Super Bowl 42

Roman numerals are stupid.

Well, maybe not. But they seem kinda pretentious when affixed to the end of the title of a sporting event.

Anyway, I just watched a recording of the Super Bowl. I was doing more important things at the time of the game; in fact, my first knowledge of the victory was when I got home late at night and my mom said "Well, it was a good outcome." I couldn't really believe me ears. So yeah, I was totally thrilled. And I'm just glad the Patriots made it as far as they did without a loss, because the taste of this defeat is almost infinitely sweeter because of it. Back to the recording: it was a good game. Obviously, "The Play" was pretty unbelievably cool. But just in general, the quality of play on the part of the Giants...yeah, there were some dropped balls, and a couple of blown coverages. But for the most part, the Giants played lights-out. I don't know what that means, but it's a common enough phrase. The Patriots, on the other hand, with the exception of Wes Welker and maybe the Patriots' secondary, were flat almost the entire game. Tom Brady had a particularly poor game; I know this was partly because of a lack of support from his offensive line (that is to say, total dominance on the part of the Giants' defensive front), but honestly, he missed waaaay too many passes - some of them easy - and did not look at all like "the best player in the game", and all of the other superlatives heaped upon him before and during the game.
The coverage of the game itself was reasonable, but frankly pretty boring. I was thankful that it wasn't too over-the-top, but honestly, why did it seem like the announcers didn't even realize how important the outcome of the game was, at least in the world that is the NFL? Still, underproduction is better than overproduction, and though very few insightful comments were made (my heart did, however, skip a beat when the analyst pointed out the delayed rush from Kawika Mitchell - in my opinion, the sweetest play of the game - with about 7:45 left in the first half), at least I didn't have to listen to a trillion references to how the Patriots were the best team ever in the history of the so-far-explored quadrant of our universe.

I'm sorry that last year's game wasn't better, though naturally its outcome was even more fun than this year. But I'm quite thorough in my dislike of the Patriots, and there really couldn't ever be a better "second-best" outcome to a Super Bowl.

I found my first Googlewhack!

If you don't know what a Googlewhack is, you should look it up on Wikipedia. Basically, it's a Google search query consisting of two words which only turns up one result. It's harder than it sounds.

After changing my away message this evening, I decided to look up the definition of one of the words I was using. Somehow, the idea of a Googlewhack came to mind, and I put in one other word, and whammo! I had myself a Googlewhack.

Now, the funny thing about Googlewhacks is that they cease to exist as soon as you post the two words on your blog, because then Google indexes your page and you become result #2. Since this royally sucks, I'm not gonna do that. However, I'm going to take a screenshot of the occasion and post it here, so I have permanent proof of the accomplishment. If you want to verify the results for yourself, just look at the image. However, I do request that you not forget the nature of Googlewhacks in your moments of virginal Googlewhack delirium. Please do not post these two words in plain text on your own blog/website/internet dumping ground. I thank you in advance.

cool new desktop

Using Windows Sidebar (I originally tried Yahoo! Widgets, but it lost the position of my frames every time I restarted my computer...odd, because it didn't lose track when I only had one...), I have a new, fancy, useful, and pretty desktop, consisting of 20 picture frames which each select a random image from my hard drive every 60 seconds. They don't all change at the same time, either. The effect is quite literally amazing. I could now sit and stare at my desktop for hours on end.

Click on the preview to see the full-size, full quality image.

today's must-see Dilbert

Not only is this one a perfect example of stuff that actually happens in the workplace, but it reminds me of the way parents act sometimes as well. I love you, Mom and Dad....but I have mentioned this before, haven't I?
Aaaannyway....

For more Dilbert, click here.

A partment

I have a partment, and I moved into it on Monday. It's definitely reasonable - the room has a nice view of a soccer field and such - in fact, I probably have the best view of any of the Walker Avenue partments (yes, I'm having fun leaving off the 'a'...). I can even kinda see the sunset/sunrise (don't ask me how that's possible from one window!). My sheets don't fit the bed (this will have to be fixed), so currently I'm wrapping myself in the fitted sheet, which actually works reasonably well.

More excitingly (for me) is that the parts for my new computer are (should be) arriving tomorrow! I can hardly wait to put it all together and see what happens (hopefully, a gentle hum, and a working computer....I didn't see fireworks on the 4th of July, but I'll wait until next year, thank you very much)...it should be screamingly fast, and certainly screamingly faster than my working but often painfully slow Ferrari (ha....now THAT's good for a laugh) laptop. I'm sure I'll post pictures and specs once I have it working.

Which brings up another topic - I guess I'll have to borrow Dad's camera if I want to take any pictures, because my lovely camera died a little more than halfway through the Tennessee trip (which brings up another topic). I sent it in to Canon for warranty repair, and hopefully it will cost me nothing (i.e. they don't decide that it was water damage). But that won't be returning to me, poor me until 7ish days from now, I think.

Yeah, so - Tennessee. It went well, though we were all awfully tired by the end of the week. No airsoft took place; in fact, we spent basically the entire first half of the week building a raft on Cherokee Lake - we started on Monday and didn't get it actually finished until some time on Thursday. It was definitely a good time, though I personally needed a vacation from that vacation (thank goodness - rather, thank God for July 4th....)

Work is going pretty well, I guess - I seem to have a reasonably good feel for how to do most things, and there are enough helpful people to manage. The 20-minute commute from my partment (oops, I did it again) is a LOOOT better than the 1:30 commute from home....and I can subsist on sandwiches and milk for a while....

Oh...lastly, Wendy and Dad were in the area today for Wendy's orientation at UMBC. She signed up fer classes an' ev'r'thing. Also, she discovered that the great Iain Roush's younger brother, Griffin, will also be attending UMBC starting this fall.

Soooo...yup. That's life for the past few weeks. Oops, almost forgot to mention - the Rebel, she leaketh not. Or, rather, she leaketh not much. Maybe a few drops of transmission fluid here and there (and everywhere), but the oil leak is down to a bare minimum. Which is probably good - I think the Maryland Department of Transportation has kinda been counting on me for the last year or so, you know, to keep the asphalt well-conditioned with fresh motor oil. (I've been using almost strictly Quaker State 10W-40, guys, don't you worry! I'll be picking up my check at some point in the near future when I get the time.) In any case, it's nice to be able to drive for a whole three days without having the red oil pressure light start lighting up my world every time I take a fast turn. Or stop. Orrr.....go. Yeah...I think that pretty much covers it.

I have a craaaaazy sleep schedule these days - you know, getting sleepy before 10, that sort of thing. So I should probably go obsessively track my UPS/FedEx packages for about half an hour, read my Bible, and get to sleep. I hope at least one of you made it all the way through this post. Waaaahahahahahahahaaaaa.....riiiiiight.

Hey guys: Wut 'n the wurld!?

Heh heh.

OK, I realize that I'm bored today. But someone else is going to find this funny as well....

Homophonous phrases.

For those of you who have seen the commercials...

I'm actually a fairly big fan of Macs myself, and I've always thought the commercials were funny. But quite honestly, there's a lot of truth in the following cartoon: No One...Cares.

(no title)

I hate it when I get emails that have no subject line.

We (as in, "they" + "I") played Mao this evening. At the Boyces, and it was entertaining, for the most part. Nick Slater kept talking =), and the newer players kept getting frustrated when they didn't have a 7 to play. That's just the way it goes.

This past week was the first week of my 6th semester as a college kid. It was mostly OK, except that Databases is holed up in a corner of the Academic IV building which is so remote that they have SIGNS throughout the third floor saying "Room 320 is *this* way". When they have signs telling adults how to find a room....it can't be good. Oh, and SCI 100 is going to be half-miserable, because the instructor....well. It's hard to explain.

Today, my dad and I washed the Rebel, since the State of Maryland has decreed "that the ground shall be covered in a sublime shade of 'orange-yellow road salt' for the duration of Winter [even if it makes the road just as slippery to have 2 inches of salt as it would to have an inch of ice], to brighten the otherwise dreary vistas for the common Man/Woman/Child". It was *freezing* cold outside, and as such, the water was not about to fail in its duty to freeze almost immediately upon contact with the car. I can tell you that, no matter how dirty your car is, it's not necessary to use soap to clean the thin film of ice that has only moments before formed on your car. It's already clean - really it is. Just leave it alone.

Oh, and last night, we (they and I) went to Dunkin' Donuts, where we skipped the Dunkin' part, and mostly skipped the Donuts part (except for Kathryn), and got not-so-fancy fancy coffee milkshake things.

And today Kay went to a Mary Kay partay.

Eek. This is really scary, but it has to be done. My prediction for the game tomorrow (and if you don't know what game is on tomorrow.....that's probably just as well)..........

Colts 32

Bears 21

Ack.