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.