America's Got [Everything]

In this particular case, America's Got Stories.  I'll spare you the buzz words and get down to brass tacks.  This is a contest where you write a short story in a particular theme (in this case, supernatural is the word of the hour) in order to win wonderful prizes.

You write your story: if you win, your story gets published in a compilation book; and if you are the grand prize winner, you get an iPad.

I was actually kind of bummed out when I was asked to be a judge for this contest because I had what I thought to be a unique take on the theme.  In fact, my short was going to be a Sci Fi piece with technology ripped from the headlines in a "what could be" story.

I may still write that story, because it seems interesting in my mind, but I'm really curious to see what other submissions we get.

Everybody's got a story - what's yours?

TDB Redux

I thought my days of The Drunken Blog were behind me.  I thought that since I've graduated from college, since I bought a house, since I got married that the days of drunken debauchery were behind me.  I never would have expected those days to come crashing back during a holiday work party.

Every year my company throws a holiday party for the department in which I work.  Heavy hors d'oeuvres, wine, beer, and a whole lot of awkward work-based social interactions.  What could be more fun?  Since my wife was working the night shift that night, there was nothing more fun for me on my agenda, so I attended the party.

I'll start off by saying 9pm is a pretty early time to end a party that involves alcohol, but when it starts at 5 and is open bar, you're doing pretty good.  I mean, the reception for my wedding was only an hour longer (please don't get the impression that this work function in any way compared to my wedding, because it didn't).

Of course, I am one to show up fashionably late slash I had work that I had to finish.  Luckily the bar was within walking distance of the office.  I showed up at about 6pm and helped myself to a beer, since the bartender was apparently taking a break.  My conversation went something like this:

Beer one topic: Work related (professional)
Beer two topic: Non-work related
Beer three topic: Work related (casual)
Beer four topic: Work related (trashing coworkers)
Beer five topic:  Non-work related (but definitely coworker related)

The flow shouldn't be that surprising to anybody.  With your first drink you don't have anything to talk about other than work related stuff.  You're still basically in the office except you have a drink in your hand.

By the second drink you've finally figured out something else to talk about - probably the weather or sports.

By the third drink you've run out of non-work related things about which to relate, so you go back to work topics, although this time you're just shooting the breeze as if you were at the water cooler, if your office actually had a water cooler.

By the fourth drink your conversation degrades into talking trash about other coworkers.

By the fifth drink, you're talking about that drunk person at the party.

The fifth drink is where my story really starts.  Now, this isn't my fifth drink, mind you, but it is somebody's, and she can't handle her alcohol.

I don't want to give any sort of distinguishing features because I promised her I wouldn't tell anybody about this, but suffice it to say she is very high ranking at the organization for which I work in my company.  And she was plastered.

She kept hugging people, slurring her speech, and just generally being a genial drunk person.  You know exactly the type of person I'm talking about - she'll yell at everybody to shut up, put up her hand and point, as if she is going to make some profound statement, and then just sort of sputter some gibberish.

I hate leaving parties earlier, so I stayed with some friends from work and kept an eye on this woman.  I was really curious about how she would get home.  As other people were saying goodbye to her as they were leaving, they also asked how she would get home, and despite the fact that she didn't give a coherent answer, she did give an answer, and that seemed to put them at ease.

After the tab was closed, I continued to hang around because now I was really curious about what was going to happen.  There were only five of us left at this point, and we needed to make sure that this woman got home safely.  She was at that super dangerous drunk point where she thought she was sober enough to drive, though she couldn't even form a complete sentence.

Some coworkers that had left previously decided they were going to go to Jackson's, a bar within walking distance, and this woman also wanted to go to Jackson's to continue her drinking.  The five of us were guiding her away from Jackson's because she clearly didn't need anymore.

Well, that's not entirely true.  One of the group, somebody with whom I work closely on a daily basis, as we were trying to sneak her by Jackson's said, "Hey, aren't you going to Jackson's?!"  I don't think he has quite honed is social interaction skills yet and I gave him the dirtiest look I could muster, which was probably not very intimidating, so I just gave him a head nod to get the point across.  Our group was now down to four.

Luckily, she didn't really understand what was going on and we managed to walk her back to the parking garage where her car was.  The sober woman in our group, who is actually a subordinate of the drunk one, was kind enough to offer to drive her home.  Drunky lived close by and Sober didn't mind.

How naive we were.  Drunky had a huge issue with the fact that one of her subordinates was going to drive her home in such a state and would take no part in it.  She wouldn't even show us where her car was until Sober pretended like she left.

After about 30 minutes we managed to find Drunky's car, but Sober got so frustrated that she left - with our blessing.  So it was just me and Knight left to get Drunky home.  We had another fifteen minute conversation in which Drunky flagged down an elderly man as he was driving away because she thought he was Sober.

I think the problem we had was the fact that we tried to reason with Drunky when she was so obviously beyond that point. After a few more pleas from Drunky to just let her drive herself home, I simply took Drunky's keys from her and gave them to Knight so that he could drive Drunky's car, and I could follow him so I could drive him back to his car.

I ran down in the garage and got my car.  The one flaw in our plan was the fact that Drunky didn't know how to get home.  Or rather, she could not articulate it to Knight, so we ended up in an apartment complex about 2 miles away from where she actually lived, which is pretty impressive since she only lives 2 miles away from the office.

I managed to get an address from Drunky to plug into my GPS by convincing her that Knight had to urinate something awful.  She took pity on him, and after three tries, we got the right address.  So this time I lead the way and we eventually made it to her house.

Of course, it wasn't that easy.  The last house on the block was a number short of her house number, and around the corner they started a number above her house.  We had to use the good old pee trick in order to get her to show us that her house was around back (whoever number those houses had issues).

We didn't bother to make sure she got in bed.  You can call us bad guys, but after this hour long ordeal to get Drunky the 2 miles from the bar to her house, and with each of us having a 30 minute drive in front of us to get to our houses, we split.

It's pretty weird seeing somebody in such a position of authority act like a drunk 18 year-old freshman, but the one nice thing about it is that I think I have a few bonus dollars coming my way in the near future.

Caps Season Ticket Holder Party

I'll be honest, I don't own season tickets to the Caps. I would love to, but right now I'm concentrating more on paying my mortgage. However, I am very lucky to have married a woman whose parents have season tickets. They've had the tickets for over a decade now, so having all of Six Flags rented out for you and your cohorts is pretty passé for them, but a total treat for me.

One of the things that keeps amazing me about hockey players in general (keep in mind, I only started being a fan back in late 2007) is how cool they all are. Not cool in the sense of "I'm a multimillionaire and I have lots of stuff," but cool in the way that makes you think you could be friends with them, or at least, you could razz on them as if you were on the team.

Here's a couple of examples:

As I was standing in line waiting for Nuevirth and Alzner's signature, I saw some ginger walking by wearing a Flash Gordon cape. Pretty funny, I thought (since, as I'm sure you know, one of the player's nicknames is Flash). It wasn't until I saw the guy's face that I realized it was actually Fleischmann.

The line for Alzner and Nuevirth was pretty long for two rookies, but seemed appropriate based on how well both have been playing as of late.

Fehr and Erskine were setup near them, so I hopped over to the next line and got their signatures as well. While Fehr was signing my jersey, he asked if I had gotten on any roller coasters yet. He seemed generally interested when I told him that I had tried to ride the Ride of Steel, but didn't get a chance because after Mike Green got off the ride, it broke down and didn't start up again until at least when the signing started.

After that it was off to Hendricks and Gordon. They were unfortunately placed directly in front of the speaker in the kid's section of the park, so it was playing some very childish, repetitive music that only 6-and-unders would appreciate. When I got my chance with the boys, I asked them how they liked the music, and without missing a beat Hendricks said that the music was playing off of Gordo's iPod. Well played, sir. Well played indeed.

Right around the bend was Brooks Laich. No story there, but I did get him to sign my jersey as "Hockey Hero" Brooks Laich. He was a little hesitant at first, but he eventually came around. Sorry Brooksie, but when you pull over to help somebody change their tire, that's the kind of name with which you get labeled.

And finally I got to Bradley and Steckel. Bradley, of course, used to do the science videos during intermissions at the Verizon Center. He would even dress up in a lab coat. He was forced out of his role for what I am sure was some unjust reason, but he's still "The Professor" in my mind. So when I got my turn, I asked him to sign it as such. Steckel overheard this and leaned over and started spelling "professor" for Bradley. Apparently Bradley is not a professor of English, and I'm sure he gets razzed for that in the locker room.

All in all, it was a great time had by all at the season ticket holder party. It's great that even after hours of signing, all of the players are so approachable. I can't wait until I can actually afford my own season tickets.

iPhone 4G

I know that Apple literally unveiled their iPhone 4 yesterday, and it certainly is a sexy looking phone, but I think it's close enough to the release of their next iPhone to start making predictions.

The next iPhone will be called the iPhone 4G, and will, not surprisingly, support 4G (i.e., LTE) - allowing for, as every tech blogger has ever described the service, blazing fast downloads. at&t should have their LTE network up and running by 2011 (with trials starting in 2010), which will work out just perfectly for Apple's release schedule.

However, I foresee the iPhone 4G rolling out to Verizon first since their LTE deployment schedule is a bit more aggressive than at&t's. I also would not be surprised if the iPhone 4G was the first phone that Verizon carries that handles LTE.

There are rumors that the iPhone will come to Verizon in November of this year, and with Verizon expecting to have 100 million people covered with LTE by the end of this year, I don't think it's totally unrealistic to expect the iPhone 4G to launch with Verizon as early as November (which may explain why at&t is so aggressively trying to lock customers in to another 2 year commitment).

Of course, I still have another year or so with my Motorola Droid, so no matter what happens, I'll be content on the sidelines.

Cube Drama

Hi lady in the office next to my cubicle. I had my headphones on as you walked by, so I didn't hear or see you come in at 10:30 (we work in the same office but I don't think I can get a cush schedule like that). However, that's not to say I didn't notice you.

Please don't wear so much perfume that the only way I know that you've come into the office is due to your odor. It distracts me to the point where I write a meaningless post like this, and nobody likes that.

Fandango

Ok, so I admit that I am a bit of a nerd sometimes. I try my best to hide it from people, and I never really read comics growing up, but that's nothing a little wikipedia can't fix for me.

So of course, with the release of Iron Man 2, I had to round up my friends and catch the midnight showing. As I was going through the confirmation for my tickets, I was reminded that this was a late showing - except the note confused me, which seems to be counter to its objective.

The movie is released on May 6, which is a Thursday. The showing is for 12:01 AM on Thursday. If you remember back to your elementary school days, you'll know that AM is Latin for before noon and PM is after noon. So the show time 12:01 AM (remember - that's before noon!), which is 1 minute into Thursday, meaning I will have to go out late on Wednesday night to catch the show.

The note, however, tries to convince me that the show is actually late on Thursday night and early Friday morning.

Nice try Fandango, but I'm going to be there at 12:01 AM on Thursday despite your best efforts!

Give Me Money

So, I decided that it's much harder to be serious than it is to be funny (though futurewife might argue against that point). Case in point, I sent an email to my friends demanding they give me money. It was an extremely easy email to write because I didn't have to think about anything, I just wrote it, not worrying about any repercussions because I know my friends and I know they'll understand.

I really wanted to send the same email to my coworkers, but I don't think that would have been appropriate. Instead of humor, I had to bribe them with a sexy picture of myself while trying to be as professional as possible.

Which email would make you more likely to part with some of your hard earned cash?

Friend Email

Hi Everybody,

I know you love spam email, so consider this my gift to you. In exchange for this wonderful, amazing, genuinely human-written message, I only ask that you give me $200. Cold. Hard. Cash. Or check, or credit card. Really, whatever way you want to give it to me (how much do goats go for these days?).

The reason that I am extorting this money from you is because I signed up to do the American Diabetes Association's Tour de Cure which is, of course, for diabetes (or rather, it's to combat diabetes - the proceeds aren't going to help advance the disease, in fact, just the opposite). And since nothing in life is free, not even a nice 30 mile bike ride (or did I sign up for 60 miles - give me moneyand I'll tell you!), I need to raise at least $200 to even enter the race.

I can already hear your responses, in my mind, so I've formulated some responses

"I can't believe he's asking for money in this down economy!"

I only hang out with rich people, so that's totally not applicable.

"I don't even like biking - in fact, I aim for them when I drive"

Luckily, you don't have to bike (or even see a bike for that matter!) - you just have to pay me to bike and I'll bike on your behalf. It's like you're exercising by proxy. Because of that, you can sit back, relax and drink beer knowing that you are working to get in peak physical shape.

"Who is diabetes again?"

Diabetes is not a person, it's a disease, and the $200 that I collect will be the direct cause of a cure being found. By extension, you will be the direct cause for finding the cure to diabetes with any money that you give me - how's that for the moral high ground? Just think - any argument that you have you can trump with "oh yea? Well I cured diabetes." Argument over.

"$200 is expensive - can I donate less?"

No, $200 is the minimum for you specifically to donate. In fact, if you don't donate $200 to the cause bad things will happen (also, you need to forward this email to 7 people). Just kidding! You can donate whatever you want. Plus - tax write off!

"No thanks Justin"

Wrong.

I've clearly addressed all of your concerns, so please click this link to donate me some dolla dolla bills, y'all. Give me money here!

Hopefully that link works, if it doesn't, you can go here: http://tour.diabetes.org and click on the "Donate" button, type in my name (it's Justin Fabian, in case you've forgotten), click on "Find a Rider", then click on my name (I'm with Team Accenture) and then click the big red button that says "Click Here to Sponsor Me"

Thanks everybody!

Work Email

Dear Federal Contract Managers,

As you may or may not know, Team Accenture is participating in this year’s American Diabetes Association’s Tour de Cure on June 20^th. Team Accenture has a goal of raising $10,000 for the ADA. I am going to help the team, and more importantly, the fight against diabetes, by participating in the race.

The Tour de Cure is a wonderful charity cycling event held annually to raise money for the ADA. The funds raised benefit diabetes research and education.

While this will be Accenture’s third consecutive year participating in the Tour de Cure, it will be my first. However, just because it’s my first time in the show, I don’t want you to think you won’t be getting your money’s worth from your donation. I will be racing what is called a metric century, which is a hair over 62 miles. It will likely take me over 3.5 hours to complete (so when you’re calculating your donations divide it by 3.5 and think of the excellent cost per hour rate you’re getting!).

To some of you this may seem like cruel and unusual punishment, but to me it’s cruel and unusual punishment for a good cause. Diabetes affects 23.6 million Americans (nearly 8% of the population), but none more important to me than one of my best friends, who has lived with Type 1 diabetes for nearly her entire life.

I encourage you to get more information on diabetes even if you don’t donate with me today. The ADA is truly a great cause. Diabetes.org is the ADA’s website and contains a wealth of information on the disease.

If you would like to donate with me today to help Team Accenture reach our $10,000 goal, please click on this link: Donate here! I realize that the suggested gift amount starts at $250, but please don’t let that put you off. Any donation amount will be greatly appreciated as you help the American Diabetes Association in the battle against diabetes.

And as a sign of good faith, here is a picture of me in my full biking regalia (that alone is worth the cost of admission!).

Thank you so much for your help with this truly noble cause.

Sincerely,

Justin Fabian

Busy Month or How I Came to Buy a Sweet TV Stand

I wonder how many other mundane blog's have this exact same title (Note: I changed the title - this first part was written prior to adding everything after "or"). I'm sure lots of people that you have no interest in reading about have busy months occasionally. Fortunately for me, you either don't exist or do have an interest in reading about my busy month.

I'll start off with the fact that I bought a house. This makes any month above average in busyness.

Of course, with buying a new house comes moving. We didn't hire movers, instead opting to bribe our friends with promises of "free beer" and "free pizza." Little did they know it was in the "free as in speech" variety, and not "free as in beer." (Sorry - lame Internet joke; everybody did get tangible pizza and beer!).

Of course, there was all of the normal unpacking and realizing that we didn't have stuff that we just sort of assumed we had. The first thing I did was to hook up the sound system, which was a bit problematic because I'm not one for cable management, and there were an s-ton of wires hanging out.

This led us to realize that we needed a TV stand. This is great until we realized that I have something like 7 components not including the TV. The situation (all those playing the Jersey Shore drinking game now have to take a shot) was further exacerbated by the fact that my center channel speaker is two feet wide and 8 inches tall (and 14 inches deep for those keeping track at home). You've probably never looked for a stand that has a place to put a center channel speaker that is that large, but let me tell you, it greatly reduces your options.

Being the schmuck that I am, I went to Best Buy to look at some stands. Of course, I sort of gravitated toward their Magnolia section, which contains their outrageously overprice items and saw a beauty of a stand - it even matched the color of my speakers exactly. However, upon looking at the price tag I realized that we might have to figure something else out.

I asked the associate that revived me after viewing the price of that unit what else he had. I was pretty specific (no open backs - I hate cable management), and aside from the $1500 stand I had just seen, there was one other stand for $600. It didn't match as well and it might not fit everything, so I had to consult the future-wife.

She liked it OK but we kept looking (also, I would have had to sand down part of the stand to fit in the speaker). Her parents' belong to Direct Buy which is a way to get name brand furniture for less, somehow. They didn't have the stand, of course, so we kept looking.

We tried looking at some different styles. I saw an entertainment center at Wal-Mart and tried to convince myself that this was the one we should get. It wasn't a bad stand per se, but it was from Wal Mart.

I swallowed my pride and told the almost-wife that this is the one we should get. She was at work so she didn't get my email, and in the meantime, I happened upon the website of a now defunct high-end local electronics retailer MyerEmco. They were going out of business and they just happened to carry the brand of stand I liked so much originally.

They consolidated all of their merchandise into the Bailey's Crossroad store on the previous day, so I knew if I wanted to check out their stuff, I would have to do it ASAP. The problem was that it's like an hour trip to get there in traffic. I was about 5 minutes away from not going because "what are the chances they would have what I want?", but I sucked it up and went anyway.

I walked around the store and saw several nice stands, but they weren't big enough and they were displays, so they had scratches and wear on them. I had given up looking and started to walk around the store for other fun items that I didn't need (the store is a cornucopia of fun stuff for a tech guy like myself), but also couldn't pass up at these clearance prices.

Discouraged but not surprised, I made one final lap around the store before I was going to leave. It was then, much like Ralphie from A Christmas Story, I noticed a box in the back of the store. I went over and noticed it was the brand that I liked and in the color that I needed.

My heart started racing.

I pulled out my phone and looked up the model number. This wasn't exactly the stand that I saw several days earlier, but it was very similar to it, and best of all, it would fit all of my components.

I flagged down an associate and asked him how much. He told me $650 - less than half the retail price, and I told him I would take it (without even consulting the budget-master-to-be!).

I came back the next day with a truck and a buddy, took it home, set it up, and then set up my kegerator (Sam Adam's Boston Lager on tap). Until I'm ready to pick up my pinball machine, my place is now done (except, of course, for everything else).

V-Day Dinner

I don't think of myself as a good cook, but I do think of myself as being pretty good at following directions, and last night I followed some directions and came up with a pretty amazing meal.

My almost-wife has become pretty spoiled when I cook for her, so it's becoming ever harder to find things to make that impress her. Luckily, as I was looking though the circular for Harris Teeter I noticed they had lobster tail on sale.

Now, I know that lobster is not very filling, so I noticed they also happened to have some steak on sale as well. I then went and found some recipes for the lobster and for the steak, which included a crab sauce which I thought would go pretty well with the lobster.

I also made some asparagus drenched in butter and some lemon pepper as well as some red potatoes tossed with some olive oil. All in all it was probably the best meal I've ever made.

Of course I made some dessert too, but with all that deliciousness it was hard to save space for it.

Aside from the dessert, it took me about 45 minutes to prepare and cook all the food. It did take some good time management skills to get everything to finish at the same time, and having only one oven didn't exactly alleviate that problem, but other than that, nothing was difficult to make.

So, if you ever need to impress a girl with your culinary skills, I highly recommend making exactly what I did. It certainly wowed my pre-wife! It wowed me, too. I was really amazed at how well everything came out. I kind of wish it was Valentine's Day every day so I could make this meal again.

Broiled Lobster Tail

Steaks with Crab Sauce

Roasted Red Potatoes

Sorry, there's no link for the asparagus, I just used a bundle of thick asparagus cut into thirds (discarding the bottom third) with a half stick of butter and some lemon pepper seasoning in a frying pan until it tasted good.

Easy Chocolate Lover's Cheesepie (I know that 'cheesepie' sounds weird, but it's just like a cheesecake, which everybody knows and loves.)

Sorry there's no picture to accompany this post - we inhaled the food before I could get a camera.

Savings Bonds

I'm packing up my apartment because I'm moving in a week from today. While throwing away useless stuff, I came across a $50 savings bond from 1996. I would have been a pre-teen at the time it was given to me.

I was excited about finding it because buying a house is expensive and I could use an extra $50. I went online to see how much it was worth and realized it's only good for $40 and change right now. It doesn't fully mature until 2026.

So I guess my question is: is it worth waiting another 16 years for an extra $10?

It kind of seems silly to have a bond with a 30 year maturation date. I always thought the idea of a bond was to give it to a young child as a gift and then when they are actually responsible enough to use it, the bond magically matures. Eighteen-20 years seems like a better maturation date, but I'm sure whoever gave me the bond got a pretty sweet deal on it.

Disciplining Dogs

As I was walking to work today, there was a woman walking her dog. She was crossing the street and as she was in the middle of the cross walk, the dog decided that he or she did not want to go wherever his or her master wanted to go. The woman looked helpless in the sub-freezing weather as she pleaded with the dog to do as she wished.

She was clearly having a difficult time and she really wanted the dog to just cross the street with her. Of course, the dog had on a harness connected to the leash instead of a collar, so he or she was almost being encouraged to pull the woman.

As I was watching this, I couldn't help to think how fruitless her empathetical commands to her dog were. I wanted to take a rolled up newspaper to her nose and inform her how to properly train and correct a dog. Cesar Millan would agree with me.

She was painfully aware of the scene she was making with her dog, and as I passed her in the street, she said to me, "This is what happens when you get a dog that weighs as much as you do."

To which I wanted to reply "In your dreams, lady." Of course, that thought didn't come to mind until I had already gotten to work, and even if it came to me instantaneously I never would have actually said it.

This isn't even a slight to the woman's physical stature (she was absolutely average in size), more so to her inability to do simple arithmetic.

Honda Accord > Jeep Wrangler

So I went to the Caps/Pens game on Sunday. It was a pretty amazing game - Ovechkin got his first hat trick of the season to help overcome a 4-1 defect to win 5-4 in overtime.

This isn't a hockey blog though, so I'll get to the point. DC got a huge snow storm (huge for us, anyway - a little over 2 feet) and I planned on having my buddy come pick me up in his lifted Jeep Wrangler. Unfortunately, he couldn't even make it out of his neighborhood, so I had to pick him up in my Honda Accord.

Maybe I'll try some off-roading in my mid-sized sedan in the spring...

Beer Olympics

I was supposed to participate in a Beer Olympics today but due to the #snowpocalypse2 I am unable to attend.

Luckily, this works out well for my challenge of finishing my keg of Amstel in less than two weeks.

It's too bad I can't sneak the keg into the Caps game tomorrow...

The Best Possible Problem to Have

I close on my house in exactly two weeks. I move into my house in two weeks and a day. I have a kegerator with a keg of Amstel Light in it. I have about half of the keg left that I need to finish before move out day.

I accept your challenge.

File Attachments

I just got this awesome little diddy in the signature from somebody's email.

Besides the fact that the difference is probably negligible from the energy used transmitting a 10MB file versus an 8MB file, I think whoever made up this little "green tip" forgot that it uses CPU cycles (and therefore energy) both to make a zip file (compress) and to extract files from a zip file (decompress). In fact, I would posit that you use more energy doing this than is saved by zipping them in the first place.

But I guess every bit of green counts, right?

Dear Guy-in-the-Office-Next-to-My-Cubicle

I shouldn't be able to hear you eating. You sit 25 feet away from me and there is a glass barrier between us with only a door opening from which your masticating noises may escape. If you really have no manners and must chew with your mouth open, the least you can do is close your door.

I would close my door, but I only have a cubicle, and there's just an opening there, and I think it would look a little unprofessional (and ineffective) to put up a blanket to make a cubi-fort.

But, making a cubi-fort would be pretty sweet...

Thanks,

JF

Caps Mania

I've only gotten into hockey fairly recently. From the outside, you'd say that I am an Ovechkin bandwagon jumper. That is not necessarily true - I got into hockey because my almost-wife is a huge hockey fan and her parents have season tickets 5 rows off the ice. So, if you want to get into the nuts and bolts of it, I'm more of a significant other bandwagon jumper.

Anyway, this past weekend I got to see the Caps beat the Tampa Bay Lightning to tie a franchise record for consecutive wins. That was pretty cool. I'm hoping they'll win another 8 in a row to beat the Penguins NHL record of 17 consecutive wins set in 1993. Of course, to do that, we'd have to just about double our win streak. But why not? With the way we've been playing recently it's not going to be easy to beat us.

Of course, I hope the real win streak comes in June.

Auto-Correct

For the past two years I've been a blackberry person with a nice physical keyboard. In the past few months I switched over to the touchscreen Droid. With that, I've had to relearn my typing. I definitely go slower than I did on my blackberry, but the auto-complete and auto correct features are pretty handy on the Droid.

The only problem is, sometimes you make a typo without realizing it, and the word is auto-corrected to something you had no intention of saying.

Usually it makes no sense, but sometimes it just sounds cool.

I sent this message to my almost-wife earlier today - to give some background, we were lamenting about not being able to see each other during the day because of work.

So my message read "At least we'll be vertigo rich"

I meant to say "At least we'll be getting rich," but I kind of like the former better.

Allusions, Dad - You Don't Have Time for My Illusions!

Somewhat of an odd reference for the title, but it makes sense in my mind (and is better than the alternative I had, which is a direct quote from the show Arrested Development, involving "tricks" and money).

But to the point, yesterday I alluded to the fact that I am in the process of buying a house. A little after that post I got a call saying that I had been approved for the loan, which is a pretty exciting thing. It's kind of scary that anybody would trust me (and my pre-wife) with over a quarter of a million dollars.

I really want to say that I tricked the bank into giving me the money, as a joke, but I've come to learn that some things you say on the Internet never go away, and can be taken out of context, so instead I'll just say how I'm excited that the bank saw how safe and reliable of an invest my pre-wife, my house, and I am, and that I can't wait to move in (in less than a month!).

Honestly, one of the things I am most excited about is my pinball machine, which has been in storage for about a decade because the lack of an appropriate abode to house it.

Unfortunately, it will not be with us during the initial move, since the storage facility in which it is housed is out in BFE, but soon enough it will be mine...

My Mistake

Clearly, if you have an internet connection, you know that Apple decided to move away from the iUnicorn moniker and instead opt for the iPad title. Probably a wise move as the device actually exists now, but iPad seems a little uninspired and reminds me too much of the iBad, or iBag.

Also, there's too much bevel. I guess I'll be one of those people that waits for version 2.0. Also, buying a house is expensive (and what I am currently spending my hard earned money on), so that also factors a little into my decision.

I'm still waiting to see if it will work as an awesome remote control...

Apple Tablet

So, I'm here at work, about to join a conference call, and all I can think is that I wish it was three hours from now so that I would know about the Apple Tablet, or iUnicorn has I have started calling it.

The thing is, I own an iPod Nano from about 4 years ago, and that's it - I don't even run iTunes on my computer (thanks Pandora!). And yet, I can't help but be pulled in by the Apple allure. I think I want the Apple Tablet only because I think it will be a pretty awesome universal remote.

Yes, I want the iUnicorn for its ability to control my TV. Also, so that I don't have to bust out my laptop every time I need some wikipedia knowledge dropped on somebody.

Speaking of cats...

Here is one of my crazy cats in a bag.

My New Secret Blog

I don't really have anything to say. Hopefully this will not be an extremely boring blog, but let's face it - all blogs not about cats doing crazy thing are boring, so don't set your expectations high.

Obligatory "Test Post"

Hello world!