I made it!

The final day of NaBloPoMo. Good stuff. Today, I'm meeting Maura for lunch. She's the one who got me into NaBloPoMo in the first place, if I remember correctly.

Last night, I played Wii Sports for the first time. I was pretty good at bowling and boxing, okay at golf and tennis, and not very good at baseball. I'm now a bit sore as a result of all of my game playing. Oy,

fooood...

I wound up getting dinner at a Panda Express tonight. I don't think I've ever been to one that's outside of some sort of food court. I got a Panda Bowl, which is one entree plus one side, plus two veggie spring rolls. I got Chow Mein as my side, and Eggplant Tofu as my entree. Not a huge eggplant fan, but it was good. It was hot -- both from a temperature standpoint, and a spice standpoint. Spring rolls were good. Then there was the fortune cookie. For some reason, it tasted sweeter than your average fortune cookie. Sounds strange, I know, but that's how it tasted. Maybe it had something to do with the intense spicyness of the dinner. Either way, it was good,

FedEx...

I was recently tracking a package that was shipped from Shanghai to Florida (it was something ordered from a major computer manufacturer). It was interesting to see the various stops it made -- first in Anchorage, then in Indianapolis, then Memphis. From there, it flew here, where it will be put on a truck for delivery. After figuring out the flight path, I headed over to FlightAware, in an attempt to figure out the exact flights it took (yes, I'm a bit of a dork). I was semi-successful, but I was able to discover roughly how many MD-11s FedEx runs between Shanghai and Anchorage, and then onto the Lower 48 (mainly Memphis and Indy). I never really knew that FedEx ran a hub in Indy -- most things I've received/shipped have gone via Memphis if they were air shipments. I wound up Googling "fedex hubs" and came across this article about the operations at their hubs. It's interesting to see how they have it down to such a precise process. No wonder they get things everywhere on time. And not just on time, but not a day earlier than promised. I've seen things arrive at the local sort center the day before they're scheduled to be delivered, and they sit there for a day. It's a smart business practice -- if customers realize that a slower, technically longer service can actually deliver more quickly than promised, they won't spend the money for the faster service.

this is cool...

Some time ago, there was an xkcd comic about turning your apartment into a ball pit. Yes, a ball pit. Think back to the days of Chuck E Cheese's. Some time later, some actually created a ball pit, inspired by the comic. Recently, the creators of the xkcd webcomic created their own ball pit. (You'd think they would have beaten the others to it, but alas, that wasn't the case.) Tonight, I read about these ball pits on Taylor's site. Now, I'm wishing I had a place to make my own small ball pit. Because it would be cool.

wow... just wow.

Heroes keeps getting crazier. It's going to be hard after next week's season finale, waiting an unknown amount of time until we see more episodes. A lot of people compare the show to Lost, in the sense that both shows have built "mythologies," and lead to a lot of viewer-created theories. In a sense, Heroes is "better" than Lost, because you can generally assume that up is up... which isn't always the case in Lost. (Are they *definitely* on an island?) Of course, the good vs. evil lines seem to be a lot more blurred in Heroes than in Lost. But Lost just seems "tighter" in some aspects. Details are much more intricate -- I mean, think about the hatches. Yes, Heroes created the Company, but I don't know if they compare. Lost had its "Lost Experience" (which I never really got into... I came along too late), and Heroes has the online graphic novels. It seems that Lost does a lot more explaining through its alternate channels than Heroes does. Hmm. They're both great shows. Thankfully, once Heroes is over, we'll only have two months or so until Lost starts (we think). Of course, that will be a shortened season as well, it seems... argh.

sunday NFL roundup...

Good game by the Jaguars this afternoon. Despite the fact that we didn't do much in the red zone at first, we went on to soundly beat the Bills. I just noticed that NFL.com has a handful of video clips, so here are some of my favorites from the day:

• Fred Taylor's touchdown run. Nice way to start the game.
• Roscoe Parrish's end around, for a touchdown. I wasn't happy to see the Bills score on us, but it least it was a former Miami player who is also on one of my fantasy teams.
• Devin Hester's punt return for a TD. Again, it's a 'Cane thing. I like how he jumped over the punter.
• Hester again, this time on a kickoff. Sauerbrun thought he could tackle Hester. Naaaah.

I also came across a Youtube video of ACC ref Ron Cherry giving a rather unusual explanation of a holding penalty in this weekend's Maryland-NC State game. If you're confused, it's a reference to a similar call during a Bills-Jets game in 1986. Good stuff.

as expected...

Miami lost to Boston College today. The Hail Flutie clip was shown at least 5 times, I think. We finish at 5-7, worse than we did my freshman year (5-6). I don't think there's ever been a 5-7 season, because they've only been playing 12 games a season in the last few years. Nevertheless, I'm sure there was a time when we lost 7 games in a season, but it had to have been at least 28 years ago. Because when we went 5-6 my freshman year, it was the worst season since 1979.

Now, we just have to hope something changes in the offseason.

Black Friday consumerism...

I didn't have any grand ideas to spend any money today. For one, I had to work, which makes it rather difficult to shop. Second, nothing jumped out at me as a "must have." I looked at the Circuit City and Best Buy ads online yesterday, and didn't see anything I really wanted. I want to buy a large, internal hard drive, to put into an old computer. But just about every hard drive that was on sale today was an external drive. Nevertheless, I wound up going to Best Buy on my way home from work tonight. I wanted to look at an HDTV (that's another story). I started thinking about memory cards for my phone, because I ran out of room while trying to take a picture last night (I transferred all of my photos from my old phone). I found a 1 GB microSD card for around $20. Not a bad deal. Then I saw a 2 GB card on sale for $19.99. Much better deal! I decided to see if there were better deals elsewhere, and it turned out that Staples had the same thing for $17.98. So I headed over to Staples, saved a few bucks over Best Buy, and now I can take a lot more photos!

turkey day...

I worked, because the news stops for pretty much nothing. Food from Cracker Barrel was brought in, and it was decent. I had lunch around 11:30, pies around 2, and left work after my show at 6:45. Then, I went to a friend's place, and had leftover green bean casserole, mac and cheese casserole, sweet potatoes, and mashed potatoes. That was excellent. Tomorrow, back to work.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone.

board game flashback

Back in the day (and by that, I mean high school), I played Risk with a number of my friends. The quality of my gameplay varied -- there were times when I spread myself just a bit too thin. I can't remember the last time I played -- it's been a while. Anyway, I was recently invited to add a Facebook app that's very similar to Risk. I added it, and played a game. Didn't last too long. I was mainly in Europe, with a few other countries. After 2 rounds or so, I was reduced to Europe. After another few rounds, I was gone. Ah well. Practice makes perfect...

good news..

Yesterday, I was concerned that I wouldn't be able to watch the Jaguars on December 2nd, when I'm in Atlanta. So I went on jaguars.com, and posted a message on the message boards. I asked if anyone knew of a way to look up bars that have Sunday Ticket, or knew of a place to watch Jaguars games in Atlanta. Within minutes, someone posted a link to the site for the group of Jaguars fans up there, and wouldn't you know it, they have a restaurant where they gather. So it looks like I'm set. Now I'm just hoping it's a good game!

tv stuff...

An assortment of things that I'll make a post out of:

• I'm hoping I can watch the Jaguars vs. Colts game on Dec. 2nd while I'm in Atlanta. Based on the other games on CBS that day, we'll probably be the "A" game. The problem is that CBS is the singleheader network, and the Falcons play at 1 PM on Fox. I have a feeling that CBS will then try to put their game in the other time slot in the Atlanta area. But we'll see what happens. There's always a sports bar.
• Heroes tonight. WOW. I'm rather disappointed that we only have 2 more episodes, courtesy of the strike.
• How I Met Your Mother was pretty funny. I have a feeling this will be strike-shortened as well, sad as well.

I think that's about it for now.

movies...

I've now seen "Before Sunrise". Only about 10 years late on that one. I remember people talking about it when I was a sophomore in high school, right around the time it came out. I liked the movie. It's really easy to get into, since it's really just a long conversation. Now, I just need to see "Before Sunset". Only about three years behind the times there.

shadows of 1997...

So, the Miami Hurricanes are now 5-6. That's the same record they finished with in 1997, my freshman year at UM. That year, we lost 47-0 to FSU at Doak Campbell Stadium. This year, we lost 48-0 to UVa, in the last game ever at the Orange Bowl. At least we beat FSU this year, but I don't know what that really means. This year, we still have one game to go. Against Boston College -- still one of the top teams in the country. I'd say there's a pretty good chance we finish 5-7. Not exactly what many fans hoped for. Well, there's always next year.

mmm... fooooood.

My girlfriend and I went to dinner tonight at a restaurant I'd been to a few times. We decided to get an appetizer, and we were choosing between some vegetable spring rolls, and a beefsteak tomato and fresh mozzarella combination. We opted for the latter, and it was a VERY good choice. It was pretty much the same as this dish, but it also had pesto spread among some of the layers. AND an onion confit in between some of the layers. Really good stuff. I mean, really good. We talked about going back and just getting one for each of us, so we'd have plenty of room for dessert (creme brulee, most likely). For another time...