Getting sleepy

I had an awful week picking NFL games. I blame the short week and not enough time to do research since I went back to PA on Wednesday afternoon. Mom only has dialup at home and things take for-e-ver to load there. I had dialup at my first apartment in Bloomfield and I don't miss it. at. all.

It was the final week of volleyball playoffs tonight and I played another night of 'C' volleyball. That's not going to help us win, especially against the other good team in the league. They beat us 2 of 3 times during the regular season, but we beat them in the first match of the playoffs. Leah is on vacation in South Africa (good for her! bad for us!) and our rotation is a little off. Off enough to really affect us on the court. I feel like I gave away a few points in the first and third games which led to them getting a pretty big lead that we couldn't come back from.

We went out afterward which cheered us all up. Loaded cheese fries and beer will do that for us! The MNF game was terrible, but Joe, Liwayway, Susan, Larry and I had a good time. We ran into Laurent who is here from France working on some things with the robot and we had a good time with him too.

Oh! I hit 130mph on the way home on the parkway. That's a lot of fun. It feels like you're sitting on a rocket!

Please to be seeing the title of the previous post

I've wanted to mention this for a few days, but my computer is never within arm's reach. The Samsung commercial with Ozzy Osbourne is really funny. My overanalytical mind asked why he would have everyone's phone numbers, but I got past that the second time that I saw the commercial. I can't say the same for the most recent McDonald's commercial featuring 2 triple cheeseburgers for $3. The woman sitting at the desk is eating the wrong sandwich! It bugs me because you can it's a Big Mac (you can see the lettuce) and lettuce doesn't come anywhere near a McD's triple cheeseburger.

I'm watching the 24 season premiere/prequel and I missed the beginning while I was in the kitchen. I wasn't too excited about it since it has been so long since the end of Season 6 (in real time), but it seems to be getting more exciting. Guns and land mines wil do that.

The Jets beat the Titans today (unbeaten no more!) so it looks like it's time to start believing in Gang Green again...and then get our hearts torn out two or three weeks later. My fantasy team is destroying this week behind Big Ben (17.5), Chicago D (20), Matt Forte (17.3), Warrick Dunn (12.35), and the Cardinals' duo of Boldin and Breaston (14.65 combined).

The new BCS standings are out..before that, Penn State is heading to the Rose Bowl after laying the wood to Michigan State on Saturday. Back to the Big College Screwup..there's going to be a giant mess in the Big XII. I don't know who to root for now that Texas Tech misfired in Norman on Saturday. They just looked like they were trying too hard in the first half and by the time halftime came, it was 42-7 and all over. The Nittany Lions had an outside, around the corner shot at the title game, but that's all over now that Utah has jumped them and the Utes' season is over after winning Saturday's Holy War. Nothing wrong with sunny Pasadena and it would be awesome to see the Lions take on the Trojans.

Once a week is not enough

Went to the Nets game tonight and LOLed all over the place at them. They are terrible. Josh Boone still can't play defense and Brook Lopez is worthless on the offensive end. I flipped on the TV when I got home and the Suns-Rockets game was on ESPN and I heard something about Robin Lopez (currently with Phoenix) not being as good offensively as his brother Brook. I continued to LOL a little more. I feel bad for Vince Carter since it looks like the plan this year is give it to Vince and get out of the way. That might change after Devin Harris gets back from injury, but we'll see. I know an awful lot about the NBA for not liking it very much!

Work's been pretty good this week--knock on wood for two more days of that. Natalie, my salon compatriot, has been in Ohio the past three days and I miss seeing her.

The rest of the week includes Jets-Pats on NFL Network and the CW Thursday, game night at LP's Friday, Quantum of Solace Saturday, and Sunday football at Leah's on...Sunday.

I should start trusting my first instinct

even though it's just fantasy football. I was going to pick up Brady Quinn tonight since Big Ben's shoulder is a mess and might not play and Jason Campbell is on a bye this week...obviously 2 first half TDs.

The game is on the NFL Network, which isn't good since a majority of America can't get it. The Jets are playing the Patriots next Thursday and I'm sure the NFL and Comcast and whoever else won't have a good answer before then. I tried watching the game on nfl.com, but they're only showing bits and pieces sprinkled around their studio show.

I have UMD-VaTech on tonight as I work on a bottle of cabernet. Ralph Friedgen (UMD head coach) is about as large as Mark Mangino (Kansas), but Ralph doesn't disgust me as much (not at all, actually) as Mangino does. I'm not sure why that is. 20-13 VaTech after 3 quarters.

Dateline Lubbock: Guns Up

What an amazing 2nd half last night. Texas goes ahead 33-32 with 1:29 remaining after being down 19 in the first half, but Graham Harrell and Michael Crabtree hook up for the winning TD with :01 left. The Big XII is absolutely sick this year. I've realized that I've been following and getting excited over Big XII games a lot over the past few years. They say defense wins championships (and it does), but the throttles on the offenses down there are wide-open.

In addition to the crush I have on the Big XII (and additionally, the SEC), I have admitted to having a giant man-crush: LeBron James. I realized it last week when he was on GameDay, but it definitely came out this week when I went looking for the NBA on TV. It's a known fact that I think the NBA is terrible basketball, but I will watch the Cleveland Cavaliers LeBrons when they're on.

Back to college football. It seemed like every team that I was rooting for won yesterday: Texas Tech over Texas, Oklahoma putting a giant beatdown on Nebraska, USC over a hapless Washington, Florida wrecking Georgia at the Cocktail Party, Michigan State over Wisconsin (nice timeout Bielema), South Carolina over Tennessee (<3>Random notes:

• I forgot to turn my clock back last night so I woke up at 9:00 this morning, which was actually 8:00.
• Grocery shopping took 12 minutes last night. There were about a dozen other people shopping at midnight last night which makes for a very easy trip through the store.
• I saw the Commerce Bank across the street changing its sign to TD Bank as I was in the Taco Bell drive-thru line. I completely missed that TD bought Commerce earlier this year.

And before I forget, my current list of most annoying commercials:

1. Toyota - Saved by 0%...I've mentioned this before and would be very embarrassed if I had gotten a Camry in April.
2. Volkswagen - Routan w/Brooke Shields...I miss Fahrfegnugen (and I think I even spelled it right on the first try-honest!)
3. Microsoft - I am a PC...No, you are all people. You look nothing like a computer.
4. Lincoln MKS - Ground Control to Major Tom...please maintain radio silence.
5. CDW - I want to pummel the guy on the beach with coconuts. Thankfully I haven't seen it on anything other than "The Sports Reporters" lately.
6. Cash4Gold.com - Infomercial appearance with really terrible actors
7. DirecTV - National Lampoon's Vacation pool scene...This is awful, this is awful, this is awful!

Edit (8:38pm): Made additions to the list. Also, the Toyota commercials keep saying 'for a limited time' or whatever. I finally read the fine print and it'll be over tomorrow.

From Monday back to Saturday

Not a terrible Monday by any stretch of the imagination. I got a bunch of stuff done at work, including some requests for other people to do some things for me. They don't take too much effort so hopefully I can get them back tomorrow and file some documents.

Julio took Meriam and I out to lunch today. We tried to go to a Portuguese place in Roselle Park, but when we got there, they were closed. LOL places other than salons being closed on Mondays. We ended up at Theresa's in Westfield (after walking by a bunch of other places that were closed). The sauce for the calamari was phenomenal and the pasta special was really good too. Pasta with chicken, spinach, bacon, and a parmesan sauce.

Sunday ended up being a pretty blah day as I spent most of it dozing on the couch. I did see the Jets win after giving up 3 INTs and a 91 yard return. I don't remember how long Favre's contract is, but please don't bring him back next year.

Penn State beat Ohio State in Columbus to take the lead in the Big Ten and keep their #3 BCS ranking. Oh yeah, party at Alyssa's! We had a great time on Saturday night. Costumes and beer pong and the name game. I have to bother Ilya since he didn't make it, but I saw some people from the last party and the Avalon house when I was down there a couple summers ago. I don't see why it's so hard to get a picture to show up where I want it here, but I think I got it right. Here's me with some pirate booty...er, the hostess. :)

LeBron James on GameDay

Niiice. The boys are in Columbus for Penn State-Ohio State tonight. People have been talking about Texas-OK State this week, but the majority of the conversation has been about the matchup at the Horseshoe. I'll be on the road for the first half and then at Alyssa's, but hopefully we can check in on the game at the party. I'm sure we'll keep tabs on the World Series game too since we'll be right outside Philly.

I know it's going to rain today, but my car was filthy from all the dirt and stone dust from construction so I had to wash it this morning. It got a wax too and it's nice and shiny..for probably about two hours. It'll still look black after the rain though as opposed to the brown tint it had earlier this morning.

Dear Mr. Selig

Could you please just pick a station to broadcast the playoffs? It's really annoying trying to remember if the game is on TBS or Fox. If you do choose one, here's a hint: not TBS. I bet Craig Sager's wardrobe knocked out the cameras tonight.

Love,
Baseball sucks, but I still watch the playoffs anyway

I would think a torn muscle would be a problem

Thank you, Dr. Dungy.

I have a bunch of probable/questionable/unpredictables on my fantasy team this week. Marques Colston will play, but likely with a splint on his thumb. Clinton Portis and his hip flexor practiced today; we'll see more news on Sunday. Darren Sproles has an injured ankle and is predicted to see limited action. Will that be limited backup for LDT or limited return opportunities, which is the main reason I picked him up? Joseph Addai did something to his hamstring, but nobody knows the extent of his injury, including his coach so he's probably staying on my bench.

I have Lance Moore, whose value will nosedive once Colston is totally healthy again, and Michael Bush (RB vs. NYJ), to possibly replace Sproles, except that the Jets have the #3 run defense in the league. Arizona has a bye, which eliminates Steve Breaston from accepting a role this week.

It looks like I'll be leaving the majority in from last week, giving me a lineup of:

• QB - Jason Campbell (vs. Cleveland; #11 pass defense, #17 total defense)
• WR - Marques Colston (@ Carolina; #2 pass defense, #3 total)
• WR - Anthony Gonzalez (@ Green Bay; #7 pass defense, #20 total)
• RB - Clinton Portis (vs. Cleveland; #22 run defense, #17 total)
• RB - Matt Forte (vs. Minnesota; #4 run defense, #7 total)
• TE - Dustin Keller (@ Oakland; #25 pass defense, #24 total)
• WR/RB - Darren Sproles (@ Buffalo; #18 run defense, #9 total)
• K - Nate Kaeding (@ Buffalo; 12-15 FG, 18-18 PAT)
• DEF - Chicago (vs. Minnesota; #15 total offense)
  

Seriously

Why can't the American public/marketmakers just have a slow decline instead of the up-down-up-down nonsense? Everyone knows we're in a recession and we didn't need any PPI or formal consumer spending numbers to tell us that. So settle down! You're just making everyone crazy, including me who has to listen to people at work note every uptick and downtick during the day. OMG the Dow's up 50 points..now it's 52..come on you can do it!!

Ugh.

This was a total WTF day

• 900+ points to the good for Wall Street
• the Giants are letting the Browns march up and down the field (maybe that's just a MNF 2008 thing)
• most of my day at work

I'm not even going to try to explain points #1 or 2 since I haven't been paying complete attention to the game. I don't even know what made work so bad, except just a combination of everything. Marketing made a mess of a bunch of artworks that need approved by tomorrow, I have to give a presentation on the seminar I went to where I didn't enjoy or learn anything, and people kept talking about our group lunch tomorrow. That's not going to be a good time.

Like I said to LP earlier, I hope I can get uncranky in time to kick some butt at volleyball tomorrow night. We're playing the team that is tied with us for first place (13-5). She's bringing her videocamera to tape the games so I had better get my blocking in order before it gets on film! This could be a really good learning tool for some of the people who don't have as much of an organized volleyball background.

HD

Work, what? No no no, Spread HD with Daryll Clark, Evan Royster, and Derrick Williams! I was trying really hard to make this a mature blog, but Penn State just turned Wisconsin over and is up 41-7 in the 4th quarter at Camp Randall, so Bielema...suck it. Payback for being an unsportsmanlike piece of trash in 2006.

This Toyota commercial has to go

I can't wait until Toyota's current 0% financing deal is over. I've lost track of how many times I've heard their jingle today. "Saved by Zero" or something...knock it off!!

The same goes for the kids early this afternoon and the smoker next door. I keep opening and closing my front window, depending on if she's outside hacking and smoking. The smoke wafts right upstairs and in my window. Yuck!

Texas came out on top in the Red River Shootout today. I think they did a great job hanging with OU and got a few questionable late hit personal foul calls in front of the Longhorn bench. I don't think they would have been called on the other sideline.

I just finished up the lasagna that I was making for football at Susan's tomorrow. Hopefully Susan and Joe are just Jew-ish because I forgot and put sausage in the sauce. I'm an irresponsible teammate!

My Halloween costume will be finished as soon as I bring my stapler home from work. I haven't been this excited about Halloween (or anything) in a while. I think this would top Beaker two years ago, except for the fact that my hair was completely orange that night.

I added some mushrooms and extra mozzarella to some pizza and I'm flipping back and forth between the race in Charlotte, Penn State trying to give Wisconsin a second straight loss at Camp Randall, and maybe I'll check in on the Sawx-Rays game as well. It would be great if my remote could have a three channel rotation instead of just two channels on the return button (or whatever it's called).

Edit: And I forgot about the Mizzou-OSU and LSU-Florida games too! Baseball's going to have to wait tonight so that's ESPN, ESPN2, ABC, and CBS(Comcast 3, 74, 7, and 2).

Fun at the State Fair

Not talking about Bubba J this time. Dude, you can get anything you want fried today in Dallas.

Texas at Oklahoma in the Red River Rivalry Shootout. I've been excited about this game all week, even though I have no real rooting interest in who wins. Everybody is saying that Oklahoma is all over this game and I agree, but we'll see if Colt McCoy can get to the Sooner secondary enough to keep the Longhorns in this one.

OU 14, UT 10 early in the 2nd after a bobbled OU pass that eventually ended up in the hands of another OU receiver and Texas returns the ensuing kickoff 96 yards for the score

Jeopardy is great

I just learned that Abraham Lincoln created the Secret Service on the day of his assassination. It was a shame he didn't do it earlier, although their original (and often overlooked) purpose was to combat counterfeiting.

They're all just paper losses

I was doing pretty well today until I opened an article and saw that today's Dow plunge was the worst percentage loss since October 1987. The good news is that today's loss was (only) 7.3% while Black Monday checked in at -22.6%. I suppose that's good news anyway.

In actual good news: football tonight, tomorrow is Friday, football party at Susan's on Sunday (Sunday Sunday). I have to figure what to make.

Election

This is what I wanted to post last night, but got distracted by nothing important. Mom asked me this weekend why there weren't more election signs out by the roads and I didn't know. But they all appeared this week! Seeing ten signs over a 50 yard section of road will not make me vote for someone over one sign in the same section of road. It's not like someone driving will miss the first nine and then see the tenth. "Oh my god, I'm glad they put up ten signs since I was daydreaming for the first 48 yards, but now I know I know what to do!"

In addition to the print advertising on the road, TV commercials have exploded. I was tired of hearing that "Linda Stender is a spender" since I remember hearing it last election. Heeeyyy campaign managers, it didn't work last time; time to find a new slogan.

Not an exciting hump day

I didn't really want to get out of bed this morning and it turned out that I would have been better off staying under the covers. Somebody (still not sure who) signed me up for a seminar today to learn about color. Someone else from the hair color lab was there with me and we both agreed that it was fairly pointless for us to be there. I won't say it was a waste of time until I look through the materials in our folder, although if I only get something out of the handouts, there really wasn't a need for the actual all day presentation. I realize that wouldn't go over well with the vendor (Konica Minolta) and they wouldn't have the chance to sell some instruments to us, but we didn't really need to be there.

I mentioned that I don't know who signed me up for this--that person also neglected to tell me that I was going and I found out about 45 minutes ahead of time from someone else who was signed up. So much for getting anything substantial accomplished in the lab today. My conditioner will have to wait until tomorrow.

Acting with class at Princeton

Mom was here this weekend and we were planning to go to Drew to see them play Scranton on Saturday. One problem: they weren't playing in Madison. I must be a bad alum since we passed on the 2+ hour trip to Scranton and went to Princeton. I've been to Harvard, but never to Princeton so we thought that would be a fun trip.

I wasn't sure if they would let us in since we were commoners and not wearing orange and black, but we snuck in through one of the open gates. We got there early and I took a couple pics from the new stadium that they were dedicating.





It turned out that I was rooting for Dartmouth based on the way the Princeton players were diving and generally being little babies. We were sitting on the Princeton side so I kept it pretty quiet until the second half and overtime. Dartmouth dominated most of the two overtimes, but couldn't break the 1-1 draw. Dartmouth doesn't list stats like height on their roster page, but their keeper had to be at least 6'5. He grabbed every ball that came near him in the air without much of a challenge.

When I announced at Drew, I remember reading a statement that had something to do with sportsmanship, but at Princeton, they asked us to act with class. Hopefully a few of their players heard that since they got a little upset at the end of the game and took a few swings at a Dartmouth player. Maybe they were just mad because the Tigers are 2-6-1 so far, but I really enjoyed heckling Antoine for that and his dirty play in the second half.

Who's productive? This guy

• cleaned my apartment pretty well
  
• had dinner
• went for groceries

That's pretty good for a Thursday night. I needed to clean before Mom gets here tomorrow. Hardwood floors are impossible to keep clean so I broke down and decided to try a Swiffer. I got both the wet and dry kits. I have to say it does a pretty good job. The cleaning solution on the wet mop smells good and I like the spray button too. :p

No ridiculous adventures at the grocery store tonight for a change, although I had to backtrack a few times since some of the product arrangements don't make too much sense.

We have a choice of 5 soccer games on Saturday: Drew is now at Scranton at 1pm so we might go out there or we can stay nearby and go to FDU-M vs. Alvernia (1pm), FDU-T vs. Temple (1pm), Princeton vs. Dartmouth (4pm), and Rutgers vs. DePaul (7pm). Plenty to choose from so I'm sure we'll find something to do.

Edit: Add filing to the completed list. Lots of stuff to shred at work tomorrow!

Why in your right mind would you ever want to work for the Raiders?

I'm watching the Al Davis press conference at the top of SportsCenter and am just absolutely amazed. Al Davis is crazy.

Also on the crazy list is the stock market (duh). It rebounded almost 500 points today after dropping almost 800 yesterday. Being a poker player, I understand variance, but it would be nice if the roller coaster would settle down. I have some idea of how things work and know it's not possible, but it would make things a lot easier for everybody.

I found the clear lenses for my Oakleys in the laundry. I think they were in the pocket of my favorite blue shirt. Good news for me so I can go back to wearing them at work tomorrow instead of the horrible regular safety glasses.

Crazy Sunday for sports

It would have been nice to have 3 TVs today. The Jets had the majority of my focus earlier, but the Tour Championship, the Chase, and the Mets were all on this afternoon. I decided to wait to look for updates on golf and the race until the two events were closer to being finished and I had the baseball scoreboard up on Yahoo to keep an eye on the NL wild card and AL Central races.

I feel a little bad for the Mets and for rooting against them today (and for the past month), but I never feel really bad for rooting against New York teams. The AL race might be settled Monday if the White Sox lose to Detroit, but will go to a playoff game on Tuesday if the Southsiders win.

The Redskins are up on Dallas at halftime, courtesy of two Jason Campbell TD tosses, which is good for my fantasy team this week. I put him back in to replace Big Ben (I'm tired of spelling Roethlisberger) since the Steelers have a terrible offensive matchup with the Ravens. Over on CBS, the Chargers appear to be having major issues being down 15-0 at halftime to the Raiders. A few Nate Kaeding FGs would go a long way for me this week so hopefully they will get their helmets on straight for the second half.

I'm working on getting more of my bills paid automatically with my new credit card, both for the rewards and that I should take advantage of the offer I got in the mail from Chase checking. I'd get a free $100 for opening a new account and keeping it open for 6 months. I think I can handle that and that will give me a good reason to close my account at the credit union since I can't stand dealing with one of the employees there.

I've never been so happy to hear Hail to the Victors

I can't stand that smug-looking bastard Bret Bielema so I'm glad Wisconsin blew a 19 point halftime lead at Michigan. Purdue sucked today against Notre Dame. Can somebody please just squash the Irish or at least get Charlie Weis's other knee? I'm all for terrible things that are funny.

One more gripe: Stop it with the "insert-your-team-color-out" at your stadium. There are real things as a blackout or whiteout which makes it cool, but there is no such thing as an orange-out or a maize-out. You're gonna ruin the fun at Georgia (blackout tonight against Alabama-go Dawgs) and Happy Valley (whiteout vs. Illinois-go PSU obv).

It must be 9:45

My body always wakes up on Saturday at the same time, no matter what time I went to sleep. My mind, on the other hand, usually takes another 15 minutes or so. Coffee helps.

I couldn't find the kind I wanted at the store when I went the other night. That's the second third thing I haven't been able to find at the ShopRite across the street. It's a huge store and they weren't obscure things so it's a little annoying. It was one flavor of Folgers, a new body wash that had been advertised a lot, and Q-tips. Q-tips!!

still forgetful

I had a really good idea in the car on the way home tonight, but I couldn't remember it once I got inside the house. I think it was about some good new stuff to read or study so it would be nice if I remembered it eventually.

Somerset beat York on Wednesday night for the Freedom Division championship and will play Camden for the Atlantic League title starting Friday night in Camden. I have tickets to Game 3 on Sunday, but there is supposed to be rain all weekend so we'll see what happens. I asked Sarah if she wanted to go since we got rained out on Family Day. Hopefully she'll be done dress shopping with her friend on Sunday afternoon in time.

USC is getting run over by Oregon State so far tonight. I think the refs totally blew the decision to give OSU the first score of the game, but replay was inconclusive. It would have been 1st and goal on the 1 so the Beavers would have scored anyway, but the ball was nowhere close to breaking the plane.

Forget the George Michael Sports Machine

We had the Brett Favre Interception Machine (tm) for a while tonight. They're making progress in the 4th quarter though, after recovering an onside kick. The deficit is down to 15 with 8 minutes left which is feasible if the defense can hold a few times...okay, forget I said that.

On a winning note, our volleyball team had a quick 3-0 match tonight. I've never seen so many aces in a match. The other team couldn't pass at all so we took turns getting lots of points on our serves.

My trip to the grocery store was fruitful and uneventful. It was late enough that all the inconsiderate morons were already gone and I breezed through with my terribly unhealthy shopping list and made it home in plenty of time for...the Jets. It's a good thing that I didn't make an effort to hurry or I would have been even more disappointed.

I don't give a damn

...says Walter, my favorite dummy. Liwayway and I saw Jeff Dunham and his little people in boxes at The Rock on Saturday night. We had a good time as always with good seats on the side of the stage, but I didn't enjoy the act as much as I did when we saw him in NYC in January. This was the first time I had been in the arena and it looks nice. The concourse is very bright and open and reminds me of the Giant Center in Hershey. I don't think I was too drunk when I said that I was looking forward to some hockey games this winter!

Arnita had brunch this afternoon for a bunch of us at her (relatively) new place in Passaic. The grits and shrimp were GOOD! I had to detour on the way since I ran into in a motorcycle rally in Woodbridge so I was a bit later than I wanted to be, but no big deal. Met one of her friends who lives in Geneva so I told her a little bit about our tour last year, although we didn't get that far south.

The Ryder Cup had already been clinched by the US by the time I got home and the race at Dover was also over. It was great to see that Jim Furyk won the clinching match and that Kyle Busch finished last, which leaves him at the end of the Chase field, 210 points behind Carl Edwards.

My fantasy team looks to be in decent shape with Joseph Addai's 2 TDs leading the way. I know I'm not getting any positive points out of Ben with all the sacks by the Philly defense though. Luckily, I'm up 50.22-31.85 with Nate Kaeding (Monday vs. NYJ) left on my team and Donald Driver (Sunday vs. DAL), Marion Barber III (Sunday vs. GB), and the San Diego defense (Monday vs. NYJ) for my opponent.

A trip to the grocery store tonight would be great, but all I want to do is watch Dallas-Green Bay and the Family Guy Star Wars episode at 9:00. Maybe I'll go after that...LOL.

I miss summer hours

This was the first full-day Friday after summer hours ended and the afternoon was a drag. I learned about the new deionized water system at work from about 1:30-2:00 and then that was about it for my productivity for the day. I had better things to do: check Ryder Cup scores (USA is up 5-2 with 1 match in progress), check the market and try to figure out what's best (still not too much of an idea), talk to Jolene, pretty much anything other than actual work.

I think I'm buying back into gold if GLD drops down near $80 again. I wish I would have had enough cash in my account earlier this week to get it before it jumped. This market is ridiculous and I think that's part of what's been keeping me up at night. They say that you're not properly diversified if you worry too much about your money, but I think most people are worried at least a little bit right now. With all the radical moves the Fed is making, it's really hard to even pretend to predict the next move.

I'd really like to play some poker tonight, but I'm not sure if I'll be awake or coherent enough later to play well.

Either stop coughing or stop breathing, take your pick

In the midst of the renovations at the apartment complex, I have new neighbors next to me on the second floor. I met Angel the other day and he seems really cool, but then there's his wife/girlfriend/other. I thought she was just sick the first night I heard her, but then it sounded way too much like a smoker's cough. And it's even worse than the usual dry hacking. I don't even want to describe it. It's awful with a capital AWFUL.

Edit: 6:55, 7:50, 8:40, 9:20, 10:15, 11:15

Not quite Black, so about 75% Gray Monday

I'll at least start out with something positive. The Cowboys are up on the Eagles, 7-3, on a 72yd play to T.O. I have L.J. Smith tonight and am playing against Jason Witten and Patrick Crayton so Cowboy scores that do not include those two are welcomed by me.

We played 1.5 good games of volleyball tonight: the whole first game and half of the third. Unfortunately, it was the first half of the third game. We were up 9-0 and somehow gave that away. I think the final score was 15-13, but I could be wrong. Liwayway was upset that she didn't set well, so I told her: a) that she sings waaaaaayyyyy better than Cat Deluna did the national anthem tonight; b) to have some rainbow sherbet; and c) we'll practice some more on Wednesday since we're all still getting used to each other. I'm trying to be a little too fancy, especially when I set and I have to keep reminding myself to keep it simple.

There's a ton of cheering and I missed a 98yd kickoff return. I just went to the kitchen to get some Code Red! This game is getting ridic awfully quick. I'm not sure I want to leave to get dinner; what am I going to miss next!

Brian Westbrook, staple of past fantasy teams of mine, just scored after the Eagles were the beneficiary of a godawful defensive PI call. I'm definitely not going out until halftime, especially after the Eagles recover a Tony Romo fumble in the end zone. Hope you took the over tonight.

I hope Ana made it home with her new Mazda3 tonight. I helped her decide on new vs. used this afternoon. I wanted to push her toward used, but I know she had so much trouble at the end with Blue and I've always been more comfortable with the knowledge that nobody had a chance to do any damage.

I'm kind of putting off the inevitable followup to this morning's post about the lullaby of Broadway misery on Wall Street. Lehman Brothers filed for Chapter 11 and their share price was $0.21 at close, $0.19 in after hours. There's going to be a mess trying to unwind some of the credit and derivative transactions that I'm not even going to try to begin to comprehend. AIG was down to $4.76 at close, $4.90 after hours. I was home at lunch and was reallocating some assets from some foreign ETFs to IVE and debated dumping the shares of AIG that I have. It was bouncing between $6.10 and $6.30 while I was here and decided that there had to be more upside than downside, although I think I read that if you get to that line of reasoning, you should be selling. I saw news that Berkshire was considering buying some AIG assets, but nothing has come of that so far. It looks like there will be some loans, possibly from their equity departments which I think violates a Fed rule, but again, I'm no expert here. A bit of good news: The way this year is going, I'm going to pay a lot less in taxes for 2008 than I have for the past couple years.

One thing I may be an expert on is that you have to have to break the plane of the goal line with the football in order to score. Good job DeSean Jackson -- I hope you get benched for the rest of the game.

2am on a Sunday night

No surprise here that I'm still awake. It seems like that's the way Sunday nights have been going lately for a while. I was actually tired when I got into bed around midnight, but couldn't quite fall asleep. I haven't been thinking about work even though I wasn't there on Friday.

I took off to play golf with Bill and Mike R at Spring Meadow in Farmingdale. We had a good time, even though I would not rate it high on my list (even given the fact that it's a municipal course). Most of the greens were a mess and it was next to impossible to tell where you were supposed to take your cart. After getting chewed out for driving on a par-3 last week (I was picking up someone's ball 125 yards from the green and apologized to the marshal, but apparently that warranted him following us for another 6 holes), I was a little gunshy about driving. Since there were only 3 of us in the group, I almost didn't take a cart so I could walk, but then I'd have no place to put my beer!

I watched Sunday Night Football tonight and complained to NBC Sports that Al Michaels was being an asshat on the air. He was just being cute by saying that the opening kickoffgot up in the jet stream, but not 5 seconds earlier, he told us that the wind was blowing east to west. That annoyed me for some reason, but I still kept watching since I was keeping tabs on Ben Roethlisberger for my fantasy team. It looks like I should have a decent lead on Chuck going into the Monday night game and I have to credit Anquan Boldin and Nate Kaeding for that, even though the Vikings' Ryan Longwell kicked 5 FGs to outscore Kaeding. I'd add the Bears defense to the list for blocking a punt and returning it for a TD, but they fell apart and allowed a bunch of points at the end of the game.

The news for Lehman Brothers isn't very good at the end of the weekend and it looks like bankruptcy is looming, possibly in the coming week. It was reported tonight that Merrill was bought by Bank of America for $50billion. I remember watching something on TV that Merrill sponsored when I was little and seeing the famous bull logo. I don't know if the bull will cease to exist, but I think I'll miss it.




I'd say I hope that this will start to stop the run of bankruptcies and failures of the financial institutions, but that would just be a waste of keystrokes. And in the time since I started this post, I see that Lehman will indeed be filing for Chapter 11. They've been around for 158 years, Merrill for 94, Bear Stearns for 85. It would be nice to hear some good news for a change.