying!

I’ve said it once, and I’ll say it again: I hate the BCS.

It’s wrong that the #4 team in both polls didn’t make a BCS bowl even though there are 8 teams playing in BCS bowls.

And it’s just amazing how college football is about politics and lobbying instead of what happens on the playing field.

Texas coach Mack Brown spent Saturday calling his buddies-- coaches who have votes in the ESPN poll— and pleaded with them to move Texas up in their ballot.

Cal coach Jeff Tedford would have none of that—he refused to run up the score in the last seconds of the Cal-Southern Miss game and didn’t beg his friends for votes in the polls. He has too much class to do that.

But I can’t really blame Mack Brown for lobbying—that’s what this system is about: handing out $15 million to teams because of some people’s and computers’ opinions, instead of giving teams a chance to prove themselves on the field.

Just ask Auburn about that.

Link of the day:

Saturday Night Live Celebrity Jeopardy! clips

Has anyone ever been part of an audio book rental service (Netflix for audio books)?

I'm considering joining since I commute for over an hour a day and I never read when I'm at home. But I don't know which service (if any) are worth investing $20 a month toward.

There's a whole bunch of services out there, and I think www.simplyaudiobook.com is the biggest...

The worst days in the year to travel by car from Southern California to Northern California are the Wednesday before and the Sunday after Thanksgiving.

The 2 cities with the most traffic congestion in America are LA and SF.

So imagine driving through SF during morning rush hour, traveling south, and then driving through LA during afternoon rush hour on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving.

Is this the most congested travel experience in the US every year?

I hate the BCS.

Even if Cal beats Southern Miss in our final game of the season, we still might be out of the BCS (and therefore, the Rose Bowl) if either:

1) Texas looks extremely impressive beating Texas A&M, and passes us in the BCS standings (they're only .02 BCS points behind us).
2) Texas loses. Boise State is in position to move into the top 6 of the BCS, since they're # 7 right now. As a mid-major team, Boise State would go to a BCS bowl ranked #6 while we wouldn't, even though we would be ranked #4.

Basically, it means we need Texas to win, but not look that impressive doing so.

Say Texas is leading by 14 points early in the 4th quarter. Do we want Texas A&M to score a touchdown, making scenario #1 less likely? Yes, but this would also make scenario #2 more likely, so maybe not...

And if one of these disastrous scenarios happen, the Rose Bowl would be something like Virginia Tech vs Michigan instead of Cal vs Michigan. The Rose Bowl has never really been thrilled with being a part of the BCS, and if that happened, they might just want to leave altogether...

Of course, if college football had a playoff system, Cal might still be very strong contenders for the national championship...

The process I use to write a blog post:

1) Think of a topic.
The idea I originally had for this post was my top 10 reasons for why I enjoy blogging.

2) Start writing the post.
I had "Gives me something to do at work, gives me a chance to express myself creatively, etc".

3) Change my mind about what I want to post.
I decided I would write about how there aren't many chances to use my creativity at work.

4) Repeat step 3 if necessary.
Only now did I decide to write the post on the process of my posts.

5) Write the post, making formatting changes along the way.
At first, I had italics in this post.

6) Using Blogger's preview feature, see if there's anything I want to change about my post.
I made sure to mention that I usually spend a long time writing these posts.

7) Publish the post, and look at how the post appears on my page.
I noticed that I wanted to format each step in bold.

8) Make edits to the post if necessary.
I decided I needed more white space in my post.

Because of all these steps, it takes me 30 minutes on average to write a post, even though my entries usually aren't very long.

I was in charge of planning another team-building activity at work today. So thanks to the inspiration of Slum Dave, I created a Price Is Right game where teams had to guess the combined cost of 5 different holiday items.

There were 2 rounds, and these were the 5 holiday items in each round:

Betty Crocker Mashed Potato Mix
Campbell's Beef Gravy
Keebler Graham Cracker Pie Crust
Package of Ghiradelli Chocolate Squares
Set of 100 Miniature Christmas Lights

Milka Austrian Chocolate Bar
Good Cook Turkey Baster
Pepperidge Farm Herb Stuffing
Pine Fragranced Candle
Ferrero Rocher Prestige Bell Chocolates

There were 8 teams, and even though I told the teams that they could not go over and win, 7 of the teams went over the actual price of $9.58 for the first 5 items.

Of course, that threw everyone off, and all 8 teams went significantly under the price of $17.25 in round 2. (Only 2 teams made guesses of over $10.)

Amazingly, my plan of screwing with my co-workers' psychology actually worked. (Thanks to Allen and Basile, who helped me determine which items seemed more expensive than they really were, and vice versa.)

The winning teams in each round won the items that they correctly guessed... I'm not sure gravy or a turkey baster is a prize that anyone's dying to get, but I was on a pretty tight budget...

My company uses a software program that we recently developed internally, so there are lots of bugs and things that need to be fixed. The worst part about it is that there aren't enough keyboard shortcuts, so using the software is very mouse-intensive.

I hope I don't get carpal tunnel...

I went to Togo's on Friday with Eun-Sook before we went down to soCal. (We also went down with Sammo, who we picked up on the way.)

Eun-Sook ordered a roast beef and avocado sandwich, but it took the employee a really long time to make it for her. The employee had to go to the bathroom, wash her hands, put on plastic gloves, and explain something to her co-worker. In all, I'm guessing it took her 10 minutes to do something that should've taken 1 minute.

So she gives Eun-Sook her sandwich, but when Eun-Sook gets ready to eat it, she notices there's no roast beef in the sandwich!

So Eun-Sook goes back to the employee, who asks her co-worker to add some roast beef to the sandwich, but he thinks that hot pastrami is cold roast beef. She had to explain the difference between roast beef and pastrami!

We think it was his first day on the job, but still... don't most people know what roast beef looks like?

One of nation's hottest coaches, Tedford will shock nation and stay at Cal

We hope. Please???

I got to work before 8 AM today for a meeting, and that's pretty much the earliest I've ever been to work. Now I know I'm not gonna gain much sympathy from people who get to work at 8 AM at the latest, but I was still really tired.

My morning meeting was over 2 hours long, so I started it with a big cup of coffee. I try not to drink coffee, but today was an exception given the circumstances. Unfortunately, I still almost fell asleep because the meeting was REALLY boring (we were going over our company's product lines and expectations for 2005).

But the coffee definitely affected me. Usually by now I'll have had at least one 30 minute stretch where I feel exhausted, but it didn't happen today.

According to the Social Security Administration, my birth name Thomas, which was very popular in the first half of the 20th century, has become less popular over the last 30 years or so.

1900s: 12th most popular male baby name in the US
1910s: 11th
1920s: 11th
1930s: 9th
1940s: 8th
1950s: 8th
1960s: 9th
1970s: 21st
1980s: 25th
1990s: 27th

In fact, the name has steadily become less popular in every year since 1990.

1990: 26th
1991: 28th
1992: 28th
1993: 28th
1994: 28th
1995: 29th
1996: 29th
1997: 32nd
1998: 33rd
1999: 33rd
2000: 34th
2001: 34th
2002: 36th
2003: 36th

Today was a big release day for a couple products:

Halo 2
1.5 million copies of the Xbox video game were pre-ordered, and walk-up sales will push its first day sales total to $100 million. 7000 stores opened at midnight just to sell the game.

Mozilla Firefox 1.0
Development editions of the Firefox web browser have existed for years, but Mozilla released Firefox 1.0 today, the first version intended for a full release.

So while Microsoft hopes to gain market share in the video game industry, its dominance in the web browser industry is slipping...

I thought I would never do this, but I've started listening to the Jim Rome sports radio talk show on my drive to work. I usually catch the first half hour, which includes Jim's takes on the previous day's events and some listener e-mails.

I used to hate Jim Rome because I felt he was annoying and used too much unnecessary jargon. I've also noticed that he rambles on way too long sometimes, but he's gotten a lot more bearable than what I remember from 5 years ago.

I still don't like listening to callers very much (mainly because I usually have no idea what they're talking about) but my other options at that time are the Sarah and No Name Show (Alice 97.3) or the Howard Stern Show (Live 105.3). So I guess the Jim Rome Show wins by default.

I fought with my sister on several occasions when I was really young, but I've only been in a physical fight once in the past 15 years.

I'm not exactly proud of this, but here's the story.

In 9th grade, a couple of my friends and I were playing Scrabble. Yes, the word game, Scrabble.

My friend Teddy had been irritating me all day. I don't remember exactly, but he was probably trash talking about video games and other things that 9th grade boys care about. Finally I had enough and said something like, "Stop being so stupid." So then he grabs my dictionary and rips off the back page.

We were both sitting on the floor at the time, and so I leaned over to grab my dictionary away from him. But then he leaned away, so I just tackled him and we started wrestling. It wasn't much of a fight, but we really were mad at each other.

And all for a game of Scrabble and a dictionary... what a chivalrous cause for a fight...

Yesterday I was at work until 6:30, and the last hour or so I was tracking the presidential election as if I was following ESPN GameCast for a sports game.

I kept refreshing CNN.com every few minutes to check the electoral vote count and how each candidate was doing in the key states of Florida, Ohio, and Pennsylvania. It was kinda fun seeing each candidate take states and watch their electoral vote count move up.

And it was amusing to see how Fox News was eager to claim victory for Bush, while CNN was much more cautious in making their announcement.

Comments found on John Chong's blog, regarding fantasy sports drafts.

I laughed out loud when I read Sammy's analogy between fantasy sports and poker.

(Chongo was studying for his actuary exam at the time.)

Chongo:
this is what i mean! (Tommy) just laughs at me… two nights ago, tommy was in my room, doing a live draft for his fantasy league. so there he was just sitting there… waiting for number and letters on the computer to change and here i am frantically looking for the formula for empirical bayes non-parametric method in the midst of all my notes and past exams. the madness continues…

tommy… i'm coming over everyday when i'm done, just to bug the living daylights out of you.

James Song:
dude… the draft is an important exam too. it's so stressful during the draft because you never know when a player is going to be taken. you have to react quickly (1 min 30 sec) and make a decision on who you will draft if the player you wanted is gone. you have to do all kinds of research before a draft too, which no doubt tommy probably did.

Sammy Sohn:
Chongo, I'm not sure who James is, but he's SOOOOO right. I just had my live draft a few days ago, and that's the closest feeling I've had to being back in school. The draft was on Sunday, and in classic college form, I did VERY little preparation before. I woke up and spent all morning /afternoon before church crunching stats and trying to measure future potential. Even though this was something I WANTED to do, I had procrastinated doing it, just like if it was studying or doing hw.

Then during the draft itself, you're only given 90 seconds to react to other people's picks. Lemme tell you, its very stressful. The draft is like the flop. It doesn't guarantee anything, but if it hits you, you're set and if you have potential, you can build on it. Very important to get off on the right foot.

Now a mere passerby may say, "its only fantasy basketball, What are the rewards or consquences of a poor draft?" They don't understand the far-reaching rammifications this has. We're talking about 6 months of joy or sorrow, talkin trash or being trashed on, resembling the genius of Theo Epstein or the ineptitude of Danny Ainge…character building trials.

Haha, this was a lil longer that i'd expected, but FB is just THAT good. When's your test, first week of Nov? good luck on it…keep shootin dem equations and bell curves outta your arse while I sit here crunching numbers like an actuary until the endda the season.

Just got back from another Hallelujah Night at KCPC.

This year, my roommates and I actually dressed up.

We went as pirates and of course, we went low budget. (This is evident by the fact that we used red duct tape to make our shirts have stripes.) So when we stood next to someone like Irving (on the far right), you could tell that we spent less than $20 each for our costumes.

And if you couldn't tell, that's me on the far left. I didn't want to spend the extra $3 for an eye patch, so I just wore the mask that came with my sword. But it's not like Allen and Basile actually wore the eye patch over their eye...

I stand corrected on my previous post.

On Sunday morning, we gain an hour of sleep, and we would be early to church if we forgot to change our clocks.

I've done this twice a year for 23 years and I still can't get this right. When I thought about the phrase "fall back", for some reason I thought that meant to set the clock from 2 AM to 3 AM...

Pubic service announcement of the day:

Daylight savings time ends Saturday night/Sunday morning. We fall back, meaning we lose an hour of sleep.

Make sure you're not late to church!

Now that the Red Sox have won their first World Series in 86 years, it'd be a good time to get something straight...

The concept of a curse on the Red Sox is based on anti-Semitism.

The story of the curse is that Boston's owner sold Babe Ruth to the Yankees so that he could finance a musical.

The fact is that Boston's owner, Harry Frazee, never needed the money to finance the musical, and sold Ruth to the Yankees because he was behaving ridiculously. The year before the trade, Ruth was a total nuisance-- he complained that he wanted a new contract, undermined the manager, broke team rules, and left the team before the season ended.

Frazee wanted to trade him, but the only team he could trade with was the Yankees, because the other teams disliked Frazee. The other league owners thought Frazee was Jewish, even though he was Presbyterian.

And even though Frazee could only trade with the Yankees, nobody at the time (not the Red Sox players, the press, nor the city of Boston) thought the sale was particularly unfair or bad for the team.

But the primary historian for the Red Sox in the first half of the 1900s, Fred Lieb, was anti-Semitic and thought Frazee was Jewish. Lieb invented the idea that Frazee sold Ruth to the Yankees to finance a musical. Later writers then connected this sale to the Red Sox failures, based indirectly on Lieb's writings.

In the end, I suppose it's fitting that a Jewish general manager, Theo Epstein, would assemble the first championship Red Sox team since Frazee's team in 1918.

(I've left out a lot of details, as this story isn't easy to summarize. My summary is based on Glenn Stout's article in ESPN.com.)

Best movies of 2004, according to Rotten Tomatoes' TomatoMeter (percentage of critics who recommended the movie, minimum 140 reviews):

1) Hero, 95%
2) Spider-Man 2, 93%
3) Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind, 92%
4) Super Size Me, 92%
5) Shaun Of The Dead, 91%
6) Shrek 2, 90%
7) Harry Potter And The Prisoner Of Azkaban, 88%
8) Garden State, 88%
9) Mean Girls, 87%
10) Kill Bill Vol. 2, 85%

Neilsen ratings for network TV shows for the week of October 11-17:

1) CSI, CBS
2) CSI: Miami, CBS
3) Desperate Housewives, ABC
4) Without A Trace, CBS
5) Everybody Loves Raymond, CBS
6) Survivor: Vanuatu, CBS
7) ER, NBC
8) 60 Minutes, CBS
9) Two And A Half Men, CBS
10) Lost, ABC

Assorted Johnny Damon t-shirts:




And more...
http://www.bosoxtees.com/

Some musicians and their birth names:

Busta Rhymes: Trevor Tahiem Smith
Bono: Paul Hewson
Eminem: Marshall Bruce Mathers III
Ginuwine: Elgin Lumpkin
Juvenile: Terius Gray
Kid Rock: Robert James Ritchie
P Diddy: Sean Combs
Shaggy: Orville Richard Burrell
Sisqo: Mark Andrews
Sting: Gordon Matthew Sumner

I switched rooms with Basile over the weekend so that I could pay less rent and he could have a bigger room and his own bathroom.

So Saturday night was the first time I used the bathtub next to my new room. First of all, I had no idea how to operate the shower. I actually had to get out of the bathroom, put on a towel, and ask Basile how it worked. (I had to pull down the end of the faucet-- too bad I couldn't see that since I didn't have my contacts on.)

And then when I was finished showering, the water from the faucet wouldn't stop running-- this actually had been a problem for a week, but before it was just a thin layer of drips. It was now halfway to full blast, and the noise of the water hitting the bathtub woke me up a few times the past couple nights because it was so loud.

We called maintainence, but they didn't fix it yesterday. Hopefully they fixed it today during work.

Have you seen TV advertising for the presidential campaigns? Of course not, if you live in California. Neither Bush, Kerry, nor any special interests groups have spent a penny on TV campaign ads in this state.

But if we lived in a swing state, we'd all be real tired of campaign ads by now.

Here's a list of the top 10 states in terms of campaign spending per electoral vote, according to CNN.com's statistics for the week of October 5th to October 11th:

1) Ohio, $418K per electoral vote
2) Florida, $408K
3) Nevada, $303K
4) Pennsylvania, $263K
5) New Mexico, $259K
6) Iowa, $238K
7) Wisconsin, $231K
8) Minnesota, $177K
9) Colorado, $149K
10) Michigan, $142K

This guy wins the contest for best John Kerry lookalike:

A Boston website published its version of the parallels between the Red Sox/Yankees series and Star Wars:

Rebel Alliance: Red Sox
Keep in mind this was a Boston website.

Evil Empire: Yankees
As claimed by Red Sox executive Larry Lucchino.

Luke Skywalker: Curt Schilling
Even with Schilling's Game 1 performance, you want both of these Jedi Knights to lead you into the belly of the Death Star...

Yoda: Terry Francona
They're both wise, old, and balding...

Chewbacca: Johnny Damon
See picture.



Obi-Wan Kenobi: Theo Epstein
Like Epstein, Obi-Wan Kenobi was in the thick of things from a young age, and made his share of hard decisions that would shape the fate of an entire galaxy.

Princess Leia: Pedro Martinez
Pedro's practically got the Jehri Curl buns already...

R2-D2: Manny Ramirez
They both make you stop, furrow your brow, and scratch your head in bewilderment.

C-3PO: Derek Lowe
Both are fussy, anxiety-riddled droids.

Han Solo: Jason Varitek
Both drive the ship, walk the walk, and are the men you want by your side at any given time and in any situation.

The Emperor: George Steinbrenner
The puppeteers of the Dark Side.

Darth Vader: Babe Ruth (Roger Clemens as 'The Voice')
Of course, Ruth and Clemens are the biggest players to move over to the Dark Side.

To see pictures of these parallels click here.

Then CTRL-F and search for "Dark Side", then click on that link.

You can find me here tomorrow along with 92,000 other people.



Go Bears!

Saved By The Bell Theme Song Lyrics
Title: "Saved By The Bell"
By: "Scott Gale"

When I wake up in the morning
And the clock lets out a warning
I don't think I'll ever make it on time
By the time I got my books I give myself a look
I'm at the corner just in time to see the bus slide by

It's alright cause I'm saved by the bell

If the teacher pops a test I know I'm a mess
And my dog ate all my homework last night
Ridin low in my chair she won't know that I'm there
If I can hand it in tomorrow it'll be alright

It's alright 'cause I'm saved by the bell.
It's alright 'cause I'm saved by the bell.
It's alright 'cause I'm saved by the bell.

Content that I have on My Yahoo! homepage:

Message center
This tells me if I have new e-mail.

Fantasy sports
Quick access to my fantasy sports teams.

Weather
Today's high and low temperature for where I live, where I work, and where I go to church.

Mail preview
Shows me the last 4 e-mails I've received.

TV listings
Prime time listings for my favorite channels: ESPN, ESPN2, Fox Sports Net, TBS, Spike, Bravo, Cartoon Network, Comedy Central, and the Travel Channel.

My Yahoo! is a very useful homepage because it takes me straight to the things I care about-- my e-mail, fantasy sports, and what's on TV.

Dang, Yahoo! should be paying me for this endorsement.

Apparently David Letterman doesn't mind publishing his top 10 lists in advance.

His show's website has already posted the top 10 list for this Friday, October 8.

Top Ten Questions Audience Members Were Not Allowed To Ask During Tonight's Debate

10) Who's a better one-term president--you or your father?
9) Is it annoying being married to a woman who always smells like ketchup?
8) With oil at $50 a barrel, why aren't we looking into cheaper barrels?
7) Which best describes your economic policies: "Preposterous lies" or "Absolute crap"?
6) Senator Kerry, what impact do you think your large, canoe-shaped head will have on the economy?
5) What is your favorite episode of "Sanford and Son"?
4) Do you prefer flipping or flopping?
3) Which one of you is Dukakis?
2) Do you think John Edwards would be interested in dating a New Jersey Governer?
1) If either of you win, will you pardon Martha?

My picks for this year's baseball award winners:

AL MVP
1) Vladimir Guerrero
2) Johan Santana
3) Miguel Tejada

Guerrero's final week heroics hold off Santana's brilliance from June to September. There really should be more of a push for Santana for MVP. The argument that starting pitchers are less valuable than everyday players doesn't make sense when you think about it this way: Santana faced over 870 hitters this year while Guerrero came up to the plate fewer than 675 times.

NL MVP
1) Barry Bonds
2) Albert Pujols
3) Adrian Beltre

Bonds may have had the best season ever by a baseball player.
(It's either this or his 2001 season.)

Bonds is the first player ever to reach safely 3 out of every 5 plate appearances over a full season. How amazing is this?

Bonds had a .609 OBP this year, which is .140 points greater than Todd Helton's OBP, second-highest in the majors this year at .469. This difference of .140 is greater than the difference between Helton and Cesar Izturis (.330), whose OBP was below the major league average.

If Ichiro wanted to accomplish this feat in batting average, he would've had to hit .460. If he did, he would've had 324 hits, 62 more than his major league record this season.

AL Cy Young
1) Johan Santana
2) Curt Schilling
3) Brad Radke

Santana did not give up more than 3 runs in any of his final 22 starts, a 4 month stretch where his ERA was 1.36.

NL Cy Young
1) Pitcher A: 245.2 IP, 6.6 K/BB, .555 opponent OPS
2) Pitcher B: 237 IP, 8.3 K/BB, .636 opponent OPS
3) Pitcher C: 214.1 IP, 2.8 K/BB, .618 opponent OPS

Pitcher A is Randy Johnson.
Pitcher B is Ben Sheets.
Pitcher C is Roger Clemens.

Google has a site where you can enter in a few items in a set of things, and it will try to predict the other items in the set.

So it's obvious this won't work for something as specific as the FiCB common bonds game that I posted last year, but let's try it anyway. Here are the only 2 sets that provided any results at all:

1) welcoming, service, transportation, outreach, publicity,...

Manufacturing
Academic
Retail
Energy
Business Operations
Water
Worship
Fellowship

Amazing. Fellowship is almost right since there used to be a fellowship committee, but the correct common bond was tech, as in tech committee.

2) Sylvia, Isabel, Tommy, Gee-Won, Haejin...

Focus II
Janis
House Of The King
Mother Focus
Elspeth of Nottingham
Early birth
Carnival fugue
Harem Scarem
Hocus Pocus
Focus III

On the other hand, this is way, WAY off. I don't know what any of this is, or how it relates to any of the names.

Public service announcement of the day:

Make sure to get the JPEG Processing (GDI+) Security Update from Microsoft.

The viewing of specially crafted JPEG images can compromise a user’s computer. This vulnerability is especially troubling as there is little warning that a compromise could occur – users are not being prompted to download or install anything.

Top 10 things that would be most difficult for me to fast for a week:

10) Cell phone
9) Blogging
8) Music/radio
7) Fantasy sports
6) TV
5) Browsing the internet at home
4) Browsing the internet at work
3) Following sports
2) Food
1) Water

Quote of the day:

"I think I've talked to my brother-in-law more in my lifetime than I've talked to my sister in my lifetime."

This quote comes from me. I've known my brother-in-law for about 4 years now and my sister for 22 years. And while I know this isn't true, it just seems that way because the past year I've talked to him about 2 hours a week, while I talk to my sister for about a minute a week.

What am I talking to him about? Sports, and in particular, fantasy sports...

I wonder exactly what John Kruk's role with ESPN is supposed to be. Is he supposed to be a guy who intentionally sounds like an idiot so that people will talk about ESPN-- and how much they need to fire John Kruk?

Maybe he just wants to be different and unique, and likes to see people's reactions to things he says. A lot of people in baseball do this, baseball MVP voters in particular.

I say this because of his picks for MLB Most Valuable Player and Most Valuable Pitcher:

Most Valuable Player: Chone Figgins
Most Valuable Pitcher: Brad Lidge

Family Matters Theme Song Lyrics
Title: "As Days Go By"
By: "Jesse Frederick, Bennet Salvay and Scott Roeme"

It's a rare condition, this day and age,
to read any good news on the newspaper page.
Love and tradition of the grand design,
some people say it's even harder to find.

Well then there must be some magic clue inside these tearful walls
Cause all I see is a tower of dreams
real love burstin' out of every seam.

As days go by,
we're gonna fill our house with happiness.
The moon may cry,
we're gonna smother the blues with tenderness.

When days go by,
there's room for you,
room for me,
for gentle hearts an opportunity.

As days go by,
it's the bigger love of the family.

So I don't really pay attention to politics, but this week's cover story of Time magazine interested me because it talks about how the presidential campaign is affected by political blogs.

If you need to deactivate multiple hyperlinks in a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet, here's what you need to do (as seen in the Help feature):

1) Type the number 1 in a blank cell, and right-click the cell.
2) Click Copy on the shortcut menu.
3) While pressing CTRL, select each hyperlink you want to deactivate.
4) Click Paste Special on the Edit menu.
5) Under Operation, click Multiply and then click OK.

This is most useful when you have a list of e-mail addresses or websites that you want to play around with. But isn't this counter-intuitive or what?

Yesterday after small group we played poker for punishments.

The 3rd loser (Frank) had to put Nutella on his face. Then the 2nd loser (Sarah) had to transfer the Nutella onto her face using only her face. Then the 1st loser (Jamie) had to lick the Nutella off Sarah's face.

I haven't had this much fun in awhile... For the complete story in pictures, go to Basile's pictures.

A couple Barry Bonds statistics, stolen from Baseball Prospectus:

-He's hitting .341/.386/.707 (AVG/OBP/SLG) with an 0-2 count. The NL is hitting .194/.235/.303 in this situation. So he could conceivably swing at the first 2 pitches when someone tries to intentionally walk him and try to see if opposing managers want to face him then...

-He has an .825 OBP with a 2-0 count. (Much of this is due to intentional walks, but .825 is still .825!)

Hurricane Ivan forced the postponement of the Cal-Southern Miss football game that was supposed to be on Thursday.

This was taken from the SF Chronicle:

Southern Miss coach Jeff Bower said Cal was premature in announcing the postponement, adding that his school wanted to wait another day before making a final declaration. "They were dead set on not wanting to come,'' Bower said. "Very unprofessional.''

OK, so maybe the Cal athletic deparment could've gone out of their way to make sure that Southern Miss was OK with Cal not having to travel across the country to a place that's expected to have a hurricane... but how did the phrase "very unprofessional" make its way into his comments?

Yes, Cal was dead set on not wanting to come, but that has everything to do with the fact that the school cares about the safety of the team and coaches. I know Southern Miss probably lost out on a lot of money and national recognition by having this game postponed, but so did Cal, a top 10 team that will go 3 weeks until its next game at Oregon State.

What possessed a major league baseball player to throw a chair into the stands?

I've now been working for over a year now.

Top 10 things I've learned from my first full year of work:

10) Some people aren't very good at replacing the water cooler.
9) Check your mug every now and then. See my post on August 9th.
8) When moving an important document, copy and paste it, instead of cutting and pasting. See my post on May 4th.
7) I now understand why people are so dependent on coffee (fortunately, that's not me yet.)
6) There are more people who are vegetarian than I thought.
5) Co-workers are much funnier when they're drunk.
4) Nobody really cares if you waste time at work, as long as you get your work done.
3) If there's free food available, people will eat it. No matter what it is.
2) Sit in the back during seminars, or drink lots of coffee.
1) In many tropical countries, people have siestas, where they take naps after lunch. America needs siestas.

My top 10 favorite TV shows:

10) Any show involving sports trivia
9) Wildboyz
8) MXC (Most Extreme Elimination Challenge)
7) Chappelle's Show
6) The Simpsons (not the newer episodes though)
5) Any show involving poker
4) SportsCenter
3) Family Guy
2) 24
1) Seinfeld

I hope I'm not missing something obvious. I almost forgot 24!

I'm a really big sports fan, but I'm going to be consumed by sports even more than normal the next month or so because of the following:

-Going to A's-Red Sox game tonight (Hudson vs Pedro)
-Baseball pennant races and playoffs
-Start of pro football season (and of course, fantasy football)
-I got season tickets for the 12th-ranked Cal football team
-Planning to go to the Cal-USC game in soCal on October 9th

Busy weekend:
-A couple BBQs
-SF Museum of Modern Art
-Walking through Chinatown and eating cheap food
-Saw Tae Guk Ki: The Brotherhood of War, AKA "the Korean Saving Private Ryan"

Here's one of the paintings we saw at SF MOMA:



Of course, there was another exhibit with 3 canvases that were completely white. The explanation to that painting was that it could be repainted over. Modern art... I just don't get it.

Probability that each baseball team will make it to the postseason, according to Baseball Prospectus:

Pretty much a lock
Cardinals 99.9998%
Braves 99.3%
Yankees 98.7%
Dodgers 97.1%
Red Sox 93.3%
Twins 93.3%

Probably
Athletics 86.0%
Cubs 63.7%

Still a fighting chance
Giants 20.8%
Angels 16.0%
Padres 10.5%

Barely in it
Rangers 5.7%
Astros 4.6%
Indians 3.8%
Marlins 3.8%
White Sox 2.6%

Mathematically alive, but there's no hope
Tigers 0.2%
Phillies 0.04%
Mets 0.0001%
Pirates 0.00008%
Reds 0.00003%

Now you might be wondering why the Red Sox (who have a 4.5 game lead on the Angels and a 6 game lead on the Rangers) are just as likely to make the playoffs as the Twins (who have a 9 game lead on the Indians and a 9.5 game lead on the White Sox).

It's because these percentages were calculated by doing a million simulations of the rest of the season. The Twins play the Indians 7 times and the White Sox 6 times, while the Red Sox won't play the Angels or Rangers after this weekend.

While we're on the subject, KCPC is officially taking over Hotwire.com.

First Sammo, then Basile, now Allen, and there might be more...

From Sam Lee, who works at Hotwire.com:

2004 Fall / Winter Holidays: Best days to fly

Cheapest time to fly:

"Shoulder periods" before, between and after the major holidays:
Nov 1-19
Nov 30 - Dec 16
January 4 or later

If you must fly around the holidays...

Best bets:

Nov 20-23
Thursday, Nov 25 (Thanksgiving Day)
Saturday, Nov 27
Monday, Nov 29
Dec 17
Dec 24 &25 (Christmas Eve & Day)
Dec 29
Dec 31 & Jan 1(New Year's Eve & New Year's Day)
Jan 3

Avoid:

Wednesday, Nov 24
Friday, Nov 26
Sunday, Nov 28
Dec 18-23
Dec 26-28
Dec 30
Jan 2

I have to pick up my diploma at some point.

I'm too cheap to pay the $12 to have them mail it to me, but I also don't want to take time off work just to pick it up. It doesn't help that the Registrar's office is only open from 10-3 on weekdays.

I've had some chances to pick it up (namely, while I was waiting for a few hours between graduations this past May) but I always forget to do it.

At least I still have 4 more years to pick it up before they destroy it.

My company had a team building event earlier in the month, and one of the activities was to dress people as mummies by using toilet paper.

Not that you could tell, but I'm the guy holding the blue plastic bag. Notice that one of the mummies is lying on the ground-- I think she was taking a nap.

Fantasy baseball all-stars that I've dropped from one of my teams, which is in a 10 team league (I've also included their current Yahoo! player-rater ranking in parenthesis):

Adrian Beltre (5)
Dropped for Kelvim Escobar (145) on June 8th. I already had Mark Teixeira and Hank Blalock on my roster, so I dumped the current ML HR leader because he had some injury issues.

Jason Schmidt (9)
Traded for Josh Beckett (228) on April 5th. I was worried about Schmidt's offseason shoulder surgery. I should've been more worried about Beckett's blisters.

Ben Sheets (28)
Dropped for Adam Eaton (153) on April 8th. Sheets' first start of the year was his shortest. Had I waited 2 more days, there's no way I would've dropped him after a 6 IP, 0 R, 0 BB, 10 K performance.

Jeromy Burnitz (32)
Dropped for LaTroy Hawkins (128) on May 16th.

Carlos Lee (37)
Dropped for Wilson Alvarez (159) on May 12th.

Livan Hernandez (82)
Dropped for David Riske (254) on March 20th. I wanted a closer-- too bad I didn't get one.

Despite all these bad moves, I'm in 2nd place in this league. I ended up making trades to get Carlos Lee and Livan Hernandez back onto my roster, but I just wonder how I'd be doing with Beltre, Schmidt, Sheets, and Burnitz as well.

More about my TV:

When I got home, I found out that I bought a 32" refurbished Sony WEGA flat screen, but the warranty is for only 3 years.

As Allen and I were carrying the TV from the car, I tripped over a cement parking block and my rear end hit the ground. Fortunately, Allen and I were still able to hold onto the TV. Of secondary importance, I was not injured.

But seriously, that thing weighs A LOT. Allen and I were carrying it from the Emery Bay parking lot to the first floor, but it was so heavy that I called Georgia to help us carry it from the first floor elevators to my apartment (about 150 feet). My lower back is pretty sore right now.

But wow...watching "24" on it yesterday with all the lights out... that was pretty nice...

I've been looking for a new TV since Albert moved out (and took his TV with him), and so my roommates have been asking people if they have any hookups. Apparently Paul Hwang does since he works at Sony, and he found out about a deal today.

But the catch was that I had to buy it at the store (which is in the south Bay) by 5 PM, so Allen drove to buy it and pick it up.

I had my phone on silent when Paul called, so he called Basile instead, who called Allen. And so I was the last person to know I was buying a TV today (I gave the OK as soon as I called them back.)

And as I was in the middle of writing this post, Allen called me back and said that he was able to get an even better deal-- $350 for a 32" Sony flat screen, refurbished with a 4 year warranty. I owe a few people dinner after this, but who cares? That's an awesome deal.

Interesting fact of the day:

Ashlee Simpson's album, Autobiography, has been #1, #2, #1, and #1 in the 4 weeks since her album was released.

Jessica Simpson has never had an album at #1.

Vent of the day:

Microsoft Excel has some formatting quirks that don't make a whole lot of sense. For example, if you type "1-49", Excel will write out "Jan-49".

If you then format the cell to text instead of a date, it will write out "17899".

Why? Excel treats XX-YY as a date, where XX is a number less than or equal to 12 and YY is a two-digit number. It stores this date by counting the number of days that have passed since January 1, 1900. (January 1, 1949 is 17889 days after January 1, 1900.)

Of course, the way to avoid automatic date formatting is to add an apostrophe before 1-49, since this will treat the entry as text. But still, that was really confusing the first time I tried it.

South Korea is currently 8th in the Olympic medal count with 15 medals:

Medal, Sport, Event
Gold, Archery, Women's Team
Gold, Archery, Women's Individual
Gold, Badminton, Men's Doubles
Gold, Judo, Men's -73kg
Silver, Archery, Women's Individual
Silver, Artistic Gymnastics, Men's Individual All-Around
Silver, Judo, Men's -100kg
Silver, Shooting, Women's Double Trap
Silver, Shooting, Men's 50m Pistol
Silver, Table Tennis, Women's Doubles
Silver, Weightlifting, Men's 69kg
Bronze, Artistic Gymnastics, Men's Individual All-Around
Bronze, Judo, Men's -60kg
Bronze, Shooting, Women's Trap

Blog/xanga posts that have pictures from Daniel and Gower's wedding:

Kay Chang
John Chi
Roy Chung
Dennis Chon, but look below and you'll see the only picture from the wedding that he posted.

I'm sure a lot more people have posted pictures online... let me know if you have some you want to share.

This picture is so hilarious that I had to post it even though I'm stealing it from Dennis Chon's xanga.

Thanks to Basile for showing me how to post pictures on my blog. Comments about these pictures are on the previous post.


2004 KCPC B Team

angry ahjushi

Allen really wanted me to post these pictures from the KCPC softball tournament, but since I don't know how to get the pictures to appear on my blog, here's a link to my picture site.

The work picture is from my post on February 5th.

The softball pictures are of the KCPC B Team and an angry ahjushi at the tournament. You'll notice that Mr. So (on the far right) is in our team picture because we only had 9 players and we needed him at catcher.

The angry ahjushi was the coach for another team and was yelling really loudly at his players in a way that only a Korean ahjushi can. I guess you had to be there to appreciate how funny it was to watch him...

Update of my past week:

-Recovered from dislocating my shoulder a couple Saturdays ago at the KCPC softball tournament.

-Frantically finished up my responsibilities at work before I left for soCal on Wednesday.

-Was supposed to caravan with Allen on the drive home to soCal but lost him as soon as we got onto the freeway.

-Finally played with my sister's dog (which she had been telling me about for a few months), and watched a few episodes of Curb Your Enthusiasm with my sister and brother-in-law. The show's pretty funny but no one really watches it because it's on HBO; it features Seinfeld co-creator Larry David and is shot without a script.

-On Friday night, Allen, G1, G1's friend Dan, and I had a two-hour sequence that was pulled out of Harold and Kumar Go To White Castle. It took me about 15 minutes to explain everything to Basile, so I'm guessing the story works much better orally rather than in writing.

-Mejeld and Gower's wedding on Saturday. Congratulations again to the newlyweds. It was great to see everyone, and it was a long day that started with me and Kevin driving around soCal for 2 hours in the morning. Of course, it ended with a lot of dancing.

-Played random games with Basile and Mike Lee on the drive back up to the Bay Area. Thanks to Sammo's inspiration, we listed as many movies that started with the letter "N" that we could think of (which was amazingly only 1), as well as all of the fast food chains we could think of (a lot more than 1).

Gross moment of the day:

I was going to the water cooler to fill up my water bottle when I looked at the bottom of my bottle and saw a bunch of green specs. I guess this is what happens when you use the same water bottle for a year and only wash it once during that time. I hadn't noticed anything like that before, so hopefully this happened over the weekend (and not 10 months ago).

And yes, that water bottle is now in the trash.

Singer Rick James passed away today.

He's most well-known for his 80s hit Superfreak, but of course I'll remember him mostly because of Chappelle's Show.

Rest in peace, Rick. We'll miss the laughter that only the phrase "I'm Rick James, B****!" can bring us...

Quote of the day comes from President Bush, who said the following today:

"Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we."

From Billy Madison, which I saw yesterday on TV:

Mr. Madison, what you've just said is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever heard. At no point in your rambling, incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul.

WARNING: This post is entirely baseball-related. Don't expect to be entertained if you're not a baseball fan. Or even if you are.

I'm tired of everyone bashing Paul DePodesta for the Dodgers/Marlins trade, where the Dodgers sent Guillermo Mota, Paul LoDuca, and Juan Encarnacion to the Marlins for Brad Penny, Hee Seop Choi, and Billy Murphy.

I'm especially tired of the argument that this is a bad or "risky" trade because it disrupts the team chemistry of a team that's in first place. Even if that were true (but I don't think it is), why should that be how we evaluate the trade?

Shouldn't we evaluate a trade by how it helps or hurts the team on the field, rather than going into some subjective notions about how it might impact a completely subjective (and possibly irrelevant) thing such as team chemistry?

And what is it about Paul LoDuca's leadership that is so indispensable anyway? That he's "led" the Dodgers to three non-first place finishes since he became the starting catcher? That he hustles a lot? Studies have proven that catchers have an insignifcant affect on the performance of their team's pitchers (I can e-mail you that article if you're interested), so I'm not sure what separates LoDuca from any other slightly above average catcher.

The argument that the Dodgers shouldn't have fixed what wasn't broken is ludicrous. Paul DePodesta's job as a general manager is to improve his team, not sit on his laurels while watching what other teams will try to do to beat him. That type of attitude is what cursed the 2003 Angels. Bill Stoneman kept that team the same as his 2002 championship team and watched his players regress to the mean.

And yet that's what so many people in LA wanted. That the Dodgers had played so well in July is a reason why they should make the moves they did-- because that type of hot streak is not gonna last the entire season. There will be a lot of people blaming the trade on why the team cools off, but they were playing over their heads that month anyway.

Brad Penny and Hee Seop Choi will help the team now, but they're also young and cheap, so they'll help the team for the next several years. Penny becomes the Dodgers' best starter and the following is a list of Choi's most comparable players (according to Baseball Prospectus' PECOTA system):

David Ortiz
Carlos Pena
Paul O'Neill
Pete LaCock
Mo Vaughn
Sam Horn
Cliff Floyd
Carlos Delgado
Jim Thome
Paul Sorrento

That's some pretty nice company, even if there are a couple no-names like Pete LaCock and Sam Horn thrown in.

Mota is a great reliever, but he's 31 and can't get much better from here on out. Middle relievers are the easiest players to replace, and the Dodgers do a good job of finding relievers out of nowhere. Yes, they'll miss him this year, but you'll get much more out of Penny's remaining 65 innings than Mota's remaining 30 innings.

And we all know how LoDuca fades after the All-Star Break. Of course, it's not like he's a great player anyway. As a 32 year old catcher, he's past his prime and has only had one season where his OPS was over .731. Encarnacion has a lifetime .311 OBP and is a corner outfielder.

If you have some non-mushy reasons of how this trade hurts the Dodgers as a team, I'd like to hear them. I just can't think of many myself.

Weekend update:

-Played poker with my co-workers on Friday night. Had fun watching one of my managers get a little tipsy and entertain us with his antics. Afterward, we played Bust-A-Move on Playstation 1.

-Softball on Saturday. The "B" Team won our first game 29-11 and lost the second game 38-4. We'll be playing next weekend too.

-Funny moment: Georgia Dave was carrying a watermelon during the softball tournament, and was having fun scaring the KM people by tossing the watermelon up in the air... and of course, he ended up dropping the watermelon in the process.

-Watched Harold And Kumar Go To White Castle afterward. It had its moments, and is pretty much what you'd expect it to be.

-Helped Albert and Stephen move into their new apartment on Sunday. They're living in the city in an apartment that has two stories. It's the first time I've seen an apartment where you can enter through the 4th floor or the 5th floor.

So I haven't actually seen this yet (I'm assuming my company is restricting the network settings or something), but here's Will Ferrell doing a George W. Bush impersonation.

I guess it also has some links for Democratic Party contributions, but I thought it was worth making my link of the day anyway.

Yesterday I got my measurements for the tux I'm wearing as a groomsman for Mejeld's wedding. It was kinda sad to see how much my waistline has expanded since I started working.

I spent $150 at Costco yesterday. I tried to stock up since I don't go there that often. Here's what I bought:

-24 rolls of toilet paper
-12 rolls of paper towels
-500 paper plates
-500 plastic cups
-500 plastic spooons
-500 plastic forks
-500 envelopes
-12 light bulbs
-6 brush heads for my electric toothbrush
-4 tubes of Aquafresh toothpaste
-4 packages of Glide floss
-16 bars of Dial soap
-1 bag of chicken nuggets
-1 rotisserie chicken
-12 bagels
-2 boxes of Oatmeal Crisp cereal

Can you guess which item was almost twice as much as any other one?

It was the 6 brush heads for my electric toothbrush, which were $25.

Recap of Mejeld's bachelor party in Vegas:

-Drove for almost 24 hours with Allen and Dave Shin. We rotated driving, and I ended up driving my own car less than Allen did.

-Stayed up on Friday night playing Hold'Em in our hotel rooms. It was a bad idea for some of us; at 10 PM on Saturday night, G1 was so tired that he sat down and put his face in his hands in the middle of a busy sidewalk. We really should've taken a picture. It looked like he lost his life savings and was crying or something.

-Stayed indoors as much as possible because it was 108 degrees.

-Buffets. The Mirage was really good, and it was only $22 with a 15 minute wait. It has to be one of the best values in Vegas.

-Caught a free show. Good, but not great. The Bellagio watershow was pretty good though.

-Played at a poker table for the first time ever. Lost $40 in 3 hours. I won only 1 small pot the whole time because I had some bad cards and didn't play all that well, but there was only one $1 blind, so it was pretty cheap entertainment.

-Watched as others got addicted to Roulette, Slots, or Hold'Em. Nobody got addicted to Blackjack because most of us didn't do that well.

I think there's some disagreement about whether Costco gas's fuel efficiency is as good as other brands. I tried checking this myself, and after 2 sample tanks of Costco gas and 5 sample tanks of various other gas brands, I haven't noticed a significant difference in my car's fuel efficiency.

So even if Costco gas isn't as good as other brands for other reasons, I'm gonna stick with cheap Costco gas for now.

IMDB.com's list of the Top 10 Movies of the 1990s:

1. Shawshank Redemption, The (1994)

2. Schindler's List (1993)

3. Pulp Fiction (1994)

4. Usual Suspects, The (1995)

5. Silence of the Lambs, The (1991)

6. Goodfellas (1990)

7. American Beauty (1999)

8. Matrix, The (1999)

9. Fight Club (1999)

10. L.A. Confidential (1997)

It's been awhile since I last checked the Nielsen ratings for network television.

Last week, 11 of the top 13 rated shows on network television were aired on CBS, with the only 2 non-CBS shows being a pair of Law and Order shows on NBC.

Is this happening because more and more people have cable nowadays (except the older population who watches CBS?)

Maybe cable programming is cutting ratings for ABC and NBC more than it does for CBS. Just a thought; there might be a better reason why CBS is dominating so much...

So apparently there's a way to cheat the Burger King Spidey Sense game, where you have a one in two chance of winning something.
 
Just go into a dark room, put a flashlight under the scratch areas, and you should be able to see which one is the winner.

Random phone numbers on my cell phone:

-Berkeley Hair Studio
-Emery Bay Leasing Office
-Kaiser Permanente Prescription Refill Center

TV Guide's Top 25 Cult Shows Of All Time:

1. Star Trek
2. The X Files
3. Buffy the Vampire Slayer
4. Farscape
5. Monty Python's Flying Circus
6. The Simpsons
7. The Prisoner
8. The Twilight Zone
9. Xena: Warrior Princess
10. PeeWee's Playhouse
11. Mystery Science Theater 3000
12. Family Guy
13. Babylon 5
14. Beauty and the Beast
15. Quantum Leap
16. My So Called Life
17. The Avengers
18. Dr. Who
19. Dark Shadows
20. Twin Peaks
21. Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman
22. H.R. Pufnstuf
23. Forever Knight
24. Absolutely Fabulous
25. Freaks and Geeks

Things you can order at In-N-Out that aren't listed on the menu:

3-by-3: Three meat patties and three slices of cheese.

4-by-4: Four meat patties and four slices of cheese.

2-by-4: Two meat patties and four slices of cheese.

You can get a burger with as many meat paties or cheese slices as you want. So if you want 6 pieces of meat and 10 pieces of cheese, then you want a "6-by-10."

Double Meat: A Double Double without cheese.

3 by Meat: Three meat patties and no cheese.

Animal Style: The meat is cooked and fried with mustard and then pickles, extra spread, and grilled onions are added.

Animal Style Fries: Fries with cheese, spread, and grilled onions. You can also ask for pickles on your fries.

Protein Style: This is a burger with no bun (wrapped in lettuce).

Flying Dutchman: Two meat patties, two slices of melted cheese and nothing else (not even a bun).

Fries Well-Done: Extra crispy fries. I've been told that you get more fries because they have to use a different potato to make this order.

Fries Light: Opposite of fries well-done, but it's too raw for most people.

Grilled Cheese: No meat, just melted cheese, tomato, lettuce and sauce on a bun.

Veggie Burger: Burger without the patty or cheese. Also called the Wish Burger.

Neapolitan Shake: A shake with strawberry, vanilla and chocolate mixed together.

From Basile's comments from my previous post:

2 songs that Basile and his band practiced over and over and over again while I lived with him at Parker House:
Blessed Be Your Name, Matt Redman
Swing, Swing, The All-American Rejects

3 songs that G1 played over and over and over again while I was his roommate:
One Last Breath, Creed
Angels Or Devils, Dishwalla
Run, Collective Soul

During his freshmen year, G1 played a song so much that one day his roommate had enough and deleted the song from G1's computer while G1 was out. That makes me laugh because I know how that guy felt...

Songs that have been stuck in my head recently:

Come On Eileen, Jimmy Fallon
This is part of a song Jimmy Fallon sung about how you can fit any 80s song into MC Hammer's Can't Touch This. Allen, Basile, and Isabel created a remake of the song, and it's been annoying me ever since.

I Don't Wanna Be, Gavin DeGraw
I mentioned this to Sammo and Allen on the Fourth of July when I went to go watch fireworks at Pier 39.

One Hundred Years, Five For Fighting
This song is on the radio A LOT.

I guess this is what happens when you don't download your own music. I'm basically at the mercy of what other people want me to hear, whether they're the DJ at a radio station, or they're living with me.

The picture of the day is this week's cover of The Sporting News

The headline reads, "How's THAT feel? To get hit in the eye with a puck..."

Link of the day:

Streaming video for Chapelle's Show, Season 2

I finished 4 epsiodes last night... it's over the top, but it's hilarious!

Link of the day, as referenced by Pastor Eugene:

Michael Moore interview with Charlie Rose

Busy past couple of days:

-Dim sum in Daly City with Andy Chang and others
-Softball practice for the KCPC summer tournament

-Walking around SF waiting for the Fourth of July fireworks at Pier 39.
Too bad there was so much fog that all we could see was the fog lighting up in different colors. And right in my view of the colored fog, there was a gay couple making out.

-Had to swerve out of out my lane (while going 60 mph) to avoid a freeway accident on Sunday night

-Getting lost on the way to Point Reyes
-7 miles of hiking at Point Reyes

Some popular types of fireworks:

Battle in the Clouds
Shells that explode in a series of loud bangs, giving the impression of a battle.

Firecrackers
Small, usually cylindrically shaped explosives strung together that explode on the ground in sharp bangs.

Shell
Canisters fired out of a mortar that explode in flowery star bursts.

Girandole
A cluster of rockets that spin a disk up and off a center pole and into the air like a flying saucer.

Cherry Bomb
Powerful, round red firecracker that is outlawed in the United States.

Rocket
Cone-shaped cylinder attached to a long stick that soars high into the air when lift.

Roman Candle
Tubes stuck into the ground that when lit send starts into the air; so called because the Romans supposedly featured them at carnivals.

Set Piece
Wooden contraptions set with lances that when illuminated form the outline of a person or scene in colored fire.

Catherine Wheel
Set pieces that revolve in different kaleidoscopic color combinations.

Sparkler
A narrow steel wire that when lit sends out a shower of fine gold sparks.

All Bay Area bridges except the Golden Gate Bridge increased their tolls by $1 starting today. But if you have FastTrak, then you won't be paying the $1 increase in July and August.

You can check out www.511.org for more info on Bay Area traffic.

More on my company:

We have a rewards program that can be used to earn Fair Isaac-related stuff. Great prizes include pliers, a key ring light with a whistle, or an apron.

Who wouldn't want these things?

How many levels does it take to get from me to the CEO of my company?

Me, Analyst -->
Manager -->
Director -->
Group Director -->
Unit Vice President -->
Vice President Officer -->
President/CEO

That's a long ladder to climb, and I'm not expecting to climb very far or fast. Some people in our company haven't moved up above my analyst position after working here for 15 years.

Today's quote of the day comes from Miss Alabama in the 1994 Miss USA contest:

Question: If you could live forever, would you and why?

Answer: "I would not live forever, because we should not live forever, because if we were supposed to live forever, then we would live forever, but we cannot live forever, which is why I would not live forever."

Here are some more intelligent quotes.

There have now been 3 children in America to be named ESPN (pronounced Espen).

What's next, someone being named SportsCenter?

Thanks to Sam Lee, I decided to start an Alice Everyday Rewards Account from Radio Alice 97.3, an alternative station in the Bay Area.

Basically, this account lets you earn free stuff like CDs, t-shirts, concert tickets, etc. if you go to their website and enter in the Word Of The Day, which is announced on the station 4 times a day.

And Sammo also mentioned that the Word Of The Day is always posted on online message boards, such as the FatWallet Alice Forum, and that I could earn points without even listening to the station.

But then I also ran into a petition to Radio Alice, which basically claims that most things aren't available and that there are a lot of restrictions in order to win prizes.

I guess there's always a catch...

Take at least 2 of the following:
Will Ferrell
Ben Stiller
Vince Vaughn
Owen Wilson

And you have a ready-made comedy, such as:

Anchorman (2004)
Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story (2004)
Starsky & Hutch (2004)
Old School (2003)
Zoolander (2001)
Meet The Parents (2000)

Funniest moments involving Slum Dave at last weekend's YAG retreat in Bodega Bay:

-He offered Jin a piece of chicken. Jin then declined, and so Slum ate it. Too bad it was a piece of Already-Been-Chewed gum!

-Going into a hot tub so that the other guys could become just like him, "stallionized."

-Speaking of the hot tub, he then dropped his CapriSun in the hot tub with 4 other sweaty guys. After noticing that the bag filled up, he also noticed that his CapriSun tasted like chlorine... yet he proceeded to finish his drink.

From The Family Guy:

And who was the first person who thought lobster would taste good?

From Sunday's Pistons victory over the Lakers:

Player, Field Goals Made, Field Goals Attempted (Field Goal Percentage)
Shaq, 16/21 (76%)
Kobe, 8/25 (32%)

What was Kobe thinking?

This was found at the end of an e-mail from someone at my company.

"There are 10 kinds of people. Those who know binary, and those who don't."

That's not too surprising, considering the people I work with...

Here's part of the script from a rerun of Seinfeld I was watching the other day.

(Jerry is reading a comic that Elaine created.)
Jerry: It's a pig at a complaint department.
Elaine: And he's saying, "I wish I was taller,"... ha ha. See? That's his complaint.
J: I get it.
E: Do you?... Because that's not a normal complaint.
J: How 'bout if it was something like, "I can't find my receipt, my place is a sty."
E: Everything with you has to be so... jokey.
J: I'm a comedian.
E: I wish I was taller, that's, that's,... that's nice... That's real.
J: Well I got a complaint. This cartoon stinks.

(A minute later, Kramer taps a sheet of paper that he gives to Elaine to read.)
E: The pig says, "My wife is a slut"?
J: Now that's a complaint.

For all of the scripts from Seinfeld episodes, check out this website.

More on the dessert theme:

There are 53 Oreo product listings, and here are a few interesting ones:

Red and White Creme Mini Oreos
Oreo Pie Crust
100% Crumbled Oreo Cookies
Double Delight Chocolate Peanut Butter 'N Chocolate Creme Oreos
Spring Purple Creme Oreos
Double Delight Chocolate Coffee 'N Creme Oreos

Link of the day:

Fenton's tops Citysearch's list of best dessert places in the Bay Area.

This week's cover story in BusinessWeek:

If you live in California or another non-swing state, your vote in this year's Presidential election is not gonna matter.



It's no wonder that the US ranks 139th out of 172 in voter participation.

I've watched 14 episodes of the first season of "24" in the last 3 nights. Now I have 10 more to watch in season 1 and then all of season 2 when Allen gets his DVD set back.

I am officially addicted.

Picture of the day comes from MTV's Wildboyz website:

Yes, Steve-O and Chris are disguised as the zebra.

"You know the world is going crazy when:
the best rapper is a white guy,
the best golfer is a black guy,
the tallest guy in the NBA is Chinese,
the Swiss hold the America's Cup,
France is accusing the U.S. of arrogance,
Germany doesn't want to go to war,
and the three most powerful men in America are named 'Bush', 'Dick', and 'Colon.'
Need I say more?"

Chris Rock

"You know it's gone to hell, when the best rapper out there is a white guy and the best golfer is a black guy."

Charles Barkley, a few months later.

2004 World Series of Poker update:

It began on Saturday, and there are 2500 players who paid the $10,000 buy-in this year. First place gets $5 million.

Chris Moneymaker is already out, losing when one of only 2 cards that could've beat him came up. I guess last year's luck wasn't with him this year...

Top 10 Homer Simpson quotes:

10) To the tune of the Oscar Meyer theme song:
My bologna has a first name. It's H-O-M-E-R, my bologna has a second name. It's H-O-M-E-R.

9) Marge, I can't wear a pink shirt to work. Everybody wears white shirts. I'm not popular enough to be different.

8) A big mountain of sugar is too much for one man. I can see now why God portions it out in those little packets.

7) Kids, you tried your best and you failed miserably. The lesson is, never try.

6) Looking at waffle on the ceiling:
Lord, I know I shouldn't eat Thee, but... mmm... sacrelicious.

5) To the tune of the Village People's Macho Man:
Nacho, nacho man. I want to be a nacho man.

4) Praying:
Dear Lord, the gods have been good to me. As an offering, I present these milk and cookies. If you wish me to eat them instead, please give me no sign whatsoever...

3) To the tune of the Flintstones opening:
Simpson-Homer Simpson, he's the greatest guy in his-tor-y.
From the town of Springfield, he's about to hit a chestnut tree. D'oh!

2) I am so smart, I am so smart, s-m-r-t... I mean s-m-A-r-t.

1) Homer: Are you saying you're never going to eat any animal again? What about bacon?
Lisa: No.
Homer: Ham?
Lisa: No!
Homer: Pork chops?
Lisa: Dad, those all come from the same animal!
Homer: He he he... ooh... yeah... right, Lisa. A wonderful... magical animal.

Link of the day:

NPR interview with Triumph, the Insult Comic Dog

Currently the top story at CNN.com:

Previous commencement speakers at Harvard University:

Robert Rubin, former U.S. Treasury Secretary
Alan Greenspan, chairman of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System
Mary Robinson, the United Nations high commissioner for human rights and former president of the Republic of Ireland
Madeleine Albright, Secretary of State
Harold Varmus, director of the National Institutes of Health
Will Ferrell, Christmas elf, frat guy, and school cheerleader
Conan O'Brien, visionary of the Springfield monorail and prognosticator for the Year 2000

Was this even crazier than Robert Horry's 3 to beat the Kings in 2002?

The ad of the day comes from Dave Chao:

Link of the day:

The secret behind Google's search technology

You know how when you go to Palace Buffet (an all-you-can-eat-Korean-BBQ place), guys will want to try to eat as much meat as possible? Usually that means not eating too much rice or sides.

Here's Carroll's suggestion, heard at last night's Parker House dinner:

"Instead of drinking water, you could just swish the water in your mouth and then spit it out. That way you won't get full because of water."

Wow. I wonder how funny it would be if someone went with a bucket so that they could spit out their water.

Did y'all hear about Moises Alou? Here's a blurb from an ESPN.com article:

"Alou says the secret to hitting without batting gloves is to harden your hands and prevent calluses. One of his methods might win someone the prize money on the TV show, "Fear Factor." He urinates on his hands. That's the honest truth. Alou said he isn't sure where he learned this distasteful folk medicine, but it wasn't from his famous father. And it works for Moises."

Why am I such an idiot?

I left my ATM card at an ATM for the second time in 7 months. I also left my wallet at an ATM a year ago.

I've been extremely lucky though, because the wallet was still there when I went back for it, and the ATM cards were destroyed by the bank. One of these days my luck is gonna run out, so I gotta stop this bad habit.

Today's quote of the day is brought to you by Angels outfielder Garret Anderson, who's currently injured and not playing:

"When you see me out there playing, that's when you'll see me playing."

Very wise.

Yesterday had to be the most frustrating day I've ever had at work.

I cost myself at least 3 hours of time because I cut something from my desktop onto our file server, instead of copying it. The file became corrupted when I tried to put it on the file server, so now I can't open the document anymore.

I could've saved all this grief had I copied it, because then I'd still have the file on my desktop.

So now our Helpdesk people are going to see if they can recover the file. If they can't, that means I have to do about 6 hours of work over again!

Some fun stats involving Montreal teams from the first 23 games of the year (borrowed from SportsCenter):

Canadiens: 49 goals (2.13 G/game)
Expos: 41 runs (1.78 R/game)

Scored 3+ times in one game:
Canadiens: 9
Expos: 6

Times they've been shutout:
Canadiens: 3
Expos: 6

And lastly:
Barry Bonds: 10 HR, 36 BB
Expos: 10 HR, 45 BB

Most of us probably don't have TiVo, but I learned at work today that they are one of the many companies that sell data. TiVo knows what people watch, what they rewind, how many times they watch something, and they sell data about when people skip commercials.

According to TiVo, 75 percent of users who watched the Grammys also watched the commercials, while only 39 percent watched commercials during Friends.

Man... I drove by the Ben & Jerry's on Shattuck today... it was 6:30, but the line was still 200 people long.

Maybe I'll check out Baskin Robbins tomorrow night, but I don't think I'm gonna wait half an hour for a scoop of ice cream.

Allen's getting a Honda Accord today, so now all 3 of us at Emery Bay 6120 will have Accords. And Sammy Sohn has a Civic, which I suppose is fitting, since he lives in our apartment on weekends.

Now that manager Felipe Alou wants 3B Pedro Feliz to play everyday, this is the 2004 San Francisco Giants "optimal" lineup:

Position, Name, projected 2004 Value Over Replacement Player
2B Durham 28.8
1B Snow 4.0
CF Grissom 6.1
LF Bonds 105.9
3B Feliz 4.7
RF Tucker 0.3
C Pierzynski 22.5
SS Perez -2.6

You'd think that a team with The Best Hitter Ever, In His Prime would be better than average. But it isn't, because it'd be better to start 6 average players than Bonds and the 5 replacement players named Grissom, Feliz, Snow, Tucker, and Perez.

Put another way, if you replaced Bonds with an average player you'd have about the same production as the 2003 LA Dodgers.

Some of the songs included in Blender's "Worst 50 Songs Ever" (all of which had to be considered a hit at the time):

1. We Built This City Starship 1985
2. Achy Breaky Heart Billy Ray Cyrus 1992
3. Everybody Have Fun Tonight Wang Chung 1986
5. Ice Ice Baby Vanilla Ice 1990
7. Don't Worry, Be Happy Bobby McFerrin 1988
9. American Life Madonna 2003
11. Invisible Clay Aiken
33. Barbie Girl Aqua
39. She Bangs Ricky Martin
41. We Didn't Start the Fire Billy Joel
48. Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da The Beatles
49. I'm Too Sexy Right Said Fred
50. My Heart Will Go On Celine Dion
Your Body Is a Wonderland John Mayer

More Google pranks:

The following are found after typing in the phrase and hitting the "I'm Feeling Lucky" button:

anti-war peace protesters
weapons of mass destruction
miserable failure
Elmer Fudd
elgoog