Weekend Recap

I went camping for the first time at Assateague Island with Morgan, Ashley and Kyle and had a great time. Then Morgan and I stopped in Salisbury and visited Kenny and Amanda. We got ice cream which was very good. From the picture, can you guess what my new favorite topping is?

Innocent until proven guilty?

I saw this in the Washington Post and I have not decided how I feel about it. Apparently a high school football stud named Pat Lazear is accused of robbing a smoothie store [doubt it was the one described here since there are so few but not for long] and was forced to finish his junior year of high school from home. Then the county had him transfer to another school where he is continuing to play football.

I understand why this is newsworthy, but I dont think that I have a problem with it. I assume that he is innocent of those charges until he has a trial and proven guilty. Until that happens, I dont see why he cant continue a normal life for his last year of high school. It says his trial begins Nov. 29, which I assume will be after the high school football season.

I do think its sort of cheap for his new school. The article indicates he is such an impact player that he immediately makes his new school a possible playoff contender. Obviously they welcome him with open arms and claim to have given him a new clean slate. But I wonder how this situation would be different if he didnt play football. I also dont know if it is standard to re-assign students to different high schools because of pending legal trials. The article quoted a coach from another county as saying that a player with this off the field trouble would never have this opportunity in his county.

I also think its strange that he is taking english through BYU and trying to graduate in December. It seems more and more like this half year of school is completely for the football and not the education. And the argument can be made that by playing football he can try and get a scholarship. And while that is true, I dont feel like his intention of going to college is to further his education as much as it is to play bigtime D-1 football. But then again, I cant blame the guy. I do respect those college programs that lost interest. I know if I were running a college program I would probably avoid student-athletes with off the field issues.

One other random note that I found especially entertaining is that he has to wear an ankle monitor at all times, even on the field.

I dont mind that he is being allowed to play, even if it is only to play football. What I do mind is that I get a sense of a lack of responsibility being taken. Young adults (in this case an athlete) want to take no responsibility for their actions. He mentions having a curfew and not being able to do what he wants and how it "sucks". Well that curfew was put in place because of his actions. I do not love that the thought of him being allowed to do whatever he wants because he is a star football player is being reinforced already. It happens to celebrities and other star athletes and its annoying. But now high school athletes are getting special treatment and being made to think that is how it is supposed to go. I think there becomes a point where everyone needs to take responsibility for what they did. Having said all that, this guy might be different. I hope he takes advantage of this opportunity and never looks back.

dunkin donuts review

i want to take a second to provide an evaluation of a product that has a catchy jingle. lunch is over... dinner seems so very far away [i might have gotten it wrong, it doesnt matter.] anyways, based on that song, and my love for blended fruit beverages , i strolled into DD after lunch a few weeks ago. it is less than a block away right outside my building. and i have always been satisfied with all of the other food choices i have had at DD so i figured why not. big mistake.

my favorite part of smoothies is the fruit combined with the blended ice. it can be a healthy refreshing delicious treat. i must confess that while smoothies are my favorite, i also very much enjoy Icee's and have been know to sip on other forms of slurpies aswell. so anyways, at double D they have three flavor options. i dont recall them exactly, but i think it was something like strawberry banana, berry, and mango. i might have made those up, but it doesnt matter. i order the strawberry banana (aka the jamaican jammer) and because it was 100 degrees outside and i was especially thirsty, i went nuts and ordered a large.

i didnt actually ask for a large. the lady taking my order mumbled something after i indicated my choice of flavor to which she responded with a mumble. i couldnt really tell what she was asking but i confess i did say yes and my guess was that she probably asked if i wanted a large. so i get a large. you'd of thought i was at seven11 because i got a gigaGulp. i see the lady grab the keg looking container and haul it towards the back of the store. she does that and scoops some red looking syrup stuff into my barrel. it looked like the fruit toppings you can get at TCBY [which i love]. but it is far from real fruit. it is actual fruit pieces but drenched in a really sweet thick juice. its good in a parfait, but not as the basis for a smoothie. so after the lady has placed this stuff into the cup, she moves right and places my treat under the ice cream machine. turns out its actually yogurt, but you get the point. now the fun part. she blends it. what?

she brings me my smoothie and i taste it. just as i thought, it tastes like what i imagine a gogurt or other kids flavored yogurt would taste like. its sweet, but almost burns your throat when you eat it because of that tangy fake fruit flavor. and there very little evidence of actual fruit pieces. and the top half of it is all runny and the bottom half is like a melted milkshake made with frozen yogurt and sans milk. and i have 63.5 more ounces to go. oh, and it was like $5.00.

i cant say it was the worst thing i have ever had, but given my expectations it was quite disappointing. i was so motivated i actually wrote DD an email and they told me they would send me a refund in the form of gift certificates. i was happy with this solution. i enjoy DD and will go back, i will just be sure not to get another smoothie. i guess i was wrong to assume that all smoothies have ice.

i could not think of anything to write about, then while watching teh redsox game i saw a DD ad and i thought i would write about my smoothie experience. it didnt turn out nearly as well as i had hoped. i waited almost a week to post and then wrote this. [gulp]

--------------------UPDATE-------------------------

I read today in the Washington Post that DD plans to add 325 stores in Washington and Baltimore. I think this is a good idea, as I myself am a little tired of seeing Starbucks dominate. I have seen a few Caribbou' s pop up and have heard good things. I can't provide much of a product comparison because I have only tasted coffee once. I have had chai latte's on multiple occasions but i wouldnt notice a difference from one place to the other. As a non-coffee drinker, i am excited for more DD's because I really enjoy their breakfast choices.

I am sure you have heard others echo my complaint about Starbucks. And that is the stupid names for the sizes. Grande (which means big i am pretty sure) is their code word for small. then tall is medium. I forgot what large is but its super annoying. what is the point in changing the names. multiple times i have been in there and ordered something and said small, medium, or large and i was corrected. it went something like this:

Me: can i get a medium chai latte?
Them: you mean a tall?
Me: is that medium?
Them: no its tall
Me: what does tall mean? i dont want something super tall. I dont want the smallest option and I dont want the biggest. i want the medium size.
Them: we have grande, tall and [insert frustrating name that i cant recall here].
Me: is grande the biggest or smallest?
Them: its shorter than tall and less grande than [annoying name]
Me: so grande, which means big, is the smallest?
Them: well its grande.

Why is it cool to take three sizes of the same thing and give them independant names? i thought names for sizes should reflect their relative size towards each other. i feel like maybe when starbucks made those sizes they didnt know they would own the entire country a few years later. i feel like perhaps they made the sizes to have some character. then they got popular but had to stick with it. plus anyone who likes coffee doesnt seem to mind, its like they want to be part of the cool people. then you have haters like me think its totally pointless. additionally, they are losing potential customers. not only do i think its meaningless and frustrating, it makes me not want to order beverages from them for fear of embaressment and also of having the same conversation that i described above.

I need to check out DD's drink menu one of these days to make sure they didnt fall into the coffee size lingo trap. I will be pissed if they start calling their 3 sizes gigantic, voluminous, and astronomical. Although, having consumed the worlds largest [not that] smoothie I think those names might be appropriate.

new gaming challenge

since nobody can beat my sheep record i thought i would put another challenge out there since it is Friday before a 3-day weekend. this guy at work claimed he got 22.078 seconds on this game. i played it a few times and got 14 and change but perhaps this afternoon i will try it again and beat his record.

really good or really bad?

I just viewed this commercial on tv.

Make sure you have the volume turned up. This is the real commercial. That is the entire thing. I didnt think it was real, then i saw it again. I think its horrible, yet at the same time I am talking about it and I remember it, so maybe it was actually a good commercial... its certainly annoying and unlike anything i have seen.

back to back?

some of you might remember this from a few months ago.

here is the latest edition. there was between 100-130 teams in each league, nice.

strange words

I was checking in on the blog of one of my favorite television characters and saw the topic of his post was about words and phrases that he likes. I could copy the idea and create a list of words/phrases that i liked, but I wont. I will, however, share my thoughts about a particular word. When reading the user comments on that linked post, I immediately looked for a certain word. This word does not bother me at all. However, if I were on Family Fued and they said "we asked 100 people... name a word that you dont like" I would guess this word. And I would get the number 1 answer. I feel fairly confident of this, but I can offer very little explanation as to why it would be so high on the list.

Sometimes I think that it might even be trendy to hate this word. And some of you might know what I mean. There are times when 'its cool' to do certain things. And I dont just mean peer pressure in middle school, I am talking about liking Greys Anatomy or something like that. It might be a great show [I have seen it only a few times and thought it was good] but I am not talking about it just being a good show. I mean how people want to be part of the 'in crowd.' they may or may not like the show that much, but they say they like it and act like they like it so they can talk about liking it with other people. I am not sure if this is the best example but I hope that you know what I am talking about. Another example that comes to mind real quickly is with fantasy sports in the preseason. There are always players who are hot and who are not. I am not sure why. Most likely some so-called expert has some information that they think is crucial and is going to dictate that this players is going to perform really well or really horrible in the upcoming season. Suddenly, for all wannabe fantasy experts (of which there are tons, second only to wannabe expert poker players) they want to let everyone know that they think player X is going to be really good/bad. I often try and take advantage of this in my drafts. And while sometimes the information may be true and I may be making bad picks, it is worth the chance. Anyways, back to the word, sorry for the sidetrack fantasy sports talk.

The word that took me 1 nanosecond to find on the user comments was moist. This is by far the word that I randomly hear being hated on the most and for no good reason. Ok, nobody likes wearing moist clothes or being in moist climates. Everyone thinks of kind of shady things when they think of moist. But why hate the word? Its 5 almost arbitrary letters. How can you really hate a word?

Some people reading this might not understand. I know that the idea of being moist might not be enjoyable. I can understand that people dont like moist, the concept or condition. But I am not referring to that. I am speaking about those people who say they hate the word. They will list reasons like 'it just sounds gross.' some other reasons from that webpage:

-I don't like "moist"- it sounds dirty
-"Moist" It is just a weird, odd little word
-I find the word "moisture" and its adjective counterpart "moist" to be oddly disturbing

Initially I read the post on the page and looked every so quickly for moist. I found it and wrote this entry, then went back to search for those quotes posted above. While searching through I realized that the original entry wasnt even asking about words that you hated, it was requesting words you liked. This maleficience demonstrates my overall frustration with the dislikers of the word moist. People who hate moist have no good reason to hate the word and they cant even follow directions. The fact that they posted it when it wasnt requested further exemplifies my being cool theory because they wanted to let others know that they hate it. Give it a break.

do they speak english in what?

i dont know about anyone else, but i loved this page when i was in college.

well, along the same lines, i recommend sending out phone calls using this.

bootie new starbursts

yesterday on my way back into work from lunch, i stopped CVS to pick up some candy and a drink. i opted for a delicious propel berry beverage and some starburts. well, regarding my refreshing drink, i was not disappointed. i also punished the first pack of starbursts no problem. the thing is the s-bursts were on sale like 2 for $0.99 or something like that so i bought two. but it was a trick. apparently in the yellow box of fruit chews they snuck in some imposter normal style starbursts. everyone knows starbursts are in a yellow wrapper. if you want california flavors or tropical or berry or whatever, you get the starbursts with the other color wrapper. i saw this alternative choice, and while i considered it momentarily, i decided that i would most enjoy chewing on the standard flavors so i grabbed two yellow packs. as i have already noted, i dominated the first pack right when i got back to work. the second package i waited until this morning at work to open. well to my surprise the second pack is this icy bursts variety. far from your standard cotton panty, that is something i dont even know about. icy burst? what does that even mean? so i try it out, being that it is too late to return it and i have very few other options. it starts off well, as my first flavor is strawberry. ok, this isnt much different. as a matter of fact pink is one of my favorite normal style startburst flavors. then i get to the second piece, and it takes horrible. its like they took something good and added something that was totally unnecessary and made it way worse. dont you hate when they try and save the world by doing this. i do.

bitter, i scanned the packaging. i am mad they would make a product so different than original that looks so similiar. then i notice somethign else. i am not the most healthy eater, but i am always curious about the nutritional information on things that i eat. then i see these icy bursts and i notice that they somethign like 4.5 grams of saturated fat. this seems like tons for a pack of fruity candy. i eat enough nerds, spree, sweet tarts, etc. to know that they dont generally have saturated fat. but now i cant recall if normal starbursts have this much fat. turns out they dont, i was right. here is a comparison:

normal style

icy bursts

so thats just dandy starbursts... you took a great candy, added a bunch of saturated fat and were left with a product that tasted horrible. what a great idea!

so now you have been warned, not all starbursts in yellow wrappers are the same. and watch out, some tricky stores will mix in a few of the gross icy ones to try to get rid of them to unsuspecting starburst consumers like myself.

not so original

when creating my blogger profile i kept the details to a minimum. i noticed a while back that when you view someones profile (most of the time i do this after someone has posted a comment by clicking on their name) you can see all of their interests, favorite movies, etc. then one day i got crazy and clicked on a word that was listed in someones profile. i was able to see other users who also had that movie/book/interest listed. well for whatever reason i checked my profile today and saw that i put speling as my list of interests. i thought i was being clever and original by spelling spelling wrong. it seems there are other people out there who have done the same thing. i wish i checked when i first created my profile to see if there were others. i hope that i was the first person to have that listed in my profile. because now, to be honest, its not that funny. its sort of embarressing to have a not funny joke, and its even worse when it is unoriginal. i think i will remove it but i will wait and do it in a few days in case anyone reading this doesnt know what i am talking about and wants to check it out.

cold hands...

While googling myself i found this picture from college. I love muffs!

high tech sports viewing

this post probably is not interesting to most of my readers so i will keep it brief. i just wanted to voice my praise for the super slow motion cameras being used by major networks while filming sporting events. i had seen it on fox and espn while watching baseball swings, but i just saw cbs show a golf ball leaving a sand bunker in super slow motion. i find this very interesting.

my stalker dot com

i have recently began using myspace.com, i had avoided it as long as i could thinking that i was too old and too cool to be a part of the fad. but once i joined i realized why everyone loves it: it is the best way to stalk people. i am not sure what else there is to do on the site. i suppose you could use it as your blog, or a very limited online photo album, or something else i dont even know about. but basically the only use for the site is to think of people you havent seen in a long time and search for them and hope that they have a picture. if you are sucessful, then you click on the pic and visit their page. then you go to their friends and see if you recognize anyone. good chance you will, at which point you will go to that page. pretty much its like stalker central. and you know everyone is fairly selective regarding the pictues that they use. and for good reason, because there is a decent chance that some old friend is going to come across your page and see your picture. and thats all you have to show. you may not have seen this person in 12 years. you could have been an all state athlete, gotten 1600 on the SATs, graduated from MIT in a year and now own an entire state... but you have to represent all this in a single picture. it is possible to mention this information in other ways, but i am just being honest and realistic when i say that a majority of stalkers (i mean users) are looking first at the pictures. for secondary stalking, they might check your employment listings or educational experience. but i am tellign you that really its what pictures you post and who your friends are.

having said that, i will continue to use myspace and hope that any of my readers who also use the site will add me a friend if they have not done so already.

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edit: if you read this blog and post regularly, i might add you to my top friends.

moneyball?

I dont follow the NBA very much, but I was a bit surprised to see this today.

I know Wilcox is athletic and young, but it seems like $8 Million per year is quite a bit for a player with a lot of potential. I checked his stats and saw that in his career he averaged 7.5 points per game. Yes it is true that he scored 14 points per game with Seattle last year, but also played 250% more minutes per game than when he was on the Clippers and averaged 4.5 points. He played in 29 games with Seattle and shot nearly 60%.

I dont know, it just seems like a lot of money for a guy who is unproven. When all he did was score a few points for a bad team at the end of the season when the team had little to play for. Then i checked the Sonics roster and he has the 5th most experience on the team. So you arent paying for proven production, and you arent paying for veteran experience. You are paying for potential. Yet he is entering his 4th season in the NBA.

By no means am I hating on Wilcox, I watched him play at MD and think he could establish himself as a force and go on to have a good career. In NBA world, it might even be a good deal, i have no idea. I was just surprised. And I saw that he earned like over a 100% raise. For what? Wouldnt it be sweet if you got a 100% raise because you didnt disappoint your boss in the first 3 years?

---

Since writing thatI have now done some quick research and remembered why I hate the NBA. If this is correct, Allan Houston makes $20.8 million per year? What? More than Kobe and Dirk? With the salaries listed on here, Wilcox kind of looks like a steal. Why are we paying these guys so much?

I sort of could understand why people get pissed about their contracts. Pride is a big thing with big time athletes and for you to be one of the best at your job and be getting paid a fraction of what others are getting paid, while out performing them, you have a semi-legitamite gripe.

Then again you have to just be glad you have a job as a professional athlete. I think the huge range of salaries for athletes is what causes all the problems. How many other unionized jobs are there where in a single year one worker can make 50 times that of another worker? Maybe in some sales or commission positions, but very few trades have that wide of a range. Its especially huge considering the subjectivity in appraising athletes [possibly potential] skill levels.

On a side note, I am sure if I investigated the MLB or NFL (two leagues I MUCH prefer to the NBA) that I would find similiar things. So while there may be some backhanded cheapshots at the NBA in my writing don't think that I am ignorant, just bias.

if you can beat it, you have to prove it

here is my best... for now

not quite links of the day, but...

not a good day for this guy.

dont ask me how i found this, just check it out and enjoy it.

if i had seen this sooner on craigslist, i may have applied.

i dont always watch america's got talent, but here is a performance worth watching.

if you have a few minutes at work and want to play a game, check out this game. for some reason i always go back to it.

its been a while

Dear Blog,

I am sorry I have not written to you in a few days. This weekend I was busy and then last night the power went out at my house due to the thunderstorms. Please don't be mad at me. You must be doing something right because your fans are still checking in. I hope we can still be friends.

Love,
Brian

PS Please dont think I sold out by adding advertisements to you. Maybe I can buy your something with all the free money I will make. Readers, don't be scared to click on those links and support my sponsors!

Grand Opening

To celebrate Man Beard Blog I told my face to unshave itself. Here is an update on how that is going. Not bad, but my face definitely has more hair near the bottom. I am pretty sure someone called me Michael at work today, And I knew exactly what they meant. Notice how the hair on my face is much darker than the hair on my head.

my favorite cereals

Since making a list is so hot right now in the world of blogging, i am going to make my first list. my list ranks something that i have never seen rated before. below you will find a discussion about my favorite cereals.

Count Chocula- this is one of my all time favorites. it combines the marshmellows from Lucky Charms with the texture of Honeycomb or Kix and the flavor of Cocoa Pebbles. when you take the best features from the best cereals and put them together, its a lock you are left with one of the all time greatest breakfast treats. the only negative i can think of is something i call raw roof mouth. this is when you are constantly smashing some food into the roof of your mouth and it gets raw. note: some like it that way.

The Pebbles Line - I think i prefer cocoa, but it seems the less i have fruity pebbles, the more i want it. often compared to the Krispies series, i like these cereals for a number of reasons. obviously taste is paramount, but beyond that i enjoy the small sized crispy flakes. i like to eat them very fast, so they dont get soggy, and i dont really like them without milk. the small pieces allow an eater to optimize the process. each spoonfull is heaping, and oral manipulation is a breeze. a good milk-to-cereal ratio is key for enjoying this type of cereal. another often overlooked benefit is that when you are finished eating you are left with flavored milk. one key negative that comes to mind is they are often trapped in frustrating locations including way under your tongue and back between your deepest molars and your cheek.

Cinnammon Toast Crunch and Golden Grahams- I am not sure these should really be grouped together, but I am doing it. honestly the only difference (i agree its significant) is the cinnammon vs. the golden honey flavor. in any case, these cereals are strong based on the crunch and flavor. i like the shape of the delicious morsels. they are even very enjoyable without milk, which is a very important characteristics. the biggest negative i can think of regarding these cereals is that they have a tendency to get soggy, at which point they are not as enjoyable as they are when they are still somewhat crunchy.

I thought i would make a list of like 10 cereals, but that took much longer than i thought it would. also, the bottom of the ninth is starting with ortiz and manny due up with the sox down by 1. i will add more about cereals in the future.

one other note, be on the lookout for a new webpage that was just launched by my friend sparks.

sometimes thinking of a title to a random post is difficult

at lunch a few weeks ago, myself and some co-workers went down to eat at the inner harbor. we were eating our meal of food, when we noticed a lady had silently crept up all in our stuff. naturally, we stopped and gave her our attention. i knew what she was about, but i could tell this new guy didnt know. she reached out and was offering something, although it was difficult to see what. i declined, but he didnt know any better so he accepted. he read the playing card sized piece of paper and was kind of excited [his body language screamed 'oh neat!] to see that the card had all of the letters with diagrams explaining how to make them in sign language. he then turned over the card to read the part that says the lady was deaf and needed a dollar. he did not give her money, but handed the card back to the lady. then he said, 'i know sign language' and flipped her the bird. ok, that last part didnt really happen. i do not like uncomfortable situations like that, but i guess when it comes to less fortunate people asking for money its better than just begging.

i met a 'freestyle poet' who created a rap on the spot and in his rap he said eric looked like he liked men because he was wearing a scarf. i also bought a list of the top 100 pick up lines from some guy one time. then there is the guy in georgetown who sits on the edge of the bridge and has a pole with a bucket hanging from it and in his other hand he has a stick with a giant arrow on it. when you walk by he hangs the bucket in front of you and then points at it with the giant arrow. its quite clever if you ask me.

i just watched a commerical and i am pretty sure the voiceover is done by jim from the office. the office is like my favorite show on tv so i immediately recognized his voice. but then i started thinking, i wonder how much he got paid for doing that ad. and i wonder how many people know it is his voice. i am not in the advertising business but it doesnt seem to me to be worth it for whatever website to pay jim to do the voiceover. even for people like me that know who it is, am i any more likely to check out the website [i think it was ask.com but i am not sure and i am not planning on spending time verifying that since i dont care] because i think jim was on the commercial talking?

so you think you can dance is on tonight and let me tell you, it is pretty awesome. for some reason, i love this show. i was pretty fired up last week when my favorite contestant from the beginning (allison) got eliminated. she was the best dancer. my favorite remaining contestant is benji. he crackes me up and is pretty good. travis is also a good dancer, but sometimes he can be annoying when he talks too much. plus whenever he does contemporary dances he cries. ivan is cool because he is a good hip hop dancer, which is probably the most fun to watch. my favorite girl left is natalie because she is the hottest. heidi is alright and i dont really like donyelle.

also, if you havent read the comments to these posts then i recommend you go back two posts to read this comment by brian d. it is a treat.

Good Times

Some baseball thoughts:

I think it would have been awesome if Clemens had been traded to the Red Sox.

David Ortiz is awesome.

If you like fun, I recommend that you check this out. I need to try to use these terms more often.