Ryan's Currently Unnamed Blog

I'm on the last page and click on the "Submit Order" button to get my tickets...

Connection Timed Out.

I panic.. and hit it again... Connnection Timed Out...

I check other websites... MY connection is OK... its on their side. FUCK!

And I only have 3 minutes to complete the transaction... before the tickets go *poof* and are handed off to someone else.

About 10 minutes later, still franticly hitting the button and hoping... and finally get a page saying sorry, you took too long and your tickets are gone.

BAH... I so need to start a ticket company that is sane.

Tags: White Sox - baseball - playoffs - TicketMaster

Last week, tickets for the American League Championship Series went on Sale, and I managed to score tickets to Game 1... I was nervous to write about it.. because we hadn't yet beat Boston... Last Night, the Angels beat the Yankees to determine who it is that we are gonna be playing. Personally, would have preferred to have gotten the yankees, but i can't complain at all....

Yesterday was filled with running around doing errands, one of which was heading downtown to pickup my tickets for tonights game... sure.. they are upper deck.. but I don't really care. We just won our first playoff series since 1917, and will be going back to the ALCS for the first time since 1993. Normally, I don't get too wrapped up in baseball. Sure, I follow the White Sox.. check the standings.. see how they are doing... go to a bunch of games to have fun... but I don't live and die with the team. But this is different... This is special... And I'll do anything in my power to not miss out when it comes to this.

When I went down to pick up my tickets, I couldn't help but get giddy.. fucking GIDDY... at the sight of the stadium, the marquee, and once I had my tickets in my little hands... omg.

So... in a couple hours, I'll be leaving to be on my way to make it there. Planning on getting there as soon as the gates open, just to soak up as much of the atmosphere as possible. Opening Day always has a buzz to it... like anything is possible, filled with potential. Today, the weather is gonna be similar to an opening day...
MAYBE in the 60s.. probably down to the low 50s by the end of the game... but the difference is.. we ARE making that potential a reality... just four wins away from having a world series in Chicago... a fucking WORLD SERIES... and it won't be the Cubs.. it will be my White Sox. I've suffered years and years of being the red headed stepchild of the city... but now it just might be our turn. Either way.. I'll be witnessing it.. from my seat.. 6 rows up in the upper deck... I'm just praying for a win... and while I'm at it.. gonna get a little greedy.. and pray for us to win this series, for me to get tickets to a World Series game, against either the Cardinals or the Astros.. and as long as I'm wishing.. lets win that game and the whole thing too...

But.. whatever the outcome... I'll be happy tonight... well, unless we lose 15-0.. but.. there's no way that's happening with the Angels limping in after a battle with the Yankees.
GO GO WHITE SOX!!

Tags: White Sox - baseball - playoffs

Her act was far more refined then i was expecting... Once she started and beckoned to her backup dancers to come on stage I knew that I was in for a show. Her music is kinda hard to classify as it definately club type music, but it has some heavier influences and witty lyrics. She's playing again next Friday at the Mix and I'm gonna do what i can to get back out to see her. Was originally planning on but I'm rethinking it now that I have SOOOO much going on... not sure if I'll be able to swing it just yet.

Stay tuned for further concert news!

Tags: Sid Maudlin

What a night! Three bands that I love, in an arena, with floor tickets!

First up was Autolux. Saw them open for The Ravenonnettes a few months ago at the Double Door, and here they are on a big stage playing in front of a big crowd! They sounded good, not as good as the double door, but with a large environment, and being the first band... i didn't expect the sound to be all that great. The general perception of them in the crowd ranged from "these guys REALLY suck", to "I'm Bored", to "Wow, that drummer is REALLY good". So, they weren't all that well received, but that's not too surprising, since they have a mellow feel to their music, and the crowd was mainly there for NIN and Queens...

After a short break, it was time for Queens of the Stone Age to play and they were tight... really really tight. There were people who were there JUST to see Queens, and actually left the pit before NIN. Josh was his good old self, ripping on the audience and having a great time of it. They actually did a fantastic job of warming up the place and getting people involved. They played more of their older stuff then I had expected and Nick Oliveri's abscence, didn't really seem to impact the power of their music as much as I thought it might. I was REALLY glad to see that they ended up opening for NIN, mainly because I missed them when they came through and played at the Metro (i think) a couple months ago.

Finally, it came time for Nine Inch Nails! The stage setup was (understandably) FAR more impressive then when they played at the Congress Theater a couple months ago. The whole set is a blur, but once the lights went out, and the old familiar push of the crowd toward the stage started, I knew I was in for one hell of a rollercoaster ride. I think that the pit was actually rougher at the Congress, but its always hard to tell and that impression varies depending on where you are standing. Surprisingly, the highlight to me was 'Right Where It Belongs'... maybe because it came about three quarters of the way through and the break was really welcomed, or perhaps it was because of the large projected images on a screen that surrounded the stage. Starting with happy pictures of suburbia, and families and pets and slowly shifting to business and corporate images and then getting into military and death and the trademark nature footage, this time of some sort of monkey hunting down a flamingo-like bird from a large flock. The pinnacle for me, was when they showed a 15 second clip or so, of George W. Bush, in a tux, dancing with his wife... of course drawing a large round of boos, and two extended middle fingers and a "Fuck you, mothafucker!" from me.

Again, I left wanting to hear "Something I can never have", but with auch a catalog to play from... that's a lot to expect. Was surprised to hear Suck and Reptile again... but the old standards, mixed in with the new tracks from With Teeth made for an incredible show. If you have an opprotunity to see this show, "GO!"

Tags: Autolux - Queens of the Stone Age - NIN - Nine Inch Nails - Concerts - Music

First off, been on a bit of a concert kick again... Maybe two weeks ago, I caught a show by the Minibosses at the Double Door. Was tons of fun seeing their first show in Chicago... nothing better then a hearing old school Nintendo songs, played in a rock/metal style. So much fun.

Last Night, I saw Sid Maudlin again at the double door. Was really impressed by her, and considering going to see her again next week on the 14th at Mix. Can definately see her succeeding... hopefully her following grows. Also, saw Three Dollar Bill and they were good, but I was a little bit disappointed. Last time I saw them, guess I was just more surprised by them. Definately not bad, and I'll still keep an eye out for them. Maybe I was just tired.

Other shows upcoming, Nine Inch Nails Friday at Allstate Arena. Hell, yeah... floor tickets, gonna be awesome. I love how it says, 'NO MOSH/NO SURF' on the tickets... yeah.. right... On the 15th, have tickets to see the Dresden Dolls at the Metro. Looking forward to seeing them headlining, and shows at the Metro are always good, despite this being All-Ages. Saw them with Nine Inch Nails at the Congress a few months ago, and definately worth seeing again. The 18th, is Slipknot at the Congress.. going to the Tuesday night show.. and looking forward to finally seeing them live. Should be tons of fun. Finally, the 28th is Insane Clown Posse at the Riviera. Gonna see their Halloween show, and been looking forward to seeing them again too.

Yeah, yeah.. go ahead and laugh if you want for any of the shows I'm seeing... Anyone who knows me at all knows that my musical tastes are diverse and I like a lot of different music, and I'm quite used to people ripping on a band that I like. Frankly, I don't care.

On another note... My White Sox have put together an INCREDIBLE season. Winning their division for the first time since 2000, best record in the American League, best in Baseball for much of the season, and have never spent a single day anywhere but in first place from wire to wire. Unbelievable. Sadly, for a number of reasons, I was only able to go to a couple games this year. Could have been worse. Due to some things going on at work, i wasn't able to get tickets to see them play Boston, and I've TOTALLY regretted it. But, at least I've been able to watch the games on TV... and they have been incredible. A blowout, and an incredible come from behind win. Especially amazing since we haven't won a home playoff game since 1959. Now its on to Boston for 2 games, hopefully they will win at least one of those, and we won't have to play a deciding game 5 here at home. Just wanna finish it now, and move on to the League Championship Series. Speaking of which.. tickets for that just went on sale today at noon. Tried to get tickets to all 4 home games, but only managed to get tickets to Game 1. Yeah, its in the upper deck.. but OMG!!!! Barring a huge collapse, I WILL be seeing my White Sox, playing for a spot in the World Series... UN-fucking-believeable.

The other news... is that I no longer work downtown and I'm seeking other employment. It certainly has been busy recently, and finding a new job is a priority. I of course appreciate anyone who can refer any positions to me. I'm sure I'll find something that is better for me, but things are really up in the air at the moment. Wheee.

Anyway... I should have more time now to write here... I'm really hopeful that everything will go well. Things have been a little bit crazy... but I'm actually REALLY relieved to not have to worry about the old job any longer. I didn't really realize until a couple weeks ago just how much stress it was putting into my life, and really.. I didn't need it. Just have to move on and find something... and realatively soon.

That's all for now...

Tags: White Sox - Sid Maudlin

OK.. Ok.. I promise not to spout out about them that much more..

But... messed around with a couple videos from my camera (that thankfully survived the 'tootsie-roll incident') that turned out decent.

A short clip of 'Everybody Loves Jill'. (540 KB, 24 sec)

Mostly Fred during 'I Know It Shows'. (1.80 MB, 1:16)

Same video, higher quality of Fred's facial expressions during 'I Know It Shows'. (4.41 MB, 31 sec)

'Hurricane Party'. (854 KB, 36 sec)

Betcha didn't know how dangerous our roads are! Its nearly impossible to travel anywhere around the state without encountering a construction zone. And, thank the heavens that we are have a leader with the foresight to protect us from these terribly dangerous areas of our roads.

Of course, I'm being very facetious. I must have missed the press release but back in March our fearless leader Governor Rod R. Blagojevich has a plan to protect us.

"Because an alarming 46 drivers, passengers and workers in highway work-related accidents in last year died", the state is cracking down, and hard. First, they increased the fines for work-zone infractions. Your standard speeding violation in Illinois costs you $75. In a work zone, the fine was doubled to $150. Apparently, that's not enough to keep crazy Illinois drivers in check, so they are now bumping the minimum fine up to $375. That's right... double fines isn't sufficent, so let's try a factor of FIVE! This ought to be a good money maker for the state and will go a long way toward solving the state's budget crisis! If you are going 46 in a construction zone, you can get nailed with a hefty fine, but its even worse if you are more then 20 over. Since most traffic on the expressways move at 70-80, regardless of the laws, it shouldn't be too tough to find someone going more the 65 (20 over) in a work zone. Under this new law, those people pose such a threat to society that they get arrested and get to enjoy the finest hospitatily of the state.

And repeat offenders will consider that getting off cheap! A second offense used to carry a stiff $300 fine, but that's now a minimum of $750!! That'll teach em!

Read more!

Imagine yourself at a baseball game. Enjoying the weather and relaxing. A fly ball is hit towards you, what do you do? I'm not talking one of those line drive laser beam shots that can take your head off, just a high pop fly. If you're like most people, you probably try to catch it. Especially if your sitting in the outfield, and its a home run ball.

Well, yesterday, the Cubs were playing in Cincinnati and there was a long fly to center. It would have been a home run, if not for the efforts of Corey Patterson. He reached over the wall and pulled back a home run. Oh, and he also saved these two idiots.

This picture ran nationally in most of the news media. In other news, two Cincinnati men were found dead today, initial cause of death is believed to be embarrassment, but the authorities haven't ruled out ridicule.

Oh, and the Cubs still suck. Phew! Almost made a whole baseball post without being negative about the Cubs. By the way, the White Sox still have the best record in the American League.

Tags: baseball - sports - homerun - Cubs - funny

Holy Crap!

100 Years of Illinois Basketball, and they will be playing in their first ever National Championship game on Monday night, against the impending winner of the Michigan State/North Carolina game.

Part of me would like to play MSU since they are undoubtly the lessor team, but we played them twice already this year and beat them, and the never-ending self-doubt that's been ingrained in my head as a Chicago/UofI fan knows that a loss to lowly MSU in the Championship Game would be waaaay too painful to deal with.

So, the leaves the matchup with the only powerhouse left that Illinois hasn't played yet, North Carolina. If we had to lose, losing to North Carolina is respectable at least.

But either way, its a season to remeber for a lifetime. Like the first time the Bulls won it all. Sure, the next couple were nice too, but the first one will never be forgotten.

I picked Illinois to win in my bracket, but then again I have had them going to the Final Four at least 7 of the last 10 years. And always been let down.

It took 100 years to get here, but... wow... just wow!

Ok, the pain is subsiding and I'm finally able to collect my thoughts over the past weekend.

Haven't written about sports much here, mainly because I know I'll get ripped on from certain people who see sports as the biggest waste of time, energy and money. I have many interests and many of you only know one side of me. So, first.. I'm going to defend myself:

To the intellectiuals who read this: To me, athletic contests are very symbolic of the epic stuggles evident in every level of our lives. Sure, many seemingly pointless events add up to mean big things in the scope of a game, a season, or even larger scale. Its a release of aggression, and an escape from the mundane everyday events. No, it doesn't consume my life, but I definately follow my teams, even more so when they are doing very well.

To the artistic and creative: There's a tremendous amount of imagery and style. There's pagentry all through College Sports. Sure College Band music is geeky, but it also unites a mass of people and draws them together and sets mood and adds to the drama. Yes. Drama. There's is suspense in a close game, which definately rivals some of the best written scripts in existance.

>To the technical: There are TONS of things to get excited about from a technical perspective. From the architecture of the huge stadiums to the booming sound systems. From fireworks and huge Hi Definition Scoreboards to On screen enhancements like the "First-and-10" marker. And the physics of hitting a Baseball or throwing a ball through a hoop from 20 feet away.

To the political: hmmm.. well.. There's the underdog factor! (And yes, all my political friends by definition are underdogs!) Being lucky enough to not live in one of the 'Big' sports markets that have domitiated recently like Boston and New York, or going to a Big Ten School that hasn't done much of anything for the 10 or 15 years before I went. The Underdog is definately how I would describe 'my' teams.

Underdogs... until this year, that is. You see, I went to the University of Illinois and was lucky enough to see the basketball team win unexpectedly. Every year since then, Illinois put out a 'decent' team and was competitive, but this year... this year they stuck gold!

Going into this weekend, Illinois has been the unanimous number one team in the nation. That may not sound like it means much, but when there's 120 or so teams all trying get there and some REAL perenial powerhouses out there that's impressive for us. Add in that we have held that for about 2 months now and that we won every single one of our first 29 games, and you have an unbelieveable season in the making.

Trust me when I say this stuff doesn't happen often, and it was happening to my school! I even saw some of those guys when they were freshmen. As Seniors now, its my last connection to the team and how far they came.

But regardless... the point of all this is... we were playing our last game of the season this past weekend. One game away from perfection. All Illinois had to do was go into Columbus, OH and beat Ohio State. Lowly Ohio State that isn't even allowed to play in the postseason due to recruiting violations.

And yes, you guessed it (or heard alreadY)... Illinois lost. By one point. On a shot with 5 seconds left after leading the entire game. The pain and disappointment was unbelieveable. It took a while for the shock to wear off, but now that the dust has cleared, I realize its OK. I mean, sure to win every game would have been a dream, but every now and then, each and everyone of us needs a wake up call in some form or another. Some reminder that we aren't perfect and we can't be complacent.

And, I'd much rather have the let down come during the regular season, then during the Big Ten Tournament or the NCAA Tournament.

I'm used to this feeling of disappointment when it comes to all of my sports teams, but never have they been so close to something only to lose it. Now I guess I can truly empathize with all those silly Cub fans that had their heart ripped out in those 2003 Playoffs.

At least they had Mr. Bartman as a scapegoat.

So, I have been working late lately and have mostly been on the 6:19PM train out of the city. (More clues for you stalkers out there!). Well, Monday I get to the train just to see it pulling out of the station. That's just fantastic!

Which isn't the worst thing in the world, I get to spend some quality time with Wil Wheaton's Just a Geek.

Also, once the train pulls up, I get a prime seat by myself next to the window. And since it was a holiday the train was mostly empty. So, I get to spread out a bit and get comfortable.

About 15 minutes into the ride, I get one of those familiar announcements about how the train is going to be 10 minutes late... this time just because of some other train's problems. Yay, more quality Wil time.

At one of the first stops, this woman and little girl get on and I notice that there aren't many open seats for them, so I move over so that there's room. The woman has the little girl sit next to me, and she sits in the seat in front of me. This is quite possbily the cutest little girl in recent memory, and she was obviously cold and waiting outside for a while.

The woman, probably her grandmother, asked her if she wanted to take her hat and gloves off. She just shook her head no, all the while her gaze fixed on me, and this HUGE grin on her face.

I'm not sure if it was me, or the comforting picture of Wil Wheaton on his book that she liked, but once the other person in the seat in front of me got up to leave, the woman asked the little girl to come sit with her, and she didn't want to! She wanted to sit next to me!

Finally, she coaxes her up a seat, and before long, the seat in front of them opens up, so they flip the seat around, so it would allow up to 4 people to sit 'together'. The little girl sits facing backward... staring at me with that same huge grin on her face. And this time, she couldn't see the book, so I'm pretty certain its me.

Now, all the while, all I could manage to do is look back at her and smile, or make little subtle faces. I suddenly had this fear of saying something and making the woman think I was some creepy old guy. So.. I just sat there and made faces and enjoyed the innocence of this little girl.

Once we finally made it back to my stop, I to get off the train, and she watched me walk all the way up to the doors, and I'd duck back out of view and back into view and I could hear her laughing from all the way across the train. She even watched me from her window waving at me. And smiling.

So... an innocent 40 minutes or so, without a single word exchanged.

Sure its pointless... but isn't everything here?

So, I've worked in downtown Chicago for just about 2 and a half years now, and the daily commute has become quite routine. The hour or so gives me time to read, think, get some work done on my laptop (or just getting it to work... wiped away my second to last installation of Windows... yay Linux!), or just catching up on sleep.

The delays aren't really all that unexpected either. They have an automated recording to let ya know how far behind the train is running and tonight it seems as if the Conductors or Enginneers or whoever the heck runs the trains wanted to have a little bit of fun.

Out of nowhere, the first message comes across the speakers, "Due to scheduled construction, this train will arrive at its final destination... 6... minutes late. We apologize for any inconvenience."

It was the same polite woman's voice as the regular messages, but I've never heard them in that format before. And this seemed odd because we were moving pretty well, and maybe the problem was on the track ahead of us.. I shrugged, and went back to reading a new live journal I stumbled across today at work.

Then, moments later, "This train is currently running approximately... 6... minutes late due to... a marathon... Metra apologizes for any inconvenience." You see, they can substitute the time and the reason into the standard message, but it seemed kinda crazy that there would be a Marathon in suburban Chicago on a cold and rainy early day in early March.

This drew chuckles from a couple people, but most ignored it. I finished up reading the journal and dove into Wil Wheaton's Dancing Barefoot. (A great read! I'm amazed at how fantastic his writing is, but that's for another post!)

A few minutes later, "This train is currently running approximately... 4... minutes late due to... a holiday parade... Metra apologizes for any inconvenience." By now, its painfully obvious that someone is just looking for the less used delay reasons. We are all very used to hearing about 'switch problems' or 'waiting on other trains'.

A few minutes later the boisterous conductor comes in and he's talking to someone on his radio, 'Sure! Why not! Play another one!' and he wanders through the train.

As the train nears my stop, I'm graced with yet another announcement: "This train is currently running approximately... 3... minutes late due to... a hazardous material condition... Metra apologizes for any inconvenience."

Now, I wanna know how many other recordings there are. I wonder if there is a 'Terrorist Attack' one.. Or a 'Tornado' one.

Thank god she made it out alive! I was soooo worried about her well being!

Seriously though, I don't see what the big deal is. Why the hell do I care that she's out of prison? And does Fox News really need to be going on and on about how's she's 'paid her debt to society' and how difficult it must be to endure such hardship.

But, at least her and Kobe are both ok in the street cred department now, which is good.

In another move to decimate any type of grassroots movement, the Federal Election Commission is planning on extending its authority to the Internet. Apparently, they feel that any type of promotion of ideas needs to be regulated.

Slashdot has the story and numerous fantastic comments. I shudder to think what sort of fines they could assess some poor blogger who happens to link to a candidate without filling out the proper forms. This is all in the early stages, and might not happen at all, but just the fact that they are thinking about it scares the hell out me. A government that controls what can be said will control the ideas of the people. And somehow, you can still hear people claim that we live in a 'free country'.

How the hell did we get here, and where did we hide that pesky First Amendment.

Ok, just a quick follow up to the Paris Hilton Sidekick hacking thing... (I'm not obsessed... really! I just want to keep putting Paris Pictures up on my blog.. yeah! that's it).

Previously, I speculated that a T-Mobile employee could have gained access. It's been speculated that the T-Mobile website was hacked by way of some poorly written software and unpactched servers.

However, it seems that it may have been much much easier then that.

From Brian McWilliams's post at O'Reilly:

Like many online service providers, T-Mobile.com requires users to answer a "secret question" if they forget their passwords. For Hilton's account, the secret question was "What is your favorite pet's name?" By correctly providing the answer, any internet user could change Hilton's password and freely access her account.

Talk about weak passwords! And, apparently she knew for some time that someone had access and didn't bother to try to get her account name changed or anything. Again, I can't tell if she just really IS that stupid, or if she just wants to do anything to get the media attention.

Seems to me that Paris Hilton and Microsoft have a lot in common. I'm certainly not big fans of either, but they at least provide a little bit of humor.

By now, I'm sure you have heard of the numerous stories about Paris Hilton's Sidekick being hacked. We all know Microsoft's long history of being hacked and slashed, and we know this isn't the first run in for poor Ms. Hilton.

But how much of this is them bringing it upon themselves? On one hand, Paris seems willing to do anything to get herself out in the public eye and land any kind of acting (sic), singing (sic), and/or modeling (ok, she can take decent pictures) career. Microsoft is trying to do whatever it can to break into any other market it can. Xbox, UltimateTV, Microsoft Hardware, MSN, Windows Mobile... just to name a few. They like to take perfectly good standards and break them and make their version the de facto standard. Not bad for the little software company that could.

And they both paint big huge fat targets on themselves. Microsoft likes to fund people to make their competitors look bad. They like to file patents for everything under the sun and then sue people who try to innovate. And, lets not forget about the crappy software they write and all of the security nightmares that creates. Paris, doesn't fare much better. It almost seems like she does things on purpose to provide fodder for Leno or Conan or for Water Cooler Chatter. The dumb blonde bit has been done before and its quite old. But then again, maybe it isn't a bit.

Both seem to have trouble learning from their mistakes. Microsoft's doing everything it can to keep people from stealing their software to spite their paying customers. Paris has countless sex tapes floating around. What would make her take more pictures of herself, and have them accessible online via her TMobile account? Anything that requires a simple username and password IS NOT secure. Nevermind that just about any TMobile employee can probably get at her account and view whatever they want.

And the pity in all of this is that it hurts more then them. For Paris, this time it hurts other celebs, but Microsoft is far worse... because every time it hurts all of us.

Yay.. always fun when life kicks you in the head, knocks you out and then runs really far away from you and it takes forever to catch back up to it.

Quick rundown on what's be going on. Since last Wednesday I just haven't felt 'right'. It started with an achy feeling and went into fun digestive system issues. While I got to be home for the first rounds of the NCAA tournament, I don't think I watched a whole game all the way through, sleeping more often I was awake.

Then spent the whole weekend at my Sister's house to paint my neice's bedroom. Well, I didn't do much of the work, Allison did. I'm the hopelessly uncreative one and could never decorate a kids room. You see, Allison being the artistic person painted a mural for my neice. I have pictures somewhere. I helped a little, but spend most of the weekend chasing my 20 month old nephew and my 4 year old neice around the house and still feeling generally lethargic.

Went to work on Monday but still felt so weak and tired. And there was SOOOO much crap to get done. It seems that much of the work I'd normally get done somehow didn't get done on its own while I was out. On top of it, its a short week because of Good Friday (which isn't good at all... )

Oh, and I had a friend visitng Chicago for the first time, at least I managed to show her a little hospitality, heading out for Russian Food, followed by some time in an Irish Bar. Yay for Guiness.

The Guiness was probably ultimately a bad idea. As I woke up the following day with a sore throat, making me feel more miserable. Seems that whenever I think I'm over a cold and feeling good enough to go out to a smoky bar and have a few drinks, the alcohol kills my immune system and I'm worse then ever the next day.

Bah, hopefully it will pass and soon... Have a busy weekend with Cowboy Mouth here on Friday, Seeing another Friend I haven't seen in forever, and the putting in Family time on Sunday.

On top of it, I look at this blog for the first time in weeks and its STILL getting bombarded by Pr0n Spammers. I updated the site so the (potentially) offensive links are only shown when you're logged in, but that doesn't seem to stop the search engines. Still getting about 40 people searching for 'hot teen pictures' and other sillyness they won't find here.

On top of that, if you go to the stats page, it tells you that you won't find Pr0n here, but if you want to see the stats for some crazy reason, you need to register or log in. In the last week I did that about 15 people registered. Didn't think 15 people read this, but just in case you are new readers, 'Hi and welcome'. If you were just hoping to see the pr0n after registering, well, you're long gone by now.

Oh, on the plus side, Illinois is still alive in the Tournament (although, I was dreading Illinois being the first #1 seed to lose to a #16 seed... and then I was dreading the Nevada game... now I'm dreading tonights game against Wisconsin-Milwaukee.. I'm not paranoid.. really!), I got to see Gwen Stefani on SNL (well, the second song... downloaded them though.. so yay for P2P... sadly missed her on Letterman Monday, but oh well), and Jessica Alba was on Letterman on Tuesday promoting Sin City... Still love her, but the movie I was somewhat excited about now looks like crap.