More wonderful moments from UMD administration:
-I have over $5000 in financial aid coming this semester. "Coming," that is, not "here." Allegedly, the check was mailed 8/20. Heard that before.
-I returned a late book last week, and have the reciept that states my account was billed $25. My student account reports a charge of $180. Uhh...
-And this warning regarding new ticketing policy (which subtracts loyalty points for no-show students); the parts in bold were made so by me:
"Please Note: If you request a Student Ticket and later determine that you cannot attend the game, please cancel your ticket to enable other students and student guests to attend the game. Requesting tickets and neither using nor cancelling them prior to 12:00 noon one day before gameday will result in the loss of Loyalty Points."
That's right kiddies, the Communications graduate that wrote that has us losing points for not attending the game over 24 hours before it happens. Perhaps I can get some assistance with time travel from all the science nerds.
So, I didn't really know where else to turn. I know this is NBA... and I know this is the Wizards, but I also know that you boys and girls know what you are talking about.
Does anyone have any info on Antawn Jamison? Decent player? Decent guy? Anything?
Thanks! ~M
Rather than send out an e-mail, since most of the people who read this site are the ones I'd be asking this anyway, what's a good weekend to head up there for tailgating? It'll most likely be just me- no family. Also, what do I need to do for a ticket now. The last time I saw a Maryland game at the stadium I sat in the student section.
You may all have already seen this video, but I still thought that it was link-worthy. JibJab.com (click on "This Land")
Highlights:
* Getting to Laurel in under two hours
* Having beer at the park while the boys attempted to play baseball
* "Testing" the Jello shots at 3:30 PM
* Doogan and I being on fire all night long
* Turning the theme into- wear a shirt of Roy's
* Roy developing our game plan and deciding that we really needed to switch shirts right then and there
* Claiming that I hadn't had any Jello shots yet when John was offering them around 10:00 pm
* The entrance of the Keg Stand crew- and the fact that they kept the costumes on for so long- good work!
* Roy's face while hitting the pinata
* Paige reminding everyone how impressive it was that she was awake past 12:30
* Paige's honesty :)
* The always entertaining one on one best of seven series between Roy and Danny Doogan- down to the wire like usual
* Sleeping IN A BED!!! (thanks Mike!!)
* The very surreal experience of breakfast at the bagel place
* Waking everyone up this morning and Paige saying "I have to educate children tomorrow"
* Roy: You know what the worst thing about going to bed is? The morning.
* Helping Doogan with his key fiasco which really aided in passing time during the draft
* Cindy breaking into Doogan's car in 2 seconds after Danny and Jason had been trying for quite some time
* The excitement of Cindy's success quickly fading when it was discovered that the keys in question were in fact not the keys to the car
* Waters walking full stride into the closet when attempting to leave the Keg Stand
Lowlights:
* Not being able to remember the many things that happened that I planned on writing on the highlights list
* No BBQ :(
* Getting back to H-town in 3.5 hours
* Bootapalooza marking the end of the summer which translates to less social mixing of the MD crew and H-town kids- that's so sad!
6:00pm - Opening Prayer led by the Reverend Jerry Falwell
6:30pm - Pledge of Allegiance
6:35pm - Burning of Bill of Rights (excluding 2nd amendment)
6:45pm - Salute to the Coalition of the Willing
6:46pm - Seminar #1: Iraq Strategeries? Voodoo/DooDoo WMD
7:30pm - First Presidential Beer Bong
7:35pm - Serve Freedom Fries
7:40pm - EPA Address #1: Mercury? It's what's for dinner!
8:00pm - Vote on which country to invade next
8:10pm - Call EMT's to revive Rush Limbaugh
8:15pm - John Ashcroft Lecture: The Homos are after your Children!!
8:30pm - Round table discussion on reproductive rights (MEN ONLY)
8:50pm - Seminar #2 Corporations: The Government of the Future
9:00pm - Condi Rice sings "Can't Help Lovin' Dat Man"
9:05pm - Second Presidential Beer Bong
9:10pm - EPA Address #2 Trees: The Real Cause of Forest Fires
9:30pm - Break for secret meetings
10:00pm - Second prayer led by Cal Thomas
10:15pm - Lecture by Karl Rove: Doublespeak made easy
10:30pm - Rumsfeld demonstration of how to squint and talk macho
10:35pm - Bush demonstration of trademark "deer in headlights" stare
10:40pm - John Ashcroft demonstrates new mandatory Kevlar chastity belt
10:45pm - Clarence Thomas reads list of Black Republicans
10:46pm - Third Presidential Beer Bong
10:50pm - Seminar #3 Education: A Drain on our Nation's Economy
11:10pm - Hillary Clinton Pinata
11:20pm - Second Lecture by John Ashcroft: Evolutionists: The Dangerous New Cult
11:30pm - Call to EMT's to revive Rush Limbaugh again
11:35pm - Blame Clinton
11:40pm - Laura serves milk and cookies
11:50pm - Closing Prayer led by Jesus Himself
12:00pm - Nomination of George W. Bush as Holy Supreme Planetary Overlord
I'm looking forward to reading reactions from this.
Today at 3pm on ESPN, the Preston Little League team attempts to be the fifth team from Maryland to make the Little League World Series. Sure it is just little league, but still kind of neat. Rick's dad lives in Preston (a town of 566 people) and since these kids will go to Colonel Richardson H.S., surely some of us native eastern shore people have played against their relatives in some way, shape or form. Having played lots of Little League, it is ridiculously difficult to be this good. Anyway, figured I would share - I hope they win.
Famous Little League World Series Veterans. And of course, let us not forget, Danny Almonte.
I used to have a link on my site to the site for the band, Pratt Street. prattstreet.com is now an adult web site. I didn't realize until last night when Irma got a call from her sister, who had been looking at my site and wanted to know why there was a link to porn on my site. She thought it might have been from my "younger, wilder days." Anyway, whatever happened to Pratt Street? Are they still a band?
So I was at the golf course this morning when I overheard two older guys talking about how bad the US Men's Basketball Team has been playing and how, echoing Mr. Levy, they really shouldn't be called the Dream Team any more. The next thing they said was that the real Dream Team is the US Women's Softball team. This point was highlighted just now as I watched the end of the gold medal game that the US dominated, finishing by beating Australia 5-1. Overall, the US outscored their opponents 51-1, with that one run being scored in the 6th inning of today's game. Of course the US team also has the Jenny Finch factor, never unwelcome. USA, USA, USA!
So a guy was growing pot. Technically, it's illegal. I won't debate the rights or wrongs of that right now. What hapened was, said pot grower's electric devices caused a fire, and two responding firemen died. It's a tragedy, and it sucks, but what it isn't is murder. Yup, he's being charged with murder for the death of the firemen because, in the words of the Philly DA, he's "reckless," "foolish" and "greedy."
Wow. Okay, point by point. Reckless? The firemen said the wiring of the lamps or fans failed and started the blaze. So, if anyone else had gone to Home Depot and beat that guy to whatever faulty appliance he had purchased, would they be less reckelss because they were after "legal" ventilation or illumination? Foolish: Lamps, fans, this guy knew what he was doing...how foolish could he be? Okay, that's lame sarcasm, but again, if internal wiring in a fan/lamp did this, you'd have to assume the malfunction and resulting fire would have happened under any circumstance, so the specifics of their usage should be ignored. Greedy: the article says nothing about the quantity of pot being grown. You need substantial lighting, ventilation, and irrigation for one plant or a thousand. If he were growing for himself, then greed doesn't factor, and you know the press would be quick to broadcast a major growing facility was busted, so I have to assume there weren't many plants. If I wanted to really get into it, I would argue that if growing for yourself (as this guy seems to have been doing) were legal, as it should be, then he wouldn't have been forced to hide his plants amongst, according to fire officials, the "dried out the wood in the closet" that caused the fire to spread so quickly. Then maybe no one would have died. But, I'm not here to rally for legalization, I want to focus on this ridiculous charge.
This really bugs me. To me, this is a jurisdiction acting tough on drugs by turning a tragedy into a farce. Stinks. Weed has never hurt anyone directly, and the amounts of indirect harm (traffic accidents, health issues, etc.) pale in comparison to the figures associated with alcohol and tobacco use. Certainly, it didn't kill those firemen.
Amidst some reminiscing recently, I realized that it was about this time, 5 years ago, that I moved into the house on Laverne Drive, and being introduced to Rick, Chad, Fatboy, Hoffman & BJ, amongst others, for the first time. Anway, I just thought it was amazing that, 5 years later, how much that occurrence has affected my life, and for many of the people who visit this website regularly, I imagine the same holds true. Alright, I am feeling a little emotional right now, I think I will have a beer.
So I've had a lovely Friday morning thus far. Friday mornings I am the "Manager on Duty" and I get to open the Club. I get up at 4:15, leave my house at 4:30 and I get to work at 5am. Good times.
This morning I got a much needed break from the normal routine. I got up at 4:15, left my house at 4:30 and oh! There is a raccoon hanging out in my front yard. He ran away, but it reminded me of the time when my roommates and I were sitting in the backyard of our old house in the middle of the day and we see something (perhaps a cat?) climbing over the chain link fence in the rear of our yard. The creature looks up at us and I think, "It's a lemur!" Not quite. It was a raccoon and it starting running toward us. We start yelling at it and try to find things to throw at it to make it stop running at us. It finally does. It was not until later that evening on the news that we heard out about rabid raccoons terrorizing Bethesda.
As I drive out of my neighborhood, I see another raccoon at the edge of the woods. I am starting to wonder now, was The Onion correct? Did Maryland close due to bankruptcy? Did nobody think to fill me in on this crucial bit of info? Did everyone have to leave and now raccoons are free to take over the state? Curiously, I didn't see another car on the road until I hit the District line.
I continued on my way and as I turned onto 23rd street from Massachusetts Ave, I see a man jogging. A little early for that? Perhaps, but I don't think much of it until it registers that I just saw this man's ass. He had turned the corner so I pulled up to the intersection to peek around the corner. Yep, he was jogging naked. My first thought, "We're going streaking! Up through the quad and into the gymnasium!" My second thought, "maybe he will end up in a pigeon coop. It is Friday after all."
This was all too much for my brain to process so early in the morning.
I gotta try me some of that Rainier...
So one of my favorite bands is headlining the music portion of the "Different Kind of Dude Fest" this weekend in DC. I was excited. It would be cheap. They would play a long set. Things were looking good.
Then I examined what the fest was all about: it was a punk summit on what should/must be done to end patriarchy, as "Most non-gender privileged folks (guess they can't just say 'women' - C) have been subject to some form of physical violence by men, and all are injured by patriarchy in a variety of ways. "
Okay. So since the amazingly specific accusation of "most folks have been injured in a variety of ways" comprises a third of their bulleted points-of-importance, I have to think this isn't a very well put together event. Also, there's the matter that it's not my fault most things are run by men. It's not my fault men are more violent than women, and commit more crimes. What really angers me is I shouldn't have to be made to feel bad about being male to see a band.
Is this what people are spending their time doing? Don't you think all this time and effort could be better spent right now by, say, getting Kerry elected, feeding/sheltering homeless, ending all the bullshit crime that permeates every corner of DC, etc. What really bugs me is patriarchy is not a very pressing problem. Right now, in this time and place, all these people should be working to get the patriarchy to do it's job. Once the city, country, and world is made truly livable I think we can then begin to work on utopia.
I think I am a tad late to this, but I at least think it warrants reading, though not a protracted discussion. Anyway, it seems as though in justifying raised terror alerts, the US leaked sensitive information revealing the capture of someone who was allegedly a double agent cooperating with anti-terrorism efforts, and thereby compromising those efforts.
In the spirit of the upcoming college football (tailgating) season, you should all check out this book.
Hopefully your walls aren't insulated with this...
I found this to be a bit..umm..different.
Less than three weeks to go before our 6 pm kickoff against Northern Illinois. Everything is pretty much standard from the last couple of years. Please throw money for beer, bring food, yadda yadda yadda. Check out the Tailgating Page to get all of the information (note the location change).
A couple of other items of business regarding extended football boozing:
1 - The idea has been tossed around that we have themed tailgates. They can either be themed for a beverage, food, or costume. Please suggest some in the comments, I am not a creative person. Also, please remember that if we do a costume, that we have to go to the game as well..
2- Chad and I are working on this year's t-shirt. Rick will have his pants on in this version. In keeping with the Under Armour takeover of Maryland (this is the commercial), we figured we would try to make the t-shirt have a similar theme. Here are some possible ideas, please vote on them and comment below. Also, let us know if you even want one. They will probably be between $12 and $15, XL, red and probably have a logo on the front with wording on the back.
Long post, sorry, but further updates will come as we see what we need and who will be attending. Cool, thanks.
I think Wilbon says it best, we stunk. For anyone who watched it, this game was an embarassment from all sides. No defense, no hustle, and certainly no shooting. My only consolation was that later in the evening I got to watch women's beach volleyball on two, count 'em two, 60 inch plasma screen televisions. Set your Tivo's for that guys, its worth it.
It's a freaking media conspiracy. Terps basketball gets the honor of a preseason #10 ranking from Dick Vitale...just to place Duke at #9. Naturally. Fags.
I heard some dude hit a camera or something.
So the SOB admitted it. I hope they throw the book at him and the punishment is way more than a couple of years in jail. Restitution sounds good. And everyone who lost out money/time should send in an invoice. Yes, I'm bitter.
Ok Pat, when did you find time to drive to Vermont?
....has apparently fired David Aldridge. For those of you who don't know who he is, he is a well spoken, intelligent, calm, objective reporter for the NBA. I guess they prefer to go in the direction of Stephen A.-hole Smith, who is a loud, hyper, ebonic slewing, obnoxious, opinionated clown of a NBA reporter.
This has got to be the best move since they decided to give Sterling Sharpe his walking papers in favor of Michael Irvin.
having completed 2 of my 3 vacations, and with some time before the 3rd, here's a highlight list. not everything good about them, just the highlights, and all of the thankfully few lowlights
HIGHLIGHTS from Ohio
- quality time with my family that i don't get to see as much as i would like
- buying shots for people i didn't know to celebrate my cousin's impending wedding
- the reggae band in ohio. read that again
- wearing flip flops to a wedding
- having the honor of standing by a pole of the chuppa
- the rabbi being late to the wedding because he overslept
- the cheeseboard and knives story, told by the master of miserable stories
- seeing my mom drink
HIGHLIGHTS from Miami
- falling asleep on the plane immediately. sleeping through takeoff
- having this conversation with paige
ME: zzz (stirring)
PAIGE: Roy, they're coming around with snacks and drinks, do you want anything to drink?
ME: blankets
I of course have no recollection of this at all, but paige assures me it happened
- the beach - soft sand, perfect water, palm trees
- going to the two irish bars on south beach the first day there
- going to the improv. the headliner guy wasn't supposed to go on, but he did late at night, and it was clear he was trashed
- the nonverbal conversation with the bouncer at Mangos
- going to cornerstone south in coconut grove
- sangria in little havana
- at the bar of my dreams, tobacco road, till 5 am
- shots with the birthday girl
- jack the bartender
- john the architect
- waking up at 10 am, drunk
- lazy time on the sand and in the water
- talking to d, each of us on vacation, separately
- quote of the vacation, from paige "pop tart doesn't really rhyme with flip-flop"
Lowlights
- almost breaking up with paige after the "pop tart" quote
- rain in miami
- my mom's house flooding while we were in ohio. three feet of water and mud in the basement made the Flood of '04 almost equivalent to the Great Flood of '99
Crucial question for a Tuesday morning: Is is "pantsed" or "de-pantsed"?
How would you even spell that? Let me clarify my question...
Say for instance you were at a bar and there was a tall guy playing flip-cup and you went up to him and pulled his pants down (and no, it isn't called, "getting lucky"). We're talking elementary school stylo. Did you "pants" him or did you "de-pants" him?
I have a theory that this may be a West Coast vs East Coast thing... but please, discuss.
So, I went to the Jersey shore last week and as the weather was terrible on Thursday Kirsten and I went into a lot of little shops both on and off the boardwalk. I found some very funny t-shirts but could not afford one for each of you so I figured I'd write down the sayings here on TT.com.
Rick - "If you're happy and you know it, drop your pants"...i'm not lying this was a t-shirt saying, also "All grown up and still fascinated by nipples"
Pat - "Of course I love you, now get me a beer"
Chris - "Save the trees - wipe your ass with an owl"...i have no idea what that means but it's the closest it came to your environment friendly attitude
Roy - "What if the hokey pokey really is what it's all about?"
Mike - "Sorry if I looked interested - I'm not"
Chad - "I am NOT anti-social you dumb piece of crap"
Fatboy - "...walking that thin line between genius and insanity"
John - multiple that applied including "It's people like you that give psychos like me a bad name", "Optimist - like that does any good", "I'm trying to find myself - if I should get back before I return, please ask me to wait"
There were many more and should you choose to inquire about them I have the list patiently waiting...
Yeah, this isn't the typical TT post, but I thought I'd put it here, anyway, as a public service announcement. We just spent a lot of time here at work doing maintenance on our computers because of adware & spyware. Everybody had been running the free version of Ad Aware on a regular basis. I ran it daily, and had another free program, Spyware Doctor that ran in the background to protect me from new programs, and that I also used to run a full scan daily. Another guy her at work had spent some time comparing programs, and found that Pest Patrol was by far the best of all the anti-spyware/adware programs, freeware or commercial. When I ran that, I found several spyware programs running on my computer that Ad Aware and Spyware Doctor never caught. My computer was the worst, because I had run iMesh, but everybody's computers were infected. Two other badly infected computers had run Bear Share and KaZaA. Plus, when we got into doing the maintenance, we found that everybody's automatic Windows Update had been deactivated by the malware. Anyway, I know some people that frequent this site also use P2P software, so be careful about spyware. Most of the programs (including Ad Aware, Spyware Doctor, and Spybot Search and Destroy) just don't catch all of the programs. We just decided to ban P2P programs here at work, and I don't think I'm going to use them anymore at home, either. We figured that about the only safe way to use a P2P program (since hackers are always going to try to stay ahead of the spyware definitions), is to just completely reinstall your OS every month or so.
I wonder if this goes back to the browser discussion, and if IE is one of the culprits in our computers being so badly infected?
Pretty funny Bush parody, courtesy of a voting advocates group & Will Ferrell. Takes a bit to load, but worth it.
Rick James, who was made culturally relevant again largely through Dave Chapelle's characterizations on his show, passed away in LA this morning. Boo.
I'm guessing that everybody's heard of Burt Rutan's spaceship that he's going to try to use to win the $1 million X-Prize. Now, one of the other teams in the competition has announced plans for their launch, right around the same time as Rutan's. It seems though, that this team didn't have enough funding for their launch, until a new sponsor stepped in. So, the team's been renamed from "The da Vinci Project" to the "Golden Palace.com Space Program powered by the da Vinci Project." Those GoldenPalace.com people are everywhere.
I know, it's on Fark, but it's too funny: NY Govenor Pataki was seen playing beer pong with his daughter and some of her friends from Columbia. In other words, he rules. We need more beer pong playing officials looking out for the interest of drunks everywhere.
Simply: Family Guy 4-episode marathons to air on Fox the 18th and 25th. Brand new episodes in 2005 - that's only 4 months, at best. American Dad also promised for 2005, so, conceivably, we could get an hour of new MacFarlane stuff one night a week.
Sweet.
so i screwed up. i said the number for the top 40 was some ridiculously high number. thanks go to rick for pointing out that is incorrect. in fact, the correct number for the top 40 is 178. when i did the calculations, it was part of a larger worksheet and i copied across the cells from something else. apparently, it didn't take for the last cell. i think i screwed up the dollar sign, so it incorrectly referenced other cells. what i can't figure out is why it actually worked for two of the cells. whether or not that vaults chris into the top 40, i dunno. however, the overall point remains - the measurement precision in the tails is not that accurate. the standard error is more than a few IQ points, which, as we've seen, changes someone from being in the top 1000 or top 2000, etc. as another example, both males IQ scores and females IQ scores tend to follow normal distributions both with means around 100. the males have a larger variance than the females. the consequence of this are great. among them is that the IQ distribution is really a mixture of normals, which is not necessarily normal. again, the point is that all of this is based on a model that is not built for every particular purpose.
in response to the replies, fatboy's comment is one of the better remarks on the subject i've read in a long time. and chris, belief in multiple intelligences, or multiple facets of intelligence, or multiple manifestations of intelligence (all three of which are different from one another) does not invalidate IQ scores. what it strikes against is the common misperceptions of IQ scores (e.g., you're born with it and it never changes, that everyone with high IQs aces the SATs and finishes college in 2 years, that people with low IQs cannot succeed in anything that requires mental energy, etc.) but of course, it's not the original or current test developers that spout that. it's uninformed media sources and uninformed test consumers (students, teachers, test administrators, principals, guy at cvs, etc) that spout that. and d, i agree with you on the misuse of IQ scores in the diagnosing of special ed students. it happens at the other end in haverford township with the misuse of IQ scores in selecting students into seminar programs.
ok, i'm off to florida
So Ben has signed a contract, with a just-over-nine-million signing bonus, totalling, with incentives, just over $40M. The interesting part: the last bit of Yahoo's news story, which is just AP, says this: "Roethlisberger plans to use some of his bonus money to aid the police and fire departments in his native Findlay, Ohio; to fund a scholarship at Miami and to aid pee wee football in Pittsburgh."
Two things. First, that's really cool that the dude says that. How many rookies get their money, than do nothing for anyone but themselves and their momma? But, secondly, maybe it's just a cheap PR move. Maybe Pittsburgh, such bastards about their football team, already hates Ben for the brief holdout. Fatboy, any thoughts?
I thought it was cool of him to make the statement, but I'm too jaded to believe it for a second I guess.
And on this note, isn't Eli Manning the luckiest man in the world? Not only does he have all that money, but you know Payton already set up the whole family with houses and cars. What the hell does Eli need to spend money on now but bitches, 40s, and ice? It's not like his grandma will need another Range Rover.
Dave Chappelle is back on Comedy Central. I am pleased with this news. I hope you all are as well. Since I am sure he reads this site, I would like to suggest more of the Player Haters, and something as far out as Clayton Bigsby and The Niggar Family. Good stuff. "Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go put some water in Buck Nasty's momma's dish."
You might notice this is coming to you at 10:45 in the morning. You might be thinking to yourself, damn, Chris is up early. And you'd be right, because that is early for me. But, dummies, I am not up early: I am up late.
School starts in a month, and I'll need to get up at 8:30ish every day. I started attempting to scale back my wake-up times, figuring eventually I would reach 9am, but after two days of trying to get up at 1 pm, smashing the alarm clock for daring to wake me up, and going back to sleep until after 4, I have shifted gears. Now, I plan on staying up for about 30 hours, then going to bed, finally, about 10 pm today. That way, I can sleep in and still be awake by 9 or 10am Wednesday. Yup - screw getting up early, I'll stay up really late then come out the other side.
When I get really tired my stomach gets really irritated, I can't eat, my joints stiffen, and my head gets cloudy...yet I need to funciton all day. This may turn out interesting: if I go out for Boston Market and fall asleep in a chicken, or nod off while pedaling a bike, or doze on a sidewalk, I'll let you know.
OK, so since I'm now wasting my days watching movies from Netflix, and the posts below are about to drop off, I'm just going to spew out crap about some movies I've seen recently:
50 First Dates - The other movie that pleasantly surprised me. After the expected comedy of Adam Sandler toying with Drew Barrymore's amnesia, the movie actually addresses her memory problem and manages to come up with a non-gimmicky ending to it all.
Big Fish - It's refreshing to see a Tim Burton film that isn't dark and gloomy. This movie centers around a fantastical story with some interesting characters and special effects. If you liked Edward Scissorhands, you'll probably like this movie as well.
Paycheck - Didn't really live up to the hype. If there was any hype, anyway. It needed more mystery and less people that could see into the future.
Duplex - Well, I found out why this movie only lasted about 18 minutes in the theaters. It tries to be funny, and fails badly. Since you should never see it, I'm going to spoil the movie for you now: Ben Stiller and Drew Barrymore end up hating their tennant so much, that they actually try to kill her for half the movie. So, it's just hard to watch since it's less believable than Shrek.
Before Sunrise - The J made me watch this movie about two people meeting up and getting to know each other for one day in Europe. Not horrible, but the movie itself was just really slow. It's like watching two people going on a date for two hours in real life. But less awkardness and less drunkeness, which is half the fun of it all anyway.