that guy over there...

google wave (want an invite?)...

so i recently got myself into google wave.  they gave me a handful of invitations which i could give out to my friends and family.  unfortunately, most of my friends and family aren't exactly tech savvy and have never heard of google wave, let alone ever understand exactly what it does.

for my part wave seems cool.  not so much for me though.  see, as it turns out it's much more appropriate for business types and other folks who need to collaborate on projects.  might it be a cool thing to plan gramps' surprise 80th birthday party?  sure!  in all honesty though, its doubtful it'll see prominent usage amongst family units.  at least not for a decade or so, when the toddlers of today are the teens of tomorrow.

that said, i was able to pass out a few invites to folks i know.  yay!  i get to play on wave!

but...and this is a good but if you want to play on wave too...i had a few invites left over.  in fact, it looks like they gave me another batch.  so i've got a few to give away.  at least 5.  probably more. 

want one?  cool!  willing to work for it?  even better!

i'll give out one invite to a random person who comments on this post.  yup, click the link down there, leave a comment and i might pick you.  if you're the only one who comments, you win!  so say hi and then tell all your friends never to come here!  if there's more than 1 commenter, i'll just point my finger at my screen and the one it points at wins.

i'll give out two invites (separate, meaning there will be two winners of one invite) to anyone who has a blog and links to me.  yup, throw a "thatguyoverthere.com" link on your site and you might just get one.  if you do that, you should probably comment to let me know it's there.  that way you get two chances!

and third, i'll give out two invites (again two separate winners of one invite) to the two best short stories on the subject of "how i will use google wave to take over the world."  be funny, be interesting, or hell be truthful and warn the world in advance of your plans.  i'd venture to say "giving chris an island filled with redheads" wouldn't be a bad first thing to do (after all, i did give you your invite). 

you can write your story in the comments (giving you two entries), write your story on your own blog and let me know it's there (giving two entries), or write your story on your own blog, include a link to my blog, and tell me it's there in the comments which will give you three chances to win. 

sound simple enough?  cool. 

lets figure all entries need to be done by saturday (december 5) by the time i write the post i normally write on saturdays (usually around 6 pm eastern).  i'll announce the winners in that post as an excuse to get out of writing anything interesting.

since no one ever plays in my contests, i reserve the right to drop an invite to any and everyone i choose.  also, i guess i should say this to cover my ass, i will nominate any and all winners for an invite promptly.  when you receive said invite from the powers that be at google is up to them.

football friday: week 12 (i'm boring, sorry)...!

we're at the point that this feels almost like a job instead of something i like to do.  i've got stuff to write, but no desire to actually write it.  it's weird, sometimes when i'm doing this it feels less like i'm living my life to live it and more like i'm living it so i have something to write about. 

note to self:  don't do football picks next year.

i liked writing on saturday because i felt like it, not because i felt i needed to because technically i was supposed to write on friday.  and why did i call it football friday anyway?  i knew there was no chance in hell i'd keep that up.  fridays are for sleeping late and going out all night so i have something to write about on saturday.

anyway...picks.  lines from the post.  home team in CAPS.

BRONCOS +5 over giants (win)
packers -10.5 over LIONS (win)
raiders +13.5 over COWBOYS (loss)
panthers +3 over JETS
colts -3.5 over TEXANS
BENGALS -14 over browns
VIKINGS -11 over bears
EAGLES -9 over redskins
dolphins -3 over BILLS
cardinals over TITANS
RAMS +3 over seahawks
FALCONS -12 over bucs
jaguars +3 over 49ERS
CHARGERS -13.5 over chiefs
steelers over RAVENS
edit!!  it's 2:26 am and i just read that ben roth...well however you spell his name won't be playing, so i'd like to change my pick to the RAVENS.  at this time the posts "live from vegas" link has the ravens a 7 point favourite, so the new pick is:
RAVENS -7 over steelers
SAINTS -2 over patriots

week 11: the fallout (mailin it in this week)...

it's almost thanksgiving.  things have been busy here at the building.  so here's a quick recap of the week in football and 3 thanks giving picks...

winners: dolphins, 49ers, vikings, falcons, saints, colts, chargers, eagles, titans

losers: cowboys, lions, steelers, jaguars, cardinals, bengals, jets,

week 11 record: 9-7

season record: 75-67-1

thanksgiving picks

BRONCOS +5 over giants

packers -10.5 over LIONS
raiders +13.5 over COWBOYS

short and sweet.  happy thanksgiving everyone!

football friday (week 11: actually i'm gonna talk about less than jake)...!

yep, it's more talk about less than jake.  i'm not going to review the show because as usual (for the third time this year, even) it was awesome.  amazing.  those guys just know how to put on one hell of an enjoyable show.  even if you hate their music they'll entertain you between songs.  me?  i love their music.  they are by far my favourite band.

could the show have been better?  maybe.  they could have played my very own flag.  been ages since i've seen them play it live.  they did play national anthem though, which is probably my second fave.  yeah, that was awesome, even if i did land up with a huge bump on the back of my head when i jumped in the circle pit to enjoy it.

but like i said, we're not here to review the show, we're here to review it's audience.  the show was at the nokia theater in times square.  either the nokia is much bigger than i thought or the show didn't sell very well because there was a ton of room in the crowd.  my cousin danielle likes going to the front of the crowd at events like an ltj show.  it's normally very crowded and people are pushing and shifting with each movement of another person.  that wasn't so much the case on thursday.  it was crowded, but very spread out.  everyone really did have a lot of personal space.  of course "a lot" is relative.  it's usually less than none.

oddly in the nicest most spread out crowd i've ever been a part of there was a problem.  a girl (turned out to be 2) from atlanta (as i learned later) decided to take it upon herself to throw a can at a guy she thought was being too rowdy.  she was at the front of a crowd of people and took exception to being bumped.

now, i've been going to shows for a good 15 years.  getting bumped is part of the concert going experience if you decided you want to be at the front of the crowd.  so she throws the can and misses her target,  i saw it flying and caught it.  i decided to tell her she was in the wrong.

see, when i go to a show i tend to be a mini bouncer.  i keep my eye out for all sorts of stuff, random crowd surfers, overly aggressive folks, and other such things.  my goal is ot make sure i don't get kicked in the head and i tend to look out for the girls in my general area.  it's cool that girls want to have fun, but in general they don't know what they're getting themselves into.

the girl was standing next to me, so i mentioned it was uncool to throw the can.  she decided to tell me she wasn't scared of me and that i should hit her if i want to.  i didn't want to hit her.  in fact i really wanted to fuck her.  she was a pretty sexy lil redhead.  until she opened her mouth at least.  so i told her again, she missed her target and hit me, it wasn't cool.  i didn't care that her can could have hit me, i cared it was there at all.  if someone's bumping you, bump them back.  that's how it goes.

so the show went on.  ginger mccuntalot didn't really know any of the songs.  she was just there annoying people.  she and her friend tried to get on stage.  the entire crowd around us all pleaded with hand gestures for the band to take them away from us.  finally she convinced buddy she and her friend could shotgun a pbr faster than some asian dudes.  they were now on stage.  and gone.

so i started a "they are cunts!" chant.  10-15 people from the area joined in, but the crowd did not.  to them she was just a sexy lil redhead.  the cans got poked and they failed in shotgunning quite miserably.  ultimately getting booed, throwing the cans in the crowd, and disappearing...until they were back.  fuck!  we thought we were rid of them.

upon arriving she somehow wound up having words with some guy.  i didn't see who started it, but she sure as hell escalated it.  then her friend topped it off by grabbing the guy by his throat.  why the bouncer who was literally right in front of us did nothing, i don't know.  i saw the guy wasn't about to hold back, so i stepped between em, knocked the girls hand away and pushed the guy back.  he tried to get at em again, but i held my ground.

i think that finally scared the lil cunt away.  instead of trying to get her spot back like she was planning, she grabbed her stuff from the bouncer.  giving her a bit of credit, she did thank me for involving myself.  to which i responded, "we're just here to have fun.  stick around he won't bug you."  sadly she left.  which is too bad i would have like to have gotten a piece of that.

the moral of the story...don't be a cunt at the less than jake show.

moving on, it's week 11!  i'm 1-0 on the week, and we have a fulls late of games with the bye weeks being over.  home team in CAPS and the lines, as usual, come from the post.

dolphins +3 over PANTHERS (win - thursday)
falcons +6.5 over GIANTS
jets +10.5 over PATRIOTS
LIONS -3.5 over browns
JAGUARS -9 over bills
steelers-10 over CHIEFS
colts -1 over RAVENS
49ers +6.5 over PACKERS
VIKINGS -10.5 over seahawks
COWBOYS -11 over redskins
saints -11.5 over BUCCANEERS
cardinals -9 over RAMS
bengals -9.5 over RAIDERS
chargers over BRONCOS
eagles -3 over BEARS
titans +4.5 over TEXANS

and with that, i shall go fix my typos.  the in browser spell check has nearly turned my page red i made so many... 

(also a pic later or tomorrow, waiting for my cuz to send me the ones she took)

this is how you know america is too fat...

one christmas, when i was two maybe three, i got lots and lots of toys from fisher price.  i loved fisher price toys.  i was so happy that when i opened a present containing yet another toy from fisher price i held it up and gladly exclaimed "ANOTHER FISHER PRICE!!!" 

i of course am so fucking old that no one really had cameras.  my cute moment of loving my toys was not recorded, it was not magically sent to the corporate offices of fisher price, and i was not the fisher price spokeschild earning money, fame, all the toys i wanted and likely many more addictions than i currently have.

the point of the story is...fisher price now makes an exercise bike for kids.  yup, you read that right.  we're officially so fat as a society that a toy company made an exercise machine for 2 year olds.

i'm not certain if i should be sad or laughing my ass off...

week 10: the fallout (and thursday quick pick)...

so the week in football pretty much sucked a dick for me this week.  if there was a way for me to lose a close game, i did.  if there was a way for a team i picked to be mind numbingly blown out, it happened.  football was not a kind mistress.  this was definitely one of those weeks that reminded me why it's never good to gamble.

that said, any joy i had lost will be returned to me tonight.  less than jake is playing the nokia theatre in times square.  3rd time i get to see them this year and it's never enough.  i fucking love that band.

the results...

winners: bengals, chiefs, cardinals, ravens

losers: bears, bills, saints, dolphins, lions, jets, broncos, falcons, cowboys, eagles

and i apparently didn't type my pick for the pats/colts game which sucks because the pats were 3 point dogs and that would have been a win for me...like i said, shitty week all around.

week 10 record: 4-10

season record: 66-60-1

week 11 thursday quick pick:  dolphins +3 over PANTHERS

geography is fun...

me:  that area code is in western washington state, by seattle.
boss:  yeah i knew it was out there.  where is that anyway?
me:  washington?
boss:  yeah
me:  it's the northwestern united states...by canada.
boss:  that sounds right.  i knew it snowed there,  it's very cold.

i wonder...

...when reverend al's protest of columbia university demanding the firing of a black professor who was arrested for punching a white woman over a discussion about white privilege will be.  "no justice, no peace." right?

...why there was little if any mention of the story in the news.

...why obama didn't take time to mention the professor acted "stupidly" like he took time to criticize cambridge cops when a black professor was arrested a couple of months ago.

...if mephis grizzlies fans who bought alan iverson's jersey are going to be getting a refund.

...if his home jersey, which he never wore, is now a collector's item.

...why there's days and days of stories about a little white kid missing, but we only find out about the missing black kid after he or she is found dead.

...what i'd do without google and it's mail, reader, and calendar.

...if google knows they could likely take over the world if they wanted to.

...when the aliens that invented facebook so it'd be easier to harvest us will be coming.

...why "fair and balanced" never is.

...why liberals are still whining even though they're the ones in power.

...why it's not ok to make fun of asian accents on the radio.

...why in the new "taking of pelham 123" any racial remarks about blacks were removed and replaced with a tirade about italians.

...why in call of duty: modern warfare 2 the terrorists are russian and not muslim.

...how many licks it takes to get to the center of a tootsie pop.

...if we'll talk again.

...if i'll care when we do.

...why when there's a black president in a movie something earth shatteringly catastrophic happens, but when whitey is in charge everything ends happily.

...if morning glory ever told her story.

...how i've managed to go 2 whole posts without a typo.

...why i finally made a typo typing about how i hadn't made on in two whole posts.

...if it really does take diff'rent strokes to move the world.

a letter to brooke hundley...

dear ms. hundley,

first i'd like to start this letter by saying thank you.  thank you from the bottom of my heart.  you were able to accomplish something that even his complete lack of knowledge about anything baseball related could do, get steve phillips fired.  for this the entire espn watching populace owes you a debt of gratitude.  you have spared us from watching that dolt drone on about a sport he clearly knows nothing about. 

thanks to you we can now go back to watching baseball tonight and random espn games of the week.  we can go back to listening to espn radio.  most importantly we can trade in our ps3s because it was the only system with a baseball game free of steve phillips' mindless prattle.

unfortunately the praise for you ends there.  while i'll always be grateful you committed harakiri, and sacrificed your career for the good of the sports enjoying public as a whole, your methods were...wrong.  while good has come as a result of what you have done, spun properly mr. phillips could be allowed back into the fold as a sports personality again some day.

with that in mind i've decided to take you to task on a few of the things you said in your attempt to look like a victim instead of a hero who bravely and boldly accepted her fate for the horrible things she did.

"I've been called things by the public that no woman should ever be called.  I couldn't go a day without getting, you know, 200 messages in my inbox from people that have never met me, just labeling, just calling me names. I've been called the 'C' word. I've been called a whore. I've been called a homewrecker."

well brooke, we're going to have to agree to disagree on this one.  those words are things most women should be called.  not often or always, but enough that they know that we know what they're up to.  we'll address these one by one in reverse order, saving my favourite word ever for last.

homewrecker:  i don't know about you, but i'm pretty certain telling a man's wife about everything you've done with her husband, saying he loves you and not her, and mentioning how he tells you intimate personal details about her and her kids in a letter which leads to her filing for divorce does, in fact, make you a homewrecker.  hell, i would say that's the very definition of a homewrecker.  i'm not certain how you could think that the things you did causing this man to be essentially kicked out of his home don't make you a homewrecker.

whore:  you fucked a married man.  a lot.  yup, you're a whore.

"c" word or as i like to say cunt:  we've gone over lots of things that make people a cunt on this site.  all sort of stuff from wearing a beret to being lars ulrich.  i think we can definitely make an addition to that list for you.  i mean if you can't call a girl --who fucks a married man, tells his wife and ruins his marriage, and oh...stalks his kid on facebook to get information about him-- a cunt, then frankly brooke i don't know who you can call a cunt (other than lars ulrich).  honestly, you'd of been less of a cunt if you would have burned his house down and used the flames to roast and eat his dog.

"When Jay Leno was using my looks as part of his opening monologue to get a cheap laugh.  At that point, you know, a person has their breaking point. That was my breaking point."

i'd ask you not to take this the wrong way, but there's no wrong way to take it.  brooke, sweetie, you're fucking ugly.  i'm not saying you're susan boyle ugly or anything, but you're not really a looker.  the fact that steve phillips would prefer to fuck you over his fairly attractive wife (who's a mother of 4 and has a much better body than you) just proves he's a fucking idiot.  i have to say it's kind of sad that you can't take a joke based on your looks.  it shows you lack a sense of humour which makes you even less attractive.

let's put it into perspective using me as an example.  it seems right now brad pitt and angelina jolie are having some problems.  i don't know why that is or what they are, nor do i care.  but i'd have to say if angelina chose me to fly to some random country with her and fuck while picking out the next in her series of children of many colours, i'd certainly expect jay leno to wonder aloud why ms jolie would rather have the short irish dick of a fat man than mr. pitt's seemingly wondrous hog.  (i mean, in all seriousness, brad pitt has to have one amazing dick considering jen aniston is still begging for it) hell, i'd probably wonder myself.  and post it here.

"I think people are so quick to make a judgment without ever ... I don't know if they want to know the details.  It's almost like, 'Here's a great story. Here's a great chance for me to destroy a person,' without any sense of really thinking about the fact that there's a human being behind those words."

yeah, it's mean to destroy a person, huh brooke?  it's almost as if the public has ruined your marriage, got you publicly fired from your job, and had you sent to rehab so there was even a chance you could resume your career...oh wait.

like i said at the top, thank you so much for removing that man from the public eye.  the year or two we'll be without him will be glorious and i'll never forget you for it.  that is, until i do.  and i will.  because in the end you were nothing but an attention seeking, homewrecking, delusional, cunty whore.

love always,

chris

football friday (week 10: already 0-1 and i'm an idiot)...!

so i finally installed windows 7 yesterday.  got the copy from microsoft the other day and really didn't want to wait any longer.  see, intel botched the firmware that enables trim on my new ssd and i was going to wait until that came out, then decided otherwise.  i had a couple of days to myself and figure they were as good as any to install and tweak this lovely operating system.

so i backed everything up, installed the new drive, and went about my business.  the install went great.  until i needed to reboot.  see, i neglected to format the drive i had vista on.  when booting the pc saw 2 operating systems and freaked out.  my bad.  rather than try to mess with it, since i hadn't installed or tweaked anything, i figured it'd be quicker to just do a reinstall.  and it was.  but there was one problem.

see, i formatted the wrong drive. instead of wiping the drive with vista on it, i wiped my 1.5 terabyte drive that had 10 years of mp3s and a bunch of porn on it.  yeah, that fuckin sucked.  all those lovely breasts and vaginas were lost forever.  music is one thing, i can re rip all my cds.  it's a matter of time a patience.  the porn though...that's a sad thing.  sure there's tons of mass market porn out there, but some of my better "just for me" stuff i may never see again.

unless of course recuva did it's thing.  see, it wasn't a full format. it was just a quickie *poof you're gone* format.  the drive just had it's master list of files erased, all the files were technically still there.  so i ran the disk recovery program and came up with a  few hundred gigabytes of info.  unfortunately, the file system was gone, so all i really have is a whole bunch of files in alphabetical order.

the mp3s shouldn't be too bad as i was good at tagging stuff, but the pics and vids will be harder.  it's easy to know "02 - My Very Own Flag.mp3" is "my very own flag" by less than jake almost certainly off their album pezcore.  "005hy78jksb.jpg" could be anything from a picture of that guy who got fucked to death by a horse to a picture of the pope. 

worse, i looked at some of the pics.  i think the recovery invented them.  a few i saw i know for a fact i've never owned.  i mean, there were some beads.  what the fuck would i do with a picture of beads?  unless of course they were on a string up some chick's ass, but then there wouldn't be a picture of beads.

in the end, the install went great.  windows 7 is an amazing os and you should try it out.  hopefully i'll be able to sort through and get my mp3s back in order and my porn back in a more manageable jumble.  but really i would have been better served by taking a second to read what i was deleting.  one day i'll learn to pay attention to stuff i guess...

and now to football.  as always the lines come from the ny post bettor's guide and the home teams are in caps...

bears +3 over 49ERS (thursday night...already lost)
JETS -7 over jaguars
broncos -3.5 over REDSKINS
bengals +7 over STEELERS
bills +7 over TITANS
lions +16.5 over VIKINGS
saints -13.5 over RAMS
falcons -1.5 over PANTHERS
DOLPHINS -10 over bucs
chiefs +2 over RAIDERS
CARDINALS -8.5 over seahawks
eagles +1 over CHARGERS
cowboys -3 over PACKERS
ravens -11 over BROWNS

that's all folks...