Satan laughing spreads his wings

I'm dreaming of a white day after Christmas

Stupid nature.

This will be my cat someday.

ICE STORM OF THE CENTURY OF THE DAY, PART NINE

Well, I'm still without power, so I'm still having to stay across town, where it's all warm and electrical. I saw OG&E trucks about a block away from my place, so that's a good sign for tomorrow, but apparently, a whole new round of stormy crap is moving in pretty soon, so I could easily fall into that "7-10 days" area. Also, the dude on the radio, some places won't have power until after Christmas, and with my luck, that'll be me. Fun.
In other fun news, I decided to buy a half gallon of milk today, only to discover that they already had an identical one over here. D'oh. Also, decided to go against common sense and buy a pack of football cards while I was there, and I lucked out and got an "event-used football" card that's numbered out of 62, (as in only 62 of that card exist on Earth) which is really nice. On the other hand, it's a card of Robert Meachem, so it's probably effectively worthless. D'oh again.
But oh yeah, I found wires while I was at home, so here's that ICY DEVASTATION~! I mentioned yesterday:


This was the view right outside my front door yesterday. I have a strange feeling that this isn't safe.


Here's the neighbor's backyard, demonstrating probably the only good thing about not having a backyard.


Here's a tree that tried to fall on my car.


If I had a real camera, you'd see the park across the street covered in downed tree limbs.


Oooh.


Here's a tree that's currently trying to fall on where my car's usually parked.


And here's my lucky-to-be-alive car. Not only because of trees, but because of the retarded drivers around here, too. When a traffic light is out, you're supposed to treat it like a four-way stop sign. Around here, it's viewed as "wheeeee, green light!" And when the cops have the foresight to stick one of those temporary four-way stop signs in the intersection, they treat those as "wheeee, green light!"


More icy devastation from right outside my door.


Here's the view down Main Street, taken from a moving car, because I am DANGER MAN.


If I wasn't damn near dropping my camera while scrambling to take a picture at a stop sign while the "low battery" warning was blinking, you'd see that this street is entirely blocked off.


School's out, bitches.

Also, since I have the camera hooked up, here is a completely unrelated picture from like a year ago of Scooter taking a bath:


And here's my cat under a blanket, possibly to shield her from where my camera's flash has turned the fish tank behind her into DEADLY MAGMA:

Mitch Hedberg Boredom Haiku

Frozen banana?
No thank you, I don't want one
Regular later

Tight rope walking friend
Falls down and hits the sidewalk
Unacceptable

Not a cheese grater
That is its positive name
Tiny bits of sponge

Fed Ex truck driver
Drug dealer, does not know it
And always on time

Entrance of Target
People splattered all around
I am practicing

Cute infestation
Koala bears in my home
I'll feed you a leaf

Look at limes floating
Saved by citrus buoyancy
This shit's tropical

Can't eat juggler's fruit
That he only has three of
For practice routine

Injured, death metal
Becomes a capella band
Exiting pawn shop

Bush, party of three
Can eat when Dufrenes are found
Search party of three

Chicago Bears Haiku Sadness

Oh god, Rex Grossman
A human fumble machine
When does the pain stop?

Remember Ditka?
Maybe Lovie needs a 'stache.
That is the answer

On the other hand
There was also Dave Wannstedt
Mustache of evil

Ayanbadejo
Israel Idonije
Unpronounceable

Chicago Bears fans
Love slow, white wide receivers
But Kozlowski sucked.

Fuck Archuleta
Seriously, fuck that guy
The Redskins were right.

Devin Hester rules
Too bad he's our entire offense
Four touches per game.

Give me a B! E!
An N! An S! An O! N!
What's that spell? Failure.

Oh, Brian Griese
He'll never be like his dad
But he tries real hard

Orton's the man now
Weak arm? 70 rating?
Yup, he'll fit right in.

I Was Hoping They'd Do This in 2006, for the Record

But could our long national nightmare finally be over again?

The weather outside is frightful

Or at least it was a day or so ago. But I'm still without power, and the OG&E guy on the radio said it could be 7-10 days before everybody has theirs back, (apparently, the OKC and Tulsa areas have over 300,00 people down right now, which is some sort of state record) but as far as I can tell, I live in the only place in town without power, so maybe they'll hit my area soon, for the PR points of saying that all of Norman is back on. Eh, who knows. But for the time being, me, my cat, and my two fish are holed up at my brother's house, where we have to suffer such indignities as being forced to live with working heat, over a zillion TV channels on a TV as big as my car, and actually having enough room to turn 90 degrees without killing my shin on a retardedly-placed cinder block or dead computer from 2001.

But we'll make it somehow.

I actually managed to snap a few pictures of ICY DEVASTATION~! on my crappy little camera, but I didn't get very many, as three AAA batteries last approximately 45 seconds in that godforsaken thing. The sad part is that I wasn't really exaggerating much there. But as soon as I'm back in my fully-powered hovel again, I'll find the wire that connects the camera to the PC and throw some of those up, hopefully, in sooner than 7-10 days.

RANDOM SHIT: The Stages of Coping With a Scorpion Attack

BARGAINING:

"Please God, let this dead-ass scorpion not be yellowish, and I'll stop all that blasphemy I've been doing."

Read it all here.

MY ASS

IT HURTS~

Song of the Day, brought to you by Benadryl.

Scorpions - "Rock You Like a Hurricane"

Things are tough all over.

So yeah, about an hour or so ago, I was about to go to the store to get various food-type items, and it's in the upper 60s here, so I was kind of pumped that I'd get to wear shorts, instead of long pants. But you see, God didn't want me wearing shorts today. Because you see, God saw fit to put one of his many wondrous creatures in the shorts I had chosen to wear. And yeah.

I got stung in the ass by a fucking scorpion.

A quick consultation of the internet and an examination of the beast, who had been felled by a blow from the bottom of a plastic wastebasket, revealed that it wasn't the yellowish kind that'll kill you, (and I think you can actually find those in Oklahoma, so there was a decent amount of tension in the air when I went to compare the dead scorpion with the pictures I found) but even the reddish kind still hurts like hell. So here I am, with what's basically the bee sting to end all bee stings on my left cheek, concealed by an ice pack, because that's supposed to help break down the venom or whatever. In a little while, I shall go put on some different shorts (which will be shaken thoroughly beforehand) to go see if there's a non-drowsy form of Benadryl, not so much because I really need it as because I just found out that the bottle I already had expired in 2003.

Today's lesson is "fuck scorpions."

NOOOOOOOOO

R.I.P. Evel Knievel



He's breaking shit in heaven now.

DAILY STUPID

This is my knee:


Would you like to know how I did this?

SO WOULD I.

SONG OF THE DAY

Nine Pound Hammer - "Carl's Theme"

Yeah!

The pants that I wear wick the sweat from my balls,
I’m a South Jersey Mook, I’m the cock of the walk,
I don’t need no instructions to know how to rock!

"More Than a Feeling" is the worlds greatest song,
I crank it all day long, all over my block,
I don’t need no instructions to know how to rock!

Get the fuck out of my pool!

Exit 109, baby, that's where the skanks hang out,
They love my shiny dome and my nasty flip flops
I don’t need no instructions to know how to rock!

I don’t need no instructions to know how to rock!

Look here, I’ve been working since I was 8 years old,
And I won’t eat no more shag you hear that!
Yeah!

Yeah!

An open letter to the spider that decided to build a web directly across my front door while I was away

Fuck you.

Interesting development

I have noticed that in recent months, I have gained ten pounds, yet my waist is the same size, and my gut has actually gotten smaller.
Final diagnosis: I AM FUCKING HUGE, YEEEEAAAAHHHHHHHH

I have decided

That "Big Gun" by AC/DC, the Live Shit: Binge and Purge version of "Breadfan" by Metallica, and "Flash" by Queen are history's three greatest songs.







Discuss.

A Reminder

Of when professional wrestling was not yet gay:

Oh yeah, happy Halloween.

Here is a thing for you.

God damn you, trick or treaters

For heading over to the nicer neighborhoods instead of mine and forcing me to eat this bag of peanut butter cups.

THE CHICKEN IS NOT BURNING

IT IS NOT EVEN FULLY COOKED YET.

SO WHY IS MY OVEN BELCHING SMOKE.

also, how did my smoke alarm detect the smoke a good ten minutes before there was any actual smoke

also, it is cold, so opening the window sucks.

What is the cutest thing?

It is when I get out of the shower, and the cat starts licking my ankle to dry it off.

Huh.

After a trip this morning that lasted roughly an hour and fifteen minutes, I have valid insurance cards, the ticket for not having those is dismissed, and State Farm is sending me a check for $37.

Nice.

I just saw

A license plate with "404 NAW" on it. I'd like to believe it's the vanity plate of a webmaster.

Halfway there.

Put new bulbs in for the tag light, and they actually worked, despite my fears that the jury-rigged wiring my car has (which causes my high-mount brake light to come on when I turn on my headlights and makes my front parking lights come on when I hit the brakes) would say otherwise.
So now, I have to do two things: Go get some of those temporary paper insurance cards, which should take them maybe five minutes to do. After that, I have to head to the court that's pretty much within walking distance to tell them I really am insured, and with the way those things go, it should take me somewhere between ten minutes and ten hours. Probably do the latter half of that next Monday, if there's not a holiday I've forgotten about on that day. Getting the cards I can pretty much do whenever, except I think they might close at five, so probably tomorrow.

Then, my LEGAL TROUBLES~! will be over.

I have a very boring life.

Upon further review

After looking at the citations again with the benefit of not being freaked out, the actual ticket is for (and I forgot to mention this) my insurance card being expired, and the tag light one was just a warning. So if my car doesn't respond to a new bulb, I just have to try and not have a cop car directly behind me at night, and the only pressing issue is taking a couple hours to go get State Farm to print me out one of those temporary cards and then take it to the courthouse down the street before the 29th. So basically, I'm cool.

I'm still angry at Adrian Peterson, though.

Welp.

Well, the Bears lost somewhat embarrassingly today. And after the events of the last hour or so, my hand is all burned, and if my suspicions about my ghetto-ass car are correct, I'm probably going to have to spend a few hundred bucks that I don't have and won't have for a long, long time - if ever - to get my goddamn car rewired, so that I won't get a ticket for a non-working tag light. And I have to get this done within two days.

WHY DO YOU NEED A TAG LIGHT? THE TAG IS REFLECTIVE. THE CARS BEHIND YOU AT NIGHT HAVE HEADLIGHTS ON. AAAAARRRRRRGGGGGGHHHHHH.

So yeah, screw all y'all.

Daily stupid

Something seems wrong with my arm. There's no pain, no loss of range of motion, no stiffness, and if there's swelling, there's not enough for it to be blatantly noticeable. But something just seems WRONG with it. And only now do I realize:

I have forgotten what my right arm is supposed to look like.

CAPTAIN AMERICA

FUCK YEAH

G-R-I-E-S-E, Griese, Griese, Griese

FUCK YOU BRETT FAVRE, SUCK MY DICK

Me about ten seconds ago:

"Oh man. Another roach."

*squats down to get a closer look*

"Nope. Giant spider. AAAAARRRRGGGHHHHH"

On a positive note, maybe the giant spider will eat some roaches.

Daily stupid

So yeah, my apartment has roaches. Also, I smashed the living crap out of my left pinky toe a few weeks ago, and even though it stopped hurting after about three days, the toenail is still black from dried blood under it or whatever it is that makes your toenails turn black when you smash them.
So a minute ago, I feel something kind of brush against my foot, and I look down, immediately think "AAAARRRRGGHHHROACHONMYFOOT" and let out a sound kind of like that squeak Jerry Lawler makes when someone says something that's supposed to be shocking on an episode of Monday Night Raw, and flail my foot around madly in an attempt to try and shake the roach off, re-smashing my toe on the leg of my desk in the process.

And yeah, the "roach" was actually my toenail.

For real, though,

I have cleaned and cleansed every surface in this apartment, I have thrown away every scrap of garbage, and I have scooped the cat box. I have coated the entire apartment in a thin layer of boric acid, and covered that thin layer of boric acid in another, thinner layer of deadly poison. And it does nothing. Nothiiiiiiiiiing.

I know what I must do now.

I have to burn the building down.

I GOT ROACHES IN THE CABINETS,

roaches in the air, roaches inside the walls, roaches, roaches, roaches!! If I beat them off the walls they're sill in the air, if I shoot them out of the air they're still in the cabinets, so where does that leave me? Nowhere! That's where!

AAAARRRRGGGHHHHHH

Well, my annoying, possible meth-addict upstairs neighbors finally moved out/got evicted, and that's a good thing. Also, the new landlord has been doing hella home improvements to this place lately, (soon, I will have VINYL SIDING~!) which is also good. But you see, whatever he did to the empty apartment upstairs seems to have involved cleaning the shit out of it, because all their roaches have decided to move downstairs. In with me. AAAARRRRGGGGGHHHHINEEDMOREBORICACIDANDBENGALROACHSPRAY.

HERE IS ALSO THIS

HERE IS THIS

Daily Stupid

For dinner, I enjoyed a grilled tilapia fillet, seasoned with lemon pepper, garlic salt...

AND CARBON MONOXIDE.

Halo 3 Comes Out Tonight...

But you jackasses can keep it, for all I care:



Because I finally managed to get my brother's Atari 2600 to work today.
Also, that picture reminds me once again that my backup TV that I've used since the old one died is soooo tiny.

Another Top Ten Best Names from My Spam Email Folder

1. Buggers A. Queering
2. synthetic desired
3. asdfasdf Rodasta
4. Sex Can
   
5. Secessionist F. Worms
6. Lucas Jack (holy shit)
7. Dan Hampton (holy shit again)
8. Numbers Baez
9. good-looking real young to middle-aged females
10. Erectile
    

Well, the official word comes down Wednesday...

Could our long national nightmare finally be over?

As of this moment

The Chicago Bears have more second-stringers in on defense than actual starters.

I think I'm going to die.

SONG OF THE 28 DAYS LATER

Jonathan Coulton - "re: Your Brains"

Heya Tom, it’s Bob from the office down the hall
Good to see you buddy, how’ve you been?
Thing have been OK for me except that I’m a zombie now
I really wish you’d let us in
I think I speak for all of us when I say I understand
Why you folks might hesitate to submit to our demand
But here’s an FYI: you’re all gonna die screaming

All we want to do is eat your brains
We’re not unreasonable, I mean, no one’s gonna eat your eyes
All we want to do is eat your brains
We’re at an impasse here, maybe we should compromise:
If you open up the doors
We’ll all come inside and eat your brains

I don’t want to nitpick, Tom, but is this really your plan?
To spend your whole life locked inside a mall?
Maybe that’s OK for now but someday you’ll be out of food and guns
And then you’ll have to make the call
I’m not surprised to see you haven’t thought it through enough
You never had the head for all that bigger picture stuff
But Tom, that’s what I do, and I plan on eating you slowly

All we want to do is eat your brains
We’re not unreasonable, I mean, no one’s gonna eat your eyes
All we want to do is eat your brains
We’re at an impasse here, maybe we should compromise:
If you open up the doors
We’ll all come inside and eat your brains

I’d like to help you Tom, in any way I can
I sure appreciate the way you’re working with me
I’m not a monster Tom, well, technically I am
I guess I am

I’ve got another meeting Tom, maybe we could wrap it up
I know we’ll get to common ground somehow
Meanwhile I’ll report back to my colleagues who were chewing on the doors
I guess we’ll table this for now
I’m glad to see you take constructive criticism well
Thank you for your time I know we’re all busy as hell
And we’ll put this thing to bed
When I bash your head open

All we want to do is eat your brains
We’re not unreasonable, I mean, no one’s gonna eat your eyes
All we want to do is eat your brains
We’re at an impasse here, maybe we should compromise:
If you open up the doors
We’ll all come inside and eat your brains

Daily Stupid

I was scheduled to work at 10:00 a.m. today. The alarm went off at 8:30, so I woke up, went to the bathroom, fed the cat, and other stuff like that.

Then, I went back to sleep until about 9:52.

New Feature: Daily Stupid

This is a new thing I'm going to try for a while, until I just absolutely forget about it a week from now. In the old days, when you did something really dumb and no one was around, you could easily sweep it under the rug and live out the rest of your days without the shame of someone knowing the ridiculous crap you had done But these are changing times, and in the post-911 world, the old ways of doing things have given way to the "Internet 2.0" world, where people see fit to share any detail of their lives with absolute strangers. So in these times of greater dumbass transparency, I've decided that from now on, I'm going to keep a running tab of all the stupidest things I do from now on. So here's today's Daily Stupid:

Today while driving around doing whatever the hell it was that I was doing, I noticed that for some reason it was really hard to shift from first to second gear. Then, I realized it was because I hadn't bothered to step on the clutch at all, and basically had just ripped the car out of gear, in a move that potentially could have led to millions of dollars in car repairs. Somehow, my transmission survived, though.

The Ten Best Names in my Spam Email Folder

1. Propagandists V. Behead
2. Floyd Minerva
3. Gleefully E. Phobic
4. Cyril Prudence
5. Rod
6. Triglyceride R. Heartbreak
7. Scarlett Fannie
8. Good Erection
9. Mabel I. Confessed
10. laser. attempt
    

SONG OF THE DAY

Ryan Parker - "Shady Brady and Bill Belicheat"

I never called Bill Belichick a genius,
Cause I remember when he coached the Browns,
He was such a failure up in Cleveland,
The franchise folded up and left the town,
I never said Tom Brady was a hero,
Cause I remember him at Michigan,
Bringing Gatorade to Brian Griese,
Except for garbage time when he got in,

So wasn't it a little shady when this quarterback named Brady,
Suddenly became a mega star,
Wasn't it a bit confusing when this coach who's used to losing,
Earned the reputation that he's smart,
When you know which plays are coming, it can make a coach look cunning,
And make an average quarterback elite,
Cheating's how they got their glory, it's the true deceitful story,
Of Shady Brady and Bill Belicheat,

The tabloids say they've cheated on their girlfriends,
And someone should review their SATs,
The IRS should look into their taxes,
And their colleges should check out their degrees,
Mangini knew the tricks that they were using,
So he convinced the Jets to turn them in,
Cause he was getting sick and tired of losing,
To a team that has to cheat to win,

But Brady's made a lot of money and he's scored a lot of honeys,
By showing off his championship rings,
Bill's been praised because he's clever, and called the greatest ever,
And lived with all the luxuries that brings,
But let's confiscate their Sony's, and expose them both as phonies,
And see how many teams that they can beat,
Some would say it won't be any, if it is, it won't be many,
Poor Shady Brady and Bill Belicheat,
No more lucky play selection, into proper blitz protection,
For Shady Brady and Bill Belicheat,
Cause cheating's how they got their glory, it's the true deceitful story,
Of Shady Brady and Bill Belicheat

Yeah.

Gonna try and redesign some stuff, and it would be easier to just start fresh with a generic Blogger template, so things are going to look odd for a while.

Thoughts on the Bears/Chargers game

Don't know if I'll keep doing the Preseasonseasonpreview stuff, because obviously, this isn't the preseason anymore, and it's not much of a preview at this point, but eh, who knows. Anyway, here's what I observed:

• I never thought I'd see a game where Sexy Rexy could complete less than half of his passes and have two turnovers counted against him, but still be the only reason they got anywhere on offense. Not to mention that he handled having the shit knocked out of him multiple times with way less dazed panic than he has at any point in his career so far. After today, I'd almost say that I had the slightest shred of confidence in Rex Grossman. Almost.
• Can we get a do-over on the Thomas Jones trade? Something tells me that trading away your offensive MVP just so you can make one last effort at justifying a wasted high draft pick and a ton of money on Curtis Enis 2K7 wasn't a very good idea.
  
• This is the second time I've seen Mike Brown go completely off in the first game of the season, only to get injured a little while later. Hopefully, he's not out for the season this time, but knowing his luck, it really wouldn't surprise me. And if we've learned anything from the last hundred times he's gone out, the Bears defense goes from incredible to above average when he's not in the lineup. Urlacher and Harris are the two superstars, but Mike Brown is and always has been the heart and soul of the team. This sucks.
• Also, on the subject of Mike Brown getting injured, fuck Lorenzo Neal and his chickenshit "if I can't actually block the guy I've got fifty pounds on, I'll just drag him down by his neck" blocking tactics. You pussy.
• Also, can we get a do-over on not re-signing Anthony Thomas? Yeah, remember when Jerry Angelo gave that "Ki-Jana Benson a lot like Thomas, except he's better" interview? Yeah, well he was apparently way wrong.
• Dusty Dvoracek also got hurt, and it's an actual real-life injury that actually happened, as opposed to the one they used to basically redshirt him last year. No word yet on how much time he'll miss, if any at all, but this could be a huge loss, as he was really starting to turn into a beast out there. They've got Darwin Walker as a backup, and he's a really good player, but he's a lot more of a pass-rusher than a run-stuffing hole-plugger, so he's not a good fit as the nose tackle.
• Hey Bernard Berrian: Don't stop running until the play is over. That interception was your fault this time, fool.
• Hey referees: Thanks for not noticing when Tommie Harris is far enough offsides to pretty much intercept the snap.
• I'm starting to wonder if last year with the Redskins was the real Adam Archuleta and if all those years where he was actually good for the rams were the fluke. That guy sucks.
• I've never seen a more exciting play in NFL history than when Devin Hester came in for one play, ran some basic pattern, and then went back to the bench. We need to hire Bill Cowher as a special consultant or something, because when you've got the best trick-play weapon in the league, you should use it every now and then.
• Hey, can we a do-over on releasing Neal Anderson and signing Lewis Tillman? Because - Wait, wrong year. But yeah, Cedric Benson is kind of awful.

Gonna be a long, long year.

Here is this.

Todd Marinovich: Ugly Mofo

RANDOM SHIT: Heavy metal lolcats

Oh hey, actual website update. Just in case you had too much of a life to know, there's this big thing sweeping the internet, where people paste goofy text over goofy pictures of cats, and it's really hilarious, but probably shouldn't be. But what's the one kind of photo that's more hilarious than a photo of an adorable cat in a goofy pose? Why, that would be photos of a heavy metal dude in a goofy pose, of course:

Click here to see the rest.

Chicago Bears PRESEASONSEASONPREVIEW Part Four - Receivers/Tight Ends

Things have gotten pretty interesting here in the off season. The big news that everyone's freaking out over is that Devin Hester, possibly the most terrifying force of touchdown-at-any-second fury in the National Football League, has made the switch from terrible cornerback to promising wide receiver/running back hybrid, in addition to his kick returning duties. He's got a ways to go before they start thinking about making him an every-down player or anything like that, but he'll be valuable, in that any time he's on the field, the opposing defenses will absolutely shit their pants. Look for a lot of fake reverses, followed by real reverses, followed by defensive players breaking their own ankles.

Meanwhile, the starters for now should still be veteran team leader guy Muhsin Muhammad and last year's big home run threat Bernard Berrian. Moose is old and slow now, he's still a pretty good possession receiver and, depending on who you ask, second only to maybe Hines Ward as far as blocking WR's in the NFL are concerned. Berrian is one of those super-fast deep threats the Bears have loaded up on lately, and had a nice 2006 season, but has had injury problems.

And speaking of injury problems, 2005 second rounder Mark Bradley is back healthy for a change and seems to be everybody's pick for this year's breakout superdudperstar guy. Makes sense, as seemingly every time he's played in an entire game, he's played like a Pro Bowler, but on the other hand, he seems to get injured every time he does something like that. Rashied Davis continues his semi-successful Arena League to NFL journey, returning as the slot guy/backup kick returner, but from there things get interesting.

Basically, there's one more wide receiver spot open, and seemingly a thousand guys going for it. A couple of guys have already blown it, with former AFL guy Timon Marshall and this other guy called Brandon Rideau that I never really saw do anything getting cut literally a few hours before I typed this. There's also Drisan James, a guy who seems to blow it by making one really dumb play in every preseason game my non-cable-having ass has to listen to over the internet, and he's treading water at best. And then, there are the two slow white guys. It's kind of a strange thing about Bears fans having such a soft spot for white guys whose 40 times can be measured with a sundial. I mean, Tom Waddle was great and all, but there's been no one else of note in like the last hundred years that have passed since Harlon Hill drank himself out of the league. But somehow, I can still remember this dude Glen Kozlowski getting a lot of love, despite the fact that he pretty much made no meaningful contributions to the team at all, and a lot of his teammates supposedly hated him for being a scab player during the '87 strike year. But oh yeah, back to 2007. The battle for the last spot and Snail-like Whiteboy Supremacy seems to be between undrafted free agent David Ball and last year's free-agent pickup Mike Hass, who came over from the Saints after having his roster spot taken by some seventh-round scrub named Colston. Ball had some crazy college stats, even breaking some of Jerry Rice's old tiny-college records, and at one point, some of the people on the official Bears message board were already penciling him in as the starter over Muhammad, (whaaaaat?) but in reality, he's just a slow whiteboy who has about as much of a chance of making the 53-man roster as I do becoming the new singer for Kool and the Gang. At this point, barring injury or arrest of bizarre circumstances, the last spot belongs to Hass, (and for the record, that rhymes with "ass," and doesn't sound like "Hoss," as previously thought) who has made a habit of making crazy-ass, Waddle-sized catches and contributing a few special teams tackles, which is a big deal for a guy trying to claw his way onto a team.
Overall, I figure things will remain about the same for Moose and Berrian, Devin Hester will confound and befuddle defenses with his glory, and Mark Bradley will have like one six-thousand yard game before rupturing his eyeball or something else season-ending.

Oh damn. That about sums up the tight end situation. First, there's Desmond Clark, who was like the absolute unsung key to the passing game last year, in that when defenses let him get open, Rex would throw for a million yards and cure cancer on every other play. But when the defense managed to keep him covered, those were the games where Rex Grossman fumbled every snap and gave everyone in the stadium AIDS. Like I don't know how, but he seriously gave like 300,000 people AIDS last year. That's how bad he was. But yeah, Desmond Clark is really good. But now, there's Greg Olsen, too. And he's nowhere near the blocker that Clark is, but he's potentially one of those crazy Antonio Gates Style unstoppable super tight ends that have been popping up in the last few years that are a lot like wide receivers, except they're like 6'5" and 250 pounds. So basically, look for the Bears to use a lot of two tight end sets this year and just completely be awesome and great and stuff. The smart money is on John "two catches all year, both for touchdowns" Gilmore returning as the third guy, unless Fontel Mines does something spectacular this week.

Personal Injury Blog # 34678

My fingernails had gotten to the point where they were actually grossing me out, so I began the usual exhaustive search of the premises for my fingernail clippers. And while I was on my hands and knees, looking under the desk with a flashlight, I felt something that did not feel like a good thing, and quickly looked at the general vicinity of my elbow. And there was a thumbtack in there, to the point where it was actually flush with my arm. Ow. Like I'm pretty sure it was all up in my skeleton bones. Ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow. Came out bizarrely easily, though. But still; ow.

I sure hope I don't die.

Chicago Bears PRESEASONSEASONPREVIEW Part Three - Running Backs

The biggest change here is that Thomas Jones, the guy who came within a hundred yards in 2004 of three straight 1,000 yards seasons and seemed to be the only guy on offense who realized that Super Bowl XLI was actually being played that day, is gone to the New York Jets. There was absolutely no good reason to get rid of him, so they went with the bad reason that Cedric "Hey, that's my TV!" Benson was being paid way too much to be a backup or change-of-pace guy. He showed some flashes last year, really turned it on later in the season, and has one thing over Jones in that he will actually hit a hole, rather than dance around and get dropped for a loss half the time, but if the guy couldn't consistently stay healthy while getting the ball eight times a game, I don't think he'll be able to keep himself together for sixteen games while getting it 20-25 times a game. Add in fumbling issues, off-the-field behavior that hasn't endeared himself to his teammates, and some really shitty showings in training camp and preseason so far, and this could potentially be a disaster. And I think the coaching staff knows this, or they wouldn't have tried to sign Titans RB Chris Brown a little while back, and they wouldn't still be thinking about bringing a veteran in. Cedric Benson has the ability to be a top running back in the NFL, but so does Ron Dayne, and he hasn't done anything, either.

Behind him, the number two guy is Adrian Peterson (the Georgia Southern one, not the Oklahoma one) who is an odd case, in that he's so good at special teams that the coaches actually want to keep him away from the offense, so he'll stay fresh for kick coverage units. Normally, special teams is where players go who aren't good enough to contribute on offense if they want to make a team, but in Peterson's case, he IS good enough to contribute on offense - after Jones and Benson went down in '05, he came in and pretty much whooped ass - but is so insanely ridiculous on special teams that they only want him playing there. Talk about a Catch 22. So the deal here is that he'll probably only see time at running back if Benson gets injured, and the change-of-pace guy will likely be third-round draft pick Garrett Wolfe. He's a shifty little lightning-quick dude with the hands of a wide receiver, which means he'll probably see a lot of action on third-and-long situations, but he's one of the smallest players in the league (5'7", 186 lbs.) and probably wouldn't be able to take the physical pounding of being in the game much more than that. Then again, he did lead the NCAA in rushing yardage last year, so you never know. A wild card here is undrafted free agent Josh Allen, who's coming off a superdestructive knee injury that almost ended his college career before he could really even consider going pro, but has supposedly looked really good in camp. With Peterson being the special teams ace and Wolfe being Smurf-sized, he might actually make the roster as a fourth running back, if he can keep it up over the course of the preseason, as long as the Bears don't decide to bring someone else in.

At fullback, the big change is that for the first time in a while, Bryan Johnson won't be listed on the injured reserve list, as they were finally able to get rid of him. He was supposed to be a major addition to the team a few years ago, but seemed to stay hurt the whole time, and ended up going down in Bears history as more of a Merrill Hoge or a Craig Heyward than as a Brad Muster or Matt Suhey. Bummer. So Jason McKie returns as the starter, and I guess he's competent enough, but he's not exactly a threat to make the Pro Bowl any time soon. He'll catch a few passes here and there, but mostly, he just blocks. Or at least he tries. This year's backup is veteran Obafemi Ayanbadejo, who pretty much got talked into signing with the team by his brother Brendon. He's not much of a contributor as a fullback, but he's yet another major special teams guy, like Adrian Peterson or the previously mentioned Ayanbadejo brother. He's also suspended for four games for pulling a Jim Miller and not reading the vitamin bottle carefully before swallowing the shit. J.D. Runnels is still on the team, but after screwing his knee all up in minicamp, he'll be on injured reserve. His whole career has been a bummer so far, as this follows 2006, where he followed up a career of smashing people's faces as a blocking back at Oklahoma by spending the entire year deactivated, until McKie went down with an injury, when he served as the backup for backup tight end Gabe Reid, who got the starting nod instead. Ouch. Hopefully 2008 will suck less. Also, they apparently picked up Quadtrine Hill from the Patriots like five minutes ago, and I know nothing about him, aside from him having a really weird first name. I'm sure he's a nice enough guy. Hell, I dunno. and there's this other Jon Goldsberry dude I know nothing about, and him and Hill will be locked in an eternal preseason death struggle to see who gets to not play for four games while Ayanbadejo is out. It's clearly a preseason struggle that the entire season may be riding on.

Next: RECEIVERS

Chicago Bears PRESEASONSEASONPREVIEW Part Two - Quarterbacks

Rex Grossman. Rex Grossman could be the one thing that runs the train off the tracks this year. How do I know this? Because that's exactly what he did last year. Think of it this way. The Bears lost the Super Bowl by twelve points. Seven came directly from the arm of Rex, in the form of a pass thrown directly into the air to no one at all, that got returned for a touchdown. So right there, the Bears lose by five. They were within five with absolutely no offense, outside of the running game. So if they had a competent QB in there instead of the Sex Cannon, they probably would have scored another TD or two and won the game. You can point at as many things as you want to, but there's no denying that with a real NFL quarterback in there, the Bears chances of winning at least double. And the most sickening part of all of this is just how much he regressed over the course of the season. He went from potential NFL MVP in September to the subject of Matt Millen-esque "he must have some crazy blackmail photos to have not been benched by now" rumors by December. And while I guess technically, it was his first full year as a starter, and Rex apologists love pointing that out, but the dude was not a rookie. He's started games before. Playoff games even. And he's played football presumably since junior high. He is like a ten year veteran of dudes telling him and showing him how to play football. He should know by now that the answer to the blitz is not to close your eyes and throw the ball into the air at a 90-degree angle. They can say all they want about how much time he's spent watching film and working on his fundamentals or whatever, but I'm starting to worry that the guy just can't be fixed. The Bears haven't had a real franchise QB since Sid Freaking Luckman over 50 years ago, and I don't see that changing any time soon. (Yeah, I love Jim McMahon like everyone should, but the dude stayed hurt and never was really that good. Sorry.)

Behind him, there could be a shakeup here, as Brian Griese has looked horrible in training camp, and Kyle Orton has looked really, really good. Don't be surprised if Orton movies up to number two, and with the money they're paying Griese, he could be gone by the start of the season if he falls to third on the depth chart. If that happens, they'll probably go sign someone else to be the third-string guy, as the only other quarterback in camp is undrafted free agent pickup Chris Leak, a "but he was good in college" Florida guy in the vein of Shane Matthews and... Rex Grossman... who has looked pretty awful so far. He doesn't stand a Chinaman's chance in hell of making the team, unless hella-dudes get injured.
In a just world, Orton would be the starter, since a game-manager type QB who won't do anything flashy, but is guaranteed to not absolutely shit the bed and roll in it, would be a huge improvement over the Grossman roller coaster. Well, 2007 is Rex's contract year, and if he's actually good this season, they probably won't be willing to pay him more money anyway, so that might be the plan for 2008.

Next: RUNNING BACKS

Chicago Bears PRESEASONSEASONPREVIEW Part One - Intro

So last year, the Bears didn't suck. It was INSANE. The defense was crazy, and the offense had wide receivers and quarterbacks and stuff, and it was great. Well, then Mike Brown and Tommie Harris got hurt, Rex Grossman remembered that he's retarded, and stuff kind of fell apart. But the Bears were in the NFC, so they still finished 13-3 and lost what was possibly the most maddeningly boring Super Bowl of all time, which mainly consisted of Peyton Manning throwing an endless stream of four-yard passes that no one ever thought maybe to cover, interspersed briefly with Rex Grossman's ability as a football player having a public meltdown that ranked up there with the scene in Swingers where Jon Favreau leaves that one chick like a hundred answering machine messages and Henry Burris's NFL playing career. And then, in the offseason, things fell apart further. The McCaskey family's policy of pinching pennies until Abe Lincoln screamed ended up costing them a few major members of the coaching staff, mainly defensive coordinator Ron Rivera, and threatened to make Lovie Smith (then the NFL's lowest-paid head coach) just throw out one of those "eh, screw you guys, 16 more games and I'm gone" years like Bill Cowher had in Pittsburgh last year. Then, they traded offensive MVP Thomas Jones to the Jets along with their second round draft pick, just to move up a few spots in the second round. Then, the Tank Johnson situation blew up and he got suspended for 6-8 games, followed by thinking "zero-tolerance policy" meant, "listen, brother, it's cool, just so long as you stay under the legal limit when you drink and drive at three in the morning," and getting released. Then, Pro Bowl linebacker Lance Briggs got so pissed at the suggestion that he'd get stuck with a Franchise Player designation instead of a long-term contract that he actually publicly stated that he would never play another game in Chicago, and that he'd hold out all year if he had to. Then, defensive end Alex Brown demanded to be traded. But eventually, everything worked out. Lovie Smith got a new contract worth a ton of money. The second round pick they got for Thomas Jones eventually turned into second and third round picks in 2007 and third and fifth round picks in 2008, thanks to the Chargers reeeeally wanting Eric Weddle. Tank Johnson ended up getting replaced by Darwin Walker, a better player who doesn't miss games to do time. Lance Briggs decided to settle for a measly guaranteed seven million for one season and signed his Franchise contract. And Alex Brown... Well, he still wants to be traded, but at least he's being cool about it. Add in the way the Bears were the first team to sign all their draft picks, and things are definitely looking up in 2007. Well, there is one thing that could screw it all up...

Next: QUARTERBACKS

Today's learning odyssey

The finer points of making sizzurp, from the faqs.org community. Some of the finer points of wisdom contained within:

"I CAN TELL YOU BOYS AIN'T FROM H-TOWN, YA'LLAIN'T GOT NO IDEA WHAT YOUR TALKIN' BOUT. BOTTOM LINE: SYRUP---PROMETHYZINE W/ CODEINE POUR IT IN A SODA OF YOUR CHOICE AND SIP IT. THAT DXM SIPPIN AND ALL THAT IS FLAT OUT WRONG. YA'LLBE SENDIN' BOYS TO THE TOILET WIT' THAT SH*T... DON'T DO IT, GET THA' REAL DEAL... YOU COME TO THA' H WIT' NYQUIL, OR TUSSIN' YOU GONNA GET SLAPPED IN THA' HEAD REAL QUICK. JP"

"YO MUDA WACKAAS THI IS FIVE HW-E YA STILLA INT FIND ME THIS IS THE LAST CHANCE TO GET THE REAL DEAL DOAC_ONE ON DA HOUSE DIRTY SOUTH RYDAS THE ALBUM LISTEN TO THIS ALL YA LI L HOE ASS NI66A5 & MAY YA CAN GET SOME OF THE SOUTHSIDE INTOXICATION YA HEARD!! REAL DEAL REAL PEOPLE ITS THE DIRTY SOUTH"

"yall boyz wild it dont matta how much u pt as long as u can handle it but u betta eat b4 u sip or u gonna be throwin up purple yellow green red clear or orange it dont matta stay sippin 04"

"Yo mah jiggahs, y'all bust jaspy! Take it from a man who know the REAL sizzurp. Dr. P, Jolly Ree, Prometh/Codein, shaved ice -- if you gots a Snoopy Sno Cone, that make it jess right. Drank up you be leanin squareback! PREAKNESS YO!"

"Shiiiiit I drank syrup like water foooool"

And so on and so forth.

Had to use the card

But I have a new battery now. It takes less than a second to crank the car now, as opposed to the five minutes it took before. And I have hella cold cranking amps now. Like seven billion cold cranking amps.

Is this thing on?

Testing some stuff.

UPDATE: Hmm. Blog stuff is on the home server now, instead of blogspot.com, but archive pages for June and July are nowhere to be found. Uh oh.

RE-EDIT: Fixed~!

RE-RE-RE-RE EDIT: Huh. The other two blogs can only be set to upload to websurfnicaragua.com if I get rid of all the extra little crap Blogger lets you put on there. Guess those'll remain external.

The date on the spinach can had kind of rubbed off

I'm pretty sure it said April 2009.

But if I die tonight, it said April 2005.

Current status

Went to the gym last night - Back down to 210, which is pretty good, considering I've been eating nothing but crap lately. Also, on the bench machine thingy, got 255 up five times, and started feeling all huge. Then, I looked across the room and saw some dude doing many more reps of 315, and suddenly felt much less huge. And I'm not sure what's been going on in Norman, Oklahoma, but on the way home, the freaking ghetto bird was flying around. Huh.

This morning, a random neighbor showed up asking to borrow my plunger. It really sucked, because my plunger broke the other day, and that's totally something you tell a guy when you just don't want to deal with him, rather than actually having a broken plunger. I need to get a new plunger-head tomorrow.

Also, realizing that my stupid football card addiction was costing too much money, I've decided to stop buying so much stuff and start trading with other addicts online. So far, I've done two, getting a pretty cool Muhsin Muhammad for a relatively equally cool Vince Young a couple months ago, and tomorrow, I'm mailing off a package of stuff that includes such luminaries as Brodrick Bunkley and Brandon Lloyd to a dude trying to put together a set who's supposed to be sending me three $8 Walter Paytons and a $10 Brian Urlacher in exchange. Pretty nice. The Moose-for-Young trade was probably a pretty dumb move, book-value wise, since the Vince can go nowhere but up and the Moose can go nowhere but down, but hey, I traded a Vince Young card that there are probably thousands of with a little piece of a jersey that wasn't used in an actual game for a Muhsin Muhamad serial numbered out of fifty with a piece of an actual game-used jersey that's as big as my head. Works for me.

Also, here is this:

So I just got a credit card

Yeah, finally did it. Did okay, too, with a $2,000 limit, a 9.9% APR, and no interest until February. Basically, it's my sinister plan to pay this computer off at 0.0 percent interest, instead of the 29.9 that I'm paying now, because Dell were the only people on Earth to give me credit previously. Aside from that, I'm not really planning on ever using it, aside from maybe being the "oh crap, terrorists just slashed my tires and stole my battery" emergency fund. Well, that, and like maybe some huge plasma TVs, plane tickets to foreign lands, and one of those big diamond grills for my teeth.
Actually, I'm just joking about the TVs, plane trips, and grills.

OR AM I!?

Seriously, though, I'm kind of glad I never had a credit card when I had my old, rapidly deteriorating 280Z. Because I'd still be driving around in my wonderful car, but I'd probably be about $20 grand in debt by now, with about five-thousand of that going toward burned out alternators alone.

The Iron Man Movie is going to rule.

Oh man.

This movie is going to rule so hard that I left "to" out of the post's title at first.

Free Cable Memorial SONG OF THE DAY

Black Flag - "TV Party"

TV party tonight!
TV party tonight!
TV party tonight!
TV party tonight!

We're gonna have a TV party tonight
All right!
We're gonna have a TV party all right
Tonight!

We've got nothing better to do,
than watch TV and have a couple of brews

Everybody's gonna hang out here tonight
All right!
We'll pass out on the couch all right
Tonight!

We've got nothing better to do,
than watch TV and have a couple of brews
Don't talk about anything else, we don't wanna know
We're dedicated to our favorite shows

That's Incredible!
Hill Street Blues!
Dallas!
Fridays!

We sit glued to the TV set all night
And every night!
Why go into the outside world at all
Its such a fright!

We've got nothing better to do,
than watch TV and have a couple of brews

TV really shows what its like out there
Its a scare!
You can go out if you want
We wouldn't dare!

We've got nothing better to do,
than watch TV and have a couple of brews
Don't talk about anything else, we don't wanna know
We're dedicated to our favorite shows

Saturday Night Live!
Monday Night Football!
Jeffersons!
Vegas!

I wouldn't be without my TV for a day
Or even a minute!
Don't even bother to use my brain any more
There's nothing left in it!

We've got nothing better to do,
than watch TV and have a couple of brews

Hey wait a minute, my TV doesn't work
Its broken!
What are we gonna do tonight, this isn't fair
We're hurting!

We've got nothing better to do,
than watch TV and have a couple of brews
What're we gonna talk about, I don't know
(We're gonna miss our favorite shows!

No That's Incredible!
No Monday Night Football!
No Jeffersons!
No Fridays!

No TV party tonight

Olin Kreutz, the Gift that Keeps on Giving

If you're weirdly obsessed enough to remember this post from Christmas last year, you'll know that I like to accumulate stupid pieces of cardboard, often times with Chicago Bears on them. So what with yesterday being my birthday and all, I went on a MASSIVE $13 Ebay spending spree, and ended up with this, that came in today:



Awwwwesome. Another card with a piece of a Pro Bowl jersey attached, his only officially autographed card, and at a $35 book value, it's his most valuable card. And the autograph is directly on the card, instead of the way they'll have a dude sign a sticker to put on the card these days, so that means that the hand that broke Fred Miller's jaw has held this card. Woah.

R.I.P. Free Cable TV

You were too beautiful for this world, free cable.

If I had known the Cox dude outside this morning was unhooking the stuff they were accidentally giving me for free, I would have stabbed him. Or like pushed him over or something.

Life Lessons

I just spent five minutes whacking a votive candle holder with the sharp end of a screwdriver until it was broken into small enough pieces for me to remove it from the place where it had gotten lodged in my toilet. I now know to always close the lid and to not place small objects too close to the edge of the shelf.

Happy 'Merica Day

So... Chris Benoit....

Sunday, he was supposed to wrestle CM Punk for the ECW title on pay per view and it was like the internet wrestling nerd's dream and all.
Today, he's a dead, child-killing murderer. So, uh... yeah.

aaaawesome

Even though he's got a season-ending injury and was given an injury settlement and stuff like that, J.D. Runnels cleared waivers, so he's still going to be a Chicago Bear.

How can this be?

Okay. For most of the last month, my knee was all screwed up. It still is, but just not as bad. This meant I couldn't go to the gym or do any physical activity that meant moving fast. Also, I was really broke. Like catastrophically broke, so my eating habits changed to whatever was cheap and/or on sale. So my diet consisted mainly of bologna and powder/pasta based food for the first time in a while. So I remained completely motionless for a month, while shoveling bullshit down my mouth. And yesterday, I finally make it back to the gym, and when I weighed myself, totally prepared for the horror... I had lost eight pounds.

What.

I still have a fish tank

Yet still only one fish. But you know those little $2 packs of plant bulbs you get at Wal Mart that never grow?
Well, mine did!

Kiss my ass, plastic plants! Ha! And here's a close-up of my amzingly still-not-dead rubber lipped plecostomus.


I really should come up with a name for him, but I never officially named my cat, so that would just seem backwards. I shouldn't have wasted Kellen Winslow III on that guppy, probably. And that little brown rock looking thing next to the fake jaguar skull is a lily bulb that started to sprout, but never finished. I should probably scoop that out of there, because if it ever starts growing for real, the tank'll be completely choked with greenery.