UngsungBlog: A (Fantasy) Sports Blog

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What Have I Been Up To Lately?

(Warning: Today’s blog entry may run a tad long.)

I’m such a slacker :P.

I hope everyone enjoyed their Christmas and New Year’s. I know I did.

Despite the fact that there is so much in the sports world to talk about—the Cheat-riots going 16*-0, Roidger Clemens, LSU winning a national title, the Lakers and UCLA Bruins rolling, etc.—I’d much rather talk about what I’ve been doing lately. I’ll save my thoughts on the big sports stories for another day. But first…

Quick-hitters:

- Current rebate-o-meter: ~$1,300. That number will probably rise with tax software deals now available.

- CVS has a deal running through January where you get $4 ECBs when you buy 4 SoyJoy bars (limit 5 offers). Combined with various coupons—$1 off 4 bars, $3 off 10 bars, and freebies—my sisters and I made a killing off these bars.

Has anyone tried one of these bars? I tried one, and let’s just say the thing tasted like a nastier fruitcake. Just thinking about how bad it tasted is giving me the chills right now! However, my sisters actually enjoyed them, and even my brother thought they weren’t terrible.

*gag*

I’d almost rather down an entire bottle of castor oil than have to eat one of these bars. I’m thinking about leaving them outside the local gym, for anyone to take :P.

- It’s good to see some of the late night television shows back on the air, even though the shows aren’t quite what they used to be. I thoroughly enjoyed Jon Stewart’s monologue, though.

- So I made mention in my last blog that I had a hot date a few weeks ago.

Krunk happened to swing by for our annual meeting of the minds, and we spent all day chatting, Wii-ing, and watching TV.

(I’m a boring host. I am aware of that.)

After Wii-ing all day, we went to an all-you-can-eat Korean restaurant for dinner. Damn place raised their prices! Good stuff, though.

Freaking Krunk brought me a Christmas present: a Wii remote! Being the bad friend that I am, I have yet to reciprocate (no, Krunk, dinner doesn’t count!).

- On the 24th, my sister and I went to my cousin’s house—thank you, Ellen and Darren—for a Christmas Eve dinner (I was asked to bring the entertainment, in the form of Guitar Hero III). The night was memorable; unfortunately it was more memorable for bad reasons than good :P.

Dinner was great. It was the quintessential potluck: roasted chicken, tamales, a Honeybaked ham, a shepherd’s pie, spaghetti with broccoli, steamed veggies, etc.
Both of my mom’s sisters attended, but my mom did not, which led to one of the more traumatizing incidents of the night. Those that attended the party know exactly what I’m talking about. Let’s just say that my aunt says some really strange things when inebriated (and by “inebriated,” I mean “had one sip of beer.”)
I cannot play Guitar Hero without an HDTV with Progressive Scan enabled. I have no idea why. I think I’m going blind.
I almost died when I nearly took a tumble down a couple of steps. Actually, I almost killed Ellen; I tumbled right into her, nearly knocking her down. No, I did not have a drink that night.
The night ended on one really traumatizing moment, right before we left for the night. Again, those of you at the party know exactly what I’m talking about.

Good times.

- The Ung family Christmas dinner, on the 25th, was also quite excellent. We brined our turkey—thanks, Alton Brown!—and it came out juicy and tender, though quite salty. Green bean casserole, stuffing, steamed veggies, and mashed potatoes completed the meal, and my sister made some pumpkin bread as well, which was very good, even though she really cut back on the amount of sugar the recipe originally called for.

Sadly, we could not take any of the leftovers home. That’s because I went out of town the next day, on a trip to see my cousins up in NorCal.

UBMe, Quick MLB Thoughts, And My (Fantasy) Football Week 7 Thoughts, And The Pats Play With A Chip (of Logic) On Their Shoulders

First of all, prayers go out to everybody affected by the fires here in SoCal, especially those in San Diego County. What’s going on here is eerily reminiscent of the fires of 2003–I was a UCSD student at the time, and one of the fires was burning no more than ten miles south of where we were. I remember waking up that Sunday morning, wondering why I could see bright orange rays of light coming from my window. Although I had a midterm that Tuesday–it was subsequently postponed by a week, as the campus was closed for a couple of days–I remember doing nothing but playing video games all day, just to get my mind off the fires.

When the campus re-opened, I returned to my volunteer position at the Preuss School (a charter school adjacent to UCSD) and I made it a point to ask the students how their families were doing, fully aware that most of the kids lived in areas affected by the fires. Talk about a humbling experience; it made my whining on Sunday look awfully pathetic by comparison.

I noticed that the winds have died down here significantly; hopefully that helps the firefighters out there in controlling these blazes. And as far as the arsonists that caused a couple of these fires are concerned, I think we should use those fire-fighting planes, pick them up by their legs, and drop them head-first into the Pacific Ocean…or an active volcano.

Let’s get on with it.

Quick-hitters:

- Current rebate-o-meter: $3300. That total includes the $150 or so I got in the past few days. Sigh…

- I can’t wait for Halloween!

Well, I can’t wait for the day after Halloween, when Halloween candy is clearanced :D.

- Somebody please remind me to watch the World Series with my TV muted. Between Tim McCarver, John Mellencamp, AT&T (’tis a shame they dumped the name “Cingular”; I can’t call them Crapular any more.), and that XBox 360 commercial with the kids absolutely f**king up Poison’s “Nothin’ But A Good Time,” I’m this close to buying a TiVo.

Exhausting Weekend, My Latest Haul, and Possibly The Best (Worst?) Customer Service-Related Story EVAR

Yeah, yeah, yeah…as usual, I am not going to blog about what I said I was going to. Deal with it

No quick-hitters today; let’s just get to my weekend.

- To call this past weekend an “exhausting”one is quite the understatement. We cleaned most of the house on Saturday. I manned the kitchen, while my sister handled the living room.

(Tangent: The Magic Eraser is the greatest thing ever. Magic Eraser + water + elbow grease, and no grease, dirt, or grime stands a chance! If only the Eraser wasn’t such a mess to use as it wears out.)

After toiling for about two hours, we decided to reward ourselves in about the best way possible: sushi and gelato ice cream! We went to a sushi bar that my sister really likes, and ordered four different rolls: an “Arigato” roll (fried shrimp, soft shell crab, wrapped in various sashimi), a “Firecracker” roll (spicy tuna and spicy scallops), a Spider roll (soft shell crab), and a “Super Philadelphia” roll (salmon, cream cheese, avocado, and asparagus, wrapped in salmon sashimi; Philadelphia rolls generally use cream cheese and smoked salmon, not raw salmon).

Awesome stuff. ‘Nuff said.

After that, we went to get some Gelato. I got a scoop of white chocolate raspberry, and a scoop of strawberry cheesecake (OMG that was awesome!), while my sister ordered a “sampler” of four scoops of ice cream.

We think we deserved it.

- Also on Saturday, we swung by CVS (what else is new?) to pick up a few more deals.

(Yeah, I’m totally addicted.)

I got more toothpaste, more mouthwash, more dish washing liquid, and yeah, yet another box of tampons. I also got (don’t laugh!) four boxes of Beano.

Now, you might be wondering: WTF would I be buying Beano? Well, other than the obvious possibility (:P), I’m getting paid $9 to take this stuff off their hands: $2.99 per, with $2.99 in Extra Care Bucks per item, a $1 coupon for one, and an $8 MIR for buying four. And yes, I’ll be going back some time this week to buy another box, since a $1 coupon showed up in my Sunday paper.

- So back to the exhausting weekend…the entire day was spent running more errands. We had to go to a laundromat today to wash our comforters, and that took a good two hours. That place was packed, and we had to wait about 20 minutes just to get usage of a washer!

After doing our laundry, we went to the grocery store, planning on making some chicken and rice. We bought all the stuff we needed, and then I noticed that it was already 6:30, and the chicken hadn’t even been defrosted yet! That’s when I decided to stop by Sam Woo BBQ and pick up some BBQ pork. Good stuff!

- On the way home from doing all our errands, my sister stopped by the nearby Shell to fuel up. I felt like having a cup of coffee, so I went into the mini-mart.

Big mistake.

I walked in, quickly got my coffee, added my creamer, and headed to the cashier. That’s when I saw what might be the most ridiculous customer-cashier exchange ever. A woman and her young child were at the register, and the woman started going ape-shit on the cashier. Apparently she bought a few items, and the cashier bagged them one at a time. For some reason, this seemingly innocuous act riled up the woman, to the point where she started pointing her finger at the guy, screaming “I’M…NOT…DONE…YET…PUT…IT…ALL…BACK!”

(WTF? And yeah, she paused like that between words.)

She screamed some more, saying “PUT…IT…BACK…I’M…NOT…DONE…YET…GEEZ!”, and then continued to shop around for more crap.

(Tangent: Who actually “shops” around a mini-mart?)

I stood by the register for about thirty whine-filled seconds, and then decided that she wasn’t going to be done shopping any time soon. I went up to the register and got ready to pay for it, and as I did so, I could hear the woman utter “WHAT THE…???” I thought to myself, “Look…I’m not going to wait for you and your kid to finish shopping. Finish your shopping, THEN check out!”

I would have handed the guy my money and walked out of the store, if not for the fact that he overcharged me for my coffee. I pointed out this fact, handed him the correct amount, and high-tailed it out of there. Before I made it to the exit, though, I could hear the woman yelling at the guy again. Her kid needed the bathroom, and rather than politely asking for the bathroom key, the woman screamed “MY…KID…NEEDS…THE…BATHROOM!”

We pulled out of the gas station, drove around a bit, and drove past the station again a few minutes later, and the woman was still there!

As I told my sister, where do you have to be in your sad, pathetic life, to go ape-shit on a mini-mart cashier like that?

I’d like to see anybody top this story. Until next time!

by Peter
3 Comments »

The Office “Dunder Mifflin Infinity” Review, Symantec Rebates Are A Scam, And Craigslist Personals Pwnage

Shhhhh…don’t remind me of what I’ve yet to post this week.

(And with the way the week is shaping up, don’t expect it any time soon.)

Quick-hitters:

- I might have mentioned this before, but there is nothing like going to the Post Office, seeing the huge line, and then dropping off your packages in the drop-off box because you were smart enough to pay for postage online :D.

- Somehow, I walked into Costco, and walked out with a sub-$40 bill!

I’m going to get a phone call from AmEx, for sure, asking me if I really made that small of a purchase :P.

(BTW, I bought some Ruby Red Grapefruit juice today. When the heck did they make this stuff so sweet? It was actually quite tasty!)

- (Warning: beware of The Office spoilers!)

I gotta say that I was quite disappointed in tonight’s episode. I understand, unlike some people I know *cough, cough*, that some episodes have to be utilized to continue existing story lines, or create new ones; clearly, this was geared for the latter. That being said, the episode really felt like it was simply dragging on and on. Not much in the episode particularly amused me, and I almost wanted the episode to end about halfway through it (the scene with the supposed Mr. Dunder absolutely bored me to tears). Seriously, if the writers needed a story line-driving episode, why did they waste an hour-long episode to do this? If today’s episode was split into two episodes, I would have been very satisfied with each episode separately.

Also, WTF was with Toby revealing the Jim-Pam relationship so quickly? I figured the writers were going to drag the secret Jim-Pam relationship a bit, and then Toby went and blew everything out of the water?!?!

Fortunately, the episode took off at about 9:48PM, when Michael took that right turn right into the lake! I swear it reminded me of a scene in Fear Factor.

(I ROTFLMAO’ed there, admittedly.)

Even with the scene where Michael and Dwight attempt to reclaim the second-to-last gift basket (which was really annoying, but clearly that was the point), the last twelve minutes definitely saved tonight’s episode. And who didn’t love Jim saying, “I guess he [Ryan] can’t get…any…girl he wants,” followed by that trademark grin of his?

One thing that bothered me about tonight’s episode were the number of “I knew this was coming” moments. For example:

I knew Michael was going to reveal some transgression that happened between him and Jan once the memo was issued.
I knew Angela was going to break up with Dwight as soon as she invited him to dinner that night.
I knew the car was going into the lake as soon as Michael took the wrong turn. I also knew that Michael didn’t buy renter’s insurance.
I knew Ryan was going to ask Pam out as soon as he went up to her, asking for help with the Dunder Mifflin Infinity logo.

These moments are the reason why The Tonight Show with Jay Leno is virtually unwatchable now; I can usually get the punchline to three or four of his jokes during each of his monologues.
My favorite moments:

Dwight releasing the feral cat into the Vance Refrigeration office.
Toby: “Let’s just wait and see what happens.” (The look on his face rivaled the look on his face in “Beach Games” when he found out that Pam was wearing a two-piece bathing suit.)
Phyllis explaining to Pam that she (Pam) should not base who gets new clients on who she’s sleeping with.
Ryan and Jan’s first meeting (”Hello, elephant-in-the-room!”)
Pam: “I now find you…repulsive.”
Michael: “You can’t be on the team. You can’t move on to second grade.” (LOL!!!)
Michael: “I would like to see a web site deliver baskets of food to people.”

Oh yeah…Creed, Kevin, and Andy were great, as usual. The writers need to give Andy more lines!

- The problem with being a rebate-monkey is that you, sometimes, have to deal with rebate centers and their HORRIBLE customer service. Case in point: I filed ten separate rebates on Symantec products over the past few weeks. For each rebate, I made sure to include everything required; I even highlighted any pertinent information on the rebate form and store receipt, to the point where a blind monkey could properly process my rebate.

Apparently Symantec’s rebate processor hired a bunch of dead monkeys, because they found a way to reject NINE of my ten rebate submissions!

(Tangent: Symantec’s rebate processor is Parago, and they’re known for rejecting rebates for no good reason. For every ten rebates I legitimately file with these guys, I expect anywhere from 2-5 rejections. I have never, though, had any more than half of my rebates rejected at one time.)

Now, I don’t want to hear “Well, you’re playing the rebate game, and you crapped out!” or “Well, now you know how rebate companies stay in business!” I’m fully aware of these facts. But, what really is bugging me is the fact that I have sent Parago a bunch of emails, inquiring about these rebates, and they have yet to respond to my inquiries (and it’s been over 72 hours; usually, it takes 24 hours to get a response).

I hope I don’t have to file a claim with the BBB, FTC, or my state Attorney General.

- Finally, if you haven’t seen this fantastic example of intarweb-uber-pwnage, please take the time to read it.

Cliffs: A supposed “spectacularly beautiful” and “articulate and classy” girl wants $500k/yr man to ~~leech off~~ ~~buy her whatever she wants~~ sweep her off her feet. She goes so far as to ask where these guys hang out, and what a girl has to do to find such a guy. Like she says, at least she’s being upfront about it. Guy responds, using a bunch of economic and financial terms, putting the woman in her place. Hilarity ensues.

Best line of the article: “By the way, you could always find a way to make your own money and then we wouldn’t need to have this difficult conversation.”

Enjoy!

by Peter
8 Comments »

Quick Hits Galore, Spaghetti-Oh, My!, And Week 4 Fantasy Football Thoughts

Yeah, yeah, yeah…the product review is going to have to wait.

So sue me. Just don’t wish a torn knee ligament (or three) on me.

Quick-hitters:

- Did you know that “aluminum” is spelled and pronounced “aluminium” in Britain?

Krunk pointed that out to me today, but I already knew that, thanks to Eddie Izzard :P.

(Tangent: Why wasn’t the movie Speed called La Vitesse?)

- One of these days, I’m going to figure out what’s wrong with my sister’s fried-again computer.

Not today, though. me <– opens a can of Coke Zero.

- My current rebate-o-meter reads over $3,000 in rebates owed. This figure went up over $700 today alone.

(I should mention that the only reason why this figure jumped so high was because of an error in my rebate Excel spreadsheet. You remember The Simpsons episode where Homer tried to gain weight, and kept getting his gut caught on the towel rack, throwing off his scale’s reading? My miscalculation reminded me of this episode.)

At the rate I’m going, I’m probably going to have to buy myself a free after rebate Christmas gift. Nothing says “Merry Christmas” like Norton Antivirus 2008, right?

- How would one spell out the sound a buzzer makes (you know, like what you hear at the end of a basketball game)?

I could really use that.

- Don’t you hate it when you check out of an store, only to find (moments later) another item you wanted to buy? For reasons other than S&H–not that S&H doesn’t matter–this hurts a heck of a lot more online than at a brick-and-mortar.

- I had some leftover spaghetti sauce that was sitting in my fridge for a couple of days, so I decided to make some baked pasta. I had some round Spaghetti-O-like pasta that I bought from Trader Joe’s (that store is evil, by the way), so I boiled that up, heated the sauce, threw everything into a glass baking dish, topped it with some CoJack cheese–it’s all I had–and threw the whole shebang in the oven until the cheese melted.

Man, that’s some good stuff; it was definitely a heck of a lot better than anything that came out of a can! I added a mixed greens salad and a glass of cranberry juice, and damn, I could go for another helping right now!

- I’m too tired to give my loyal readers my Week 4 NFL thoughts, but here are my Week 4 Fantasy Football rants and raves (mostly the former):

1) Stupid Brian Westbrook. Stupid Rudi Johnson. Stupid Donovan McNabb.

2) I lost in three of my four leagues last week (see #1), and I really lucked out in the BargainShare FFBL league, thanks to a last-minute scratch of Lawrence Maroney. I was up by a mere three points, going into the Monday Night Football game! Hey, I’ll take wins any way I can get them.

Unfortunately, in that league, both of my starting RBs–Rudi Johnson and Travis Henry–are hurt.

I’m screwed.

To recap: I’m now 1-3, 1-3 (in the LT league, and I could very well be 0-4), 2-2, and 3-1 in the BargainShare league.

Fun fact: my sister and I are both 3-1 in the BargainShare league. One GM and his son are each 0-4.

(I hope he doesn’t read this :P)

3) I face LaDainian Tomlinson in two leagues next week, and I have him in one league (though that team is 1-3). It should be pretty obvious which way I will be rooting.

4) Have I ever mentioned how much I hate Fantasy Football?

Until next time!

by Peter
5 Comments »

The Office Season Premiere (Warning: spoilers!), Week 3 (Fantasy) Football Thoughts, And URL-Less Spam

- 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!

by Peter
No Comments »

A Beach Story: Shells In The Water, Karmic Powers, And Dinner At Victory Restaurant

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: beach, dinner, karma, victory restaurant by Peter
2 Comments »

A Second Costco Trip, A Fun Phone Call, and Lots Of Fun Signing Up For Vonage

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: costco, phone call, vonage by Peter
4 Comments »

Lobster Fest, More Google Analytics Fun, And Barry Bonds Finally Ties The Record

- Man, was it HOT in Monterey Park this past weekend!

I probably got a total of five hours of sleep in the two days, due to the immense heat.

*hugs my Honeywell Tower fan*

- To the moron constantly calling my temporary AT&T cell phone (ten calls in three days), leave me the hell alone, please.

- So my cousin visited my parents’ house yesterday, and she brought a gigantic plate of food: fried Lobster in a spicy sauce, with fried noodles. That was damn good, and I couldn’t eating too much food.

I should mention that her husband owns a Chinese restaurant, and I don’t mean some $4.99 doggie-bag takeout on-the-corner grease-fest that is, apparently, typical “Chinese” food. I’m talking a high-class, banquet-style, commonly-used-for-weddings Chinese restaurant.

I’m such a sucker for lobster or crab. Now if only the dish had some scallops and shrimp.

Speaking of food and Monterey Park, I had a couple cans of Coke Zero over the weekend. Yuck! Damn MexiCoke! I don’t think I’ll ever be able to enjoy regular Coke or Coke Zero again! Methinks I need to take a trip to Costco to get some MexiCoke.

- According to Google Analytics, no one had visited my site in the past three days. That broke my heart *cry*. What was strange, though, was that Google Adsense registered about 20-30 pageviews/day. So what caused the discrepancy?

My stupidity! When I switched to Wordpress, I completely forgot to re-copy the Google Adsense code somewhere onto my blog. Now, all is well again.

Speaking of Google Analytics, here’s some fun data of my visitors over the last 30 days (27 or so, actually, since I have no data for the days in which I didn’t restore the Google Analytics code):

Krunk and I pretty much agreed that 1024×768 was still the most common screen resolution used; over the last 30 days, nearly 1/4 of my visitors were using that resolution. We both figured that 1280×1024 made sense at #2, but 1680×1050 (WSXGA+) was actually #2, at 22%! Third was 1440×900, which is my screen resolution. 1280×1024 was fourth, and nobody visited my site using 640×480
I expected Firefox visits to outnumber Internet Exploder visits, but I didn’t expect only 44% of my visitors to use FF, versus 36% for IE. I would have expected the gap to be much larger.
Visitors that use Windows outnumbered Mac-based visitors by nearly an 8:1 margin. Not at all surprising, IMO.
Now here’s the stat that I’m very happy with. For the longest time, referrals from three sites–the IMBC site, Hank’s blog, and Blogger–made up nearly 90% of my visitors. Two recent blog entries, mentioned here, have now shifted the demographics of my referrals; now, about 35% of my visitors come from the three sites mentioned above. Google referrals, on the other hand, account for nearly 40% of my visitors over the last 30 days. Now I gotta figure out another topic to blog about that will generate even more traffic to my site.

- Finally, Barry Bonds finally tied Hank Aaron’s home run record, hitting #755 against Clay Hensley on Saturday. My thoughts on the record-tying blast:

Yes, I found it amusing that Clay Hensley once tested positive for using performance-enhancing drugs (PEDs).

Yes, watching baseball commissioner Bud Selig’s reaction to the home run was absolutely amusing.

Yes, I wasn’t surprised to see Bonds not play on Sunday. Now, he gets to hit the record-breaking homer against a horrible Washington Nationals team, in the comfort of San Francisco.

So, what are my feelings about Bonds and the record? Well, just by looking at the guy, comparing him to images of himself as a skinny kid playing in Pittsburgh, and noting the fact that he got much better and stronger in the tail end of his career, I can’t help but suspect that he is taking some sort of PEDs. However, in the absence of concrete evidence, I can’t deny Bonds as the rightful record holder–that is, once he breaks the record. If people are going to assume Bonds is guilty because of his incredible achievements during his 40s, shouldn’t they also suspect Lance Armstrong is guilty of cheating for winning seven Tours-de-France after recovering from near-fatal cancer?

Now, don’t get me wrong; I’m not comparing Armstrong to Bonds. I understand that there is lots of support and respect for Armstrong because of his foundation, and the fact that he’s not a jerk like Bonds is perceived to be, but is it that far-fetched to assume that Armstrong may have cheated as well? Of course, in the absence of a smoking syringe, Armstrong is still a hero and a seven-time champion, and I’m going to acknowledge Bonds as the record-holder (once he gets it) until there is proof that his numbers were “enhanced.”

And yes, that pains me to say, being a Dodger fan.

If anything, I hope that Bonds’ chase for the home run record serves to further magnify Hank Aaron’s accomplishments, and that true baseball fans really appreciate what Aaron did for the sport (if they don’t already). Besides, Bonds’ record will go down in about ten years, when A-Rod will be going for HR #800.

Happy blogging!

by Peter
4 Comments »

Google Analytics, Blogger, And the New UngsungBlog, And More Baseball Trade Talk

- So importing my blog entries from Blogger was quick and simple. Unfortunately, I ran into a couple of problems. First, Wordpress tagged all the Blogger entries with the “Sports” category. Second, the naming convention of each blog entry changed (instead of /yr/mo/xxxxxxx.html, it got changed to /yr/mo/dy/yyyyyyy.html). Of course, that means that people who linked to my Blogger entries will either to fix their links, or, as Krunk suggested, I’ll have to enter a few “redirects” into my .htaccess file.

I thought about doing that, and then I decided to look through my Google Analytics history to see what were the most popular pages on my site all time. The first one isn’t really surprising; apparently lots of people don’t know where the scroll lock key is on their Logitech MX3200 keyboard. The other two were quite interesting:

Apparently, lots of people were interested in getting information about the Citibank Dividend World Mastercard. I also got quite a few visits, courtesy of mikesmullin.com (the link is now broken, due to the Blogger import, but I added a line to my .htaccess file to point to the correct page).
Much more amusing, though, was seeing a bunch of keyword hits to my site consisting of some form of “dangers of a laser printer.” Now, don’t get me wrong; there’s nothing amusing about the fact “that some laser printers emit large amounts of tiny particles, which may increase the risk of cancer and heart disease.” What I do find comical is the fact that people who were obviously looking for information regarding article above ended up on my site, reading (hopefully!) about how dangerous refilling a toner cartridge is. Of course, the dangers were exacerbated by the fact that I’m a total klutz.

For now, I’ve since repaired a few links, and re-categorized the last three weeks or so of blog entries. UngsungBlog 2.0beta is still a work in progress, after all.

- Other quick baseball trade thoughts:

Eric Gagne was traded to Boston for a package including Boston starter Kason Gabbard. I’m not sure why Boston was interested in Gagne, but I can understand why they traded away a starter, with the return of Curt Schilling impending. I’m thinking this was a keep-away deal, because there were rumors that the Yankees were involved.
The Cleveland Indians reacquired Kenny Lofton from Texas, and I love this deal for Cleveland. They get a veteran OF to play LF, and speed and a veteran bat at the top of the lineup. And all it cost Cleveland was a catching prospect.
And the winner of worst deal of the trade deadline absolutely has to go to Pittsburgh’s acquisition of pitcher Matt Morris from the Giants. First of all, San Francisco was practically trying to get rid of the guy, apparently offering to pay teams to take him off their hands. Instead, Pittsburgh swooped in, offered to pick up Morris’ entire salary, and threw in two players (one to be named later)! That’s like spotting an ad on Craiglist, seeing a guy trying to sell his car below cost–he’s moving overseas, maybe–and offering him MSRP + $1,000 for his troubles.

As badly as the Dodgers have been playing recently, at least they’re not the Pirates.

by Peter
4 Comments »

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UngsungBlog: A (Fantasy) Sports Blog

(Fantasy) sports talk, customer service rants and raves, technology, product reviews, random thoughts, and whatever else I feel like talking about.

Entries Tagged as 'Blog'

What Have I Been Up To Lately?

UBMe, Quick MLB Thoughts, And My (Fantasy) Football Week 7 Thoughts, And The Pats Play With A Chip (of Logic) On Their Shoulders

Exhausting Weekend, My Latest Haul, and Possibly The Best (Worst?) Customer Service-Related Story EVAR

The Office “Dunder Mifflin Infinity” Review, Symantec Rebates Are A Scam, And Craigslist Personals Pwnage

Quick Hits Galore, Spaghetti-Oh, My!, And Week 4 Fantasy Football Thoughts

The Office Season Premiere (Warning: spoilers!), Week 3 (Fantasy) Football Thoughts, And URL-Less Spam

A Beach Story: Shells In The Water, Karmic Powers, And Dinner At Victory Restaurant

A Second Costco Trip, A Fun Phone Call, and Lots Of Fun Signing Up For Vonage

Lobster Fest, More Google Analytics Fun, And Barry Bonds Finally Ties The Record

Google Analytics, Blogger, And the New UngsungBlog, And More Baseball Trade Talk

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