Mostly a Note to Myself

For the longest time, I thought Kirsten hated coffee. So did she, I guess. I mean, I love the stuff and can't go more than a few hours without a sip of that ground and percolated goodness, but Kirsten...well, she likes the smell. Anyway, when we went on vacation after labor day they had a coffeemaker in the hotel room, and I made some for myself a couple of times.

Lo and behold, I discovered that Kirsten really does drink coffee. Only if it's been adulterated with milk, mind, but I think I can live with that. Kirsten calls her drink "Mexican coffee," and it's half milk, half coffee, and contains zero percent of your daily recommended intake of testosterone.

Flush with this new knowledge, Kirsten and I bought a Phillips Senseo coffeemaker (review here) a couple of weeks ago. It's that little duder that uses "coffee pods," which is basically a round teabag with coffee inside. The advantage to the Senseo coffeemaker is that you only make one cup at a time, so I don't have to wonder what do to with the other 5 cups I could get out of a regular coffee carafe, and it looks pretty freakin' sweet.

Problem is, I thought until recently that it could only operate with Senseo-brand coffee pods.

But - joy of joys! - I was wrong. Several companies make compatible-sized coffee pods that will fit into the Senseo machine. Krups, Mr. Coffee, and and Black & Decker (though apparently not DeWalt, a B&D subsidiary) all make compatible pods.

So, hooray! New flavor options for my old standby, crack. I mean coffee.

Apropos of Nothing

Silly Putty, like custard, is a dilatant; both are materials that are viscous liquids when under little pressure (or more accurately, shear forces). When placed under pressure (like, jumping in a thin layer of custard, or throwing a ball of silly putty against a wall), they "tighten." Silly putty and custard, to put it simply, are liquids at rest, and solids when stressed.

Hey, neat, that rhymes.

What this means for Silly Putty afficionados is that you can't build sculptures out of the stuff. You try, and it basically flows down under the force of gravity and becomes a pile of really unattractive pink goo. If you try to freeze the sculpture, it will puddle before it gets cold enough to solidify, and you'll have an unattractive puddle of very cold pink goo. If you try to bake it, it will catch fire and kill you and your family.

But here's the interesting part, and I just discovered this today while playing with some Silly Putty and a can of compressed air (for cleaning keyboards...the air, not the rubbery goop): Silly putty holds an open "vacuole" when wrapped around an air bubble.

When you push compressed air into the Silly Putty, it expands it. In theory, this should weaken the structure. However, for reasons unbeknownst to me, the damn stuff is holding the bubble inside and not losing volume. Admittedly, it's still flattening out. And it's still some unattractive pink goo. But it seems that as long as the stuff's integrity remains, it will hold that bubble. And even better, it looks like it's holding it longer than a standard blob of silly putty would hold up.

I imagine that I'm the only one who finds this interesting.

What Do YOU Call It?

I'm a big fan of bathrooms, just on principle, and also because I find them to be wonderful examples of how far humanity has come...

Just think, it used to be that you had to scrawl "For gud time call Unk at Bonk bonk smash bonk" into the walls of caves with rocks, bones, or fingernails.

Now we can write the same thing in seventy-four colors of Sharpie pens.

I call them johns, heads, cans, toilets, bathrooms, restrooms, or the ever-popular, overly-polite, anti-descriptive "facilities." Depends on my mood, and what color sharpie I have with me at the time.

NFL Picks, Week 3

Have you ever wondered exactly what "ado" means, where it comes from, or why we don't want any more of it?

Well, no matter. Here are this week's predictions:
Panthers at Buccaneers: Well, neither of these teams looks very good, but I'd say that the Panthers look less not very good than the Bucs. CAR
Bears at Vikings: Don't look now, but the Bears look very, very good. Now that the offense has at least started to keep up with the defense, they're a force to be reckoned with. Side note: I still think Kyle Orton is a fine backup. CHI
Bengals at Steelers: I think this game hangs on T.J. Houshmandzadeh and his ability to, somehow, light up the Steelers while other Bengals receivers haven't yet done that. And Ben Roethlisberger was rumored to have been suffering from vertigo during the preseason, and last week he looked like he was suffering from it still. CIN
Packers at Lions: Jon Kitna. GB
Jaguars at Colts: Sure, the Jags looked pretty good against the Steelers last week, but I think the Colts are more than a decent team. Look out, though, because Dominic Rhodes is no Edgerrin James. This game will be close, but I'm leaning towards the Colts. IND
Jets at Bills: This AFC matchup has the capacity to define the entire division. Both teams are 1-1, and both have lost to the Patriots. A tough call, because I think both teams are about equal, but I think that Lee Evans is going to be the offensive player of the game. BUF
Titans at Dolphins: Anyone else who's read Bill Simmons's column on the Daunte Culpepper Fantasy Football Support Group knows there's a certain logic to his claim that running QBs have a very short shelf life, and that Culpepper may have exceeded his. But the question is, has Kerry Collins really got what it takes to still play football? I doubt it. MIA
Redskins at Texans: As I mentioned earlier, the Texans are considering starting Ron Dayne. The Redskins are getting Clinton Portis back at 100%. Even moody old man Mark Brunell can't screw it up. WAS
Baltimore at Cleveland: It's only week three, and already Kellen Winslow is saying that the coaching staff is the reason the Browns are a bad-looking 0-2. How long do you think it'll be before he's traded to the Raiders? BAL
Giants at Seahawks: These teams on the face of things are pretty equal, but Jeremy Shockey is facing down an ankle injury that's bothered him the last two weeks, and Sean Alexander has just been accused of being soft now that he's had his free-agency payday; Alexander took a big paycheck to stay with the Seahawks. The 'Hawks don't have Steve Hutchinson anymore, and their left offensive line looks the worse for it. In the end, what matters is jetlag - The Giants have it, the Seahawks don't. SEA
Eagles at 49ers: Another jetlag game. The main difference between this one and the Seatte/New York Giants tilt is that the 49ers are still one step behind most of the rest of the league. PHI
Rams at Cardinals: Don't look now, but the Cardinals have looked very decent the last couple of games. Key to the game: Arizona's offensive line. The Cardinals have already allowed 8 sacks this year, and the Rams have only tallied 4. ARI
Broncos at Patriots: The Broncos were a strong contender last year, but this year they've been a total flop. And the Patriots have looked very strong in their division, and are probably hell-bent on avenging themselves against this Denver team that beat them twice last season, including a playoff game. NE
Falcons at Saints: Like anyone's gonna pay attention to the game. Don't look now (not that you will), but Michael Vick is all of a sudden "getting it." I totally underrated him the first week of the season, and underrated the coaching staff's ability to just give up on trying to make Vick into a pure passer. Screw it, he's the most exciting thing since self-slicing bread. ATL in a win that breaks 300 million hearts.

Part of Darwin Still Lives!

Word has it that the Houston Texans are planning on starting running back Ron Dayne this weekend for their game against the Wasington Redskins (1:00 PM Eastern on Fox). Dayne, some of you may recall, was part of the "Thunder and Lightning" that the New York Giants tried to create with Tiki Barber in Dayne's rookie season. It was a reasonable expectation, given that Dayne had won the Heisman Trophy coming out of college by basically running into people very quickly and making them regret being born.

That doesn't work well in the pros, and so Dayne had to reinvent himself as a power runner who knew that not running into people unless you have to was a wise career move. The Broncos used him well last season in that role - a goal-line guy who could pound it inside, but was smart enough to know that he couldn't run through the boat-sized defensive players in front of him.

Anyway, this is what Ron Dayne looks like today:


True story*: He uses his goatee as an extra blocker.

*: Not a true story.

Worthless Guarantees

Today I heard that Match.com is offering a free six-month subscription if you fail to find someone to love in the first six months of your paid membership.

So, if you fail to find a partner in the first six months, they'll give you the option to feel worthless and unlovable for another six months, for free!

Short Pick List

Because tomorrow is the Danforth Campus naming, I'll be busy pretty much all day and don't have a lot of time to post my picks. So here's a truncated version for week 2 of the NFL season.

Oakland at Baltimore: BAL
New Orleans at Green Bay: NO
Houston at Indianapolis: IND
Buffalo at Miami: MIA
Carolina at Minnesota: MIN
Tampa Bay at Atlanta: ATL
New York Giants at Philadelphia: PHI
Detroit at Chicago: CHI
Cleveland at Cincinnati: CIN
St. Louis at San Francisco: STL (how can the 49ers be favored in this game?)
Arizona at Seattle: ARI
Kansas City at Denver: DEN
New England at New York Jets: NYJ
Tennessee at San Diego: SD
Washington at Dallas: DAL
Pittsburgh at Jacksonville: JAX

Dancing With Who Brung You

Two years ago, Cartoon Network announced that they would not be renewing the shows Teen Titans or Justice League Unlimited for the spring 2006 season, despite both shows' incredible popularity among the teenage demographics, and the associated sales of merchandise and the new Teen Titans Go! comic book.

The reason that the network gave for their decision was twofold: first, they wanted to focus on the more independent, original series that had gained them appeal in the first place. In addition to bringing new content to the network, these new shows help give fresh animators and writers the chance to cut their teeth on major mass-marketed products. Powerpuff Girls and Samurai Jack come to mind.

Nevermind that they cancelled Samurai Jack after just a couple of seasons.

Secondly, they wanted to get away from the superhero-type shows that Titans and JLA both represented. This was partly because they were having issues working with Warner Brothers Animation, which produced said superhero-type shows, and partly because they apparently just weren't big fans of how Warner Brothers was running their operation.

They also said that Titans just wasn't popular enough. Nevermind that it was one of their highest-rated series.

So they replaced Teen Titans with a series of shows in their old-episode time slot (Monday through Thursday at 6:00 PM Eastern), and in the new-episode slot showed Transformers: Cybertron, Zatch Bell, Wulin Warriors, Shaolin Showdown, and old Titans episodes.

So now that the network didn't have a Saturday evening show to bring in ratings, they brought in a new show for the Fall 2006 season: Fantastic Four, which is not an original show that brings out the talents of fresh young animators and writers. It's also a superhero show. And it's produced by Warner Brothers.

That's Messed Up

http://vgcats.com/comics/?strip_id=209

It's That Time of the Year Again

It's that season, when the Simpsons picks up its new season, and men alternately leap or weep like 2-year-olds who discovered the sugar jar.

That's right, kids, it's football season again!

And to kick things off, one quick note: I have, by my ownself, initiated a skins program for the NFL picks thing that Chris and Lucas and I do. The way it works is that whoever gets the most picks right in a week wins a skin. If there's a tie, there's no skins. And the skins winner gets bragging rights that may or may not also go to the overall pick winner. You'll see the running score to the right, right under the running picks score.

Anyway, here's the rest of this week's picks.

And honestly, who the hell picked Pittsburgh to win on Thursday? First upset of the season, in the first game.

Baltimore at Tampa Bay: Steve McNair or no, it's still Baltimore. Picking them to win seems somehow...dirty. TB
New Orleans at Cleveland: First game with Reggie and Deuce, first game with Drew Brees - a lot of firsts, along with first win of the season for the Saints. NO
Atlanta at Carolina: I am finally willing to admit it - Mike Vick is pretty overrated. And he's not smart enough to know how to get the team to pick him up when he faces a challenge. CAR
Seattle at Detroit: Can Jon Kitna save the Lions? Maybe, but certainly not from the Seahawks. SEA
Philadelphia at Houston: OK, bear with me here. I think Houston will win, and I'll give you three reasons why: No Dom Capers. HOU
New York Jets at Tennessee: It's a matchup of AFC woulda coulda shouldas. The most interesting subplot is whether Jeff Fisher will have selected a starting quarterback by the second quarter. TEN
Cincinnati at Kansas City: Tough call. I think the difference for the Bengals will be that Herm Edwards is coaching the Chiefs. CIN
Denver at St. Louis: I'm tortured by this one too. I think that the Rams could have a shot at winning, and I'm picking them, but they won't beat the spread, that's for sure. STL
Buffalo at New England: Why is it that I keep picking winners based on who's on the other team? J.P. Losman's inexperience will ensure that this is a rebuilding year for the Bills. Again. For the fifth straight year. NE
Dallas at Jacksonville: Jimmy Smith has retired, which makes the Jags a little less dangerous, but I still think they've got a good outside shot at winning the AFC South this year. JAX
Chicago at Green Bay: Brett Favre says that he has the most talented (if inexperienced) team he's ever had. I have a hard time believing a guy who's taken as many knocks as he has, but I just can't buy into all the Rex Grossman hype. GB
San Francisco at Arizona: Losing Kevan Barlow automatically makes the 49ers a better team. But still not good enough to beat the Cardinals on their new rolling field (honestly, how cool is that?). ARI
Indianapolis at New York Giants: Sunday game of the week, and the first time two brothers have ever faced each other on the field as starting quarterbacks. I think the Colts are going to miss Edgerrin James more than they thought they would. NYG
Minnesota at Washington: The Redskins have been pretty inept over the preseason. I mean Laurel and Hardy inept. It's like the President asked FEMA to run an offense. MIN
San Diego at Oakland: You don't have to be Drew Brees to pass to Antonio Gates and hand off to LaDanian Tomlinson. You probably don't even have to be alive. Unless you're Aaron Brooks, at which point even YOU couldn't win with those guys. Heaven knows he won't be winning much with Randy Moss. SD

I Can Dig It

Kirsten thinks that Scott Patterson from the show Gilmore Girls is sexy. "You know, in that older man kind of way." (He's almost 50).

I may have to turn in my man card, but I guess I can sort of see her point.

NFL Picks, Week One, Part One

Don't have time to post all picks. Chris and Lucas have, combined, no chance against me this year.

Pittsburgh at Miami: Ben Roethlisberger is 27-4 as a starter - but he's not playing this week. And the Steelers don't have Jerome Bettis this year. Thus, Daunte Culpepper and the Dolphins will have their way with the Steelers. MIA

Vacation at last

Kirsten and I are on our first vacation this year, and what will probably be our only vacation (with the exception of that trip to Charleston to chill with my folks - I don't think that counts, because it was to visit a family that already has a place at the destination). Anyway, we took a trip to Lake of the Ozarks.

Kirsten's parents bought shares in a vacation resort company called Worldmark, which has resort locations all around the world - there's one in Vegas, a bunch in the Pacific northwest, Chicago, Australia, all those places. Anyway, there's one here in Lake of the Ozarks, too. So we bought some time from the parents, and here we are - four days at the lake, on the lake, for less than $120 bucks.

There's a $10,000 joining fee, but whatever. I didn't pay it, so it's like it never happened.

So, if you're looking for us, we'll be picking over the leftovers at Party Cove (some people leave unopened beer cans just floating in the lake!) and sunning ourselves for the first time this year.

See y'all Friday.

Kirsten: On Albert Pujols

"He has overly-groomed eyebrows. He's like a metrosexual."
"You know who he looks like? Billy Zane."
"Did he just do a snotrocket?!?! He did! He totally blew a snot rocket!"

Warren Jeffs, She Ain't (Thank God)

Overheard in Brian and Kirsten's house: "Go Chase....do it with the cancer girl, oh yeah."

-Kirsten, In response to Dr. Chase on House kissing a nine-year-old terminal cancer patient (to be fair, she was all weepy and saying, "I'll never kiss a boy." So it's not really pedophilia, so much as a sign that Chase needs better dates.