Month: September 2003

Just have to announce the birth of my 4th nephew (I also have 1 neice). He’s my sister Suzanne and her husband Alex’s second boy. Caleb approves, so they will be taking him home today (I think). There’s no name right now (they’re leaning towards Luke), so right now we’ll just call him ‘it’. It’s doing well, and I hope to see it soon.

So I’ve been taking care of a friend’s Guinea Pigs for the past few days. They are so absolutely adorable it hurts. Last night they were very noisy, so I put them both in my lap and I swear they were ready to curl up and go to sleep right there. But now I’ve been doing all sorts of reading on the Internet about how to take care of them. Much to my dismay, it turns out that the fancy cedar chip bedding I bought for them may be doing more harm than good! I’m now using a combination of some of that bedding along with lots of shredded newspaper. When it comes down to it, they’re very dirty animals so you have to put effort into keeping them clean. But they are sooooo lovable. Anywho, here are some useful links that I found:

• Animal Hospital of High Park – also with pages on other small animal care
• Cottontail’s Cabbage Patch – has a lot of info about various small mammals. The Guinea Pig page helped me understand all the noises they make.
• BeanMakers – based on their latin name, this site even has WAV files of their little squeaks. A very good list of other sites, also.
• A question and answer site that has articles on animals – it even had a page dedicated to just discussing their squeaks.

Teddy and Jessie are just wonderful, and even if I have to give them back, I may just get my own.

I can’t believe I’m actually posting about this. When I have so much else to talk about, I’m actually going to bitch about the horrendous scoring of the De La Hoya/Mosley fight. Normally I wouldn’t even know what was going on, but Lisa and I went to see the fight on Pay-Per-View at a friend’s house (actually, neither of us even knew Bob until last night – he’s the boyfriend of a friend). I don’t follow boxing. I don’t even like the idea of it. As it got later we even planned on leaving before it started. But once I got sucked in I had to watch the whole bout. De La Hoya dominated Mosley for at least 7 rounds last night. In the other 5, he was clearly beaten by Mosley in 3, and about even in the other 2. And yet it was a unanimous decision in favor of Mosley. Everybody at the party was shocked, and even the commentators (who scored a clear victory for Oscar), were in disbelief. George Foreman went so far as talking about a conspiracy against Bob Arum (De La Hoya’s promoter). Arum then claimed he was out of the business, and that “boxing is the garbage can of sports.” The worst part of the whole ordeal – every other sports site is acting like there was no problem with the decision. On top of that, I should be celebrating Michigan’s utter destruction of the Irish – not whining about boxing.

Beware of the following link – it’s way awesome, but will seriously mess with your head. I got the link to this really awesome optical illusion page courtesy of Boing Boing. I think that first one of “Rotating Snakes” is amazing – I was sure it was a Flash animation or something.

As an additional link, here’s the Cool Person Test. I think I got this while surfing commentary on the Avrilution, but there will certainly be more on that later.

The RIAA have proven to not only be ignorant of music itself and completely inept at handling evolving business and technology trends, but now they’ve turned a PR nightmate into a PR disaster (or vice versa – depending on which is worse (they went from bad to worse)). That’s right, they’ve decided to go after a 12-year-old girl for the horrendous crime of not paying millionaires for something they don’t own. Little “Biggie Brianna” thought everything she downloaded was legal, as her mother had paid KaZaA for use of their service. But ignorance is no excuse, and with weary heads the record execs will drag this girl into a courtroom to set an example that such hard criminals must be stopped as early as possible. The poor RIAA has the unenviable task of informing Brianna that she is no better than a crack whore that just shot her pimp in order to steal his money for drugs. When will this younger generation learn that listening to music is against the law, and the RIAA is there for our protection to make sure we don’t hear any talented artists who might help us find joy in life.

Honestly, I would kill for a soundbite of her quote – “I got really scared. My stomach is all turning.” I would post that all over the place and share it like crazy over every P2P network in the world. As my co-worker Jim pointed out, “If only she had used the word ‘tummy’.” That indeed would have been icing on the cake.

Thank you Eagles! I mean, I almost got my hopes up that you would fulfill your fans wishes this year and actually live up to your potential, but instead you’re being shut out in the first game at the new stadium. Well, let me just say a big FUCK YOU to all you players and coaches. You could have won this game, but you just don’t care enough. Just like the NFC Championship Game last year, you collect your paychecks and really don’t give a shit about the fans. Sadly, the only player that seems to really give anything to the game is Duce, the guy we all hate for holding out this preseason. I’m pissed at him for that, but during the playoffs and this first game, he’s the only one that’s truly shown heart in the game.

At this point I’ve truly lost interest in them. I’m not sure if I’ll recover. As far as I’m concerned, this whole season is a joke for the Eagles, and none of them (save Duce) gives a crap as long as they get their paycheck. Thanks Andy Reid and Jim Johnson, for proving that no matter what great coaches you can be, you’ll still screw up the important games because you’re afraid to play the real game. Hey, but what’s it matter to me? I mean, I’m just the guy who threw a tantrum halfway thru the Championship game and refused to leave my bed the rest of the day. It’s not like it affects me. I’m sick of it, and I really don’t see myself watching the Patriots game next week. It would be funny if they embarassed the Eagles next week, maybe shut them out again. They’re obviously not interested in playing any real football.

Fuck the Eagles, I really don’t care anymore… for now…

How quickly I get bored. I was very excited about this layout when I first completed it, but it’s already grown tiresome to me. The more I surf various sites, the more I see well put-together designs that make me despise my own. I hope to work on it some tonight before the game. My to-do list goes something like this:

1. Modify color scheme and layout to account for my ever changing taste.
2. Finish style-sheet to account for all elements on the site.
3. Add new link categories and add all appropriate sites.
4. Decide on a (somewhat) permanent name for the site (“indieb0i rantings” was too hackneyed, “indieb0i prattle” didn’t sound good, and the jury is still out on just leaving it “neverhood.net”)
5. Re-write the About me! page and give it a good name.
6. Update my gallery like crazy!

And I think that’s everything.

I hate to use such a clich? as a subject, but my subjects have been lame lately anyway. Tonight is the night I’ve been awaiting for 8 months. The Bucs return to Philly, and the Eagles have the chance to open the new season in a new stadium with a firm statement that they are going to the Super Bowl this year. Of course, there’s also the chance that more questions are raised concerning their personnal changes. I truly believe that (underdogs or not) it is within their power to win this game. But there is a certain sense of trepidation in the air. Since Derrick Burgess went down for the season again, I am truly torn on what this team can do. I find myself waivering between the ideas that either this is their year, or injuries will prevent them from living up to their potential. They looked great the first 2 preseason games, yet played the two at home rather weakly. They recovered from their offseason losses on defense only to have 3 of 5 DE’s go down with injuries. A lot of people are saying the Bucs look like the best candidate for a repeat in a while – 4 wins in a row against them just don’t add up to that one loss. I don’t think I can say anymore about the game until later tonight.
Continue reading “The Bucs stop here”

I won’t go into the reasons or the incidents as they are far too personal, but it looks like this is the end for Mutual Admiration Society. Lisa will be continuing to pursue her music at least as a solo effort, but the band itself has shifted to and indefinite (possibly pemanent) hiatus. Just as I was about to set up a website and a mailing list for her, it’s all come to an end. Hopefully we can take what recordings they put together and create a posthumous collection. For those who got to hear them live, I hope you enjoyed the show – for they were there to entertain you.

I’m really sick of sports writers. Okay, that’s a lie – it’s really just some of them that spoil the whole bunch. If they aren’t writing completely moronic observations, they take opposing side viewpoints simply to stir up some controversy. Pete Prisco is a prime example and the main reason I switched back to Sports Illustrated from SportsLine as my primary sporting news resource (ESPN and The Sporting New both suck and charge for some of their content). His latest gaffes include a list of the top 10 college football stadiums, which ignored the grand history of Big Ten schools (including the Big House, which has sold over 100,000 tickets a game for the past 2 decades) in favor of the SEC. Why? Because CBS has broadcasting rights for the SEC. Also, one of his latest articles included a diatribe of the scrambling quarterback model pointing out how all of the latest Super Bowl winners have been led by pure pocket passers. Amazing, considering everybody else recognizes that it was the defenses which won those rings for the Ravens, the Patriots, and the Bucs. With that, I departed from SportsLine and happily found a nicely redesigned Sports Illustrated site.
Continue reading “When real journalists already can’t think of good stories…”