Today is Halloween and according to the radio, my friends, and co-workers, this is the worst day of the year for traffic here in Atlanta. What makes this even worse is that it is a Friday. Because of that, my day has been dragging on endlessly because the majority of my office has already left for the day. I did not think I would make it through the day until my friend Robert instant messaged me a link that will save me: CD Reviews on Amazon.com for "The Best of David Hasselhoff". Is this guy for real?! Check it out if you would like to brighten up your day.

Thanks Robert!

Team Bad Guy Wins Again!

"Team Bad Guy" won again last night by the score of 19-7! This is our second two game win streak of the season bringing us back to .500 for the season with a record of 4 wins and 4 losses. With our upcoming opponents, I believe there is a solid chance that we will end up 5-5, and I feel optimistic that we can even finish 6-4...now that would be cool. What progress we have made over our first three seasons!

Handing Out Some Mad Props

This morning I would like to hand out some mad props to a few individuals who have done or are going to do something that I think is neat.

1. A New Beginning
My parents finally bought a "real" computer: a Dell Dimension Desktop. For the past few years, they have been using an internet-only computer made by iOpener. The machine was suitable for their purposes of checking out their favorite news and sports websites, sending and receiving email, not costing too much money, and not taking up too much space. But in my opinion, this "thing" did not even deserve to be called a computer and I will not even bother getting into the reasons why. I am proud of them though for making this move. They have showed great bravery in learning something new and have proved that they are not that old after all. Over the past few days, my mother has sent me e-greeting cards from Yahoo! and even forwarded a message to me from someone else. Now that is some progress. Keep it up mom and dad....it only gets better from here!

2. She Is So Brave
On Saturday night, I dragged Sarah to see "The Texas Chainsaw massacre" with a few friends. She went kicking and screaming saying that she did not like scary movies. Personally, I do not understand why because it is only a movie....it is not real! But she complained and moaned and whined constantly about having to go with me. I told her to "buck up" and she did just that. She may have screamed, and covered her eyes, and buried her head in my shoulder, but she survived and that is what counts. I am very appreciative that she went with me and had the guts to sit through a second horror flick with me in as many months. You did well brave one!

3. Farewell My Friend
A good friend of mine, Cameron, is moving to San Diego. Why? The easy answer is to be with his girlfriend, but that is definitely not the only reason. Cameron has lived here in Atlanta his entire life...30 years. He has grown a little tired of his surroundings and wants to see another part of the country before he does not have the chance to do so. His situation is very similar to the one that Sarah was in prior to moving to Atlanta. He will not know anybody in California, he will be moving "close" to his girlfriend, and leaving everything behind that is so familiar to him. But all that does not matter because he is taking a chance that is not really a chance because he is doing it for himself as well as his relationship. I can definitely relate to that and think the move will be good for him. I am happy for him, happy for he and his girlfriend Roz, sad for me, and even more sad for our softball team (now we don't have a pitcher). I will miss the way he runs, the way he dances, the stupid jokes, and his turtle necks. But everything will work out for the best as it always does. Best of luck Cam!

4. Another One Bites the Dust
With one of my high school friends having already signed his life away to a woman, another one has just gotten engaged as well...but this one is slightly different. Eric and his boyfriend (that's right I said boyfriend), Ryan, got engaged this past weekend. This was one of those things that I expected, but did not expect to happen so soon. I do not know exactly what their plans are, but I am still very excited for them. I keep dodging the "engagement bullet" myself, but I am not sure how much longer that will last...I am not feeling as nimble as I used to be. Congrats and best wishes to Eric and Ryan on taking the next step!

10 Technologies That Deserve To Die

Here is a relatively interesting article about 10 Technologies That Deserve To Die.

Another Victory For Team Bad Guy

And while the old win streak ended a couple of weeks ago, a new one began last night. Team Bad Guy pulled off a stunning 12-9 victory over, in my humble opinion, the biggest jerks we have played in three seasons of recreational softball.

Why were they jerks? I am not exactly sure, but I think it has something to do with their cockiness. These guys were much more athletic than us and obviously much stronger. These guys hit about seven homeruns throughout the course of the game! Luckily for us, since we are in the lowest league, each team is only allowed to hit one homerun per game. Any subsequent homeruns count as outs.

So let me take you through this brief adventure: first pitch of the game....homerun! Not bad for us because our opponents only got one run off the one homerun they were aloud in the game. We just shrugged it off. So after they had hit about four of the homeruns in the first two innings, we made a comment to them about being in the lowest league and they gave some tough guy remark about having some guys on their team who have not played in five years. We were like "whatever" and thought we had very little chance of winning. After the first two innings we were down 5-0. But then we realized that they could NOT hit the ball on the ground. Everything they hit was either a deep fly ball out or a homerun (which was now an out). We were still in this game! The next inning we came out and scored six runs, took the lead, and never trailed again. There were a couple of punks on their team that made sarcastic comments like, "Yeah. We should really be in a higher league. We're not even winning." I guess we showed these asses in the end! The truth is though that they should be in a higher league. If their homeruns would have counted, even as solo homeruns, we would have gotten killed.

But who cares about these sandbagging morons?! Another Team Bad Guy victory! 3-4 baby!

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

I recently had the urge to start reading my Harry Potter book again. Over the past week, I have sat down and finished the second half of the third book in the series, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. The books in the series have gotten progressively better as they have gone along. I was slightly skeptical after the first two hundred pages though. The beginning was good, but not a fast paced as I thought it would be. But the last 150 pages completely made up for that by having a plot that was quite excellent and included all sorts of twists and turns that I did not expect. The ending of the book will make for an exciting and fun movie and I cannot wait for it to come out in June 2004.

My Golfing Experience

Yesterday, Sarah and I went to the driving range. I am not very good, but luckily for my manhood, Sarah is worse....but not by much. This was Sarah's first time ever and she actually was not half bad. I am sure that she will be better than I am after taking a few lessons. All that skill level stuff aside, we had a blast!

Busy

I'm sooooooooo busy!!! I actually had to work 11 hours yesterday. Can you believe the nerve of these UPS people! They set deadlines and actually want you to meet them...and people do it! Not exactly like BioLab. It's a good thing I get paid by the hour.

But work is not the only thing that has kept me busy. As always, sports has been a big part of my life. Recently, I've been to two Cubs playoff games, a couple of Clemson football games, watched about another six to eight baseball games, and played a couple of softball games (we lost last week by the way). I think Sarah is starting to get annoyed with me. I really appreciate her putting up with all this stuff and even attending some of the festivities at times. It does mean a lot to me.

But on the other hand, does she really have the right to be angry with me? Now, I have never had this problem before living with a female, so I am going to blame it on her: we have a clog in the drain of the shower and I am sure it is because of her stinkin' hair! I took a shower a couple of days ago (I shower more often than that by the way) and when I was done, I was wading in about five inches of water. If things had gotten any worse, I would have considered investing in a snorkel to use while I showered. Better to be safe than sorry. And then Sarah wanted to take a shower at about 10PM. I advised her that it "wouldn't be prudent" (nice....I was able to throw in a Tom Hartenstein catch phrase...old school!) due to the fact that we needed to take showers a mere seven hours later. It would be nasty to have to shower in half a foot of standing water. And then she reminded me that we have two bathrooms and both have garden tubs big enough to take a bath in...which I forgot. Duh! She is so smart. Then, we went out and purchased a Lime-O-Sol clog removing product (owned by BioLab), but attained very little results. I think we are going to have to purchase another product for unclogging the drain and try again.

All of this being said, the moral of the story is: I know I am not perfect. I know I watch a lot of sports. I know I shed myself. But at least when I shed I do not clog things!!!

Cubs Pics Link

Pics from the Cubs victory last night and from the rest of the series.

Cubs End 95 Years of Suffering

Last night, I had the please of witnessing history in person when the Chicago Cubs beat the Atlanta Braves in Game 5 of the National League Divisional Series. This victory was the first time the Cubs have won a playoff series since they won the World Series in 1908.

In 1908, a stamp cost 2 cents, the first Ford was driving off the assembly line, there were only 46 states in the Union, etc. I could go on for hours with useless trivia like that, but the importance of all of this has finally diminished slightly. We have not fully killed all the daemons and ended "the curse of the goat", but it sure is a start.

The atmosphere last night was a little different than the previous game. This game was not nearly as close, so the Braves fans were not into it as much as they could have been. But everybody remaining at the end of the game knew that the Cubs may be a team of destiny. And when the Cubs sealed their victory, the fans erupted. Nobody booed the Braves. Everyone was either cheering uncontrollably or watching in awe at this moment. It was incredible getting to see all the Cubs fans finally united after such an incredible playoff win.

Bring on the Florida Marlins!!!

Cubbies in 5!!!

Cubbies In 4!

Last night I had the pleasure of attending game 2 of the Braves/Cubs playoff series down here in Atlanta. Unfortunately for me, my Cubbies lost on a game winning double in the bottom of the eighth inning. I still believe that the Cubs are going to win the series due to the depth of their starting pitching, but the next few days will tell the tale. I do have to say that the atmosphere last night was absolutely incredible. There was this feeling of electricity that filled all of Turner Field the entire night. This may be self-centered of me, but I would bet that the only explanation for this would be the 20,000 Cubs fans in attendance (out of 52,000). The Braves fans were excellent last night, but "I would submit to you" that it was more of the Cubs fans and their enthusiasm being contagious more than anything else.

On to Chicago we go!

CUBBIES IN 4!!!

Good Day

Now yesterday was a good day.

First off, the Yankees lost. When the Yankees play poorly, lose their home field advantage, and will now have to play their very best to the advance to the next round of the playoffs, I get really excited. It was a good day.

Secondly, Team Bad Guy wins again! We finally have a win streak (2) and our season record is at .500, which is so cool. We were down 7-0 after the first half inning, down 16-6 in the fourth inning, and won in the bottom of the last inning 17-16 in the final at bat. Pure excitement! I played fairly well in the field, despite my first fielding error in three seasons, and went 3 for 3 at the plate with a sacrifice fly and 2 RBI's. It was a good day.

Finally, CUBS WINS!!! I was able to watch the first few innings on TV prior to leaving for my softball game. At that point my Cubbies were down 1-0. When my softball game was over, I rushed back to the car to check the final score. To my astonishment, the game was still on and the Cubs were winning 4-1! I raced home to see the final inning and a half and watch the Cubs win their first road playoff game since 1945. Could this be the year? Only time will tell.

It was a good day.