UngsungBlog: A (Fantasy) Sports Blog

And if you don’t believe me, watch SportsCenter later today.

Or tomorrow.

Or next week.

Or right now (CBS is showing “The Play”).

Guess I’ll be skipping ESPN for a week.

- Nope, haven’t watched this past Thursday’s Office yet.  I plan on doing so later tonight.

- Quick Fantasy Football Week 1 recap:

In league #1, I was ahead 99-97 going into Monday’s Indy-Miami tilt, so I decided to bench Peyton Manning.

(People were giving me flak for benching Manning, calling me a wuss.  How was my decision anything but damn intelligent?  What if Manning fumbled the first snap and left the game with an injury?)

That’s when I found out that Yahoo! no longer rounds fantasy points.  It turns out that I was winning by 0.8 pts (97.90 to 97.10).

Oh well, a win’s a win.

In league #2, I won handily, 114-100, thanks to Matt Schaub (30.68) and Marques Colston (21.80).

I’m getting my butt kicked in both leagues so far today, though.

Later.

Tags: brett favre, diva farve, fantasy football, greatest of all time, office, peyton manning by Peter
No Comments »

My head hurts.

And I hate stupid people.

Quick-hitters:

- Office fans, rejoice! According to Office creator Ricky Gervais, Carell has signed a three-year contract extension to continue making episodes of The Office.

W00h00!!!

- (Thanks, or maybe no thanks, Krunk) Do women REALLY like douche-y a-holes like this clown?

There are guys that think they’re the greatest, and then there’s this guy.

My head is still reeling from listening to the clip…ONCE!

(BTW, if you want to talk “douchebag,” look no further than Countrywide CEO Angelo Mozilo.)

- I’m surprised that Chase, Citibank, and Discover haven’t called me up lately, inquiring as to why I haven’t bought anything lately.

How will these companies ever stay in business?

- Have you seen a commercial for the “Guitar Idol?”

(Warning: an obnoxious, insipid, and possibly traumatizing commercial, the same one that is shown on TV, appears on that site. You have been warned.)

Basically, these devices are oversized, rubberized (I think) guitar pick-shaped devices with a built-in speaker. Each pick is programmed to play two songs, and apparently you’re supposed to “strum” the pick up and down along with the music, adding your own guitar riffs.

This would be an awesome idea…if Guitar Hero and Rock Band never existed. Well, that, and if air guitar players didn’t look ridiculous.

The best thing about these picks? $19.95 + $8.95 processing and handling!!! I think I would be happier with the money.

- So here are some super-late, and probably already oft-repeated thoughts regarding Thursday’s NBA Draft:

1) It didn’t surprise me that Miami went with Michael Beasley. How he will fit with Wade + Marion, though, is another story. If they click, and Mario Chalmers (great pickup, BTW) relegates Jason Williams to the bench, will Riley mosey (sp?) his way down to the Heat bench next season?

2) I hate the Memphis-Minny swap for both sides. Minny picked up an undersized PF in Kevin Love (don’t they already have one in Al Jefferson?) and traded away a potential superstar in O.J. Mayo in the process. And doesn’t Memphis have enough guards already? And they had to throw in Mike Miller in the deal as well?

What’s next? Is Minny going to trade Al Jefferson back to Boston for cash considerations? Is Memphis going to trade O.J. Mayo to the Lakers for D.J. Mbenga?

3) I am not a fan of the Sonics pick of Russell Westbrook at #4. They could probably have traded down (say, to #7) and still picked up Westbrook. Now, if he learns how to play the point, and develops a reliable jumper, then this is a great pick. As it stands, I thought this was a serious reach (but nothing compared to the Kings’ pick of Jason Thompson at #12.)

If I think of something else to say, I’ll add it later. For now, though, here are my draft winners/losers:

4) Winners: Miami (especially if Chalmers works out), New Jersey (Brook Lopez at #10 was great value, but I don’t particularly like the Ryan Anderson pick), and Portland (Bayless fits the team perfectly, and they now have something like 200 future picks stockpiled). The Clippers are winners if DeAndre Jordan doesn’t flop. And can I put the Lakers in this list for acquiring Pau Gasol for the 28th overall pick, a sack of potatoes, Gasol’s brother, and Javaris Crittendon?

Losers: Sacramento (Jason Thompson? Patrick Ewing, Jr.?), Milwaukee (they love SFs, and sorry, but Joe Alexander has bust written all over him), and honorable mention to Knicks’ pick Danilo Gallinari (was that a brutal crowd or what?).

Final thought: I love the T.J. Ford for Jermaine O’Neal trade for Toronto. They got rid of a redundant player for a high-risk, high-reward player in O’Neal, and the 17th pick (Roy Hibbert) isn’t going to be a game-changer. IF (and that’s a huge IF) O’Neal plays sixty games, and is healthy for the playoffs, look out for Toronto!

As for Indiana, I like T.J. Ford, and Brandon Rush will be a solid pro. But, they had Jerryd Bayless fall to their laps at #11. Why not keep him as an insurance policy for T.J Ford, as well as a guy who can play some shooting guard?

That’s all for tonight.

Tags: commercial, douchebag, guitar idol, indiana pacers, jermaine o'neal, jerryd bayless, kevin love, los angeles clippers, mario chalmers, miami heat, michael beasley, milwaukee bucks, office, oj mayo, portland trail blazers, ricky gervais, russell westbrook, sacramento kings, steve carell, t.j. ford, toronto raptors, voicemail by Peter
2 Comments »

No quick-hitters, as I still have a headache. Let’s get to it:

- Tonight’s Office started out pretty slowly, but when it got going, it really got going! Tonight, we got the prototypical “storyline” episode; tonight’s episode wasn’t over-the-top funny, but it served its purpose to further a number of existing storylines, and may possibly lay the framework for future episodes. Look what we discovered from tonight’s episode alone!

(BTW, I loved the whole opening scene. Would it have been too rated-R for someone to suggest that Michael put an impression of something else into the cement? Why did Oscar waste his time trying to convince Michael that an impression of his face didn’t seem safe?) And why didn’t Michael’s head get kinda stuck in the cement? That would have been hilarious, in a morbid way…

We know Ryan has issues with Jim for Jim’s interaction with David Wallace, and now we know that Toby hates Jim for his relationship with Pam. Is Jim’s job possibly at risk? Perhaps Jim will be demoted, and Dwight will be promoted to the real #2 and not the #2 in his mind only. Or perhaps Jim will get fed up with the negativity towards him, and he has to choose between keeping his position with the company and staying close to his girlfriend. We’ve got Dwight already against Jim, and now Ryan and Toby…Andy, logically, has to be next to attack Jim, right, perhaps with a little prodding from Angela?

By the way, Toby, what happened to going to Costa Rica? Couldn’t afford the plane ticket? And Pam’s blind as a bat sans corrective lenses, eh? You just knew there were going to be some inappropriate comments made to Pam by the men of the Office (namely, Kevin and Creed). As far as the main storyline of the episode is concerned…

Also, did anyone notice that, on the company hierarchy chart that Dwight has—why he has one is a completely different story—Dwight’s name is just slightly above Jim’s?

EDIT: If you look carefully at the office hierarchy, you’ll see the following (I nearly spit water all over my laptop when I first noticed this):

• Above Dwight’s name are the words “Original Assistant Regional Manager.” Over Jim’s name are the words “Assistant Regional Manager.”
• Creed’s name (Creed Bratton) is in quotes.
• All the females in the office have the female symbol next to their names. Next to Oscar’s name is two male symbols. Next to each female is a moon symbol (quarter moon, half moon, etc.), presumably to indicate their “time” of the month. Phyllis’ and Meredith’s symbols are crossed out, for obvious reasons.
• The members of the Party Planning Committee are indicated in purple.
• Toby’s name has the Star of David next to it. Kevin’s name has a shamrock next to it.
• Next to Andy’s name is a Chess pawn is the image of a college graduate (did nobody else in the office graduate college?). Next to Darryl and Stanley’s names are a symbol that I can’t quite make out, but I presume they are an indication that these two are black. EDIT: Krunk said the image appears to be a fist. A sign of “Black Power,” perhaps?
• Devon (the guy who got fired in Halloween) has his name crossed out.

Speaking of Andy, who didn’t see Dwight doing something with Andy’s car to upset him? I gotta take down a transcript of what Dwight did to persuade Andy to sell his car for cheap, and try that out at a used car dealership

Finally! Someone grew a pair and called Michael out! Too bad it was Stanley; I would have loved to see a partially-drunk Meredith do it instead. Then again, it was awesome to see Stanley finally get more than a couple lines in an episode, and the tension between the two of them was great. It came as a pleasant surprise to me that Michael finally figured out that he was the authority figure of the office, and expected Stanley to treat him with some respect. And I loved the end of the episode, where Phyllis called Michael’s “summer Christmas” plan the worst thing she’s ever heard of, only to have Michael clear the room of everyone but himself and her.

If only I didn’t have to endure Michael butchering the series of jokes in the final talking head segment.

Favorite moments (coming soon…):

• Oscar: “Michael…that doesn’t seem…safe (rolls eyes, as if to remind himself who he’s talking to)”
• Pam: “Yeah…I slept over at a friend’s house, and…I forgot my contact lens solution, so I had to wear my backup glasses. Shut up!” (No comment.)
• Michael: “Pam, those make you look so ugly. In order to get hotter, you take the glasses off. You’re moving in the wrong direction.”
• Jim’s second fake proposal. Much funnier than the first one.
• Jim’s one-up on Andy’s idea for a new outgoing voicemail message. That had a bit of Dwight in it.
• Andy: “You meet a lot of ladies driving an Xterra, because…you pull up to a stop light, and look over, and there’s an Xterra next to you, they’re always driven by chicks. So there’s your ice breaker.” OK…
• Michael: “What’s the pink?” Dwight: “Menstrual cycles.” (see above)
• Kevin: “All the girlfriends that I’ve ever had have worn glasses. It’s kinda a turn on for me…like librarians…could you just say ‘These are due back Thursday’?” Creeeeeeeeeeepy…
• Creed: “I’d like to put the piano in front of Pam, without her glasses, and see what happens. I’d also like to see her topless.” LOL!
• Michael: “I would have never thought that gangs would be tickling each other.”
• Michael: “It’s the only possible solution I have left.” Toby: “Well, you can actually fire him.” Michael: “Ok…I’ve had enough of you.” Poor Toby
• Stanley: “Are you serious?” Michael: “I am serious…we are all serious. You are fired like a heart attack.” I swear I knew Michael was going to screw up this line!
• Michael: “Why don’t they just make the plane out of the airline food?” See above.

- Raise your hand if you were surprised that the B(S)CS rejected a plan to have a four-team playoff to crown an NCAA football champion every year. Apparently, not determining a champion on the field, according to these clowns, is the best way to determine a champion. Using arbitrary computer numbers and “try to be as unbiased as possible” football writers, these clowns would like us to believe, is the best way to determine a champion. According to Big 12 commish Dan Beebe,

“Even though we could construct barriers at this time, we felt like … there could be easily an errosion of that; more pressure to add more teams with an ability to get to the national championship game as we went over time. The system is under a lot of scrutiny that can result in pressure to add games. Our league is not favorable to a playoff system as a whole, and viewed this as the first step in that direction.”

Let me summarize: a four-team, plus-one playoff system would shaft team #5. If the playoffs were expanded to eight, team #9 would get shafted. Also, the B(S)CS would also like us fans to understand that adding additional games adds additional stress onto the students, both physically and academically. However, nobody seems to complain when NCAA basketball players have to spend up to three weeks outside of the classroom. The B(S)CS believes that players already play too many games; I didn’t hear anyone complaining when teams started adding a 12th game to their schedules.

I love this quote:

“We have decided that because we feel at this time the BCS is in an unprecedented state of health, we feel it’s never been healthier during its first decade, we have made a decision to move forward in the next cycle with the current format,” ACC commissioner and BCS coordinator John Swofford said.

By “unprecedented state of health,” these people are referring to their bank accounts, if that wasn’t painfully clear. I say, if we’re going to use an arbitrary system of picking the two teams to play in the National Championship game, we should be allowed to vote American Idol style.

Vote 1-800-BCS-0001 for USC, or text message BCS01 for USC! Standard text messaging rates apply!

American Idol-style voting can’t be any worse than what we currently have, right?

Tags: bcs, bs, did i stutter, hierarchy, office, playoff, review, screenshot by Peter
1 Comment »

Quick-hitters:

- In an effort to do more family-related things, my aunt wanted all of us to hang out and do something “fun” sometime this upcoming weekend.

When my sister and I got back home on Sunday night, I asked her if we were going to take up our aunt’s offer. She said that we were not going back next weekend under any circumstances.

Today, she found out that our four-year-old nephew will be in town this weekend. I guess we’ll be back in MPK sooner than I thought :P.

- I’ve been told that my blog is awfully negative in nature, so here’s something positive to report. On the way from the parking lot to Dodger Stadium, I grabbed my wallet to pull out my ID and credit card—I ordered tickets for Will Call—and I guess I left a $20 in my pocket, because the bill hung out of the pocket, flapping in the wind.

If it weren’t for the woman and girl who yelled “Sir, you have money coming out of your pocket!” I would probably have lost the bill seconds later, possibly into the hands of the guy who yelled “Why did you tell him? I would have caught it!”

- Quick Lakers thought: raise your hand if you thought Kobe wasn’t going to go off in Game 2.

That’s what I thought.

BTW, reports had it that J.R. Smith was unhappy with the way Kobe was taunting Denver, posing his fingers in the shape of a gun and flashing that to TNT analyst Reggie Miller. Apparently J.R. Smith chewed Kobe out for it, and Kobe responded with ” ‘Better learn not to talk to me. You shake the tree, a leopard’s gonna fall out,’ ” before responding on the court with a drive right at Smith for a layup-and-one.

First of all, why was J.R. Smith the one chewing Kobe out for his taunting? Where were Carmelo or A.I.? Second, if he was going to chew out Kobe, he had to have expected Kobe to destroy him the next time down the court, right? Third, Kobe had been able to drive through the lane all day! Where was another Nugget to help out on Smith, knowing that Kobe was going right down his throat on the next play?

Why do I see this series going only four games?

- So it was my mom’s birthday this past Tuesday, and I thought we were planning a dinner for the weekend of the 26th. That’s when my older sister told me that my mom demanded that we have her birthday dinner on the weekend before her birthday. This demand came on the 17th, giving us three days max to plan something.

Having none of that, my older sister exclaimed “Lunch. Saturday. Golden Gate (?) buffet.” My other sister and I each made a single phone call, expecting the invitations to osmose down to other family members.

(That’s how we roll.)

The guest list gradually increased, even though several people got their unofficial invites an hour before lunch. The food was pretty average, especially for a Chinese buffet. I started out with the sushi, and that was a huge mistake. The wasabi was about as runny as ketchup.

One item that piqued everyone’s interest was a seafood dish called “Assorted Delicacies on Crab Shell.” Calling something a “delicacy” without naming it is bad enough. “Assorted delicacies,” and you’ve gotta be thinking “cat food.” Now, I’ve never tried cat food before, but that stuff tasted like what cat food would taste like.

They also had cream cheese wontons, which tasted super sweet. Absolutely disgusting. The most popular food that we gorged upon was the Korean BBQ spare ribs, and the meat looked like it was boiled, not grilled.

(Actually, I take that back. The ice cream was the best part of the meal, by far.)

(Tangent: If there’s one thing I love about doing stuff with family, it’s the pop culture discussions we have.

BTW, when I say pop culture, I mean The Office.)

- Tonight’s Office episode was, by a mile, a lot better than last week’s episode. While the main storyline, understandably so, involved Michael’s continued search for a girl, we got to see practically every member of the cast contribute to the episode. From Kelly continuing to harbor hard feelings for Ryan, to drunken (drugged, right? Massive nuclear holocaust? Jungle warfare? Sure, Troy has a drug problem. Right…) Ryan partying at the club, to Toby literally running off to Costa Rica after grabbing Pam’s knee (AWK-WARD…), I laughed nearly every minute. I especially loved how Michael became super-protective of Ryan, especially in the scene at the bar.

I loved how another one of Jim’s bright ideas—staying late so that the crew wouldn’t have to come in on Saturday to fix Ryan’s mess—blew up in his face. Between this, the one birthday party for all, and other events that aren’t coming to me at the moment, clearly the Scranton office needs Michael to run things. By the way, I wonder if the writers are going to develop a story based on the tension between Jim and Ryan; are we supposed to believe that Ryan didn’t mean anything when he said “Watch your back, Jim?” Ryan better watch his back; perhaps the stress of the failing Dunder Mifflin Infinity (two-point-0!) project is weighing on him. Is his job at risk? Is corporate already regretting their decision to hire him?

It was hilarious to watch the rest of the office pile on Jim for not notifying the security guard—(paraphrasing) Eddie, Evan, Hank, Edgar, Elliott…is it Elliott? The guy who sits behind the desk…the African-American guy…!—but what did Pam do to get the scorn of the office as well…well, other than doinking a football off Meredith’s face? Speaking of Meredith, what’s next for her? Is she going to get shot next?

Speaking of Pam, poor Toby! Clearly the guy still has feelings for her. I hope this isn’t the end of the Toby character; if it is, giving him more lines than normal is a nice way to go out. “‘Everyone, let’s get your boss laid Saturday’”? . And how sad is it that Andy and Angela are the favorite couple in the office?

By the way, why the hell does Dwight have the keys to the office, and not Michael’s #2 (Jim)? And did anyone notice that the girl Michael was chatting with kinda looked like Jan as well?

So, Michael’s gotta end up with Jan in the future, right? Why else would he constantly be running into people that look like Jan? Maybe the next time they meet up, she’ll have a face lift as well, not that I’m saying Melora Hardin needs a face lift. And when did Dwight become such a playa?

Favorite moments:

• Did anyone think that Dwight used a bit too much peanut butter to get the gum out of Michael’s hair?
• Michael: “Look, men are visual creatures. We crave beauty, like a piece of fine art by any number of renowned artists, or an art-y photograph of Cindy Crawford nude…[the persons Michael have dated] just lack a certain Crawford-ness.” (Does it surprise anyone that he couldn’t name a single artist?)
• Ryan: “Yes. I’m having the Scranton branch come in on one Saturday to re-enter sales that they made on the phone as sales made by the website, which they should have done in the first place…if the website had been working.” (I love Ryan’s character.)
• Ryan: “Yes. The social networking feature of the Dunder-Mifflin Infinity website was infiltrated by sexual predators.” LOL! WTF does a paper company need with a social networking site?
• Michael: “It’s not the horniess, ok? It’s the loneliness.” I might have just found a new subtitle for my blog
• Andy: “I am in SERIOUS need of some bro time! Ol’ ball-and-chain has been a lot more chain than ball lately, if you know what I’m saying.” Right in front of Dwight and Angela, no less!
• Michael: “I am going to get laid. Goodbye!” followed by Dwight: “With sex!” HAHAHAHA!
• Andy: “Show of hands. Who thinks we’re a better couple than Jim and Pam?” The cameras should have panned on a grinning Angela.
• Dwight referring to the basketball team as “Amazons” followed by Dwight’s idea of pairing up two girls to a guy to get in to the club (how did Dwight learn all this stuff while running a beet farm?)
• The collective groan of the office when they receive Michael’s cell phone video of Dwight making out.
• Michael: “I’ve asked a lot of girls to dance, Mom…” WTF?
• Jim: “Cleaning people…Oscar! OK…so all you need to do is explain to them what happened because I think they can help us.” Oscar: “Why are you assuming they only speak Spanish?” followed by the exchange between Oscar and the cleaning ladies, ending with Oscar saying “they happen to speak Spanish.” Way to straddle the line of racism, writers :P.
• Michael’s advice for Ryan’s “friend” with the drug problem. I really need to start watching The Wire…I hear it’s great.

Tags: dinner, Dodger Stadium, gasol, good samaritan, jr smith, kobe, lakers, lost money, mom's birthday, night out, office, review by Peter
1 Comment »

No quick-hitters tonight.

- I got myself a new toy today: a Logitech VX Revolution notebook mouse. My old Microsoft Blue Optical Mouse was getting completely worn out; the sides of the mouse, the three feet that were still stuck on the bottom, and the textured scroll wheel had all seen better days.

I may post a full review of this item later down the line, but for now, here are my quick thoughts on the mouse:

1) The mouse has two scroll wheel (dubbed “MicroGear Precision Scroll Wheel”) options: precision (click-to-click scrolling, which we’re all familiar with), and a free-spin mode, where the wheel will spin continuously for a few seconds with one quick flick of the wheel. The latter is great for scrolling through several pages of a document, but so far, I see no personal use for it.

2) I love the rubberized feel of Logitech mice, and this is no exception. The stow-away receiver is nice, too, though the button used to eject the receiver out of the bottom of the mouse has, at least one, launched the receiver like a cannonball being shot out of a cannon.

3) This is the first notebook mouse I’ve ever used that uses AA batteries (1xAA). It’s also the first notebook mouse I’ve used that has the back/forward buttons.

4) As with every other notebook mouse I’ve ever used…the mouse is just too small for my hands! After about an hour of use today, my right hand started cramping up. I should probably just start using a desktop mouse with my laptop.

- Naturally, one would except the episode immediately following a season premiere to be a let down from the prior week. Since I treated last week’s Office episode as a premiere, I didn’t expect much out of tonight’s episode.

The episode was fairly funny in bits and pieces, but overall, I was right not to expect much from tonight.

(I expect to read a bunch of dissenting opinions on other blogs tonight.)

Personally, I thought the writers should have given more time to the “date” between Michael and Pam’s landlady, as well as the parking lot situation with Kevin and Andy. Michael’s jerk-dom was also pretty over-the-top in the episode, especially with the way he acted in front of the landlady (though I did chuckle at his reaction to seeing her for the first time).

Breaking news! Michael’s single! Where’s Jan staying? Ooooh…I hope she hooks up with Hunter! That would make for an awesome storyline! Also, did anyone notice that the chair model looked a hell of lot like Jan, and Michael’s description of what the model might be like describes Jan to a T? Anyone wanna bet on the over/under on the number of weeks it will take for Michael to get back with Jan? I say three weeks, and I’ll take the under.

Poor Kevin! Oh well…in the immortal words of Michael Scott, “You don’t deserve her.” LOL. Also, I didn’t realize that there were so many ways to ask whether or not someone is fat. I’m surprised Michael didn’t ask if Phyllis’ friend looked more like Pam or Phyllis :P.

Great investigate work by Dwight, by the way. Why the two of them have to go and butcher “American Pie,” though, is anyone’s guess.

The whole scene with Jim joking about a marriage proposal, followed by the talking head where he shows the ring, I thought, was puzzling. Did Jim really want Pam to move in with him ASAP? I thought Jim was joking when he initially said that a proposal was “happening,” and, of course, we found out that this was not the case. He bought the ring a week after they started dating??? I guess that this was the writers’ way to play off Jim’s dorkiness, but I thought the whole scene was awkward. Joking about marriage after what Pam went through with Roy? The fake-proposal scene was fairly unfunny as well, though I love how my sister fell for it, hook, line, and sinker.

(Upon further review, I think the first Jim/Pam scene would have been a heck of a lot better if we were able to see Jim and Pam’s faces during the entire conversation.)

Favorite moments:

• Kevin: “I will quit. As God is my witness, I will quit if this is not fixed.”
• Pam: “I definitely remember your dinner party.”
• Michael: “Hello, Oscar Meyer Wiener…lover,” followed by Michael’s request to look for “liberal girl-type friends who trust [him]” Real subtle there, Michael.
• Michael: “I want to play ball with my kids before I get too old, and before that happens, I need to get laid.” That entire diatribe might have been the highlight of the episode, up until the ultimatum at the end.
• Michael again: “Wish I could, but I can’t. Well, can, but won’t. Should, maybe, but shorn’t (sp?)” At least he’s being honest!
• Jim: “Michael, you didn’t even know her,” followed by Pam shaking her head at him.
• Michael, once again, looking at the date cards: “Wendy…a juicy red-head.” I totally missed that joke the first time around!
• Michael: “You wanna see what I walked out on? This is going to blow your mind…and you can’t see her whole body (pointing)…she had a boob job…” followed by Jan saying “Michael?” Haha!
• Michael: “What do you do?” Dwight: “Wait ’till next year’s chair catalog comes out and find someone that’s still alive.”

Until next time!

Tags: chairmodel, logitech, mouse, office, toy, vx revolution by Peter
No Comments »

So I just got around to updating WordPress to version 2.5. Let’s hope I didn’t foul things up.

(I agree with Krunk…there needs to be an easier way to update WP. It didn’t help that WSFTP kept throwing up left and right. I had to create folders remotely first, before I could upload the new WP files. And don’t tell me that there is a setting in WSFTP that allows a user to transfer non-empty folders; I am fully aware of that, and never had a problem with the transfer of non-empty folders until today.)

Anyway…

Quick-hitters:

- Oh no! Between my sister and me, we have over $30 in ECBs expiring on the 17th, and there is absolutely nothing worth buying t his week or next! What to do???

- Somebody help me. I have Hunter’s song (from The Office) stuck in my head!

You took me by the hand

Made me a man

That one night

You made everything alright!

Argh!

Again, a one topic blog!

- So I’ve been a Vonage customer for about eight months now, and how can I put this nicely? The service stinks!

Well, at least I figured the service was garbage. I was able to make outgoing calls at a 20% success rate—one in five!—and incoming calls were a crapshoot at best (so much so that I started forwarding calls from my Vonage line to my cell phone.) I figured the problem had to lie either with Vonage, or perhaps Time Warner was messing up my phone connection. All I knew was that I was paying $24.99, and then $14.99, a month for a virtually useless phone line.

(Remember: I had a one year commitment, which was necessary to claim the $300 Circuit City card, as well as the $175 rebate on the Linksys PAP2 Phone Adapter.)

Recently, the Vonage line got so bad that I would get nothing but a busy signal, no matter what number I called. I decided that enough was enough, and began troubleshooting. I logged in to my Vonage account, and under Features…Bandwidth Saver, I lowered the sound quality to the lowest setting. That didn’t seem to do a damn thing.

I decided to log in to the PAP2 to see if there was some setting that I could fiddle with to fix things. I had to log in to my WRT54G router to pull the PAP2’s IP, and that’s when I decided that I would assign a static IP to the PAP2.

(Tangent: For some reason, I’ve never had luck with port forwarding and DHCP. For example, my secondary computer would always pull an IP of 192.168.1.110, but uTorrent would often report that the ports I left open for that computer were not so. it was only when I manually assigned the IP of 192.168.1.110 did port forwarding work properly.)

I logged in to the router, and saw only a couple of pages, one of which was asking for WAN info. Thinking that it wanted my IP info, I didn’t bother with that page, and looked through the other pages for anything to tweak. I found nothing, and that’s when I decided to read the manual (!!!).

(Manuals? What do we do with manuals? We throw them out the window! After all, I have techno-joy! ;-).)

I found that the DHCP could be disabled via the Interactive Voice Response (IVR) menu, which could be accessed by dialing **** on a phone connected to the PAP2. I dialed ****, entered the command to disable DHCP, and heard a broken “Invalid Command.” I tried again, and got the same broken message.

I hung up the phone, and noticed the “Phone 1″ light on my PAP2 shut off. I turned the phone back on, and heard something along the lines of “This line is not set up for Vonage use.” ARGH!

I accessed the IVR again, checked the status of DHCP, and found that it was, indeed, disabled. OK…I then proceeded to manually enter the IP, subnet mask, and gateway. I hung up the phone, picked it back up, and heard another error message: something along the lines of “Your adapter cannot register with Vonage’s services”.

It turned out that the PAP2’s IVR was about as good as most companies’ IVRs; in other words, they all stink. Too bad I couldn’t scream “OH MY F***** G*D” at the PAP2 :P. It took me seven or eight tries to correctly input all my information.

While browsing through the manual, I figured out that I wasn’t forwarding my ports correctly. Apparently, there are four port ranges that need to be forwarded: More importantly, I was supposed to use UDP and not TCP:

Set up port forwarding on your router. You must specify that four port ranges be forwarded to the IP address of the Phone Adapter. These four port ranges are as follows: 5060-5061 (UDP), 53-53 (UDP), 69-69 (UDP), and 10000-20000 (UDP).

After forwarding all ranges to the new IP of the PAP2, and changing the protocol to UDP, I picked up my phone, and immediately heard a dial tone! I placed a call—FYI, I had been using WaMu’s customer service # as a test call throughout—and immediately heard the WaMu recording! Finally!

The moral of the story? Don’t throw your manuals out of the window…unless you can find PDF copies :P. Let’s just hope that the service continues to work well.

Until next time!

Tags: office, pap2, vonage, wordpress by Peter
4 Comments »

I’ve got so much to blog about, but every day, other material comes to me (take, for example, The Office returning tonight!)

Oh well…on with it!

Quick-hitters:

- Seriously, Brett Favre, please go away. You might consider coming back if the Packers need you? You just got the entire town of Green Bay, WI, praying for a serious injury to Aaron Rodgers.

What did Rodgers ever do to you, by the way? You’ve hated this guy since day one, it appeared (anyone remember when Favre said something to the effect of “I’m not here to groom a new QB?”).

Go away. Seriously.

- Taxes are due in five days, and yours truly still has not filed them yet. Geez…what is so difficult about clicking the “submit” button?

- Current rebate-o-meter: $1800, and that’s after receiving $80 worth of rebates.

I’ve got about another $300 coming soon, though.

- One bit of television talk before I get to my Office review…

(For the record, I will neither confirm nor deny that I watch American Idol.)

but did Michael Johns really get eliminated this week? And WTF was with Ryan Seacrest reminding the viewers that, at this time last year, nobody was eliminated…but that wasn’t going to be happening this year? That was seriously messed up.

Did I just rant about reality television? Let’s just pretend that that never happened…

- So I’ve got one thing to say about tonight’s episode of The Office:

L O [expletive!] L.

Tonight’s episode was just like another season premiere, and boy, was it worth the wait! Michael had three vasectomies? Just the thought of that hurt me down there.

(Totally OT, but I live just a few blocks south of that hot dog stand that Jim and Pam were at, at the end of the episode. I’ve lived near it for almost three years now, and I have never eaten there!)

Watching the Michael-Jan relationship slowly obliterate around the rest of the party was incredible. I kinda expected something bad to happen between them, especially after how nauseating they were at the beginning of the episode. WTF happened to Michael’s condo? Jan has an office AND a candle-making room? And WTF was with that painting??? Was it just me, or were those images of Jan? Well, at least Michael has a little (literally!) area to sleep in. He might as well sleep on the couch every night. Oh yeah, and don’t forget his awesome TV! Seeing that thing made me spit water all over my TV, which, I should point out, is slightly larger than Michael’s.

Speaking of the party…who didn’t figure out immediately that Michael intentionally kept the staff at the office for some reason?

When Michael had Jim and Andy in the garage, and he started with the line, “Did you know that candles are the #1 fastest-growing product…,” I was immediately thinking “Oh no…Jan’s candle business is an MLM??? LOL!!!” The writers should have gone with that…not that Michael’s straight-up asking for $10,000 investments wasn’t hilarious enough. And did it surprise anybody to find out that Jan put Michael up to asking for investors? All I know is, I’d like to know what a bonfire-scented candle smells like :P.

Also, was there anything more priceless than the look on Pam’s face when it was brought to her attention that she had a relationship with Michael? And I loved how Angela chimed in with the “I’ve noticed how you look at him” remark. The tension between Jan and Pam—I forget the details, but there was an earlier episode where Jan reminded Pam that Michael was hers, or something like that—were evident, starting with the embrace between Michael and Pam, and I loved Pam’s facial expressions each time Jan threw a jab at her.

I also loved what Jim was willing to go through to get out of the party, even if it meant abandoning Pam. My sister wasn’t happy with what he did, but I thought it was hilarious. She loved how Pam got Jim back, though, by pointing out that Jim could not “buy a new party.”

(Tangent: John Krasinski, I found out earlier today, was interviewed on the Jim Rome Show last Thursday. That was a damn funny interview.

At the end of the episode—when the cops were called over—I was expecting Jan to run out crying, pleading with Michael not to leave, and I figured the episode would end with Jan and Michael embracing, thus immediately smoothing things over between the two of them. Once Michael insisted that there was nothing wrong, I was certain that the writers were going down this route. You could imagine my surprise when I found out that this was not the case; we were left with Jan literally picking up the pieces (of a Dundee), while Michael morphed back into the laugh-at-him idiot that we know and love. Could Michael finally be coming to his senses?

(Nah.)

Favorite moments:

• It wasn’t funny at all, but who wasn’t happy to see the opening scene with most of the cast there?
• Dwight: “Does it bother me that I wasn’t invited to Michael’s dinner party?” followed by his running off-camera. Poor Dwight.
• Jan (referring to the bottle of wine Pam gave them): “…this will be great to cook with!” (At this point, I knew that the party was going to be a disaster, with Michael and Jan right in the middle of it all.)
• Pam: “What a cute bench.” Michael: “Thanks. That’s my bed. Jan has, uh, some space issues, so I curl up on that puppy.” (Great choice of words, BTW.”
• Michael (after Pam announced that Jim couldn’t set up her TiVo): If you ever need any help, I’m just a phone call away.” Did you see the look on Jan’s face???
• Andy (to Pam): “I bet you’re sick of tuna, right? You probably have tuna every night.”
• Pam: “I just want to eat…which I realize is a lot to ask for…at a dinner party.”
• Jan’s stare of death at Pam after Michael gave Pam his jacket. Now THAT was priceless. The back and forth banter between Michael and Jan afterwards was great, especially Michael remarking that Jan loves to sue! Something tells me that Jan hasn’t forgotten that Michael cost her…er…them a great deal of money!
• Angela remarking that Jan and Michael shouldn’t joke about the devil.
• Michael: “Snip, snap, snip, snap, snip, snap…you have no idea the physical toll that three vasectomies have on a person.

(I just keeled over again for a minute.)

• Pam: “And now you guys are dating?” Dwight: “Purely carnal. That’s all you need to know.”
• Michael: “That was a $200 plasma screen TV you just killed! Good luck paying me back on your zero dollars a year salary + benefits!”
• Cop: “Not now, Dwight.” A nice way to remind us that Dwight was once (still is?) a volunteer cop.
• Jim: “My apartment’s on fire” which was immediately followed by Pam saying “Flooded.”

And for my sister’s one un-favorite moment:

• Angela slamming the Cold Stone ice cream cone on Andy’s car door. What a waste of ice cream!

It’s good to have The Office back.

Tags: favre, office, rebate by Peter
1 Comment »