Thursday, March 29, 2007

Letting go

There's a small hockey message board that some friends of mine put together back in 2004. I've been posting there since the start.

Everybody got along really well over there and the place had what I'd consider a good following for a message board primarily about a local hockey team in an area where hockey is considered a "yankee sport."

And then it melted down faster than Three Mile Island.

I'm not sure what all was going on since I'd been staying out of that thread, but I knew that the board was dropping people like flies, feelings were hurt, grudges were being held, all there was more drama than you'd see in the halls at most high schools.

I figured that we were all adults and could end up working out our differences, and even made an (admittedly weak) effort to get that to happen, but it just wasn't happening.

I finally determined that the board was too fractured to be saved and that the drama and everything there wasn't something I wanted to be a part of anymore.

I sent a PM to my friends explaining why I was leaving and assuring them that it wasn't anything personal.

I plan on sitting with them tomorrow night and cheering our guys on to (hopefully) clinching the first playoff berth in team history.

I just wish things would have turned out differently.

Wednesday, March 28, 2007

Writers block

I've been fighting a major case of writers block lately.

And I mean MAJOR.

Like for METRO IFOC... I saw the story on Chron.com about the guy who got shot on a bus today.

That should be an easy one to spin, right?

I couldn't think of anything at all.

Oh well... I'm heading out of town tomorrow, maybe I can lose the block while I'm gone. UPDATE: It got called off this morning at the last minute.

Tuesday, March 27, 2007

The eye of the Bruiser

Bruiser went back to the normal vet today to get his eye looked at... to see how it's healing.

The doc said that his eye's healing well, which is good.

Sunday, March 25, 2007

A not so relaxing Saturday

I really wanted to relax before the game Saturday night, but the dogs had other plans.

Bruiser and Petey got in a fight and Bruiser came out of it with a nasty scratch on his eye so he got to take a trip to the emergency vet.

He's ok, thankfully, but he's on antibiotic and pain drops in the eye for about the next week and will be visiting Dr. Todd on Tuesday to see how it's looking.

Let's just say that giving a dog eyedrops is NOT fun.

By the time I got home from the emergency vet it was just about time to get going to a pregame tailgater. Good food and a GREAT game with the 'Catters winning 4-3.

All in all, it could have been worse. I could have been in Houston watching the Aeros lose 10-2.

Saturday, March 24, 2007

Major League Baseball hates kids with cancer

I bring you the newest addition to the the long list of stupid things that Major League Baseball has done:

Craig Biggio was angry at the commissioner's office Thursday night after he was told to stop wearing a pin on his cap that bears the logo of a foundation that helps children with cancer.

The Houston Astros star said he has worn the bright yellow, sun-shaped pin, featuring the logo for the Sunshine Kids foundation, on his hat during spring training games for the past 20 years without a problem. He is the national spokesman for the foundation and is very active in its work.

"I'm not a disrespectful person and I don't disrespect the game," Biggio said. "But I've been wearing this pin for 20 years because it puts smiles on 20,000-something cancer patients' faces."

[snip]

The 41-year-old second baseman, who is 70 hits shy of 3,000, said he wears the pin in spring training because many of the pictures for baseball cards are taken during those games and the children like seeing the pin on those cards.

Why? It's a pin on a hat! Not for some corporate entity, but The Sunshine Kids, a group that helps improve the quality of life of children with cancer!

And probably just so some suit in MLB's fortress of incompetence can feel all big and bad for telling a baseball player what to do.

Shameful.

Oh, and last I checked, those huge necklaces that players wear are still allowed.

When the bling gets banned, then MAYBE we can talk.

ELSEWHERE:

Surprisingly, nothing from Plunk Biggio... yet, at least.

Thursday, March 22, 2007

Disturbing imagery

I'm sure I wasn't the only person who was severely disturbed when I saw the following picture with a post over at IMAO today:

 
Al Gore shows us his O-face. "Oh... Oh... Oh!"

You can thank me for sharing later.

Half-right

Bruiser has had some redness on his belly for the past two or three weeks. I wasn't worried about it because I figured it was something minor and would just go away on it's own.

Well... it didn't go away.

So today I took him to the vet to let him take a look at it. Dr. Todd examines him for a minute and told me that it looked like allergies.

He went on to say that Bruiser's probably been laying on something that he's allergic to and that all he should need is a benadryl twice a day.

I just need to keep an eye on it and take him back if it gets worse looking. Should that happen, he'll probably get an antibiotic.

After walking out of the exam room, I asked "So, do I owe ya anything?"

Dr. Todd said to get out of there, so I guess not.

Well... it was minor, so I guess I was half right about it.

Comments

I've noticed a trend... and I know that K T has noticed the same thing.

Whenever you ask for comments you may get one or two, but never that many.

And when you don't ask for them, you get lovely little gems like this one that someone left for my post where I said I was leaving the newspaper blog:

Whiner child. Not sure how the newspaper sponsorship affected whether you or anybody else blogged. Like most of your generation, you simply got lazy. Go play a videogame or something and knock off the sniveling.

Sounds like that guy that everybody had in their neighborhood that was always screaming at kids, telling them to get off his lawn.

Since I still have admin powers at the blog, I deleted the comment.

If their email address hadn't been blatantly fake I would have ripped him a new one too.

The funny thing is that the IP from the comment traces back to Hearst, the company that owns the paper.

Oh well.

I say let the idiot think that about the younger generation. When he's too old to take care of himself and this generation is changing his Depends, he'll be eating those words.

Tuesday, March 20, 2007

Ponder this...

Does the fact that someone lost a loved one mean that their actions shouldn't be criticized in a manner similar to this post from last year?

Please leave your thoughts in the comments.

Monday, March 19, 2007

Softball picks back up

This week wasn't good for me... 1 AB and I struck out swinging on a full count. Here's my numbers on the season now.

BA: .333
OBP: .667
K: 1
BB: 0
1B: 1
RBI: 0

Sunday, March 18, 2007

What a blast!!!

...and I'm not being sarcastic for once.

On Sunday I was lucky enough to join 70,013 other people at Reliant Stadium to see ZZ Top.

As all RodeoHouston concerts, there were rodeo events before the band takes the stage. The finals were held Saturday night and today PRCA Xtreme Bulls paid Houston a visit. For those that don't know, that's nothing but bull riding for two hours, which was a blast and was probably worth the $19 a ticket for nosebleeds all by itself.

But that wasn't why we were there.

After all the rodeo events were done, the large rotating stage was brought from the south end of the building to the center of the floor and ZZ Top took the stage, giving us an hour and a half or so of their hits.

It was just all in all an awesome experience. The only real complaint I have is that the acoustics in Reliant leave something to be desired, but what can you really expect from a 70,000+ seat football stadium?

Thursday, March 15, 2007

Mad TV actually has a decent skit!

Even if you don't agree with this, it's funny as hell:

Let it be known right now that if the comments deteriorate into a moonbat v. chickenhawk war I'll close them because that's the last fucking thing I want going on over here.

Now you see why I don't blog about the war...

Wednesday, March 14, 2007

Being sloppy out of curiosity

I think I'm gonna leave the EATAPETA counter up until Friday... I just want to see what the JavaScript that generates the number does after that date.

Now that I think about it, I guess that doesn't make me sloppy, just curious.

After that I'll probably change it up to count down to another date... maybe Astros opening day.


UPDATE: Nevermind... it just goes blank. Guess it's time to set up the new counter.

Monday, March 12, 2007

Update the rain line, people

So I called the rain line and it said we would be playing tonight. We'd had some rain this morning so I wasn't sure.

Then I got to the fields... and nobody was there.

Really, thanks, because you know I wanted to drive across town for no reason.

Just. Fucking. Lovely.

Friday, March 09, 2007

Dogblogging

I haven't done dogblogging since the week we put Bear to sleep, and I'm really not sure why.

I should probably get out the camera and shoot some pics this weekend and put them up.

After all, I'm sure y'all want to see Bruiser in his bra... er... harness.

Thursday, March 08, 2007

Cutting it loose

There's a project I've been involved with for a long time.

It ran really well at first, but has seemed to fizzle off.

Lately it's been to the point where I've been about the only one doing anything with it, which I've grown tired of.

So... Through our eyes... we're done.

Wednesday, March 07, 2007

Gambling in the Lone Star state?

There's a chance I won't have to drive to Louisiana to blow my money anymore:

This may finally be the year for casino gambling in the Lone Star State, state legislators and tribal leaders said Wednesday.

"It's got a better chance of getting to the voters this time around," Rep. Joe Deshotel, D-Beaumont, said of the constitutional amendment required before slot machines start spinning in Texas.

Despite the new revenue's intriguing possibilities, casino gambling proposals have consistently sputtered out.

New this legislative session is a reported union between horse track owners and new casino proponents. Seeing one another as revenue threats previously stopped the groups from supporting the same legislation.

"With them together, there is certainly a stronger possibility of it passing," Deshotel said.

Honestly, I'll be surprised if this actually passes because Texas is so backwoods when it comes to gambling, but I'd vote for it.

Of course, I really don't know if it'd make a difference. Odds are that the nearest casinos would end up in Houston, which is just about as far away as Lake Charles.

But at least my money will be staying in-state.

Crossposted to Through our eyes

Monday, March 05, 2007

Softball: Week one

I was DH the entire game and went 1 for 2 with an infield single and a fielders choice.

I'm even gonna keep track of my numbers for the year

BA: .500
OBP: 1.000
RBI: 0
1B: 1

I'll add any more categories when I get them... but I'm honestly too slow to turn a double or triple and I don't have the power to hit one out the park. Heck, my hit went about 9 inches.

All in all, I can't complain.

Fun Monday: Worst opening sentence

It's time for my first ever Fun Monday post, something I plan on participating in once in a while because, well, it's fun. This week's topic (posted here by Mindy from Mama Drama) was:

To compose an exceptionally bad opening sentence for any piece of writing (not limited to novels...but not including blog posts) and to include a photograph or brief description of some aspect of that sentence.

How hard can that be, right?

So here goes:

Stephanie Saunders walked out of her front door to begin a long, exciting day that ended suddenly as she was run over by a bus, killing her instantly.

Right about now you're going "HOW DARE YOU MENTION THE MAIN CHARACTER'S FATE IN THE FIRST SENTENCE? DOESN'T THAT KILL THE POINT OF READING THE BOOK? AND WHY AM I SCREAMING?"

It's then that I show you this:


A red herring

Because Stephanie Saunders has absolutely nothing to do with the story.

Technorati tag:

Sunday, March 04, 2007

Practice, we're talkin' 'bout practice

I finally made a softball practice today.

This is the third week of 'em, but I had two very important hockey games to go to, so cut me some slack.

Felt good to be out there, running around and stuff, but if I know myself at all it won't feel so good tomorrow morning.

And we have a game tomorrow too!!!

Tons of fun.

Tuesday morning I'll likely be stiffer than a pedophile at a teenie bopper concert.

A cleaner version crossposted to Through our eyes

Friday, March 02, 2007

Let's have some fun

Think of a word that starts with F, ends in CK and isn't firetruck OR a wordy dirty.

Person with the best answer wins my undying admiration.