fun
"I have overactive sweat glands."
AOL is still a crappy way to Internet, in my not-so-humble opinion, but their latest commercial ("Too much information") had me in stitches.
One Man
My wife and Tom both told me about Charles Ross's One Man Star Wars. The video clip sealed it for me; if I find myself in NYC, I'll definitely have to see this, or his new One Man Lord of the Rings.
Zoorific!
Our tyke had his first trip to a zoo yesterday. The weather was fabulous, so we trucked on down to the Fort Worth Zoo for a day with some friends and their son, who is just a few weeks younger than our tot.
Click on the photo to see the entire picture set.
It's about time
Tom asked, and Tiff said yes. I confess to being one of those who knew of Tom's plan ahead of time, but that's mostly because I've been annoying him about it for...well, a while. Though he had described the ring to me, I had not yet seen a photo of it. A fine job, my friend. Tom's plans were certainly more romantic than mine, but then my beloved knew it was coming. (Not at the exact moment it came, mind you, but it was something we had been talking about.) I like that the first person to know of their engagement was the park ranger; for us, it was our waitress at dinner an hour or so after I asked. Having been through the big wedding thing, I proffer this advice to Tiffany, who is already stressing: skip it. Take the money and run. Small, small, small, family and very close friends. I won't even sniffle over not getting an invitation. (Though an excuse to go to DC/Cali/wherever would be nice.) Congratulations you two, and may God bless you with a lifetime of happiness together.
Cute, but not that cute
Something amusing I read in RD, courtesy of BizRate Research:
56% of women and 41% of men say their pets are more affectionate than their partners. Our cats and dog can be pretty affectionate, but I would hesitate to say more so than my wife. She may feel differently about me. 45% of women say their pets are cuter than their partners; 24% of men feel the same way. Our male cat, Zane, who is an all-grey short-hair, is gorgeous. My wife keeps insisting I should find a pet model agent for him. Our other cat and the dog are cute, but I would honestly say they don't compare to Zane. But the animals being cuter than my wife? I'm not stupid. (Contrary to what you might think...)
Happy Birthday, ST
Today, the SuperToad turns...well, another year older. We'll just leave it at that. Happy Birthday, Brian!
Okay, I'm not <i>this</i> desperate for a job
Men Wanted 18-45 ASAP. I'll let the job posting speak for itself.
Baseball beats blood and water
For my guys in and from New England, as submitted to Reader's Digest by Gayla Bieksha, of Hubbardston, Mass:
Blood may be thicker than water, but baseball beats them both. I learned this after explaining to my two boys that they were half-Lithuanian, on their father's side, and half-Yankee, meaning their other set of grandparents came from an old New England family.
My younger son looked worried. "But we're still a hundred percent Red Sox, right, Mom?"
Fall ball
The fall softball season began yesterday for the co-ed church league I participate in. We opened against the sophomore contenders of First United Methodist of Lewisville. (Their rookie season was earlier this year, during the spring.) A lot of youngsters on the FUMC team, but that can cut both ways. We had a full complement of players show up, and then some. We had three-way and two-way rotations going, as well as outright substitutes. I managed to play three of the six innings, squatting behind the plate and taking the hurls from Heather, our second pitcher of the game. So not much fielding work for me during the first game. My time in the batter's box showed the results of not putting bat to ball in four months. I went 0-2, sending out grounders that resulted in fielder's choices, getting my teammates plugged at second. Definitely time to hit the cages, and friends for company be damned. Everyone else did well at the plate, and our pitching and defense were superb. The final tally was 17-1, and we begin the season with a win. No play Labor Day weekend, and Katrina has seen fit to deny our trip to the New Orleans area to finish clearing out my wife's childhood home. So I'll try to take advantage of the off-week. Anyone for the batting cages and throwing around?
Old is new again
Today, I've spent time listening to some old tunes that have recently found their way in to my iTunes library. In the course of cleaning up a small portion of the CD collection, and putting some up for sale, I spent some time sucking CDs into MP3s. Currently tripping the bytes fantastic is The Cult's Sonic Temple.
The NCAA Football Championship BS has already begun
No, that is not a typo in the title. I mean "BS," not "BCS," though some would argue they have become one and the same. I mention this because a few moments ago I flipped on the idiot box to channel surf while relaxing for a few minutes. The satellite receiver had been left on NBC, which is showing the AVP Nissan Manhattan Beach Open, the women's final, to be specific. They were just coming back from commercial, and noted that in attendance was a large portion of the USC Trojan football team. Then there was the magical BS moment: "It's hard enough for a team to win a national title, much less three, which no team has ever done before..." said spokesbabe to Trojan quarterback Matt Leinart. She was, of course, referring to the fact that USC is ranked #1 in the pre-season polls, and the Trojans will be the frontrunners for another national title in NCAA football. She is, of course, wrong, as is any other sports broadcaster, to suggest that USC may become the first team to win three in a row. USC did not win the national championship in 2003. Let me say that again, for the many Trojan worshippers out there, including those infesting sports broadcasting. USC did not win the national championship in 2003. That honor went to LSU, which defeated Oklahoma in the Sugar Bowl to win the BCS National Championship. The whole point of the BCS, despite its myriad shortcomings, is to have a clear national champion at the end of the college football season. The whole point of the BCS is that there will no longer be a shared national title. One champion. One. LSU was the national championship team for 2003. USC was the national championship team for 2004. USC will not become the first team to win three national titles in a row, should they prevail in 2005. Was USC denied this opportunity, by virtue of Oklahoma being ranked higher in the standings at the end of the year, and getting the shot against LSU in the Sugar Bowl? Undoubtedly. Just as Auburn was denied the opportunity of a national title by virtue of Oklahoma being ranked higher at the end of the 2004 season. Chalk it up to a bias toward Oklahoma in the poll voters. (I note with amusement that now, having gotten it wrong two years in a row, Oklahoma doesn't even break the Top 5 in any of the preseason polls.) I've said it before and it bears repeating: If USC and its worshippers want LSU to share the national title with them for 2003, then USC must share the 2004 title with Auburn. Leinart and Co. will be going for their second title in a row this year, not their third.
EasyBusiness
I have a hard time calling the son of a Greek shipping magnate "scrappy," but I guess Stelios Haji-Ioannou can afford to be:
...[I]n 1998, when British Airways launched a budget airline called Go to compete with EasyJet. Not only was Stelios on Go's inaugural flight, but he and nine of his executives put on bright-orange jumpsuits and handed out free EasyJet tickets to all of the passengers. "The BA people didn't know what to do, so they just watched us," Stelios recalls with a satisfied smile. "We looked like clowns," recalls James Rothnie, EasyGroup's corporate communications chief. Halfway into the Rome-bound flight, Stelios was conducting interviews onboard with a bemused British press. The stunt moved the media to begin portraying little EasyJet as an intrepid challenger to the giant BA, invaluable publicity for Stelios. More important, Go struggled from the outset to compete with the hustling EasyJet and surrendered in 2002, when Stelios bought it and doubled the size of EasyJet in one stroke. [Link on Business 2.0 may be for subscribers only. --R]