the worst gift ever

i now have confirmation that the Christmas gift I gave to Joe this past "winter" stunk on every possible level of consideration

let's review the facts:

A) Though I actually bought it around Christmas time, I did not give it to Joe until the weekend before Easter due to logistical issues and general lameness. So it was actually more of an Easter basket stuffer than a stocking stuffer.

B) Because of the enormous delay, there was no chance that it could be returned.

C) It was a fucking PC video game... for someone that doesn't play games on his computer. Okay, sure, it
was the Simpsons Hit and Run game which I thought would be cool just because he owns practically every
other imaginable piece of Simpsons paraphernalia. But I still felt funny buying a PC game for Joe. And
actually, I was originally thinking "Hey, he can just take it back to Best Buy and get some music or DVDs instead." (but see problem B above)

D) After recently trying to install the game, Joe learned that it requires a graphics card which his computer lacks. So he would probably need to spend $50 to $100 on additional gear to be able to play the game. In techno-speak, there was an embedded CGF problem with the software package. Complete Gift Failure.

if you're reading this, sorry Joe!

BTW - as i am in the middle of finals, i guess there will be little blogging from me over the next week and a half

And I will be heading down to Maryland around May 14. With or without a summer job lined up!

Carl Lives On


Carl pre-spray paint job

When Carl cruised the streets in 1984, everyone turned their heads to stare. Back in the day, my little Cadillac Cimarron was fully equipped with power locks, power windows, air conditioning, automatic lights, rear defrost, radio, electronic mirrors, electronic seat adjusters, cruise control, leather seats (or maybe pleather) and a beautiful silver finish. Carl is eligible for collector plates this year, but will the insurance company recognize her as a classic?

There are some minor things that have gone wrong throughout the years, but these are mostly cosmetic. Sure the silver paint color is now graffiti-ed with red spray paint in all of the rusty places. Not to mention the smiley face painted on the door. Yeah, neighbors have asked my parents if they knew who that eyesore belonged to. I don’t know who was embarrassed more when my parents said it was part of the Weiland household – the nosey, stuck-up, all-about-appearances neighbors or my parents.

No, the power locks don’t work anymore. I guess you can’t really lock the car at all for fear you won’t get back in. The locks stick; so don’t leave anything valuable in this ride. No, the air conditioning does not work anymore, either. This is really only a problem in the spring, summer, and fall. No, you can’t just open the windows on a nice day and let the breeze go through your hair. Only the child-protected window in the back seat on the driver side rolls down…halfway down. I guess you can turn on the vent, but it only blows hot air in your face. But, you’re all set in the wintertime. The lights don’t turn on automatically anymore. You have to actually turn them on yourself. The radio/clock isn’t working quite as well as it used to. Out of the 4 or 5 digits that are supposed to light up, only 2 of them do. So, you have no idea what time it is or what you are listening to. That’s not really a problem, though, because the radio only picks up 3 stations. And, based on the position of the sun, you should know what time it is. The ceiling material is severely sagging, but not enough to impair the driver’s vision.

Despite all the cosmetic problems, Carl still purrs like a kitten. Just ask my dad; he still drives her into work. Yeah, a year ago he stalled out once in front of the guard shack, barely making it inside the gates. I was right behind him for the rescue though, giving him a few heckling honks as I could see him stalling out. Well, it made the guards laugh at least. They still ask about my dad and the car.

Now Carl is 20 years old. She meets the age requirement for a classic, and she is not driven more than 2,500 miles a year. The only thing holding her back is that she is not properly housed. A guess a spot on the street doesn’t count as a garage. I’ll figure something out, but rest assured, she will get her classic plates.

When the car's a rockin, don't come a knockin

From CNN.com

EMERGENCY!!!!!

The game of football means a lot to me. But even to a guy who once drove nine hours each way to watch the Steelers play a meaningless game against the BENGALS in 15 degree weather, this seems like insanity.

From what I can gather, this football player (or more to the point, his attorney) is hoping that Supreme
Court justice Ginsburg will drop everything she's doing so she can address an appellate court stay that recently went against him regarding entry into the upcoming NFL draft. On an "emergency" basis.

And its not as if a rogue trial court just happened to shut Clarett down at this inopportune moment. It was a panel of the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals that issued the stay. The Supreme Court is not even obligated to EVER hear appeals from that court, let alone do something right away. I really hope Ginsburg comes back with a "Take a number and get in line" response.

Can you imagine what the prisoners down in Cuba at Guantanamo Bay will be thinking when they get word of this? That's assuming they get word of anything there, of course. Their case was just argued before the Court today. And now there's a so-called emergency based on a football draft that's supposed to take precedence over the Justice's consideration of other matters such as the plight of a group of people in permanent confinement without any rights?

The appeal to Ginsburg states that "keeping Clarett out of the draft hurts the public interest." If the Court even lifts a finger for this shit and buys into that public interest claim, then I guess football really does control this country. Yeah, maybe Clarett feels like he's getting shafted. But this is the SUPREME COURT! If this qualifies as an emergency, then what the hell was Bush v. Gore? The apocalypse???

FRANCO - and Kerry

Well, of all the folks at the rally today (Senator Kerry, Bon Jovi, the governor, the lead singer from Blink 182, and the Steelers legend), guess who I got to shake hands with... Franco effing Harris! I shook the hand that caught the Immaculate Reception. The guy that I singled out in my previous post. So today was all-around awesome.

To start, a few of us from the law school got there early in the morning. The weather was gorgeous. We had the semi-cool V.I.P. tickets which at least got us through the first layer of security. As we were entering, we had a chance encounter with a person we knew who was working with the campaign. She said "hey, would you guys want to get up on the stage behind the podium?", we of course said yes, and she snuck us up past the security.

Jon Bon Jovi was lame. He played three mellow songs on acoustic guitar with only a violin and another acoustic guitar accompanying. It sucked the energy out of the crowd. And then there was a 15 minute lull to further kill the atmosphere while they fumbled around cleaning up his equipment. He stood about five feet in front of me for the rest of the rally, but after that "set" I wasn't exactly dying for an autograph. Bon Jovi aside, county controller Dan Onorato and Governor Rendell were both solid. And Franco Harris gave a great set-up for Kerry. Franco's not just a sports legend. He's a pretty smart guy and a good speaker.

Kerry was strong. Unfortunately, he doesn't seem to have the ability to shift gears to match different settings. He gave a nice political stump speech which included some good substantive tie-ins for the college tour crowd. However, as Art observed, his delivery still came off as that of a professor for much of the way. There were some genuine crowd eruptions, but there were also a couple noticeable moments where he was probably expecting a crowd eruption from the young folks and instead received moderate applause.

One great moment which stood out as a bit of fresh material [which Marshall confirmed was only added to the campaign repertoire in the past week] was when Kerry came out and said something like "I'm tired of listening to Karl Rove and Dick Cheney talking to me about patriotism when they went out of their way to avoid their chance to serve." I loved hearing him finally call out those SOBs directly. I'm sure the other 8,000 folks there did, too.

When things wrapped up, Franco and Bon Jovi were both very close to us. I didn't even think twice about which way to go for a greeting. Later, Kerry returned from the front of the crowd to make a quick pass along the corner of the stage as he was being hurried out by his campaign managers. The group of us on the stage crowded around and a couple people managed to shake hands with him or get autographs.

Art shook Kerry's hand. And then he was hussled into the exit walkway. I wasn't able to get my sign into his hands for an autograph, but he looked at the last few of us with a kind of goofy grin and threw his hands in the air as he backpedaled away as if to say, "my handlers won't let me stick around and play." That was almost as good as a handshake or autograph. Kerry was obviously having a good time. He was well behind schedule for the day and there were no more votes to be won at the rally, but he was also in no hurry to leave. I think I like our next President that much more now.

some pictures I got

- the large crowd along Bigelow Boulevard
- hanging out on the stage & hanging out #2
- Jon Bon Jovi playing
- Franco Harris speaking
- Kerry's arrival on stage
- Kerry motioning to the crowd
- a historic moment in Yinzer history - Franco meets Bon Jovi
(and the lead singer from Blink 182 which I guess I don't really care about)

BIG PRESIDENTIAL RALLY FRIDAY!


A Kerry-Bon Jovi ticket? Hell yeah, I'd vote for that.

I'm going to a rally here in Oakland on Friday morning - John Kerry is making a stop in Pittsburgh. The thing turned into an even bigger event over the course of the past couple days as the local Jon Bon Jovi rumor turned to fact this weekend. Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell and legendary Steelers running back Franco Harris will also be appearing.

I'll supposedly be getting a V.I.P. pass from someone here at the law school. I'm not sure what that means yet, but hopefully I get to briefly meet someone famous/shake hands on Friday. Or maybe its not that cool and the pass just skips me past the entrance lines. However, in preparation for the event I have been going over the possibilities in my head and have formed a mental list of preferences of who I would most like to meet if I get the chance:

#1 - Franco!
Steelers' all-time leader in rushing and touchdowns. 'Nuff said. His appearance at a Kerry rally will probably net Kerry an extra five thousand votes around southwestern Pennsylvania. Seriously.

#2 - Jon Bon Jovi
I like Kerry. The man was a hero in the Vietnam War for crying out loud. But this is a "what have you done for me lately?" business. And much more recently, Bon Jovi was a hero in the nearly-as-brutal War of the Hair Bands... perhaps even the ultimate winner of that war. How many other hair band front men held on to their fame long enough to become regulars on Ally McBeal??? For example, where the hell is Poison these days? Sure as hell not playing big-ticket political rallies!

#3 - John Kerry
Okay, I do like Kerry. But I've got to be honest. I'm not 100% sold on the man quite yet. The love is not there. That's okay, though, because the criteria for winning my vote against George Bush this fall is that your name or administrative philosophy does not match those of the following five people: Adolph Hitler, NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman, Osama Bin Laden, Redskins owner Dan Snyder, or Joseph Stalin. Kerry fares well in this test.

Okay- I think I've now encountered the most disgusting thing on the internet... an AdWare-triggered pop-up advertisement for an anti-AdWare software package.

I cannot wait until some folks get past the virus and spam pissing matches and take the initiative to sue the pants off these deplorable parasite-employing bastards.

Tell Cheney to stay the fuck away!

Dick Cheney plans a trip to Japan... Japanese hostages are taken. Dick Cheney plans a trip to China... Chinese hostages are taken. Guess where Cheney is next expected to visit.

Pittsburgh.

This is definitely a bad time to be a Pittsburgher in Iraq.

I've been saved!

My Estates and Trusts class just ended. Things got pretty bad in there... the Forces of Sleepiness came quite close to completely overwhelming me. I had to resort to extreme, last ditch efforts (solitaire) to pry myself from the clutches of dreamland.

Wow. I'm usually pretty good about staying awake through anything, so that must have been one boring as hell class today. Perhaps even Ben Stein-teaching-class-in-Ferris Bueler's Day Off-boring.

In other news, the Zoological Society of London is looking for humans willing to act like chimpanzees.

in case you ever find yourself working in some form of mass media and you need to find a quick way out of the business, here's what you do...

Have you heard about the brilliant CMU student newspaper brain-trust yet? Like most university newspapers, the Tartan ran an April Fool's edition. Somehow though, this comic strip made it into the publication. How someone thought this was appropriate, even on April Fool's Day, is quite a mystery.


[click image for larger version]

As you might expect, not too many people saw any humor in the strip. The sheer idiocy of printing the thing even landed the Tartan in the national media spotlight   [3/31/05 note - CNN link dead, here is local link]. To make matters worse, instead of a plain and sincere apology, the editors tried to explain the "joke" by stating that fatigue clouded their judgment.

"Fatigue clouded my judgment" works pretty well when you were trapped in a blizzard without supplemental oxygen at 27,000 feet on Everest. However, I don't think it works so well when you're the bratty undergraduate editor of a student newspaper that just detonated an N-bomb.

I am a champion

After sleeping in until 11am this Saturday morning for no reason whatsoever I decided it was time to go out and get in shape after a long winter of blah. Kind of like what I said to myself a few weeks ago. And a month and a half ago.

So I ran three miles. That's 5k to you and me. Half a million effing centimeters. And I only had to slow down to a near-walk for a couple hundred thousand of those. Yes, I am the Lord of Being In Shape. In the words of the immortal MC Hammer, "U Can't Touch This!"

As for ultimate frisbee-- tomorrow is the first *serious* practice of the season for Run. Weather forecast says mid 30s and snow. Its a good thing I went from completely out of shape to Mr. Universe during the course of my 25 minute jog today since it might be tough out there tomorrow.

I'll see all you bums on the field sooner or later. But don't even think about trying to match up with me because you will fail horribly. I'm too legit to quit.