UngsungBlog: A (Fantasy) Sports Blog

Quick-hitters (a food coma induced version):

- So I’ve got my sister’s fried computer in front of me.  Too bad I can’t move, or I’d consider fiddling around with the system right now.

- I hate Fantasy Football.

(more on that another time)

- While grocery shopping today, I experienced a terrible case of deja-freaking-vu.  You might recall my blogging about…ahem…”wide” shoppers and how they love blocking aisles with their…um…gifts.  Well, as I left the produce section, and turned my cart into aisle #2, guess what I saw?  Yeah, another big-boned individual blocking the entire aisle!

(The first time I saw this incident last week, it was also in aisle #2, at almost exactly the same place.)

Unlike last time, the woman wasn’t alone!  While she was blocking the aisle with her presence, she was talking to a friend, who was facing me as I was waiting for them to move!  I decided to only wait 10 seconds, this time, before skipping that aisle and moving on.

I really really hate stupid people!

- How much does it suck right about now to be a NY Mets fan?  They had a seven game lead with less than a month left in the season, and then they came from ahead to tank big time, capping the tank job with an 8-1 loss to the Florida Marlins.  Couple that with the Phillies’ win over the Washington Nationals, and the Mets will be watching the playoffs from home instead of taking part in them.  And what a way to blow it!  Tom Glavine couldn’t even get out of the first inning, giving up seven runs in a third of an inning!

*gag*

How huge was the meltdown?

No major league team had owned a lead of seven games or more with 17 to play and failed to finish in first place. New York, which had that margin on Sept. 12, matched the largest lead blown in September.

On Friday, Mets 3B David Wright said something to the effect of “We’re right where we want to be.”  I chuckled when I first heard that, and now I’m really laughing.

(What can I say?  I love epic meltdowns much more so than unbelievable triumphs.)

- Before our grocery store/trip down memory lane, we hit up CVS for an awesome CVS run.  I picked up tons of cough medicine (I’m not sick, but think preemptive strike!), tons of shampoo, Tide detergent (with Downy; only the best for me!), tissues, Dawn dish washing soap, and some other junk (including a bottle of cleaner on clearance for a buck).  After my huge stack of coupons, and the one Extra Care buck ($3) in my wallet, I ended up spending $50, but I got back $19 in ECBs + a $5 MIR.

Now THAT’s a hot deal!

(Tangent:  I was aware that drugs that contained pseudoephedrine were not stocked on drug store shelves.  However, I didn’t know that you had to provide an ID to buy them.  Actually, not only do you have to show ID, but CVS actually took my ID, swiped it into their system, and made me sign something swearing that I wouldn’t use the medicine for illicit purposes, or something like that.  According to my receipt, one is allowed to buy no more than 3.6g of pseudoephedrine a day; that comes out to about 120 tablets of cold medicine…)

- I don’t know if you know this, but I love BBQ.  We had beef short ribs, pork, orange bell pepper, and Italian squash on the grill tonight.

(If you’ve never had grilled Italian squash, you are totally missing out.  Apologies if I’ve said this before, but I’m convinced that BBQing would make a pine cone taste good.)

My mom bought some Korean BBQ marinade for the meat, and OMG.  Top that off with a salad and a huge bowl of potato salad, and you can understand why I’m food coma-tose right now.

Ugh…

- And finally, I have to admit that I am now a huge women’s soccer fan.  Well, at least I’m a huge Hope Solo fan.

(She is the US Women’s Soccer Goalkeeper, or at least she was their goalie.)

After being benched for the team’s semifinal match against Brazil, and after being mopped off the floor by a score of 4-0, here’s what Solo had to say about her coach’s decision to bench her for 37-year-old Brianna Scurry:

“It was the wrong decision, and I think anybody that knows anything about the game knows that. There’s no doubt in my mind I would have made those saves. And the fact of the matter is it’s not 2004 anymore. It’s not 2004. And it’s 2007, and I think you have to live in the present. And you can’t live by big names. You can’t live in the past. It doesn’t matter what somebody did in an Olympic gold medal game in the Olympics three years ago. Now is what matters, and that’s what I think.”

Now THAT was a smack down!  BTW, she was wrong; don’t drag your teammate into the fray!  Direct your hatred at your coach!

Here’s a YouTube clip, for your viewing pleasure.

Apparently, Solo had issued an apology, but she didn’t do it by conventional means.  Not by a press conference.  Not by a one-on-one talk with her teammate.  Not even a phone call.  She did so via her MySpace page!

“I have felt compelled to clear the air regarding many of my postgame comments on Thursday night. I am not proud or happy the way things have come out,” reads a statement attributed to Solo on her MySpace page. “In my eyes there is no justification to put down a teammate. That is not what I was doing.”

I have to admit that this got me just slightly interested in women’s soccer!  The WNBA should take note; maybe it’ll take some mudslinging between players on the same team to get me interested in their league.

(Ok, not really.  And no, I still don’t care about any form of soccer.)

Next time, I will do something that I haven’t done in a while:  a product review!

(YAY!)

Tags: Deals, Food, Random, Sports by Peter
4 Comments »

- Wow, did The Office season premiere deliver or what? There were several LOL moments, and I still couldn’t believe how the episode started!

(spoilers to follow…you have been warned!)

• I was thinking that Michael was going awfully fast, when he turned the corner into what we found out was the Dunder Mifflin parking lot.
• I wonder how many takes it took Pam to say the entire foundation’s name correctly.
• Who didn’t see Michael cramping up during the run, after carbo-loading minutes before the episode, then passing up on the water?
• I want one of those “Support the rabid” wrist bands!
• I did NOT need to see Pam walking into Michael’s office and seeing his (as Pam called it) “dangling participle,” nor did I need to hear Andy talk about his chafing nipples. *gag*
• My favorite moments of the episode:
  • Kevin: “Are you kidding me?…Are you KIDDING me?”
  • Michael: “I’m not superstitious, but I’m…I’m just a little stitious.”
  • Michael: “Occasionally I’ll hit someone with my car. So sue me! No…don’t sue me!”
  • Angela’s hip check into Dwight.
  • The flyer saying that the run was 5,000 miles, not 5 kilometers.
  • Seeing Creed, Oscar, and Stanley (of all people!) running to the taxi. I figured Kevin would have been there, not Stanley. And I loved how the taxi drove them right to the finish line, not a few hundred yards before it.
  • Dwight: “I put Imodium in Toby’s coffee before the race.” Michael: “Excellent…wait…Imodium, or Ex-Lax?”
  • Toby: “He couldn’t have made it a circle?”
• I was actually surprised that the writers touched on the Jim-Pam relationship as much as they did in this episode. I thought they were only going to make mention of it once, and only at the end of the episode, while playing the whole “Oh, we’re not together” angle throughout.
• What??? No Jim and Pam picking on Dwight today? Where was that?

All in all, I was very happy with today’s episode, and I’m really happy that there will be three more hour-long episodes coming up in the following weeks!

- In the BargainShare Fantasy Football league, I needed to avoid a big day from Drew Brees and Reggie Bush to win. Bush did his part to hurt me, but Brees had an abysmal game, and I held on. I’m now 2-1 in that league, but bad news for me: Rudi Johnson is out for the NE game!

In the other league in which I was 1-1, I needed a single point from Vince Young to win there. I’m now 2-1 there, but I have Rudi Johnson in that league too. As for the first of my two 0-2 teams, I rode Donovan McNabb and Brian Westbrook to an easy win, and now i’m 1-2 there. As for the other 0-2 league (aka the “LDT is letting me down” league), my opponent needed nine points from Drew Brees. So now I’m 1-2 there as well. Hopefully I can report four more wins next week :D.

As for actual football, here are my Week 3 thoughts:

1) Another week, another dominating Patriots win. Now they’re 3*-0, and facing a horrible Bengals defense next week. Fortunately, I don’t face Brady or Moss in any of my fantasy leagues next week!

2) What’s more surprising: the Packers at 3-0, or San Diego, Chicago, and Cincy at 1-2? And was that Brett Favre, circa 1997?

3) Didn’t you used to be the Chicago Bears’ D? Crap, my strategy of taking the Bears Defense/Special Teams early looks really bad right about now. And boy did Dallas look good last week! Looks like they’re the favorite to finish second to the Pats, Colts, or Steelers in this year’s Super Bowl.

4) Can we go back to calling New Orleans the ‘Aints? Boy was that a horrible performance, especially at home, and the loss of Deuce McAllister has to be crushing.

By the way, people can stop calling Reggie Bush a bust. No one ever said he was going to be a between-the-tackles, power rusher. Also, this is only his 19th regular season game! Give the guy a break!

At least people can stop with the “Mario Williams has more TDs than Reggie Bush has” comments.

5) How in the world did Indy (-6) NOT cover against Houston???

Next time, more thoughts about sports, but I’m getting tired. So I’ll end today’s blog with this:

- For your bloggers out there, have you ever seen URL-less spam among your blog comments? This is a must-read article about this not-so-new phenomenon, and the two points mentioned in the article make total sense to me.

I used to allow some of these URL-less spam comments, until I noticed that all of these comments were vague; they did not point to a particular subject covered in the blog entry in which these comments appeared. That’s when I figured that these comments were suspicious, and I began blocking them. I mean, why else would a spammy commenter leave an otherwise harmless comment on one’s blog?

Clever, eh?

Happy blogging!

Tags: Blog, Fantasy, Pop Culture, Sports, The Office by Peter
No Comments »

This will be a two-part blog entry, and to satisfy all my loyal readers (all none of you), I’ll split today’s blog into sports- and non-sports entries.

Quick-hitters, part 1:

- The Office is back tonight!!! YAY!!!!!

Sadly, I missed Heroes, but I’ll catch it this weekend. No spoilers, please! I also missed my new favorite show: Law & Order SVU.

- Stupid me. I almost missed a payment on a credit card! It is due 10/2, and I just realized that yesterday. Worse, I won’t be able to get money into my checking account in time to make an e-payment! D’oh!

(Fortunately, I have money in my other checking account to make the payment, but that will require me to mail in a check. You people remember what a personal check looks like, right?)

- Another trip to the PO, and another bit of sheer ridiculousness. Another woman decided to hold up the line, filling out her damn forms. Unlike last time, this woman’s act was FAR worse: she had her back facing the registers, filling out her forms, and preventing others from going ahead of her, even when the clerks called on the next person!

She was acting so ridiculously that I decided to make a drawing of the situation, using my 1337 MS Paint skillz

(Tangent: I don’t have any “skillz,” as the drawing below will indicate.)

I’ll ask again: WHAT PART OF “PLEASE HAVE FORMS READY BEFORE GETTING IN LINE” IS SO FREAKING DIFFICULT TO UNDERSTAND????????

You should have seen her reaction when one of the clerks demanded that the next customer be helped before her. Damn stupid people…

- Congrats, Bank of Freaking America. You have finally topped my list.

(I can picture Hank thinking, “What could BofA do to top Time Warner?” Read on.)

In need of funds to pay off my credit card (the same one mentioned in the quick-hitters section), I ran off to BofA to withdraw some money from my checking account. I got to the ATM, inserted my ATM card, entered my PIN, punched in the amount of money I needed, and stuck my hand out by the cash dispenser, waiting for my cash.

That’s when the ATM spit out my ATM card, and said something to the effect of “Screw you; you can’t use this card.”

The account will be closed as soon as I get my lazy a$$ to a BofA branch to empty out the account. I would have closed the account over the phone, but apparently I need to empty the account first.

The list now looks like this:

1. BoFA (the “F” is capitalized for a reason now)
2. Time Warner
3. Citibank
4. CompUSSR
5. (tie) Parago, USPS, Buy.com, etc.

- I don’t know if you people know this, but I love food. My sister and mom came by this past weekend because their computer was on the fritz, so naturally I asked insisted begged my mom to cook us some food. She made us a huge pot of curry for lunch, and like the spoiled children that we are, we also got a special meal for dinner. I don’t know what it’s called, but it’s made with crepes filled with ground chicken, chopped long beans, peanuts, shredded coconut, and shrimp. You’re supposed to peel off pieces of the crepe, wrap it in a piece of lettuce, and dip it in a sauce.

Abso-freaking-lutely-delicious (sorry, no pics!). I have got to get the recipe for this stuff!

Oh yeah, the curry wasn’t half bad either. It was a bit thin, but who am I to complain?

- As for the computer on the fritz, my sister told me that the computer would turn on, but nothing would display on the monitor, and the hard disk LED would stay a solid red. I took the PSU out of that computer and stuck it in my secondary computer; the system turned on, but the monitor LED was flashing yellow ( = no input). So I figured that the power supply was shot, and figured that the entire system was as well. To test this, I stuck my spare PSU–a cheapy, FAR Raidmax PSU that weighed about as much as a can of soda (seriously!)–into their computer, and as expected, the system turned on, but no display.

I advised my sister on her options–build a brand new one or build a cheap one using some of the parts I had lying around–and she decided on the latter. I installed what used to be my primary computer–a P4 2.4Ghz on an Asus P4PE–into her case, hooked up all her drives, and the system fired up. To my amazement, I didn’t even need to repair Windows XP! I ran a few tests while my sisters were playing Guitar Hero, and handed my sister her newly-working computer. She offered to pay me for the parts, which I gladly accepted.

(Tangent: Was it not cool for me to enjoy beating the snot out of my sisters in Guitar Hero? I know that older siblings love doing that to younger siblings, but I, as the youngest sibling, really enjoyed the beatdown :P. I don’t remember ever talking that much trash after winning at anything before.

me <– can be a bad sport)

I got an IM from my sister that night, telling me that the “new” computer didn’t work! She told me that it had exactly the same symptoms as before! Argh…

Just for kicks, I hooked up the shot PSU to my DOSBox, and amazingly, it worked! I’m beginning to think that the surge strip, or the outlet itself, might be causing all the problems. Or maybe it’s the computer case…in any event, the computer will be back here this weekend. I hope it doesn’t rain; I feel like having a BBQ this weekend.

So now I have a dilemma. The computer left my possession in working condition, so am I allowed to charge my sister for the parts?

Later tonight, part 2 of this blog entry, including my Week 3 (Fantasy) Football thoughts.

Tags: Cust. Service, Food, News, Random, Technology by Peter
2 Comments »

I do apologize to all my loyal readers (all none of you), as I’ve been quite occupied lately. I went to the UCLA-Washington football game on Saturday, and spent all day Sunday fixing my sister’s DOA computer.

I’ll talk about those, and offer my Week 3 NFL (Fantasy) Football thoughts another time.

Quick-hitters:

- What part of “Please Have Forms Ready Before Getting In Line” is so freaking hard for some people to understand?!? And don’t you sneer at me, stupid lady, for not allowing me to go ahead of you when the PO clerk called for the next customer, forcing us to wait for your stupid ass to finish filling out the forms! If you had either had your forms already filled out, or (novel idea!) fill them out BEFORE you get in line, we wouldn’t have this problem, would we?

I swear that was not a rant towards older people. It was simply a rant towards f**king stupid people.

- Speaking of shopping cart carelessness, my mom is guilty of this! On Sunday, we went grocery shopping, and I was pushing our cart towards the car. I looked into the cart, and noticed there weren’t that many bags of stuff to carry. As we passed the shopping cart corral (or whatever you call the area that the shopping carts are housed, in the front of the store), I stopped to grab most of the groceries.

(I was basically born to be a two-legged pack mule :P)

I asked my mom to push the cart back into the corral, and watched, to my horror, as my mom just left the cart right where we pushed it!

(Tangent: you know how some stores have the corral walled off? We were just on the other side of that wall. Five paces backwards, and the cart could have been deposited back into that area.)

I told my mom to push the cart into the corral, and what did she do? She pushed the cart towards the corral, and instead of turning right, in the direction of the corral, she turned left and pushed the cart besides a trashcan!

WTFFFFFFFFFFFFFF????

- Time Warner sucks. I’ve been struggling to access simple web sites for over an hour now, and I only recently figured out why. Check this out:

)#(*#)($*#)(#*(!!!!!

(I assure you that today’s blog isn’t all negative.)

- On Thursday, I got a tip from SlickDeals about Norton 360 being on sale at Office Depot for $80 - 30 MIR - 30 MIR - 20 MIR = $0 + tax. With decent resell value, I decided to hit up as many Office Depots as it would have taken to find two copies of Norton 360.

I went down the street to my nearest OD, where they only had the display box on the shelf. I took the display box to a cashier, who checked her computer to find three copies of 360 available. I asked for two, and she jokingly called me greedy :P.

Of course, the computer wasn’t updated, and all three copies were gone. She then told me that the system showed seven 360s in stock at another OD, and she called that OD to verify stock. She handed me the phone, and I stayed on hold for a good ten minutes! At that point, I just hung up, thanked the woman, and headed out towards that OD (I had to go to the bank anyway; more on that later).

When we reached the second OD, I found two copies of 360 on the shelf, so I quickly grabbed both. After browsing around the store for a bit, I asked my sister to purchase one copy for me, and we headed to the register. The cashier rang up my purchase, and kept making comments like “Oh! This comes with a rebate!” and “This is a good deal!” While doing that, she accidentally rang up my order as purchased with cash, so she had to undo and redo the order.

During this time, the guy behind us in line grabbed the copy I was purchasing, and said “How much in rebates do you get?” I just ignored him, and then he noticed that we were each buying a copy. He then asked, “Hey, [pointing to the box] do you know that this software is good for three users? Why are you buying two copies?” I ignored him, finished my transaction, and walked off while my sister was paying for “her” copy.

(Yeah, like I was going to tell him that I was buying these for resale.)

- I’ll end the blog with this gem: We swung by a Wamu that I’ve never been to, and walked into the lobby. There was a real nice guy there who held the door open for my sister and me, not realizing that we had to walk in one at a time. After she went in, he held the door open for me, and I insisted that he should go in first. He, in turn, insisted that I should go first, and we were going back and forth for a few seconds, until I gave in and walked through the door.

(Sound familiar, Krunk?)

(BTW, this story is a bit hazy; I pieced this story together based on what I heard, and what my sister saw.)

Once we got in, I heard a woman talking to a guy at the front of the bank, asking if she could go to the safe deposit box area. He said no, pointing out that her sister was already in there.

(Tangent: Is it a rule saying that only one person could be in the safe deposit box area at a time?)

She threw a hissy fit, and then demanded that she be allowed to go to the bathroom (no, this bank did not have public bathrooms). When the guy said that he couldn’t do that, the woman had none of it; she walked towards the safe deposit box area, right past the security guard! The guard stopped her, and she demanded to be let go, again reminding the world that her sister was also in there. She continued trying to walk past the guard, and the guy at the front told the guard to escort her to the bathroom.

A couple minutes later, I heard her screaming into her cell phone “I hate this branch! They’ve got only two tellers working here! I don’t know why I bother coming to this branch!”

Did I mention how much I hate f**king stupid people?

Au revoir.

Tags: Cust. Service, Deals, Random by Peter
1 Comment »

Quick-hitters:

- Rain?  RAIN???  WTF???

I want summer back!

- I went to the Post Office yesterday, and to my utter amazement, I did not come close to getting hit by a car!  Even more amazing than that was the fact that, when I stepped into the PO, there was NOBODY in line!  A guy who walked in with me turned towards me and grinned, as we raced to the front of the line.

(He beat me.)

- “Personal rebate filer” needs to be a real job.  I’m so good at it, it’s ridiculous.

(Tangent:  I really need to get a second scanner.  Maybe I can find a cheapy one on Craigslist or something.)

Hey!  Filling out rebate forms, cutting UPCs, scanning everything, printing to PDF, merging all PDFs into one document, addressing envelopes, sealing and stamping them, and repeating ad nauseum…that’s tough to do!

- So my UPS guy dropped off my latest set of toys today:  a Pinzon 10-piece stainless steel cookware set and a Circulon 5.5qt. Dutch oven!  I was skeptical about the Pinzonset, because of the fact that I’ve never heard of that brand before; however, I was impressed by the number of 5-star ratings, though, so I decided to take a chance.

Wow.  From the moment I took the cookware out of the packaging, I knew I was definitely getting my money’s worth.

(Tangent:  I’ve never had nice cookware before.  The nicest piece of cookware I own is a stainless steel Dutch oven that my mom gave me.

As the Amazon.com reviews say, the cookware was packaged extremely well.  The pots and pans were quite heavy, as well!  Each piece has a thick aluminum base, and it was funny to watch my sister struggle to pick up the 10″ frying pan.  I’m not too much of a fan of the lids–they felt a bit on the light side–but if the lids are the only thing I can complain about, I know I’ll be happy with these things.  I have not had the chance to cook with the wares yet, but that’s what the ground beef (yep, more “premium” stuff) in my refrigerator is for.

- So I have yet another reason to hate Citibank.  I mentioned, in a previous blog, that Citibank no longer reported the credit limit on one of my cards (which had a sizable limit).  Well, I recently pulled up my credit report + score, and noticed that my credit score took a huge nose dive!  Now, I had opened a new credit card and a new checking account (three inquiries; it should be two…thanks, BofA), and that could account for, maybe, a 10-15 point drop in my score.

So you could imagine my horror when I saw the huge drop in my score.  What caused the precipitous fall?  Well, recently Citibank sent me a replacement Citi PremierPass card, that supposedly came with new features.  Apparently, one of these features is the lack of a credit limit reporting!  To make things worse, this card has a limit equal to nearly half of my total credit limit!!!

According to my credit report, Citibank only is reporting the limit on one of my cards, and the limit on that card is a paltry $1,000.  So, I have devised a plan:  I’m going to re-allocate most of my total Citibank credit limit on to this one card, and hope that Citibank reports the new limit to the three bureaus.

I also couldn’t resist opening another credit card:  a Citibank Amex card.   Hopefully my lowered credit score doesn’t disqualify me from getting this card.  Just look at the perks!  5% in Thank You points for gas, groceries, and drug stores for two years, 3% everywhere else, and 15,000 points after making $300 in purchases.

me <– crosses fingers

- Here are my NFL Week 2 (Fantasy) Football thoughts:

1) Two of my fantasy football teams are 0-2.  Two of them are 1-1.  What do the two 0-2 teams have in common?  Donovan freaking McNabb.

(Remind me never to draft a QB one year removed from major knee surgery.  Last year, it was Daunte Culpepper, this year it’s Donovan McNabb).

Speaking of Donovan McNabb, how about the insinuation that black quarterbacks face more pressure to succeed than white quarterbacks?  I don’t agree at all with this opinion.  I don’t believe that black QBs face more pressure than white QBs, but I do believe that McNabb faces more scrutiny than the average QB.  Fair or not, he has had a number of chances to win a Super Bowl ring, and has come short every time.  Whether it’s the Tampa Bay Bucs, the St. Louis Rams, T.O., or whatever else, he has come up short every year of his career.  Because he plays for such a success-starved city as Philadelphia, he’s going to have to face the fact that he’s going to be blamed for much of the team’s failures.

Donovan, this is not a race thing.  This is an inability to succeed thing.

2) So the Pats played real well last week, dominating San Diego.  Congrats, Patriots; you guys are now 2*-0!

3) What were the Colts doing, going pass-pass-pass late in the fourth quarter against Tennessee?

By the way, I love the fact that Indy is tied with the Houston Texans for first place in the AFC South.

4) Was that Cincy-Cleveland or two NFL Blitz teams?  Seriously, 96 points?!?

And Chad Johnson sure has some guts to jump into the seats after scoring a TD.

5) Green Bay’s 2-0.  Houston’s 2-0.  Detroit’s 2-0.  San Francisco’s 2-0.  Washington’s 2-0.  Philadelphia’s 0-2.  St. Louis is 0-2.  New Orleans is 0-2.

Wow.

Finally, nice job, Dodgers.  A four-game sweep to the Rockies?  I guess I’ll have to look forward to 2008.

Happy blogging!

Tags: Cust. Service, Fantasy, Food, Sports by Peter
2 Comments »

Quick-hitters:

- Another trip to the Post Office, another moron running a red light. This time, it wasn’t even close! The light was red for a good five seconds before the car (heading Southbound, just like the ***** who nearly killed me earlier in the week) sped right through the intersection, forcing the two cars going Westbound to slam their brakes and sound their horn.

That one could have been really ugly.

- Hey Amy, I recall you blogging about this horrible movie called “Sunshine.”

Check out this mini-review of the movie, done by ESPN’s Gregg Easterbrook (search for “Sci-Fi Complaint No. 2″). I think you’ll enjoy it ;-).

- Anyone wanna make a bet on the number of years that O.J. will serve in prison for his latest escapade? I’ll put the over/under at 3.5 years, and I’ll gladly take the under.

- Damn you, Hank! Why oh why did he have to talk about the game Peggle? I’m freaking addicted to the damn game now, so much so that I nearly purchased the game a night ago!

- So I took a trip to Costco today, but before I did, I set the over/under on how much I was going to spend at $85.00. I made a bet with an unnamed individual, and I confidently took the over.

(I hate Costco. I really hate Costco.)

Even with the beef jerky, the cheese danishes, and the multiple quantities of juice that I bought, I managed to stay under $85.00!

(Tangent: There is no way that one bag of this beef jerky contains eight servings. I could easily polish off half the bag, and only have to stop eating because my jaw would start aching.)

Anyway, hopefully that unnamed individual doesn’t try to get a steak dinner out of me for winning the bet.

- After the trip to Costco, we swung by our local supermarket to pick up a few things. After today’s trip (which only set me back another $30), I don’t know if I ever want to go back to that place. This wasn’t my first trip to this particular supermarket, by the way, but after what I dealt with today, I don’t know if I ever want to go back to that place.

First of all, I do not understand why people like to obstruct the aisles with their shopping carts either at the ends of the aisle, or in the middle of the aisle, next to areas where there are displays of stuff not on shelves. One of these days, I’m bringing a horn with me to a grocery store, so I can honk at people who block my way.

(Yeah, I have grocery store road rage.)

Related to the first point…grocery stores seriously need to widen their aisles. It is nearly impossible now to pass another shopper in an aisle, and it’s not just because of those off-the-shelf displays being all over the place. Between stupid kids constantly running around, to, um, wide shoppers blocking off the entire aisle with their cart or, um, their backsides, I now have to go through the store 2-3 times just to make sure I’ve covered every aisle.

(Tangent: I’m not exactly the most svelte of individuals, but I try my hardest to not obstruct people when I’m shopping. If I do, it’s either unintentional, or I do it for a couple of seconds at the most. There was one woman who was bent over and looking at the same freaking can of tuna for a good five minutes? How do I know this? I returned to that aisle a couple minutes later, and she was still there!)

By the way, I don’t want to hear the “if you would just make a list, and go into whatever aisles you need to go to, then you won’t have this problem!” argument. I always go through every aisle, in the off-chance that I find a very good deal that I can’t pass up.

As if the experience inside the supermarket wasn’t bad enough, what I saw outside was even worse. As I got to our car, I noticed two shopping carts stuck behind a van parked one aisle from us.
(clears throat)

WHO THE **** THINKS IT IS A GOOD IDEA TO LEAVE THEIR SHOPPING CART BEHIND SOMEONE’S PARKED CAR???

The amazing thing is, there was a shopping cart return area about three parking spots away from these two carts! As I finished loading my groceries, I noticed the owner of the van started loading her groceries. I heard her curse about the carts (understandably so), and I decided to go put away my cart and take the two obstructing her van at the same time. She was very grateful for the help, and I was glad to see that she also took her cart to the cart return area.

As we drove out of the parking lot, we saw a woman driving a Dodge Ram leaving her shopping cart in the next parking spot. Was it cruel for me to have wished for the cart to roll right back into her truck? Seriously, the parking spot is rather tiny, and there are several cart return areas scattered all throughout the lot. Is is that freaking hard to take your cart to the return before you leave?

I was going to talk about football, but now I’m pissed off again. Until next time…

Tags: Fantasy, Food, Random by Peter
10 Comments »

Can’t sleep.  Must blog.

Yesterday, three days, a month…same thing.

(Hey, at least this time, I’m actually going to talk about the Patriots, which is more than I could say about my poker story, ex-NBA ref Tim Donaghy, or any of the other topics I said I would hold off for another day).

Quick-hitters:

- I think I hurt my TV’s feelings.  It will respond to my remote maybe 5% of the time now.  And yes, I’m using fresh batteries.

- I caught an article in the Daily News sometime this weekend, about an intersection here in the Valley that was rated one of the (it might have been the) most dangerous intersections, based on pedestrian deaths.  Apparently the study did not measure the intersection right by my post office.  Yes, another day, another idiot running a red several moments after the fact.

- Christmas time is coming in a few months.  Anyone wanna buy me these pots and pans?  They’re cheap!

- So after swinging by Circuit City (I went to pick up an item that I ordered online for in-store pickup, only to find the item OOS.  At least I got a $24 GC for my trouble) on Sunday, we swung by this local buffalo wing joint.

(Tangent:  Football season + buffalo wings…a natural pairing, no?)

The guy behind the counter warned me that the “Hot” sauce was going to be too intense, so he offered to give us half Hot and half Original.  Well, I was bummed to find that the Original sauce was more sweet than heat.  However, I thought the Hot sauce was perfect; my sister thought the Hot sauce was too weak, but I don’t give a crap what she thinks :P.  We also had “Flaming Shrimp Poppers” (breaded shrimp tossed in buffalo wing sauce), a huge bucket of macaroni salad, and some French fries.  We didn’t come close to finishing the meal.

BTW, you were wondering why I’m still up, I think you could figure it out by now.  I can’t believe that I’m out of Tums.

(checks Amazon.com…)

(Argh!  I don’t need SIX HUNDRED tablets!)

- So as we football fans (and probably some non-sports fans) know, the Patriots are a bunch of dirty cheaters.

(I swear that that is a totally unbiased opinion.)

Days after “PatriotGate” came out, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell fined coach Bill Belicheck $500,000, the Patriots $250,000, and docked the Pats a first-round draft pick in next year’s draft (or a second- and third-rounder, should the Pats missed the playoffs, but that’s not going to happen).  Do I think the punishment fit the crime?  Yes and no.  I agree that the Pats should have to surrender a draft pick, but $750,000 in fines without a suspension?  For one thing, I wouldn’t be surprised if the fines were paid for by Pats’ owner Robert Kraft.  Second, even though three-quarters of a million dollars is a lot of money, is that really much of a deterrent?  As some people on ESPN have already said, would you pay $750,000 and forfeit a draft pick, in exchange for a shot at the Super Bowl?  I know I would.

I would have fined Belicheck $250,000, docked the team a first-round pick, and given Belicheck a two- to four-game suspension.  Suspend Belicheck for a couple of games, and the Pats might not gain home-field advantage in the playoffs.  Take away a first-round pick, and that doesn’t affect the Pats at all this season.

I love how some individuals want the Patriots to forfeit one, or all, of their championship rings.  How are we going to know how far PatriotGate extends, the same way as we have to question how far back Barry Bonds was allegedly doing steroids?  What’s done is done, and without concrete evidence to show that the Patriots cheated in a particular game, I don’t see how the NFL could strike the Pats’ championships from the record.  Let the fans slap an asterisk on each of their rings, if they so desire, as we are doing to Bonds right now.

By the way, it is OK to quip about PatriotGate for the next eleventy billion years.  I know I did no less than ten times during the Pats-Chargers game on Sunday night.  I would have made many more jokes, had I not turned off the TV after the Patriots scored a TD on an interception return in the second quarter.

Next time:  my thoughts on Week 2 of the NFL, a Fantasy Football update, and whatever else I can think of.

Happy blogging!

Tags: Deals, Food, Sports by Peter
No Comments »

So I’m typing this blog while snacking on some French fries and celery sticks. Why celery sticks? I ran out of ketchup, and only had some ranch dressing in my refrigerator. Why not pretend to have a healthy snack by adding celery sticks to my plate, right??

And yes, I realize that the ranch dressing is probably the worst part of my snack.

(As of this moment, I’ve eaten just about all of my celery sticks, and none of the fries. Maybe I’ll just finish the celery and toss away the fries.)

Quick-hitters:

- Just when I thought summer was unofficially over, it got hot again this past week. Today, it was quite nice (83/87), and I hope it stays that way through the weekend. I think I’m going to BBQ this weekend; I gotta grill as much as I can before the rainy season starts kicking into gear.

- My poor UPS guy came by here four times this past week. I gotta get him something really nice this Christmas. Any ideas would be greatly appreciated!

- I cannot believe I’m going to type this, but I actually had a very positive experience at the Post Office a few days ago. The Automated Postal Center (APC) was down, so I had to wait in line with my three packages. The line was about 15 customers long, so I figured I was going to have to be in line for a good half-hour.

Five minutes later, I was out of there. Sweet!

Well, not really. You see, the intersection that the Post Office is on seems to be a haven for drivers that like to ignore street signs. On my way home from the PO that day, I was at the corner, ready to cross the street going East. About one second after the “Walk” sign flashed my way, I looked both ways, and then got ready to step off the curb. That’s when some ***** and her nice Bimmer came barreling through the intersection going South at about 30mph, hooking a right turn right past me. Did I mention she was also on her cell phone?

It was a good thing she was a good 8-10′ away from the curb when she made the right turn, or I could very well have been plastered on her windshield.

(Tangent, sorta: I love it when people do something wrong, and then stare at you, as if you were the one at fault.

No, this didn’t happen this time; clearly the woman was too busy chatting on her phone to see a 6″, lumbering individual attempting to cross a crosswalk. Clearly she was too busy to see the red light too.)

- I’ve been trying to sell a laptop on Craigslist for four weeks now, with no luck. I’ve had several people flake out on me, even after scheduling a time to come by and take a look at the laptop. I also dealt with a woman that kept stalling, until she eventually said she could find a better deal if she waited.

(Tangent: OMG I hate it when people say, about [electronic device], “If I wait long enough, it’ll go down in price!” NO FREAKING KIDDING!!!!!!!!!11111!11!!!!! A Core2Duo laptop, if you wait long enough, will drop down to $100, right?)

So, to the flakes on Craigslist out there, I have a letter for you:

To whom it may concern:

Lately, a bunch of you flakes have decided to get in contact with me with interest in a laptop I was selling on Craigslist. Now, I understand that things happen, and sometimes people can’t keep their appointments.

(clears throat)

IF YOU CAN’T KEEP AN APPOINTMENT, IS IT TOO MUCH TROUBLE TO ASK FOR A PHONE CALL OR AN E-MAIL, EXPLAINING WHY??? Seriously, you can’t take five minutes out of your busy life to give me a ring and say that you won’t be able to make it?

And to the individual that flaked on me THREE times, you couldn’t call me ONCE to explain that you couldn’t (or wouldn’t) drop by??? Not even ONCE???

Ah, that felt good.

(By the way, I should mention that I had this written up yesterday…right before a guy came by and purchased the laptop :P)

- OK, I desperately need a new TV. This stupid Sceptre TV is really pissing me off. It seems that the buttons on the side of the TV don’t work at all any more.

(I know, I know…why would I care that the buttons on the TV don’t work? Isn’t that what a remote control is for? Shush.)

Couple that with the occasional non-responsiveness of the remote, the dead pixel, the noise that is now coming from the TV, and the fact that I love getting new toys (:P), and it’s about time I take my TV back to Costco. Besides, I have a $300 Circuit City GC to use up!

Speaking of TVs, I have a pretty funny story to share about my TV. I brought my Sceptre into the living room, and used it as a PC monitor for my secondary computer (I also brought it outside so that my sister doesn’t have to crash my room to watch football games in high-definition). Both the PC and the TV are about ten feet from my entertainment system, housing my Sony Trinitron 27″ TV.

I noticed a strange phenomenon where the Sceptre would mysteriously turn on for whatever reason. I thought nothing of it until Wednesday, when I noticed that the Sceptre turned on when I turned off my Sony TV. For a few minutes, I was thinking, “WTF?”

That’s when I remembered that I had to program a Sony TV code into my universal remote in order to use it with my Sceptre TV, which explains why turning one of my TVs off turned the other one on, and vice versa. And here I thought I had ghosts in my living room!

I was going to blog about the controversy regarding the Patriots, and the fine that NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell slapped them with, but I’ll save it for tomorrow.

Happy blogging!

Tags: Food, Random, Technology by Peter
1 Comment »

Stupid, stupid me! This blog was supposed to be posted Monday night.

That’s what happens when you click “Save” instead of “Publish.” WTH is “Save” bolded, and not “Publish”?????

(:P)

Quick-hitters:

- On Sunday night, I went to Ralphs and bought some “premium” (< 20% fat) ground beef, with the intention of making some hamburgers. I usually just buy the cheapest ground beef I can find, so I was intrigued in finding out what was so “premium” about this stuff.

After grilling one up for dinner on Monday night, I figured out what is so great about premium meat. Talk about melt-in-your-mouth goodness! That was about the best burger I’ve ever cooked for myself: a ~1/3 lb. patty, slightly seasoned with kosher salt and Mrs. Dash, grilled to medium-well, topped with American cheese and fresh lettuce. It was a shame that I was too lazy to slice up some onions.

I’ve got about three more pounds of this stuff sitting in my freezer (yeah, I know…); methinks I’ll have another one later tonight.

(EDIT: Of course, that didn’t happen…read below.)

- No thanks to Hank, I decided to order myself some Papa John’s pizza last night.

(Note that this entry was added AFTER I realized that I hadn’t yet published this blog entry. Again, stupid me.)

I went with an XL Italian Meats Trio pizza, and a pepperoni thin-crust pizza. Good stuff! I also had some carrot and celery sticks with ranch dressing to compensate for the fact that my pizzas had no veggies on it. No, the tomato sauce does not count as “veggies.”

(I know, that sounds like an awful lot of pizza. Well, I can always freeze what I don’t eat. I now have about 1.5 whole pizzas sitting in my freezer.)

- Damn these Baked Lay’s are ridiculously addictive. At the rate I’m going, I’ll mow through both bags of chips I bought by the end of this week.

(Non-sports fans, you could go ahead and stop reading here.)

- So here are my thoughts of Week 1 of the NFL season:

1) Who, really, was surprised that Randy Moss had such a big game for the Patriots? Isn’t it amazing how extremely gifted players look really impressive when they try? I suppose I should go ahead and anoint the 2007 Patriots as this year’s Super Bowl champs, right? (And yeah, I just threw up in my mouth a little.)

Speaking of the Patriots, how about the Patriots getting caught videotaping Jets’ defensive coaches, trying to find signals sent out by these coaches in order to get an edge? Can we go Barry Bonds on the Patriots and start doubting the legitimacy of their three championship rings now? Who knows how much of an edge Belicheck and his players got from making these videotapes? For all we know, the Patriots might not have won a thing without cheating to this extent!

(Personally, I believe that the Patriots would still have been good enough to win a ring or two without the help of videotaping their opposition. However, isn’t it a tad suspicious that QB Tom Brady wasn’t at all in danger of being sacked during the Pats-Jets game on Sunday? Yeah, I know the Pats’ O-Line is very good and highly underrated, but can even the most die-hard of Pats’ fans say, with 100% certainty, that the Pats got no competitive advantage in the Pats-Jets game from questionable activities?)

A four-game suspension to Coach Belichick, and the forfeiture of two draft picks (a second- and fourth- rounder will do) should be a sufficient punishment for the Patriots.
2) Hey, Baltimore, how about running the ball a few times when you have first and goal inside Cincy’s five-yard line?

3) Hey, Tony Romo, didn’t you used to be Tony Romo?

Speaking of Cowboys-Giants, how great is it that the Giants, fresh off a tumultous 2006 season (and the off-season afterwards), are already screwed one week into the 2007 campaign? Brandon Jacobs is hurt, Eli Manning is hurt, and so is Osi Umenyiora.

I’ll say it’s 50-50 that coach Tom Coughlin makes it to November.

4) The Bears look bad, really bad (and not bad as in good).  Neither Bears’ RB can run the ball, Rex Grossman is still Rex Grossman, and the Bears’ D lost two starters on defense for the season.

I’ll say it’s 20-80 that the Bears’ win the NFC this year.

5) The Colts look pretty good, no?

I’ll have more thoughts later in the week.

- So I am qutting fantasy football.  I am participating in four leagues this year, and I have done something that I have never done in my fantasy sports career:  I have never started 0-1 in EVERY league I’ve participated in!

(The closest I’ve ever come was when I played in three NBA fantasy leagues, and started the season by losing in two leagues, and tying in the third league).

Freaking Peyton Manning.  Freaking LT.  Freaking Tony Romo.  Freaking Plaxico Burress.  Freaking Bears’ D!!!!!!!

Oh well, there’s always next week, right?

By the way, here are my teams for the other two leagues that I have not yet listed (* - waiver wire pickups):

Team 3:

• QB:  McNabb, Big Ben
• RB:  LT, Benson (!!!!!!), Barber III, T. Bell, Turner, C. Brown*
• WR: Harrison, Boldin, R. Curry*, D. Jackson
• TE:  Cooley
• K:  Graham
• DEF:  Baltimore

Team 4:

• QB:  V. Young, M. Hasselbeck
• RB:  R. Johnson, B. Westbrook, D. Foster, M. Turner
• WR:  L. Fitzgerald, R. Wayne, R. Curry, V. Jackson, K. Curtis
• TE:  V. Davis, D. Clark
• K:  J. Wilkins
• DEF:  Chicago

The fact that is most appalling to me is the fact that I didn’t break 75 points in any of my four leagues (74, 72, 72, 69).

I guess I should not have drafted a defense early in every league I participated in

Happy blogging!

Tags: Fantasy, Sports by Peter
3 Comments »

Yeah, I know, I haven’t blogged in forever.

me <– slacker

I’ve got so much to talk about, I’m going to split this blog into (at least) two parts.  Today’s entry, unofficially sponsored by Baked Lay’s potato chips, will be completely sports-free!

Quick-hitters:

- Don’t you hate it when you talk to someone about a product, then go to the store later, see the product on the shelf, and have to buy some of it?

An unnamed individual asked me about which flavors of Sobe I enjoy–Orange Carrot, Energy, and Tropical something-or-another, thank you very much.  I dropped by the store later today, and, of course, they were on sale ($1/bottle), and I had to get one of each.

Stupid unnamed person

Oh yeah, at the supermarket, I somehow willed myself to pass up on a box of powdered donuts!  The same couldn’t be said for the bag of Baked Lay’s, beef jerky, Gatorade, and Club crackers that I saw.

(At this point, I should mention that my sisters are going on a cruise this week, meaning I will be home alone.  Take lots of pictures!)

- Where the hell did summer go?  Last week, it was ridiculously hot, and this week, it’s been ridiculously cold!  Dammit, I want the heat back!

(Yes, I know, I am impossible to please.)

- I cannot believe that I have never heard this song before.  Damn that was funny.

- My current rebate-o-meter is at a cool $2,500.  Something tells me that this figure will hit $3,000 by the end of September.

(Note:  I typed this before discovering $300 in rebate checks in my mail box from Saturday.  I was in MPK for the weekend…more on that later.)

I think I am way past being “addicted” to hot deals.

BTW, I think I’m completely addicted to CVS’ hot deals.  I know have ten sticks of deodorant, and six tubes of toothpaste.  Combine that with the twelve bottles of body wash, and I better start taking three showers and brushing my teeth six times a day.

- So I have been a customer of Bank of America for about three weeks now, and as soon as I get my $100 bonus for opening up a BofA checking account, I’m going to kick them far beyond the curb.  Maybe I’m overreacting; you be the judge.

I opened the account online, and funded the account via a direct transfer from my ING Orange Savings account.   BofA took my money rather quickly, as I waited for correspondence from them to come in the mail (ATM card, welcome kit, PIN, etc.)

A few days later, I got a package from BofA, which included brochures and a signature card that I had to sign and return.  I did so, and waited a few days for additional mail.

And a few more.

And a few more.

Nearly two weeks had passed, and I saw nothing else (which I mentioned here).  I’ll just copy and paste what I had already wrote there:

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!

Well, the old ATM card magically showed up the next day.  I tried calling BofA “support” to see what I should do with this new card.  On my first calling attempt, it took a whopping 1:20 for BofA’s machine to answer the call!  WTF???   Once the machine answered, it kept asking me for my bank account number (you know, the account number that I did not have!).  Frustrated, I kept pounding 0, #, and some other keys, to see if I could reach an operator.  Nothing worked, so I went with my tried and true method of screaming “Get me to a f**king operator!”

Yeah, it worked

Of course, when I got to the operator, and began talking to her, the CSR told me that she could not hear me at all.  She, Speedy Gonzalez-like, quickly gave me a number to call back, and hung up, before I even had a chance to think about picking up a pen and paper to jot the number down.

I found out that hitting 00 was the key to getting to an operator, so I used my cell phone, called back, and hit 00.  After the “you’ll be transferred to an operator” message played, I waited on hold for all of a few seconds.  Then I heard another recording:  “Your call cannot be completed at this time.  Goodbye.”

At this point, I was going to throw my laptop through a wall.  Granted, this may not necessarily have been BofA’s fault, but that’s not the point.

Totally frustrated, I called back, dialed 00, and connected with a live operator.  He immediately asked me for my checking account number, and I explained that I just needed to ask him about my ATM card.  He explained that I should wait for the second one, and asked if I had any other questions.  I then mentioned that I was never sent my online login ID to access internet banking.

Guess what the CSR asked me for?  If you said “the checking account number that you did not have,” pat yourself on the back.  I had to hang up on the guy, and decided to just wait for the new ATM card to arrive.

A couple days later, the replacement card showed up.  I attempted to activate it, using the phone number on the sticker on the front of the card.  When it got to verifying the last four digits of my SSN, it didn’t work!  At this point, I was fearful of identity theft, or some other royal screwup.  I got ahold of a live operator, who was able to manually activate my card.   I then asked again about my internet banking online ID, and the rep was able to give me the ID pretty quickly.  I also asked about not yet receiving my PIN; the rep told me to go to my nearest branch to set one up, since I never received my original PIN in the mail.

I went to the branch the next day, waited a few minutes, then set up my PIN.  When I was done, the woman that was helping me out said “Good luck!”  I replied, “Too little, too late,” and walked off.

Nicely done, BofA.

- Quick-hitters, a customer service (or lack thereof) edition:

• Screw you, Consumer Depot, for sending me a DOA Guitar Hero controller.  It’s going to cost me $40 just to ship back the damn paperweight!  Good thing I only spent $25 on the controller; I hope the one I ordered from Shop4Tech works.
• Screw you, Web-rebates.com, for BSing a bunch of rebate rejections, not responding to my customer service request emails, and dragging your feet weeks after I sent you my resubmissions.  Parago thinks you guys stink.
• Screw you, Fedex delivery person.  How many times do I have to kindly ask you to NOT leave packages at my front door?  Yes, I understand that these packages were sent w/o requiring a signature.  However, is it really that hard to go to my neighbor and ask her to accept my package, instead of leaving it on my doorstep?  More on this later.
• Screw you, Time Warner.  No, no reason in particular for this rant.

Ok, I’m going to end this blog entry on a positive note.  While in MPK this past weekend, FedEx dropped off a package at my front door on Saturday morning.

(Tangent:  Unlike UPS, FedEx Home Delivery does ship on Saturdays, but only if the package is in the local hub by Saturday morning.)

I was completely unaware of this delivery attempt, until I got back home late last night.  I noticed a note on my front door from my neighbor, saying that she accepted a package on my behalf.  I went to knock on her door, but there was no response.

I returned about an hour later, and she finally answered.  Before I had a chance to say anything, she took a few steps backwards, grabbed a box sitting on a shelf, and handed it to me.  I asked her if the delivery person had asked her to sign for the package, and she told me that she heard the driver knock on my door once, say “Fed-Ex!,” leave the package on my door step, and walk off, all in a span of a few seconds!  My neighbor, realizing that a package left at my front door was just asking to be stolen, went ahead and took the package off my front door, holding on to it until I returned.

(Tangent:  I have an agreement with my neighbor and my UPS guy, where he is to leave packages for me with my neighbor if I’m not home, and vice versa.  As I stated before, my Fedex guy doesn’t care to listen to my requests.  Yeah, I realize this incident involved a different driver, but she acted the same way my normal delivery guy would act; a quick knock, followed by a hasty exit.  This is why I tip my UPS guy with drinks, and I don’t bother even acknowledging the presence of my FedEx guy.  Don’t even get me started with DHL…)

I thanked her profusely, and then asked her to trade phone numbers, just in case we needed to get in contact with each other in the future.  As I got ready to head on out, I noticed her little daughter started following me.

(Heh…)

I am going to hate the day my neighbor moves out on me.

Happy blogging!

Tags: Cust. Service, Deals, Random by Peter
6 Comments »