doodledee

I've been less busy at work lately. My last project cut me loose a few weeks ago and I've just kinda been hanging out in the office since then. And by "hanging out" I really mean "coming in late" and "going to Dunn Bros and kicking it with my peeps" and "doing a lot of reading" and "playing some xbox". I also mean "helping out where I can" and "learning some new stuff", but I try not to kid myself about how much I'm really getting done. I'm sure that once I get bored I'll get motivated, but that's still at least a couple of days off. Goody for me.

Yesterday, because it was gorgeous out, I met a couple of guys for some quality outside relaxing time. We chilled on Nicollet Mall and bs'ed and watched the girls walk by. It was a kind of a throwback to the annual rite of spring at the U where, on the first beautifully sunny day of the year, a bunch of us pasty-white IT geeks would crawl out from under our honors chemistry class to sit on Northrop Mall and marvel at the eye candy strolling by. The only difference is that back then we didn't stand a chance because we were pasty-white IT geeks and now we don't because we're pasty-white IT geeks who are also [amazingly] already married. Curses.

Team Yep celebrated the weather by continuing our undefeated season. I had a stunningly bad game at the plate and a surprisingly good game in the field. 3 soft pop-ups == get me to the cages, pronto.

I'm ready for the farmers' market to open. Looks like that's next week. w00t.

Northrop Mall 'Virtual Tour' [umn] [qt]
Photo tour of Nicollet Mall [phototour]
Minneapolis Farmers' Market

Design Your Own Banner! [mpromo]

Yesterday afternoon I finally cranked my motivation up high enough to drive down to the Richfield Time-Warner store and trade in my regular fake-tivo cable box for one that also does HDTV decoding. Oh, happy day. Note: the fact that the Twolves' playoff games are being broadcast in HD may or may not have helped kick me in the ass and get me moving. (Hint: yes it did.)

The HD fake tivo has been out for a couple of months now and it costs the same to 'rent' as the non-HD version, but I was balking at changing because it lacks the almighty two-tuner recording capabilities of the non-HD one. By upgrading earlier, it would have meant that when Survivor and The Apprentice Frontline and something cool on CSPAN were going head-to-head, I wouldn't have been able to record them both at the same time. And that, my friends, was pretty much an upgrade killer.

But now that the... uhh... CSPAN season is over, I figure it's safe to downgrade to one tuner and upgrade to some hella clear widescreen basketball. And HOLY CRAP is the picture awesome. I swear you can even see the wheels on Spreewell's shoes spinning. Mint mint mint. The only downside is that the HD feed is a couple seconds behind the KFAN radio commentary, which means I have to listen to the bozo TV guys instead of Little Sid and JB. It's capital 'b' brutal, but at least it's in Dolby Digital surround sound. Or at least that's what I've been told. My stereo hasn't yet been fully reincarnated after Operation Plumbing Freedom so I'm missing out on that side of the HD coin.

Along with the 'special' Timberwolves coverage, we also get a bunch of other HD channels. Things like NBC, CBS, PBS, and whatnot. I guess we've actually been getting (read: paying for) them all along, we just didn't have a way to watch them. Beyond the standard ones, there are like 4 'premium' HD channels that the cable dude tried to sell me, too. When he flipped through them for me one was showing old game show reruns and another was showing a fish tank or something. I told him that $7/mo for fish tanks and game shows seemed like a lot of money. That's when he told me that the game show channel sometimes showed reruns of sporting events from the previous day, too. That's when I told him a) no and b) to work on his sales pitch.

As soon as the playoffs are over I'm bringing everything back and downgrading to the most basic of basic cables for the summer. At least that's what I keep telling myself. And I'm thinking Team Cheapass will win over Team Picture Quality in this instance of the brawl to end it all.

Yesterday in his column, loony old Sid Hartman went off about the whole Victory Sports / Twin Cities Cable Companies stand-off. It was awesome. So awesome I waited to write about until today because I guess in reality it wasn't all *that* awesome, but it was pretty funny.

Here's part of it:

Some of the people in the Legislature didn't have any idea how popular and important the Twins are to this area until most of their games failed to appear on television.

Now the politicians are being swamped with phone calls from Twins fans, especially the shut-ins who are unhappy because they are not getting many Twins games on television. Some members of the Legislature are threatening to kill a Twins ballpark bill if the television problem isn't solved.

This reaction proves how important it is for the Legislature to pass a baseball stadium bill that is acceptable to Carl Pohlad and his family. The additional income from Victory Sports and revenue from a new ballpark would make it possible to earn more money to put winning teams on the field.

The reaction to the lack of Twins televised games told a better story than any survey that could have been taken.

It's like some sort of crazy bizarro logic that only Sid understands. A couple of pissed off Twins fans call their legislator to complain and it's somehow the most accurate referendum that could ever be devised? Even more accurate than an actual scientific poll? Well this I did not know. And to think of all the time I wasted in those stupid statistics classes. Ah well, at least I learned craps odds inside and out.

And hey Sid, let me get this straight. Are you saying there's a silent majority of shut-ins who are behind the so-called legislative phonebank 'swamping'? Well maybe next time you're out talking with the homebound, you should remind them to CALL THEIR CABLE COMPANY because THAT'S WHERE THE CONFLICT IS.

Man alive, where's that Strom wacko from the Taxpayer's League when you need him? Lock him in a room for a couple days with a copy of Excel and I bet he could make it work-out so that the cable companies would be better off *never* subscribing to Victory and instead buying each shut-in their very own baseball team. That dude has like a PhD in Deceptive Interpretation of Vague Statistics. He's a frickin' wizard.

But maybe Sid has a point. Without all this extorted money new revenue the Twins will probably *never* be able to field a winning team. And I likes me a winner. Hmm. Kind of a Catch-22. I gotta sleep on that one.

Sid Hartman: Politicians hear from Twins fans [strib]
Twins clinch American League Central title [y!] [sept 03]
Twins clinch Central crown [sptimes] [sept 02]

Brace yourself, peeps, because I just did a few calculations and, if my math is right, I've finally banked-up enough courage to state with near certainty that 2004 will be the year that I will probably most likely go ahead and buy a new grill. w00t!

Sure, buying a grill sounds easy, but for reasons I don't fully understand - other than the fact that I'm what some might call a 'cheapass' - I've been unsuccessful in pulling the trigger for something like 4 consecutive years now. It's gotten so bad that Libby refuses to even go to the grill store with me anymore. ("Jesus Christ just buy one already.") Yes, I'm an idiot, thanks.

Without question the new one will be gas. I've already got a charcoal unit and it works fine. Well, except for the lid doesn't fit all that well since I backed over it in the Jeep one morning, but it still holds the heat in, so that's good enough for me. My theory with gas is that you get quicker on and quicker heat. My theory further states that quicker on + quicker heat = quicker meat. So that leaves me with slow-cooking-beer-drinking-newspaper-reading 'real' barbeque on the weekends and faster-yet-some-would-say-fake barbeque on weeknights. But to those I would say "screw you" and "my house is frickin' hot in August, so I'm cookin' outside."

I'm excited.

The first big storm of the season rolled through tonight, carrying with it plenty of thunder, lightning, rain, howling winds, and - of course - boatloads of breathless coverage LIVE! on the local networks.

I watched for maybe 45 minutes. I can't remember which channel, though. It's too bad they don't put their logo up on the screen or something.

I had this big thing written up about the insanely predictable "outraged" responses to the insanely predictable answers that Bush gave and/or didn't give at his [now apparently infamous] press conference the other night, but I shelved it after I read this, because it says it better:

... [T]he press seemed inordinately focused on trying to get the president to take blame and admit mistakes -- a line of questioning that struck us as fishing for soundbites rather than addressing real issues. This president is famous for staying relentlessly on message; after he conspicuously passed on his initial opportunity to shoulder some blame for September 11, journalists should have moved on, knowing he wasn't going to change his rhetoric on a whim. They might instead have asked the president to engage specific policy issues, or asked about something other then Iraq or September 11, such as the economy.

And we were disappointed to see journalists fail to press the president about any number of specific on-the-record inconsistencies that they could have pointed to. As we mentioned above, direct questions have a better chance of forcing direct answers, while fishing about for an admission that everyone knows is not forthcoming merely leaves an opening for the recitation of well-worn talking points and rhetorical asides. We don't need press conferences to hear that.

ExACTly.

Attention moron pundits and worked-up bloggers: The reason Bush "didn't answer any questions" is because he was asked the same question over and over and over again. Your outrage is both misplaced and illogical. Shape-up. You do the dissension movement no favors acting like such idiots.

And yes, I know this would have been more topical 72 hours ago, but once softball season starts, I kinda fall behind.

Fishing With the President [cjr]

My two most recent exposures to ducks:

• The other day while running around Lake Harriet, I saw a couple of ducks right by the shore that were either play-fighting or doing it. I guess I'll know for sure which one in 28-34 days.
• This morning when I left for work there were a couple of ducks pigging out at our backyard birdfeeders. I didn't even know ducks ate sunflower seeds. I thought they ate weeds and minnows and stuff. Guess I was wrong.

Ducks are fun.

Ducks for kids and teachers (and dave) [kiddyhouse]
Ducks of the world [utm]
The Mighty Ducks [imdb]

Yip yip, our house is almost basically kinda back together. Well, except for all the furniture that's all over the house in the wrong rooms and/or garage, that is. And sure, we need to repaint like every wall and ceiling on the main floor, but hey, we cooked and ate a dinner here for the first time in a long time, so that's something.

Talking about food, Libby turned me on to an awesome new pizza reheating technique: use a skillet. It works mint because the crust gets all crispy as it heats-up. I bet it'd work for cheesy dots, too, but seeing as there's no way I'd ever allow a fresh cheesy dot to go uneaten, we may never know.

I guess that's it.

• I called Best Buy's 800 number today. It was hilarious. The voice that reads you the choices ("press 1 for store hours"...) is this X-games-playing-mountain-dew-drinking-Dan-Cortese-wanna-be type dude. He's all hip and edgy and he starts every sentence with "okay". Whatever, doofs. I'll listen to some snowboarder tell me to push numbers, but at the end of the day you're still a giant soulless corporation. And you screwed up my $10 rebate. Okay?
• How great is it that the Wolves signed Darrick Martin for the playoff drive? Sure, he played a couple of 10-day contracts for us earlier in the season, but we're talking about a dude who spent most of the past year jumping around in the CBA and playing pick-up ball at the Y. And then one day the phone rings and - shazam! - he's the back-up point guard on the #1 team in the West. And he's doing pretty well.
• Total peeps eaten this easter season: 0. That is embarrassing. And it shall be remedied.

Better hit the ATM folks, because milk prices are on the rise. Fewer milkable cows + expensive cow food + mad cows = $0.50 more per gallon. In case you're not keeping score at home, that will put milk over $4/gallon.

Oh wait, maybe that's only around here.

Retail milk prices already have risen by 15 cents a gallon, from a nationwide average of $2.85 on March 1 to $3 by April 1...

$3 national average? Thanks to our new fancy ass containers, milk here is already almost $3.75. ATTENTION STAR TRIBUNE MORONS: where's the story about how Twin Cities milk prices are *already* 25% higher than the national average?

Oh wait, some lady must not be having dinner parties anymore. Better cover that first.

Milk prices expected to shoot up [strib]
Woman ends 'pretty fricking bizarre' tradition [strib]

I hire a different garbage company than all the other people on our little dead end do. The one I use is significantly cheaper and less convenient than the 'competition' and they give you a free garbage can to use for your 'big' can in out in the garage or whatever. The 'competition', on the other hand, is more expensive, picks up three (3!) times a week, and forces you to provide your own cans. On the up side, I guess they donate all their profits to starving garbage men in Africa or something. Yes, I'm an ass for not using them.

The dude who rides around in the truck for the 'competition' is a really slow walker. Like seriously slow. Like Frankenstein slow. And as someone who has only ever seen garbage men run around like maniacs, seeing one who just sort of lollygags kinda freaks me out. And that's clearly not to say I understand why the other guys insist on sprinting all the time, it's just that that's what they do, and this guy doesn't, ergo the freaking.

Then I was talking to my neighbor the other day and he was telling me that Frankenstein was telling him about how a couple of coyotes are running rampant in the neighborhood. I guess they come out at night and feast on people's garbage and generally cause problems. Frankenstein knows where they live, he knows how many there are, he knows their names, he knows everything.

I don't really believe that there are coyotes in the 'hood, but hearing that Frankenstein knows there are a) makes the story somewhat believable and b) makes Frankenstein even freakier.

I just hope he doesn't use his coyote army against those of us who refuse to hire him.

New albumbs today from Trey and Ben Kweller.

Your mission: go buy them.

My stereo is currently disconnected and sitting on the freezer in the basement while the house is being rebuilt. I miss it.

Good god the plumbing work is done and it's all put together and it actually works. What a hellish day, though. I got up at dawn to finish preparing the house. Then the plumber arrived at 8:15 - which is like 2 hours later than he'd like to start - so he hit the ground at full blast. Hang on, pipes!

I had told the plumber on the phone yesterday that I was taking the day off from work to stay home for the job, so he showed up without his assistant and had me do all the grunt work. Stuff like prepping pipe and fetching tools and making coffee and, oh yeah, cleaning up everything which will seriously take me like another 2 days. But hey, it saves me money, right? Where do I sign?

It actually was a lot of fun. More fun than I thought it would be. The dude is an old timer who grew up right in this area, so he's full of good stories and the day ended up going pretty fast. The fastest part was the 10-minute lunch break he let us take.

Now that it's done, we need a new showerhead because the old one is all clogged and the water sprays everywhere now that there's real pressure behind it. Everything else is pretty much mint, though.

Up next: the ceiling surgeon.

The new turf at the dome looks funny on tv. It's all pale, like smashed peas.

They should paint it to make it look more like the old turf. If it's fake, why pretend it's not?

There's been a bus strike going on here in Minneapolis for something like 28 days now. I'm pretty sure that's 'actual days' and not just 'business days', but I can't be sure because I don't know if it's fair to count Saturdays and Sundays when the busses run so infrequently that there's no way anybody could actually ride them. I'll have my intern check on that.

Anyway, the strike hasn't been pretty. It hasn't been pretty because it's forced Twin Citians to talk honestly about transit, which is something a lot of people don't like to do. They'd rather speak in big, sweeping generalizations that are impossible to prove or disprove and say things like "without our bus system, the highways will be the biggest hornet's nest you've ever seen" or "shut 'em down, only rich people from Edina ride the busses anyway".

Go figure, the truth falls somewhere in between. Sure, some of us cake-eating Edina folk ride the bus, but it turns out plenty of other people do, too. And - uh, oh - lots of those other people also happen to have lower incomes and/or be unable to drive, so they can't just fire up their Jeeps and go to work when the busses stop rolling. So maybe, just maybe, the transit system is providing rides to people who actually *need* them. (Albeit expensive rides, depending on which math you believe.)

What's worse, the bus drivers brilliantly scheduled their strike during spring break season, so that, most of the time, the freeways have been hellasmooth-sailing. Seriously. I've driven 75 55 every day this week. Can you say utopia? ATTENTION MORON UNION LEADERS: that was wicked bad planning - "buses reduce congestion" is now an invalid argument. And it also means that all the people in the suburbs who don't take the bus lost interest in this issue after 10 minutes.

I want to be clear that I'm all for the busses. And bike paths. And light rail when/if they ever build it in a place where people who live here might actually ride it. (Hint: I don't need to go from downtown to the airport all that often and neither do lots of other people who live here.) I'm for all of it. But I'm for it on a quality of life, vibrant city, pro-environment, philosophical mumbo-jumbo basis, not for any 'real' reason.

And I want to be clear that just because I'm for alternative transit options that it doesn't mean I'm necessarily taking the drivers' side. I've barely read what their beef is, but I'll go out on a limb and guess it has to do with insane health care premiums or something. Fascinating.

Why doesn't somebody hold a pro-transit rally that doesn't imply solidarity with the strikers? I bet they'd get beat-up by union thugs, that's why. Damn union thugs.

But now that I'm clear, I'll also say that the bus system sucks. It sucks because they keep raising prices. It sucks because there aren't enough busses and they run too infrequently. It sucks because when you finally do get on one, it stops EVERY BLOCK which is simply insane and makes your ride take FOREVER if you're going any serious distance. It sucks because it's fractionalized between the suburbs and the city and it doesn't make any sense and it destroys any sense of metro-community. I've seen Mid East peace plans that had simpler boundary lines.

It also sucks because it trashed the awesome streetcar system, but that's another issue.

Maybe some other time I'll write about how to fix it. (Hint: personal helicopters)

After 22 days, neither side blinking in bus strike [strib] [last week]

For those of you following my plumbing disaster, you'll be happy to know that I've knocked down huge portions of our dining room ceiling to make room for the new pipes and that I've already called a couple of plaster guys to come talk about repairing the damage once the new pipes are installed. I hope that's the right order.

Needless to say I've eaten my fair share of grit over the last couple of nights. And I probably sucked in enough dust to take 5 years off my life. (Yes, I wore a mask.) But hey, I'm probably about 2/3 done, so that's something. Wee!

With luck the plumbing guy will come early, early next week to start the 'corrective' side of the 'destroy and correct' plan that I'm operating under. Should only take him a day at most to do his thing.

When it's all over, everyone is invited over to the house for a free shower.

Bring your own soap.

(Except you, KC. You've helped so much I'll let you use mine.)