More bullets

*I attend Tony's beer tasting last night featuring malt. My knowledge of malt is equivalent to my knowledge of ballet so it was very informative. Particularly, it was amazing to taste the raw malt and then the beer that was made using it.

*I'm on the last leg of finishing the prop for Odyessey. I still need to put on extra wheels and support for the base, sand the wood putty down, and manufacure a release switch for the trap door and then it's off to be painted and decorated.

*I finished my taxes about a week and half ago. A big number owed to the feds and a big number back from the state. Almost wash. I love doing my taxes because I enjoy the math but I hate realizing how much money that is forced from me.

*The executive level customer service people at Comcast are pretty impressive. I think I'll just call them from now on. 212-640-8960. But for best results, read how to be a customer service ninja before calling. And Christy thank you for offering to help.

*When I landed my first post college job I was 185. At my heaviest and coinsidently unhappiest, I weighed 215. Since landing my current and still wonderful job, I have lost 10 pounds just from being happy and getting out of the retail hell hole. But I still didn't like the number on the scale and I didn't like how I looked or felt. So it was time to get serious about shedding a few pounds. I joined My Food Dairy a little over a month ago and I can't rave enough about it. I got on the scale today and it read 195. Woot! 10 pounds! Turns out that a steady diet actually works. I'll be happy at 190, but with a little work and some exercise I think I get back down to 185.

*Duane posted something yesterday that is hopefully going to clean up an existing skin condition. (Shut up.) Thanks Duane!

Sigh...

I can't cuss fast enough to keep up with UGA basketball.

What kind of day has it been

I experienced the kind of morning that makes me want to crawl into bed and not come out for a week. It took me an hour and 15 minutes to drive the 5.1 miles from my house to site of today's training class.

This slow creeping journey around downed trees and powerlines took place after I clipped Georgia Girl's new Honda at the enterance of the neighborhood. Everyone's fine. The damage to both vehicles is minor but will require a professional to fix the paint. I'm embarassed but this too shall pass.

I'm really looking forward to lunch.

Bullets

• I'm currently going at it with Comcast. Exasperating.
• Why is the media making a big deal out of "a stripper" winning an Oscar? "Stripper" does not equal "stupid". "Stripper" does not equal "bad at life".
• I'm going to an advanced training class for Excel tomorrow. I'm already certified in Powerpoint. Just adding to the list of useless stuff I know a little bit about.
• I haven't updated my flickr page since before New Year's Eve and the camera is getting full. I'm dreading dumping, cleaning, and uploading the photos.
• I was supposed to have a recording session this past weekend. It got canceled. It was with a "name" of a producer and the album cred would have been something.
• I've been working on a large prop for Odyssey for the past week and a half. And it's starting to come together. All that's left is the trap door and three roof pieces and it's done. Yup. A trap door. I saw them perform live for the first time this past Saturday. I was more than impressed.

Watch this

Jimmy Kimmel did a live show last night after the Oscars where he respond to Sarah's video with Matt Damon. Hard hard laughter.

NSFW

There was one shot at the chandilier, so that's 1 plus 2 plus 1 plus 1

Hasbro and Universal are going to remake Clue, one of my favorite movies. I am not thrilled about this.

Dave Grohl for President.
Some highlights from the article.

"To keep cool in the summertime as a kid I turned on the hose and I drank from it. I want America to come back to that place where we’re all drinking from the hose. I think that’s a perfect metaphor for what’s gone wrong in this country."

On the immigration issue: "Let me make a musical analogy: I look at America as if it were Wembley stadium—it’s only so big but you can fit a lot of people in it. As president of the United States of America, I promise to rock the fucking house—and everyone’s invited."

"I want us to be morally futuristic. I want to be so forward focused that we redefine American morals: family, music, barbecues."

Bail this

A picture from 1997 - Brett bailing rainwater to prevent the piccolos from drowning because there are no drainage holes at the base of Bobby Dodd Stadium.

Today, there is at least one hole in the roof of Alexander Memorial Coliseum.

Insert engineering joke here.

Fun new interwebs

Well, new to me anyway.

Fail Blog.

Shipment of fail.

Late night music and build me this

In an apparent exhibition of how opposite they are, tonight Letterman had Foo Fighters and Leno had Garth Brooks. Yes, the Foo was good. I have no idea about Garth.

Two things about Foo Fighters;
1) I hope Dave Grohl never becomes irrelevant to music.
2) A percussionist played vibraphone on the chorus of Pretender. It was mixed very well but watching him in between choruses was awkward.


I'm currently building a prop for Odyssey that has taken over my garage. The prop is a large mock fire pit. I sketched out drawings and dimensions but it keeps getting reinvented with each stroke of the circular saw. Step by step photos coming as soon as I finish it. But this is a two stage project. Step 1; build the prop. Step 2; Decorate the prop so it look like what it's supposed to be.


It's been six months. I miss Vegas.

Watch this

Tonight I watch the documentary History of the Joke on The History Channel.
There is some history but the driving plot is Lewis Black trying to find the funniest joke ever.
Pretty good, but the title is misleading. I give it 3 and half Sagets.

Put baby in a corner

I just got some very disturbing news last night.

Two people I admire for speaking their minds and really enjoy listening/watching on the interwebs are going to be on the worst show since So You Think You Can Dance.

Here's the bad news. Penn Jillette and Adam Carolla are going to be on the next version of Dancing with the Stars.

No, I will not be watching.

More AT&T

So according to Tony and Warren, I should be welcoming these new cables with open arms. Double the speed of my internet? I'm listening and curious. But when I got home the crew had trashed a portion of my yard. The grass, what was left of it, had been strewn over where the crew had dug. Let me give you a relative example of the grass to area ratio. Have you seen my hairline in the last 8 years? Color me irritated.

I walked a few houses down where the crew was working and asked them if that was how my yard was going to be left. I was told that it was. I mentioned that the sign at the exit of the neighborhood said that the yard would be restored after the work was completed. From the supervisor; "Give it 6 to 9 months, your grass will grow back."

My glib response; "My house is on the market NOW."

I was given the phone number for his boss. This company is contracted by AT&T to do all of this work. After explaining why I was calling and that I wished to have the name and number of someone with AT&T who I could call and complain to, she quickly put me through to the project manager, Steve. Steve wasn't really amused by my call, but he took down my name, address, phone number and what kind of grass was destroyed and said it would be fixed by the end of the week. If it is replaced by the end of the week I will be a little impressed and very thankful.

Then I sat down to figure out and file the 2007 taxes. I hate seeing how much money the government gets from me. It's depressing.

AT&T has been going through the neighborhood upgrading their buried DSL cables for the past 10 or 11 days. They posted a sign at the exit of the neighborhood to let us know what was going on, which I thought was nice of them. According to the sign, they going to pull up a little bit of our yards, replace whatever needs replacing and then, if necessary, a landscaping crew comes behind to touch up the disturbed area.

I'm happy with my internet connection via Comcast and I don't plans to switch to AT&T's DSL. Unless it makes financial sense to do so without a drop in speed or consistency. But with the seemingly constant rate increases from Comcast, maybe a change would be good. Let's see if AT&T can pull this cable upgrade off without any creating any unnecessary problems.

Before they started digging, the power company came by and marked where their lines were buried. Good start.

They came to my street thing morning and started doing their cable switcheroo. But they forgot to ask the Gas Company to mark where their pipes are buried. It's a little scary walking outside and smelling gas everywhere.

Raise me this

I quit the live weekly cash poker game a few weeks ago and I did so for the following two reasons.

1) My game had gone to shit. The first few months I was clearing one hundred and fifty to three hundred dollars a session. I played a tight aggressive game and was rewarded for it. As the weeks went on, I began to view the game a social outing. I was going for the conversation and banter and not the money making oportunity. I began making the same weak plays that I had been exploiting weeks earlier. Instead of a few extra hundreds a week, I was down to covering my bar tab.

2) It was only a matter of time before it got busted. We were in a public bar easily accessible to the public. Everyone from the staff to the people playing the free roll knew exactly what was going on. Some nights we would have two full tables going. All that stood between me and a jail cell for a night was a disgruntled employee or a jealous girlfriend making a single call. Check please.

So I quit that game about three weeks ago and made a resolution to getting back to the basics. I reread the passages I needed to reread and listened to a new to me audio book that made a huge impact. I took a week off from playing anywhere, did my studying, and went back to Ultimate Bet.

I had stopped playing online when I came back from Vegas this past summer. Not because I wanted to, but by this point the UIGEA made depositing money into an online gaming account from my bank account so damn difficult.

But when I went back two weeks ago, UB had figured out a way around the law. (Insert me flicking off Bill Frist here) My money was deposited and accessible immediately. Thanks to refocusing my game; for the past three weeks I have been on a tear of monumental proportions.

I'm back to playing the game the way I know how to make money. Sure the bad beats happen and I don't cash in every sit n go, but not cashing has become rare. I'm back to being successful and having fun at the same time.

Watch this

Stardust, Good movie.
Robert De Niro is hysterical.

Blog This

I was included in the latest Georgia Blog Carnival. Go visit and be a part of the over growing Georgia Blogosphere.

As a sometimes frequent user of nasal sprays, I really liked Mr. Heather Armstrong's post of how to correctly apply Nasonex.

The first trailer for the upcoming Indiana Jones movie is up. I got a little excited watching it. Until Shia LaBeouf showed up.

Did anyone hear me scream last night after I finished watching Lost?

Cut this

No, I do not want or need the item, but I am so overly amused by this.

The Modern Era

There are cars are on the market now that can parallel parks themselves.
There is a space station that is slowly but actually being built.
More and more applications for stem cells are found each day.
Computer data that once filled warehouses, is now the size of a small book.
And we have the Internet,a seeming endless resource of information and ideas.

We live in an unprecedented time. The world is getting better everyday.

So why does cough medicine still taste like shit?

Want to be a REALLY nosy neighbor?
Felonspy.com

I wish I was there

There are not many "news" pieces that get me fired up in a positive manner, but for whatever reason, this AJC.com article left me feeling pretty good. Makes me wish I still lived in Athens.

Yup

I find this hilarious.

And true.

But mainly hilarious.

It's absolutely amazing what a little extra RAM will do to the performance of your computer.

Related...does anyone need a 512 stick for a G4 iBook?

Voting and The Grammys, Oh E Oh E Oh!

I'm home sick with the cold that has permeated my entire family. In other Sauve news to be proud of, I'm fairly certain that every Sauve in Cobb county voted for Ron Paul. I didn't see that one coming.

Roy Scheider died last night. But what really surprised me is that he was 75.
I always tune into the first fifteen minutes of major awards shows. I want to see the sets and listen to the monologue, if there is one. But I ended up watching the entire thing last night and really enjoyed it.

First, the good.

• Carrie Underwood. I'm not a fan and I abhor all things "Idol" but she was smoking hot, both vocally and visually.
• Amy Winehouse. Her performance, while visually awkward for me, (she's a strange looking woman) was quite something. And her raw and real shock after winning was fun to watch.
• Seven words. Morris Day and the mother fucking Time!!! Oh E Oh E Oh!
• Kanye West is a cocky ass, but listening to his voice crack and watching him turn his back to the cameras when he sang to his recently deceased mother was powerful.
• Vince Gill taking a shot at Kanye after receiving his Grammy from Ringo Starr.
• The orchestral arrangement that John Paul Jones wrote and conducted to accompany Foo Fighters' performance of The Pretender was incredible.
• When the appropriate singers/actors from Across the Universe performed Let It Be. Goose bumps.

And the not so good.

• Fiest was on Letterman recently and was awesome. Not a good performance last night.
• Anytime Cirque du Soleil's LOVE troupe was on stage. That was the lamest aerial act I have ever seen.
• The Alicia Keys duet with a projection of Sinatra. Just because we have the technology, doesn't mean we should use it.
• Will.I.Am. rapping through 50 years of Grammy history. Lame and poorly done.

Learn this

Any day I learn something is a good thing. Yesterday I asked;

"Can someone explain to me why out tax dollars are being used to investigate steroid use in baseball?"

I should have known that my attorney friend would know the answer. C# said:

"As baseball is a monopoly that violates Federal Anti Trust Law, the only reason it can exist in its current form is through federal legislation exempting it from antitrust law - thus the congressional oversight."

Ah-Ha!

But it's still not a good use of our tax dollars.

Bullets

• I've been excessively using the word "debacle". Especially when referring to Georgia basketball or allowing UT and UF license plates in Georgia.
  

• I came across jump roping Muslims today. Not that I ever assumed Muslims couldn't or didn't jump rope, it was just strange to see people in robes with their heads covered doing double dutch in a strip mall parking lot.

• The iBook has been great and still works well. It gets a little sluggish with the internet from time to time but other than that, it's held up very well. It's never crashed, I can't remember the last time I had to reboot it for any reason other than a software update, and it has never let me down during a production related gig. (Feverishly knocking on wood.)But the Applecare extended warranty runs out this October and after all of the issues I've had with Windows, I'm just not willing to take the risk. So this October the iBook will become the "home computer" and I will buy a new Mac for me. To help the iBook keep up, I purchased some extra RAM from crucial.com. It hasn't arrived yet but I'm interested to see the improvement.
  

• Can someone explain to me why out tax dollars are being used to investigate steroid use in baseball? Or why our state house voted for a useless resolution for an NCAA football playoff? Why are we tolerating this misuse of our tax dollars?
  

• Why is it wrong to want less government, less taxes and less government spending. It greatly bothers me that the majority of our citizens don't support these ideas. I'm assuming that it is the majority considering that this is not the message from any of the current presidential candidates and they're only going to say things that help them get elected. Aren't we more capable of running our lives than the government?

More Reason

Reason

Drink this

From Terrapin's website

Tours!!! Starting 2/11/08
Tours the new brewery Monday and Thursday nights 5-7 and the Second Saturday of each month 2-5. Glasses for tasting will be $7 each. See you there! The gift shop is still open Monday - Friday 9-5.

Someone in Athens go and tell me about it. Andy, I'm looking directly at you.

Reason this

Surveillance Scam: Why the Protect America Act Is a Bad Idea

I heart The Cato Institute.

I just watched Letterman interview Eli Manning and not to take anything away from his athletic performance this season, but the Manning family charisma gene missed Eli by a mile. When thinking of his conversation ability, the image of a dead frog comes to mind.

I did vote for Ron Paul and it felt good to vote for someone who's ideas I supported. Now that that the ride is over, I'm shifting my focus to not voting for a minister, a Mormon, the status quo, an idealist, or a war monger. I'll let you assign the label to whatever candidate you wish.

A non-funny Penn on rednecks, Obama, and south.
Safe for work.

Unrelocate?

Our right-the-hell-next-door neighbors put their house on the market. All of the houses in our neighborhood are very similar. But the neighbors' house has a few advantages. They have a 6 foot privacy fence enclosing their backyard. And a small bonus room above their garage instead of an attic. Other than that, the two houses are very, very similar. I don't know what they've listed it for, but if it's close in price or undercut us; I'm going to be very pissed.

I want to knock on their door and ask if they are intentionally trying to screw me over.

"Deflated" is the word that keeps coming to mind. I feel very deflated about this entire development.

Other words also coming to mind; piss, ass-face, cock-damn, shit-whores and fuck.


I'm still on vacation even though my butt is currently planted to the couch.
Tomorrow's to do list is easy enough.

• Laundry
• Vote for Ron Paul. I know we won't win, but I'll feel good voting for someone that wants to give me some of my rights and money back.
  
• Replace a light dimmer in the dining room. The last time I did this minor electrical upgrade, Brett didn't have a laundry room light for the remainder of his lease. Wish me luck there.
• Punch my neighbors in the face.