Monday, February 27, 2006

Does Deal or No Deal rock or what?! WHOAAAA!!

You might find it creepy for me to have a picture of Howie Mandel on this post, but I find it perfectly normal. This guy rocks!

Sunday, February 26, 2006

Is it just me or can our bodies only feel cold? By this I mean if one part of our body is warm and the other is cold, the cold will override the warm. Here's an example. Stick one hand in a glass of freezing cold water and the other in a glass of warm water. Leave them there for a little while and then take your hands out and touch them together. Does your warm hand feel the cold of the other, or does your cold hand feel the warmth of the other? My money is on feeling the cold. Could this possibly be because warm always goes to cold, high always goes to low, order goes to disorder, enthalpy to entropy? Probably . . .
Ahhhhh . . . .

Have you ever just taken a big refreshing gulp of Life and thought to yourself, "Yeah. Life is good . . ."

Friday, February 24, 2006

Well The Workplace Expo 2006 is finally over. It has occupied my time for the last four days and I am quite happy to see it go and not come back for another two years. We demo-ed our blacktop/popcorn plant again like last time. I wasn’t so sick of popcorn though this time around. This popcorn plant is probably the most expensive and extravagant popcorn machine that exists in the world today. If I acquire a picture, I’ll gladly submit it so you all can see it. You are also reading a post from one of the worlds leading experts of the physics of popcorn, and salt flow.

While IT did it’s little video game racing event again, I was not eliminated from the competition this year as I am no longer in IT, but Automation. Translation: I kicked arse in the game and walked away today with a brand spankin’ new PS2 Mini and steering controls! Next time I’m sure all of corporate employees will be excluded from winning. I just keep ruining it for more people. It’s their own fault though. Here’s a small tip: Don’t have video game contests when you have 20 some year old guys working for the company. Especially ones that have had and are recovering from an addiction problem and have “Video Game Night” every Friday from 5pm to 3am.

All in all the Expo wasn’t so bad. I got to know some fellow employees much better and even did a little social event with some of them last night. While I still believe that this expo is a tremendous waste of money and my time, I do walk away with a crap load of free stuff every two years! Here are some of my favorite booths from Employee Expo 2006:
  1. Procare: A local fitness club, here you got to test your balance skill on a cool machine that was completely configurable with resistance and feet position.
  2. UPMC Medical: This is currently my health care provider but at the booth they were doing bone density test. Despite the amount of milk I drink daily I was told I should be taking calcium supplements with magnesium, along with more dark green vegetables.
  3. Altoona Medical: An Altoona medical facility that perfored a body composition analyzer. Some cool stuff I learned about my body:
    1. Total body mass that is fat: 24.6 lb
    2. Total body mass that is water: 103.21 lb (which is insane by the way!)
    3. Body Impedance: 529 Ohms
    4. I should gain another 10.61 lbs to be my ideal body type – no thanks!
To read posts of Expo Past, check out these great links!
02.17.2004
02.18.2004
02.19.2004

Saturday, February 18, 2006

Is it me or am I the only person watching the Olympics these days? I haven't found a single person at work yet that could discuss in detail the events of the Olympics that had aired the previous night. Now Figure Skating I can understand (what I don't understand is how this could possibly be the most popular Olympic sport here in The States) but come on people, these are the games of the winter olympiad! These only happen once every four years! And for the record, talking to me about Michele Kwan doesn't count because frankly she's all over the news almost as much as Dick Cheney is these days and she's not even competing anymore. If you're looking for some good events to watch, here's a list of my favorites:

Curling: If you haven't seen this, you're missing out. Grant it you don't need to be in great shape to compete in this event, but the skill that is involved is just flat out ridiculous.

Snowboard Cross: While in the Winter X Games for quite some time now, Snowboard Cross made it's Winter Olympic debut this year. Simply put, four boarders race at a time in heats down a hill until contestants are eliminated by time and the final heat occurs. Just in case you have been watching this event, tricks and showboating before the finish line, or anytime during the race are NOT necessary and should not be attempted . . . Women . . .

Freestyle Skiing: If want to see people doing ridiculous flips that you will never ever even want to consider doing, then check this puppy out!

Alpine Skiing Super-G: All I have to say is good god! Are people really this insane!

Monday, February 13, 2006

I used to enjoy setting up PCs. Now . . . well just just say I won't be surprised if the PC I disconnected last week will be set up again anytime soon. Sort of makes me wish I had a laptop...yeah...

Monday, February 06, 2006

You knew this had to be coming, so here it is in all its glory:

Captain Jimmy's Super Bowl XL Review

To put it bluntly, even as a hard core Stillers fan, I wasn't impressed last night. As Bob Dole would say, "You know it. I know it. And the American people know it." I would have much rather watched the Stillers-Colts game again in its entirety. Neither Pittsburgh, nor Seattle had anything worthy of a Super Bowl performance. Perhaps the biggest disappointment of the night was the absence of one Troy Polamalu. Sure you could see #43 out there running around but he wasn't involved in any kind of play! He had no rushes toward Hassleback, and I don't even think he had one tackle. Let's face it; he is the majority of that defense. Now I'm not saying he played awful, but you could tell the guy was hurt out there as he couldn't really seem to out run, out perform, or out maneuver anybody.

The Stillers rarely sent in the blitz and Big Ben played like he did last season. I can understand the man was nervous, you know second year quarterback in his first Super Bowl. That's no petty feat. But the last two games before The Bowl the Stillers played were off the hook! Ben's arm was firing! Bettis' bus was rolling, Foote's foot was stomping. This game was missing all of that.

The reason the Stillers win can be summed up in two plays: Parker's 75 yard run touchdown and of course the of the hook reverse to Randle El who then passed to Ward for a 43 yard completion pass for a touchdown. Of course Ben's touchdown helped some, but everyone made it out to be so controversial, I'll throw it out. Just for the record and with all Stillers' fan aside, the man scored a touchdown. John Madden is frickin' old and blind so I'll give him the benefit of the doubt, but come on Rest of the World! The ball passed the plane of the end zone. In football we call that a touchdown. Clearly the white lines on the ball were directly above the end zone white line meaning that the tip of the ball had to have passed the plane. Yes it then got knocked back, but it's too late by then. So Ben tried to be tricky and slide it across the goal line, but you show me one other football player who doesn't do the exact some thing on every single play!

Pittsburgh clearly won because of Seattle's lack of . . . well, they just blew it. Penalties were called when touchdowns should have been and just too many passes were dropped. Basically that's what it all came down to. They couldn't catch the ball when the play really mattered. Sure they were hot when it was a little 5 yarder, but eventually that just didn't cut it. And just to clarify again, you can’t push off another player to catch a ball, EVER and you can’t rap your arm around another player’s chest from the back and hold him from getting to the quarterback. Those are rules of football. So quit your wining about bad calls Seattle fans.

In the end it must have been really hard to pick an MVP for that game. But I'd say Ward was the guy it should've been. He had some key catches that made the game a winner for the Stillers. In conclusion, all was well with Jimmy and his Stillers. While it was no pretty victory, I'll take a homely win any day. The only thing, well okay, things I could have done without were the awful halftime and pre-game shows, and of course, the fact that Crap Face Tom Brady had to witness the coin toss in his butt ugly velvet sports coat. Like Madden said before the game. You show me a good loser, and I'll show you a loser. That may have been the best thing he has ever said.

Sunday, February 05, 2006

HERE WE GO! STEELERS! HERE WE GO! PITTSBURGH'S WON THE SUPER BOWL!!!!

Thursday, February 02, 2006

I'm not understanding the hype over Groundhog Day. Does anybody actually believe in the myth? And how does Phil see his shadow on a cloudy day when nothing, and I mean absolutely nothing is casting a shadow? Heck how do we even know he sees his shadow? Is it because he is looking down? Maybe he has an ingrown toenail and is checking out. And when does Phil even have time to look down when those guys in the big coats drag him out of his hole and hold him up over their heads? I think this "holiday" is a bunch of moo-ha-ha. Now maybe if they gave us a day off work I might be more inclined to change my opinion...eh, wait a minute...probably not.

Tomorrow is Stillers Day again at work! HERE WE GO! STEELERS! HERE WE GO! PITTSBURGH'S GOIN' TO THE SUPER BOWL!