Perpetual Jet Lag

Lockout? What lockout?

OK, this is great freakin' hockey. 5 goals in under four minutes scored in the opening minutes of the third period of the US vs. Switzerland juniors tournament. (Hold that: 6 goals. Wait, 7 in 4:15. What was a 2-0 game is now a 5-4 game.) Continued cable coverage of this tourney will provide a good couple of weeks' respite.

As Naum now knows, I also subscribed to Time Warner's Sports Package, which includes Fox College Sports Atlantic, Pacific, and Central, as well as College Sports TV. I've never known so much about the WCHA in my life before.

Lastly, I'll be in Boston for both the last game at Walter Brown Arena for the BU Terriers, and the first game at Agganis Arena. (I will likely be driving back to NY for the evening in between, as Naum [CAS '99, now of 10th Avenue] has to work Monday at 6 AM. Anyone with a couch / spare room where I can crash, I'm taking all options at this point, and am OK with having my buddy drive the extra 700 miles.) I cannot overstate how big a deal this is for me, and just how much this whole endeavor will cost in terms of money, sleep, and sanity. Of course, if there's anything being a BU alum has taught me, it's how to deal without any of those things.

Check that, 6-4, for real, after the initial goal to make it 6-4 was ruled a bounce off the low post.

Things I finally got around to doing

Well, one big thing anyway. Attemptedchemistry.com now has a new home page.

Due to fancy RSS technology and some a great PHP script I found on SourceForge called Magpie, you can now use that page to see if anyone has written anything new, and to see a brief preview of that entry. (Note, like free market quotes, there's a possible 20-minute delay. There's caching in place to keep RSS traffic to a minimum.)

The comments widget below is open for feature requests; I'm thinking of date/time last updated, categories, and other stuff. Blogalicious! updates will be available once I convince Mark to enable RSS publishing in the Blogger interface. [UPDATE: Thanks to long-forgotten admin privileges, I set up Mark's feed. All is well.]

Now, it's time to get back to watching "Arrested Development," "Home Movies," and "Monty Python's Flying Circus" episodes on DVD. (Santa was very nice to me this year.)

Marketing Synergy

Meant to post this a while ago: the Lindsay Lohan fan site Lindsay-Lohan.org has Google AdWords on their homepage.

Here's what the ads were when I visited on Dec 8, looking for info for a certain blogger friend of mine.

Both seem much more appropriate than they probably should.

Things That Suck

"The Terminal" sucks.

The only good things I can say about this movie are that it looked nice and Catherine Zeta-Jones fell on her ass at one point. There are hundreds of bad things I can say, which include:

• Why was the whole thing a Borders, Discovery, Starbucks, and United ad? I felt like I was watching Nascar racing, only with a (thin) plot.
• Stanley Tucci's character freaks out to the point of screaming and breaking things, then just lets him get in a cab? Bipolar much?
• What, exactly, are we to believe drew Amelia to Victor? I mean, does every rail thin gorgeous first-class flight attendant secretly lust after a pasty pudgy Eastern European?
• On what planet does a new Hugo Boss suit cost $149.95? If an elephant ate, digested, and shat a Hugo Boss suit it would still go for at least $300.

Cold showers suck.

In this day and age, how exactly does a hotel run out of hot water? While I didn't wait for an explanation, I have to assume something catastrophic happened to some large, antiquated piece of machinery.

Glenn sucks.

Bastard bought be a Christmas present. So he sucks, but in that good way. (No, not that way. A purely innocent good way.)

Rumsfeld sucks.

Bill Kristol: "Contrast the magnificent performance of our soldiers with the arrogant buck-passing of Rumsfeld." This and much worse from the f**king Chairman of the Project for the New American Century, whose own Statement of Principles was signed by Dick Cheney and (you guessed it) Donald Rumsfeld. Do you think he has to give back his fez?

The DC City Council sucks.

Why they ever offered so much public money for this stadium is beyond me; I'm with The Bruce that this kind of thing shouldn't come completely from taxpayers' pockets, though some local investment may be valid given the possibility of urban renewal, new tax revenue, etc. Council Chair Linda Cropp doesn't suck, since it was her last-minute amendment that required MLB to fund 50% of the cost themselves through private money. Let's just hope it doesn't sink the plan. (MLB: adding new zing to the cliche "taking the ball and going home.")

I suck.

What kind of blogger goes a whole week without an entry, only to return with such a clipshowesque article? (Well, one other that I could think of...)

If I were a detainee, that would be a war crime

Was in a Borders bookstore for a little over an hour today. In that time I was subjected to Jessica Simpson's latest holiday album. (No, I will not link to it. God forbid one of you decide to buy the thing, I'd end up as an accessory to multiple homicides when you climb up the clock tower.) If it weren't for the fact that I was there of my own volition (and had to resist bolting from the store with every fiber of my being, in order to find a holiday gift) such treatment could easily be construed as torture.

In lieu of a full-blown catch up, I'll just say this: HUGE fucking blow up with the family last week. Completely out of the blue, completely unavoidable (so long as contact with my family is something I want) and completely messed up. Long story short planning for Christmas just got a shitload easier.

Broke down and got the Sports Package from Time Warner - I now get the three Fox Sports College channels, Tennis, Fuel, and CSTV. Highlight of the week has to be seeing Parker win his 700th against BC in the comfort of my living room. In related news, have managed to score a seat at the final game at Walter Brown, and am following up on a couple of leads for a seat at the first game at Agganis. (If any of you have an in I can exploit, let me know.) Staying in Boston for the first Agganis match will make my entire week suck (direct travel from Boston to DC for work on Tuesday 1/4) but the experience would definitely be worth it.

No other news to report - major life decisions still in the hands of others. Hopefully I'll discover more later this week when I have a chance to catch up with colleagues in NY.

Go play with this for a while

The Lumbergh Sound Board.

Some days I catch myself coming so close to some of these... it can be soul-draining to be a consultant.

Beyond Disturbing

Bit of a recap and other stuff coming today. No worries.

This is the kind of thing that will keep you up at night. If you think you can stand it, go look at incredibly detailed, anatomically correct renderings of cartoon characters' skeletons. (via BoingBoing)

Ewwwwww.