E-mail

One of my pet peeves is when someone sends out a large email to a large number of people.

This is what happened to me at work yesterday. The IT group has provided a method of sending emails that have large attachments, but no one seems to use this method, as it is takes too much time to complete this task. Anyways, we are limited to 150 Megs of space on our email account. Someone thought it was a great idea to send out a 10 Meg email. Now this is not a big deal, but when you send out an email that is this large to everyone in the company, this will generate stupidity. Not only will this generate 20 – 30 replays with the customary “get me off this list,” “I don’t work on that project,” but some of these guys reply to all with history. So this generates even more large email chatter. This has a habit of basically shutting down the email system for the company as these "real men of genius" go on and perpetuate this wrong even more by responding to all telling the first guy to respond to sender instead of all. They don’t even follow their own advice… it is amazing sometimes that our company actually make money.
I thought we were done with this yesterday, but all the guys that were on vacation or were away from their office yesterday are back into their office today and are now jumping on the bandwagon. What’s helping to raise my ire today is that the only way that I was able to get my PC to work again was to shut down the system. Of course, when I turned on the PC my email system was above the allowed amount and I was in what I call email jail. Email Jail is when one cannot send out email until they reduce the size of their email account to below the limit. Once this is done, you need to clean out the trash and close the application again. This can take five minutes to accomplish, and hopefully no one has replied to all again. I basically didn’t do anything for an hour as this issue got resolved.

What a waste of time...

Long Tale on Shorts

Do you remember when men’s shorts were short? What ever happened to them? It seems that in the last 30 years men’s shorts have become so long that we should stop calling them shorts. I vote for these new shorts to be called longs from now on. They have become so long in fact that some men are now wearing what seems to be woman’s culottes. What is the point of wearing these shorts? It can’t be any cooler during the summer then just wearing a light pair of linen slacks and besides, I didn’t like them on woman, why would I want to see more of this style?

Since I’m ranting on the short of today, what happened to inspector number 9? He used to be so good when inspecting shorts. It seems that he has gotten a little long in the tooth and now can’t seem to notice major flaws in today’s shorts. He has let a bunch of shorts get past his keen eyes and these shorts have a major malfunction in them. It seems that these shorts do not fit properly on the youth male body. The waistbands on these shorts are so loose that they just slip from the youth’s waist and now the youths are forced to wear them just below their buttocks.

I’m Hooked

The World Cup has sunk its teeth in me and I am totally enamored by the event. Today’s game between Italy and Australia even caused me to modify my work so that I could take a late lunch so that I could see the second half of the match. I didn’t get a chance to see the first half, but what I saw of the second half with Italy down a man for nearly the entire second half was high drama.

The coaching was near brilliant. Marco Materazzi drew a red card and the Italian coach pulled forward Luca Toni in favor of a defensive player. For the next twenty minutes Italy played defensive soccer while Australia had the man advantage. As the game neared the 75th minute the Italian coach inserted Francesco Totti to provide a spark up front. Italy took chances when the openings were there but for the most part they played a sound defensive scheme. The end of the game approached and both the Italian and Australian sides took more risks trying to get the games initial score. But to no avail as both defenses played strong and it seemed that this game was surely heading to extra frames and possibly climaxing in goal kicks.

At the end of the second half, the referee identified that three additional minutes would be played in the second stanza. At the 2:45 minutes of stoppage play, defenseman Fabio Grosso made a move on the opposing defender to try to score. He eluded the initial defender and while attempting to elude the second defenders tackle he was tripped in the penalty box and the referee signaled for a penalty kick. As the seconds ticked off and a decision as to who would take the penalty kick occurred, the name of Totti appeared on the back of the jersey of the penalty kicker. Totti looked over the goalie as he approached the ball and calmly struck the ball into the upper left hand corner. The stadium erupted as the Italian fans started to cheer. A few short seconds later the game was called as the stoppage play expired.

Italy 1 – Australia 0

What a game.

Me and the IRS

It’s the end of June and we just got a letter from the IRS. These are the same guys that put Al Capone behind bars for tax evasion. What could they possibly want from me? Haven’t these people taken enough of my hard-earned money?

I look at the first page hoping not to see that they want to audit us. It would figure that the year that we gave sizeable donation to charities would be the year that we would be audited… was this the reason for the audit (is running through my head while I’m reading the letter).

Anyways, I look through the first page of legal jargon. It seems that we are not being audited, but we actually overpaid our takes… Yahoo! Now I’m thinking I hit the jackpot… new shoes for everyone.

I read on to page two to see the amount of the treasure trove due back to us from the US Federal Government…


That's right ladies and gentlemen, a whole two dollars.

You’ve got to be kidding me… It cost more in grief and time invested on their end then the “sizeable refund” that I’m about to receive. Couldn’t they have just kept the $2 and called it good? I can’t wait to take that huge check into the bank to be cashed.

Optical Illusions 3

In case you missed my last optical illusion you can find it here.

This has been a series of optical illusions that I have found or have been sent to me. It continues to amaze me how my eyes keep playing games on me. I guess I need to get them checked again.

If you look at the below picture carefully, after a few seconds, you can see a boat in the background.

In Search for Hoffa

Today my better half told me that there have been an above average number of little flies that she killed in the house. She also said that she smelled something in the lower level. She can't put her finger on what the smell is or where the smell is coming from, but she wanted me to check the vents to make sure that there wasn't a critter that may have died in the vent.

Sorry to sidetrack, but when did it become a man's job to check for dead things in the vent. I have always been the one that killed the bug in the house, but checking for dead things... that's something new.

Getting back to the story... So armed in one hand with my shop vac (one of man's most used tools) and a Mag flashlight in the other I went in search of what I called it... Hoffa. I spent a few minutes prying up the vent covers to get ready for the explore. I peered down the dark shaft and didn't hear or see anything. I shone the high-powered flashlight down the chasm and lucky for me nothing jumped at me.

I spent the next few moments trying to determine if there was any dead body about using both sight and smell. Nothing stirred... not even a mouse. There was all kinds of things that have deposited themselves in the vents. It is amazing how much "stuff" there was. Kids toys, a few dead bugs, and a couple of live ones..(spiders) and a bunch of general rubbish. I then spent the next half hour trying to suck up as much of the debris that I could with the shop vac.

I'm sad to report that I didn't find Hoffa or the origin or the mysterious smell that only my wife can smell. On the good side, my search didn't cost me a quarter of million dollars and it actually netted me 35 cents and a new pencil.

Soccer Fan

Franknsalsa has a few points in his blog about why he hates soccer.

I decided to state the counterpoint of why I like soccer.

Fans. Some might call them soccer hooligans, but these Fans are true Fanatics. These fans get to a stadium hours before a game start to root on their team and don't stop until well after the game has ended. Most fans (even American fans) dress up in their sides' colors and get crazy for their team. You can't say that most fans of your cities major league team have this kind of loyalty. I've been to many a game where most of the fans sit on their hands and don't start cheering until sometime in the last period, inning or quarter. All around the world, cities will literally shut down when their national team is playing.

No timeouts. This has to be a gigantic plus in any sport. I am a big fan of most sports, but c'mon the last five minutes of a NBA basketball game lasts 30 minutes with all the timeouts and foul shot shooting that goes on. Soccer has two half that consist of 45 minutes and if there is an injury, too bad, the game doesn't stop for it. You can pretty much put a clock on it, if you are going to sit down to watch a soccer game it's going to done in under two hours. How many times has this happened during a baseball game? You're watching an inning of baseball and some guy gets a hit and the following happens. The guy at first takes his lead and the pitcher looks at home plate for the sign. Next thing you know the batter does this... he steps out of the batters box and adjust his uniform, helmet, gloves, elbow pad, spits, scratch his groin, swing his bat a few times, set his feet in the batters box, looks down to the third base couch for a sign, spits again, arches his back and is ready to swing only to see the pitcher decide to throw to first to get the runner back. This exchange can go on a few more times and there goes 15 minutes. How exciting...

Political Power. Don't get me wrong, but there is a big difference between how much political influence there is in each sport. On one side, the President of the United States throws a meet and great with the "World Champions" and mispronounces player's names let and right. On the other side, not only does the President of Brazil know everyone on the Brazil team by their nicknames he also comments on Ronaldo's weight. He did go on to say that, he was going to be sitting in front of his TV to cheer on Brazil in the next match. In Mexico, they are worried that the presidential election will not draw enough people to the polls and candidates are adjusting town meetings around soccer matches. In Italy, the Prime Minister owns the powerhouse A.C. Milan soccer team. Heck, when the Iranian President stated that he would attend a quarterfinals match if Iran advanced, it made world national headlines.

True Champion. The FIFA World Cup crowns a true World Champion. Everyone in the World qualifies for the event and during the early qualifying rounds, the 32 best teams advance to the world cup. You can't say that of the NBA, MLB, NHL or NFL. When was the last time a team outside of North America won one of these world championships?

One game and out. The World Cup has a one game elimination round. There are no series in the knockout round. So the best team on that given day wins the match. Maybe that is why the National Football League is so popular... or is it because it is called football?

Morale Improvement

Where I work, our group got together yesterday for a friendly game of softball as a morale and team building event. Our group challenged the special programs engineering group. Not to say that we didn't play that well, but our group consisted of 4 guys who have never played softball before. You may ask yourself, how can 4 grown men never have played softball before? The answer is simple, our group was going to be short handed so we invited the foreign inspecting agencies to play with us (one was British, two were from Holland and the last was from China).

It gave us an opportunity to talk to each other outside of a work environment. Needless to say, we lost, but we had a good time together. The bad news is we lost 17 - 3, the good news is that no one got hurt and we had fun. Our group is already trying to set a date of when we can get a rematch with these guys... this time it's going to be soccer.

The thing I like about our group is that we have a great boss. He's been around the block a few times and isn't the kind of boss who is regimented and does things the same way he did it back 30 years ago. He lets us do in just about anything we want to do as long as it is a good idea (and back us). A few years back we actually made a series of short films (infomercials) explaining how we certify our vehicles to foreign market regulations. He is so open minded that he even got dressed up in a super hero outfit and was a lead actor in these movies. Now, how many of your bosses would dress up as a super hero, get filmed doing silly things, and let others (even his superiors) watch the films when completed? I still laugh when I see these infomercials.

Fathers Day

Fathers Day 2006 started off with a cool 45 mile bike ride followed by a short run. By short, I mean a mile. My legs were beat. What did I get myself into to with this half Ironman thing? Getting back to the story, when I got back from the run, the mood of the household was askew. It seems that no one bothered telling me that the girls wanted to make breakfast for me. No big deal, I suggested calling it a brunch and the girls got to work. I quickly showered and was ready to eat. The girls outdid themselves by making an omelet and baked me some rolls. #2 sang Happy Fathers Day to me and the food was great.

The girls got me some art for “The Man Room” and my wife was good enough to clean the grill for me. At the start of the season I usually give the grill a once over by power washing the grates and cleaning the stainless steel so it shines for blocks. This year she did this for me. What a huge gift as I detest doing this. It beats the tie or trinket that I will never use.

We are having BBQ ribs cooked on the clean grill tonight.

Italy and the Good Ol' USA Soccer Recap

I took my dad out to the local Italian Cafe to watch the Italy / USA match for Fathers Day. My dad and I don't get a lot of chances to do this kind of stuff, and I had hoped that we could male bond for a few hours together. To make it even better my brother at the last minute decided to join us as well. So there we were the three of us eating pizza and pounding a few at the cafe.

There is one adage that always seems to be a universal truth and that is not to get more then three Italian males together or else there is going to be an argument over something. I am pleased to let you know that this male bonding event was great. The three of us didn't even raise the ire of each other as we typically can. We just sat there and watched the game and talked about sports. It went so well that when my dad suggested that we go play some bocce at the local club both my brother and I agreed. The tree of us spent about 6 hours together and we had a great time.

As for the game itself... it was a tie.

If you want to read more follow this link http://fifaworldcup.yahoo.com/06/en/w/match/template.html?id=25

S P I T N

Yep I knew it SPITN is back. Just when you thought it was safe to turn on the boob tube, these boobs have to wreck it. So out of the genre that brought you such enthralling hits as Survivor, Bachelor, and Who wants to marry a Millionaire, comes this little ditty.

Starting on June 15 on the cable station Animal Planet some geniusus thought it was a great idea to see ten cats competing to find their perfect owner. The felines will compete in such riveting tasks as purring and catching toy mice.

Each day one cat will hit the streets and get the booted from the house. (they don't get booted they all are given permanent homes) During filming, the cats are living in a specially constructed house, complete with scaled-down sofas, beds and even a fish tank - with fake fish.

The public can stop by to watch the action, which is taking place in a specially rented storefront in New York's Madison Avenue. You can even go and read their bios at http://www.meowmixhouse.com/bios.cfm some of their stories are riveting.

I don't know about you, but watching ten cats sitting around the house just screams must watch TV.

Thirteen New Things About Me

1. There are more gym shoes in my closet then dress shoes
2. In a public bathroom, I will use paper towels to open the door
3. I have two work offices... they don't have doors, but they have different phone numbers
4. The only TV program that I watch on a regular basis are Desperate Housewives and Grey's Anatomy
5. Our household owns twice the vehicles then drivers and half the TV's then TV watchers
6. My body runs on caffeine (coffee and Diet Coke)
7. Peanut Butter and Jelly sandwiches are my downfall
8. I do Yoga to increase my flexibility
9. I put on my pants standing up... right leg first
10. I eat a banana for breakfast every day
11. I was a huge baby
12. The most used gift I ever got was a Polar heart rate monitor
13. My first car was a used Mercury Comet

Sleep

I’ve been dog tired lately, it seems that every night for about the last 6 weeks I have not been able to stay asleep for longer then a few hours. This has got to stop or else I’m going to become an insomniac.

Last night I fell asleep for the third time at 2 am. This time I had a dream. I couldn’t tell you what the dream was about except that most of my family was in it and there was music playing REAL LOUD. Now the music wasn’t bad enough but it was as if five different songs were all playing at the same time. It was aggravating, as I couldn’t figure out what the dream was about or what anyone was saying.

So, I’ve got this special ability… well, I don’t know that’s its special so much as to the fact that I can do this. I can usually manipulate dreams so that I can change them. It’s kind of like holding a TV clicker and being able to change channels with it. This “ability” I have had since I was a little kid. I think I used it when I was a kid so that I wouldn't have scary dreams. I have been able to do this to this day. I routinely change a dream in mid flight if I don’t like it. What can I say, it’s a pretty cool “ability.”

Anyways… getting back to last night. For the life of me, (at least I can’t remember the last time) I couldn’t figure out how to change the channel or turn down the music. I woke up at 4:30 again and couldn’t get the songs from the dream out of my head. I turned on the TV and tried to fall asleep. At some point, I did only to be awoken by the alarm clock.

Another day of not having enough sleep.

Flame On

I didn't know in which blog to post this, here or The Quest. It deals with my workout this week but it had nothing to do with the workout. You'll see in a few seconds.

So there I was after another strenuous workout at the club when I walked into the locker room and there was this guy who was checking out his own a$$ in the mirror. Don't get me wrong, there are always guys looking at themselves in the mirror (chest, abs, etc.) but not their backside. This seemed kind of strange to me but I was wiped out so I sat in front of my locker and tried to peal of my sweaty jersey off of my body, when this guy starts to talk to his friend saying something like... "I think my a$$ is starting to look real good, don't you think so?" It wasn't even the fact that he said this in a group of men; it was that he was obviously flaming and spoke that way. I looked up hoping that he wasn't asking me this question. I glanced in his direction when the guy next to me said, "it sure is, those squats are paying off."

I got out of my clothes the best I could, wrapped a towel around me quickly, and showered. I have never acted this way before and felt that little phlegm come up from my stomach.

Given the five percent rule... I gave a SWAG that five percent of the population is gay. On any day in the gym there might be 50 guys in the locker room at once so I'm guessing at least two of them should be gay. This has never bothered me before, but the fact that this guy was obviously flaunting the fact that he was has me concerned. I talked to a couple of people that said that I should just get over it. I agree with them, but is it just me or are there others of you that think that it was somewhat weird and it was ok for me to feel this way. I know he wasn't there trying to pick me or anyone else up, but this did bother me.

I never considered myself as a homophobe, as I think that some of my friends are gay and this has never bugged me before. I would play sports with these guys and hang out together. I think that the issue here is that this guy was flaming and my friends aren't so this was the first time that I experienced this.

Bikini Turns 60

French automotive engineer Louis Reard created it and this week it turns 60. The brainchild of Louis was to stimulate sales in his mother’s lingerie boutique in Paris. The sales of the bikini did not take off at first as the two-piece swimsuit was thought to be scandalous in showing a woman’s navel. After 60 years the bikini iapproximatelyly 50% of all the swimwear bought in Europe.

This brings me to my point, why do woman stop wearing bikinis after they turn 35. This and cutting their hair short and wearing Capri pants has baffled me.

I know that some of you are going to say "I don't look good in one." Trust me as a male, we like to see you in them. Not everyone is perfect, but there are a lot of you that should wear them. So I for one would like to start a fad that all women should put away your one piece suits and buy yourself a bikini.

See you at the beaches ; )

The Keys to My Heart?

You are attracted to those who are unbridled, untrammeled, and free. In love, you feel the most alive when your lover is creative and never lets you feel bored. You'd like to your lover to think you are loyal and faithful... that you'll never change. You would be forced to break up with someone who was emotional, moody, and difficult to please. Your ideal relationship is lasting. You want a relationship that looks to the future... one you can grow with. Your risk of cheating is zero. You care about society and morality. You would never break a commitment. You think of marriage as something that will confine you. You are afraid of marriage. In this moment, you think of love as commitment. Love only works when both people are totally devoted.

What Are The Keys To Your Heart?

World Championship

Hey did you hear that there is a world championship that is going to be crowned this month?

No, I’m not talking about the NBA Championship which crowns a North American team as a “World Champion”, I’m talking about Football or as we on this of the pond call it Soccer.

Yep that’s right it has been four long years since Brazil with Ronaldo’s two goals beat Germany in Yokohama, Japan.

Back again is Brazil with a star a studded team featuring not only Ronaldo, but FIFA two time player of the year Ronaldinho. They are so good that they could easily field two world class sides and are clearly the number one team in the world, but don't hand over the trophy just yet. The best team, like in all team sports, doesn't win all the time, and Brazil has done this before (see 1982 as example one).

You see in that year Brazil was also ranked number one in the world and was led by prolific scoring midfielder Zico, who is arguably one of the 10 best players all time. That year they blitzed through the first round unchallenged. In the second round, they were paired up in “the group of death” that featured not only Argentina with Maradona, but also Italy with it’s staunch defense. In a bout of great defense beating great offense Italy prevailed against Brazil in a game of the century and went on to win the World Cup.

So, who will win it all this time around… my guess is the Azzurri of Italy.
What can I say … call me a homer.

Forza Italia!

NBA Finals

Let me give you my take on the NBA finals.

It should be a great match up of two very well coached teams with lots of star power on both teams. The Heat has Shaq and Wade and the Mavericks have Nowitzki and Jason Terry. For both it is the first time to the NBA Finals. Both teams were seated second in their conferences. Both teams have improved on defense.

So who do I think will win the championship? The Mavericks in seven.

Why? Here’s five reasons.
The home court advantage – I know it didn’t mean a lot to the Detroit Pistons, but if the Pistons hadn’t taken the Cavs lightly and dispatched them earlier in the series then Game one of the Piston Heat series would have been different. The Pistons were dead tired in Game 1.

Lot of big men to throw at Shag – Dampier and Diop should be good enough to keep The Diesel under 30 per game. For a change of pace Nowitzki can play Shaq for a few minutes as well

No one on the Heat team will be able to check Nowitski – Put Walker or Haslem on him and he will post you… Put Alonzo on him and he will take you outside for the J or blow by you for a dunk… This guy can and has put up 50 points already in a playoff game this year.

Team speed – The Pistons didn’t do this…. The Mavs will. Terry, Josh Howard and Devin Harris can run you into the ground. The aforementioned Nowitzki is a gazelle when it comes to power forwards.

Deep Bench – Dampier, Keith Van Horn, Adrian Griffin, Jerry Stackhouse, and Darrell Armstrong are all capable backups that still bring skill to the game. All of these guys have started on this team during this year.

Biggest key for the series... how will Riley play Nowitzki.

A New Meaning To Attention Span Deficit

Glasgow Daily Times, 4-18-06
Brian M. Williams, 21, was arrested for allegedly robbing Houchens Market in Glasgow, Ky., in April; police had found him minutes afterward across the street filling his gas tank.

Thunder Bay Chronicle Journal, 3-4-06
Nathan Myles, 25, was sentenced in March to three years in prison for a lengthy, destructive police chase in Thunder Bay, Ontario; it ended when Myles stopped for a haircut.

Trentonian, 5-9-06
Mario Caracoza, 26, was arrested for allegedly robbing a Bank of America in Bristol Township, Pa., in May; police had found him minutes afterward eating breakfast at the Sunrise Diner next door.

Thirteen Things about Zotime

1. This is supposed to go out on Thursday... I'm Zotime... It's late... Go figure
2. I'm 6'2" but have short legs
3. Even after all these years I still like U2
4. I'm an alien
5. My job can drive me crazy... or has it?
6. Sometimes, I just want to be alone
7. I've lost 40 pounds but I still don't like parts of my body
8. Salsa and Chips are my favorite snack food
9. I don't think I'm a nerd. Does that make me a closet nerd?
10. I love the look of wood floors
11. If I every get a boat I'm going to name it Calculus
12. My bike has the name Christine
13. I love the shape of a woman's figure


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