From Timothy McSweeney's Internet Tendency: "Mark your calendar the next time you witness some strange behavior, or the next time you behave oddly yourself. You will soon find that all crazy behavior coincides with the full moon, or if not the full moon, then some other phase of the moon." I find that terribly funny.
In this week's Sports Illustrated, there is a lengthy article defending the triple as the best play in baseball. I have always thought this to be the case, so please read the issue at your local library.
Record to date against the spread: 7-3. All underdogs this week:
Arizona plus 15 over TCU (i.e. I expect Arizona to win or to lose by less than 15 points).
SMU plus 19 over Nevada.
Penn State plus 2 over Minnesota.
North Carolina plus 18 over N.C. State.
California plus 13 over USC.
I expect that underdog Iowa State will lose to Northern Illinois by more than 6.5 points,, but that does not count as one of my picks.
oh so lovingly written by
Matthew |
this is comment, one.
Question of the week.
What simple seven-letter word that begins with a vowel do I consistently misspell (always the same way -- forgetting the third-to-last letter) more than any other? Hint: It has seven letters and begins with a vowel.
So tonight, assuming the venue has power, is the premiere of my fourth film, "S.C." My initial thought was to compose 3m20s of original music for the film; after we lost power, my second thought was to steal part of the "Eileen" score (specifically, the part over Kim's and moM's segment); now, still not having power to even spend the ten minutes at my computer to record that onto a CD-R, my thought is to find some piece of instrumental music by about 4:00p today (since that's about the latest I'll have access to a CD burner) that, preferably, starts relatively calm and gets spastic at about the 2m20s point. Help. If that doesn't work, my fourth and final option is to cut off the first ten seconds of Georgy Sviridov's fantastic "Time, Forward!" and use it, although I don't think the music will be very appropriate for the first two-thirds of the film, but oh well that's life.
Statement that is supposed to make me feel better but does no such thing.
From today's Richmond Times-Dispatch: "Though Dominion [Virginia Power] declined since Isabel's hit to estimate when electric service would be restored, Sunday the company said it thinks that at least 75 percent of its Virginia customers should have their power turned on again by Thursday." Um. Okay. So right now, almost exactly two-thirds of Dominion customers in Virginia have power. (In Richmond, it's only about 45 percent.) Assuming that they hit 75 percent by the end of Thursday, that means that of Virginia customers who do not have power right now, such as Kim and I, only 25 percent -- in math, (75%-67%)/67% -- will have their power back by Friday morning. Ugh.
And, while we're at it, fun with extrapolation: Let's assume that o'er every three-day period, Dominion Virginia power can give power to 25 percent of then powerless customers. That means that two weeks from today, of Virginia customers who do not have power right now, such as Kim and I, there will still be more than 25 percent -- in math, 75% to the 14/3 power -- who will still not have back their power. Ugh ugh.
My work is in the top 6 percent in the Richmond area.
So as of 9:31 this morning, out of the 443,000 customers (i.e. houses and businesses) in the Richmond area, 416,000 of them do not have power, including our house (which lost power about 90 seconds after a call from my parents last night). However, in that six percent of Richmond area that does have power is my employer -- which, probably not coincidentally, is three blocks from the main offices of the power company -- so against Kim's better judgement, I am at work. Lots of downed trees everywhere -- big trees. One tree was leaning so that it about 6 feet above the northbound (my direction) two lanes of a four lane road; I ended up veering into the southbound ones lest it fall on my car. A number of the larger, established trees in our neighborhood are down. (We have no larger, established trees near our house, thankfully.) Water is down to a trickle at our house because of lack of power at the pumping stations. Fun for the entire family!
Anyway, if you want to see how the outage is going, there's numbers or pretty colors.
You've got to know when to hold 'em, know when to fold em'.
Record to date against the spread: 4-1
Florida minus 3.5 over Tennessee (i.e. I expect Florida to win by more than 3.5 points).
Syracuse minus 4 over Central Florida.
North Carolina plus 15.5 over Wisconsin.
Buffalo plus 25 over UConn.
Louisiana-Lafayette plus 34.5 over Minnesota.
I expect that Iowa will cover the eight-point spread over underdog Arizona State, but that does not count as one of my picks.
oh so lovingly written by
Matthew |
these are comments, 3.
Strange sentence of the week.
On my way to work this morning, rather than my usual routine of listening to a CD or the only decent sports talk show, I turned the "radio dial" to the local news/talk station to get some information about Isabel. So when I turned on my car to go lunch, this was the first sentence out of my radio, "So what I want to know is why aren't we making khakis now as good as we made in World War II?" I would pay $3 to figure out the context of that sentence. (The host changed the subject right afterward, alas.)
Crazy sports prognostication of the week. Yeah right on the northernmost team predicted to go to the Fort Worth Bowl. They are going to go to the Stay At Home And Bowl.
Poo. They're not giving us either half of the phrase.
While the coast of Virginia is lucky enough to be officially in a "hurricane warning," Henrico County has no warnings -- not even a "hurricane watch." No, all we get is an "inland tropical storm watch" (because they expect landfall to take the hurricane down a notch by the time it travels the 250 miles from Morehead City, N.C. to Richmond) and a "flood watch." How boring.
So. What does one get with a tropical storm watch? Well. The National Weather Service's forecast says that tomorrow from 9:00a to 9:00p, the expectation is for Henrico County to average 2¼" of rain across the county. From tomorrow 9:00p to Friday 9:00a, the expectation is for Henrico County to average another 3" of rain across the county. From 9:00p tomorrow night to 6:00a Friday morning, the expected average wind speed (not including gusts) for the three inclusive three-hour periods in that time block are, respectively, 41 mph, 42 mph and 40 mph.
But of course, if you want to see the full impact the storm will have on the Richmond area, there's this map.
Now that we have had our just-made offer on the below-mentioned house accepted, here is what would be a fine gift to make our living room more, um, full. I would say too full, but I shall hold my tongue at your generosity.
To help you decide for us whether or not we should purchase this house, here are some mileage distances and driving times (courtesy of Yahoo! Maps) to important locations that we are likely going to want to drive to at some point because we already do for most of them.
Our church: 9.4 miles/17 minutes. (My earlier wild guess of 25 minutes seems to be a bit high, but I must admit that 17 sounds low.)
My work: 5.3 miles/10 minutes.
Kim's work in about a month: Yahoo! Maps does not believe there is a road that runs to Kim's future work, even though the buildings have been done for a year.
Closest disc golf course: 6.4 miles/11 minutes.
Other disc golf course I sometimes play that is far away no matter where we would live: 23.9 miles/37 minutes.
Depending on the grade level either the first-most or second-most expensive private school in the Richmond area which starts at $11,200 for kindergarten students which is just the taddest bit expensive for kindergarten students if you ask me: 1.7 miles/3 minutes ('though as the crow flies, it's only about a half-mile).
Hip, new Richmond-area mall number one: 3.1 miles/6 minutes.
Hip, new Richmond-area mall number two: 8.9 miles/17 minutes.
Shopping center with the world's greatest Arby's, the nearest Super Wal-Mart, and a 14-screen movie theater: 3.5 miles/6 minutes.
Seattle Space Needle: 2874.3 miles/2653 minutes.
Just giving you the information you need to make this decision for us so that we do not have to.
oh so lovingly written by
Matthew |
these are comments, 7.
Very Interesting House Hunting Update, Installment Three.
We bought a house. Have a nice day!
Ha ha ha. That is a joke. Kind of. Because we have not bought a house. We are only considering buying a house. Seriously considering. Very seriously considering.
Here is a Rory and Lorelai-esque pro/con list:
Pros:
Room: About 200-300 more square feet than the other houses we were quasi-looking at -- it ends up at five bedrooms, three-and-a-half baths, which is one more of each than each and every house we looked at.
Fun: Bedroom number five is not really a bedroom; it is more of a rec room, and I want a rec room, because homes without basements need rec rooms.
Schools: Second-best of the nine high schools in Henrico County; second-best of the ten middle schools in Henrico County; about the tenth-best of the forty-one elementary schools in Henrico County. (Henrico is a kick-butt school district, by the by.)
Extras: Kim and I are not extras people -- on house number one, which we built, we added a grand honkin' two extras to the base model -- but I do like the half-circle windows above the windows in the front, and I like having hardwood floors in the foyer and living room and dining room, and I like having two staircases although no house needs more than one, and I like having a flat-top stove because I am bad about cleaning stoves.
Cheap: It is a For Sale By Owner that is about $15,000 under what we believe it ought to sell for. (A smaller house with fewer extras with ugly white shutters about three houses down from this one just sold for exactly -- to the penny -- the same price.
Neighborhood: Most of the houses are bigger and more expensive and have brick fronts and such, and it's always better to be closer to the lower end of a neighborhood than higher, I believe.
Work: Ten minutes from my work, and fifteen minutes from Kim's highly-inconvenient-to-get-to work. (About 25 minutes from our church, however.)
Feel: It feels nice.
Cons:
Agua: There are drainage issues in the backyard; the owner will be spending $1200 toward a landscape technician (or whatever they're called) as part of the contingency in the contract, but we wouldn't know how well the corrections went until after the contract was signed.
Price: About $20,000 more than we were wanting to spend on a house.
Busy: About two blocks away from the intersection of two relatively busy roads (the two entrances to the subdivision are each off one of them), which, kitty-corner from our subdivision, will soon be home to a nice-looking, supermarket-anchored strip mall, and we aren't sure we want to be that close to commercial development.
Uncool: Not the "hip, new" area to live in in Henrico County (although the "hip, new" area is largely out of our price range, natch).
Neighbors: Directly behind the house are well-kept, but older, townhomes, and we'd prefer $2 million mansions in our backyard, preferably with forgetful owners that leave sacks of money on the front porch.
Golf: It is not next to the disc golf course.
Boring: It does not have a secret passageway like in "Webster."
So tell us if we should by this house. I will try to put up some pictures tomorrow to help you decide.
oh so lovingly written by
Matthew |
these are comments, 8.
Matthew, the gambler.
I will make this a weekly segment, where I see how well I can waste pretend money on five college football games.
Georgia Tech plus 24 over Florida State (i.e. I expect Georgia Tech to lose by less than 24 points or to win).
I have been bad. I have spent my lunches this week looking for houses instead of writing in this journal. Shame, shame, shame. I will try to improve next week.
oh so lovingly written by
Matthew |
these are comments, absent.
"Ernest" goes to Baltimore.
After an impromptu, unofficial world premiere at Flickerings, my third film, "Ernest Goes to the Window," will be having its official premiere as part of MicroCineFest in Baltimore sometime between Wednesday, October 15th and Sunday, October 19th. More details will be posted as I get them. My acceptance letter says that 250 entries were received; given the quality of "Ernest," I am currently assuming that at least 240 were accepted.
Also, my fourth film, "S.C.," will be screening in Richmond as part of the "Attack of the 50-Foot Reels" program at 8:00p on September 24th. Film festivals have no taste.
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Phone companies are stupid.
We are having a problem with our phone at home: It dials out without a problem but if you call our phone, you hear a half-ring, a click, five seconds of silence, and then the connection isn't. Connected, that is. On our end, we hear the shortest ring in the history of rings.
By plugging a phone into where the line comes into our house, we have figured out that it is the phone company's fault, and not ours, so our phone company has given us three convenient windows for us to choose from and then wait at the house for them to come and fix it. Those windows:
Thursday, 8:00a to 6:00p.
Friday, 8:00a to 6:00p.
Saturday, 8:00a to 6:00p.
Thank you, Verizon, for making us wait at the house for only 10 hours.
i sincerely do not know what you are doing here. are you lost? were you
looking for your delicate calico cat, and did you follow her up two flights of stairs
to this room? she is not here. she was here, yes. we gave her a warm bowl of milk, we talked with her about campaign finance reform for a time, and then she bid us good day. i believe she was
going to the post office two blocks down, but i don't quite recall.
for surely you did
not find your way from prinsiana, the least traveled site on
the internet. if you did, though, perhaps you are looking for humor. perhaps you are looking for profundity. perhaps you are looking for answers.
i'm sorry, but you shall go naught-for-three.
