mr. blackandwhite

B's increase chances of making playoffs to 85.5%

With last night's win over the Leafs, the B's have improved their chances of making the playoffs to 85.5%. I like that. I like it a lot. Gotta love Sports Club Stats.

This last week has been pretty rough to take for those of us who are fans of the Bruins, a team that plays this mysterious game called 'hockey'. The end result of the games showed lots of 'L's' and 'O's' in there but not too many 'W's'.

It seemed like The B's could not score a goal if their life depended on it. Well their playoff life depended on it so it's great to take these last two games against Toronto.

It's kind of sad, whenever I mention the NHL, people give me a funny look and a sarcastic response. 'Hockey?? What's that?' they will say.

It's that game that's played with a little rubber biscuit, blades and sticks. It's also played with a lot of guts and it's championship is the toughest to win in all of professional sports, in my opinion at least.

Last night the B's got a little closer to making it into the playoffs and are now tied for 7th place. Washington is only two points out though, so the room for error is minimal. Five games left and the Quest for the Cup begins. Let's keep it going Boston. We all want to go on a Quest.

Life goes by so fast..

Our youngest has given up on drinking her milk from a bottle and has moved up to sippy cups. She can do so many things now and is doing more and more every day. That goes for the older kids too. They are getting visits from the tooth fairy on an almost weekly basis because their baby teeth are coming out and they are into drawing and working on their letters. I can see them growing up right in front of me. It is awesome. But at the same time it is a little bitter sweet too because I know that these 'little kid' moments will soon exist only as memories so I try to live in the moment and enjoy them as much as I can.

Soon the diapers will be gone and the baby toys will hold no interest. It is always on to new things for them and it is exciting. I love to see them grow but sometimes I wish they would slow down a little... well, you parents out there know what I'm saying.

Boy am I a barrel of laughs today or what?

{mood: Kenny Chesney - There Goes My Life}

Hoppy Easter!

There's a moment of relative calm here (the kids are watching TV) so I thought I'd come on here while I had a chance and say Happy Easter to everybody that stops by. Hope your holiday is a good one and if you don't celebrate Easter, have a great Sunday!

The kids woke us up at an insane hour this morning. I don't even know what time it was to tell you the truth, it was wicked early though. 5 something? We told them to come back at 6:30. They were back at 6:25. They just couldn't stand it.

My Wife and I stumbled downstairs as the kids followed the Bunny Trail of jellybeans and then proceeded to ransack the living room looking for the stuff the Easter Bunny had left for them. These kids are not very good at finding stuff. Unless an egg or a toy was right out in the open, they couldn't see it. Maybe that Bunny is too good at hiding stuff.

They eventually found it all in the end, with some assistance from my Wife and I, all except for one thing, which remains hidden. I guess that Easter Rabbit is just too good! Either that or he was just really sleepy when he was hiding stuff last night..

Happy Easter!

Update:
My Wife informs me that our kids initially woke us up at the ungodly time of 2:30 AM. ACK!

Too cool for school..

I got my new iPod Classic last night and I am totally loving it. I upgraded from an older 3rd gen iPod and I am blown away by how much stuff you can do with this new iPod. This thing is too cool for school.

Before I could use the new iPod Classic I had to get a USB 2.0 PCMCIA card for my old Titanium Powerbook so that I could connect the Classic to my computer. I got a Belkin USB 2.0 card, (model F5U222) and it works great. Zero problems. Just plugged it in to the cardbus slot, no drivers to install. Done. To sync the iPod with my computer I have to plug in an external power supply into the USB card (the power supply is included with the card). Plugging in the external power supply is not exactly 'elegant', but it gets the job done so I am happy with that. Better than buying a new computor!

It is so great having all my songs back on my iPod. No more turning songs off to fit new ones on. So awesome. You'd probably be shocked if I told you some of the songs I had to turn off. Well, they're all back now.

Welcome back podcasts! I can't wait to listen to my old favorite podcasts again and to find some new ones too.

If you listen to any cool podcasts, feel free to send me some suggestions, especially any that are music or sports related!

One thing I could not help but note, and it's not really bad, just an observation, is that you get zero accessories with the new iPod. My old 3rd gen iPod came with a dock, earphones, extra ear-bud covers, a wall charger, a protective case, the charger/connection cable and a bag to hold stuff. The new iPod comes with a usb cable, earphones, and a univeral dock insert, which by the way, does not fit in my old 3rd gen dock. All the stuff that used to just come with the iPod you now have to shell out extra $$$ for. In Apple's defense the new iPods are less expensive than they used to be, so I guess in the end it all evens out.

Ok I have to go back to geeking out with my new toy. The iPod is definitely one of the best presents I've ever received. I'd have to rate it either as #1 or a close second after the Skyway T/A BMX bike I got when I was a kid. The Skyway was (and is) a pretty cool gift. Old school BMX, yo.

Save your soul from the evil power of Rock and Roll

I got nothing today so I will point you to this highly entertaining, educational and yes, enlightening tune that I found via The Daily Cha Cha.

Queen vs. Satan (lobsterdust’s satanic reverses)

"Did you know that playing Queen’s ‘Another One Bites The Dust’ backwards reveals satanic messages designed to corrupt and enslave the young minds who listen to it?"

Damn. And I have always liked Queen too. All these years, knowingly listening to satanic rock and roll and heavy metal... I am so goddamn screwed. I blame K-Mart for selling me those Iron Maiden records back in the day.

K-Mart: The Devil's Playground. I know it. You know it.

{mood: Hank III - Medley: Satan Is Real/Straight To Hell, Butthole Surfers - Sweat Loaf}

Um, 'scuse me, Mike? Boston??

Hey what's up? Hey I just got the e-mail from the Social D mailing list to let me know you're coming around to do some solo dates.

Sweet!!

Except for one problem, I don't see any Boston dates in the list of shows. I see Philly. I see NY. I see NJ. I don't see Boston.

I see a couple open dates in there though, so I really hope you can squeeze us in. Please come to Boston for the Springtime. Or Providence.. Hartford even. Though that would be a haul, I would do it.

Thanks Mike.

What ya live for

Happy St. Pats!

{mood: Hank III and Assjack - What You Live For}

Computers continue to suck..

I'm really hatin' on technology this week. All my gear at home is getting old and outdated. It happens. That's just how it is, but that does not make it any more pleasant when you become the one who is outdated.

The problem is, all my stuff still works fine, it's just, OLD.

I have a 3rd gen iPod that I use constantly. I've replaced the battery in it once and now it's starting to show signs of battery death again. Not only that, but it's full. It can't fit any more songs. I am constantly turning songs off in iTunes so that new songs that I add will fit on the iPod.

Rather than replace the battery again, I figured this time I'd just go for one of the new, spiffy iPods. They are 4 times bigger than my current iPod and the battery lasts way longer.

Thanks to my extremely thoughtful Wife, I got a bunch of Apple gift cards for my birthday a while ago, enough to add up to a new iPod, so today we trekked out to the Apple store in Holyoke, MA (a friggin haul) to pick one up.

Bad news. The new iPods only work with USB 2.0, something my old reliable TiBook does not have. Thankfully I realized this and I didn't trade in my old, still working, iPod for a new iPod that looks cool but can't be used with my computor. It was disappointing, but better than the alternative, a cool iPod with no tunes on it.

So in the near future I'm going to be trying a somewhat expensive experiment. I'm going to get a USB 2.0 PCMIA card for the PowerBook and hope it works ok with the, eventual, new iPod Classic..

Or I could just take the guy at the Apple store's suggestion and buy a new compewtor. Yah, right.

If you're wondering why I'm not posting as much...

Yeah so it's not like I was posting every day or anything but if you ever wonder why I'm not posting as much, see above image. This is my :-)

Thanks

Yup. M-hmm.

Hey whats up you. Wow could this blog possibly get any more stale? Could it get any stale-er? Is stale-er a word? If this blog were any stale-er than it is now, it would be a crouton and you could put it on your salad to make it crunchy. Salad is good. I like buffalo chicken salad. Do you? Hey it's lunchtime!

So I'm going to change up the design here soon and it's going to totally rawk. Fully AND totally. And that's a lot. It's going to be the website equivalent of when I saw Dokken and Judas Priest back in 1985. Well, actually that level of rawk will be kind of hard to live up to. That rawk level would be a pretty big achievement. Because I was like in the 7th row on the floor for that concert and Rob Halford rode his Harley out onto the stage before Priest played Diamonds and Rust. Or was it Victim of Changes? Maybe it was Turbo Lover.. Fuck I can't remember. But, as far as the site goes, it will have some different colors and stuff soon. Because this current design says 'winter' and I am sick of winter. There you go.

The B's lost AGAIN last night. God following that team is an exercise in frustration. At least they are still clinging to that 7th place playoff spot. Just because .500 hockey gets you into the contest does not mean you have to actually PLAY .500 hockey guys. Geez.

At least we have the C's. The Celts are all good times and happiness right now. The playoffs should be good. Hopefully the C's are not a flop once the real games start but the way this team is made up, I don't think that will happen. A 17th banner in the Garden would be really nice. Plus then people all over the U.S. could hate Boston some more. It's the new national fad, which we all truly appreciate.

Alright enough blabbing. I've got some leftover hamburger helper here that is feeling lonely. Have a good Friday!

{mood - Turbonegro: Locked Down, Hank III and Assjack: Disrespectful}

Don't be dumb like this idiot (who is actually me.)

Posted to the Mac Office Entourage Usenet Group:

---
Version: 2008
Operating System: Mac OS X 10.4 (Tiger)
Processor: Power PC
Email Client: pop

1. After seeing the [MS Office 2008] 12.0.1 update was available I continually tried to do 'AutoUpdate' from the help menu. No updates found. I eventually downloaded the stand alone installer and ran that.

2. Admittedly, my own error, forgot, did not pay close enough attention, etc, I forgot to turn off Office Notifications before running the update. This left me with Entourage still at version 12.0

To fix it I had to log out, log in with shift key, un-install office 2008, re-install office 2008, run the 2.1.1 updater and then run the 12.0.1 updater. Now Entourage was at the right version. Maybe the next updater that comes out should quit all Office Apps and background apps like the notification engine??

3. Anxious to see if sync duplication for calendar events is fixed, I re-enabled sync in Entourage, stupidly forgetting that I had previously deleted my entourage calendar from iCal. Thus all of my entourage calendar entries were deleted when the sync occurred. What a disaster.

Thankfully I had a backup of an old iCal calendar database so I re-imported that into iCal's Entourage calendar, which then synced back to Office 2008 Entourage, so I got most of my calendar events back. However, after the sync, the timezone for all my events was, once again, set to Casablanca, Monrovia... Ug. Thankfully I had an Applescript provided by a very helpful person from this board that changed Monrovia timezones to Eastern timezones.. I have not seen any sync duplicates yet but it has only been a short time. I guess we'll see what happens on that one..

And now I will vent:
I realize that some of these issues are considered to be 'user error' but just the same I am still very frustrated by this experience. I was chugging along on Office v.X for years with no problems. I wish I had never updated to Office 2008. It has NOT been worth the hassle.

I'm now seriously thinking of just ditching MS Office and using the built in Apple apps because this is not worth the time and irritation.
---

The moral of this story:
COMPUTERS SUCK> BACK UP YOUR SHIT.

Or, as my Wife says, 'That's why I keep all my contact info and calendar stuff in a dayplanner.'

8-2? WHAH??

I'm pretty sure the score of last night's Leafs / B's game ended in an 8-2 win for the Leafs. I keep checking the score and I can see what it says, but it's just not registering properly in my brain.

EIGHT to TWO??? What is going on with this Bruins team? How do you allow 10 goals in a game and then a few nights later, EIGHT??

I was pretty confident that the B's were going to make the playoffs a few days ago. Yeah. That feeling's pretty much over now.. I hope the B's can get things squared away tomorrow against the Caps.. Jeez.

At least we have the C's. They've got their playoff spot all locked in. It's gonna be good to see The Green in the playoffs this year.

Happy Friday!

{mood - Misfits: We are 138}

/Breathes

Hey what's goin on web browsers?

I was extremely relieved to finally get the word yesterday that Randy Moss had signed a multi-year deal with the Patriots. (and going back to a few years ago, who would have thought I'd ever be saying those words?)

When free-agency started last Friday, I expected Stallworth to be gone and I expected Samuel to be gone, so it was not that big of a deal for me to see those guys leave the team, but I fully expected Moss to be back with The Patriots in '08 and when he was not signed sealed and delivered at 12:01 AM on Friday morning, I immediately started fretting. I then continued fretting and fretting and fretting. Moss' free-agency status was in the back of my mind all weekend. What a silly thing to be worried over! (Well, not if you're a Patriots fan..)

Anyway. I was able to breathe freely again on Monday when the word came down that Moss had signed with The Patriots and I can now look forward to three years of Brady to Moss highlights. With Moss and Welker remaining in the fold at receiver, I expect our offense to remain very productive and I have no doubt that the Patriots will fill in around the holes that were created by free-agency.

Good to have Bruschi back too. I did not think he would really retire.. Not with last season's unfinished business still on the plate. Junior Seau's status remains up in the air and I remain ambivalent about it.

I'm hoping to see receiver Jabar Gaffney stay with The Pats. Still waiting for the end result on that one..

IN BILL WE TRUST

On an unrelated note, the Washington Capitals scored a TD and a FG against the B's last night. Um, what the hell was that!? Tim Thomas was having a party in the B's net and everybody on the Caps was invited.

Ok The B's won 6 straight prior to last night so they were bound to lose one. Time to start a new streak tonight.