16 days to the GRE. I feel like the more I study my math review books, the less I understand. For the last hour I’ve been looking at a series of word problems and have had no idea how to set them up, let alone solve them. These next two weeks of studying will not be fun.
Since David Stern clearly payed attention to my suggestions in handing down suspensions yesterday, I’ll offer some more unsolicited advise, this time to ABC. I didn’t say a word about the Monday Night Football intro last week because I didn’t see it. I do think tonight’s broadcast is an opportunity for ABC to make a statement about what happened a week ago and what to expect in the future. My suggestion is a thirty second shot of a gallon of vanilla ice cream sitting on a kitchen counter. It will be a fairly close shot; close enough so you can see the sweat beads on the carton. A spoon and bowl will sit next to the carton. For 30 seconds, jaunty, Herb Alpertesque elevator music from the early 70s will play in the background. There will be no actors or voice overs. After 30 seconds, the director will cut to Al Michaels and John Madden in the booth for the game. No controversy, no tacky cross promotion, nothing to offend anyone in America (except maybe the lactose intolerant). I believe a sarcastic response is the best response in times such as these.
Or perhaps Eva Longoria will drop her towel tonight?
Our digital video recorder was installed this morning. Now, if M. decides to start screaming during a game, I don’t have to miss a second of action. If only I had it last Friday night. Not only could I have reviewed the Pacers-Pistons fight at my leisure, but I also would not have missed the first two minutes of the KU game. We went out for dinner then to the grocery store with what appeared to be plenty of time to make it home. We pulled into a checkout lane at almost exactly 7:30 with only one person in front of us, and nearly all of his items had been scanned. 12 minutes later, he was still handing coupons to the poor kid working the register. This guy was clearly either making Thanksgiving dinner for a huge family or for some other large group. He literally had 30 packages of frozen broccoli. He had managed to load his cart up with nearly every item in the store that was on some kind of special, some of which were not marked. The guy had ten bottles of an Oil of Olay product (Not sure how that fits into Thanksgiving, but what do I know?). Only eight went through at the sale price, which he didn’t discover until some other items had been scanned. So he makes the kid go back through the receipt, confirm two weren’t charged at the right price, then rescan them. After that, he handed the kid a coupon for each bottle. Some of these didn’t scan. Once our fearless hero behind the register got those cleared up, the guy hands him another pile of coupons for some stuffing he had purchased. 16 boxes of stuffing. 16 coupons. Again, a couple of them didn’t go through right, but the kid points out there’s a limit of 5 or something. “Fine, cancel them all out and use these,” the man said as he handed over a different batch of coupons. Once he finally got his ass out of our way, the kid told us he had used $150 worth of coupons.
Now I’m all for saving money. But if you’re going to use $150 worth of coupons, a couple suggestions. First, warn the people behind you that it’s going to be awhile. The store was busy, but we could have gone through even the longest line and been done in the time it took for him to check out. It’s common courtesy to give us an opportunity to find a shorter wait. Since he made no such effort, S. and I stood and glared at him (which he ignored) and my father-in-law, who just happened to be there too, said rather loudly, “What the fuck is he doing?” Second, don’t keep pulling coupons out of your ass every few minutes. Put all of them into one batch and hand them over together. You can monitor them just as easily and you save a ton of time. Four different times our register boy thought he was ready to total out the purchase and the guy would reach into a pocket and pull out another batch. So we went from having plenty of time to get home and get the groceries put away before tip-off to flying into the driveway at 8:05 and S. saying, “Just go watch the game, I’ll put everything away.”
Tag: Misc (Page 8 of 11)
I’ve had the argument many times about the best sporting month. I contend March is the best, mostly because college basketball is my favorite sport and the drama of the NCAA tournament is unmatched. I must admit, though, Saturday was a most excellent day here in Casa de DDB. There were about 1,000,000 college football games on. Between CBS, ABC, NBC, ESPN, the local Big 10 games, and then some bonus coverage I seem to be getting, I had an almost limitless supply of games to choose from. On top of all that, there were three baseball playoff games to choose from. Little wonder I barely moved from the couch all day.
Being that I am a big college sports fan, I’m used to freshmen being over-hyped before they’ve done anything. Of course, I personally have never done that before. Anyway, after watching Oklahoma’s Adrian Peterson Saturday, I’m confident in saying he lives up to the hype and SI cover he’s already received. That kid is phenomenal. I don’t know that I’ve ever seen a true freshman play football at the level he’s playing at right now. Sometimes even the freakishly talented don’t really understand the game until the end of their first season. Right now, Peterson might be the best running back in all of college football. It was awe-inspiring to watch him combine speed with raw power, beating Texas defenders to an angle and streaking upfield on one play, and just annihilating players that tried to tackle him on the next play. It will be very interesting to see how he continues to develop and watch how long he stays in college. I recall Beano Cook demanding than Ron Powlus be given the next four Heisman trophies after an effective performance his freshman year. Archie Griffin might finally have some true competition for multiple Heisman wins.
Am I the only one who thinks, for the first time ever, the Boston Red Sox are not playing to override 85 years of history but rather simply to exorcise last year’s demons? There’s a huge difference in playing not to be Bill Buckner or Mike Tores and playing to make up for a missed opportunity the previous season. Fear vs. hope, to put it in electoral terms. That, along with superior starting pitching, are why I continue to believe they’ll beat the Yankees in the ALCS.
On the NL side, I don’t know if there’s a team that’s more fun to watch than the Cardinals. They’ve got the curious blend of best record in the league yet a small chip on their shoulders because of all the doubts about clinching so early, starting pitching, health of a few players, etc. They don’t have the personalities the Red Sox have, but the way they methodically go about winning game after game is a wonderful thing to watch. All the more reason why a Cards-Sox series would be great: outside the flamboyance of the Red Sox, the teams are very similar. They’ll both destroy you offensively. The Sox have better starting pitching, but the bullpen can let you back in the game. The Cards’ starters have some questions, but the most versatile pen in the majors can dig them out of any holes the starters leave.
I normally don’t like Fox’s Tim McCarver, but I enjoyed the slam he got in on Tommy Lasorda during last night’s game. Well done, Timmy McC!
I’m working on some thoughts on VH1’s And You Don’t Stop history of hip-hop. As you might imagine, I’ve loved the episodes I’ve been able to watch so far. I really need to crack open those boxes I brought back from KC and see what kind of late 80s gems are hidden in there.
In over two years of traveling for work, I drastically improved my packing skills. I used to be the guy who took three bags for a three day trip. By this time last year, I was almost always traveling with a backpack that could stow away underneath the seat in front of me and a small suitcase that could be put into the overhead storage compartments. I still generally took far too much stuff with me, but at least I wasn’t checking anything.
Trying to pack for a week-long trip that includes two weddings while remembering to bring everything we need for the baby is turning out to be a bit of a challenge. I have visions of us preparing to load up the car tomorrow morning, getting 2/3 of the items we’ve packed in, having no more room, and staring at the car with our hands on our hips wondering where we went so wrong. I’m sure we’ll figure something out. A few other thoughts put together while M. and I sat on the couch watching Barry Bonds go for home run #700 (Or rather while she took a three hour nap on my chest while I took cat naps in between Bonds ABs).
I LOVE the commercials for the ESPN movie Hu$tle about Pete Rose. Everyone looks like Pete always did, about seven years behind the fashion curve. Everyone looks just a little run down, like the actors in the second half of Boogie Nights, which seems perfect for what I imagine his life to be like. Casting and costuming aside, I still think it’s just another sign of how Disney has ruined ESPN by forcing more and more “entertainment” on us rather than focusing on being the best sports broadcaster in the world. We get overly hyped movies a couple times a year, senseless award shows, and far too many hours devoted to things like the X-Games, World’s Strongest Man, etc. rather than real sports. (I throw the X-Games in because it’s utterly ridiculous that ESPN includes highlights and results from the X-Games in Sportscenter and the crawl, yet ignore other extreme sports that ESPN doesn’t broadcast. If the Gravity Games, or whatever else there is out there are putting on almost exactly the same events and they don’t get coverage, that’s proof they are marketing opportunities and not real sports.) And I haven’t even gone on my traditional rant about Sportscenter sucking and the ubiquity of its “personalities”.
I’ve been seeing this commercial for Bank of America that talks about all their efforts to improve the technology on ATMs for several weeks. It always makes me think of the old SNL skit for the bank that provides change. When the BofA guy brags about carving six seconds out of a transaction, it makes me think of the line, “We’re not going to give you 20,000 nickels. Unless you want 20,000 nickels.” Of course, what the BofA guy doesn’t tell you is that by making ATMs do-it-alls, they can drastically cut back on the number of warm blooded individuals they hire, therefore cutting back on expenses. At the same time, they’ll increase user fees to cover the cost of all this R&D and implementation of the super advanced ATMs.
The third commercial that’s caught my attention is the one for the Freedom Tower coins. Have you seen this one? “Silver dollar coins” (that aren’t legal tender) that show the old New York skyline on one side, and the approximation of the NYC skyline after the Freedom Tower is built on the other. Alone, that’s ok. However, the big selling point is that each coin contains a tiny amount of silver that was actually recovered from Ground Zero! That’s right, you can own a piece of one of the world’s biggest mass graveyards! Why don’t they just throw in some dust, clothing scraps, and unidentified body parts also recovered from Ground Zero while they’re at it? I’m all for honoring those who lost their lives that day, but for people to make a buck off a rather ghoulish element of that day is reprehensible.
Via iTunes, I watched the video for Morrissey’s latest single “First of the Gang to Die” over the weekend. It’s not a bad song, although I liked the first single “Irish Blood, English Heart” much more. The video did make me laugh, though. It’s one of those performance videos that mix hundreds of shots taken at a recent Moz concert. I particularly enjoyed the crowd shots, in which it was nearly impossible to find a female face. I just found that interesting, that’s all.
One last note, a week ago Friday I was flipping around and found old Beavis and Butthead episodes on MTV2. Highly entertaining! I’ve become quite a fan of The Family Guy and occasionally watch South Park. It’s amazing how primitive B&B look in relation to those two animated shows. Also, later in the night, The Thanksgiving Orphans episode of Cheers was on TV Land. Always an exciting time in the B. household when I can catch that!
We’re off to KC in the morning. I should have Internet access through the week, so will be posting as time allows. I may have to bust out the phone blog number again, too. We’ll see some of you soon.
As the linked story relates, there was a small earthquake just south of Indianapolis yesterday. There’s nothing earth shattering in the article (get it, earth shattering???), but I had to share a nugget from the extensive coverage (slow news day) of the event on last night’s late local news. Contrary to what the IU geologist says in the Star article, another “expert” interviewed last night looked gravely at the camera and said, “It’s quite likely there will be a major earthquake in Indiana in the near future.” Naturally, he offered no evidence for his assertion nor did he put “near future” into perspective. Does he mean in the next ten years, or in the next 10,000 years?
No matter, I could hear the elderly, the sick, and people who just like to worry scampering out of their easy chairs and developing a plan to hoard water and food. “Agnes, the man on the television set said we’re going to have a major earthquake soon. Wake the kids! Make sure we have fresh batteries in all the flashlights! We’d better wrap the house in cellophane while we’re at it. It would be just like Al Queda to attack us when we’re trying to dig out of a quake.”
As an aside, I asked my wife where Shelby County was. She responded, “It’s wherever Shelbyville is.” I don’t get much help from her when I’m trying to learn my Indiana geography.
Yes, I pried open the door to the long neglected basement last night and fired up the big screen to watch the Colts-Patriots game. Things have changed a little since my last lengthy stay in our subterranean room for the UConn-Georgia Tech game. Back then, I could just disappear for the night without saying anything. Last night, I had to make sure I had my cell phone with me in case S. needed me quickly (and couldn’t run to the door and yell down at me, I guess). In case she couldn’t remember my cell phone number, I called the home phone from it before I headed downstairs to make sure the number was in the caller ID queue. Ain’t modern life grand?!?!
It was fine news to hear that the NFL is going to standardize Opening Night. From now on, it will occur the Thursday after Labor Day (Bravo!) and be played at the home stadium of the defending Super Bowl Champion. It makes so much sense that you know baseball would never do something like this. Nice work Mr. Tagliabue.
As for the game itself, everything was just so predictable. You knew the Colts would play inspired ball for about 55 of the 60 minutes. They’d bend, but not break, on defense. Peyton, Edgerrin, and Marvin would make enough plays to keep the Colts in the game late, but also make enough mistakes along the way to keep them from taking control of the game. Tom Brady would be steady all night, getting better as time wore down. And finally, the Colts would blow a chance late to win. Make that two chances to win and one chance to tie. How very Indianapolis Colts! All in all, an entertaining start to the season.
Can someone explain this Max Stats thing to me? I only saw it used once, and there was no real explanation of it. When Manning rifled a touchdown pass to Brandon Stokley, ABC showed the speed of the ball as 55 MPH. OK, makes perfect sense, I was with them so far. They also listed the “baseball equivalent” as 83 MPH. Huh? I mean, isn’t something either moving 55 miles per hour or it’s not? I never took physics, but perhaps the point was that the force it takes to hurl an object with the mass and shape of a football X MPH would propel the smaller, more aerodynamic baseball at Y MPH. Is distance factored in, too? How about wind speed, temperature, or relative humidity? If you’re going to compare, let’s be honest about it. Neither Al Michaels nor John Madden explained their methodology, or at least that I ever heard.
How about those Royals? They score 26 runs in the first game of a double header; get shut out in the nightcap. Sounds about right. Juntos podemos!
During commercials and halftime, I caught two other interesting things around the cable lineup. On the World Series of Poker, they had a feature on side bets these gambling freaks make. Everything from $10,000 for a vegetarian to eat a cheeseburger, to a man who bet a friend he couldn’t spend 30 days in Des Moines. The worst, by far, though was a man who was bet $100,000 he wouldn’t get breast implants. Naturally, he now has a pretty impressive rack. Whackos.
Over on VH1, I caught the second half of one of the new episodes of Bands Reunited, this edition focusing on The English Beat. A very entertaining look at one of the classic groups of 80s British music. “Save It For Later” anyone? “Mirror in the Bathroom” perhaps? 80s Trivia List members may recall that the Beat broke up and formed two other fine groups, General Public (“Tenderness”) and Fine Young Cannibals. Good stuff.
With that, I bid you a happy weekend.
Some quick thoughts after the long, holiday weekend.
The Oregon State kicker is either going to get more sympathy sex than anyone in the history of college sports or he’s going to jump off a building. No in-betweens after his performance against LSU.
I’m sure there was much “good natured ribbing” of KU fans back in KC, what with the basketball team scheduling its exhibition games in Canada the same weekend as the football season began. I bet there were many jokes about the 6,000 people who showed up at Memorial Stadium early to watch the basketball game told with a wink and a nod.
Another great thing about the Olympics is they allowed me to avoid all the preseason football hype this year. As loyal readers may recall, this time last year I stated my strong opposition for any football being played before Labor Day. I feel rather strongly that baseball should own the sporting world until the day after Labor Day. There are many high schools around here that had already played three games before Labor Day this year. I’m less militant this year because avoiding results for events I had not yet seen during the Olympics meant pretty much avoiding all preseason coverage of college and the pros. Still, the season starts too damn early.
Both IU and Purdue scored more than 40 points and Notre Dame lost this weekend. Fortunately, Purdue played on Sunday afternoon, otherwise there would have been many a sermon around here Sunday morning warning of Armageddon. Those three things happening on the same weekend have to be some kind of sign.
How very Yankee for the American League baseball club in New York to call for Tampa Bay to forfeit the first game of Monday’s doubleheader after they were delayed by Hurricane Frances. Not only do they blow apart the economics of baseball, but they also avoid the spirit of the game’s rules in order to gain a benefit (See also: Pine Tar Game).
There’s nothing I like about Vijay Singh. Now that he’s the #1 ranked golfer in the world, his already over inflated ego is going to get even larger. Come on, Tiger, get your ass in gear and start destroying people again.
I just read the Sports Illustrated feature on Jimmy Connors from a couple weeks back. I was always a huge McEnroe guy, so I hated Jimmy. I’ll give him this, though: he was interesting to watch, unlike most of today’s players.
I actually bought two books for general reading purposes over the weekend, so I hope to begin updating the List of Zen again soon. I picked up Chuck Klosterman’s Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs after several recommendations and his recent work with Bill Simmons. I also got Greg Kot’s new book Wilco: Learning How to Die. I’m a sucker for books about bands I love.
So much for keeping to a regular schedule last week. My apologies, but fatherhood was getting me down a little. I have a lengthy Olympics-related post I’ll add on Monday. However, I did want to point out a few changes the good people at Blogger made last week. Those nasty ads that used to litter the top of the page? Gone. In their place, a sweet little Google search box for this site alone. Need to point your friend the literary agent to my brilliant comparison of Michigan’s Fab Five to the Queer Eye Fab Five? Type it in, and you’ll get links to each time I’ve mentioned the Fab Fives.
Want to find out what I predicted for last year’s KU-MU football game? Search away. (KU, 45-41). Pretty cool, and helps me find old posts quickly too.
Also, in the far right, is a Next Blog button. That will randomly take you to another Blogger blog. Kind of fun for wasting time and seeing what the rest of the blogosphere holds.
Insanity is harsh, but when I sit down at the computer at 11:45 totally frazzled from 90 minutes of screaming, my creative juices are slow to work their magic. M. was in all kinds of weird moods today. She had a pretty good night of sleep, even spending the time from 6:00 to 8:30 AM in her crib. She woke around 10:30 or so for a feed, and really never got back to a deep sleep until 5:00. Both S. and I were a little frustrated because we didn’t have our regular two-hour blocks of freedom. After her nap, though, she was an angel. One of my sisters-in-law came over for dinner and M. just sat in her arms for an hour without making a noise. Well, she made some noises that began in her bowels so we laid her down to change her, prepared for the usual outburst. Not a peep. She just sat there and let us change and clean her. She dropped another load minutes later, and the same story for that change. We fed her around 9:30 and something there set her off. She howled from around 10:00 until around 11:30. It was one of those outbursts that nothing seemed to stem and brought mom and dad to the verge of their own tears. I haven’t heard a peep from the living room for 30 minutes (Granted, the iPod is cranked up) so, knock on wood, perhaps the storm has passed.
Long time readers of my work (I’m talking pre-blog work; back in the days of the ER list and the 80s trivia list) will recall I had an affinity towards boycotts. If something pissed me off, I boycotted it. That all came to a screeching halt when Masters Newman, Allison, and Lancaster forced me to break my seven year, idiotic boycott of Jack’s Stack one day at lunch. They actually had no idea of the boycott, and I sheepishly admitted it after I tasted how good the food truly was. I went back twice in the next month. Anyway, my point is while I’ve gotten off the whole boycott thing, I’m still a big fan of pet peeves. I have one new one, and was reminded of a classic one I feel obligated to share with the group.
The new one is people who have license plates saying that they’re the “Number One Fan” of team/school X. This really pisses me off. First off, unless you’re 11, you should never think you’re the number one fan of a team. There’s always someone more committed, more rabid, more mentally ill than you are somewhere that’s giving 1000% to the team compared to your 120%. Second, you picked this license plate off a rack that had 20 more just like them. Think about that for a second. There were opportunities for 20 more people to make the same claim, yet you still bought the damn license plate. Did you think they took the rest off the shelves one you carried yours out the door? Stick to a simple logo license plate, please.
The old pet peeve I was reminded of is far more serious. These dump trucks that rumble around, spreading debris and cracking windshields with the disclaimer to stay back 200 feet painted on the back really piss me off. First off, is that a legal defense? Can I put a sign on my truck telling people to stay off my ass, and then if I slam on my brakes for no reason and they hit me, they’re liable? What really gets me going is the fact that if you paint this on a vehicle, should they not ever, under any circumstances, pass another vehicle? How can I stay 200 feet back if the asshole driving the truck blew by me at 10 MPH over the speed limit? There’s a part of me that’s always secretly wants to take a rock from a dump truck in the windshield just so I could have a heart attack over the matter. I hate those things. Am I alone here? Is this thing on?
OK, I feel better after sharing those things. This next week is going to be different, at least I hope so. I’m going to try to get myself into a routine. I need to start studying for the GREs. I need to get back out running again. And I need to be more consistent posting about subjects other than my daughter’s excrement. I shall try to do much better so you have a reason to check daily again. Since I’ll be a captive audience for the Olympics, that should generate some ideas.
Before M. was born, I assumed my paternity leave would consist of lots of time on the computer, reading 3-4 books a week, and otherwise relaxing in the ways I was used to. To-date, I’ve read zero books (although I’ve read lots of chapters of several parenting and computer books) and have obviously posted less than what I was doing in the past. So let’s catch up on a few things.
The highlight of our weekend had to be when M. literally shit all over a friend of ours. It was awesome! She just let loose and the diapers either got full enough or were loose enough that it all came spilling out and landed on our friend’s lap, the couch, and the floor. Fortunately, our friend is a physician and a mom, so she can handle it. Plus, it all wiped up off the couch and carpet with no stains, so it was good for a laugh and nothing more serious.
Sunday was the Brickyard 400, the annual redneck convention in Indy that culminates with a NASCAR race. I’m somewhat ashamed to admit I watched more of the race than all the NASCAR I’ve watched in my life combined. I was holding the girl, it was a lazy Sunday, and it was a local event. Plus, the record 93 caution flags were perfect for inducing sleep. I was absolutely amazed, however, that people find it interesting to go sit in the sun for four hours and watch cars drive in circles. At least if you’re home, you can see what’s going on all the way around the track. If you’re at the race, there could be a massive pile up on the other side, and unless you’re sober enough to look at the big screen, you’ll have no idea that Dale or Ricky or Billy dun flipped his car and is in the amblanse. Two of my sisters-in-law went and said the guy sitting in front of them took his teeth out midway through the race because they were interfering with his ability to take shots. There’s clearly something wrong with a “sporting event” if you have to make more room in your mouth to drink halfway through.
The latest ESPN mega-self-promotion is Old School week on Sportscenter. They’re bringing back many of the classic anchors that have left the network to do an evening Sportscenter broadcast. I’m torn between thinking this is just another tired gimmick by a network that needs some competition and being thankful that I don’t have to listen to Stuart Scott, John Anderson, or Scott Van Pelt for a few nights and can actually watch again. Naturally, I watched Sunday’s with great interest as legend Craig Kilborn returned. I was disappointed. His heart didn’t seem to be in it. He made fun of all his imitators at the beginning, and later randomly threw out his once famous catch phrases so quickly they didn’t connect. His appearance did nothing to remind the public how brilliant his act was during his ESPN run. Yet even mailing it in, he was better than 75% of the current anchors. Now where’s Keith Olberman?
Hopefully some of this makes sense. I’ve got a terrific headache and am in no mood to edit.
A fine start to Friday with Martha Stewart getting prison time and Lance Armstrong making a big statement in the mountains of France. I don’t really care much either way about Martha, but I’d much rather hear her give a defiant speech against an adverse ruling than hear her gloat if she had got her way. Meanwhile, Lance gained back nearly half of the time he trailed the overall leader of the Tour de France by, jumping to second place overall, and left several of his prime rivals well behind him in another classic Armstrong climb.
One of the things I hate about getting older is how language changes. I’m not talking about slang, which you’re pretty much locked into repeating what your age group said when they were 26. I’m talking about everyday identifiers that change. Example: I’ve never been a big flip-flop sandal guy. Part of it comes from having gnarled toes after years of abuse through running and basketball. Also contributing was the lifetime contract I signed with Nike many years ago. I enjoy rocking sneaks rather than sandals. Working from home, however, caused a change of heart last year, and I’ve become quite fond of padding around the house to the gentle slap-slap of my Teva flip-flops. Where I run into problems, though, is in what to call them. I last regularly wore flip-flops when I was about five years old. At the time, they were called thongs more often than flip-flops. For whatever reason, my mind is having an extremely hard time with the change of terms and I often tell people I’ve really enjoyed wearing my thongs. Only when they give me a funny look do I correct myself. Remind me to never again start doing something I haven’t done for 20 years again in case of future changes in language that cause me embarrassment.
As many of you know, I’m in a career-planning phase. I’ll say more about it publicly once official word comes down from the powers that be, but suffice it to say that I’m in a mode of thinking about what the next stage of my career should entail. I was playing around on monster.com yesterday and ran across some of those quizzes that ask a series of questions, and then offer a generic industry that your personality, values, and work ethic seem predisposed to. First, I hate these things because they are so generic. Second, they offer a paragraph synopsis of what my ideal field is, then say if I want more information, I need to pay them some money. In one case, it was only $19.00, which I’m sure was for a general career guide with a page added showing my test results. Another, however, asked me to drop nearly $400 on a complete career assessment that included live, professional assistance. Why don’t they tell me this up front? I really should know better, I guess. Oh, one test told me I was analytical and another said I was best suited for a career in writing/journalism. I needed a test to tell me that?
Most of you should have received a message from my new .mac e-mail account earlier this week. That made me think, how many e-mail addresses have I had in my life? Allowing for the fact I first got on-line in the fall of 1994 (Yes, a full retrospective of my connected life will be issued to mark the occasion), and I spent several years on AOL, where you can add/change/delete accounts as easy as breathing, it’s really quite a daunting task. However, a quick jog of the memory puts me between in the range of 15 accounts. Really quite ridiculous, and totally indicative of the fact I was looking at things for most of the 90s I really don’t want my wife and daughter to know about. Breakdown is something like this:
Work accounts: 1
Free Internet services (Yahoo, Hotmail, etc): ~3
Non-AOL ISPs (RoadRunner, .Mac, Mindspring, etc): ~5
AOL: >5
I can always tell our tech department my work account is getting swamped with SPAM and they can issue a new one to me there.
I’ve got thoughts on the Shaquille O’Neal trade and the Pacers acquiring Stephen Jackson I’ll share later.