UngsungBlog: A (Fantasy) Sports Blog

I’ll hold off the (fantasy) football thoughts for another day…

Quick-hitters:

- Has anyone seen Hank lately?   How am I supposed to go on with my life without getting some recipe ideas from him???

Five bucks says he’s suffering from a serious bout of indigestion from Thanksgiving dinner :P.

- There are now ten shipping boxes sitting in my living room.  My poor scanner is going to get one hell of a workout in the next few days.

My Wii shall be delivered tomorrow.  I still haven’t decided whether or not I was going to keep it.

- Normally, stories like this cause me to go on five-minute rants, obliterating everything and everyone involved (remember that girl on Craigslist who wanted a sugar daddy?).  However, this story is just so over the top that I have absolutely nothing to say about it.

- What a horrible last few days in the sports world.  First, Toronto Blue Jays’ pitcher Joe Kennedy passed away, one day after Thanksgiving (and on the day he was supposed to be a best man at a wedding).  Second, we had the shooting death of Washington Redskins’ defensive back Sean Taylor, after what appears to be a fatal robbery attempt.  Now, we have this story of a Cleveland Indians’ reliever who has a spinal fracture and brain trauma after his SUV got hit by a motorcycle.

Stories like these kinda make issues like PatriotGate, steroids, and gambling referees seem awfully trivial, don’t they?

Prayers go out to the families affected by all these tragedies.

- By now, my loyal readers should know how much I absolutely love loathe Citibank.

(Remember this?)

Well, I made quite a stupid mistake when paying my Citibank PremierPass bill that month.  Apparently, I had used a bank account that was zeroed out to make a payment.

(Background:  My bill-pay checking account of choice was my Netbank account, until I received a letter in the mail from INGDirect–they bought out Netbank recently–saying that my checking account would be closed and converted to an Orange Savings account on December 7th.  I decided then to stop using the Netbank account altogether, but I forgot to unregister that checking account with Citibank.  Whoops.)

Unfortunately for me, I caught my mistake a day too late, and I could not cancel it.  I knew I was going to get hit with an NSF fee from Netbank, and I was fully aware that I still had to make a payment on the account.  I registered my Washington Mutual checking account with Citibank, and attempted to make the same payment.  Unfortunately, since the payment amount was greater than the current balance (at this time, the first payment I attempted did not bounce yet), I could not make the payment online.  I decided to mail in a check.

Before I mailed the check, though, I contacted Citibank to let them know that the original payment was going to bounce.  I spoke to a nice woman that explained that the payment would be electronically submitted twice, and it would get rejected after the second failed attempt.  She then told me that she would make a note on my account to not attempt to debit my Netbank account a second time.

Two days later, I got notified by Netbank that my checking account was hit with two NSF fees.  Obviously Citibank attempted the second debit, despite the rep telling me that she would prevent this from happening.  I called Citibank, got an Indian guy, and the rest caused me to bang my head on my desk for about an hour.

(I’m paraphrasing here…please try to follow along)

Me:  [blah blah…two NSFs…you were supposed to stop the second one…blah blah]

CS:  There is no notation on your account that says otherwise.

Me:  Well there was supposed to be.

CS:  [tough crap].

Me:  No thanks to you guys, I now have to eat two NSF fees.

CS:  [cry me a river]

Me:  Ok, fine.  So when can I expect [the original payment] to bounce back, so that I could make another payment using another checking account?

CS:  Sir, why would the payment bounce?

Me:  [WTF???  Didn’t I already explain that the payment was made on an account with a zero balance?]

CS:  Sir, the payment has already gone through, and has been credited to your account.  It is not going to get rejected!

Me:  [How did you get this job?]   Of course it is!  It’s going to NSF eventually!

CS:  (repeating what he said before)

Me:  (realizing that this guy is an absolute moron) Ok fine.  Can you give me your payment address so that I can mail in a check to cover the initial payment that you insist will not bounce?

CS:  [gives me the address]

Me:  Are you sure there is nothing you can do about the extra NSF fee that I should not have incurred?

CS:  Sure, you can write a letter to this address (gives me another address), and they’ll credit your account.

Me:  That’s all I have to do?

CS:  (pause) You can try writing to them, and maybe they’ll take off the fee.

Me:  You just told me that they will…and now you’re telling me that they might?

CS:  Write a letter to them, and maybe they will take off the fee.

Me:  #()$*)($*!)($*!))(*(!$!()$!!!!

I called Netbank soon after, explained what happened, and the rep was willing to remove one NSF fee (which is all I was asking for!).  The credit appeared on my account an hour later.

I love Citibank…as long as I don’t have to speak to their customer service.

Until next time!

by Peter
1 Comment »

I know, I know; just when I was on a roll, I stopped blogging for nearly an entire week.

I blame it on all the tryptophan I ingested this weekend.

No quick-hitters today…

- Thanksgiving dinner consisted of fresh cranberry sauce, made with 1 bag fresh cranberries simmered in a syrup made with 1 cup water and 3/4 cup sugar; green bean casserole—’tis a shame we didn’t have fresh green beans—mashed potatoes with gravy; cornbread stuffing; broccoli and cheese; Grands biscuits; a Honeybaked ham; and a deep-fried, jalapeño-injected turkey.

(If you’ve never had deep-fried turkey before, you are missing out.)

Needless to say, we had leftovers until Saturday. In fact, we had so much turkey left over that I was able to make turkey soup using the leftover turkey. I made stock using the turkey bones, peeled the remaining meat into small strips, chopped up some potatoes, carrots, and celery, and threw everything into a pot to simmer for about an hour (naturally, I added Kosher salt and pepper). Not half bad!

On Sunday, my dad added to the gluttony by deciding to cook steak for dinner. Unfortunately, I was unable to stop him from turning my portion into shoe leather, but copious amounts of lemon juice and pepper made the meat somewhat edible. Mashed potatoes and a salad topped off that meal, and I can safely say that I gained five pounds over the weekend :P.

- Prior to the start of last week, I told myself that I would not go overboard on Black Friday (BF) shopping. I had a number of good reasons why:

1. I’m poor.
2. I didn’t need anything.
3. I didn’t want to overwork my UPS guy.
4. See #1

My plan worked…until Tuesday morning, when the pre-BF sales came out. I bought a ton of FAR software and some laptop RAM from Frys.com, and some laptop mice from Quill.com. At that point, I decided that I was completely done with my BF shopping.

Things looked good…until early Thursday morning, when an individual who shall remain nameless began feeding me deal after deal after deal (*shakes fist at said person*). The next thing I knew, I had placed four five orders at Amazon.com, three four at Frys.com, one at Circuitcity.com, and two at Officedepot.com.

So what did my haul look like? Off the top of my head…

• An Uninterruptable Power Supply (UPS) from Office Depot for ~$15 AR.
• Tons of FAR software, including Kaspersky Internet Security 7.0 (bought twice, in fact) and Kaspersky Anti-Virus 7.0 from Amazon.
• 2GB of DDR2 SODIMM (laptop) RAM from Fry’s for $15 AR.
• A Logitech QuickCam Communicate Deluxe from Amazon for better than FAR.
• An EVGA GeForce 6200LE PCI-E 256MB video card from Fry’s for FAR.
• A Sony DVD/VCR combo for my mom from Fry’s.
• A 2GB Sandisk SD Card from Circuit City for ~$10AR.
• Microsoft Office 2004 for Mac Student And Teacher edition for $25 AR.

Oh yeah…there was one other little thing I got from Amazon.com.

• A Nintendo Wii.

Now to decide whether I am going to keep it, or sell it. Anyone wanna contribute to my “Get Peter a Wii fund”?

I had one other topic to blog about, but I’ll save it for tomorrow. Until then…

by Peter
No Comments »

Can you believe it? Blog entries in consecutive days???

Quick-hitters:

- The Dale and Thomas Toffee and Walnut popcorn flavor was most excellent. I’ve now found my second-most favorite Dale and Thomas flavor.

- Current rebate-o-meter: still around $2,500, but rising (and after Black Friday, don’t be surprised if that total reaches $3k again).

- With Black Friday around the corner, here is my current Black Friday-o-meter: $175.

- So I’m sure my loyal readers–all none of you–know how much I hate stupid, annoying commercials. Boy, have there been some doozies polluting my television experience lately:

• There’s this Tonka (?) ad that declares that “Boys are built different, and Tonka’s got the blueprint.” Never mind the apparent gender discrimination here (girls can’t play with trucks, trains, etc.?); I think Tonka meant to say that “Boys are built differently.”

(Tangent: Don’t get me wrong; by no means am I a grammar Nazi. However, if you’re going to air a nationwide advertising campaign, is it that much to ask for a simple grammar check?)

• I thought the Apple v PC ads were gone forever. Then I saw this commercial. Then I saw this one. Yeah, as if watching these commercials really make me want to buy a Mac!
• Has anyone seen this McDonalds’ commercial where a kid is snacking on apple slices to the tune of music? W T F? After seeing that commercial for the first time, I think I was clinically dead for a few minutes. All I remember is that it was light outside before the commercial started, and it was dark the next time I looked outside.

I can’t believe I am actually missing John Mellencamp commercials.

- Here are my Week 11 (Fantasy) Football Thoughts:

• I’m 6-5 in the BargainShare league, riding a three-game winning (read: lucky) streak, and I’m tied for first. Three weeks left, and I face division opponents in each of the final three weeks. A 2-1 record in those three weeks might be good enough for me to make the playoffs. I’m 4-7 (ugh) in my second league, 3-8 (last place, baby!) in the LT league, and 5-7 in my other league (all losses). I really hate fantasy football.
• The Patriots are the greatest team ever! At least, that’s what I’ve been told. 10*-0 now, and six more to perfection.

(Tangent: That was quite the interesting theory offered by Andrew Siciliano, guest-hosting on the Jim Rome Show today. He suggested that the Pats will go 15-0, only to play to lose in Week 17, screwing the NFL over on potential revenues earned from the Patriots going undefeated in the regular season. Very interesting, but I can’t see it happening.)

• The false ending of that Browns-Ravens game was something, wasn’t it? And how is a field goal attempt, at the end of a game, NOT a reviewable play? Nice job by the ref, by the way, insisting that after “consulting” with the other officials, he declared the FG good! And Brian Billick needs to be fired RIGHT NOW. He could have run out the clock before Matt Stover’s would-be game winner, but went incomplete-incomplete right before the attempt. And why keep kicking to Browns’ KR Joshua Cribbs?
• Cincinnati, Carolina, and New Orleans really stink. At least Carolina has a good excuse (injuries). San Diego stinks too.
• Indy sure misses Marvin Harrison, don’t they?
• Miami gave me a scare this past week. They almost won! And now I’m hearing that Miami’s next opponent–Pittsburgh–is dealing with some big injuries too. Nooooooooo! The only thing that might offset a Pats’ perfect season is a Dolphins’ “perfect” season!
• Speaking of Pittsburgh, how the heck did they lose to the J-E-T-S?

- As soon as the UCLA Bruins Men’s Basketball team got ousted by Florida last year, I was looking forward to this year’s version of the team, with Lake Oswego’s Kevin Love patrolling the paint. After watching Mr. Love on consecutive days (Monday and Tuesday on one of the ESPNs), I can’t help but be positively giddy at the Bruins’ chances of making it to a third consecutive Final Four this year. Yeah, the Bruins’ come-from-behind win over Michigan State today was UG-LY, but I don’t think the Bruins could win shootout games.

By the way, it appears that Love won’t get a foul call unless he’s bleeding.  Oh wait; he was bleeding at one point the first half, and he still couldn’t get a call (that’s not to imply that there should be been a whistle on that particular play)!

So when will teams employ the “Hack-a-Love”?

If I don’t post again between now and Thursday, Happy Thanksgiving!

by Peter
1 Comment »

Shhhhhhh…

Sorry, no quick-hitters today.

- In the last week or so, I’ve purchased about $100 (MSRP) of snacks online.

(I know, I’m crazy.)

So what did I buy?  Four pounds of pistachios, a ton of Boston Baked Beans, some Planters peanuts, and a Dale and Thomas 6-pack sampler.

The stuff at Amazon.com was heavily discounted by a $25 off $59 coupon and a $25 Gift Certificate that I bought from my Chase Amazon card, and I’m already sick of most of that stuff.  The Dale and Thomas popcorn, on the other hand…

I got the “Chef Ed’s sampler” pack for $8 after a $20GC and free shipping.  In order of which bags I have opened:

• The White Cheddar and Black Peppercorn was pretty disappointing.  The popcorn was stale and relatively flavorless.
• The Sweet Georgia Pecan was amazing, though extremely sweet.  Think of it as high-class Cracker Jack.  Awesome in moderation :P.
• The Country Smokehouse Cheddar was crazy good!  If I ever order from these guys again, I’m definitely getting this stuff.  It tasted NOTHING like regular cheddar popcorn.
• The Hall of Fame Kettle corn was about as good as fair-quality Kettle corn (not freshly popped stuff, of course).  Not bad.

I have yet to open the other two bags.
- Actual conversation between myself and a Citibank customer service representative:

(Background:  I purchased about $1,500 worth of stuff on my Citibank PremierPass card last month, and returned about $600 worth of stuff.  Unfortunately, the return was processed after my statement date, so I inquired about how much I had to pay in order to avoid finance charges.  I was pretty sure that I only had to pay the remaining ~$900, but I was not 100% sure, and was not willing to pay any finance charges, no matter how minute the amount would have been.)

Me:  Hi.  I am calling to inquire about how much would I have to pay on my card this month to avoid paying any finance charges.

Rep:  (after some typing) Sir, you have to pay [the entire closing balance].

Me:  OK, well I had a credit for one of my purchases that closed last statement for ~$600.  If I paid the difference between the statement balance and that refund, would that be enough to avoid any finance charges?

Rep:  Sir, if you want, you can combine those two payments.

Me:  (puzzled) OK, I’m not sure if that answers my question.  [At this point, I asked again if paying the difference would be enough to avoid the finance charges.]

Rep:  Yes sir, you can combine the two payments.

Me:  (agitated) BUT WILL I AVOID ANY FINANCE CHARGES IF I DO THIS?

Rep:  *click*

Fun, no?

- I’m sure my loyal readers know of my hatred towards Symantec rebates.  Well, apparently I now have two more reasons to hate these guys.

1)  According to my rebate spreadsheet, I have submitted somewhere in the vicinity of forty Symantec rebates in the past few months.  Of those, more than half have been rejected for bogus reasons!

2)  Symantec “upgrade” rebates (where you are to include proof of previous ownership of either an older version of the software or a competitor’s software product) are now getting more scammy.  As most of you know, most rebates are limit one per person/household.  With Parago’s rebates, there were two ways to determine whether or not you have already done a rebate offer:  you could check the seven-digit offer ID–in the form of 0x-xxxxx–or you could check the valid promotion dates.  An example of the latter situation would be as follows:  you bought something last week that came with a $20 upgrader’s rebate, and you knew that that rebate was good from 11/11-11/17.  You see the same deal again this week, with a $20 upgrader’s rebate, good from 11/18-11/24, and you know that you’ll qualify for this rebate as well.

This year, Symantec has kept the offer numbers the same, while simply changing the promo dates on a consistent basis!  In the past, Symantec would have a single upgrader’s rebate valid for an entire year or so; this year, they have issued several different rebate forms for a given product, all with different dates but the same promo code!

I can’t think of a good reason why a rebate processor would do this…well…except for the purpose of scamming customers, maybe?

Until next time!

by Peter
1 Comment »

Wow! It’s been over a week since my last blog entry?

Lemme make this one a quickie (well, as quick as possible).

Quick-hitters:

- I hate being sick. I hate people. I’m not sure which one I hate more.

- Seriously, how hard is it to change seven digits? The damn HOA that runs my apartment complex, apparently, cannot figure out how to do such a seemingly easy task. It’s been two weeks since I’ve requested that my front-gate intercom # be changed to a new phone number, and they haven’t done anything about it yet! Two weeks! That’s 2 days per digit!!!!!

AHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!

- Current rebate-o-meter: ~$2800, although it appears that I’m going to be jerked around for about $150 of that rebate money.

’tis the rebate game, after all…

- Given that this week’s Office episode might be the last episode for a while (thanks to the WGA strike), I wasn’t really looking forward to tonight’s episode.

That being said, tonight’s episode was great! It had a little bit of Jim/Pam (boy does Jim suck at ping-pong!), psycho Kelly (and I’ll admit that the Kelly character is growing on me, in a fingernails-on-the-chalkboard kind of way), and most importantly, it had the pathetic, let’s-feel-sorry-for-him Michael Scott! Poor Michael; he must have felt like he got stabbed in the back after finding out that Jan gave him a less than exemplary, albeit warranted, performance review! Despite that, I was REALLY surprised that Michael didn’t agree that Dunder-Mifflin “exhibits a pattern of disrespect towards its employees,” especially after hearing David Wallace’s deposition. Not to mention, isn’t Michael always whining about his superiors–first Jan, and now Ryan? Obviously this revelation is going to scar Michael’s relationship with Jan…or will it?

(I also wonder how long it’s going to take for Michael to realize that he blew a chance at a share of $4 million.)

By the way, I don’t know a single guy that keeps a freaking diary. I was half-expecting to see one of those tiny locks on the front cover. And when I saw Michael actually decide to sit with Toby for lunch, I was suckered into believing that he would actually be nice to Toby for a change (yeah, right!).

I loved the Kelly/Darryl and Jim/Pam scenes, and I especially loved Kelly’s smack-talking. That stand-off between Pam and Kelly at the door of the women’s bathroom was one heck of an awkward moment! At the end of the episode, though, I was hoping for Pam to slug Kelly right in the face, prompting an all-out-brawl. You could imagine my disappointment when they started playing ping-pong instead.
(I assure you that I say this not as a chauvinistic pig who wouldn’t mind watching two women clawing each other’s eyes out. I swear this on a grilled porterhouse! :P)

Favorite moments:

• Ryan demanding that Michael answer the call from a very important non-existent client.
• Pam: “I bring him juice…My boyfriend is svelte.” (LOL!)
• Jim convincing Dwight to play ping-pong by suggesting that the client challenged Jim to a ping-pong match.
• The diary entry: “…tan all over…Jan all over…he he”
• Jan: “I stole your diary and gave it to my lawyer. You e-mailed a topless photo of me to everyone in our company. Let’s call it even” followed by the awkward exchange of “I love you”s.
• “Who is this other woman…Ryan…who you refer to here as ‘Just as hot as Jan, but in a different way” (*gag*), followed by Toby’s girlish laugh.
• Dwight: “Wait a minute…Darryl is the client? He works here, dumbass!” (:P)
• Michael: You expect to get screwed by your company, but you never expect to get screwed by your girlfriend.”

Dwight and Mose’s ping-pong rally at the end of the episode was pretty awesome as well.

Now, to go cry a little over the fact that there will be no more Office episodes for the foreseeable future.

- Here are (very quickly) my Week 10 (Fantasy) Football thoughts.

1) I’m 5-5 in the BargainShare fantasy football league (tied for first…and last :P), and just plain pathetic in the other leagues (4-6, 3-7 in the LT league, and somehow 5-5).

In the BargainShare league, I started Justin Fargas (he of eight fantasy points) and Travis Henry (he of DNP). On my bench? Selwyn Young (18 pts) and Ryan Grant (19 pts). Fortunately I didn’t need either of them.

I hate Fantasy Football.

2) The Pats are the most awesome-est team EVAR! They are so super cool! They’re not going to lose a game for twenty years!

(I just put that little blurb up there to appease Boston myopics; if I didn’t, Pats’ fans might accuse me of disrespecting their team).

By the way, Pats’ fans, I love how you guys are whining that the Colts are going to make excuses now that DE Dwight Freeney is out for the season. I can’t wait to see how myopic you guys are going to act when the Celtics begin their playoff run.

3) You know your football team is sad when you are pissed that they got their first win of the season.

Stupid Rams! Go 0-16! Get the #1 pick next year!

Oh well, hopefully Miami continues their run towards history :P.

4) What was more depressing to watch last weekend? San Francisco’s “offense” or Peyton Manning throwing six picks?

Who am I kidding? San Francisco by ten miles!

5) Donovan McNabb? HUGE game!

What does this mean for fantasy owners? People will start him next week, and he’ll probably lay an egg.

Until next time (whenever that is)!

by Peter
1 Comment »

Apologies for not blogging in so long. Things have come up, I’ve been sick, yada yada yada.

On with it.

Quick-hitters:

- Am I the only one that hates to cash checks that have those cool security features on them (inks that disappear when you apply heat to them, e.g.)?

Yes, I’m easily amused.

- Speaking of checks…current rebate-o-meter: $2700. Unfortunately, that does not include the $400 or so in rebates I have yet to file.

Sigh…

- I hate adjusting to Daylight Savings changes. I’ve been waking up an hour earlier than usual for the last three days, and for some reason, I am still sleeping at the same time as usual.

Maybe I need a sleep aid, if you know what I mean.

- I never did get a chance to finish my spanakopita (it went bad).

I think it is time to make some more.

(There’s nothing wrong with cooking at 11:30PM, right?)

- Here are my quick “Game of the Century” (Patriots @ Colts) thoughts:

• This game was, in a number of ways, the reverse of the ‘06 AFC Championship Game. The Pats wore the Colts’ D out, and rallied to win late in the fourth quarter. BTW, if the Pats finish this season, they better send the Dolphins a gift basket for getting Wes Welker from them for some seashells.
• I wasn’t at all upset that the Pats won the game…until that one Patriots defender spiked the ball on the Colts’ midfield logo, followed by Bill Belicheck’s non-handshake with Tony Dungy. Way to be classy, guys.

(Now I’m not one to wish injury on people *whistles*, but if the Patriots continue to act like classless jerks, and one of their key players happens to get injured on a dirty play, don’t expect me to feel bad for them.)

• One must wonder what the outcome of the game would have been if Marvin Harrison were healthy and Anthony Gonzalez didn’t leave the game with an injury…

By the way, idiots like me are allowed to paste an asterisk on the Patriots’ season. Legends like Don Shula, on the other hand, need to show a bit of restraint. For those of you that haven’t yet heard, Shula thinks that a Patriots’ unbeaten season deserves an asterisk because of the whole Spygate scandal. It doesn’t help that Shula happens to be the coach of the last NFL team to go undefeated. Shula is a Hall of Famer, but that doesn’t give him a right to whine about being joined in the record books by an alleged cheat.

(One might argue that a 19-0 Patriots record would be more impressive than the Dolphins’ 17-0 mark, due to the extra two games and the parity in today’s NFL.)

Hopefully, if New England loses a game, the living members of that undefeated Dolphins’ team don’t party too hard. By the way, I wonder if they’re worried that the 2007 Dolphins might go 0-16 this season.

- This won’t be a thorough review of today’s Office episode, as I don’t really feel like spending too much time on it.

That being said, I really enjoyed today’s episode. Watching Jim totally fail at replacing Michael for the day was awesome, and poor Jim for being called Michael by Phyllis! I LOL’d when they showed Jim’s talking head while in Michael’s office! At least Jim tried to be not-Michael when he insisted on resolving his birthday party idea outside of the conference room (though I would have loved to see how THAT would have worked out!).

And who didn’t see Jim’s genius idea of one big birthday party blowing up in his face? Speaking of Jim, you could see it in everyone’s faces–even Pam–that his idea wasn’t going to work out at all.

I was hoping Michael was going to use some fake British accent and go with Bear Grylls (Man v. Wild) instead of Survivorman, but Michael was still awesome in this episode. I wonder how much Rainn Wilson enjoyed whacking Steve Carell with his shoe :P. Same goes with Dwight having to run down to Michael to stop him from eating those mushrooms.
The end-of-episode scene was great, and showed how important (believe it or not) Michael is to running the Scranton office. I thoroughly enjoyed watching Jim acting like Michael while trying to run the office for the day. Is he the second coming of Michael Scott? *shudder*

Favorite moments (a brief overview):

• Michael suggesting that something was wrong with a bunch of guys hanging out in tents, making S’Mores, and then suggesting that people should go camping alone…or with another person.
• Dwight: “Don’t worry…the safety is (pause) *click* on.” (LOL!!!!)
• Toby explaining to Jim that Michael “threw” a party for him on a Friday at 4:58pm.
• Jim being scarred for life after Phyllis called him Michael (could he sue for that?).

By the way, am I the only one seriously sweating the fact that The Office may be coming to a premature end–for this season, at least–because of the writers’ strike?

*cry*

That’s all I’ve got for today.

by Peter
No Comments »

Ugh, I ate some really horrible Mexican food for dinner tonight, and now I feel really sick.

(Tangent: Tums Sugar Free is NAS-TY! I’d almost rather have the aches than have to chew and swallow these things. Maybe if I chased them down with some juice or milk next time…)

- After reading Krunk’s blog last week on Spanakopita, I decided to try to make the dish myself, using the recipe found on Wikipedia.

I actually never got around to cooking it until Thursday night :P.

I mixed together all of the ingredients, save the eggs, and sampled the spinach mix. O M F G. I could have eaten the filling by itself! I had to restrain myself from snacking on the filling as I layered two glass baking dishes with the phyllo dough.

(Tip: If you’re using phyllo dough, either get someone to help you, to speed up the process, or lay a wet cheesecloth on top of the unused portion of your dough. Otherwise, you’ll end up with hardened, tough-to-peel pieces of phyllo at the end of the preparation. Fortunately for me, only the last couple of pieces got stuck together.)

An hour of baking later, and my spanakopita dish was done! One bite into the dish, and I could have died happy on the spot :P. I think I overdid it on the fresh dill and the parsley, and I might have used too much salt, but I didn’t care. The phyllo dough was perfectly flaky, and the Mediterranean-seasoned feta cheese–Trader Joe’s didn’t have any regular feta cheese, so I went with what they had–was awesome.

I have pics (just for you, Hank), but I’m too lazy/sick to grab them off my camera at the moment. Trust me when I say that the pics I had won’t do the dish justice. I’ve got so much left over, in fact, that I could probably freeze a whole baking dish’s worth.

EDIT: Here’s a side pic of one of the slices (never mind the hideousness of the way the crust looks; this batch was from the latter sheets of phyllo dough, where they became impossibly difficult to work with. Besides, taste matters to me far more than presentation!)

Next time, I’m going to have to try wrapping them individually, like the way Krunk bought them.

- Presenting UBMe #4, aka “A CompUSA Dilemma.” Readers may want to read about my history with CompUSA before offering an opinion on today’s UBMe topic.

A week ago, you ordered a refurbished Targus Universal laptop charger from CompUSA (it was quite cheap). At about 8:30pm Thursday night, you were surprised by a knock on your door; it was Fedex with the charger!

(I don’t recall ever getting a delivery THAT late!)

You open up the box, plug in the charger, and was dismayed when you realized that the charger wasn’t compatible with your Dell laptop, despite the item description saying that it was compatible with “most” Dell laptops. You found the part you needed to get the charger to work with your laptop directly from Targus, making your cheap laptop charger a slightly more expensive, but still cheaper-than-OEM charger.

Fast forward to today…you opened your front door this morning, to find a package left in front of it. Puzzled, you picked it up, and noticed that it was from CompUSA. Certain that you didn’t order anything else from CompUSA, you noticed a sticker on the side of the box: it was another laptop charger!

You knew immediately that the right thing to do was to call CompUSA and let them know that you received a second item, even though you only ordered one. That’s when you recalled all the crap you’ve gone through with CompUSA; they’re not called “CrapUSA,” “CompUSSR,” “CrapUSSR,” et al., for nothing, right?

UBMe! Do you do the right thing and get in touch with CompUSA, telling them of their mistake? Hey, maybe they’ll tell you to keep the item anyway! Or, do you say “screw CompUSA” and keep the item, justifying your decision by the fact that the item was only ~$20?

I haven’t yet decided what my decision is going to be.

- Apologies for not having a thorough review of last week’s Office episode. I loved Michael’s version of the Dunder-Mifflin commercial, though, much more than the one Dunder Mifflin went ahead and used! Easily the best line of the episode was this insight into Michael’s creativity (quote borrowed from TV.com):

Michael: (To camera) Alright, let me ask you this: how many of you think this is creative? When I was five, I imagined there was such a thing as a unicorn. And this is before I had even heard of one, or seen one. I just drew a picture of a horse that could fly over rainbows, and a huge spike on his head. I was five… FIVE years old. Couldn’t even talk yet.

LOL!

As for last Thursday’s episode, I’m still not 100% sure what I think about this episode. Sure, there were tons of funny moments (the scene where Jim and Dwight wheel the copier down the hallway, causing hilarity to ensue, was so over-the-top ridiculous that it was funny), but I thought the episode was quite disjointed; it was literally all over the place. It appeared like the episode was going out of its way to crack as many jokes as possible, without giving us viewers any actual substance.

Mike’s “kidnapping” of Jim, for instance, was clearly a case of the writers trying to get laughs (and it only served to piss me off). The same goes with Dwight tossing Jim’s phone out of the window. At that point, any normal person would have quit his job on the spot, right? I was also not amused to hear of Michael and Dwight’s plans for the Utica office. Was it just me, or were those Molotov cocktails? Seriously, Michael and Dwight could be idiotically funny without committing near-crimes, right (see my review on “Launch Party”)? We need more of the pathetic, idiotic Michael that we could sympathize with, and less of the over the top, outrageous, and–dare I say–criminal Michael that we saw in this episode. I was again ready to change the channel at this point, and I don’t remember ever saying that TWICE in the same season of The Office, much less twice in six episodes.

As far as Jim and Pam are concerned, it’s pretty clear that their relationship is going to hit a rocky patch, and I’m interested to see how the writers are going to proceed. The seeds of doubt were firmly planted in last week’s episode; did you notice how uncomfortable Jim was when he showed Pam “Philly Jim?” Also, was it just me, or was Pam not thrilled with Jim interrupting her work on the commercial? Are we closing in on an imminent meltdown? Furthermore, I thought it was very interesting that the end-of-episode skit, which generally offers nothing of substance to the episode, showed Jim clearly unable to fit in with “The Finer Things Club.” And how much Pam find out about what happened in Utica? Maybe she was told about Jim and Karen’s conversation? As for Karen, I thought she played her role perfectly in this episode. I really hated the “if you wanted to see me, you could have just called” line, but you would have expected Karen to be pissed about seeing Jim again.

All in all, the second-half of the episode was great for the quick laughs, but I wasn’t too impressed with the episode as a whole.

My favorite moments:

• Karen: (on becoming Utica’s Regional Manager) “Turns out it’s a pretty easy gig when your boss isn’t an idiot and your boyfriend’s not in love with somebody else.”
• Oscar: “Besides the having sex with men, I would say ‘The Finer Things Club’ is the gayest thing about me.”
• Utica’s best salesman (to Michael): “Aren’t you the guy that hit the woman with your car?” (Did anyone catch Pam’s laugh, Michael’s whispering of “Get out!,” and the fact that Meredith was walking past them in the background?)
• Michael (to Toby): “Oh. My. God. That’s why people are leaving! I have no words…” (poor Toby!)
• Dwight: “I think I cut my penis on the lid.” (Ewwwww…)
• Kevin and Phyllis’ interrupting of “The Finer Things Club” (that was LMFAOPMP funny, I must admit). I wonder how many takes it took to complete that scene.
• Dwight: “I have to do something to his eyes,” followed by “The eyes are the groin of the head.”
• Michael: “Jim…if this is it for me, promise me something. Host the Dundees,” followed by “Do not tell Karen about the industrial copier.”

And I LOLed when Stanley revealed that Michael had “called his bluff.”

Until next time!

by Peter
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