Southernisms

A coworker of mine has three buckeyes on his desk.

We were having a conversation about sayings like "don't look a gift horse in the mouth" when he asked me what you would be looking for in a horse's mouth. I said I didn't know and he told me how you can tell a horse's age by looking in its mouth.

A woman who was standing nearby doing inventory asked "Have you told him about the buckeyes? If you give them away it's bad luck. Like if I give you one now, you will have to keep it forever or you'll have back luck."

"That doesn't make sense," I replied.

She turns to my coworker and says "Give me one of those," and points at his three buckeyes.

He hands her one and she hands it to me and says "now you have to keep it forever or you'll have bad luck."

My coworked chimed in and said "but now you will have bad luck for giving it to him!"

Then I stunned him by saying, "Didn't you just give it to her?"

Hoy Knows Sports

Hoy is really a sports expert. The only reason he was so wrong on the World Series predictions was because his judgment was clouded by his being a Phillies fan. Of course that is enough to make someone wonder...

So I kept track of some of his football picks to prove that other than Fan Blindness, he knows what he's talking about.

1. Green Bay Packers -10 at Tampa Bay Buccaneers. I absolutely love this game, even though I would like 9 points a heck of a lot more than the 10 this game is currentiy sitting at.

Result: Tampa Bay 38, Green Bay 28. Even with his generous 9 point line this is a 19 point miss.

2. Miami Dolphins +10.5 at New England Cheatriots.

Result: New England 27, Miami 17. Nailed it! Cleared it by a half point. Niiice. But I think your fan blindness is creeping in here.

3. Houston Texans +9 at Indianapolis Colts.

Result: Indianapolis 20, Houston 17. He was all over this one by 6.

4. New Orleans Saints -13 vs Carolina Panthers.

Result: New Orleans 30, Carolina 20. Damn those field goals.

5. San Francisco 49ers -4.5 vs. the Tennessee Titans.

Tennessee 34, San Francisco 27. Whoops.

Now you can look at these picks and say he got two right out of five, that's almost half! But he picked two favorites giving points who both lost on the field, and squeeked one in by a hook.

So it's not just the Phillies, and not just Baseball. I'm not claiming to be able to pick any better, because my Fantasy Football results prove I know nothing about pro football.

But Hoy's just as wrong as me, and seems to think he's some kind of expert that can pump out PAGES AND PAGES of this garbage. Just shut up already.

Spoiled Rotten

Are people tougher than they were 50 years ago, or weaker? Seems like all the old-time Olympic records have been absolutely eclipsed by modern records. The modern athlete is faster and stronger than his earlier counterparts. Even without performance enhancements.

So why do I keep hearing the stupidest fucking term ever when people talk about the world series? The phrase "three-days rest" has been overused so much I may vomit if I hear it again.

Until fairly recently there was no such term as "three-days rest." Because three days was the NORMAL rest time. All teams used four-man pitching rotations with three days between every start. Not to mention that most of this time was before the advent of frequent relief pitching. So all pitchers had three days between nine innings of pitching, more if the game went into extra innings.

Now a guy has an "effective" start if he pitches at least six innings every five days? Did all major league pitchers become spoiled rotten little wimps? They're not pussies, they're professional athletes.

Both of these pitching staffs will have a hundred days rest after the series is over, and I'm thinking that will be after tonight.

Update

An update about me? Okay, you asked for it.

I'm still enjoying World of Warcraft. My guild is pretty cool and laid back, nobody gets upset about much. One guy was pissing people off so I decided to be the bad guy and kick him out. That's me, asshole-at-arms.

Fantasy Football is a train wreck. Not fun. Don't do it. If you want some advice on it, here goes; everyone is always wrong. Always. No exceptions.

I upgraded my netbook to Windows7. There are some things I like, some things I don't. It's slightly unstable, I did get a bluescreen once when looking at some video from a networked hard drive. It's very, very pretty. Cool sells, and it is cool. I predict it will sell. Big time.

Work is still very up in the air. The plant shuts down on Thanksgiving. There will be 15 or so jobs left for people here after that, and there are around 26 people working here now. So I have a shot. Better than most I think. My closest coworker is interviewing with "another automotive company" today. I don't want him to go because he is my closest friend at work, but I want what's best for him and if he goes that's more chance that everyone else around here can stay.

I'm going to try out Ooma for VoIP phone service. I am currently using Vonage and Ooma reviews make it sound better than Vonage for less money. It's worth a try, I can always go back to Vonage. Thanks to Google Voice my number will not change. GV rocks. Get an invite if you can.

I still play poker occasionally, baby stakes of course. According to PTR I am up $1 overall on Full Tilt. Go me. Good thing they don't show Poker Stars. Whew!

Other than that nothing is going on. Very boring life, but I like it.

Go Yankees!

Mr. Wrong AND Mr. Quiet

Hoyazo, that man of a thousand words (especially when ten will do) has made a lot of noise about the Phillies, especially after they won game one of the World Series.

Now he's silent.

Let's review his picks for the series.

He picked the Yankees to win game one. Wrong, but he sure seemed glad about it.

He picked the Phillies to win game two. Wrong again.

He picked the Yankees to win game three. Finally a winner. Hope he didn't go broke on games one and two.

Game four, he picked the Phillies. Wrong again, all the while totally silent.

He has the Phillies winning game five. He better be right or there is no game six to pick.

As far as where my allegiance lies, there shouldn't be much doubt. I will point to the most impressive play in game 4; Johnny Damon steals second in the top of the ninth. The play is not even close so the man who covers second base due to the Teixeira shift is actually the third baseman, and he moves forward to cut off the throw. Damon sees this and takes third with no play because NOBODY IS COVERING THIRD. Lidge can't bounce a curveball because Damon scores on a wild pitch, so Alex Rodriguez lines a fastball into the left field corner.

They just do everything right. They're the Yankees.