A couple weeks ago I got a new coral for the aquarium. I had some credit at one of the local fish stores, so I went by to see what they had available and found a nice pipe organ coral. I didn’t know a whole lot about that type of coral so I went home and did my research first and then decided it would probably be a nice addition to the tank. So far it seems pretty happy, although I did turn up the water circulation a bit the other day, and I think the coral is a little happier now with the higher flow. Needless to say, Charis is not nearly as excited about a stationary coral as she is about the fish that constantly swim around the tank, but at least daddy likes it.
I’ve always enjoyed the X-Files, but I could never bring myself to purchase the DVD sets at $90 per season. I frequently looked at them in the store and came close to buying them several times, but over nine seasons it just added up to way too much money, no matter how good the show is. But this past week they finally released a box set of the entire series, plus the movie and an extra disc of bonus material, and all of that for not much more than the price of two of the original individual season releases. That seemed like too good of a deal to pass up, so I placed my order. With television choices rapidly shrinking as the writers’ strike continues, now we have a backup plan. :-)
I love Jane Austen stuff. Books, movies, whatever, I like it all. And so recently I decided to try to find a reasonably priced set of hardcover Jane Austen novels to replace some of the worn out paperbacks I had. And after some searching around on Amazon and a few other places, I found a series that included all of the major novels and a compilation of shorter works, plus the price was right, so I went ahead and placed my order. When they arrived I was quite pleased with them, except I was a bit confused as to why one of the books (Mansfield Park) had a completely different cover design than the rest. At first I thought that the oddball book was an older or newer version that Amazon sent because that’s what they had in stock, but when I checked with the publisher, I discovered that they printed this one book in the series with a completely different design than the other books. Why on earth would a publisher do that?
Now that Gilmore Girls has ended, our poor Tivo is mostly empty each week (the only primetime show currently on our list is “The Office”). So after reading several positive reviews, I had our Tivo pick up the season premiere of “Pushing Daisies” last night.
I have to say that it was one of the most unusual, quirky, and bizarre (all in a good way) shows I’ve ever seen on network television. It was kind of a combination of “Big Fish” (great Tim Burton film), “Amelie” (excellent French film with a similar visual style), and “Sixth Sense” (I see dead people). Plus it has Kristin Chenoweth mixed in there, too. But the whole thing was quite entertaining and (for the most part) they kept things pretty clean, which doesn’t always happen with network shows these days.
I have no idea how long a show like this can last on television, just because it’s so different from everything else that’s out there, but if they keeping putting out episodes as good as the premiere, I’ll keep watching it. If you missed it, they are going to replay the episode on Friday night at 8 PM (on ABC).
I now have 2 wins and 2 losses in my fantasy football league, and I’m 6 out of 10 in the standings. What I’ve discovered so far is that (1) predictions are not that accurate, even for players with long track records of good performance and (2) players get hurt in football all the time. I guess I sort of thought that once I had my players drafted, I wouldn’t really be doing that much trading and swapping throughout the season, but that is not the case at all. Between some serious injuries and players who just can’t seem to get it together this year, I’ve made quite a few changes to my original roster. At this point I only have 11 out of the original 16 drafted players on my team. I have to be in the top 8 after twelve weeks in order to make it into the playoffs in my league, and at this point I think that’s going to happen, but we’ll just have to wait and see.
Our TiVo started acting up yesterday, which is a bit frustrating because it is only a couple of months old, but they are sending a replacement unit at their expense, so I can’t complain too much (other than to mention that their wait times for technical support are ridiculously long – even worse than the last time I had to call Dell). Anyway, during the course of the phone call they wanted me to try several different troubleshooting ideas before they were willing to send me a replacement, and near the end of the conversation, the customer service agent said, “I just need to you try one more thing before we can continue with the process. I need you to try restarting your antenna real quick.” Joy was sitting in the next room and she said my voice was both incredulous and a bit exasperated as I said, “Excuse me, but did you just ask me to restart my antenna?!?” The agent confirmed that he in fact did ask me to do just that. I explained (for the second time) that I have a passive antenna in the attic connected to the TiVo with a coaxial cable, and that’s it. You can’t have a much simpler setup than that, and of course, there’s no way to restart something that doesn’t connect to electricity in the first place. So I think the agent got a clue and said “Ok, nevermind, we’ll just go ahead and process a replacement unit for you.” Seriously, though, restart my antenna?!?
As any who knows me can confirm, I am about as far from a sports guy as you can get. However, some guys that I have lunch with each week are doing a fantasy football league this year and they invited me to join them, and I decided why not? I have a son and daughter now and I think learning a bit more about football (or any other sport) could be a very good thing, because who knows, they may turn out to love sports and I’d want to be a part of that.
But Wednesday night we had our fantasy draft, and how to you pick players in a draft when you don’t know anything about any of them? Well, as a math major in college, I decided my only hope to was to fall back on statistics. So I gathered fantasy player projections from a wide variety of sources and set to work making myself a combined master list. Since we were drafting later than some other people do, I was able to gather actual draft percentages for players so I had data from the “experts” as well as actual selection choices made by the the fantasy football community in general. Our league is hosted at Yahoo, and because apparently different places score fantasy football a little differently, I decided to weigh the Yahoo expert projections and community selections higher than other sources because those should match up with the scoring we will actually be using. I had 4th pick in the draft order and every time I just picked the highest person on my list who was still available and who fit a position I needed. That got me:
1(st round). (4th pick overall) Larry Johnson
2. (17) Willis McGahee
3. (24) Terrell Owens
4. (37) Marc Bulger
5. (44) T.J. Houshmandzadeh
6. (57) Ahman Green
7. (64) Santana Moss
8. (77) Baltimore
9. (84) Vernon Davis
10. (97) Ladell Betts
11. (104) Vince Young
12. (117) Kevin Curtis
13. (124) DeShaun Foster
14. (137) Neil Rackers
15. (144) Ron Dayne
16. (157) Eddie Kennison
17. (164) Carolina
I later dropped Eddie Kennison to pick up Mike Furrey based on some further analysis (and some updated news stories) after the fact. At this point, according to the full season projections at Yahoo, I should win the league by 48 points. Go figure. So I guess this is a random experiment in football knowledge vs straight statistics, as well as a test of how accurate pre-season projections really are, plus a little bit of plain old luck mixed in. But so far I’ve had a good time messing around with all of my statistics, and now trying to find out about each of the players I ended up with. I’ll post occasionally to update the status of my little experiment as the season goes on.
I found some instructions online for making an aquarium cover that lets light and air in but still prevents your fish from jumping overboard. It seemed simple enough that even a not-so-handy individual like myself could do it, so I went by Lowe’s today to get the materials I needed. It didn’t take long and I’d say the results turned out pretty well!
Cover on the tank:
Full view of entire cover:
A not-quite-as-out-of-focus-as-the-last-one picture of my clownfish:
This list of questions seems to be going around our family. You can see responses from Ariana (the originator), Joy (third comment), and Becca. I have a few more of these question lists that I’ve answered previously here, here, here, and here, but these are my answers to the latest one sweeping the nation:
1. Were you named after anyone?
Not that I know of.
2. When was the last time you cried?
A few months ago we had to discipline Charis right before bedtime, and that made her really sad and it was hard to leave her to go to bed like that. Being a tender-hearted dad I eventually went back in once she settled down to give her another kiss and remind her that I loved her.
3. Do you like your handwriting?
Absolutely not. I don’t even hold a pencil properly, much less write legibly.
4. What is your favorite lunch meat?
Smoked ham (not honey baked or honey glazed or anything like that).
5. Do you have kids?
Two, actually!
6. If you were another person would you be friends with you?
Hopefully!
7. Do you use sarcasm a lot?
Yes.
8. Do you still have your tonsils?
Yes.
9. Would you bungee jump?
Nope.
10. What is your favorite cereal?
Cheerios.
11. Do you untie your shoes when you take them off?
Yes.
12. Do you think you are mentally strong?
Yes (and stubborn, too!).
13. What is your favorite ice cream?
Sweet cream from Marble Slab (used to be Ben and Jerry’s Rainforest Crunch before they discontinued it).
14. What is the first think you notice about people.
Eyes.
15. Red or pink?
Red.
16. What is the least favorite thing about yourself?
Lack of patience.
17. Who do you miss the most?
My friend Abe from college (who is far, far away up north).
18. Do you want everyone to send this back to you?
Sure.
19. What color pants/dress/skirt and shoes are you wearing?
Black shorts, no shoes.
20. What was the last thing you ate?
Hamburger at a cookout at a friend’s house.
21. What are you listening to right now?
My daughter talking and singing herself to sleep.
22. If you were a crayon, what color would you be?
Green.
23. Favorite smells?
Fresh sugar cookies, vanilla, and the beach.
24. Who was the last person you talked to on the phone?
My dad.
25. Do you like the person who sent this to you?
Absolutely.
26. Favorite sports to watch?
Olympic volleyball.
27. Hair color?
Brown.
28. Eye color?
Hazel.
29. Do you wear contacts?
Yes.
30. Favorite food?
Italian Market and Grill, Panera Bread, Steak and Shake, Marble Slab, mac and cheese, and nachos.
31. Scary movies or happy endings?
Neither, really. I like sad movies.
32. Last movie you watched?
The first two Bourne movies.
33. What color shirt are you wearing?
White.
34. Summer or winter?
Fall is my favorite, but I like winter way better than summer.
35. Hugs or kisses?
Both.
36. Favorite Dessert?
Caramel brownies (from my mom).
37. What book are you reading now?
Unfettered Hope by Marva Dawn.
38. What is on your mouse pad?
I don’t use a mouse pad right now because I have a G7 laser mouse, but the last one I used had a Monet watercolor.
39. What did you watch on tv last night?
The 11pm news.
40. Favorite sound?
Music, thunderstorms, and waves at the beach.
41. Rolling Stones or Beatles?
Rolling Stones.
42. What is the farthest you have been from home?
Cameroon, West Africa.
43. Do you have a special talent?
Nope.
44. Where were you born?
Long Beach, California.