UngsungBlog: A (Fantasy) Sports Blog

where would I be without my computers?

(Hey, it sounded good in my head!)

As usual, I said I was going to talk about something (my extended stay in MPK), but I’m going to change up on my loyal readers of none once again. I’m only doing this because I’ve got way too much stuff floating around in my head right now.

Let’s get to it.

- Accuweather.com reports that it is currently 106F, with a RealFeel temperature of 109F (current as of 2pm). In other news, I have just lost 20lbs, mostly from sweat. And I thought yesterdays’ 102F/109F was bad! I got a couple hours of sleep yesterday, and it appears that I will not get much sleep tonight either. Maybe I should sleep outside on my patio tonight.

On Tuesday night, my dad was nice enough to pack a lunch for the next day. The thought was noble, but he packed me shark-fin soup! The soup is now sitting in my freezer; he’s got some nerve to serve me SOUP, with temperatures approaching a buck-ten!

(That’s not going to stop me from making won ton noodle soup with the steamed chicken my mom packed for me later tonight.

And yeah, I realize I’m freaking ungrateful.)

- I’m happy to report that my AMD X2 system is running at a very decent 40C/39C (CPU/system temps), especially considering the fact that it’s a billion degrees outside.

(I could hear my sister screaming “It is not a billion degrees outside!” in a Dane Cook-esque voice.)

When the weather cools down, I might try over clocking my CPU. One of the big positives about the Gigabyte motherboard I bought is the ability to overclock using software in Windows. I’ll probably have to buy a more powerful heatsink/fan and some Arctic Silver thermal grease, though.

(Tangent: the only thing I hate about this Gigabyte motherboard is the crap thermal monitoring software–EasyTune5–that is included. The monitoring software that came with my old Asus motherboard–PC Probe–gave me instant readings with a single click on the system tray icon; a window pops open, showing me CPU/case temps, voltages, and fan speeds immediately. The Gigabyte software requires me to double-click the tray icon, click on “PC Health,” then on “Hardware Monitor” to get the temps/fan speeds/voltages. Also, the Gigabyte software takes forever to load!

This reminds me…I haven’t done a product review in a while, and there are a few products I could talk about. Maybe another day…)

- For those of you keeping score at home, I’m already on my second 32oz. bottle of ice water. I started the first bottle when I started typing this blog…

- Quick fantasy football news: the Bargainshare fantasy football league draft occurred a couple days ago, and I got shafted by our league’s auto-draft. I prayed, one day before the draft, “Please, please, please, don’t give me Travis Henry in the first round!”

So who do I end up with my first pick? Travis freaking Henry. Here’s the rest of my roster (12-team league; numbers in parentheses represent the number of starters for each position):

• QB (1): M. Hasselbeck, M. Leinart
• RB (2): T. Henry, R. Johnson, J. Lewis
• WR (3): D. Driver, M. Colston, C. Chambers, J. Horn
• TE (1): V. Davis, H. Miller
• K (1): O. Mare
• D/ST (1): Bears, Panthers

At least I got the Bears’ D; I set the auto-picker to give me a top-flight defense/special teams before getting a second WR (if I recall correctly, I had the autopicker go RB, RB, QB, WR, DST with the first five picks). I’m also very happy to land Colston with my sixth pick; if he comes even remotely close to matching last year’s numbers, I’ll be satisfied. Besides, I could always go on the waiver wire for another WR, or a better TE/K. I also opted to pick a K last; hopefully I can find the next Neil Rackers/Robbie Gould off the waiver wire. I also chose to pick a TE later in the draft; I figured that, if I didn’t land Gates or Gonzalez, I can always play a TE off the waiver wire every week. And who knows? Maybe Vernon Davis will stay healthy and have a stellar season. Besides, WRs and TEs are so damned inconsistent every week.

I can’t wait for the NFL season to start!

(By the way, I love how a Vegas sports book is now taking wagers on fantasy sports. As if fantasy sports and sports wagering weren’t ridiculous enough…)

- Wow. I somehow managed to go 22 days between orders at Amazon.com!

(I’ve placed three orders since :P)

I now have over $2,000 in rebates owed. Perhaps this is a sign that I’m addicted to hot deals :P.

- How bad has my day been today?

• The chicken that my mom packed for me has gone bad.  Dammit!  I wanted chicken and rice!
• I missed out on a great deal at Amazon.com…after going to the bathroom.  I had the item, in my cart, and I was about ready to check out.  When I returned to my computer, the item went OOS.
• I opened a Bank of America checking account a few weeks ago, and I have yet to see my ATM card or a welcome kit.  I called BofA and asked what was going on.  The nice lady calmly told me that “Whoops, we have your address on file wrong!”  The rep assured me that no fraudulent activity has shown up on my account yet, and that she would expedite another ATM card ASAP.  She also assured me that the ATM card and the welcome kit will probably show up returned to sender.  Thank goodness that my signature card (which has my SSN on it) and my temporary online passcode somehow made it to me!

(As soon as I get the $100 in bonus funds for opening up this account, I’m closing it!  Between this fiasco, and the fact that BofA put two inquiries on my credit report for opening one account, I’m done with BofA.  And to think, I’m not even officially a customer yet!)

• My sister called to tell me that she lost her $200+ sunglasses…a week after she bought them.
• I went to the supermarket to get some water (you know, from one of those machines).  I noticed that the parking lot was kinda flooded for some reason, so I was walking slowly through the lot.  That’s when the velcro on my sandals gave out, and my right foot landed right in a puddle.  I would imagine that sewer water is only slightly worse than the water on that parking lot.
• My brand new computer crashed for the first time!  Hopefully it is just user error.
• A Craiglist’er has flaked on me twice in consecutive days, after promising to swing by to purchase a laptop off me.  After the first flake out (yesterday), the woman didn’t even call to apologize the next morning!  She simply asked me if she could swing on by today.

(Well, it’s only 9:30…maybe she’ll swing on by in the next half hour.)

• Out of frustration, I kicked a football really hard.  I put a freaking dent in the wall.

(That’s the way to cap off a great day, no?)

Hey, there’s always tomorrow, right?  Tomorrow can’t be worse than today!

Happy blogging!

Tags: Cust. Service, Fantasy, Random, Sports, Technology by Peter
4 Comments »

(Note:  This blog entry was supposed to be posted on the 28th; as usual, stupid me screwed up in some way.

10,000 Stupid Points).

- I could count, on one hand, the number of events that are more gratifying than finding money. I mean, if I were to dig through my jeans’ pockets on laundry day, and found five bucks, I’d act as if I won the lottery!

You could imagine my feeling when I cleaned out my luggage from my NorCal trip (yeah, the one all the way back in May…don’t worry, there was just one sweater, a travel-sized bottle of shampoo, and a pair of fresh socks left in the luggage), and found two twenties sitting in one of the front pockets! Man, that feeling was truly awesome. At times, I’ve found dollar bills here and there, and the occasional five really gets the heart racing, but forty bucks??? Talk about ecstasy!

(I know some of my loyal readers–all none of you–feel that I’m overreacting over a mere forty bucks. If you feel that way, then you are wrong.)

(BTW, I just logged in to one of my PayPal accounts, and “found” another $50 and change! Holy crap! I’m rich!)

So how did I celebrate this find? I bought some ice cream, of course!

- Our fantasy football league auto-drafts on Wednesday! W00t!

(Yeah, it’s that time of the year, when my blog switches from a primarily Off Topic-like blog to a (fantasy) sports-related blog.)

I hope I remember to tweak CBS Sportsline’s player rater before the draft starts. I’m shocked that they ranked Marvin Harrison as fantasy football’s #1 ranked WR.

(I’m also super-stunned that Peyton Manning and LaDainian Tomlinson are ranked #1 at QB and RB, respectively :P)

I have also created BargainShare’s Pro Football Pick’em League (you pick the winners for each game of each week). If you’re interested in signing up, let me know! No football knowledge required; flip a coin if you have to!

- One of the big questions floating around the whole Michael Vick incident that I did not get around to last time asks if race plays a factor in the way Vick is being treated by the media.  I’m not too sure about that.  If Peyton Manning or Tom Brady got caught up in dogfighting, would either be treated as harshly?  I have a hard time believing that.  On the other hand, neither player has had the history Vick has had prior to the dogfighting indictment.  Neither player was caught at an airport with a water bottle that had a hidden compartment in it.  Neither player flipped the bird to his home crowd.  Neither player has a sibling who is most famous for stomping on the back of an opponent’s knee back in college.  My point is, sure, race might be playing a role in the media’s treatment of Vick, but I’d argue that race isn’t playing a significant role.

Next time:  my (extended) stay in Monterey Park, among other things!

Tags: Random, Sports by Peter
3 Comments »

Quick-hitters:

- So I am here in MPK still, helping my dad out with a banquet-style lunch/prayer deal.  Think tons of Chinese food, burning incense, candles, and some Hennessey.

(We do something like this four or five times a year, and every time we do this, I get tons of food to take home.  W00t!)

- So my sisters’ Guitar Hero addictions are far past the point of “addiction.”  It’s gotten to the point where I need to buy a second guitar just so I can play!  I’m probably going to pick up this wireless guitar, even though the reviews on Amazon.com aren’t that great.  Oh well; if the guitar’s crap, I’ll use the wired one and force whoever is playing along to use the crap guitar.

- Speaking of my PS2…I love being “handy.”

(Handy, of course, describes someone that is good at “fixing” things that weren’t broken in the first place.)

My PS2’s first controller port had a little problem where the controller would not stay secured on the connector; this wasn’t a huge problem when using the analog controller, but it became an issue with Guitar Hero.  Play too, um, enthusiastically, and the controller would wiggle out of the connector just enough that it would interrupt the game.  I noticed that the problem did not occur with the second controller port, so I grabbed a flashlight to determine the problem.

I discovered that that the PS2 controller ports have a tiny metal “hook” in them; as you push the controller into the controller port, the hook clicks into place on a recess on the controller’s connector, thus securing the controller.  I noticed that the metal hook was bent down on the first port.  A paper clip and some gentle pressure later, and I was able to pry the hook up and out of the way of the controller port.  I attached a controller, heard the click, and patted myself on the back.

(Hey, I gotta give myself some credit every now and then.)

- Michael Vick plead guilty this morning to a federal dogfighting charge, admitting that he was involved in brutally murdering dogs and “supplying money for gambling on the fights,” though he denied actual gambling and profiting from the winnings.  Question:  why would you bankroll a gambling ring if you did not intend on profiting from it?  And what, exactly, is meant by “supplying money”?  Did Vick provide the money for the payouts, or did he offer betting credits to bettors to make these bets?  In any case, aren’t we splitting hairs here?  He was involved, no matter the role, in an illegal gambling ring; never mind the fact that he was also involved in such a disgusting act as dogfighting (which is also a felony, by the way).

Vick finally apologized for his involvement in the illegal dogfighting ring, finally offering an apology to Falcons’ owner Arthur Blank, as well as his Falcons teammates:

“First, I want to apologize, you know, for all the things that — that I’ve done and that I have allowed to happen. I want to personally apologize to commissioner Goodell, Arthur Blank, coach Bobby Petrino, my Atlanta Falcons teammates, you know, for our — for our previous discussions that we had. And I was not honest and forthright in our discussions, and, you know, I was ashamed and totally disappointed in myself to say the least,” Vick said.

I gotta ask:  what took so long?   Why wait until after the guilty plea to offer his apology?  It was pretty clear that Vick was going down the road of a plea bargain weeks ago.  Why not attempt to stop the bleeding as soon as possible, as I suggested last week?  At least the apology seemed heartfelt; that’ll happen when you’re facing one to five years in prison, at least that much time out of the league (if not the end of his NFL career), AND the possible loss of some to all of the $22 million in signing bonuses he received, much less the $100 million or so left on his contract.

Speaking of his signing bonus money, the only reason why Michael Vick is still an Atlanta Falcon is because he must stay on the Falcons’ roster for owner Arthur Blank to attempt to recover some of the bonus money:

In Atlanta, the Falcons said they would not cut Vick immediately because of salary-cap issues. The team intends to pursue the $22 million in bonus money that he already received in a $130 million contract signed in 2004.

“We cannot tell you today that Michael is cut from the team,” owner Arthur Blank said.

“Cutting him may feel better emotionally for us and many of our fans but it’s not in the long-term best interest of our franchise.”

On ESPN’s First Take (their morning sports talk show), Skip Bayless and a pair of ex-football players debated over whether or not Atlanta should get back the $22 million in bonus funds.  Skip argued that Atlanta should be entitled to the money, based on the fact that Vick will not be able to serve the duration of his contract.  One of the two ex-players argued that they did not, and I could have sworn that their argument revolved around the fact that Vick could not serve the duration of his contract.  If that’s true, what kind of argument is that?  Whose damn fault is it that Vick can’t serve the rest of his contract?

In any event, yes, Vick should be forced back to pay, at the very least, a pro-rated fraction of his bonus money.  In fact, I wouldn’t have a problem if Atlanta was awarded the entire bonus.

Vick will be sentenced on December 10, and we should know how long the NFL will officially suspend him soon after that.  Now, I’m aware that even being associated with illegal gambling, under the NFL’s player conduct policy, could result in a lifetime ban from the NFL.  I don’t think this will happen, and I still believe a team would be willing to sign him once he’s eligible to come back into the league, but now I’m not as certain as I once was.

By the way, this is a very interesting article written by Jemele Hill of ESPN.  Why is a dogfighting-loving, illegal gambling ring-organizer taking so much flack, but a DUI/murderer and a person involved in a double-murder take take so little flak?  Obviously one reason for this is the status of the players involved; Ray Lewis may be a huge star in Baltimore, but he is definitely no Michael Vick in terms of popularity.   Is he taking all this flak because we’re a nation of dog lovers?  Is it because he’s such a big star?  Is it because we condemn illegal gambling?  Or is it something else?

We’ll see what happens.  Until next time.

Tags: Food, Games, News, Sports by Peter
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No quick-hitters today!

- So after finishing the OS install on my new computer, I had to install my Syba PCI Controller card to use with my two old IDE drives.  Naturally, something this simple was going to cause me problems.  For some reason, I could not properly insert the card into the PCI slot.  It appeared that the PCI slot was about 1mm too far to the right on the card.

(Tangent:  Normally, when this happens, it’s because the motherboard isn’t attached properly to the chassis; the tip of the PCI bracket either doesn’t fit in snugly to the recessed area of the case [because the board is too far from the left edge of the case], or it can’t go in to the recessed area at all [because the board is too close to the left edge].  Neither was the case here.)

I could not, for the life of me, figure out why the card wouldn’t go into either of the two PCI slots on my Gigabyte motherboard.  It took about ten minutes to finally finesse the card into one of the slots.  That’s when I realized that the card was blocking the floppy disc connector on the board.  I decided to move the card to the other PCI slot, but I could not remove the controller card!  I gently rocked the card back and forth, and the left-end of the card popped out easily.  The right side of the card would not budge, though, no matter how gently I tried removing the card.

(Warning:  Do not try this at home!)

Out of sheer frustration, and with a forceful tug, I ripped the card out of the socket.  I surveyed the damage:  a few scratches on the chassis, and a bit of cosmetic damage on the PCI connector on the card itself.  I then attempted to re-insert the card into the other PCI slot, and it went in without much force at all.  I removed the card and tried inserting the card in the original PCI slot, and it also went in without a hitch.  I moved it back to the second slot, connected my IDE drives, fired up the computer (expecting the PCI card to blow up because of the abuse), and it worked perfectly.  I had to do some re-partitioning, reformatting, and restoring my backed-up files (My Docs, e.g.).

So now I have ~ 500GB of storage space.  Time to fill it all up!

(BTW, for all you AMD-haters out there–and you know who you are–my CPU temps are about 40C idle.  On my old P4–with a superior cooler, by the way–I hit 43C idle.  So there :P)

(Tangent:  Let’s conveniently ignore all the other variables that changed between my old build and this new one:  different PSU, case fans spinning faster, etc.)

(Tangent:  Everyone go spam Hank’s blog and tell him to build a new computer!)

No, I don’t plan on doing any overclocking.  One of these days, I’ll run a few benchmarks on the system.

- Shirin Restaurant was awesome!  Both sisters of mine, one friend, and I swung by Thursday night, and we ordered some baked eggplant dish, the chicken tenderloin plate, and the Shirin Special beef plate:  two types of rice, filet mignon chunks, ground beef, and salmon.  I am a huge fan of the chicken tenderloin, and I can’t help but love filet mignon, but the salmon might have been the best part!  It was so incredibly juicy and tender.

(I could picture my loyal readers–all none of you–drooling right now.  I know I am.)

The bill came out to a perfectly reasonable $50 or so, and we still had tons of leftovers.  One gripe:  I wanted the filet mignon to be about medium, and it came out like shoe leather.  Oh well.

- After Shirin, the four of us returned to my condo, and that’s when my sister’s friend spotted my PS2 and my copy of Guitar Hero Encore.  The next two hours were spent tutoring the three of them on the nuances of playing Guitar Hero…on easy mode.   Then my oldest sister asks if she can borrow the console to (her words, not mine) “rock out.”  I said yes, amid protests from the younger sister, who also got addicted to the game.

(In fact, she stayed up until 2:30AM Friday night/Saturday morning, beating the game on easy, and starting normal mode.  She is normally asleep by 10PM…)

So now I gotta get ready to go home–family function–and I have to pack up the PS2.  I think I’ll swing by on Monday to pick it back up

Next time:  more Mike Vick thoughts!

Tags: Food, Games, Technology by Peter
3 Comments »

Quick-hitters:

- We had some Thai food last night!  Pad thai, yellow curry–way too sweet, btw–pineapple fried rice, and laab.   Twenty bucks for four dishes, and we had tons of leftovers.  In fact, I still have some of the laab left over; too bad I don’t have any cabbage or cucumbers to slice up.

Oh great…my oldest sister just told me that she wanted to go have Persian food tomorrow at Shirin Restaurant.  I hope I still have some antacids.

- Another day, another trip to the Post Office marred by a person who held up the line, looking for a particular stamp.  This incident was much more theatrical than the recent incident I talked about, though.  Apparently, the woman had held up the line for about twenty minutes, to the point where the cashier had a number of stamps laid out in front of the woman, so that she could find the ones that she wanted.  This prompted one of the senior workers at the PO to intervene.  The worker told the customer that she was holding up the line, and that she couldn’t keep making others wait she was choosing the stamps that she wanted.  The customer got offended by the comment, saying that she had “every right” to take her time.  The worker responded with something along the lines of “no you don’t.”  The worker then spoke to the cashier, and the woman continued her “I have my rights” defense.  Finally, she bought one other set of stamps, and checked out.

Prior to the confrontation, the woman had turned around to the line, and apologized for holding things up.  She mentioned that she was just looking for the stamps that she wanted.  I guess that forced the senior worker to notify the woman that she was taking too long.

- So my new computer (code-named Q9o…long story) is finally up and running!  It took nearly two full nights, lots of PEBDAC screw-ups, a number of sodas, some force, and lots of patience, but the system works.

(Don’t be surprised if this story becomes a two-parter.)

So I had to start by removing my old computer parts (P4 2.4GHz).  I began by disconnecting cables and power adapters from drives and power adapters from fans.  I then had to remove the power supply and motherboard; as soon as I removed the final screw holding the motherboard to the chassis, I had to angle the board to remove it (I left the heatsink/fan on the board, and the thing is pretty big!).  After doing some dusting, and removing the ATX backplate from the case, I had to attach the new backplate.

(Whoever invented compressed air needs to be awarded a Nobel Prize.  Seriously.)

After that, I installed the CPU into the motherboard, slapped the heatsink/fan on top of that, installed the RAM, and installed the motherboard into the chassis.  So far, so good, right?   I then installed a new power supply (an Ultra 600W PSU), and followed that up by installing my new Maxtor SATA drive, and I will now remember that SATA connectors are pretty fragile; I nearly broke off the SATA power connector on the drive.  I made all the necessary connections:  4-pin power connectors to drives, power/HDD LEDs, power/reset switches, monitor to the onboard video connector, Logitech MX3200 Laser keyboard (you know, the one with the “hidden” scroll lock key), and my DVD+RW drive.  I then fired up the computer…and nothing happened.

(Oh oh.)

It helps to actually connect the PSU to the motherboard

Once that was fixed, I hit the power button again, and it turned on.  I immediately noticed that the CPU fan was really quiet; according to the BIOS, the fan spins at ~ 2500 RPM, less than half of my old P4 heatsink/fan.  I also noticed that my case fans were spinning a heck of a lot louder than normal.  I then recalled that my old Antec PSU had “fan only” connectors, that thermally controlled the rpm of the fans.  This new Ultra PSU had no such capability, and now my once-quiet case fans will now be whirring at max speed.  No biggie, though; it’s so hot here that my computer might need the increased air flow.

I proceeded to install Windows XP, and that went rather flawlessly.  Once I got into Windows, I began installing the motherboard-specific drivers from the included driver disk.  For some reason, I could not get ANY of the drivers to install properly.  I was forced to download the LAN drivers from Gigabyte’s site, and fortunately, that worked.  However, the other drivers found on the web site didn’t work at all.  I was completely pissed off, until I noticed a second CD that was included with my motherboard.  I looked at the CD, uttered a “Grrrrr…,” and popped the CD into my DVD+RW drive.

(Apparently, that CD contained drivers for a WinXP installation; the disc I had been using was for Vista installations.  Two million stupid points.)

Naturally, everything worked using that new disc.  I finished driver installation, and left program installation for the next day, as well as the PCI IDE controller card I needed to use my old hard drives.

I think I will finish the story tomorrow.  Yes, there’s more stupidity to come

Tags: Cust. Service, Food, Technology by Peter
3 Comments »

Quick-hitters:

- Submitting and mailing out rebates can be so much fun, especially when you aren’t paying attention to what you are doing.  Errors in filling out the form, errors in addressing the envelopes, and I haven’t mentioned the time I sealed one of my envelopes…with nothing inside it.

It’s the heat, I tell you.

- I was supposed to build my new computer today, but I stupidly left my computer parts in my sister’s car (I was in Monterey Park, over the weekend, and picked up the parts I had sent there; I guess I forgot to take them out of the car last night)!  Oh well, I haven’t even backed anything up yet on my main computer, so I don’t think I would have started today anyway.

- Pot roast, slow-cooked in red wine and beef broth, with potatoes, celery, carrots, steamed broccoli and spaghetti, and a loaf of French bread.  What is, Sunday night’s dinner for my Dad’s 70th?

We used a 5lb chuck roast, and three hours into the cooking process, it was clear that we were not going to be able to eat for at least another few hours.  I was forced to turn the heat up, and an hour later, we plated the food.  That was easily the most tender piece of pot roast I have ever cooked.  Too bad I find burgundy to be utterly undrinkable, or I would have had a glass or two alongside my meat.

BTW, I was just kidding about the preference of chicken over beef.  I feel like cooking another roast sometime this week.  Then again, I haven’t barbecued in a while…

- So after a few weeks of waiting, I finally got my surge protectors, USB cables, and ethernet cables from Provantage.com and this deal.  Now I have one power strip or surge protector connected to every major power outlet in my house (by “major power outlet,” I am referring to an outlet that is either connected to a major appliance–TV, computer, etc.–or has devices often plugged/unplugged from it–laptop power adapters, phone chargers, etc.)!

(Tangent:  I always thought that any multi-plug strip was known as a “surge protector.”  Only recently did I discover that only certain power strips offered surge protection.  I have to remind myself to use surge protectors any time I am plugging in anything of value.)

I’ll know that I will have too many power strips/surge protectors when I find one in my bathroom

- The fun phone call will have to wait, but I gotta get my thoughts in about Michael Vick.  For those of you that haven’t heard, Vick has agreed to plead guilty in the dogfighting and gambling case against him.  He’s facing up to five years in prison and a fine of $250,000, and I recall hearing that his presiding judge, U.S. District Judge Henry Hudson, does not plan to be lenient towards Vick.

Why the sudden turnaround?  Didn’t it appear that, not long ago, Vick was leaning towards allowing the case to go to trial?  My guess is that Vick realized that he wasn’t going to avoid jail time (or a short prison stay), and that he needed to save face by admitting guilt.  It didn’t help that three of his co-conspirators had already admitted guilt in order to get a plea bargain.

According to the ESPN article, there is speculation that Vick will probably get a sentence in the 12- to 18-month range.  Personally, I think that 1-2 years is a suitable amount of time for Vick to serve.  Yes, what Vick is accused of is absolutely unfathomable–and I’m only talking about the dog fighting–but I think that five years is excessive.  If he’s given three years, I won’t have a problem with that, but five just seems too much.

As far as Vick’s NFL career is concerned (like he’s THAT concerned with his career, at this moment), I think NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell must suspend Vick for more than his prison sentence.  If he gets 12-18 months, Goodell has every right to suspend Vick for the next two NFL seasons, and possibly three, depending on when the prison term starts.  As I mentioned in a prior blog entry, I don’t think Vick should be ousted from the league entirely, but he must be punished severely.  Given the existing precedent–one year for Pacman Jones–Vick must get no less than a two-season suspension.

When (if?) he does return to the NFL, there will be two very interesting issues to focus on.  First, what will the Atlanta Falcons do with Vick’s contract?  At this point, I don’t see how the Falcons keep Vick.  I understand that there is still plenty of support out there in Atlanta for Vick, but I can’t understand why.  He lied to Falcons’ owner Arthur Blank and Commissioner Goodell about his involvement in this dog fighting scandal, and betrayed not only the team, and not only the NFL as a whole, but the entire city of Atlanta as well.  Never mind the fact that he just isn’t a very good NFL quarterback and is vastly overpaid.

Assuming Vick gets released by the Falcons, and finds his way back into the league, will any team want to take a flier on a quarterback that has not been involved in football activities for such a prolonged period of time?  I don’t doubt that he will probably find his way back into the league (I bet the Raiders would be interested), but how effective could he be as an NFL quarterback?  Assuming he is imprisoned for two years, he will be 29 and away from the field for two full seasons.  That has to take a toll on a professional athlete’s ability; consider that he has probably been playing organized sports since he was a middle school student.  I suppose there’s a chance he could find himself in the Canadian Football League, and perhaps he could hook up with a team in the Arena Football League.

Finally, I think Michael Vick would be doing himself a huge favor if he called a press conference (assuming he’s allowed to) and personally apologized to the Falcons organization, his fellow players, the NFL, Commissioner Goodell, owner Arthur Blank, the city of Atlanta, and dog lovers across the country.  If he were to do this, and show even a shred of sincerity, I bet that would go a long way towards embracing Vick and a possible return to the NFL.

Happy blogging!

Tags: Deals, Random, Sports by Peter
2 Comments »

In my last blog entry (posted all of a few minutes ago :P), I said:

Next time: part two of the fun phone call, some thoughts on Michael Vick’s situation, and whatever else I can think of. Happy blogging!

As usual, that’s not happening.

Quick-hitters:

- I’m an idiot.

- My RAM (~$20 Micron/HP PC2-5300 DDR2), CPU (Athlon X2 4000+ Brisbane @ 2.1GHz), and PCI Controller Card (some Syba card) are all here! As soon as I get home, I will commence the new build! I’m so excited!

(Yes, call me a geek. I don’t care!)

- It is so hot here in MPK that I have a one-gallon bottle of ice, with a bit of water in it. Yes, normally, people drink out of a huge bottle of water, with some ice, but I decided to go in reverse. I love automatic ice makers.

- Trader Joe’s is absolutely evil. My sister found these Cinnamon Almonds, and we nearly downed the entire bag in about 20 minutes. Damn you Trader Joe’s *shakes fist*. Of course, we also got banana chips, those addictive veggie chips, and some pita chips. No, we did not finish that stuff yet; in fact, we haven’t touched the pita and banana chips.

- Fun fact: my sister was born the same year Elvis Presley died. I was born the same year the Compact Disc was born. Just sayin’.

- So we hit up the beach today, leaving my parents’ house at about 1:30, and not getting until around 3 (no thanks to the Trader Joe’s detour). The water was great (save for the tons of broken seashells that kept washing ashore), and there wasn’t a cloud in the sky. For a day this warm (high 70s/low 80s at around 2pm), I was surprised to see so few people there.

(BTW, the next part might be rated PG-13 or worse. You have been warned.)

By the way, I made mention about my sister’s karmic powers in a previous blog entry. While wading in the water, I cracked a joke about her, and quickly started backpedaling…right into a huge wave that nearly knocked me down. A few minutes later, I mentioned a comic strip that Krunk sent me, supposedly depicting my feelings about the beach. Not to be outdone, I then cracked a joke about him–sort of a retaliation, if you will–and then turned around…right into a wave that crashed into me. It didn’t knock me down, but it hit me square…um…down there. I was bent over for a good minute or so.

Great…I must now fear the Krunk karmic powers too.

- After the beach trip, we stopped by Starbucks–I had to get an Arnold Palmer–and then we went to Victory Restaurant for dinner.

(Tangent: I could probably down five venti Arnold Palmers, a.k.a. Shaken Black Tea Lemonades, in one sitting too.)

Man…what the heck happened to this place? They gave us a single salad, to split among three people. I didn’t get any corn, and my sister didn’t get any veggies with her meal at all! And it took them about 15 minutes just to bring us our water! Well, at least the food was good, as usual: chicken steak with butter and a TON of garlic, chicken steak with black pepper sauce, and a half Cornish game hen. Oh, and their red rice…I don’t know how they make it, but that stuff is awesomely good.

- For my dad’s 70th birthday, we’re cooking a pot roast!

(I would have preferred a roast chicken, but that will do.)

Potatoes, carrots, and celery, oh my! I can’t wait!

More details tomorrow. I’m sleepy.

Tags: Blog, Food, Random by Peter
2 Comments »

(CRAP! This blog was supposed to be posted on the 16th!!! Stupid me!!!!!!)

Expect this one to be another really long blog entry. Apologies in advance!

BTW, Happy Birthday Dad!

Quick-hitters:

- Over at Bargainshare.com, I’m running both a Pro Football Pick’em (you pick the teams that you think will win each week) and a Fantasy Football league. We need signups! NO football knowledge required! The winner and runner-up of our league last year both were casual football fans (and female :P)!

Fantasy Football league instructions can be found here. I have not yet opened the Pick’em league yet.

- So I’m chilling out here, with a Vanilla Coke, and…I WANT MEXICOKE!!! <cry>

(BTW, by “chilling out,” I certainly don’t mean temperature-wise. Yesterday was a cool, crisp 99 degrees, which was four degrees cooler than Monday and Tuesday.)

- Slickdeals is positively evil. In the last couple of days, I bought some groceries online (more on that later), some sandals and shoes from Target.com (three minutes after I saw the deal), and several software titles (FAR, of course). What really stinks is that I know my credit card number, expiration date, AND three-digit security code by heart, so shredding the credit card won’t do a darn thing.

Customer service rants, a quick-hitters edition (yes, I created a new category for customer service rants):

- I had the joy of waiting in line at the Post Office, behind a couple that wanted a particular stamp. Unfortunately for me, and those also waiting in line with me, they could only provide a vague description of the stamp they wanted (Oh, it has hearts on it, and some of the hearts are pink!).

When I got to the PO, there were about eight people in line, and the couple was already starting their search for those elusive stamps. By the time I was done, the couple were still there. No word on whether or not the employee called for a sketch artist for help.

- Speaking of the Post Office…a few days ago, I got a bubble mailer from Buy.com wedged into my mailbox. It was obvious my mail carrier forcefully bent the mailer into a U-shape before jamming it into my box. Too bad the box contained a software title. Good news, though; although the software box was bent almost perfectly down the middle, the CD itself survived! Thanks, USPS.

- I bought my hard drive for my new computer build about a week ago, and was wondering why I hadn’t received it yet. I checked Outpost.com, pulled a DHL tracking number, and noticed that DHL had attempted a delivery on the package each of the last two days. I checked my phone logs, and noticed no missed calls!

(Background: I live in a condominium complex, and we have an intercom at the front gate. When a courier has a package that needs to be delivered, the driver will contact the tenant, and the tenant remotely unlocks the gate using his phone.)

I called DHL, and they’re going to schedule another delivery attempt tomorrow. Yay.

(At least my RAM, which I expected to arrive sometime next week, has already been delivered.)

- Seven rebate emails received today, and seven rejections. Such is the life of anyone who files rebates offered by Parago. Three phone calls + four emails later, and all seven rebates are now approved. Twice, I just gave the CSR my rebate tracking #, and the rep said he would go ahead and approve the rebate manually.

- The Vonage deal I got in on became just a little bit colder. Apparently, Vonage charges a disconnect fee (yes, on top of an activation fee) of $39 if I were to cancel my Vonage service after one year, but before two. I called Customer Service to see if this applies to me, since I did not purchase the PAP2 adapter from Vonage directly, and the customer service rep I spoke to confirmed the fee. He also added “It’s in the fine print. <pause> You should have read it.”

I was going to hang up on him, but my phone dropped the call. The guy called me back, and I didn’t bother answering the call. Do you blame me?

- Speaking of Vanilla Coke, did you know VONS/Safeway offers delivery service in select locations? I got in on this deal and got a ton of soda, spaghetti, sauce, a few frozen items, and (most importantly) cookies, and the net cost was $20 for ~$60 worth of stuff! Sure, I could probably do better with the coupons in the Sunday paper, but no coupon-clipping + no going to the store + no carrying groceries from car to my front door = w00t!

I got two cases of Coke Zero, one case of Cherry Coke, two cases of Vanilla Coke, three jars of spaghetti sauce (for those days that I don’t want to make sauce from scratch), four bags of spaghetti, two boxes of Stouffer’s paninis, my cookies, and some other canned food. Now if only I could use coupons on an online order.

By the way, I also bought a pack of ready-to-bake cookie dough, and they left that out on the order!!!!!!!!!!

(Yep, a fitting way to end this blog entry, eh?)

Next time: part two of the fun phone call, some thoughts on Michael Vick’s situation, and whatever else I can think of. Happy blogging!

Tags: Cust. Service, Deals by Peter
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My apologies for not blogging in the last few days. Some things came up, that kept me AFK.

To make up for that, I promise that this will be one super-long blog entry!

On with it!

Quick-hitters:

- It’s been triple digits here in the last two days, after being in the high 90s over the weekend. My tower fan has been getting horribly overworked the last few days. At least I get a reprieve tomorrow; it’ll only be 99. Yay!

(It seems like perfect barbecuing weather, though.)

- I just realized that women’s clothing is numbered just like bubble mailers (0, 00, 1, 2, 3, 4, etc.). Why the arbitrary numbering system?

- YAY! I got part one of my new computer: the Gigabyte GA-MA69G-S3H motherboard. Onboard HDMI + dual PCI-E + onboard Firewire! Oh my!

I’m actually quite excited with this build, because this is the first time I’m actually going to use a “modern” motherboard. Usually, when I build a computer for myself, I like to use older parts (one generation prior, for example). I don’t need the newest, fastest, and greatest; all I need is a solid upgrade from my existing system (P4 2.4Ghz). This time, I couldn’t resist the deal (thanks to the PayPal $20 off $100 coupon), so I decided to go newer.

My CPU is waiting for me at home, and hopefully the RAM will be there by the end of the week. I can’t wait!

- We took a second trip to Costco today, looking for some MexiCoke. Unfortunately, no such luck. We did pick up some paper towels, juice, and Tony Dungy’s autobiography: Quiet Strength: The Principles, Practices, & Priorites of a Winning Life.

- So yesterday morning, I got a series of annoying phone calls on my cell phone. The phone number was some 916 phone number, and as far as I knew, I knew no one with a phone number of that area code (my “family” living up there retained their 626 phone number on their cell phone, or so I thought) . On the first call, I picked it up and heard some random babbling, so I hung up. When the phone rang the second time, the exact same thing happened. Frustrated, I picked up the phone on the third call, and heard some more babbling. I screamed “Who the hell is this?” and heard silence, so I quickly hung up. When the phone rang the fourth time, I just hit “Ignore” on my phone and let the call go to voice mail.

I checked the voice mail a few minutes later, and was astonished to hear my cousin’s voice. Turns out that she changed her phone number, and the babbling was the voice of her three-year old brat (the same one that somehow broke into my office and damaged a whole bunch of my blank DVDs a few months ago). Oops!

(Well, now I know that, if he starts cursing, it will be partially my fault :P)

More on this next time, as I really want to get to the next story.

- I had to get in on this Vonage deal at Circuit City. $24.99 (or $14.99) a month, a $300 Circuit City GC instantly, and a possible $175 mail in rebate? Hot deal, right? I thought so, but had second thoughts after the ordeal I went through today.

We dropped by Circuit City after Costco and immediately went to the Vonage display booth, where, to my dismay, I didn’t see any PAP2 adapters (devices used to connect to your Cable/DSL modem or a port on your router, providing you with two phone jacks for voice-over-IP (VoIP) service). After about ten minutes of standing around, I flagged down a Circuit City salesman for assistance. Unfortunately, he was helping another customer, so I got passed off to a guy who was a college freshman at most.

I immediately asked him about wanting to sign up for Vonage, and he had a blank look on his face. Immediately I knew this transaction was not going to go smoothly. He flagged down a superior, and I could hear them talking about the item not being in stock. The salesman came back to me, pulled a different item off the shelf–a more expensive VoIP device/wireless router–and said that this one would work for me. I asked him specifically about the PAP2, and he said he would check to see if other stores had it in stock. He also suggested doing a special-order on the adapter.

While he went back to his terminal to check the stock, I browsed around the store. I went to look at the shelves containing routers and networking adapters, and tucked besides a few Netgear routers, I saw a small blue box with the Vonage logo on it. I pulled it off the shelf, and lo and behold, I found a PAP2!

I turned around and saw the salesman back at the Vonage display, looking for me. I walked towards him, and before he could say anything, I told him I found a PAP2 in a different area of the store. He then told me that his system showed one in stock, and I must have found it =). The salesman went to his terminal to ring up the PAP2, then realized that we had to have the Vonage service activated before he could ring up my purchase.

(Yeah, like my story was going to end THAT quickly.)

We walked all the way to the front of the store–his terminal was all the way in the back–where another salesman handed the guy a “Vendor Services Help Sheet”: a printout on a quarter-sheet of paper, in font size 1 (maybe), with instructions on how to process this Vonage promotion. On the way, the salesman was nice enough to apologize to us for not knowing, exactly, what to do, and we accepted. We walked over towards the customer service desk, and the salesman called up Vonage directly to start the sign-up process. After waiting on hold for a few minutes, he finally got in touch with a Vonage rep, mentioned a few things, and then handed me the phone to give Vonage my information (name, address, email contact, phone contact, etc.). After about fifteen minutes of this, the rep gave me my temporary Vonage account password: 12345678. I couldn’t help but laugh at that, and began thinking about the scene in Spaceballs where President Skroob points out that his luggage has the same passcode (12345) as Druidia’s airlock.

The Vonage rep then started explaining Vonage’s E911 service, clearly reading off a piece of paper. That, in itself, took about five minutes. At the end of that speech, she asked me to verbally agree to those terms and conditions with a “Yes” answer. I guess I didn’t hear her, so I said “OK.” She then said that she would give me my order confirmation number, but she had to quickly go over “a few things”–Vonage’s terms and conditions–and I had to verbally agree to them. But, before she read those, she scolded me, explaining, “Sir, for this series of questions, I need you to give me a clear and straight “YES” answer, and not “OK” or “yeah.” Is that understood?”

Wow.

She then fired off a series of questions (”Do you accept our terms and services?” “Do you accept paying the activation fee?” “Is your credit card valid?” “Do you have brown hair?”), and I said “YES” to each question, in a clearly annoyed voice.

(At this point, I had spent nearly 45 minutes on this freaking deal.)

Out of the corner of my eye, I could see the CC salesman and my sister mocking me, laughing and pointing at me every chance they got (I’m glad they enjoyed themselves :P). Finally, after about eight YESes, the rep gave me my order confirmation number. I copied it down, confirmed it with the rep, and handed the phone back to the salesman.

On the way back to his terminal, I mentioned her lecture to me, and the awesome temporary password, and we all had a good laugh about the call. At the terminal, he asked me for my ID, and I just handed him my wallet (my wallet has an ID window, and due to the heat and the fact that I have eleventy billion cards in that slot, I could not get my ID out of there). He took down my address, and proceeded to ring up the item. Amazingly (NOT!), we ran into yet another snag, and the salesman was told to go back to the customer service desk. He started walking back to the front of the store, and I half-jokingly asked for my wallet back, which he had left on top of his terminal.

On the way back to the customer service desk, the salesman pointed out that this was the first time he had processed a Vonage order (no, really?). He also mentioned that his store had very few Vonage orders prior to this week, and noticed a bunch of new signups starting this past Sunday. I mentioned that the promo probably had something to do with it. He then realized how awesome the deal was–I’m pretty sure he didn’t know about the $175 rebate–and then we somehow got to a discussion about early termination fees. I pointed out how bad canceling the Vonage contract early would be, noting that I would lose out on the ETF to Vonage AND be charged by Circuit City for the gift certificate.

(Hey, we had to talk about something; that was a long trip back to the customer service desk!)

We got back to the customer service desk, and the salesman spotted one of only two guys on duty that knew the procedure on how to ring up the $300 gift card. He processed the “purchase” of the GC, handed it to me, demanded it back on the spot–to make sure it had $300 on it, citing that a customer had once bought a GC and walked out of the store without it–verified the funds on the card, wrote “$300″ on it, and handed it back to me. He then went ahead and bagged the PAP2, and handed it to me.

Of course, I had not yet actually purchased the device, so I made mention of that. My original salesman ran it up, had me sign my receipt, and (not surprisingly) the signature-capturing device that CC uses didn’t accept my signature. I tried again, uttering “what else?,” and it worked the second time. He handed me my PAP2, my receipt, and the $175 rebate form that had printed out, and wished me a good day. I thanked him profusely for the help, and walked out of the store, over an hour after I had initially walked in.

I am hoping that the entire ordeal was worth it. Thank goodness I had a nice salesman who was willing and able to crack jokes both with me and at me during the entire transaction.

Apologies for the length of today’s blog, and if it sounds rushed (it was).

Tags: Blog, Deals, Random, Technology by Peter
4 Comments »

Quick-hitters:

- How bored am I this Saturday afternoon? I’m watching Golf in Hi-Def!!!

(Hey, Tiger Woods is kicking butt. That makes it OK, right?)

- I need a new cookware set. I was thinking about buying this cheapy set at Linens ‘n Things for $59.99 - a 25% off coupon (205200000007), - a $10 MIR + a free knife set. I dropped by LNT yesterday, after going to Costco (more on that later), and saw the cookware in person.

It sucked. Talk about thin! Then again, what was I to expect from a ~$30-40 cookware set? It probably would have lasted a year or two at the most, given how often I cook. I also dropped by Macy’s, and found a nice 10-piece Tools of the Trade (sorry, no link) stainless steel/copper bottom set for $79. We were trying to find this 14-piece set, but had no luck. Anyway, I was impressed with the density of the cookware, although I wasn’t a fan of the covers. Too bad the online deal wasn’t available in store.

- So I swung by Costco yesterday, looking for some freaking MexiCoke. To my dismay, they didn’t have any!!!

(me cries)

To soothe my sorrows, I got some cinnamon raisin bagels, cinnamon raisin bread, and a bunch of cream cheese. I also got a big bag of shredded cheese, which I’ll be using to make some more enchiladas (thanks again, Amy!).

Or maybe I should grill up some hamburgers.

Ooooh…I have a couple New York strips in the freezer.

Eh, I feel like chicken rather than beef.

(Wait…I have some chicken that I can barbecue).

- So after a day or two of deliberations, I finally broke down and bought parts for my first brand new computer in four years. As I mentioned in my last blog entry, I could have gone real cheap (in the low $200s), or mid- to high-end ($400+).

Of course, I decided to be smart and compromised. I picked up a much better motherboard (the Gigabyte GA-MA69G-S3H), a middle-of-the-pack AMD CPU (X2 64 Brisbane 4000+ @ 2.1Ghz), a Maxtor/Seagate rebadged 300+20GB Hard Drive, a PCI IDE controller card (Syba SD-ATA133R; I need it for the two IDE hard drives that I’m keeping from the computer that needs upgrading) and some filler material (a FAR PSU, some blank DVDs, and a FAR AntiVirus program). Total cost? $265.10. All I need now is some extra RAM ($22 each, after rebate) and I’ll be all set.

(Now to figure out how I’m going to afford this new toy :P)

- And finally, here’s one unique way to lose a million dollars. It turns out that a White City, Oregon, woman bought a lottery ticket that won $1 million. Too bad she used the credit card of her then-boyfriend’s dead mother.

Prosecutors said Christina Goodenow, of White City, used a credit card that belonged to her then-boyfriend’s dead mother to buy a winning $1 million Scratch-It ticket in Oct. 2005.

Goodenow asked lottery officials to keep her win quiet, claiming to be a victim of domestic violence. But police learned of the crime about two weeks later, as Goodenow continued to use the stolen credit card.

On Thursday, Jackson County Judge Ray White ruled that the winnings were the proceeds of illegal activity and must be forfeited under Oregon law.
Goodenow pleaded no contest to forgery, cheating and aggravated theft.

Ouch!

Question: You just won a million dollars in a lottery. WTF were you doing still using the stolen credit card?!?!?!?!? And how the heck did the woman get in possession of the stolen credit card in the first place?

By the way, I never knew “cheating” was a crime punishable by prison time.

Ms. Goodenow alleges that the ticket was purchased via cash, and not with the stolen credit card. Good luck proving that. Though I do have to ask–and Krunk brought this up a couple nights ago–how did the judge come to the conclusion that the winning ticket was, undeniably, purchased with the stolen credit card? I could understand if the lottery ticket was like a SuperLotto ticket, but is it even possible to track the purchases of scratch-off tickets?

Anyway, note to self: do not buy lottery tickets with a stolen credit card. Um…

Happy blogging!

Tags: Deals, Food, News by Peter
2 Comments »