What a fun, sexy time!

What a crappy, busy week. Last week. This week should be better. Committee meeting on thursday went OK, they didn't seem too enthusiastic about spring '07 graduation. Better show 'em they ain't got a choice. Test drove a Mustang on saturday. It was great. The best ever probably. Now I just need to find one with the options I want. It goes fast fast. I liked that. As long as its not an ugly color.
Remember when I said no bands used horn sections anymore? I was listening to some Guns'n'Roses last week (Live Era, pick it up if you don't have it already) and they use a horn section! And it sounded awesome. Also, I'm almost always right.

Bottle of Wine, Fruit of the Vine

Upon waking up the day after Valentine's day what did discover but my date, still in my room! "What are you doing here?" I asked. No reply was forthcoming, so we simply stared at each other. Then I realized that my date was actually a big bottle of wine and it was still about 1/3 full. And I felt like Hell. And it was 4 AM. Then some of the previous night started to come back to me, things such as drinking lots of wine. And other things. And listening to depressing music. LOTS of depressing music. But I did remember that I thouroughly enjoyed listening to a lot of Gram Parsons (Flying Burrito Brothers, The Byrds). That will be my next major music purchase (ie, anything I can find that I don't already have). And I will conclude with some random thoughts and observations.

1. Why do people work out in hats? That is just gross.

2. No matter how many times I brushed my teeth this morning I could still taste wine.

3. The Rolling Stones make me think almost exclusively of cocaine. Do what you will with that information.

4. Upwards of 80% men look better with moustaches.

5. Making figures for scientific papers is either great or terrible. I can't decide which.

When the Superbowl is not at all super

First, let me say I had no personal investment in the Superbowl this year. I don't care about Pittsburgh or Seattle as teams. I do like individual players on each team, notably Troy Polamalu (crazy -silly hair, ridiculous second year player), "Fast Willie" Parker (first year RB, pretty good as well) and of course Shawn Alexander. He's just so happy. All the time. So I really didn't care who won. Seeing both teams sporadically throughout the season, Seattle seemed to have the stonger offense and Pittsburgh the better defense. I picked Seattle as 7 point favorites while still respecting the fact that both were pretty good teams.
First, the good. There were some funny commercials, my favorite being the Bud Light "magic fridge." You can watch them all here. I hate Bud Light. It is one of my most unfavorite beers. I will NEVER drink it unless there is nothing else to drink. That being said, they had the best commercials this year.
Next, the bad. What an awful game. And by awful game I mean officiating. First, D-Jac's TD catch as offensive pass interference? Maybe. Maybe I'll take that. But, and thats a big BUT, you need to watch both teams awfully careful if you want to call that kind of penalty. Which the refs did not do. Are you telling me Pitt receivers didn't make those same weak-ass push offs? Then you are either stupid or a liar. But I can accept that as a call, because it's hard to tell what exactly is "pass interference" (only slightly less vague than "football move").
Second, and this is totally ridiculous, is the call on Roethlisberger's "touchdown." I submit to you the worst officiating I have ever seen with that play. That clearly was not a touchdown. In no way. And Big Ben knew it, the asshole. You saw him throw his arm with the ball over the line AFTER he was down. He knew it and he was flat out cheating. But I don't blame the player, because I'm sure a Seattle player in a similar situation would have done the same thing. However, one reason there are supposed to be impartial officials is to take care of situations like this. Clearly the ref was either stupid, blind or pursuing an agenda.
Third, a relatively minor point. Hasselbeck throws an interception. Great. Sucks for him. The interceptor manages to run back to Hasselbeck where he tackled by Hasselbeck. Again, great. But wait, the ref calls a penalty! On Seattle? OK. On Hasselbeck? For a low block?? A LOW BLOCK??? WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?????? There was nothing wrong with the block. There was something more sinister afoot.
What I mean to say is, from the start, Pittsburgh was going to win. And apparently if that means the refs had to cheat in order to allow that then so be it.
Further, I think it was a conspiracy (by whom I'm not sure) that was hatched even before the Superbowl itself. Think about Vanderjagt's missed FG at the end of the that playoff game. Did he really miss it? Or was is intentional. How could such an accurate kicker miss one of the most important kicks of his career? His contract with the Colts is up this year....Just something to think about.

Cross-posted at Science, Politics and Star Wars

I wonder if Duane Allman ate a lot of steak?

So I didn't need to change clothes. After a brief conference with other dinner-goers it was decided that our clothes were A-OK and we went as-is. And I got the biggest fillet I've ever had. And it was delicious. I'd guess it was like 1.5-2 inches thick. Nothing else was notable about the dinner other than my mighty-man steak, which pleased me greatly. And the tiny Chinese girl ate almost as much as I did, which I consider impressive since she's like 5 feet tall and only weighs like 75 pounds.

I listened to the Allman Brothers all morning yesterday (actually just Live at the Fillmore and Live from American University over and over) and I've decided they are probably the best band from the 70s. If Duane Allman hadn't died, I think they would have destroyed the Grateful Dead as an awesome tour monster-machine. Given the choice, I'm gonna choose the Allmans every time. In fact, I'm going to go ahead and claim that Duane Allman is the best guitar player that ever was. Why? Because there is no way to prove me wrong. Its totally subjective! In your eye.

Dress up for what?

Today my boss told me that I was not dressed properly for my dinner with the interview candidate tonight. I tried to explain that not only was I wearing an undershirt, but the shirt over that had a collar! Apparently I was supposed to understand or know that ahead of time. Let's be honest, I'm not out to impress anyone (unless its that girl in the cardio room, dammit!) so what do I care? Anyway, this place is supposed to be pretty expensive so I'll be sure to order some classy stuff. Report tommorrow on the food. But I need to run home and change clothes first. And come back and finish my work. All this after I spent 30 minutes in my boss's office showing him how to clean his computer. Apparently things like that aren't intuitive for him. Like dressing up for me. Small world.

In other news, Harold and Kumar go to White Castle is one of the funniest movies ever. I can't believe there are people who don't think it is funny. We will call those people "humorless bastards." I think we've watched the movie 5 times in the past 2 weeks and the frequency seems to be increasing. Sort of like Anchoman last year, although I will still turn that on whenever it is on HBO, everytime. So if you haven't seen either one see them. Immediately. and if you don't like them, you are a humorless bastard.

Shouldn't it be SotU and not SOTU?

Anyway, watched the State of the Union address last night after real-life Napoleon Dynamite was my cashier at Tops and proceeded to lecture me on Alaska, since he must have known more about it than me. Putz.

I thought the speech was OK, nothing stirring (for me at least) but many patriotic lines. I loved the lip service he paid to free market capitalism which was followed immediately with his socialist pet projects (health care, etc.). Doesn't someone at least proof read his speech so he doesn't directly contradict himself? Also, his science initatives SUCK. Don't whine and complain about diseases that are too expensive to cure or uncurable and then cut funding on the research. Duh.

John Roberts is a very handsome Chief Justice. Sam Alito looked confused and bewildered last night. Rumsfeld looks like Skeletor. Nothing against him, in fact I think its great that if he had the purple hood and ram staff he would be He-Man's bumbling arch-nemesis.