This Blog Is Full Of Crap

How long before these people are accused of shooting poisoned food?

Wow. Could he call a game worse?

Carlos looked about ready to score a RBI off of Vanover's head.

Michael Garfield moves to 1PM on KPRC 950 today with Mike McGuff as a guest.

I hope to get the Weekly Challenge done in time to tune in. It's been hell catching Garf on delay with the podcasts, because it was fun tossing him notes and feedback on stuff. With the delay... well, with pure podcasts the feedback on a podcast builds a discussion. But with a radio show podcasted, the discussion and conversation has moved on to another topic, so you wind up grinding gears.

Some stuff can work with async, some stuff doesn't.

100 Word Stories Weekly Challenge #68 is up and running!

This week was about yaks, since I've completely abandoned reality and gone over to Second Life at this point. I mean, five and a half years blogging about reality, isn't that enough?

I don't think Frisky is dishwasher safe...

Frisky loves to jump up on the dishwasher door and meow for attention.

When Nardo comes by, he hunkers down and growls.

Gotta protect the dishes, you know.

I'm not sure what Jason Jennings' trade value is at this point, but it's probably a few pennies more than Stephen Randolph's.

Just wow. Our farm system must be getting federal grants to lay fallow for a year or something.

If you're going to learn anything about the Carnival of the Cats, I guess you need to take Life From Cat's Perspective to get a better handle on it.

So, who is the catmodel this week?

Curioser and Curiouser.

The orange doofus has finally figured out that he should be spending more time in my lap or within petting distance if he's going to be any attention in the evenings.

I used to have reminders set to take a break, but I forgot to set up reminders to set those reminders.

Is anybody else burned out on the whole "I can has" meme?

After 2 weeks of waiting for a solution from the fixitguys, it turns out that the leak in the toilet was from a gap in the handle.

The floater was set to float too high, so the tank was filling up to the handle, well above the funny "TOP FILL" mark.

I lowered the float and the leakage stopped.

Yay.

Apparently, LincolnFreak discovered the podcast:

"The Wacky Adventures" are 100-word short stories created by Laurence Simon. They have very catchy punchlines and are accompanied by the text so that you can read while you listen. Caleb Bullen's narration is better than Simon's. By the way, you can submit your own entries to the "100-word" site on any topic.

What? Caleb's better than me?

So I let him know...

Caleb's response: "Hahaha! The pioneers get the arrows and the settlers get the land."

BASTARD!

Is time up for The Windex Killer?

Merv Griffin, the entertainment mogul, singer, talk-show host and horseman who has called La Quinta, Calif., home for 20 years, is in grave condition with cancer, according to media reports.

"Entertainment Tonight" has reported that sources tell the Hollywood show that Griffin's prognosis is not good. Griffin's representatives have not returned calls to The Desert Sun to confirm or deny.

After killing billions upon billions of brain cells with Wheel Of Fortune, all of his may be next to go.

Mmmmmmmmm. Pizza!

And I agree about Kennealy's.

I love playing Scrabble.

I rarely get to play it anymore, though. I don't go out much, not a lot of people visit, and the Mrs. is afraid to play me because of a few tales of completely devastating opponents.

So, I play it online with Facebook now.

Right now, I've got a game going where after 8 turns, it's 315 to 139.

It's good to know that after all this time, I apparently haven't lost the magic.

Are these games visible to the public for kibbutzing, or will I just have to take snapshots and such to document my progress?

One part of me fears a challenge by Andy Solberg, the only man I could never defeat in Scrabble, and another part relishes the opportunity to tilt at that iron windmill of Scrabble mastery one more time.

Oh well. At least I can play multiple games at once. Sort of like one of those wild-haired Chess masters, going from table to table.

Cool.

Carnival of the Cats heads on over to Momma Grace and her brood for the #177th Carnival of the Cats!

So, who's the catmodel of the week?

Catherine Collingwood appears to have moved elsewhere, but Emily is the catmodel of the week despite this wild goose chase of URLs!

My job is trouble ticket triage. Tickets come in, I check them for priority, send them to the right department or technicians, or smack them down fast before they languish.

Oddly enough, Podictionary's word for the day is triage.

If you haven't heard my glowing praise for Charles "Nine Fingers" Hodgson during the wrapup the Weekly Challenge this week, well, I've just got to say that his podcast is one of the three must-listens every day: Podictionary, Daily Giz Wiz, and History According To Bob.

If someone ever says they listen to 100 Word Stories every day, well, I'm hoping that they've at least listened to these other three already before my own efforts.

Out of the goodness of his heart, Charles sent me a copy of his new book: Carnal Knowledge. And I've been reading this one slowly... keeping Charles' voice in my mind as its narrator, guiding me through each word with his soft tone and gentle humor.

When I read a book slowly, I'm savoring it. I'm not wolfing it down, trying to race to the ending... no, this is a journey to be strolled along like a scenic vista, not ran through like a freeway commute.

Although, I've got to ask... when will Charles cover the word crap on Podictionary? (FYI: My favorite word in the English dictionary is mendicant... won a scrabble tournament extending the word "me" across a second triple-word space.)

Oh well... thank you, Charles, and I look forward to the day when you join The Four Digit Club (that's 1,000 episodes, not four digits as in fingers - and you can learn where the word "digit" comes from by reading Charles' book!)

My podroll is getting huge. I need to do another "Ten And Only Ten" at some point.

According to Drudge, Don Imus is getting $20 million from CBS to piss off, shut the fuck up, and he's heading to WABC.

It's still smaller than Jeff Bagwell's $27 million ($20 million for 2006, $7 million option for 2007) for riding the pine and walking away.

You know, it must be nice, being paid to do nothing or to go away for a shitload of money.

What's the best college degree to have for that kind of thing?

METRO's making changes to their routes on August 26, 2007.

They say they're "Adjust trip times for more reliable service" for both the 9 and 102, but they haven't posted schedules for either.

Right now, I make the connection in the morning about 95% of the time.

The connection in the afternoon, I make about 5% of the time. But the bright spot about the afternoon 102 driver being consistently late and slow is that I spend more time in the airconditioned bus and less time outside waiting for the next 9. (If the bus's airconditioning is working, that is.)

What does this all mean?

I guess if the Devil is in the details, then METRO keeps The Devil at bay.

Amen.

From AFP:

An elderly Iraqi woman shows two bullets which she says hit her house following an early coalition forces raid in the predominantly Shiite Baghdad suburb of Sadr City. At least 175 people were slaughtered on Tuesday and more than 200 wounded when four suicide truck bombs targeted people from an ancient religious sect in northern Iraq, officials said.(AFP/Wissam al-Okaili)

Wait. Hold on.

Is this an indicator that the terrorists in Iraq can't afford guns to fire the rounds of ammunition, so they're just throwing them at people?

*sigh* The mother of the editor who approved this erroneous caption and photograph should have taken the condom out of the wrapper before screwing that editor's father.

I know things have been kinda slow here. SL Woodstock has devoured what little free time I've had as of late.

Michael Garfield has invited me to appear on his KRPC 950 "Nine Five Oh" technology show gig-deal over there, so you can tune in to 950AM at 1:00PM Central Time or you can catch the stream.

Yeah, they podcast-archive stuff over there, so if you miss it, you can download it later.

I've got some notes on Second Life, both the social aspects as well as a few thoughts on the business side of it. Plus, a few rebuttals to the gloom-and-doom stuff people have seen in magazines like Forbes, Wires. Newsweek, etc.

Well, I'm sure everybody's been doing their Back To School shopping during this tax-free holiday in Texas.

Yeah, I got some underwear, polo shirts, and jeans. $117 at Academy, and not a dime going to taxes at the retailer.

Now all I need to do is figure out what kind of school this is for.

Maybe Traffic School?

I think I'll fire up "School Of Rock" on the DVD and watch that.

It counts, right?

So, why did the local media get the city up in a frenzy of panic and worry over Hurricane Dean?

One should look to the forecasters to see the problem...

They really need to staff the NHC properly.

Yeah, things were down hard for a while.

Apparently, someone decided to put a DVD rip on another site on this server.

WHAM and the server goes down!

Oh well. I enjoyed the time off.

Which reminds me... I need to hit Amazon to get a friend some gifts.

In sports, there are small-s shitbags and capital-s shitbags.

If Barry Bonds is proven to have taken illegal performance enhancing drugs, he'll probably be a Shitbag.

Michael Vick is a serious contender for a capital-s Shitbag too. One of the rare cases when I agree with those nutbars from PETA.

Now Eddie Griffin, he set the bar high. Had a history of violence, tried to shoot his girlfriend, yadda yadda yadda.

Then the cops went easy on him for that wacko arrest last year. You know, because you gotta take one for the home team, right?

Whether he offed himself or thought he was so important he could get around crossing arms to beat a train, I'm sure the medical examiner will let folks know.

Some people will say I'm a monster for breathing a sigh of relief and saying "Glad that's over."

Eddie set the bar high, but I'm sure someone will enter the NFL or NBA that will raise it with a new level of shitbaggery.

Shire Network News reaches #100, and I come out of the bullpen for a piece that quotes Edward R. Murrow for nefarious purposes.

Skype was working well enough to platform a discussion between the three core members of SNN that's well worth listening to.

Oh, and if we're admitting blogfathers, Chuck Kuffner and Oliver Willis... yeah, this is what happens when a liberal-pretending-to-be-a-centrist and... um.... (If I say anything, I'll be accused of being a RACIST!) come together and make an abortion.

Barcamp Houston is such a failure already that I'm not even bothering to stay in town to declare it a failure.

Hah! Take that!

As I hauled my weary carcass up the stairs last night, I pondered this phrase.

It's a very strange thing to think, yes, but it makes perfect sense after the past few days.

Maybe the Texan in me can deal with it a litle easier, since "A stranger is a friend you haven't met yet" is a pretty common adage down there.

Behind every fancy animated cursor is a person, a story in themselves.

Neat, eh?

Of course, there's always the problem of that carcass going up the stairs, waking up the next day to the friendly reminder that he hasn't had enough calcium or potssium in the past few days.

Towel... leg stretches...

Yeah, it's another bright sunshiny day.

Upon hearing the news that Acer bought Gateway, I shrugged and figured that the Gateway at home is the last Gateway I will ever own.

Yeah, I've had three Gateways in a row, and I've been as happy/displeased as I would have been with any other box. But the advantage of sticking with Gateway was their recycling/trade-in rebate.

With Acer behind them, a company who's quality standards I've found pretty much treats circuitboards like people treat toiletpaper, not even that discount is worth going back to them.

I used to own a Swiss Army Knife on my keychain. Great for cleaning my nails. It's the reason why I don't bit them anymore.

Well, I need a new one. The original was confiscated by the TSA in O'Hare.

Never mind that I had it when I went through security at Bush/IAH.

On the other hand, Bush/IAH provides plenty seats right outside Security for putting your shoes on. O'Hare makes you walk across a busy corridor to get to a small number of seats.

All this inconsistency is meant to throw the bad guys off, right?

Will they put this guy's coffin on top of the hearse on the way to the cemetery?

An east Houston man who fell to the roadway while trying to "car surf" has died, almost a week after the accident, authorities said.

Eric Rodriguez, 18, suffered critical injuries on Aug. 19 in the 3500 block of the East Sam Houston Parkway service road, Harris County sheriff's deputies said.

He died Saturday at Memorial Hermann Hospital.

Rodriguez was riding in a GMC Jimmy when he climbed out the front passenger window about 2:20 a.m. and tried to ride on top of the northbound vehicle, investigators said.

And will they play this instead of Amazing Grace? (That'll take one hell of a bagpiper).

I guess I should have said something before, but TSU's ex Thief-In-Chief Patricia Slade's trial is going on right now:

Testimony today focused on TSU paying Slade's $138,159 home-landscaping bill with university funds. At the time, Slade said she hired a landscaping company that does frequent work on campus, and it inadvertently sent the bill to TSU.

Slade reimbursed the university after regents questioned the expenditure, borrowing money from Unity Bank, an arrangement set up by Jackson.

Hold on a second... checking...

Okay, I don't bank with them.

*whew*

And, of course, it didn't involve Adam Everett at all.

Bye, Timmy-Poo! Bye, Crapiron!

Garf talked about this on his show a week and a half ago while I was there, but this story suggests that Houston's municipal WiFi deal with Earthlink is probably toast:

Chicago is curtailing its digital dreams, deciding to back away from municipal Wi-Fi service after failing to reach agreement with either of two companies that sought to build a wireless Internet network in the city.

The move comes as municipal broadband wireless projects around the country face difficulties, and EarthLink Inc., a major player in the field, is re-evaluating its future in municipal Wi-Fi.

Oh, and Earthlink is cutting jobs, too.

Kiss that idea goodbye, eh.

Will someone please explain to me what Princess Diana Spencer's "legacy" was?

I've seen quite a few pundits come on to CNN, Fox News, and other networks and blither endlessly about this "legacy" thing and I've yet to hear anything besides:

• She was pretty.
• She had a big wedding.
• She talked a lot, accomplished little.
• She owned a lot of expensive clothes.
• She was an adultress.
• Her boyfriend hired a drunk for a chauffeur and it got her killed.

As for that "land mines" cause, well, there's more land mines out there since originally she took up the cause.

And if you think paparazzi aren't any less potentially lethal to or harassing of celebrities, you're delusional.

So, once again, what was her 'legacy?"

*shrug* At least Anna Nicole Smith left a bunch of interesting and commercially-viable movies and photos.

Barring tragedy or accident (or both), I should be spending my Saturday Afternoon hanging with the High Tech Texan on 950AM in Houston.

Russell is supposed to be there too, so I can finally give him some magnets and bow down to his greatness.

Yeah, I run the software. No, I didn't win that 100K thing.

I'll still run it, because promotions or not, it's good stuff.

Yeah, it's a combination of burnout and having said all there is to say.

Someone asked me about the various feeds on this site: Metro, Work, Cats, Catless...

I looked back at my reasons for making all those various feeds and wondered... why?

The blog is titled :This Blog Is Full Of Crap" for a reason. It's just random crap that pops into my mind and on to the virtual page.

Yeah, I set categories, but the feed is the feed.

Twitter had me thinking about that. It's just one feed. No categories.

When I Twitter, it's a mix of METRO bitching, work bitching, SL thoughts, public shoutouts to folks, and random thoughts.

Just like this blog, right?

So, in the end, one feed. Read what you want to read, don't read what you don't want to read.

Don't like it? See ya. Won't miss ya.

METRO released the new schedules for the 9 and the 102 on Monday in parallel with their shuffle-up-and-deal they do with the drivers every so often.

So in addition to a slightly-revised schedule for both buses, there were new drivers on every shift.

Mornings are pretty much the same, although the new 9 driver likes to take Westpark and Milam slow. The crawl has made us late into Downtown and made me run for the 102 three times now.

Great. Way to go, Captain Snail.

The morning 102 driver is very nice, but she has a handoff after the "express" part of the route. Delays from 1 to 3 minutes there, so I'm at work at 7:54 instead of 7:50.

Tick tock tick tock.

Now, with the 102, I was not sad to see the afternoon driver piss off and his chum-buddy in the front row yukking it up with him.. He was late by 10 to 15 minutes every time, even worse on Fridays where he'd get passed by the next bus on the run.

When you get lapped by the next bus, you are doing something wrong. Seriously wrong. And the next bus on the run should be reporting you to supervisors say "I just passed Joe Blow today... something's seriously wrong with him, man."

The new driver is... the morning 102 driver?

She's pretty good about being on time, although the new fly in the ointment is a hand-off of drivers on the edge of Downtown. This adds 1 to 3 minutes to the trip, depending on how ready the next driver is to take over.

Instead of catching the early 9 with ease, it makes it a crapshoot again.

Wonderful. Thanks a lot, METRO.

And then... the 9.

I have no problems with the 9 that I'm supposed to be able to catch around 4:45 if all the planets align and God shines down on me.

I have serious problems with the 9 that I end up catching when I barely miss that one due to whatever problem that crops up in my afternoon commute.

The driver looks like a total collapse of what used to be a human being into the seat. A grizzled, bitter middle aged man who doesn't bother to fire up the QBox reader and growls at passengers who use the thing to show him their cards.

With a full workbag, I barely have a hand free to wave my wallet with the card in it. Pulling out the card is a royal pain, especially when it's the fault of a careless driver.

He's also consistently late. When the bus is supposed to be at the DTC at 5:13 or so, he might be there by 5:25, he might not, resulting in even later times due to Lake 59 traffic down the line.

I was at Kroger's yesterday evening, and I watched him get lapped by the previous 9. More than 25 minutes late.

Oh, and he growled about the Q-Pass sicne he hadn't bothered getting it running. Full workbag, even more full with groceries.

Sheesh.

Once, I forgave. New route, etc.
Twice, I growled. It takes a while.
Three... four times... it's a pattern. Especially when he gets lapped.

I called the METRO complaint line on him.

Thanks, Minions of Frank Wilson. Thanks for once again foisting off a problem driver from another route upon the riders of the 9.

Hey, will you be using this same selection process for the people you'll have running the trains on Westpark, too?

Just wondering. I might want to invest in body shops and car repair stocks.