????

I am in need of some good material. I haven't any exciting stories or annoying rants to pass along lately.

The rest of my weekend was pretty uneventful. I went to the gym on Sunday morning and felt dizzy and tired about 5 minutes into my workout. I decided to leave about 5 minutes later since I was worried that I might have the flu. I spent the rest of my Sunday lying down on the couch and feeling generally crappy. I didn't feel much better on Monday, but since I wasn't throwing up, I figured I had to go into work.

After another evening of feeling crappy, I decided to do something about it. By do something, I meant go to sleep at 9:30. After nearly ten good hours of sleep, I woke up on Tuesday morning feeling completely refreshed. I guess my problem was more lack of sleep and less flu-like symptoms. Woo hoo!

I will see my dad and brother this weekend. I am going to Atlanta for the Fellowship Admissions Course (FAC). I officially get my FSA designation (and a nice raise) after completing this "course" (i.e., if I stay awake for two days of discussions). My dad decided to join me since I have not seen him in a year and it's only a 3.5 hour drive. He is flying my brother in from California since he would be bored on Monday and Tuesday if he had no one else to keep him company while I was in class. I am really excited about the four-day trip. My brother and I will be renewing our intense sibling rivalries in tennis and rummy-500. I hope to come home victorious in both!

Money well spent

I knew there was a reason that I subscribe to The Economist. They do a great job covering international news and often present an opinion that I agree with, even though this magazine does not consistently side with liberals or conservatives. Here is an opinion from this week's edition of The Economist. I also reference you to my post from a few days ago. This article is obviously better written than my post (or I'd be a columnist at a reputable magazine).

Free speech Denying the holocaust
Feb 23rd 2006 From The Economist print edition
It is loathsome, but should not be a crime
AFP

FABRICATING history is an act of intellectual vandalism that poisons modern understanding of past misdeeds and heroism alike. But should it be a crime? In civilised countries, the truth is best policed by scholars, not criminal prosecutors. Historians who distort, inflate and invent find their credibility shredded by their peers, not the police. But David Irving, an author of books about the second world war, is now starting a three-year prison sentence in Austria for remarks he made in 1989 doubting the existence of gas chambers at Auschwitz. That has won him praise in Iran, where the president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, recently described the holocaust as a “myth”.

Holocaust denial is ridiculous, but it is too common, and too damaging, to be a joke. It commonly makes four claims: that the numbers of Jews killed were wildly inflated; that any persecution was matched or exceeded by allied war crimes against Germans; that Hitler was ignorant of, or even opposed to, the killing of Jews; and that accounts of systematic extermination were invented to benefit Israel.

Holocaust deniers such as Mr Irving are expert at taking anomalies and contradictions in the historical record and erecting such pyramids of loathsome nonsense upon them. From the gaps (all explicable) in the surviving evidence about Auschwitz-Birkenau they infer that the gas chambers there were a propaganda invention. And not only that: other details of the Holocaust are invented too. In fact it didn't really happen: Hitler liked Jews. Or (as the Palestinian movement Hamas argues) Jews caused the war. Holocaust denial (or “revisionism” as its pseudo-scholarly advocates term it) uses quibbles, semantics and phoney logic to befuddle the gullible about the mass murder of millions of innocents.

To the fair-minded, such claims are preposterous. But among the prejudiced, silly and ignorant they flourish, especially on the internet. They gain a touch of intellectual legitimacy from a handful of cranky academics—though of these only Mr Irving has any claim to be a historian. His early works, particularly on military matters, were acclaimed. Nobody doubts his knowledge of German archives, or his skill in deciphering the crabbed handwriting of senior Nazis.

But there are plenty of doubts about his integrity. At a libel action in London in 2000, in which he had every chance to make his best case, the judge concluded that he was “anti-Semitic and racist”, saying he had “persistently and deliberately misrepresented and manipulated historical evidence” and “portrayed Hitler in an unwarrantedly favourable light.”

It is hard to see what the Austrian court's sentence can add to that. Keeping Mr Irving in jail at most may stop him going to a conference that Mr Ahmadinejad is convening to “rewrite and revise” the history of the holocaust. But against that small plus are two big minuses. One is that the sentence makes Mr Irving look a martyr. The other is that it makes the West look hypocritical: all too willing to bruise Muslim feelings, while protecting Jewish ones by law.

Laws against holocaust denial (which 14 countries have) were never a good idea. The best defence against neo-Nazis is reason and ridicule, not the criminal law. But at a time when the western world is battling to defend free speech against religious zealotry, they look particularly indefensible. It is punishment enough for Mr Irving that he has lost his professional credibility. He should not lose his liberty too.

Must see movie

I watched Hotel Rwanda tonight. If you have not seen this movie, I highly recommend renting it. It is a powerful recreation of a horrifying, yet true, story during the Rwandian civil war in the late 1990s. A good movie pick by UNICorn. However, the movie is quite intense.

It wouldn't be the weekend if I did not continue to bitch about the Michigan hockey team. After earning a solid tie on the road against a decent Ferris State team, we pulled a terrible choke job at home tonight. Leading 3-0 with 15 minutes to play should lead to an automatic win for any Michigan team. Well, for the second time since 1987 and the second time in eleven months, a 3 goal lead was not sufficient. Similar to our collapse in the 2005 NCAA tournament after charging out to an early 3-0 lead against Colorado College, the hockey team fell apart and gave up careless goals. This loss must have been really bad because it's the only home game this year where coach Red Berenson's postgame quotes were not made available on mgoblue.com. That's two straight 1 point weekends and we have not swept a weekend series since the second week of December. With this loss, Michigan needs at least 3 wins in the CCHA playoffs to get safely above the NCAA bubble. Even if Michigan gets out of the best-of-three quarterfinal and makes it to the semifinals in three weeks, they may still miss the tourney if they lose the semi-final and the third place game. Failing to win the best of three quarter final series in two weeks would end our season for sure. I'm very worried.

I don't hate all bars

A while ago I posted about how I hate going to bars. I guess I should edit that to say I don't hate all bars. On Thursday night, I went out to the bar with some people I know in Philadelphia. I had to be in the Philly office for work on Friday. It was K-Lo's birthday on Thursday, so I decided to fly into town Thursday night. K-Lo and some of her friends were going to Jolly's Piano Bar in Center City. This bar is awesome! I had been there once before and was disappointed in the place, but the problem was that the piano player sucked that particular night. The guy playing the piano on Thursday night was very entertaining. Piano bars are definitely a lot of fun. I made a request for 'Cecilia' and the called TheDogDoctor so that she could listen, but she didn't answer her phone. Boo urns.

I may not have arrived in Philadelphia until 9PM (stupid flight delay), but I caught up pretty quickly with those that had been at the bar for a couple hours. I didn't realize we stayed until 2AM until someone explained why I was tired and had a splitting headache the next morning. I understood the splitting headache part, but I had no idea we were out so late.

There was one pretty funny story from the bar on Thursday. Anyone who knows me is well aware that I never talk to random girls at the bar. I'm pathetic and have no game I know. Well, somehow I ended up talking to these two lovely girls at the Piano Bar towards the end of the night. They were both trial lawyers enjoying a night out and were like the only two people in the bar not celebrating K-Lo's birthday. Well, at some point I was sure my friends had ditched me and gone to Tir Na Nog, another nearby bar (I have no idea why I thought this). Well, the two girls walked with me to 'The Nog', only for me to find out that my friends were still at the piano bar wondering what the hell happened to me. While waiting for my friends to show up, the girls insisted that I give them my phone number and plan to attend their Mardi Gras party on Saturday night. I was returning to CT Saturday morning and had plans with my aunt and uncle on Friday night, but I didn't mention that and just gave them my number. I figured that in the rare event that one of the girls called the next day, I could change my travel plans and take a train back later this weekend. I really didn't care if they called or I would have asked for their phone numbers at the same time. No surprise, but they didn't call and I returned to Hartford this morning. I know, I have no game. Whatever. They were probably just as wasted as I was. Sadly, it's the most luck I have had with a girl in a while. Baby steps. Baby steps.

Of course, I couldn't waste a day of work with a hangover since the company paid to fly me into the PA office on Friday. I had a meeting with the division CFO on Friday, so I had to get my act together pretty quickly that morning. It was not at all easy, but I survived and held up better than most of the others who went out the night before. A couple actually left the office "sick" for all or part of the day on Friday. My boss busted on me a bit for being hung over, but I know he didn't mind as long as I was still productive at work. He's been trying to convince me for a while now to move to Philadelphia when I am up for my next rotation toward the end of this year, so he was glad I had a good time Thursday night.

As much fun as I had with my friends in Philly on Thursday, I cannot party like that on a regular basis. I drink like once or twice a month these days and rarely stay out until closing time at the bar.

Systems people are useless

I had an annoying run in with some systems people today at work. I had put in a request to create a restricted access folder on the shared drive that I use at work in order to control who could access some sensitive files. I submitted a request to our systems expert, per normal procedure. They have 10 business days to respond to any request received since they are probably very short-staffed these days. Well, I decided to follow up after 18 business days since I was getting irritated. What response did I get, you ask? Well, I received a phone call telling me that my request was being closed because I did not fill out the initial request correctly. I did not use correct terminology for the restricted drive I wanted to create. I asked the person on the phone what I needed to say and how I needed to fill out the request form to get the desired response, and the guy told me that he was not familiar with exactly how to fill out the request form. The conversation ended at this point. Needless to say, I was quite pissed. How can people be paid to be so useless? When we laid off IT people in the past, did we decide to keep the most useless and let everyone else go?

Thankfully, I have a contact in the systems area based on help I have received in the past. I sent him an e-mail explaining the situation. He told me how to fill out the request form correctly. Apparently, using terms like "restricted global group" instead of 'domain local share' will cause your request to be ignored. I was supposed to know that. My contact also apologized for the screw up since he originally assigned my case to the guy that decided to close it for no legitimate reason instead of asking me for more clarification. Everything should be resolved tomorrow. Yay! If you are at all savvy with computers and stuff, let me know. Apparently we need some people who are not useless. You interested, Mouse? I know it's not Apple, but you'd be a systems superstar here.

Speaking of useless, how about the North American hockey teams? Canada and the U.S. decided to leave their skills back home when they went to Torino. Someone should tell Derian Hatcher that he is supposed to skate back to his team bench after a shift, not the penalty box. He had so many stupid penalties. Maybe both the U.S. and Canada will get smart and send faster players with good chemistry to the Olympics instead of pampered super stars that don't mesh well together and are more size and strength rather than speed. The larger ice surface clearly benefits the more skilled European teams. Hey, at least the Americans are better than Kazakhstan and not worse than Latvia. Woo hoo!

I just realized that no one probably understood or cared about that last paragraph. I'd apologize, but you should be the ones who are sorry. You are missing out on such a wonderful sport.

I am working in the Philadelphia office on Friday. However, I am leaving for Philly tomorrow right after work and spending the next couple evenings visiting friends and family in the area. I'll be back Saturday around noon. No updates before then. Sorry!

Grrr

Tonight was poker night. Thanks to many 'suboptimal' plays and some strong hands that unfortunately ran into monsters, it was also a moderately expensive night. Grr. At least I didn't lose over $100 like some else did tonight.

Michigan basketball definitely brightened the evening. It softened the blow from the Illinois grad that kept taking my money. Hopefully the following two things happen in March:
1) Michigan finishes strong enough to secure an NCAA tourney birth
2) Michigan gets sent to the only first round site that I can drive to. Philadelphia. Otherwise, I'm watching on TV.

That is all. Goodnight.

Surfing the news wire

Since it's a slow news day in the world of Gary, I figured I'd throw a news article out there for debate. Read this and tell me what you think.



Here's my opinion. David Irving is an idiot. He is also a danger to society by insisting that the Holocaust is a myth. People who deny that the Holocaust ever happened are hateful, anti-Semitic assholes. Two of my great grandparents were murdered in Nazi death camps. Two other great grandparents barely survived the Nazi death camps. I lost countless other relatives from my dad's side of the family during the war. My grandparents just barely escaped Europe with their lives in the 1940s, and the story of their thrilling escape to Jamaica is one that never ceases to amaze me. My dad has collected letters sent between family members during the Second World War highlighting the devastation felt by the Jews during this time and put them in a book that I have in my room. There is no doubt what actually happened to the Jews during the World War II. To deny and repress the worst possible acts committed by mankind is truly tragic.

However, as terrible as it is to deny the existence of the Nazi Holocaust, I am uncomfortable with governments criminalizing such denials. I know that Austria is very sensitive of this because of the country's tie to the Nazis, but do they really have the right to punish someone criminally for speaking their mind? This hardly sounds like a democratic country. David Irving deserves to be beaten up in the court of public opinion and ostracized as a bigot. However, he does not deserve to go to jail for giving an (uneducated) opinion.

Where did the weekend go?

My weekends are too short. I wish I had an extra day to rest up because I am still super tired.

The ping pong tournament did not go to well on Saturday afternoon. I just was not that interested in playing, so I was not disappointed with my poor finish. I didn't really provide much competition for the top players, and I didn't really even hang close with FlyingV, who I am usually fairly even with when we are both playing well. I only beat one person at the tournament.

I spent Saturday night at FlyingV's condo. He recently bought an NBA Jam arcade game and had a few people over to break in the new toy. It was really cool! I had a blast playing four player games all night with a few other people that came over. I delivered two vicious beats to FlyingV last night in NBA Jam. The first one was when FlyingV had a breakaway with 5 seconds left and a two point deficit. He was Utah (Malone-Stockton) and I was Charlotte (Mourning-Johnson). FlyingV stopped to shoot a jumper so that his last shot would get off on time, but Karl Malone instead went for a stylish dunk. Time ran out with Malone still in the air, and I won the game. The other vicious beat was when RoopDogg and I were Golden State (Webber-T.Hardaway) and FlyingV and UNICorn were Houston (Olajuwon-Horry). The bad guys had a two point lead with time winding down in the fourth quarter. I was controlling Chris Webber and had the ball with time winding down. I was able to create an open three point shot with Webber, who does not shoot three pointers very well and has a clutch score of zero in the game (must be for that timeout at the end of the 1993 NCAA final). Webber's shot bounced off the rim, hit the backboard, and went into the basket. RoopDogg and I celebrated a glorious victory and FlyingV whined about his bad luck. Haha!!!!

Sunday was a pretty lazy day. I got a wonderful 7 hours of sleep because I cannot sleep past 9AM no matter how late I stay up. After watching the US hockey team prove once again that they are not going to win a medal this year, I went to the gym for a quick workout. I returned to watch Canada's hockey team get shut out for the second consecutive game. Can anyone in North America play hockey anymore? It's been a pathetic olympic games for the US and Canadian hockey teams.

Bucknell Chokes!

Wow. What a terrible way to lose a game! What was that guy thinking when he just chucked the ball down the court at the end of the first overtime?

Roopdogg - I hope you are enjoying the moral victory since the UNI students rushed the court after beating mighty Bucknell. Has any other non-conference opponent rushed the court after beating Bucknell?

You have to be fucking kidding me

I was bitching about Michigan hockey in my last post. At the time, they were losing 3-0 to Nebraska-Omaha (#4 in the pairwise rankings) with about ten minutes left in the third period. After I made my post, Michigan scored a goal to make it 3-1. Too little too late. With 3:30 left, they score another goal. Just enough to give you false hope, sort of like when we almost came back against MinnesOta in the frozen four my senior year of college. With 2:45 left, the unthinkable happens. Michigan tied the game. Yes, they came back from down three goals in the last ten minutes and TIED the game!!

Guess what happened SIX SECONDS LATER??? That's right. With 2:39 left in the third period, Nebraska-Omaha scored. Final score, UNO 4 Michigan 3. Game over. What a horrible way to lose.

Maybe we'll have some momentum for the game tomorrow night. An NCAA tourney berth may be on the line since we are flirting with one of the last 2-3 at large spots right now.

Addicted

I just spent the evening bonding with TheCrazyCanuck and watching five episodes from the first season of Grey's Anatomy. I have never been addicted on one of those doctor shows until now (except for Scrubs), but this is a damn good show. We'll probably finish season one before the end of the weekend. Oh well. It beats the bar.

And it also beats getting pissed off about our damn hockey team. Another Friday, another loss. We have not swept a weekend series in three months. Michigan is now on the NCAA bubble. What is going to get this team to play like a team? Argh. I hope they salvage the weekend split tomorrow night. Otherwise, they may need to make a CCHA tourney run next month to keep their incredible NCAA tourney streak alive.

Tomorrow is the third annual Rocky Hill Invitational. This is a ping pong tournament organized by a friend of mine who is pretty damn good. It's an invitational since the invites used to be the people that qualified for the quarterfinals in the 24 player annual summer actuarial cup of ping pong that P-Man organized each year. However, since there was no summer tournament last year, the invite list was a little more liberal. I have always qualified, but I have never fared well. These guys can play. Since I haven't picked up a ping pong paddle in over a year, I am probably going to get smoked tomorrow. Oh well.

Who should I root for in tomorrow's bracket buster college basketball game between (24)Bucknell and Northern Iowa? Anyone care to persuade me?

I suck at sports

A few people I know around here play in an indoor soccer league every Thursday night. I have watched them play a couple times and I filled in when they needed extra players a couple weeks ago. Today they asked me to play goalie. Now, I have some decent experience playing goalie in hockey and hockey related sports. I played goalie in a local broomball league last year and got the starting nod for the league all-star team that went to play in a tournament in Plattsburgh, New York last April.

Since the broomball league is temporarily defunct, I needed to find another sport where people can fire projectiles at me. However, the hockey goalie skills definitely do not transfer to soccer. We got smoked tonight. 8-2. Sadly, at least half of the goals were pretty bad, so I can't blame my teammates. Granted, the team I am on is not really any good (we play for fun against teams that are much more talented and organized). However, we could have kept this game close if I didn't give up so many bad goals.

I think I'll keep trying to play goalie with this team since they need players and I still had fun. I sucked playing goalie in the local broomball league the first few games, but I got a lot better with practice. Hopefully my soccer skills will improve.

I wish I had athletic skills. I was good when I was 8. What happened?

Go Hawks!

I'm back from my short getaway to the lovely state of Iowa with UNICorn and Hawkeye. It was definitely a fun change of pace from the daily grind.

After a long day of interviewing candidates for full-time and internship positions on Tuesday, the three of us got ready for the big Iowa-Michigan State basketball game. As it turns out, the MSU basketball team was staying in our hotel. We got in the elevator to go to our rooms a couple hours before the game on Tuesday and Goran Suton (Paul Davis's backup) was on the elevator with us. He was really tall! Hawkeye booed him, but that was the extent of our taunting.

The arena was actually pretty cool. It reminded me a lot of Minnesota's hockey arena with the concourse that is not separated from the seats (so you can still see the game while waiting in line for food).

Ju - do you remember when we were walking around Iowa’s athletic campus on last fall looking for the basketball arena? Well, we walked right past it several times and never realized it. It's kind of like our football stadium; mostly a hole in the ground and unspectacular from the outside. It was right next to where we had our random encounter with your friend 'E' from alternative spring break.

The game was definitely a huge one for Iowa. MSU had beaten Iowa by ~30 points in their meeting last month, so Iowa was looking for revenge. Iowa was also trying to hang onto first place in the Big Ten. With ESPN in attendance, the crowd was jacked up. Our seats were very close to the student section, but near the top of the arena. Iowa struggled early, but caught fire in the second half and ended up winning by about 15 points. The students rushed the court at the end of the game. I wanted to rush the court as well just for kicks (since I rushed the field the last time I attended a sporting event in Iowa City), but Hawkeye said it was too dangerous. I find it funny that of all my friends, she would be the one who would opt not to do something like this. It's usually me that would come up with a lame excuse like that.

The Iowa student section was pretty funny. When the ref signals for a timeout, they put their hands on their shoulders (since forming a ‘T’ indicates a technical foul). A few times when a timeout was called, the students would mock this gesture during the TV timeout by chanting "Flex your muscles" (clap! clap! clap clap clap!) to the refs. I thought it was quite humorous. Of course, when one of the Iowa players made the signature slam dunk to put the game out of reach late in the second half, he ran over to the student section and flexed his muscles. The crowd loved it. It was definitely a great atmosphere for a game. However, the pep band leaves a little something to be desired. Sorry, I had to be a snob about something! :)

As I am sure RoopDogg will comment, we will find out shortly how the atmosphere at Carver-Hawkeye Arena compares to the lovely Sojka Pavillion when a few of us travel to Lewisburg, PA in about a month for the Patriot League final (assuming Bucknell does not choke before the championship game).

Sadly, I left my digital camera at the hotel room, so I didn't get any good pictures from the game. Oh well. There will be no permanent evidence of me rooting for Iowa.

I caught an ass-early flight back to CT this morning. Hawkeye was able to change her flight schedule this morning so that we had the same flights back to CT. UNICorn was going to the University of Northern Iowa to interview more candidates for full-time and intern positions, so he was not traveling back with us today. Hawkeye and I happened to have the same sudoku book to keep ourselves entertained while traveling, so we raced through several different puzzles. I only lost once. Finally, something I can beat her at. She already is better than me at cards, sports, and just about everything else except tennis and college preference, so the victory was definitely sweet! I rule. The end.

After a very irritating half day of work today (don't get me started), I went to Bidwell Tavern in Coventry for the best wings in the state. We had not gone out to Coventry in too long and it was Puddles's birthday. I felt bad because I bailed on FlyingV's birthday bash (or as FlyingV calls it, 'V-Day part 2'), but good wings were too appealing to pass up. Happy birthday, FlyingV! Sorry I could not be there to celebrate with you. How the hell are you only 23?

Snow Snow Everywhere

I never left the apartment today. When a snowstorm drops approximately two feet of snow, you end up trapped in your home. The windy conditions created huge snow drifts. I feel bad for the suckers in this complex that do not have garages. Their cars are literally buried.

Assuming that air traffic returns to normal tomorrow, I'll be on my way to Iowa Monday afternoon. I hope you all can find other ways to entertain yourselves without my posts for the next couple days. I'm sure you all can manage. :)

Winter Wonderland

A big snowstorm is hitting us right now. Not just a big storm, but the dreaded nor'easter! The weatherman says we have already received about 8 inches of snow since midnight and may get 8-10 more before the end of the evening combined with blizzard-like conditions. Of course, the weatherman likes to exaggerate, so we might not get that much snow in the end.

You know it's going to be a big storm when airlines have cancelled all flights in and out of Hartford before it even starts snowing and businesses have shut down in advance. No, actually, that's just because Connecticut is WEAK.

When it comes to panic about impending snow, CT has got to be the worst. While some southern states panic more, at least they have the excuse of rarely getting any snow. We get a lot of snow here. Much, much more than I ever saw growing up in southeast Michigan. However, schools close in Connecticut on the forecast of snow. It may end up not snowing, but the schools will be closed. No place is open today. Never mind that people around here have 4 wheel drive vehicles since they are used to driving in snow. There's nowhere to go. I may as well sit around on my ass all day today because it makes no sense trying to go to the gym or the grocery store. Both will probably be closed. I'm sure I'll still try at some point, but it will be to no avail.

What's the one exception to all this panic? Work. I don't get any snow days. If we are lucky, we might get sent home at 3PM so that those who live more than 15 miles away can still get home by 5 or 6, but that's about it. There was one storm about 3 years ago that was especially vicious. It started around 8AM and when all was said and done, it dropped a little over two feet of snow on the Hartford area. I still remember interruptions at work that day over the emergency PA system. Here is a summary. You can guess which of these are not real:

"The shuttle between the two buildings will be ending for the rest of the day, effective immediately" (the two buildings are about 1/4 mile apart).

"The mail office will be closing at 10AM. Please make sure you take care of any mail related items before then".

"The cafeteria is closing at 11AM. Please continue working without lunch, but don't go out to eat anywhere because the roads are too dangerous".

"The electricity will be turned off in 20 minutes, but please continue working".

Finally, around 1:30PM with blizzard conditions outside - "The state has asked that all businesses close for the remainder of the day. You do not have to leave, but if you do, please drive home safely".

Storms like the one today remind me of this story.

One other rant while I am at it. I hate how the apartment maintenance staff feels the need to shovel the sidewalks and plow the streets when it snows on the weekend. Well, I don't mind that they clear the roads in the complex, but it bothers me that they start at 6AM!!! I can understand getting a head start on weekdays, but when you start at 6AM on Sunday, you are doing nothing other than waking up and angering all of your tenants. Argh.

'UNICorn Classic'

I have a running joke with UNICorn. He has an interesting taste in movies. Whenever he would rent a movie and invite people over in the past, I would end up fairly disappointed in the movie. I would coin these movies 'UNICorn Classics' many times, as would RoopDogg (this was back when they were roommates). UNICorn's movie picks were not always bad. There have been movies that UNICorn picked out that I've thoroughly enjoyed. Sideways is one movie that comes to mind.

I bring up this story because TheCrazyCanuck rented a movie today that was highly recommended by her boss. It's called The River King. It's about a guy investigating a suicide of a kid at a nearby private school (I think it was a college, but it was never explicitly said). The cop is convinced that the death was not a suicide, but he was getting no cooperation because the school was paying the police department to sweep the incident (and all similar incidents) under the rug and not bring shame to the school. Of course, there had to be a forced and non-sensical romantic subplot that did not fit the rest of the story and the cop who kept pursuing the investigation was fighting internal demons related to his brother's suicide many years earlier (which was not related to this school). The plot was terrible and the acting was even worse.

About thirty minutes into the movie, I told TheCrazyCanuck that this movie was a perfect 'UNICorn Classic'. In true Gary fashion, I continued to bitch about how bad the movie was for the next hour. However, I kept watching because I figured the end had to be really good if the movie was highly recommended. The end was TERRIBLE! I could have written a much more compelling plot for this movie and found some half-talented actors and this would have been a good movie. Instead, I was stuck watching a bunch of no-talent ass-clowns act out a terrible script. Boo urns.

It's late

No real exciting stories from the day in PA. There was no end of day happy hour since the usual drinking crowd was busy working on a major project that is due soon. I left the PA office a little after 6PM and everyone was still there. I went the airport early and watched the first half of the UM-OSU basketball game. Every time I watch Michigan play, we lose. No more UM basketball for me.

I do have to go back to PA on 2/24 for another meeting, and my trip coincides with K-Lo's birthday. I am going to fly in the night before and join the party on my next trip, and probably stick around for the weekend to visit my aunt and uncle who live in Philadelphia.

One minor irritating story from the flight. I was in the first coach row on the return flight. I took my laptop bag in with me as I sat down since I wanted to get out my magazine and my iPod. Since I had no seat in front of me to stow my bag, I tried to hide it along the window since it was not that large. Shortly thereafter, the stewardess politely asked me to stow it in the overhead bin. I don't expect either of the people between me and the aisle to do this for me (although it would have been nice if they offered), but I was irritated that they didn't even get out of their seats to make it easier for me to get to the aisle. Since the man sitting in the aisle seat was fairly large, I had a very difficult time getting out of the row and I tripped over the guy. I was pretty angry at his rudeness and gave him a stern look of disapproval. After putting my laptop bag in the overhead bin, I carefully tiptoed past the big dude again since he still was sitting in his seat and making it difficult for me. What an ass. Am I wrong to consider this to be awfully rude?

Now I am tired. Goodnight.

It's early

Good morning

I got nothing

This is a pretty light week with the exception of a quick business trip to Philly on Thursday. I have to wake up at 3:15AM on Thursday in order to to catch my 5:25 flight. My return flight does not arrive in Hartford until after 10PM. That means it will be a long day of work and an extended happy hour, followed by a nice nap on the flight home! Fun stuff.

Sorry, but my life hasn't been too exciting the last couple days. I have no fun stories to pass along. Someone else want to tell a funny story? Please do! That's what comments are for. Go ahead. Don't be shy.

So much for getting to bed early on Sundays

Thanks to TheCrazyCanuck, I am now addicted to Grey's Anatomy. What a great episode tonight!

Results Party Madness

Last night’s results party was AWESOME!! I definitely had a blast. I decided to pretend to be classy at the start of the night and drink wine since there were a few senior executives from the company at the party to congratulate the new ASAs and FSAs. I wanted to appear respectable for that part of the evening. Once dinner was finished, the music picked up, and the older people left. From that point on, it was straight to the hard stuff. If I was paying for an open bar all evening, I was going to enjoy it. Unfortunately, following up a few wines with stiff drinks is not the best mix. At least I was able to hold my alcohol, but it was a struggle. In the end, I did not make nearly as much of a scene as I did at my ASA party, but I still helped provide solid entertainment for my friends. I was also able to get people out on the dance floor, which doesn’t happen too often at the winter results parties (since there are no interns).

The highlight of the party was probably right before the official party ended when Puddles (another one of the honorees) performed his classic “Dime Dime Quarter Dollar” joke for the people still at the party. This is probably one of the stupidest jokes I have ever heard, but when Puddles is drunk, the delivery is always ‘A+’ quality. It’s what makes the joke funny. I thought I had video taped the joke with my digital camera, but apparently I screwed up (I was not exactly coherent at that time). Apparently, I also left a cruel drunk message to myself at work. I remember some people handing me the phone and telling me to leave a message to someone I knew that didn’t make the party, but I was leaving myself a message at work. The sad thing is this is not the first time I have fallen for this prank. Oh well. I tried to drunk-dial Mpls Ju, but she didn’t answer her phone. Mpls Ju is now banned for life from getting drunk-dials from me in the future. Her loss.

My good friend, TheExCubemate, made plans to fly in from Toronto for the party, even though he told me that he wouldn’t be able to make it because he couldn’t get any time off work. I was shocked and pleasantly surprised to see him last night at the party. A few of my friends from the Philadelphia office that I catch up with when I travel down there also came up for the party. Even RoopDogg made the one-hour trek up from Milford for the festivities. If you are reading this and you didn’t make it to my party, you better have a good excuse!

A few of us went to FlyingV’s for the official post-party. I was not feeling the greatest by this point (wine and hard liquor do not mix), so I stopped drinking after one beer. I don’t remember too much from the post party, except that I started imitating the Nextel commercial when the song “Push it” was played. I’m sure it was funny (or scary), but thankfully there were no pictures.

By the time my ride took me home around 2:30AM, I had started to sober up. At least I didn’t have a hangover this morning. I’m glad I turned my phone off though. Two people tried calling me at 9AM today to see how I was doing after the party. That’s extremely cruel and I would have bitched these people out had I not turned off the phone.

I gave my camera to a few different people throughout the evening and ended up with over 100 pictures by the end of the night. Here are a few of the good ones. Enjoy!



RoopDogg and UNICorn













Puddles and his wife. "Dollar Forty-Five!"










Me and Hawkeye








I rule













Me, PhillyPhanatic, and K-Lo









Group picture including TheCrazyCanuck, RytheRed, Hawkeye, and others.










Me and Hyphen-Lady. My favourite French Canadian.












Letting BuckeyeBoy know what I think of his school at the post-party. I also stole his OSU flag off the wall and hid it, but FlyingV asked me to return it to BuckeyeBoy. Sell out.










This is just funny.






Me and FlyingV pounding our drinks. We were racing and I won. Just barely. Rumor has it FlyingV was drinking lemondae and not alcohol. If I find out that this in fact the truth, there will be hell to pay. That's just pathetic.

Results party tonight!!!

Gary be nimble,
Gary be quick,
Gary solve the Extended-Vasicek.

Rates go high
Rates go low
Gary thought it over
And solved for rho.

Yes I am a dork, but this was funny.

I have arranged for someone else to put my camera to good use tonight at the party. I will post some pictures this weekend.

I took today off work since I still had to make up the MLK holiday (I worked each day during that three day weekend). I needed a day off anyway since the last month was quite stressful.

Lunchtime Politics

There was a rare, yet interesting political discussion at the lunch table today. A few of us got into a debate over a law passed recently in Connecticut banning schools from selling soft drinks. Coke and Pepsi vending machines have overtaken the Connecticut schools and according to the state, schools should promote better eating habits and a healthy lifestyle instead of selling out to the soft drink industry.

The group at the table arguing the appropriateness of this law spanned the political spectrum. Although I am more conservative than I was a few years ago, I still was by far the most liberal person at the table. Next on the spectrum was RytheRed, also a Michigan grad. He is more moderate, but also more politically active (he was in the student government at UM). On the slightly conservative end was UNICorn. We also had a staunch Libertarian and a narrow minded conservative who only cares about one issue. His issue is paying as little in taxes as possible and I will call him StereotypicalActuary. RoopDogg should be able to figure out whom I am talking about. This guy is always the center of obscure lunch table conversations, though they are usually slanted towards work topics (until we flag him for talking too much about work).

I believed that this law is appropriate. I knew people in my high school that drank between 4-6 20oz sodas every day. The kids do not realize how terrible all that sugar is for your body and how all that caffeine can cause a terrible addiction later in life. I know people at work today that are seriously addicted to soda. They will develop diseases later in life like diabetes because of their soda intake, which are a huge financial cost to society. If the schools are too focused on selling out for extra cash instead of promoting healthy habits, then the government needs to step in and do something. Adults are capable of suffering the consequences of their actions, but I don’t believe that kids know better and their parents are not at school to monitor their eating/drinking habits. Banning soda sales may be excessive, but I have no problem with this new law.

The Libertarian at the table hates government. If he had his way, we’d probably all live on the honor system and pay no taxes. He was against legislating how the schools should behave, even if they were looking out for the health of the children. He has a point if you ignore the damage the children were doing to their bodies by drinking several 20oz sodas a day. If the children were only buying 1-2 sodas a wee from the vending machines at school, then I agree that this law was a bit overreaching.

StereotypicalActuary felt this was a gross misuse of his taxes. By passing this law, his tax money was being wasted because of the money it would cost to enforce the law. I don’t think the cost to enforce this law would be high, so that was a stupid argument. If the government wanted to discourage soda sales, StereotypicalActuary thinks there should be a large consumption tax offset by a reduction in state income taxes. Of course, his selfish reason for this opinion is that he doesn’t drink much soda, so he wouldn’t have to pay much of the tax. Furthermore, he believes in regressive taxes like this one would be since his share of the tax payment would be lower. Someone who makes $500k a year is not likely to drink ten times more soda than someone who makes $50k per year, so his proposed consumption tax would be covered mostly by poorer Americans. I strongly disagreed that this was fair, but we’ll never see eye-to-eye on any tax issue because I am not a selfish asshole. But I digress. I’m not really this closed minded about political opinions that are different than mine. Seriously, I’m not. I actually love debating political topics with StereotypicalActuary from time to time, even though we will never agree on anything.

I don’t remember RytheRed or UNICorn adding any controversial opinions, but the conversation was ten hours ago. I do remember that they found my argument with StereotypicalActuary to be quite humorous. UNICorn is welcome to comment with his thoughts if he wishes.

Happy Birthday RoopDogg!!

Woo Hoo! I am not the Most Intimidating Interviewer!

In some recent posts, I have mentioned that I am apparently an intimidating interviewer at work. Well, apparently, FlyingV is much more intimidating. He relayed a hilarious story to me yesterday that I just have to share with all of you. Feel free to point and laugh at FlyingV the next time you see him.

A few weeks ago, FlyingV phone screened a candidate who was looking for a job (don't remember if it was for full-time or internship). FlyingV thought the candidate was actually quite good, so he started to challenge the guy a little more. He asked tough questions and tougher follow ups just to see how the guy would respond with a little "pressure". Apparently, the candidate just gave up and quit near the end because he gave a very terse response to FlyingV's last question and was clearly frustrated with how the interview was going. After the interview, FlyingV felt bad because he probably pushed the kid a little harder than he needed to. However, we ended up bringing the candidate in for a home office interview since he was pretty strong (according to FlyingV).

The candidate was in the office recently and passed along his version of the FlyingV's interview to a couple of the people he met with at the office. This guy mentioned that the interviews weren't nearly as difficult compared to his original phone screen and that he was sure he bombed his interview with FlyingV and would not make it to the next stage of the interview process because it went so poorly and he felt so stupid/depressed. In fact, THE CANDIDATE CALLED HIS MOM AFTER THE PHONE SCREEN BECAUSE HE WAS SO UPSET! FlyingV made a college guy break down and call his mom because he was so intimidating in an interview. How hilarious is that?

We don't try to intimidate the people we interview since we need to be able to recruit the candidates we like to actually accept the job. FlyingV was just pushing the candidate a little more because the guy was a decent candidate. FlyingV is not really an asshole and doesn't normally make people call their mothers (hopefully), but that doesn't make the story any less funny. The kid called his mom! Seriously! One of the best stories I have heard in a while.

I don't know if the candidate will receive a job offer, but I want to be present if/when he finally meets FlyingV in person. I'll be taking wagers on the brawl that will commence shortly after the meeting. :)