...yep, I think those are icicles

So I now know what half of the rest of the country has been bitching about for a month. Below zero sucks. My lower lip has a permanent crack in it, I think, there is no way my car heater will EVER warm up on the 2 mile drive to work, and if I even *think* of leaving anything necessary in my car for more than 15 minutes, I think I'll have to invest in an ice pick. Seriously, I dropped my bag in my car after work today, came back no more than 10 or 15 (exciting and perhaps death-filled) minutes later, and if I would have tapped my bag with a hammer, it would have shattered. I'm convinced. I think the next step is to save on the electric bill and unplug the fridge, just leaving it stand open. No, that might make it too cold. Its just silly.

About the only other non-sleep related news of the day is that I proved my knowledge of Canada by belting out 11 (and a half) of 13 provinces/territories. Beauty, eh? And I swear the one I missed wasn't in any textbook I ever read. I didn't do so hot on the capital cities, but I bet if I would have started randomly guessing the big cities, I probably would have done pretty well. Hoser.

So tomorrow's Super Bowl Sunday, and keeping in my season long tradition of making final score predictions that come nowhere near close to accurate, I'm gonna go with NE 27, Carolina 13. I could care less either way who won, though I wonder if Carolina wins, if my friend who has lived in Charlotte for 5 or 6 years now will become a Panthers fan, or stick true with the puke-faced Steelers he's been a fan of for so long... I'm betting he sticks with Pittsburgh, but I haven't heard from him in 3 months, so I might not even notice.

In other Super News, plans for tomorrow include work, nap, pre-Super Bowl entertainment, Super Bowl with semi-alcoholic party, maybe another nap, then work that night. I *really* feel like I could go for a sick day on Monday, but how obvious would THAT be? Also, plans are underway for the debut of my second "client" (I like to call them my web bitches, but that hardly seems appropriate.) on the site tomorrow. The infamous Pete, the guy who coined the bar phrase "Have you met ____?" and thus, this humble website, says he wants a blog. So now he gets one.

Speaking of web bitches, little brother hasn't posted in awhile. Must be staying out of gas station bathrooms. That would be a break from the norm for him.

BONUS PREDICTION: Carolina is on ESPN2 tonight, playing at Detroit. This one isn't going to be pretty. I'm saying 6-1 Wings, only in hope that the 'Canes can pull something out, just for me. The Blue Jackets are on as well, but they're always on. They've had a tight game with the Devils and a defensive mind cramp against Nashville. Tonight its Minnesota, I'm going with 5-3 Jackets. And do you want me to break down the CBJ goal scorers? (Because I have nothing else to do right now and need another prediction to be wrong with?) We'll say Nash, Zherdev, Spacek, Vyborny and Nash with an EN to ice it.

If I come anywhere close to that (especially with Spacek getting a goal), someone owes me dinner. Seriously.

...randomly speaking

First of all, I'd be remiss if I didn't share the banner line on Headline News tonight for the Indians prospect that was in a gay Japanese porn flick a few years back. (I commented on it in September, it was revisited today.) The headline read "PITCHER SORRY: For Gay Porn". If that wasn't good enough, it was later pointed out that the addition of an eyebrow-arching Chief Wahoo logo topped the whole thing off. Classic.

Another thing about tonight... Who goes into a bar, much less the men's room of a bar, with a Sharpie? I totally understand the "car key" etching graffiti. I can even stretch to accept the ball point pen stuff (as a perpetrator myself, of course). But today there was Sharpie on the wall. That takes an awful lot of planning. Too much planning if you ask me. Besides, the guy that wrote it scratched off the Ravens part of "I hate the Ravens" and replaced it with Browns.

Must have been a Modell.

...bad jokes and beer

Two fonts walk into a bar. The bartender looks at them and says, "I'm sorry, we don't serve your type here."

Okay, thats the third time I've shared that joke in the last 5 minutes, and I *still* laugh at it.

I'm not sure where the beer part of the title came into play, though with the weather outside still shitty (though thankfully its just snow, rumor has it the East Coast is expecting a "shitstorm"), it could be a good weekend for sitting around with a fresh 12. Or more.

I think I have an idea for Little G's blog template, but we'll have to see what I can hammer out. Its gonna take some more learning, but while the "met tony?" template here is getting good reviews, I don't feel the need to touch it. Of course, with other friends showing interest in blogging, I might have a regular gig going on here. I really hate to see that great Homer logo go from little brother's site, though.

Speaking of Homer logos, I stumbled on lardlad.com's chat icons site. I went with a happy Homer first, but I really, really, REALLY like the one of Homer aiming the gun (toward the bottom). Reminds me of the great episode that it is.

...candy makes you dandy

I would like to thank everyone (i.e., Pete and his generous offer of his wife's rack) for their interest in my little "game". I guess the random design ideas are going to be up to me. Thanks. Don't get me wrong, I'm still definitely accepting pictures, etc. I wanna see what kind of love exists out there from you folks.

Speaking of design ideas, I have none. I found out yesterday that little bro isn't too thrilled with the "mmm...greg" line on his part of this site, so I thought I'd change it. I had a couple ideas (did you know that if you do a google image search for "Shaft", you get about a dozen pictures of white kids in fake afros? Pretty cool, but not good for my template.), but nothing came of any of them. We'll see if I can come up with anything tonight, but I'm not really feeling it.

Oh, and for the record, "Half Baked" is a damn, damn, DAMN fine movie.

...here's the setup

I had originally planned for a great start to my "announcement", but I figured why not go for it now. I mean, it beats starting on my taxes, right? (And how un-American is that? My W-2 is still cold from the mailbox, and I'm starting in on my taxes. Wonderful.)

Anyway, here's the deal. I had an idea, on my own, to write "haveyoumettony.com" in whatever place I found necessary, snap a picture, and use it for a template, banner, or whatever else a picture of a "haveyoumettony.com" sign could be used. Then I figured, why not let others do it for me? Again, I have no delusions of thousands of people coming to this site (at least not right now!), but in the spirit of "What the hell, I'll try it!", I'd like to see what the world comes up with. You can post it in the comments, or send an email to the address on the right, whatever ya got, and I'll use it how I see fit (i.e., see how many I get before I embarrass myself). For legal reasons, lets try to keep it clean. For fun reasons, screw the legal reasons, lets see how creative you folks can be.

And if anyone contributes that has a site themselves, I promise to return the favor. How's THAT for incentive!?!?

We'll call it "The Have You Met Tony World Tour '04". Not quite "Cher's Farewell Tour, Part 6", but it should do the trick. So whaddaya say? Can ya help a brother out? I need some cheering up today anyway.

...i was right

that was so damn cool. (the font thing, I mean) check this out:



damn sweet, isn't it? and it comes around at the perfect time for the aforementioned announcement. but you're still going to have to stick around.

...how cool is this?

Through word of mouth...or at least word of words, I guess, since I got the idea from Angry Pete's site, I have found the coolest web tool since sliced bread. Its called the Fontifier, and it lets you make your handwriting, or whatever else you want to write as a letter, into your own font. All you do is print a template, write your letters, scan, save, send and get your font. Its just that simple!

So simple, I can't get it to work. My scanner doesn't save as a GIF file, and if I save it as a TIFF, I can't figure out how to convert it.

'Lil help?

...bar math

so I didn't get the receipt posted on here, but happy hour last night was HAPPY! we've all had it happen, but when 4 beers plus 4 beers equals 5 beers on the receipt, you know its a good time. The people responsible for the action were identified, and tipped 70 or so percent. Next step is to hope this wasn't a one-time oversight. If it wasn't, that bar just got so much better than it already was.

In other news, plans are in the works for a global "have you met tony?" event. Not that I have delusions of thousands of readers or anything, but I've noticed that I have been reaching at least 100 a day, which is pretty sweet in a minimalist sort of way. The event will be painless, somewhat harmless, and is pretty much just a way for me to see who's out there, how willing they are to say they've "met" me, and most of all who's the most creative bastard to read this site so I can have a new template design at will when this milk idea gets stale. (Though admittedly, that might not be for a long, long time.)

So get your pens, pencils, crayons, markers, fingertips, and mostly your minds ready and have some fun. Details in the next couple days.... stay tuned.

...just because I can

this is post two for today, to prove to myself and others that it can be done. Or at least I hope it can be done.

that and I just realized that one month from today, I'll be a 30-something. ugh.

...it comes with a slice of cantaloupe at the end

I've seen some great lists about the Simpsons, but ESPN has raised the bar. All this week, they're listing the top 100 sports moments from Simpsons episodes. The first 25 are up today, and while there's nothing overwhelmingly great (I think they're getting all the "not quite a sport, but what the hell, it was on ESPN once and a list of 100 is ALOT of stuff" sports out of the way, like skateboarding, dancing and yachting), but some of the memories of episodes you may have forgotten, or even better, LINES you may have forgotten is great!

"If it doesn't have Siamese twins, it's not a fair!"

...i'm like a frosted mini wheat

the normal, everyday side of me is pretty darn happy with the site. the pseudo-techie side of me wants to find all kinds of stuff to change, tweak and rearrange. Not only that, but I keep reading about how things need to be HTML valid, and ideally XHTML 1.0 valid, which means picking ALOT of stuff apart and trying again. No matter what I do, I'm not validating. And that frustrates me. I don't think it means much, because most of the browsers I've checked this out on are cool with it. But something about it not being valid worries me. Most people are checking this site out with IE, if you're not and something looks trippy, let me know. Thanks for the feedback from the last post on the new site design. I've already got my sights set high for the next go-round, with at least one idea, but until I can learn to implement skinning, I should let this one go for awhile. Its too good and took too much effort.

Oh, and I think I have confirmation that I'm funnier in email than I am here. You all are missing out.

Finally, for those of you that have been with me for awhile... I beat the IRS. I'm a good tax payer again. Not only that, but the heating issue looks to be solved with the rental agency. I kick ass.

...the final piece!

by checking the CSS to see if it was valid for this template, I found out that I was missing a little punctuation in my "margin" attribute. put that in, tweaked it up a little, and this is what you see before you!

now that this is mostly done, as far as the "met tony?" template goes, here's a button I created, standardish size, for anyone that feels the need:



and most of all, let me know what you think of the look!

...commenting is back!

So I just went with the flow, and my comments are back, this time on HaloScan.com. So thanks to those people for picking that up, and now I don't have to mess with anything else for awhile. It should be good to go. Now to work on the rest of the list (most of which you could have found back a ways in list form, but listing them again is like admitting that I didn't get them done.)

oh, and now that I have commenting back again... USE IT!

...done...?

Looks like I've got things hooked up, for now. Thanks to some tips from the Web Developer's forums, and a damn fine tutorial, I got this thing in order. I still want to put black "trim" around the outside, but I've run out of time for this week, and at least you don't have to scroll for a week to find my links.

...home maintenance

you know you need plastic on your windows when...

-you put the plastic on the window and it immediately turns into the Astrodome.
-you can see the plastic breathing.
-you put plastic on a window and immediately feel a draft, and think "nope, not that one"

seriously. the gas bill may or may not end up being my responsibility, but I'm thinking these windows probably aren't helping the cause.

and for now, I've decided to frame my $1.12 check from the IRS, simply based on principle. Or maybe I'll buy a lottery ticket with it, and if it wins, send a scanned copy of the check, the ticket, and my bare ass to the IRS. Do you think THAT would get me red flagged?

...CSS has a "bite me factor" of 9.5

I've actually had a damn productive afternoon, as one may tell from the new look on the site. Unfortunately, "one" can also tell from the new look on the site, that I've still got some work to do. I don't claim to know the logic behind all this design, but as much of a head start that Kurt gave me today, I still figured alot of things out pretty much on my own, which I'm damn proud of. However, those pats on the back were short-lived when I realized that things were pretty well screwed. Which is why you see sidebars in the WAAAAYYYY bottom right of these pages. Again, if anyone knows how to bump them straight up about 6", I'll buy ya a beer.**

As for the other entries in the blog-to-do list, I've taken a look at some other commenters, but I really want BlogSpeak to work out, mostly because its ready to go, and from the looks of things, the best remaining option is going elbow deep in PHP and doing it myself. If I can't get a sidebar to move 6" with a little HTML and a stylesheet, I sure as hell don't know what I'd do with a whole new language to mess with. Hell, I took 4 years of Spanish in high school, and about all I can say is "Where is the Coca-Cola?".

On the bright side, the IM buttons have been fixed. I don't know if they totally work to send me messages and all, but here's a hint: the Yahoo! one is just there to balance the row out, and MSN is almost exclusively "friends only". Three minus two equals one. You figure it out, Einstein.

As for the camera hopes, no trips to the bar yet, though the more I look at my coffee table, it just might work. More on that in the future.

So all in all, fairly productive, now I can go sleep for 12 hours, knowing that my webpage is askew, but safe, my living room is mostly clean, and maybe if I'm lucky, all that laundry will wash itself overnight.

(**-Not valid outside New Brunswick and the Yukon.)

...State of the Blog Address

Three things to take into my weekend. Nope, make that four. (Well, blog-related, at least. In actuality, there's probably about 3,537 things I'm taking into my weekend, I plan on getting about 6 of them done. Seven if you count a 12-hour nap.)

1) Figure out how in the hell the new template isn't working. For those of you that haven't seen it, its smooth. Just some jacked up placement and links and such, and I should be good to go. UPDATE: I've got just about everything down but the positioning of those damn sidebars. Any suggestions are more than welcome. Find the sidebar, and you've got my email.

2) Figure out something to do with my commenting. Right now, "the bastards" that hosted Harry's site from which BlogSpeak originates have suspended his service, leaving BlogSpeak in the hands of angels. Or at least another techie with bandwidth and a desire to befriend freeloaders like myself. I have other options, I just really like how BlogSpeak handled things.

3) Find out what to do with those new IM buttons on the right. They take forever to load and never work right (for instance, if it ever shows that my AIM is offline, its probably a lie. I never turn that thing off. And "HotSuzie1234567" knows it. She always wants me to play on her webcam, but I never have $1.99/minute for her. I think the long-term solution is going to be just to grab their graphics for the online version, and just link them to my IM. If I'm on and you want to say hi, good for you. If I'm not on and you want to say hi, you've got my email. (Which works for the short-term commenting issues as well. Please don't abandon me!)

4) Take camera to the bar for "Blog Template Idea #2". That or just fake it on my coffee table. I've gotta get "Blog Template Idea #1" in order and online for awhile first, but #2 is gonna be smooth.

So I guess that's where we stand. Alot of work to do with the site/blog, and even more to do around the apartment and the city. With any luck, I'll have it all wrapped up by the time dad buys dinner on Thursday night. (And with that, I know where we're eating now.)

...tired, but not sleepy

ever have one of those days? how about one of those weekends? I figured after going out for a couple beers, then working, then getting 3 hours of sleep, then 4 more later on, then working again, then maybe 3 more hours of sleep, I'd be dead to the world. But not so much.

at least I got to see Michigan baskeball score a whopping 19 points in the first half, then STILL come back to have a shot at the tie down the stretch. Of course, not one of those 3 tries went, and they lost to Indiana. Maybe the Indiana hatred has died down a little since Bobby Knight left, but those damn candy cane warmup pants annoy me.

Now on to the NFL. Thank you NFL for making games I normally wouldn't give two rats asses about turn into something exciting. Hey! There's Najeh Davenport. We all know what HE'S famous for, right?

...the sporting life

ESPN is getting old.

I mean, I love everything ESPN provides, and even *SOME* of their "original programming" is decent. I was a fan of "2 Minute Drill" for awhile, "Junction Boys" was pretty good, and even parts of "Playmakers" were tolerable... but they've become way too self-serving. It seems like every other commercial break is a plug for something ESPN. The "games" they play on SportsCenter are ignorant and played out. And commercials for "ESPN Deportes" are great, but I don't need to see it on the website, the crawl at the bottom of the screen, or during SportsCenter. Oh, and 22 hours of NFL coverage a day starts to get a little redundant too.

Pete Rose is dirt. Thanks for the apology, Pete, now go rot away somewhere. I'm starting to see the argument that maybe he should make the hall of fame, but not be allowed to manage or own a team. That might be decent. But the fact that his book comes out two days after the Hall of Fame announcements, and the excerpts he wasn't going to leak end up leaking two days BEFORE the announcement??? He's shady as ever. I hope Bud Selig reinstates him, then bans him for another 20 years.

Finally, Jim Brown. I think one of the biggest shames in the history of sports is that Jim Brown will never be remembered like this:
.
No, it takes alot of extra thought to remember him like that, like I did in my childhood, cutting, slashing, making defenders miss in the mud of Cleveland Stadium, the orange helmet darting around the field. Instead, my image of Jim Brown is the Jesse Jackson of the sporting world, jumping out from behind a curtain with his hockey puck-styled stocking cap at the first sign of "injustice". Its horrible, really, because at one time, I would argue that he was the greatest athlete that ever lived. He's still probably the greatest combination of size and speed at running back ever, racking up 12,000+ yards in nine seasons with the Browns, but what he's turned into make that a distant memory.

...Fark follow-up and blog snobs

In response to my "Norwegian friend", this is the story/post that got me busted at Fark:

Egyptian charter jet crashes into Red Sea; 135 on board

I don't remember the exact reply, but I think I posted something after it came out that most of the victims were French that said, "WE SURRENDER! WE SURRENDER! *crash* damn monkeys."

See? Probably a little bad, but nothing straying from the norm for that site. My stance on the French remains the same, much like my stance on Fark remains the same.

Now, moving on, I had been thinking alot lately about stuff I've read online about "how to blog". Who does anyone else think they are to tell me what I should blog about? Don't get me wrong, template-wise, I'm all the way cool with suggestions or pointers on what looks good, or what might look better. I've even thought about changing blogging programs to Movable Type or one of the non-Blogger types that allow for a little more flexibility. But what makes anyone else think they're the masters of the blogging universe to tell others what constitutes a blog or not?

It all came to a head earlier today, reading a post on angrypete.net by some New Yorker (either tongue-in-cheek or not, I can't quite tell, but I think he/she was totally serious in his/her posting) about blogging do's and don'ts. (I'm posting a link to Pete's site rather than a direct link, because A) he seems to share my opinion, and B) he's not some snotty New Yorker.) Some of the points make sense, most of it is crap. Especially the way it was written, I feel like I'm being written down to, and thats rule #1A about what I hate about other bloggers. Write how you want to write, but just because you can put your opinion online, don't think you're better than me. My opinion is online too, and I think you suck. (For the record, rule #1B about what I hate about other bloggers is the ones that think they're original for bashing the President/war/economy, and sharing links to other bloggers who say the same thing, as if bloggers word is law.)

Personally, I love that blogs and personal web pages exist, and I think its really cool that they've evolved past the point of just posting a list of links to people's favorite sites. And its even better that I can type a whole page worth of crap and with one click its formatted, sent and posted in a flash. And I also think that I'm alot funnier in person, or on IM, and that my blog is just a way for me to ramble. Some people may like it, others may think I'm dull. Understandable, I do the same thing when reading other blogs. Chances are if I found you un-dull, you're linked to the right. But its not my place to try to change the opinions of those that are dull, because to SOMEONE, they're the best thing in the world.

So, with all of that said. Am I dull? *laugh*

...Fark me? No, Fark you!

I'm just counting the days until fark.com is gone from my history files (and I'm not going to do them the dignity of removing ALL of my history just to get them gone). What used to be a great site to read odd stories, find good stories and fun, and be a smartass with the best of them has turned into crap. I had tired of it for awhile a few months ago, and not made nearly as many visits as I once had, but I went back and started reading again. Then, I made an off-color post, not that it was derogatory in anyway (and definitely no more derogatory than other posts on the site, or even the same thread), that probably was enough to punch another ticket to hell, but not that bad. I can't even post the verbatim here, because they deleted it. Not only deleted it, but put me on some 24 hour ban from posting, referring to me as a "troll". If I was a troll for what I said, then 60% of the people on there are trolls. Funny thing is, I made somewhat similar posts on the same thread, they were left to stay. So because of this, the power-hungry moderators at fark.com, I'm done there. Maybe not forever, but for a long time. Its okay, though, because I had just about enough of the Lord of the Rings arguments and NYC chest thumping to last me a lifetime.

Oh, and for the record, I think the phrase "cheese eating surrender monkeys" is downright hysterical. Its not like the French have the cleanest track record when it comes to history.

...Rain, rain, go away!

I think at this point the rain is just mocking us. It has seriously poured for the past 3 days, and even though its January, it has the feel of one of those rains where when it finally stops, the sun will come out, everything will dry up, birds will chirp, and I can hit the golf course. Not this rain. No, when and if it ever goes away, its going to be followed by snow, then ice, then more snow, freezing temperatures, and probably, by the time its all said and done... autumn. I still wish I knew what the phantom dripping noise was on that window over there. I swear it sounds like rain is hitting the inside of my window sill, but everytime I check, its all dry. Creepy.

...Addictions

In a perfect post-holiday follow up to Santa tossing, I have found Polar Bowling!!! Shockwave.com, how did I ever forsake you? Currently, my high score sits at 356, but I'm working on it. I can honestly say this is the first online game where I've even remotely considered buying the full version. Of course, if the kind people of Shockwave.com would like to offer a discount for me to pimp their product, I'd probably consider it. Unfortunately for them, they caught me just at the end of the "Ah, hell, its the holiday season, its the TIME to spend money!" season, and I'm being stubborn about dropping $20 bucks here and there. Hell, I'm even considering closing my super-cheap subscription to the newspaper just because I don't like going outside of the apartment to pick it up in the cold. Seriously. 7 days a week for less than a buck a week and I don't want to walk outside. Then again, I might just be jaded because the 45 inches of rain we've gotten in the past two days has ruined a potential January golf outing. Temperatures are warm, but I think my front yard is starting to grow rice. At least the squirrels will be happy.

So not only has the Polar Bowling addiction got me hooked to itself, but it also had me visit an old standby at Candystand.com. Not only does it have a couple damn hard, yet kick ass mini-golf games, but its (normal, no polar bears included) version of bowling is pretty tough itself. So now not only am I procrastinating with online bowling, but I have two sites fighting for my attention. (For the record, I think I bowled a 300 in that once, but my high since last week is only 179 or so 237.) As long as I don't have to rent the shoes, I'll be fine.

In an effort to get my ass in gear, here's what I need to/want to get done this week:

-Pay rent
-Tweak a couple templates, play with new looks
-Find a new comment system. Thanks BlogSpeak!
-Add a "favorites" page and a "credits" page. There are too many good people/sites that help me out for free, and don't get nearly the credit they deserve. One little link from my site should hook them up, right?
-Get all this stuff validated.

Its a start, and who knows how much will get done, but I'll give it a shot. (Except the rent. As much trouble as I've had with the heating crap, I kinda like where I live. Not to mention the walls and the bed.)

Since blogger is giving me shit with same-day posts again, I need to re-publish and share this link. If you get arrested, you get ridiculed. Simple enough.

Now, does anyone else know why the hell Blogger doesn't post the date in the footer if you post twice in one day? This has me confuddled.