Poker Night 2: Sophomore Jinx

Now last time I played, I lost my $10 but I lasted the whole night and so all was well. This time, I wasn’t so lucky. The whole night I was a few seconds behind everyone else and I just wasn’t seeing the cards. It happens. It was really great seeing Aaron, Erin, Jo, and Butch. It was nice meeting some new faces with Omar and Bernardo and Morgan. Well, Morgan somehow got in my head. He was up & down a lot, shifting, talking, and it threw me further off than I was already. I know I know, excuses.
Still, I had a good time even if I spent most of the time watching. Good conversations. Learning more about people. Having more people in your life that are friendly is a very good thing. OK, enough with the kissing ass.
So thanks to Aaron for hosting the night. Next poker night, Butch will be buying me in as I bought him in this time. Since he had a profitable night, it was good for all involved. Til next time…

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Rape and Pillage!

The Tampa Bay Buccaneers are now 3-0 to start a season for the first time since 2000. Of course that was the year they couldn’t score a TD in the NFC Championship game and the Rams could, leading us all to have to watch Vermeil break down crying again.

Now we have a Cadillac: Carnell Williams has 434 yards in his first three games as an NFL Running Back. That’s a rookie record and currently leads the NFL. 158 more yards and two Griese-to-Galloway (G2G) touchdowns helped beat the Packers at Lambeau Field, 17-16.

Before the season started I thought these guys didn’t have a chance to compete. Even when they beat the Vikings and Bills I brushed it off as luck. I’m still not ready to print playoff tickets, but it is certainly a promising start to the season.

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Pictures from our vacation

Some of the photos I took while we were on vacation are available on my flickr page.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/20482498@N00/sets/
I took quite a lot of pictures but these were among our favorites. I will add some more in the next few days. Click on Tuesday, go through the pictures and then click ChedeauxZillah to get back to the main sets page. OR delete sets/ from the URL to get to my main page so you don’t have to fiddle with the sets.

These are all saved at a 450×600 resolution. I have copies on my computer at 1200×1600, so if you like any of them, just e-mail me. I have really gotten into photography lately and have tried to improve my own skills. Some of these (esp the Midway pics) have a lot of camera shake or I caught someone in the side and perhaps I could have cropped them out but at the moment I’m a bit too lazy. Perhaps I’ll replace them later with people cropped out, or I’ll get better shots without so much camera shake.

Some of these I’m proud of and some I’ve already used as desktop wallpaper. The one I like the most, the front of Hash House a Go-Go, needs some work in the sky. Perhaps I’ll go back on a good day and work on that.

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Football Madness!

OK I know it’s been two weeks already but here’s my predictions of the NFL Season…

AFC WEST: San Diego, Denver, Kansas City, Oakland
AFC NORTH: Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Baltimore
AFC SOUTH: Indianapolis, Tennessee, Jacksonville, Houston
AFC EAST: New England, NY Jets, Miami, Buffalo
NFC WEST: Seattle, Arizona, St. Louis, San Francisco
NFC NORTH: Green Bay, Detroit, Chicago, Minnesota
NFC SOUTH: Carolina, Atlanta, Tampa Bay, New Orleans
NFC EAST: Philadelphia, Dallas, NY Giants, Washington

AFC Wild Card Round
San Diego over Cincinnati
Indianapolis over Tennessee
NFC Wild Card Round
Atlanta over Green Bay
Detroit over Seattle

AFC Divisional Round
Pittsburgh over San Diego
New England over Indianapolis
NFC Divisional Round
Philadelphia over Detroit
Carolina over Atlanta

AFC Championship Game
Pittsburgh over New England
NFC Championship Game
Carolina over Philadelphia

Super Bowl [WHO CARES]
Pittsburgh over Carolina

Two running backs have me really impressed right now. Cadillac Williams and Willie Parker. WOW these guys have had a great start to the year. The Bucs beating Minnesota and Buffalo to start the year?! YESSIREE! Argh, shiver me timbers. Them be a wild brood they be!

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Tori, Prime Rib and the Greek Theatre

So we headed out to Josh’s place with instructions to arrive no later than 2pm. We left just before 1pm and he lives south of Anaheim but north of Irvine. So we get there just as the clock struck 2pm and they weren’t ready yet. So we’re sitting there watching some freaky show on the Sci-Fi channel and waiting for Josh to get out of the shower. We end up leaving around 2:45 and reach Beverly Hills at 3:45 where we pull into Lawry’s The Prime Rib. Yes, the same Lawry’s that makes the taco mixes and seasoning salt and stuff. It’s a meat lover’s paradise.

They roll up this big silver carving cart up to you. It looks a bit like some robot from a 50s movie…all metal and curves. You order the cut and type of prime rib (ex. English Cut Medium-Rare) and then they give you mashed potatoes and gravy and yorkshire pudding. You can add to that various veges like creamed corn, asparagus, mushrooms, creamed spinach or whatever.

They also serve Salmon and Lobster and fish for those not in a beef mood. If you don’t like meat the veges are great and you can just load up on those. It’s a bit pricy I thought but not too bad. Donovan’s is pricy but there I feel like I get what I pay for.

So after dinner we headed out to the Greek Theatre to watch the Diddy Bops and Tori Amos. They had us park in the park down the hill and the walk up the hill just killed. I knew I was out of shape but WOW. I barely made it up that hill. Then we find out our seats are Section C, Row R, Seats 113 and 115. That’s WAY up there. It’s the farthest back we’ve ever sat for a Tori Concert.

The Diddy Bops were a couple of girls (one on guitar, one on mandolin) bopping and singing these happy sounding little tunes. The dual female harmony reminded me of the DanceHall Crashers but this was a bit more folky where the DHC is a bit more ska/rock. I liked ’em! With there was a guy on fiddle, one on keyboards and another on the stand up bass. Very cool. For those who’ve never heard them check out their songs Sister Kate and Walk or Ride.

Tori came on about 40 minutes after the Diddy Bops set ended. With them starting 20 minutes late, that pushed her start time to almost 9pm. That left her with a 2 hour set before that 11:00pm deadline. After that the city or venue or whatever charges something like a grand a minute for everything over. She went over. Why? Well she messed up Winter and had a brain fart midway through the song.

So she just improvised a little “My mind sometimes/I think I’m still in winter/It happens when you don’t get any sleep/and when it goes wrong/you gotta just pick yourself up again and start over” and then she started the song again and went through it. Nice way to pick it up.

Then she was more long and melodic last night and less bouncy and quick. So all her songs were a few minutes longer than their recorded sisters as she held out notes and repeated lines and drew out piano interludes.

She did a new version of God adding in lyrics from Kate Bush’s Running Up That Hill. It wasn’t my thing. For her “Tori’s Piano Bar” portion where she takes requests and plays two cover songs, she did Pearl Jam’s Black and the Moody Blue’s Nights in White Satin.

All in all I liked it. Well it would have been just peachy if it weren’t for some Tori concert noob sitting behind me screaming and singing along to the songs as if this were some rock concert instead of Tori who’s concerts are more like going to watch the symphony. You scream a bit when you like a song just as it’s ended. You cheer when she talks and says something you like but otherwise you sit there and listen to her music. You can stand up, dance, and scream at concerts for other artists but Tori just isn’t like that. Anyways I learned those rules the hard way when I attended her San Diego concert for the Under the Pink tour and I sang the entire time pissing off everyone near me who was trying to hear Tori sing.

The drive home was really nice. We were tired but also still on a bit of a high from the concert. Thanks to Josh for lending me some Mountain Dew and letting me borrow your cup for a while. I also can’t thank him and Stephanie enough for paying for this entire evening as a celebration of our 6 year anniversary. Significant only because our mother has always said that if you can make it 6 years, you can make it forever. Then she promptly ended her two marriages after 10 and 16 years respectively.

Had a great time. My hair…still blonde. However today we did go pick up some green Manic Panic and I will be dying my hair tonight. Let’s hope it turns out ok. I’m real nervous about this one. I’ve been red, blue and blonde…but never green. This is a color that really turns heads and I’m not the greatest looking dude on earth.

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Just a few words on college ball…

Someone will say (or has already said) something about the beating that USC and Texas Tech handed out yesterday. Some will say it was running up the score considering their opponents scored 17 and 21 respectively. Some will say that if the other team doesn’t like them running up the score they could always stop their offense. Easier said than done I think, but tend to agree, even if that’s a weak excuse for running up the score. Rather, I think those teams (especially USC) should have scheduled tougher opponents. You can’t trample a team 80-21 or 70-17 and hope to garner any sympathy from anyone who criticizes the way you run up the score. 80 points?! That’s like 11 touchdowns and a field goal in 60 minutes.

It wasn’t amazing that Ohio State beat San Diego State 27-6. What was amazing is that the Aztecs somehow scored 6 points while only getting 3 first downs the entire game.

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San Diego Vacation Part Dos…

OK So on to Wednesday. This time we got up at a decent hour and headed out to the USS Midway Museum. Basically, for those not in San Diego, they’ve taken the actual USS Midway Carrier and instead of scrapping it they parked it at a dock on Harbor Dr just south of Broadway and people get to go around it looking at all the places there is to see onboard.

Basically as you come on board they hand you what looks like a little radio only it’s got a keypad like a phone and a digital display. To this you hookup headphones and as you tour the ship you punch in the number displayed somewhere near where you are to learn about that part of the ship and listen to interviews from sailors or pilots who served on the Midway.

So we basically hit the tour in order, avoiding the engine room as it’s 3 flights down of steep stairs and Victoria just didn’t want to take that trip and didn’t want to wait the 30 minutes while I did. No biggie as you can see on the map, there’s 38 different stops on the tour so missing one isn’t gonna kill me. What gets me is just how small the enlisted sleeping quarters (berthing spaces) were. Then we look at the junior officers quarters and while they’re still not much better than sleeping on an uncomfortable sofa in the smallest of rooms it seemed HUGE compared to the enlisted berthing spaces. The galley seemed small before (I’d been here before on tour with Rachel last year) but this time it just appeared more roomy. I sorta wished the Senior officers quarters were opened. I mean when you come to tour a ship what more do people want to see than the captains quarters, eh? OK so maybe I don’t have all of you at the moment and that’s fine. We’re not all ship people. I happen to love ships and so I enjoyed this trip.

After the USS Midway we headed over to Seaport Village for some grub. OK I’ll just say their deli is great and Margarita’s sucks. I spent too much on the bad stuff and not enough on the good stuff is all. We went to one of the kitschy little San Diego stores and got a couple things like the little mini England flag I’ve been wanting. No not the UK union jack but the Saint George’s cross flag. One quick stop to Ben & Jerry’s for cones and then we set off towards the Omni Hotel to check in.

WOW what a place! OK I say that like I was oh so impressed with the place. The lobby was clean, the restaurant there (McCormick & Schmick’s) is really pricy, the hallways afford you great views of the bay, PETCO Park, or downtown depending on where you are in the hotel. The rooms look really nice. The bathroom has Double wood sliding doors with vents instead of the usual open door thing most hotels give you. The bathroom is also HUGE compared to your average hotel room. There’s the expected closet with iron and robes and extra clothes hangers.

There’s the desk and chair only in that drawer isn’t Gideon’s bible. It’s a pouch with an ethernet cable for connecting one’s laptop into the desk and obtaining internet connection FREE OF CHARGE. The power outlet is also built into the desk so you don’t have to get on your knees searching for one if you need to plug it in to charge the battery.

The counter with TV is in the middle of the room facing a VERY comfortable bed. The windows open like sliding glass doors, then there’s a translucent curtain and then the thick curtains we all like for complete privacy. Our windows were a floor above the pool and faced that pool and thus also the convention center. Right outside the front door was a perfect view of PETCO Park. Room 734. Nice.

Now for the problems i had with the place. When I flushed the toilet the plumbing made all sorts of horrible noises one might expect out of the Pickwick Hotel. At some point in the evening channels 2-7 went REAL fuzzy to the point where it was not even worth trying to watch them. They came back by morning but that’s key. Thank GOD the Padres weren’t playing at night that day and thankfully the Dodgers-Rockies game was on ESPN 2 instead of ESPN. Then the little doors at the top of the counter that held things like the TV Guide, remote control and stuff well they were broke or at least they just came right off instead of swinging open and closed.

We got a minibar with snacks and drinks but we avoided it. $3.95 plus sales tax plus 30% restocking fee for a 12 oz. soda? I don’t think so. They even offer to bring you breakfast in room, but $14 for basically a bagel and fruit with coffee seemed a bit pricy as well. To be expected from a hotel. You’re there to sleep and do other things involving a bed, not eat and drink the hotel’s food and drink.

Victoria went off to the Tori Amos concert while I stayed in the room and watched the Dodgers lose a 5-0 lead (WOO HOO). So we both had a good night.

Woke up the next morning and headed out to Hash House a Go-Go for breakfast. Located on 5th Avenue just north of Balboa Park and south of Hillcrest, they have the largest flapjacks I’ve ever seen and that isn’t an obscene statement people. Of course the size of the pancakes are obscene. Basically they use 5 flapjacks worth of mix and make one large cake out of it. THICK and filled with whatever type of pancake you order. I got the Apple-Cinnamon. I ate maybe an 8th of it before calling it quit. If I’d known it was that large I wouldn’t have ordered it. Well, the sausage was good and the hot chocolate was devine. Otherwise we weren’t that impressed.

We headed home and relaxed until the evening when we headed out to see Triple Espresso. Is it a corny type of comedy? Sure it is but it’s still funny. Slapstick, facial jokes, songs, botched and successful magic tricks of the cheesiest kinds, fan interaction, etc. We liked it. The guy that played Bobby Bean/Fernt Fernt is the guy I believe that plays the Vice Principal on Veronica Mars, Duane Daniels. He had a face made for comedy. The kind where he doesn’t have to say anything. He just changes his facial expression and it’s hilarious. At least worth the $17 a ticket we paid (WARNING: That’s 1/2 price…tickets are $34.75)

Thursday we got up early and headed out to Point Loma to check out the lighthouse, Cabrillo National Monument and tidepools. We thought it weird to have a large monument to a guy who basically erased tribal nations from the face of the earth, but then again we celebrate Andrew Jackson on the $20 bill for doing the same thing. Heck we even let HIM on ESPN every now and then only we give him a false identity to keep the unsuspecting from knowing he’s still alive. Still, we went and we took pictures. At the very least we got to see a lizard eat a bumblebee.

That being the highlight of the morning we headed to a crowded Point Loma Seafoods to eat lunch. The fish was nice and fresh, the onion rings delightful and the Pepsi was good of course, but bell peppers do NOT belong in coleslaw! It tainted the flavor of anything that touched the coleslaw (namely the fish and rings) with bell pepper flavoring which I CAN’T STAND! OK I’m alright now.

When we first pulled up the lot was full. Well, there was a nice black Mercedes that some nice old lady had decided needed TWO parking spaces, while large vans and SUVs around her only required one. Just as I was about to pull up and snap a picture of her offense, she came out and moved her car. Not wanting to have it out with an old lady and look like a total jerk to those around me, I put the camera away and stepped into the store to order lunch.

Our plans originally called for lunch and then that missed trip to the Maritime Museum but our feet were sore and Victoria was dead tired. So we headed home so she could nap and so we would have energy for the Padres game later on.

Oh yeah so we headed downtown, parked at the 6th & K Parkade (my favorite downtown parking garage, by the way) and headed to our seats in Section 324, Row 3, Seats 14-15. Not bad seats. The main scoreboard was still mostly in view, the rest of the field was in view except the left field corner, and we sat and watched Ramon Hernandez blast a 1st inning shot only to have that be our only run. Peavy couldn’t hold the lead and let the Nationals score twice each in the 5th and 6th. We left before they’d cap it off with another in the 9th. The first time I’ve seen the Padres lose this year and we’ve been to 8 games this year. 7-1 for 2005 with one more game to go on October 1st. So we drove home with a quick stop to Santana’s for food and went to bed completely exhausted.

Today I’m heading to Hot Topic for some semi-permanent green hair dye. I’ll get pictures up here as soon as I can. Around noon we’ll be heading to Los Angeles. Stephanie and Josh are treating us to Lowry’s for dinner and the Tori Amos concert tonight. Extremely generous of both of them to do this for us and we’re very grateful. I think I might skip on pictures for this but ah…who am I kidding? I’m a camera whore.

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San Diego Vacation Part 1…

Headed out after work at 5pm Friday. Destination: Kings Restaurant in Carlsbad, CA. Sat with co-workers watching the Sox and Yanks battle it out. The guys were almost all from Boston. Got to know them all a bit better. Headed to the in-laws to pick up Victoria. We stayed there for a while and watched a really long Padres game. They won but wow it seemed to just go on and on and on.

Saturday morning we got up and cleaned house a bit. We headed out to DZ Akin’s for lunch. I keep forgetting just how good their sandwiches are. Knish with Philly Style Steak and Eggs. Yum. Victoria hung out with Becky at the kitty shelter while I came home and did some chores. After I had finished I relaxed to a game of Age of Kings. Victoria and Becky came back around 6pm where Victoria cooked a WONDERFUL tamale casserole. We hung out, played Scattergories, and I went in to play a little Age of Kings while the two of them chit chatted. Becky left after a short time and Victoria went to bed. I stayed up playing Age of Kings until 5:45am! Obsessed? I don’t know but I gotta cut that stuff out. When my wife goes to bed, I gotta follow her in. It’s just natural. Anyways whatever. She don’t care, I don’t care. In fact Victoria mentioned that if there was one way to describe us both, it’s simply one sound…”eh”.

Sunday we just loafed all day at home. Victoria made some bacon-blue cheese filled burgers we’d bought at Trader Joe’s. They’re not all that great. I won’t go into the whole reason why except they tasted horrible. Part of it could have been the heat being too high on the stove but the rest was all on the burger. Oh and surprise surprise. I spend the rest of the evening playing Age of Kings and went to bed around 2:30am. Not such a great idea.

Monday, we should have gotten up around 7am. We had to get bagels, do some laundry, and then head out to the Birch Aquarium. Instead I got up late due to staying up so late with that darned game. So we went out around 10am to get a 1/2 dozen bagels. Then we came back and spent too much time goofing off. It got to be about 2pm before we headed out to Birch Aquarium. Turns out we didn’t really need all day. It’s a lot smaller than I thought. Still cool and I got a few acceptable photos out of it. Realized I really need a Digital SLR. This thing’s shutter speed it so freaking slow and camera shake like crazy. Anyways I’ll update this with some photos when I have the time. We left around 4:30, got stuck in rush hour traffic and came home for Pick Up Stix and Pizza Hut. Weird? Not as much as you might think. This night I didn’t stay up late but I still woke up late on Tuesday.

We wanted to get up at 8am to get to Point Loma Lighthouse. Instead we got up at 8:30 and laundry hadn’t dried. I don’t know why but our dryer takes like 2 hours to dry clothes. So we were ready to go around 11am. Way too late for Victoria. We would have to head out to Pt Loma and do our thing and get back in time to get ready for Dinner. Plus we’d miss the tidepools which Victoria was most excited about. We had already cancelled the zoo due to budget restraints and that was the part of the vacation she was looking forward to most.

So instead we sat down and planned out the rest of the vacation and the result was a great day. We decided on the zoo in 2 weeks. Then we headed out pronto to Coyote Grill in Carlsbad Village. AWESOME food! Cajun Shrimp Fettuccine. YUM YUM. Then we went over to Panniken to read. I had an italian soda with Vanilla and whipped cream and sat down to read 1215. We hung out there for a while and then walked over to Lou’s records. I picked up another copy of the Dancehall Crashers The Old Record and then some 99 cent CD by some band called Atticus Fault. It’s alright. Decent background music but that’s about it.

We came home, got ready and headed to Bali Hai. OK this place has a great view of the bay, but otherwise it’s like serving Carrow’s food in George’s at the Cove. the food quality just couldn’t match the decor. $17.95 for pork loin that was dry, not enough orange hoisin sauce and the potatoes must have been red. I didn’t care for them or the veges. Overall just not that great. Even the dessert was average at best. I’ll give it 2 more times. Seafood sampler next time and Shrimp after that if the Seafood stinks. If it still tastes horrible I’ll write it off.

So I come home, finish laundry, and head to bed at 12:31am. More later…

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Start of a weeklong vacation

We’re playing San Diego tourists this week. This whole trip started as a week in Boston. When Red Sox tickets weren’t available we switched it to Las Vegas. We wanted to see Xumanity and have a few days of fun. Then we figured that there were too many temptations in Vegas so we changed it to Disneyland and ballgames in LA, Anaheim and San Diego. NOW it’s become a week of hitting places in San Diego. Pt Loma Lighthouse, Maritime Museum, Birch Aquarium, Triple Espresso, Padres Game, Lou & Mickeys (maybe) and other stuff. We’re spending Wednesday night at the Omni Hotel while Victoria sees Tori Amos in concert. Then next Saturday, we’re seeing her again in Los Angeles and my sister is taking us out to Lowry’s for dinner to celebrate our anniversary (a month late).

So I’ll try to check in each day if I can. Most of our days will be spent loafing around the house. Ahhh I don’t have to go to work until September 19th. Nice.

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FEMA locks Mac and linux users from hurricane relief

By Jonny Evans

Mac and Linux-using hurricane survivors are unable to use Federal disaster relief claim form services online.

This is because the much-criticized US Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has created a service that only works with Windows and Internet Explorer 6.

This acts to the frustration of survivors lucky enough to be able to access a Mac or Linux computer, and to the reported consternation of disaster relief teams on the ground.

However, some Mac users exploiting the Opera browser (which by default identifies itself as Internet Explorer 6) report being able to access the claims service.

FEMA and the US administration face strong criticism that it failed to act fast enough to help save thousands of hurricane survivors.

Some local Louisiana representatives complained that following last week’s terrible natural disaster, FEMA agents actually stopped other forms of help getting through.

What happened in terms of US disaster relief last week will in future be assessed by a cross-party team led by current US president George Bush, who returned from holiday after the disaster happened but just in time to see Federal aid begin to reach affected areas, four days after the storm levelled the Gulf Coast region.

Ars Technica claims many relief workers are frustrated at being tied to Windows by FEMA’s online services, as it means they need to spend precious aid money on Windows OS licenses as they set up terminals to help thousands of hurricane victims initiate the claims process.

“Workers on the ground have told Ars Technica that they would prefer to avoid setting up Windows XP workstations because they take longer to setup, and even longer to properly patch and configure for use,” the report states.

“The issue isn’t only security”, the report continues. “Windows XP hardware requirements, while not impressive by today’s standards, rule out using some donated hardware as well. Furthermore, legitimate copies of Windows also cost money, and relief workers are trying to stretch their dollars as far as they can go,” it reports.

read more | digg story

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