UngsungBlog: A (Fantasy) Sports Blog

I’m still feeling the effects of the food binge that occurred over Saturday and Sunday.

Allow me to recap the weekend:

- On Saturday, my sister, my aunt, my mom, and I visited the LA County Fair.  My sister wanted to ‘walk around,’ and she thought it would be nice for my mom and aunt to join her.

I went for the food.

Soon after entering the Fair at around 6pm, I immediately scouted a good BBQ place (I forget the name) to eat at.  Noting the location, we then proceeded all the way to the shopping center of the Fair.

It took me all of five minutes on our trip to find the first thing I wanted to try:  deep-fried Oreos.  Good stuff, although I think the Oreos cooled down a bit.  I was expecting the cookie itself to be spongy.  I could also have done without the chocolate syrup.  Next time, I’m going for the deep-fried Snickers.

(Totally off-topic, but I called Andre Ethier’s walk off homer…several innings ago.)

After an hour of shopping, we returned to the BBQ place, but not before my aunt blew $9 on a gigantic sausage with grilled peppers and onions, AND THEN spent another $7 on some nachos.  My sister went with a BBQ chicken plate, and I ordered a brisket place.  What I got, however, was a freaking pulled pork sandwich.

Not getting what I ordered sucked.  Being expected to eat most of the stuff ordered and then having to deal with the indigestion that was sure to come REALLY sucked.  Remembering that I had a McDonald’s iced coffee and a McDouble before we got on the freeway, only adding to my misery, REALLY SUCKED.

Did I mention that the food was damn tasty, though?

At around 8pm, my sister wanted to return to the shopping center, to ’shop for real.’ I won’t bore you with what she ended up buying, but at around 10:00, I found her purchasing…a funnel cake.  Of course.  What I didn’t expect, however, was her ordering a Pink’s chili dog with a side of kraut no more than ten minutes later!  And guess who had to help her eat both?

At this point I was thinking of returning to the shopping center to purchase a stomach pump.  I had to practically beg my sister to not purchase an ice cream cone on the way out.

- After running some errands on Sunday afternoon, including a horrible trip to Costco, we—myself, my two sisters, and my mom—were headed home for dinner.

That’s when my sister (yup, the same one) asked me, out of the blue, if I wanted to go get some Philippe’s French Dip sandwiches.  Um, yes.

We got in line at around 6pm, and despite being informed by a woman in front of us that the lines move pretty quickly, we didn’t budge for about 20 minutes.  Apparently, some lady was causing trouble for the workers there.  When Ms. Troublemaker returned later, cutting in front of my line a second time, I could hear an audible groan behind me.

We all went with beef sandwiches, with some cole slaw, mac salad, and a pickle.  Excellent stuff, and the hot mustard was awesome, so much so that we bought a jar to take home.  If Philippe’s sold their au jus by the cup, I would have bought some to take home too.

My only regret?  I didn’t put enough hot mustard on my sandwich.  I guess I was a bit gun-shy.  I won’t make that same mistake next time.

(Be on the lookout for a blog post where I describe how I had to be rushed to the hospital after nearly burning my mouth off from too much hot mustard.)

Oh yeah, I chased all of this horrible food with a two beef burrito, rice, and beans plate at Alberto’s in El Monte.  Pass the Milk of Magnesia!

Next time, stuff about Bank of America, eBay, and Fantasy Football.

Tags: bbq chicken, deep-fried oreos, Food, french dip, funnel cake, hot mustard, la county fair, philippe's, pink's hot dogs, pulled pork, sausage by Peter
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I’m going to try and post two blog entries tonight.

On with it!

- Believe it or not, I am actually going to get my outstanding rebates in the mailbox two days before the 30 day postmark deadline!  The rebate processors won’t know what hit them!

So…anyone wanna bet on the over/under on how many of the ten rebates I just mailed out will be rejected?

Over 2.5  -110

Under 2.5  -110

Current rebate-o-meter:  $1,110.  Got a few hundred over the past few days, and added a few hundred.

- Shot-Online update:  I’m at level 40, and halfway to level 41.  Mageias really help, even at a hefty cost of ten million NG for 250 charges.

(How can I afford such extravagances?  More on that later…)

As far as my Semi-Pro quest is concerned, I just found out what the requirements really are to achieve Semi-Pro status.  Copied and pasted from the Shot-Online site:

Cut Off Standard
- The top 50% of the X number of players who score 68 or under (stroke play)
(The qualifiers must score under 68 in order to be in the selection process. We then qualify the top 50% of the players who scored 68 or under. For instance, if 100 players got 68 or under, we’d pass 50. If there was a tie for the 50th spot, the player with the lower handicap will get the spot. Getting under 68 does not guarantee a pass.)

Damn.  I knew that one needed a handicap of -4 on Gladsheim in order to take the test, but I was always under the impression that all I needed was a -4 during the test itself to pass.  I gotta shoot better than -4 AND finish in the top 50% of all qualifiers?  Considering that I can’t even shoot -4 now—and I’m playing from the amateur tees!—I don’t see myself passing this test any time soon.

That little tidbit about how one’s handicap is the tiebreaker is a bit comforting, though.  I guess I better lower my HC as well.

By the way, I mentioned in the past that I spend way too much time at the Auction House.  I’m beginning to think that that’s an understatement; I’m probably spending more than half of my Shot-Online time at the AH!

Why, you ask?  Well, it probably has something to do with being able to flip stuff purchased really cheap at a huge profit!  You might recall that I was flipping items like Zodiac Leos a while back…

Case in point:  Zodiac Leo 100s (Pwr +6) generally sell for anywhere from 500,000 to nearly 1,000,000 NG.  In the past few days, I’ve been able to score several Zodiac Leos for less than 600,000, and I’ve been able to flip most of them for a “Buy now” price of 850,000.  After the auction fees, that’s an easy 200,000 NG profit!

Well, since then, I’ve been able to flip million dollar items for pretty nice profits.  Here’s just a sampling of my for-profit sales:

• Werdandis purchased for ~ 2 million NG being sold for anywhere between 2.5-4.5 million NG.
• Sagittarius 500s for ~ 1 million NG in profit each
• Capricornus (yes, that’s how the game spells it) 500s for ~ 2 million NG in profit

Last night alone, I flipped a few seven-figure items for a grand total of about 6 million NG in profit.  I used the money to buy yet another 11 million NG Mageia :P.

Yes, I’m a total Shot-Online dork.  In fact, I’m such a dork, that I actually take notes on the sale prices of certain items, in order to figure out what a good deal really is.

(If only I did that back in my high school, trading-card-dealing days.)

I am having WAY too much fun with this game.

- Those of you that love your food might want to turn away from this story…

On Friday night, I decided to fry up some ribeyes and prepare a potato salad.  Unfortunately, I was a bit short on mayo, and the salad wasn’t thoroughly coated.  On top of that, I completely forgot to add chopped eggs to the salad!

(Oh well…it was still damn tasty :P).

Now, if a bad potato salad is a sin, what would you call an extra-fatty, extra-gristly, extra-chewy piece of ribeye steak?  I’m still crying over the horrible piece of steak I had; there was a huge chunk of fat right in the middle of the cut, as well as several chunks of fat in other locations in the steak!  After trimming away all the fat (never mind the gristle that lined one edge of the steak), the 12oz piece of ribeye I had was cut down to maybe four ounces.

I had to compensate by eating even more under-coated potato salad :P.

My Week Two (Fantasy) Football recap is coming…

Tags: auction house, capricornus, gladsheim, mageia, potato salad, rebate-o-meter, rebates, ribeye, sagittarius, semi-pro, shot-online, werdandi, zodiac leo by Peter
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My living room thermostat says it’s 86 degrees in here right now.

It’s 12:45AM.

- I swung by CVS for the first time in nearly two weeks, and all I had were ECBs!

(NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!)

The sales this week were pretty crappy, with the exception of some FAECB energy shot-thingy.

(Tangent: Here’s a sampling of some of the crap I’ve purchased at CVS over the last few months, for no other reason than to use/rollover ECBs: flaxseed oil gelcaps, multivitamins, energy shots, bandages, small bottles of pain medication, some immunity booster, loads of TUMS, and even pantiliners!

If a bottle of homeopathic crap ever happens to find its way into my basket, that might be the end of my CVS deal-hunting days…unless the deal is FAECB, and I have a coupon, and the item comes with a money-back guarantee…)

I also picked up some Propel, as well as some “flavored sparkling water.” Quite the disappointing trip, I know, but I had to roll over my ECBs.

- My sister and mom came over today, and we decided to have Korean BBQ for dinner tonight.

Too bad I ruined my appetite with a late lunch of leftover El Pollo Loco chicken, followed by a snack of Kettle Cooked Sea Salt & Vinegar potato chips.

(Drool…)

Usually, we are able to polish off four helpings of meat:  two servings of jumuluck, and two of bulgogi.  Today?  No thanks to my late lunch/snack, we struggled through two and one, respectively.  Service, though, was actually quite good; waiters came only a few seconds after one of us pushed the call button, and we got our food rather quickly.

Good stuff.

- Labor Day is Shot-Online Double EXP/NG day!

(Guess where I’ll be spending most of my Monday :P)

Shot-Online update:  my character is at level 36, and only yesterday did I find out that one needs a -4 handicap on Gladsheim to even attempt the semi-pro test!  All this time, I thought you only had to sign up for the test and shoot a -4 to become a semi-pro.

As it stands, I can’t shoot better than +1 on Gladsheim, and I scored that only playing nine holes!  Sure, I’ll get a bit of extra power, impact, and skill once I get to level 41, but I’ll also be pushed back to the semi-pro tees!  Furthermore, it took me almost a week just to go from level 35 to 36.  How much longer is it going ot take for me to get to 41?  Double EXP day can’t come soon enough!

- And finally…I have to imagine that the LA Dodger bandwagon is near-empty, after that horrific eight-game losing streak.  Seriously, four to Philly, and then three to FREAKING WASHINGTON, and then a blowout against Arizona???

(Good thing we won today, although it helps when Manny Ramirez is single-handedly carrying the team again.)

What’s incredible about that horrible streak is that, if we somehow beat Arizona tomorrow, we’ll be only 2.5 games behind Arizona!  How laughable is that?  Of course, we face Brandon Webb tomorrow, so a win isn’t terribly likely.

Until next time!

Tags: Arizona Diamondbacks, cvs, double exp day, ecbs, el pollo loco, kettle cooked chips, korean bbq, los angeles dodgers, losing streak, propel, semi-pro, shot-online by Peter
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It’s hot, and it’s the humid hot, not the dry hot!

Help me.

Quick-hitters:

- To fight off the heat, I am enjoying some canned Thai Tea.

At least, the label says it’s Thai Tea.  It sure tastes like anything but Thai Tea!  Blech!

- It was quite a hallmark day in the world of sports today.

We had the closing ceremonies of the Olympic Games.

We had the Little League World Series match, won by the team from Hawaii (no, I did not watch it).

We had the Redeem Team winning gold against Spain.  We had the Men’s Indoor Volleyball team win an emotionally-charged final against Brazil.

(Tangent:  You people can pick Michael Phelps as the most memorable aspect of the Olympics.  Go ahead and pick the opening ceremonies.  Usain Bolt was (pardon the pun…sorta) riveting, and I won’t argue if you think he was the most memorable part of the Olympics.

What is my pick for the most memorable part of the Olympics?  It’s gotta be the Men’s Indoor Volleyball gold medal match against Brazil.  Watching coach Hugh McCutcheon break down after the victory was somewhat hard to watch, considering the ups (a gold medal-winning team) and downs (his father-in-law being killed by some coward) he has experienced over the past two weeks.

Jason Lezak’s running down—or should I say swimming?—of Alain Bernard is a distant second on my list.  Without Lezak’s historic heat, Phelps doesn’t come close to eight golds.)

Anyway, today was a pretty sweet day filled with sporting events.  Too bad the last thing I saw last night was the Dodgers’ bullpen choking away yet another victory!

Yeah, I understand that the Dodgers could have provided more than two runs, and yes, the Dodgers’ offense left many opportunies on the table.  However, a team that is built on solid pitching HAS TO hold a lead, even a one-run lead!

That’s now four blown leads that have led to losses in the past couple of weeks!  Grrrr…

- Back on Friday, while at my desk, I glanced over at the clock on the lower right-hand corner of my screen.  Hovering over the clock, I noticed that Friday’s date was August 22.

For some reason, that date stood out in my head.  Was it my Dad’s birthday?  No; that was on the 16th.  Did I have to be somewhere that day?  I didn’t think so.  What the hell was so important about the 22nd?

Eventually, it hit me; I bought something on July 23rd, and knew that the rebate attached to the item had to be postmarked by the 22nd!

Just to make sure, I called the rebate center (it was 4:10pm when I initiated the call).  About ten minutes later, I was thinking to myself, “These guys are going to keep me on hold until 5pm, to screw me over on the rebate!”  Finally, a guy picked up, and I quickly explained my situation.  He put me on hold (*gulp*), and returned a minute later, saying that the last postmark date was, indeed, the 22nd.

I got to the post office at 4:45, fifteen minutes before the last collection.  Whew.

One of these days, I’m gonna miss a postmark date entirely, and not even realize it until a week or so afterwards.

- Either I am in training for a marathon, or I just couldn’t control my eating today.  We stopped by Olive Garden for lunch—soup and salad for $5.99 FTW—and I ate the following:

(Tangent:  Apparently, it was Plaid Shorts day at Olive Garden.  While waiting for a table to free up, I saw no fewer than seven or eight people—only one lady—wearing plaid shorts.)

• 2.5 bowls of soup (two bowls of the Zuppa Toscana, and a half bowl of Minestrone)
• several (four?) breadsticks
• a huge helping of salad
• and peach-raspberry ice tea; I have no idea how many glasses I ultimately had

As if that wasn’t bad enough, for dinner, I had a HUGE bowl of chicken with rice.  The grapes I had right before dinner didn’t help matters at all.

I should go run a half-marathon now.  It’s the only way I’ll ever burn off all those calories.

- Injuries happen in sports, of course.  However, I don’t recall the last time so many big name players have been hurt in the PRESEASON.  Just look at this list:

• The Giants’ Osi Umenyiora will miss the entire season with a lateral meniscus tear in his left knee.
• The Redskins’ Jason Taylor will miss 10-14 days with a knee sprain.
• Shawne Merriman’s season (and possibly career) might be over because of two torn knee ligaments (though who knows if the injuries were sustained and/or aggravated during the preseason?)
• Summarizing the NFL front page on ESPN.com…Carson Palmer has a broken nose, Brian Dawkins strained his ankle, the Cowboys lost LOG Kyle Kosier for a month, and the Raiders lost two members of their offense for the season.
• And finally, we have learned that Brett Favre is dealing with two twisted ankles, both of which occurred from all the about-faces he had done during the offseason.

(OK…I made the last one up.)

The only logical thing to do, it would seem, would be to shorten the off-season.  And why not?  Teams suffer through injuries over sixteen games in seventeen weeks as it is; it’s only logical to assume that an extra four games will cause more injury.  Also, it can be argued that extra preseason games give players who may not make an NFL roster more chances to deliver a harder hit on a star player, in an attempt to make an impression on all 32 NFL teams.

Why not have a four week, three game preseason, with one bye week for teams to have non-contact drills?  Or what about three weeks, followed by a week-long gap before the regular season?  Or how about three preseason games and one full-contact, intra-team scrimmage?  Scrapping the entire preseason would be too extreme, in my opinion.  On the other hand, reducing the preseason by a game or two might spare some players from the injury bug, saving them for the regular season.

Tags: bullpen, closing ceremonies, deadline, hugh mccutcheon, implosion, injuries, los angeles dodgers, men's volleyball, nfl preseason, olive garden, olympic games, postmark, rebate, shortened off-season, thai tea, zuppa toscana by Peter
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I had no intention of blogging today, but something happened today that got my juices flowing.

One quick-hitter:

- Man-Ram’s line today:  4 for 5, HR, 2 R, 3 RBI, and a triple away from the cycle.

I’m just sayin’.

(Jason Bay’s doing incredibly well too, and I heard Andy LaRoche hit a HR today.  Talk about a great three-way deal!)

- I am NEVER, EVER AGAIN stepping foot in 168 Supermarket…EVER EVER AGAIN.

No, I did not get my ankle snapped by a shopping cart.  In fact, I wish that my ankle was what was injured!

While in the shopping cart autobahn that is the produce section of 168 Supermarket, I was standing in front of my cart, putting away a few bags of stuff that I had just picked up.  That’s when some idiot rammed his cart into my cart, ramming my cart into…well…you know where.

(That sound you hear is the sound of fellow UngsungBlog male readers—all none of you—keeling over.)

(Tangent:  You know how Jackie Chan and other martial arts protagonists always get caught in out-numbered fight scenes?  Why doesn’t the protagonist just kick one of the guys in the balls?  If he were to do so, the other guys would just keel over in sympathy pain as well, no?  Then again, maybe our protagonist would keel over too.)

Worse, the guilty party gave me the death stare as he passed by my bent-over self, as if I had done something wrong!  If ever there were a situation where punching someone right in the g*ddamn face should be legal, that would be it!

(As an aside…I actually had to admit that my mom was right about something today.  That might have hurt more than the physical injury I suffered!)

- My aunt and cousin went fishing this morning around Mt. Baldy, and they brought back some fresh trout!

I wanted to steam it with some slices of lemon and some fresh herbs, but we had neither, so I went with a bit of melted butter, kosher salt, and a bottle of “Italian seasoning.”  A few minutes in my mom’s Flavor Wave oven later, and dinner was served!

Believe it or not, this was the first time I’ve ever eaten freshly-caught fish.  At least, this was the first time I’ve knowingly eaten freshly-caught fish.  Good stuff, and at $10/fish, it wasn’t terribly expensive either.

- I had a really difficult time navigating through sports web sites today, because of all the pictures of a grinning Diva Favre all over the place!

Later on today, we got to see a beaming Diva Favre as he walked from his just-landed charter jet into an SUV waiting for him.  If the pictures of his face on those web sites were vomit-inducing, that shot of him walking towards the car could have been a biological weapon of mass destruction.

And who the hell were these people that greeted Favre off the runway?  You people reminded me of the numbskulls standing outside the court house when Wacko Jacko’s “Not Guilty” verdict was announced, screaming at the top of your lungs when it happened.  Are you myopians that blinded by his stature that you will let him jerk around with your emotions for THREE STRAIGHT YEARS?  What the hell are you guys going to do next year, if (when?) he performs Act IV of “As Brett Favre’s World Turns?”  Carry him on your shoulders from the airport to Lambeau Field?  Tattoo the number “4″ on to all your chests?

Speaking of divas, if I hear just ONE interview with Deanna Favre, asking her about her tribulations during this offseason with her husband, I might just stab my eyes and ears out.

(ETA:  Week 1 v. Minnesota…Michele Tafoya, get ready.)

Also, to make Aaron Rodgers’ life even more miserable, apparently the Packers are going to have an open competition for the Packers’ now-vacant QB job.

(clears throat…)

WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED TO “Aaron Rodgers is our quarterback??????????????”

Seriously, Packers, please release the guy.  Either that, or give him a gun to shoot himself in the face with.  Let’s face it; despite all of the pageantry and drama surrounding Diva Favre, he is clearly the better quarterback, and Rodgers has almost no chance of beating out Favre for the starting QB job!  Did Aaron Rodgers sleep with the wife of a high-ranking Packers’ official?

Check out this gem:

“Although we built this year around the assumption that Brett meant what he said about retiring, Brett is coming back,” team president and CEO Mark Murphy said. “We will welcome him back and turn this situation to our advantage.”

Are you kidding me?  You had to ASSUME that Brett meant it when he said he was retiring?  The tears, the hesitations…all that was just an act, wasn’t it, Diva Favre?

Please, Green Bay brass, trade Aaron Rodgers for a fifth- or sixth- round pick.  Otherwise, you guys are guilty of first-degree murder…of a career that never had a chance to take off.

Any time you can make T.O. look like a model citizen, you know you’re screwing up somewhere.  Diva Favre, you’re making Adam “PacMan” Jones look pretty good right about now.  Last year, I couldn’t watch SportsCenter because of all the butt-kissing of the New England Patriots.  This year, I won’t be able to watch because of all the coverage the Favre is going to get.

Congratulations, Brett Favre.  You have now surpassed Tom Brady as the most obnoxious player that I hated first out of professional jealousy, and then later hated because for being an idiot.

And I mean this last part with absolute sincerity:

Brett Favre, F**K YOU.  Stay the f**k off my television next year!  I will NOT watch a single game you play in next season, even if the final game you play happens to be the Super Bowl.  Please, I beg of you to throw three back-breaking picks late in a game, and then throw your teammates and the entire Packers organization under the bus.  THAT, I would tune in to.

(He’s already getting the double-middle-finger salute from my sister, and she used to be a HUGE Brett Favre fan.  And trust me, she’s cursing him out 10x worse than I am.)

Tags: 168 supermarket, aaron rodgers, andy laroche, brett favre, diva favre, fresh trout, injury, jason bay, manny ramirez, mt. baldy, produce section by Peter
2 Comments »

I have not yet recovered from Saturday’s Pig Roast.

(More on that later.)

Quick-hitters:

- You know that your blog is pathetic when a simple blog entry about a spammy caller-ID number doubles your blog traffic.

Not that I’m complaining…

- I didn’t get to play much Shot-Online over the weekend, mostly due to yesterday’s affairs.

I did, however, absolutely steal a win on a nine-hole match earlier tonight.  I was playing Hela, tied with my opponent on the final hole (a par 3), when I seemingly drove my ball into the water (my ball rolled on to the brown perimeter of the water, and not actually in it).

Even though it said I hit it into the water, I was not accessed a penalty stroke (apparently, you get relief if this happens, without being accessed a penalty).  On my next shot—just off the green—I thought I putted the ball much too hard, and the darn thing went in!

Needless to say, my opponent was incensed.  She got so mad that she didn’t even attempt her tying birdie putt, as her shot clock ran out!

- Quick thoughts about Diva Favre:

1) “‘It’s pretty clear — and this is what I told the commissioner — that they want me to go away, stay retired.’”

Do you blame them if this is true?  If you hadn’t jerked around with the team for three consecutive off-seasons, and the Packers still did this to you, then we have a different story.

2) “‘They would much rather see me in a Packers’ uniform, paying me $12 million to be a backup — which you know they really don’t want — rather than see in another uniform, no matter what they say.’”

The Packers wouldn’t mind seeing you in Packers’ gear, had you not jerked around with them a third time!

3) “‘Roger is willing to help but he has to be careful,’ said Favre. ‘I told him I could easily send in this letter [of reinstatement] but they really don’t want me there and it’ll be a big circus.’

Um…too late!

4) “According to Favre, Thompson asked him if he was interested in a trade. ‘Yeah, but not just to the teams you want me to go to,’ Favre said, relaying his conversation with the Packers’ GM.”

WTF?  If the Packers get a good offer, and he shoots the trade down, then that is his own damn fault, isn’t it?  Seriously, I would pay good money to see Favre in Oakland or Miami.  And for the record, I’m 99% sure that the teams the Packers don’t want him to go to are the Vikings and the Bears.

Somebody please call this guy a WAAAAAAAAAmbulance.

- So the Woodland Hills Kiwanis Pig Roast was this past Saturday, and my sister (still a proud Kiwanian!) and I arrived at the festivities at about 5PM.  About half an hour later, my partner in crime, Mr. Don Doner, showed up.

I call Mr. Doner my partner-in-crime because, for the past three years, we have been responsible for selling tickets to buy booze from the bar.  Every year, sales have gone up, and I think alcohol sales went WAY up this year, despite the cooler-than-expected temperatures.  More importantly, though, I attend this Pig Roast every year because I get to spend 2-3 hours with Mr. Doner.

You see, he is a counselor, and at the ripe old age of 1,000 (:P), he’s forgotten way more than I will ever learn.  Every year I’ve attended the pig roast, we talk about life, business, and philosophy, so much so that I treat the Pig Roast as a paid life lecture with a complimentary meal.

(Watching Mr. Doner charm the ladies—and the gentlemen too!—out of their money for booze tickets is pretty awesome too.)

As for the food:  roasted pig, roasted chicken (some people were complaining that the chicken was undercooked; my piece was cooked perfectly), potatoes, cole slaw (w/celery?), salad, beans, and a slice of cake for dessert, and I was stuffed.  The best part was, I got to take tons of leftover food home!  Too bad there was no left over pork…

(The chicken I took home turned out to be undercooked, unfortunately.)

I can’t wait for next year’s Pig Roast, and I’ll see you there, Mr. Don Doner.

- So the Dodgers got Casey Blake?  Awesome!

(Not really.)

So we traded a future catcher prospect (Carlos Santana) and a good pitching prospect (Jon Meloan) for a 35 year old 3B who can’t defend, hits only decently (though, compared to the rest of the Dodgers, he’s an All-Star!) and is a free agent at the end of the year?  Worse yet, speculation is that the Dodgers had to throw in Santana to get the Indians to pay the rest of Blake’s $2 million salary.  Really?  You’re doling out $118 million, and $2 million more is a problem?

That being said, I can’t fault Colletti for having to save money, even at the expense of an extra prospect.  What I CAN fault him for is EVERY OTHER FREAKING STUPID MOVE HE’S EVER MADE!!!  Juan Pierre for $44 million?  Jason Schmidt?  Andruw Jones???

(And I’m fully aware that I actually ENDORSED the deal late last year.  I must have been drunk that night.)

If I hear that Colletti traded away Kemp, Kershaw, and Billingsley for Mark Teixeira and money to cover his contract the rest of the year, I better hear about 200,000 Dodger fans chasing Colletti out of town.  Then again, Colletti doesn’t trade his best prospects, so I better expect an Andy LaRoche-Andre Ethier for Jack Wilson swap, with a third prospect being thrown in for the money issues.

Speaking of Andy LaRoche…what the hell did he do to get treated so poorly?  Did he make a pass at Mrs. McCourt?

Until next time!

Tags: andy laroche, blog traffic, brett favre, caller id, carlos santana, casey blake, diva favre, jon meloan, los angeles dodgers, pig roast, woodland hills kiwanis by Peter
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My thermostat says it’s 82 degrees in my living room right now.

It’s 10PM!!!

Quick-hitters:

- Time Warner, you’re so funny. One week after I discovered you guys started charging a “Digital Programming Fee,” I spotted one of your commercials still advertising free HD channels!

(Granted, the commercial says you need a set-top box to get the free channels, and I guess you can call it a “fee” to rent said box, but wouldn’t that be a “STB rental fee”?)

Nicely done, Time Warner.

EDIT:  Krunk brought up a very good point, one that I completely whiffed on.  Digital programming does not necessarily imply HD programming.  Any regular STB can offer digital programming; however, an HD STB is what is required to get HD programming.

I’ll have to look over my bill again to see exactly what I’m getting charged for.

- Speaking about bad customer service, it’s almost time to call Sprint again to get my 10% credit. This is assuming, of course, that Sprint didn’t auto-credit me this month, which is a safe bet, no?

I should be careful, though, about calling in Sprint way too frequently. I do not recall where I read it from, but I recall reading somewhere that Sprint cancels contracts of users that call CS way too often. And now that the great deal that was Sprint SERO is effectively dead—it’s now $60 for the cheapest plan—I better do whatever it takes to keep my plan alive.

- Current rebate-o-meter: $1,290. And yes, I did submit those nearly-expired rebates yesterday.

- Today’s blog will be dedicated to the food that I made this week (sorry, no pics!).

(In no particular order…)

1) I made a New York Strip steak with some roasted red potatoes (coated in melted butter, olive oil, seasonings, and kosher salt). The steak was pan-fried, cooked in butter, and coated (naturally) with black pepper and kosher salt. Delicious, but the piece of meat was far too fatty for my liking.

2) I made California rolls twice, once with brown rice. The latter was a terrible idea; the rice just didn’t stick well, and all the sweetened vinegar in the world couldn’t mask the fact that it tasted like…well…brown rice. Sadly, I also did not have any avocado.

3) My sister Nancy gave me a bottle of buffalo wing sauce from Anchor Bar, the (paraphrasing) Home of the Buffalo Wing, so I decided to make some Buffalo wings.

(She has a friend that lives up there).

I didn’t have any celery or carrot sticks, unfortunately, so I was forced to slice up some cucumbers to go along with the wings.

Note to self: never, ever, use wing pieces from 99 Ranch to make Buffalo wings. Some of those chicken wing pieces sure didn’t taste like chicken! I loved the sauce, though—we got the Suicidal recipe sauce—but I could have used something a tad hotter.

(Did I just say that?)

I have a hankering for some California rolls right now.

Oh yeah, tomorrow is the Woodland Hills Kiwanis Pig Roast. Oh no…

Tags: 10% credit, anchor bar, buffalo wings, california rolls, digital programming free, employee plan, Food, free HD?, kiwanis, new york steak, pig roast, roasted potatoes, SERO, sprint, time warner, woodland hills by Peter
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Ugh…I’m stuffed.

(As you might expect, there’s more on that later.)

Quick-hitters:

- I can’t remember the last time I’ve stepped foot in a CVS.

I’m surprised I haven’t gotten a “Where are you?” email :P.

(Either that, or a “Good riddance!” email.)

- Speaking of shopping, I stepped foot in a Ross earlier today…and stepped out with ABSOLUTELY NOTHING!!!  Then again, it helped that none of the three shirts I tried on fit very well.  I didn’t even think that was humanly possible!

My sisters, on the other hand, did some nice damage to their purses.

Wait a sec…no trips to CVS in three weeks?  No purchases at Ross?  Am I the same person that has been blogging here for the past year and change???

- So earlier today, I made what might have been the easiest forty bucks ever.

The older of my two sisters (Nancy) had a $40 debit card, for which I was going to give her cash—I planned on using it to buy a $40 Amazon.com gift certificate, since I buy so much stuff from Amazon anyway.  When she got here, she handed me the gift card, and then we got to talking about her wanting either a new cell phone plan, a new phone itself, or discounted service.  I suggested that she get in contact with AT&T’s retentions department.

After being on hold for five minutes or so, she whined about not wanting to talk to customer service (apparently she keeps up with my battles with Sprint :P).  She begged me to speak with CS, to which I politely declined.  She then yelled, “I’ll give you that [debit] card if you deal with them!”

One minute on hold followed by fifteen minutes with a VERY knowledgeable rep later, I pocketed the debit card.  In fact, the experience with that rep might cause me to (at the very least) consider a switch back to AT&T.

Yeah, I’m THAT sick of Sprint.

- Over the Fourth of July weekend—I think that’s when it happened—cousin David casually mentioned something about Outback Steakhouse.  I forget the context of the conversation, but I think it had something to do with the best “mainstream” steakhouse out there.

Well, fast forward to last weekend, when Nancy offered to take me out to dinner.  For what occasion, I had no idea!  Anyway, that conversation with cousin David stuck in my head, and because I knew that not making a quick decision would have resulted in a week’s worth of deliberations over which restaurant to eat at (right, Krunk?), I quickly chose Outback Steakhouse.

We got to the nearest Outback at around 7pm, and were seated about ten minutes later (by a very attractive blonde, for the record).  I “settled” on the 16 oz. Prime Rib dinner, and was surprised to see Coke Zero among the drink options!  Nancy had ribs and chicken; my mom had the grilled salmon (the “l” is silent, dammit!); and my other sister (who likes to remain anonymous :P) ordered the steak, scallops, and shrimp dinner.

There is a good chance that my standards of food have gone down dramatically, but I thought the food was, overall, quite good.  It could have been a lot worse, I suppose.  I sampled every dish—and by “sampled” I mean everyone tossed a portion of their food onto my plate—and thought the ribs were quite tasty, the chicken was meh, the salmon (SAM-on, dammit!!!) was very juicy, and the bit of scallop I had was perfect.  My sister’s sirloin steak, though, was not close to medium-rare; it looked almost medium-well!

As for the Prime Rib…it was excellent!  It was so good, I had a hard time handing out portions to everyone else at the table (I’m stingy when it comes to good food.  Is that a crime?).  I could have used some horseradish sauce, though.

Actually, I could have really used an antacid.  Or at least some Beano.

Tags: at&t, cell phone, chicken, csr, customer service, cvs, debit card, easy money, outback steakhouse, prime rib, ribs, ross, salmon, scallops, shrimp, sprint, steak by Peter
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My sister’s computer build has gone from a horrible time to a full-fledged disaster (and it’s still going on).  Brett Favre is really ticking me off.  The pet peeve I referenced last time still beckons to be talked about.  The Elton Brand-Los Angeles Clippers saga is getting interesting.

All that being said, I am a lazy bastard after all, so I will blog about one single topic:  this weekend’s July B-Days BBQ.

Quick-hitters:

- Oh dear.  It appears that that stupid KFC commercial where the blonde ditz declaring that “anything is possible” in this “whole new wing world” is airing again.

So apparently the brass at KFC not only thought the commercial was good enough to air it once…but they thought it was good enough to air it AGAIN???

Yikes.

- Speaking of stupid commercials, have you seen the T-Mobile one where Brett Favre makes a cameo?

Absolutely disgusting.  Seriously.

- Current rebate-o-meter:  $1,199.  I can’t wait for the 2009 software to come out!

- (The following story is about *a* computer build, but not *the* build referenced at the beginning of this blog entry.)

So six months ago, I got a CPU/mobo combo (some junky ECS board + a Pentium Dual Core 915 @ 2.8GHz) from Krunk in exchange for a super-duper pricey, 23K gold-painted 6′ HDMI cable (no, not really).  Three months later, with the parts still sitting in their original boxes, I acquired a 500GB SATA hard drive (for reasons which are not important *whistles*).

This past weekend, I finally got around to hooking up the parts, though I did have to buy a new motherboard; Krunk warned me that the mobo’s onboard LAN port was busted, and I feared that that was going to be the beginning of a disastrous build.

I bought a cheapy ECS board (GF7050VT-M) on eBay for ~ $35 shipped, thinking that I was going to get 25% back via M$’ Live Search cashback (and for the record, I have not yet been able to claim my cash back, but that’s a story for another day).  The seller shipped my purchase almost immediately, and because he was located in SoCal, I got my package in two days.

(insert rant)

The motherboard was shipped, IN ITS ORIGINAL BOX, with nothing more than a USPS Priority Mail Tyvek envelope wrapped around it!!!  Who the hell thinks that the original box that a mobo is shipped in is sufficient packaging for something as delicate as a motherboard???

(end rant)

Fortunately, the board is working fine, and my system build went without a hitch.  I know have 300GB of free space to use for, um, data backup.

If only my sister’s computer build went that well…

- On Saturday, my aunt decided that she wanted to BBQ to celebrate the birthday of her sister (my other aunt on my mom’s side) and another individual who shall remain nameless.

We decided to go to Almansor Park for the festivities, and even though it was really warm that afternoon, it got chilly quickly, so much so that it became a chore to keep the charcoal hot enough to thoroughly cook all the food.  We had to go through two bags of charcoal and tons of lighter fluid, but eventually everything got cooked.

Food, you say?  Kebabs (New York steak, mushrooms, and bell peppers), chicken wings, ribs, potato salad, salad, celery and carrot sticks, some other stuff that I don’t remember, and of course, a birthday cake.

(In fact, when the birthday cake was ready to go and Happy Birthday was sung, I found out that a third person had a mid-July birthday:  “cousin” Darren :P.  Three birthdays, one BBQ…talk about saving money!)

EDIT:  I forgot to mention…during the day, I was forced into several hours of touch football and my best James Loney impersonation as a first baseman.  Boy am I sore today!

Until next time!

Tags: 500gb, annoying, bad shipping, bbq, birthday, combo, commercial, cpu, Food, kfc, motherboard, sata, seagate, steak by Peter
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I have so much to blog about!

(I hate the fact that I’m a lazy bastard :P)

I could blog about the horrible time I’m currently having with my latest computer build (and the worst part is, this build’s for my sister!).  I could go into a mega-rant about one of my biggest pet peeves in the world.  I could blog about my Dodgers being in first place in the National League Pee-Wee division (aka the West).

Basically, I could go in many directions with tonight’s blog entry.  Instead, I think I’ll continue with my Fourth of July weekend adventures.

And sorry, no quick-hitters:

- So on Saturday, we decided that we were going to go to the beach.

(Can you believe it?  Early July, and I haven’t yet stepped foot on a beach???)

As we were determining what beach we wanted to go to, I got an IM from cousin David.  You see, I had been helping him pick out a digital camera for weeks now, and he was trying to decide between one of the following (warning:  shameless link-spamming ahead):

• A Nikon D40 DSLR (my personal choice!)
• A Panasonic Lumix DMC-TZ5k
• A Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ18k
• A Canon S5 IS (his eventual choice)

Apparently he wanted to go to Camarillo outlet to go clothes shopping, and he bribed us to go with the promise that we could play around with his new camera.  Moi, passing up the chance to play with a new toy?  Are you kidding me?  Not to mention, Camarillo was about 10-15 degrees cooler than it was here!

We didn’t get to the outlet until about 3PM, and because we hadn’t eaten yet, we stopped by the Food Court and grabbed some grilled steak sandwiches.  Pretty greasy, I might say, but what did I expect?  Very non-filling too, I might add, as I grabbed a Wetzel Pretzel about two hours later.  The pretzel was awful!  I ordered a Jalapeno Cheese pretzel, and for some reason, the Jalapenos were sweeter rather than hot.  And don’t even get me started on the substance on the pretzel that resembled cheese.

- Later on in the day, my sister wanted to go to the Coach Factory Store, and apparently they were having a huge sale…which I figured out when we were about ten stores away from Coach.  We went to the NIke store first while my sister went to Coach, and after a few minutes, we attempted to locate her in the Coach store.

That was like trying to find a needle in a haystack.

Eventually, she finished shopping, and got in the quite empty line.  Seemingly out of nowhere, a cute little saleswoman came up to my sister, grabbed her purchases (she accidentally grabbed my sister’s wallet, which was pretty funny), and scurried over to the register.

I believe this is a good summarization of what the cashier said to us:

“Hi!Isthatallyouwanttoday?CanIinterestyouinawalletforthirtyorfortydollars?Yourtotalcomesoutto[some-odd dollars]oh!Isthatagiftcard?Cool!I’msohappytoday!”

Seriously.  Someone might want to check the coffeemaker in the Coach Factory Store break room.

David had an excellent response to the girl:  he asked her if she wanted my sister’s phone number.

I nearly cried from laughter the second we stepped out of the store.  To this day, I’m still trying to figure out how the girl could have been so hyper.  It was nearing 7PM, and the only reasonable explanation I could come up with was that the girl works a four-hour shift, which started at 6PM.  David, being inappropriate as usual, mentioned that perhaps she was hiding something…

- After a bit of deliberation, we decided to have dinner at My Brother’s BBQ, on Ventura Blvd. between DeSoto and Canoga Blvd.  I had the Tri-Tip, sliced ham, and sliced pork dinner, and boy was the Tri-Tip excellent!  The ham was average, and the slice of pork I had was a bit too fatty.  The cole slaw and baked potato were about as good as you could expect it to be (namely, just OK), but the garlic bread was incredible!  Super garlic-y, and super buttery.  Yum!

My sister and cousin David split two dishes:  broasted and BBQ chicken, and chicken and ribs.  I tasted a bit of the ribs, which were really really dry.  The BBQ chicken was ok, and I forgot to ask how the broasted chicken was.

After dinner, we headed to Gelson’s to get some bakery grub.  We decided on a chocolate truffle (quite good), a canolli (very good!), and a Napoleon (awesome, especially because it wasn’t nearly as sweet as some places make it).  The day ended with us chowing down on dessert, followed by cousin David going crazy on SingStar 90s.  Too bad he deleted the video we made of him singing New Kids on the Block’s “Step By Step;” it was quite awesome.

(And by quite awesome…you know…)

Until next time!

Tags: broasted chicken, canon, coach factory store, garlic bread, gift card, hyper cashier, lumix dmc-fz18k, lumix dmc-tz5k, my brother's bbq, nikon d40, panasonic, ribs, S5 IS, singstar 90s, tri-tip by Peter
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