Chez Fred

How Do You Get Their Legs Apart

2008-05-16T00:07:00.001-07:00

Apparently former Hollywood Madam Heidi Fleiss has fallen on hard times:

"I drove a Porsche and ate at restaurants where soup cost 30 bucks. Now I can barely afford a can of soup. Some days I eat the parrots' nuts because I can't afford bread."

...proving that there is nothing that woman won't put in her mouth to make a buck.

I Find Your Lack Of Faith...Adorable

2008-05-06T19:12:00.001-07:00

Actual tattoo:

Prepare The Ceremonial Fork

2008-04-30T08:33:00.001-07:00

Western Conference Semifinals, Game 3
San Jose Sharks	1
Dallas Stars	2
(F/OT, Dallas leads series 3-0)

Memo to Head Coach Ron Wilson: don't let the door hitcha in the ass on the way out.

Game Four is...screw it. If you want to know when Game Four is, first, it's in the post a few down from this one, and second, fark you for being a Dallas fan.

Sigh

2008-04-27T21:59:00.001-07:00

Western Conference Semifinals, Game 2
Dallas Stars	5
San Jose Sharks	2
(Dallas leads series 2-0)

Gotta say, caring more about the team's success than the team does really, really sucks.

Game Three is Tuesday in Dallas.

Worth A Thousand Words

2008-04-26T12:10:00.001-07:00

Western Conference Semifinals, Game 1
Dallas Stars	3
San Jose Sharks	2
(F/OT, Dallas leads series 1-0)

Bitch of it is, we actually played a pretty good game, even coming back from a 2-1 deficit with a late goal from Jonathan Cheechoo. Until we got to the overtime. Which is generally a bad place to start playing a crappy game.

Game Two is Sunday night, 6:00P PDT, in Glorious Hi-Def� on Comcast Sports Net in the Bay Area, TSN in Canada, and Versus in the rest of the United States.

Here We Go Again

2008-04-23T13:48:00.001-07:00

As promised, here's the second-round schedule for the Sharks:

Game 1: Dallas at San Jose, Friday, April 25, 7:00P (Versus, TSN)
Game 2: Dallas at San Jose, Sunday, April 27, 6:00P (CSN-HD, Versus, TSN)
Game 3: San Jose at Dallas, Tuesday, April 29, 4:30P (CSN-HD, TSN)
Game 4: San Jose at Dallas, Wednesday, April 30, 6:00P (CSN-HD, Versus, TSN (JIP))
Game 5: Dallas at San Jose, Friday, May 2, 7:00P (Versus, TSN)
Game 6: San Jose at Dallas, Sunday, May 4, 6:00P (CSN-HD, Versus, TSN)
Game 7: Dallas at San Jose, Tuesday, May 6, 7:00P (CSN-HD, TSN)

(I will point out that the last time the Sharks played on my birthday, in 2004, they beat Colorado 3-1 to advance to their first Conference Finals. When it was discovered that they had lost on their two previous attempts (in 1994 and 2002), the league was so appalled at this break from tradition that they canceled the following season.)

(Another aside, made topical by Owen Nolan's questionable goal in the second period of last night's game: since I see it finally replicated to the site, you're invited to have a look at my newest Rock Band band, Distinct Kicking Motion. (I'm also a member of Contestant's Row.) More details there when I get around to posting them.)

Strap yourselves in, kids, the ride's about to leave the station again...

A Combination Guaranteed To Make You Say...

2008-04-22T22:15:00.001-07:00

Western Conference Quarterfinals, Game 7
Calgary Flames	3
San Jose Sharks	5
(San Jose wins series 4-3)

Thank God the right Sharks showed up. And look at this: you put Jeremy Roenick back in the lineup, and he goes and scores four points. 'Magine that.

Next up: the University of Dallas Stars. Game One is Friday on Versus at 7:00P PDT; I will post the full schedule when the NHL announces it, probably tomorrow.

Now I have to go weep like a small child for a while...

Do, Or Do Not

2008-04-21T10:17:00.001-07:00

Because there sure as hell wasn't any try out of the Sharks last night:

Western Conference Quarterfinals, Game 6
San Jose Sharks	0
Calgary Flames	2
(Series tied 3-3)

They made Game One look inspired. That's how piss-poor they played. I'll leave it at that.

If you're a sports fan, these are the two most beautiful words in the English language: Game Seven. Unless your team is involved. Then it really, really sucks. (And now I get to miss a second consecutive Tuesday game night. Fark Calgary.)

Game Seven is Tuesday night, 7:00P, on Comcast Sports Net in the Bay Area, CBC in Canada, and Versus (who, as predicted, did indeed pick up the game in the wake of Dallas finishing off Anaheim last night, and fark the Stars right in the goat ass for that, because that means I'll most likely have to watch the heavily biased CBC feed on Versus instead of getting Randy and Drew on Center Ice) in the rest of the United States.

Sweep The Leg

2008-04-17T22:34:00.001-07:00

I apologize for being lax in my playoff reporting; honestly, it hasn't been all that fun. I have a huge emotional attachment to this hockey club, and quite frankly their play in a good bit of this series has been infuriating and depressing. And since this is my blog and not a newspaper, I'm not going to write about something that I'm not having fun writing about.

So, with that, let's get you caught up, starting with last Sunday night's game:

Western Conference Quarterfinals, Game 3
San Jose Sharks	3
Calgary Flames	4
(Calgary leads series 2-1)

San Jose scored three times in the first four minutes of the game. Then they decided that they could go back to the hotel. In their stead for the next 56 minutes, they were replaced by a collective of sloth. (The collective noun for bears is "a sloth of bears." I could not find the collective noun for sloth, but I'm pretty sure it's not "a bear of sloth."

Which brings us to Tuesday night:

Western Conference Quarterfinals, Game 4
San Jose Sharks	3
Calgary Flames	2
(Series tied 2-2)

The sloth apparently were sent back to the rink to start Game 4. Despite a second-period goal from Ryane Clowe, one of the few Sharks to have actually shown up for most of this series, they were floating again. Then, with five minutes to go in the game, I guess the sloth got tired and told the Sharks to go the hell back to the Saddledome and start earning their paychecks again. Then....well, let's bring in the Sharks' broadcast team of Randy Hahn and Drew Remenda to tell you what happened:

Nine seconds left. (Yeah, I know Randy and Drew were saying seven. They were slow stopping the clock on the goal and they put the time back on the clock.) Man, my heart can't take crap like this anymore. (And a big Chez Fred hello to the lone Sharks fan sitting in the front row behind and to the left of the Flames' goal!)

Finally, tonight's game, back in the friendly confines of the Shark Tank:

Western Conference Quarterfinals, Game 5
Calgary Flames	3
San Jose Sharks	4
(San Jose leads series 3-2)

FINALLY, a full 60 minute effort. This was a 4-1 game at one point, but Calgary doesn't exactly suck, and the Hockey Gods hate me, so David Moss's goal with 1:17 left in regulation provided what most sports fans would call "an exciting finish," but what I endured as "a powerful laxative." If the Sharks can keep this game up, they will win this series. Period.

So the good guys are up 3-2, and they can finish this thing Sunday night in Calgary. 5:00P PDT start, on Comcast Sports Net in the Bay Area, CBC in the Great White North, and Versus south of the 49th Parallel.

Good News, Bad News

2008-04-10T21:54:00.001-07:00

And first, the bad news, from last night:

Western Conference Quarterfinals, Game 1
Calgary Flames	3
San Jose Sharks	2
(Calgary leads series 1-0)

One of the worst, clumsy, undisciplined, lackadaisical games I have seen the Sharks play all year. You don't get away with a lot of those in the playoffs, so burning one off in the very first game is generally a bad idea.

Now, the good news from tonight:

Western Conference Quarterfinals, Game 2
Calgary Flames	0
San Jose Sharks	2
(Series tied 1-1)

MUCH better game. Still not seeing a lot out of Jeremy Roenick or Joe Thornton, and I was hoping I would see significant contributions from both. But I needed to see that they took last night's crap performance as a wake-up call, and they did not disappoint. Goaltender Evgeni Nabokov was friggin' brilliant, including one save that I would find video of and link to, had the game not just ended. Watch this space tomorrow, maybe.

(EDIT: Here you go. 3:52 in.)

Anyhow, the good guys pulled out the split at home. Would have been nicer to get 'em both, but hey.

Game Three is Sunday night in Calgary, 7:00P, on Comcast Sports Net in the Bay Area, CBC in Canada, and Versus in the rest of the United States.

The Journey Begins Anew

2008-04-08T12:01:00.001-07:00

This is the official warning to The Four Of You that we've reached the time of year where 70% of the the posts are going to be completely uninteresting to Three Of You.

That's right, tomorrow is the beginning of the 2008 NHL Stanley Cup Playoffs.

The Sharks, in no small part due to a twenty-game run at the end of the season where they were unbeaten in regulation (and only two of those were overtime losses, and ONE of those was a result of the goddamn shootout), finished the season with the second-best record in the league, a franchise record 49-23-10 for 108 points, and the second seed in the Western Conference. (Only Detroit, with 115 points, had a better finish.)

As a result, so long as they don't face Detroit, they will enjoy home-ice advantage (by the way, the name of my band in Guitar Hero II? Home-Ice Advantage.) in every playoff series they take part in this year.

And as the two-seed, they will face the seven-seed in the West in the opening round, the Calgary Flames. And because I know you care (and actually one of the benefits of playing against a Canadian team is that CBC airs all of their playoff games, so folks local to me in Seattle MIGHT care) here's the schedule for that first round, at least, what we know of it at this point:

Game 1: Calgary at San Jose, Wednesday, April 9, 7:00P (CSN HD, CBC, Versus)
Game 2: Calgary at San Jose, Thursday, April 10, 7:00P (CSN HD, CBC)
Game 3: San Jose at Calgary, Sunday, April 13, 7:00P (CSN, CBC, Versus)
Game 4: San Jose at Calgary, Tuesday, April 15, 7:00P (CSN, CBC)
Game 5: Calgary at San Jose, Thursday, April 17, 7:00P (CSN HD, CBC, Versus)
Game 6: San Jose at Calgary, Sunday, April 20, TBD (CSN, CBC, Versus)
Game 7: Calgary at San Jose, Tuesday, April 22, TBD (CSN HD, CBC)

(And I could absolutely see Versus picking up Game Seven if (Heaven forfend) it's necessary and the Dallas / Anaheim series doesn't go seven as well. And I, personally, am rooting for seven games, sixteen overtimes, and at least a dozen lifelong debilitating injuries in that series.)

Anyhow, now you're all caught up and ready to follow along with me as the boys in teal march towards their first Stanley Cup. Game on...and LET'S GO SHARKS!

Banner Day

2008-03-29T17:09:00.001-07:00

Last night's final from the I'd-call-it-fabulous-but-the-actual-seating-bowl-is-a-shiathole Honda Center in Anaheim:

Friday, March 28
San Jose Sharks	3
Anaheim Ducks	1
(Sharks clinch 3rd Pacific Division title)

Bring on...well, whoever winds up as the 7- or 8-seed!

Because Hot Dogs Just Taste Better When They're $6.50 A Pop

2008-03-26T13:00:00.001-07:00

Ah, public relations people. You gotta love them. Mainly because as far as I know murdering them is still a capital offense in most states.

Today's Golden Slurpee goes to Washington Nationals spokesperson Chartese Burnett, on the team's commendable policy allowing patrons to bring in their own food at the Nats' new stadium:

"I don't know who's going to want to bring in food with all the great offerings at Nationals Park."

Spoken like a woman who hasn't paid for ballpark food in a long, LONG time.

Daaaa Bears!

2008-03-06T13:54:00.001-08:00

I discovered today that Carl's Jr. now offers a Chili-Cheese (Double or Six-Dollar optional) Burger. And, hey, so long as we're doing that, let's dump some on the fries, too! They also now have a Cap'n Crunch milkshake. I remember way back that Planet Hollywood used to use crushed-up Cap'n as a breading for their chicken fingers (in fact, I see they still do), but this was the first time I had seen it as a dessert mix-in.

It's like they're basing their entire marketing strategy around how heart-attack-inducing their meals are.

Fun little puzzle (although I did a lot of the work for you above): Go to the Carl's Jr. Nutritional Calculator. Using only one entree item (burger, breakfast item, or other sammich...you could use a salad if you want, but you won't want to - keep reading), a single side, a single dessert, and ONLY LOGICAL EXTRAS (you must be able to make a case as to why it would be desirable with that meal), see if you can cobble together a meal that clocks in at over 3000 calories. It CAN be done!

(I am SO going to Fatburger tomorrow night for dinner.)

Let Me Know Who Shot First

2008-03-03T12:18:00.001-08:00

From One Of The Four David Zinkin, I present: Best. Headline. EVAR.

I Love Lucy

2008-02-24T03:02:00.001-08:00

So just a warning before we get started here: this post is going to have a higher sucrose level than much of the material you read here at Chez Fred. Complimentary insulin syringes will be distributed after your meal.

Tonight was the annual Seattle Women's Hockey Club fundraiser. I've written about it before...basically, one of The Four Of You was a member of the club a few years ago, said "hey, yeah, I know someone!" when they were tossing around the idea of getting an announcer / host for the event, and I've been doing it ever since.

I won't bore you with the details...suffice it to say we faced a few hurdles before and during the event, we got through them, and nobody noticed that I essentially butchered the first game. (I stumbled through a few announcements. Yeah, I'm human, but I hold myself to a superhuman standard when I do this thing.) And I ended strong, so I was okay with it. But this post isn't really about that.

I said before that I love seeing these women, and for the most part, sadly, I only see them once a year, at this event. They are fantastic people, they are SO happy I'm there, and I'm pretty sure I could just say "Boondoggle!" repeatedly into the mic for three hours and they would still think I did an awesome job.

Anyhow, after all is said and done and I've reminded everyone to Please Drive Home Safely, I generally queue up some music on my laptop, chat it up a little with the on-ice officials I've been working with all night (who I actually remembered to publicly thank both BEFORE AND AFTER the two games this year), and just kinda hang out. Everyone in the club is basking in that whole post-event "hey, we actually pulled this thing off!" vibe, and I like that.

But really I'm waiting to see...well, we'll call her "Lucy." (For no other reason than it makes the post title pretty much write itself.)

I'm a horrible judge of age and I wouldn't do that to her anyhow, so let's just say that Lucy is older than I am and leave it at that. I first met her in 2005, the first year I hosted the event. It was also her first year with the club, and she had explained to me that she'd joined up because she thought it would be a good and different kind of exercise, and that at the time she joined up she couldn't even skate, but she just absolutely fell in love with the game of hockey once she was around it.

And MAN, did I completely understand where she was coming from. There is just something about being near a hockey game that...satisfies me. I don't have any other way to explain it, I can't tell you why, it just IS. And the itch can be scratched with other sports, but never completely. There is an ethereal thing about hockey and its culture that no other sport has.

Anyhow, me and Lucy had a fantastic talk about that, and we realized that we were absolutely kindred spirits in that regard. She didn't know what It was, either, but she knew It was there, and she knew she was in love with It. And she made it very clear that having me there doing my thing amplified It. She asked if she could have a picture taken with me, and of course I was happy to oblige.

And I left that night awash in the appreciation of a lot of people, but talking to Lucy always stuck with me, because she Really Understood. And The Four Of You know that I'm not exactly a New Agey kind of guy, but there was totally an exchange of positive energy between us that stuck with me for quite a while.

So two years ago, as athletes often are, she was injured and couldn't play, but we still got to talk a little bit. And she took a year off from the club last year, and I was sad that I didn't see her name on the roster. So I was totally jazzed when I got my rosters for this year's event and saw Lucy's name back on there.

Back to the postgame show: cue up a little Oingo Boingo and Dead Or Alive and whatnot, mill around a little bit, and finally I go back to the scoring box because we're about to run out of music and I don't want it picking something at random out of my playlist, because with my luck we'd get Snoop To The Motherfarking Dogg or Kid Motherfarking Rock popping up and a lot of parents with their kids would (justifiably) be pretty motherfarking pissed at me.

And I threw a few more songs into the queue, because there were still a bunch of people milling around (apparently the good people at Pyramid Breweries gave us a LOT of beer), and I looked up, and there was Lucy.

And of course, we get to talking. (She was surprised and thrilled that I remembered the picture from three years before.) Now understand I was still beating myself up a little over the flubs I'd made over the course of the evening. Not a lot, but a little. And she's looking at me like I've turned bright green. "I don't think you understand," she says. "I'm sitting there on the bench, and I hear you, and I think "we have a VOICE." If you've made a mistake, we don't notice. We just know that there's a VOICE, and that it's great."

Wow. If you've never had the experience, I strongly recommend having someone say that to you sometime.

I tried a little something new this year: someone (thank Glub for Internet whackjobs) has collected fairly clear recordings of the goal horns of all 30 NHL teams, made simple movies out of them, and posted them on YouTube. (A quick explanation for the hockey-impaired...when the home team scores, most pro teams have a...well, for lack of a better term, a ritual, to get the fans involved in celebrating the goal.) So I worked a little bit of the multimedia magic that I've picked up over time, grabbing a few of them and ripping the audio off as MP3's that my laptop DJ software can fire from the sound effects banks. I thought maybe it would add some big-league flavor to our little community-rink production.

I was a teeny bit worried about the sound quality, so I asked Lucy what she thought of them. And she looked at me again, and just from her look I knew that, at least for her, it had EXACTLY the effect I was going for. And that snowballed into the "kindred spirits" energy-exchange that I was so hoping for. We talked about what it felt like to sit in an empty arena and look at a clean, freshly-Zambonied sheet of ice, and about how it feels to do something you really, really love to do, and do it alongside people who really, really love the small part they are contributing to the overall whole, and about how we still hadn't figured out what It was, but we still knew It was there and that we could never get enough of It.

And eventually (and always far too soon) it was time to go, and I walked with Lucy out to our respective cars, and we went our separate ways, but that positive vibe, that unique, unexplainable, special love for the game that Lucy absolutely basks in and that I can literally SEE her soaking up when we talk, that stayed with me. And, once again, it's going to stay with me for a while.

I give her a VOICE. Heady stuff, that.

Can we have female pimpettes at Chez Fred? Yer damn skippy we can. "Lucy," if you're reading this, please enjoy your Bishop Don "Magic" Juan Big Pimpin' Cup:

Watch It With Someone You Love

2008-02-07T20:53:00.001-08:00

If any of The Four Of You haven't seen the viral video of The Shining as a heartwarming chick flick, go watch it now. I'll hang out. See you when you get back.

Pretty clever, innit? There are a couple others like that floating around YouTube that people have put together.

That said: the following IS NOT EDITED. This is exactly as it aired during an episode of Who's Line Is It Anyway earlier today:

Her insane abusive husband is stalking her! Isn't that ADORABLE!

Time For A Change

2008-01-23T23:45:00.001-08:00

The Four Of You who have been around for a few years know that I'm not terribly fond of my given name, and that I've never gone through with officially changing it because I didn't trust the government not to muck it up, and I thought replacing all of my identification would be too much of a hassle.

(It doesn't happen as often anymore...when I was in school I was constantly correcting teachers and such, especially those asshats who thought that the simple courtesy of remembering a student's name was beneath them. These days, it happens just enough to be annoying...when I have to flash my ID when I buy something with my credit card, I twinge when I see the name. The record-keeping software at my doctor's office doesn't have a convenient or obvious field to record a preferred name, so I get to correct them when they call to confirm an appointment. That sort of thing.)

Anyhow, you also know that back in May I lost my wallet and had to replace all of the identification anyhow. And in so doing, I discovered that it really wouldn't take that much doing to replace the ID, that my Social Security number would remain unchanged (I was always under the impression for some reason that they had to issue you a new number), and that once those two were knocked out, everything else (and "everything else" really just means my medical and dental insurance cards, since my debit and credit cards and such are already under my preferred name) would really fall into place.

Then, as I am wont to do, I forgot about it for a while.

Well, I'm on my 100-day contractor break from Microsoft right now, which has given me some time to re-think-about things that I have forgotten in the hustle and bustle of normal life. So I'm sitting at home on Sunday, surfing around, and just on a whim I decide to see what it would entail. And I found that it basically comes down to three forms (two of which I could fill out online via Adobe Reader before printing 'em out, yay for not having to deal with my crappy handwriting!), about $140 spread between three agencies, and a quick drive over to the district court just up the road from me a little in Shoreline. Since I'm between contracts, this would be a REALLY good time to do it, if I'm ever gonna do it at all.

This Tuesday comes, and for various reasons I happen to be up and actually prepared to run errands and such much earlier than I ordinarily would be, so I take a deep breath and decide to do it. Quickie thing, right? Go to the courthouse, drop off the papers, write 'em a check, and in a few weeks I get a letter with a stamp on it that says I'm Christopher John Lemon now.

As it happens, not so much.

I go in, find the appropriate window, and the nice lady behind said window processes some paperwork and accepts my check and what-not. After a while, she says "Okay, you're all set up, you just need to walk down to Courtroom 1 and wait for the judge to call your name."

(Please enjoy this picture of the O RLY? owl. I'd put him inline, but it breaks up the flow. And I'm all abouts da flow.)

Well, okay then. I had nowhere urgent to be, so no big deal. I walk into a very full courtroom, and since there is nowhere to sit, I stand near the back, and watch two or three cases where people convicted of DUI are trying to plead down their sentences with the usual excuses you would expect: "Oh, I've gone through the program, I'm a changed (wo)man, I need to be able to work so I can pay off the rest of the fine." The first lady was in on her third DUI. The judge did not execute her there and then. I was disappointed.

Finally someone gets called, and it leaves an empty seat in the gallery, so I sit down. He's yet another DUI case, and part of his excuse for not wanting to serve jail time was that he had "hepatitis and an chronic upper-respiratory infection."

And here I am, sitting in the airspace he just vacated. Great.

Anyhow, they muddle through these (and let me tell you, the wheels of justice could definitely use a little oiling, at least in Shoreline) and the judge calls for "Jon Lemon." And I cringe and step forward, but in the back of my head I'm feeling kinda smug in the knowledge that this is the LAST time that will happen.

And the wheels of justice whirr into overdrive: I raise my right hand and solemnly swear that I'm not changing my name to dodge creditors or arrest warrants (Shh! Don't tell them!), Hizzoner congratulates me and sends me back to the window to pick up my copy of the court order form I submitted, and Jon Christopher Lemon walks out of the King County District Court (East Division, Shoreline Courthouse) as Christopher John Lemon. Felt a little weird, mainly because of the immediacy...'member, I was expecting it to happen in a couple weeks through the mail, but here it is, boom, done, final answer, Regis, thanks for playing, and don't let the door hit ya where the Good Lord split ya.

On the way home I decide to swing by the Social Security office, figuring that whatever birds I can kill with this stone would be worthwhile. Surprisingly, pretty painless...confirmed my number and address, showed 'em the court order and ID, and I was out the door in about fifteen minutes, most of that wait-time.

Today, feeling a little less ambitious than yesterday, but ambitious nonetheless, I decide to go to the DOL (what you folks in other states know as the DMV...I think it's different here because they're privatized the vehicle registration side of the equation) and get the Holy Grail of this whole thing, the new driver's license. Photo ID, baybee.

Ho-lee.

I go to the one in Greenwood, just down the road from me, because I figure it's close by, and how long could it take, right?

The Greenwood office is FULL. Standing room only. There are easily 100 people waiting their turns, and during the entire ten minutes I was there I think I saw three new numbers called. I am quite sure I would still be there now if I decided to stick it out. I quickly concluded that it would actually be faster to drive over to the likely-less-busy Bothell office (Yes, Bothell, home of the most intimidating city slogan I have ever seen: "For a day...or a LIFETIME.") and do it there. And I've got an iPod full of podcasts and a full tank of gas, so what the hell.

So I get over there...pretty quickly, considering that it's now going on 3:00P and the commuting traffic is gonna start kicking in pretty soon. And I take a number...134. Checking the little readouts above the windows indicates that Number 124 is currently being served in those lines. Golden. I sit down.

Immediately, three of the four windows close. I look up to see a sign reminding me that attacking or intimidating a public servant is a felony offense. I now understand why it's there.

I plug into the iPod and finish listening to This Week In Tech. It takes, I shit you not, a full hour and change to get from 124 to 134. As I approach the window, it dawns on me why driver's license pictures always suck: by the time your turn finally comes, your spirit has been completely purged from your being and you are nothing more than a hollow shell.

And, of course, I get the trainee, who has no idea how to process a name change. (You married people, you get a new ID when you get married and change your last name, right? This can't be THAT uncommon.) So he has to wait for someone to help him, and after she does, he does something out of order and erases it all, so she gets to help him again. Whee.

Didja know that when you change your name, your vision changes along with it, and therefore they make you retake the eye exam? Me neither.

Didja know that despite the entire known universe having gone to digital photography, and despite getting a new license in May when I lost my wallet, you have to (wait some more to) retake the picture AGAIN? Me neither. (Attention, DOL administration: have you heard of this wonderful technical advancement called a FRIGGIN' HARD DRIVE?)

Anyhow. Started this whole adventure a little before two, and did not leave with a temp license in my wallet until right around 4:30P.

Which means it took longer to get the new license than it did to change my goddamn name in the first place.

There's just something very wrong with that.

Rear-Ended

2008-01-05T14:18:00.001-08:00

Takata presents a new airbag design:

Quone: To Quone Something

2008-01-05T12:27:00.001-08:00

I play Scrabulous on Facebook. I'm far from the best Scrabble player in the universe, but it's fun and the folks I play aren't so much better than me that I don't enjoy the game.

Anyhow, a friend starts up a new game with me yesterday, and I click the link to look at the game. My opening rack is:

IYEEEEA

If we're using the Howard Dean wordlist, I've got a bingo.

Apparently, Sometimes, It IS Easy

2007-12-30T01:40:00.001-08:00

The Four Of You are aware that I have a little bit of a background in broadcasting; in college I was one of the radio voices for San Jose State athletics on the campus radio station. So I'm a bit of a sports broadcasting geek. You also know that I've been known to watch the San Jose Sharks play hockey, erm, every once in a blue moon. But just in case you are a newcomer to the Fellowship of the Four, now you're all caught up and you have what you need to appreciate what follows below.

My brother's Christmas gift arrived yesterday, and this afternoon was my first opportunity to open it. It came in two parts: a game I had been wanting for a while, and an autographed Sharks game puck, with two signatures on each side. Which is always cool, but in this case, I couldn't identify the players who had signed it. This is odd for me; having followed the team almost obsessively for the last fourteen years, I can pretty much identity every single player who has ever donned a teal jersey. So I pondered it for a little while, and finally gave up. and put it aside. I figured next time I could catch my brother, I'd ask him who it was, and undoubtedly feel quite foolish that I didn't figure it out myself.

So later on, this evening, I was watching the boys beat the crap out of Nashville, and I picked up the puck and was considering it again. Suddenly, the fog lifted and the light came on. And I got that tingly feeling that you get when you receive a truly well-considered gift, one of those gifts that just screams out that the giver was really thinking about what you might truly treasure.

You see, my brother got a puck signed by Dan Rusanowsky and Jamie Baker on one side, and Randy Hahn and Drew Remenda on the other. The San Jose Sharks' radio and television broadcast crews, respectively. This is not the sort of thing you pick up in the arena gift shop, he had to have actually hit them up on Press Row (which is very accessible in San Jose; it's at the bottom of section 215, but still) to sign it before a game.

As a result, to recognize my brother's status as a stone-cold PIMP, I am pleased to present him as the inaugural recipient of Chez Fred's newest award, the Player's Ball Big Pimpin' Cup:

All The Hebrews In The House Say OYYYY!

2007-12-05T15:00:00.001-08:00

(And apologies for not having written much lately. Starting next week I'll have a lot more free time for a while, and plan to try to get back on a regular schedule of posting.)

I Hate To Say I Told You So...

2007-11-03T19:04:00.001-07:00

Remember when Clay Bennett bought the Seattle Sonics last year?

I'll Say

2007-10-09T13:26:00.001-07:00

From a Reuters article about the TiVo-on-a-Comcast-cable-box:

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Digital video recorder company TiVo Inc said on Tuesday the roll-out of its services is a "little behind" schedule.

The timeline they originally announced was "mid-to-late 2006."

God, I love my TivoHD.

At Least I Have...Dammit, I Used That One Already

2007-10-05T11:26:00.001-07:00

Last night I was working some magic with my Tivo, mainly because the Zap2It folks (who provide the data that Tivo uses to create their own guide data) haven't figured out that MLB Extra Innings is now NHL Center Ice, and as a result my Sharks games are attempting to record on a channel four lower than they should be. Basically, until they get this fixed, my Tivo thinks it's in Federal Way. This marks the first time I can think of that I've ever actively wanted anything associated with me to THINK it's in Federal Way, much less actually BE there.

So, because of this, I had to go through the rigmarole of telling the Tivo which channels I actually get as opposed to what they think I get, so it doesn't decide I want to see Weapons of Ass Destruction 4 and record 234 minutes of black screen on the pr0n channel, instead of the acting talents of Alexis Amore, Jasmine Byrne, and the acclaimed star of Monster Meat, Mandingo. (What?)

And because of THAT, my TV happened to be on a channel called "The Word," which their own press kit proudly touts as "The Urban Religious Channel." I quickly shouted down the urge to bounce up a channel and see if I could come across The Deaf Albanian Midget Cooking Channel. (I hear they're delicious if you marinate them in a little teriyaki sauce first.)

Anyhow, it just so happened that I fired up The Word at exactly the right time to meet this man.

Yep. Leroy Jenkins. Priceless.

Well, not exactly priceless...in fact, looking at the Products section of his site (I'd link you there if it wasn't all Flash), we find that his services come with a very specific price....$20 for a one-liter bottle of his Miracle Water. (But only $100 for a case of 24! That's a savings of almost 80%! I'll take six!)

Best part: his Web guy is taking full advantage of his doppelganger for SEO purposes, as shown in the metatags:

<meta name="keywords" content= "Miracle Water, Healing Water, Faith, Testimonies, Book of Acts, Reconstructive Miracles, Healings of Leukemia, Healings of Sickle Cell Anemia, Healings of Seizures, Healings of Heart Disease, Healings of HIV, Healings of AIDS, Healings of Cancer, Healings of Broken Necks, Restoration of Hearing, Restoration of Sight, Resurrection, Nine Gifts of the Spirit, Gift of Prophecy, Gift of Tongues, Discerning of Spirits, Word of Knowledge, Word of Wisdom, Healings, Faith Magazine, Faith Books, Faith DVDs, Praise and Worship CDs, T-Shirts, Leeroy Jenkins, world of warcraft, Reverend, God, Christianity, Rev. Leroy Jenkins, Phoenix Arizona ">

Anyhow, I dunno where I'm going with this; I just wanted to share the white-hot rush of joy I felt when I discovered that Leroy Jenkins is a real person.