Puppy pics are coming!

I promised, and the Pieman never breaks a promise (assuming he remembers he made it).

I modeled with the puppy for JLowe this weekend, since I still am without a quality digital camera, but he forgot to e-mail me the photos last night (or they were over 10 megs total) and so I don't have them to post yet.

But I'm done entertaining for the weekend, and the dog has finally stopped freaking out when we leave her alone in the living room (the computer is secluded to avoid cable-chewing), so I plan on a thorough blogging tonight.

Until then,

Catch ya later.

FYI

Got the dog, too busy to blog.

She's cute as a button, though. And the shelter gave me a discount due to the miscommunication on the spaying issue. Thanks to them!

Also, Happy Birthday to The Missus!

Catch ya later!

Picking up the dog Monday

Unspayed and all.

JLowe and his wife have pointed us to Banfield Pet Hospital, where you can invest in the "Puppy Plan" for an initial cost of $99 and then $10/month after that, and the plan includes spaying, follow-ups, all shots for the year, and the cost of check-ups (unless special meds are required, but then you get a discount).

Tomorrow, my friends, sweet Olive will be here.

Thursday, Joe's coming back to visit for The Missus and my birthdays. Should be fun for us, but a slow week for writing.

Will post a picture of the dog ASAP.

Catch ya later.

(p.s. Mak, thanks for the link to the humane society...)

Minor hitch...

So, in our eager anticipation, we went to Petco and spent $200+ on new pet stuff, ready to scoop up our dog (to be named Olive) tomorrow.

Then, after the shelter closed today, I got this e-mail:

"Do you know that she has to be fixed. If you want to take her home tomorrow you will have to fill out a Mandatory Spay/Neuter Agreement and then have her spayed at your vet at your own expense. If not she can be picked up on Monday or Tuesday at our Vet. You will need to speak to Cindy Woods when you arrive at the shelter."

Which wouldn't be so bad, but it costs about $200 to spay a dog, and we just found out that Uncle Sam will be claiming (perhaps) more than his pound of flesh this year.

This, of course, pisses me off immensely, as I've spent the whole week trying to secure our dog, and spoke to Mr. Merry at the pound today, and he didn't mention any of this foolishness.

So, this may or may not happen. Here's the official Pieman's response:

"Mr. Merry,

I'm disappointed that you've waited until after business hours to advise me that the dog is not yet spayed, especially as I've kept you advised throughout the week that, if the dog was available, I would be happy to come get her on Saturday.

My wife and I just spent over $200 on new pet supplies on the assumption that we would be getting Dobi tomorrow. Your website gives the following prices:

"ADOPTING A FRIEND
Our adoption fees are:

Unaltered Puppy: $80.00 (Includes spay/neuter surgery)
Unaltered Dog: $70.00 (Includes spay/neuter surgery)
Unaltered Cat: $65.00 (Includes spay/neuter surgery)
Altered Dog: $50.00
Altered Cat: $30.00"

This indicates to the interested party that the spaying and/or neutering is already done.

I want Dobi, but at this point the only way I can get her is if you can promise to have her available Monday, as I have that day off. If the vet cannot accomodate the spaying by Monday, we cannot adopt her unless you could hold her until the following weekend (which you've already indicated is against policy).

Please call me tomorrow at (503) 657-5309 [not my real number, of courese] so we can discuss this matter.

Thanks.

The Pieman"

Grr. So, let's hope this still works out for a (delayed) roadie. More prayers, please...

Mission successful!

The pup will be mine no later than 5pm tomorrow. It's all official and stuff.

Back home with the tummy trouble, so I'm really gonna have to push to hold it together on tomorrow's roadie to Yakima.

Now that my pup is on hold, you can look for pups through www.petfinder.com. Why pay top dollar for a psycho pure-bred when you can rescue someone as innocent and sweet as our puppy below?

The puppy prayers worked. Now, through the power of tummy prayers, Pepto, and fizzy water, I'll be good to go tomorrow morning.

Hey, Denise, how are the roads in Eastern WA right now?

Still soliciting names...

for my prospective puppy. Nominations so far:

Poodle (which my wife has already vetoed)
Olive (my wife's choice)
Pinky (Mak's idea)
Anabelle (Burnsy's idea)
P-Dobie (not an option, since it relies on Poodle, but thanks anyway)

Any more ideas?

The miracle of flex-time

As a responsible employee, I don't like to blog during work hours. I've been known to write during lunch breaks, but I try to keep that to a minimum as well.

So why am I writing at 2:35 pm? The miracle of flex-time, my friends.

As I've explained in the past, I'm in a unique position in my office where my hours flex for various reasons. Today, they are flexing for meetings this evening until 9pm.

And, so, today work began at 10:30, and after doing an in-service training for some officers at GPD, I'm electing to use my late lunch to blog, because I'm sickly.

The trial of the dogs
Just so you know, at this point one of the cute dobies pictured below is still left, and I'm banking on her still being around tomorrow. If she is there tomorrow, I can place a hold on her and go get her on Saturday. Thankfully, my chum JLowe has agreed to road-trip with me, as the drive is rather long and my wife is working. If all goes well, I'll be a dog owner Saturday afternoon. If not, there are some dobies in the local paper that are a bit more expensive.

Abusing PTO
Denise, one of my blog-buddies, saw my panicked comment on the dobie post about how one of the Dobette Sisters had been scooped up, and encouraged me to take a sick-day to fetch the remaining pup. You'll be happy to know that I did take a sick day yesterday, but only because I was actually sick. No offense to Denise, but I can't morally support using sick time for prospective family members. Until the dog is in my evil clutches, it isn't actually family.

What did I do with my sick day? Well, I slept in, then watched eight episodes of Angel, season 5, which are finally out on Netflix. Hmm, that reminds me of my...

TV Addiction
Recently, I compiled my list of shows worth watching. My list has been amended somewhat.

• Monday: Never watch anymore. The wife has abandoned the WB's lame offerings, which is a relief to me.
• Tuesday: I still find only Scrubs to be watchable, but I always seem to miss it.
• Wednesday: Formerly only watchable for Smallville and the occasional Law and Order, my wife and I decided that Alias looked too intriguing to pass up any longer. So, we've spent the last month watching Alias seasons 1-3, and are now finally caught up. Aside from the fact that our VCR totally botched the recording of Alias (and Desperate Housewives) while we were out of town, I look forward to being mostly current in the next few days.
• Thursday: The O.C. reigns supreme, thanks to the on-going hijinx of Seth Cohen. E.R. is fading fast, and is really only an option if I'm not sleepy. Since I'm feeling sickly, I'll give it a pass tonight. Oh, and that new show on NBC, Committed, has some potential...
• Friday: Still one of the best nights not to be home.
• Saturday: Here's a poll question for you: is SNL worth staying up late for anymore? Although there are occasional moments, and I have a school-boy crush on Tina Fey, is this show beating a dead horse? Discuss.
• Sunday: Great TV. Desperate Housewives continues to be fantastic, and (when I'm able to stay awake) Boston Legal is still good, too. Although I don't know how I feel about bringing in Murphy Brown to mess with Captain Kirk's head.

That's it; I'm spent. Pray for my tummy, which has been off all week, and pray for my prospective puppy, while you're at it.

Catch ya later.

Trial parenthood

Well, as I reported last week, the wife and I are considering entering the dangerous world of parenthood.

Prior to doing so, we've decided to build our parenting skills the old-fashioned way, by taking on a pet.

We've been in pet negotiations for quite awhile. My wife has, for a long time, lusted for an English Bulldog. I've wanted something a little more spry, like a beagle or a dobie (had a dobie as a kid, and love the breed alot).

So, we compromised. She agreed to a dobie to start with, as long as I promised her that the second dog would be an English Bulldog.

We've been considering, for awhile, the timing of our purchase. Knowing pure-bred dobies cost upwards of $500, we've been thinking we should wait for our tax refund. But, not being certain how big that would actually be, we've also been looking around at humane shelters.

Happy to announce that, by next Monday, we should have one of the puppies below.


Aren't they cute?

The pups are currently named Geri and Dobi. They're known at their shelter as the "Dobette Sisters" because they are about the same age and were abandoned/located at about the same time. They are Doberman mixes (unknown what mixed with), but they both look adorable.

Not telling you where they are until I secure one of them. Would hate for somebody to see them, swoop in, and get them before we do. Needless to say, it's a bit of a drive, and I'll be not-too-far from Denise's (of And So It Goes fame, linked at the right) friend TNT. So it requires a day off to drive there, and hopefully they'll still be available. I'm in the process of getting dibs on one of them today.

Currently soliciting for puppy names for a girl Doberman. I wanted "Poodle," but The Missus thinks that's dumb.

Gotta go.

Catch ya later.

Random Trivia

I'm uninspired tonight, so nothing new and fresh for you at the moment. However, in celebration of my team's (fraudulent) victory at Quizzy Night at the Delta Cafe, I present to you the following e-mail, which I received from my old high school friend Hannah today. Beware; I've done absolutely no fact-checking on this. If you see erroneous material, please comment freely:

AND YOU THOUGHT YOU KNEW EVERYTHING!
The liquid inside young coconuts can be used as a substitute for blood plasma.

No piece of paper can be folded in half more than seven (7) times.

Donkeys kill more people annually than plane crashes.

The first product to have a bar code was Wrigley's gum.

American Airlines saved $40,000 in 1987 by eliminating one (1) olive from each salad served in first-class.

Venus is the only planet that rotates clockwise.

Apples, not caffeine, are more efficient at waking you up in the morning.

Most dust particles in your house are made from dead skin.

The first owner of the Marlboro Company died of lung cancer. So did the first "Marlboro Man."

Walt Disney was afraid of mice.

Pearls dissolve in vinegar.

The three most valuable brand names on earth: Marlboro, Coca Cola, and Budweiser, in that order.

It is possible to lead a cow upstairs...but not downstairs.

A duck's quack doesn't echo, and no one knows why.

Dentists have recommended that a toothbrush be kept at least six (6) feet away from a toilet to avoid airborne particles resulting from the flush.

Richard Millhouse Nixon as the first U.S. president whose name contains all the letters from the word "criminal." The second? William Jefferson Clinton.

And the best for last.....

Turtles can breathe through their butts.

Now you know everything there is to know.

Catch ya later.

If you're not cheating, you're not trying

Just got back from the Delta Cafe, where me and the crew took on several other teams in the Wednesday night "Quizzy" competition.

This competition consists of teams of no more than seven going through four rounds of progressively harder questions, the goal being to amass the most points by the end of the evening.

At the end of Round 3, my team was legitimately in the lead by 3 points.

Round 4 was tough, though. There were a couple of questions we flat-out couldn't answer. First, how many days were the hostages held in Iran before they were freed? (444). Second, what is the highest point in the western hemisphere (Mt. Acapagua).

As a lawyer, I have learned that there is a difference between morals and ethics. Morals are issues of right and wrong. Ethics allows for more shades of gray.

C-Mac took advantage of the distinction, using his cell phone to access the internet for the above difficult answers. We ended up winning by 13 points, but if he hadn't cheated, we would've tied.

I'm not proud, but I don't feel too bad, either.

Now, on to the meme. What is that, you ask? Per dictionary.com, a meme is: A unit of cultural information, such as a cultural practice or idea, that is transmitted verbally or by repeated action from one mind to another.

To give credit where it is do, this was all brought on by Denise at And So it Goes (which is linked on the right) but then made its way to Betsy's blog at My Whim is Law. Once two of the people who I regularly read (and, in turn, who regularly read me) got on the train, I decided I had to ride along.

This meme is more like one of those chain e-mails where you fill in questions about yourself. Here it goes:

1. Song that sounds like happy feels
The "Oh Yeah" song from Ferris Bueller's Day Off. Or Lemon, by U2.

2. Earliest music memory
Crystal Gayle's "Don't it Turn My Brown Eyes Blue" on my mom's radio. Or crying while listening to "Against All Odds" repeatedly in 2nd grade while thinking of how Deanne, the love of my life, had just moved to Weiser, Idaho.

3. Last CD bought
The last CD I actually purchased was Green Day's "American Idiot" for my wife. The last one I received (legitimately) was U2's "How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb", or Switchfoot's "The Beautiful Letdown", or Eminem's "Encore". They were all Christmas presents.

4. Reminds you of school
"Baby Got Back" by Sir Mix-A-Lot. Lot's of school dances flashing through my mind. Or "Lady in Red" which I danced to with my 6th grade girlfriend in the cafeteria during the hour-long school dances in middle school.

5. Total music files on your PC
I plead the fifth. There are alot.

6. Song for listening to repeatedly when depressed
"October" by U2, or "Something I Can Never Have" by Nine Inch Nails

7. Song that sounds British but isn't
Objection. Relevance!

8. Song you love, band you hate
Anything by Britney Spears. Really, I like her songs too much to really hate them, but loathe myself for liking them so much that I must hate them. It's quite the pickle.

9. Favorite song from the past that took ages to track down
"Boomin' Grannies" by the Beastie Boys. Quality line of all time: "I saw you in the checkout line, you dropped your coupons, and you was lookin' fine."

10. Bought the album for one good song
Eminem's "The Eminem Show." Bought it for "Without Me" which has a great beat and makes me laugh. Never really listened to the rest of it.

11. Worst song to get stuck in your head
Whatever my wife's singing that day. Or anything from the movie "Moulin Rouge."

12. Best song to dump beer on someone’s head to, then storm out of the bar
Never been that angry, but the best angry music comes from 80's rock bands (like G'n'R, Motley Crue, or Metallica) so insert your favorite song from those groups here. Or Stormtroopers of Death's "What the F*** is That Noise?"

It's late. Sleepy time now.

Catch ya later.

Various thoughts from the weekend

So, I think I've established a pattern of taking weekends off from the ol' blogue. That is, of course, until the next time I'm bored on a weekend and decide I have the itch to type.

However, seeing as it has been a few days since I've checked in, there are a multitude of things I could discuss. Let us begin.

PARENTHOOD?
In the words of the great bard, "to be or not to be, that is the question." Of course, that sentence is actually declaratory in nature, so to state that it is a question is a falsity.

That being said, my wife and I have just celebrated our fourth year of marriage, and as such we've noticed that the large majority of our friends and family have grown past their adoration of our cute newlywed-edness and are now fully fixated on us creating progeny.

Don't get me wrong. The pressure's been slowly mounting for the last year and a half or so, but it's starting to get ridiculous.

For some historical perspective, lets go back to the beginning. I married a young 'un, which is all well and good except that, sometimes, I notice that in my agedness (I'm six years her senior) I tend to be a little more cold, calculating, patient, and stubborn. She, God bless her, is driven by her current need, to the point that all reason is pushed aside, or simply bent to her whim, in order for her to accomplish an immediate goal. And, when reason doesn't work, there's always begging.

In our first year of marriage, my wife was 21 years old and still in nursing school. I was 27 and working as a prosecutor in Marion County, where I was at the bottom of a pay scale which is woefully low considering the population of the county and the volume of crime that I was handling.

During that first year (and, for some of the second), it was not uncommon for my wife to have fits of wanting to be pregnant. She would in turn cajole, convince, and beg me to impregnate her, all the while bristling at my stubborn refusal to take on that sort of responsibility given the fact that we were barely getting by with what we had.

I found the secret to holding her off. Every once in awhile, we would babysit my foster-sister's daughter for a weekend. The crying and fussing of the weekend would invariably wear my wife out and would earn me a temporary reprieve from her insane desires.

After the first couple years, my wife started working and I got a better-paying job, and we discovered that we were able to go on vacations and stuff because we were able to save money. My wife realized that this sort of fun would be much more difficult to have if we became parents, so there was mutual agreement to put it off for a bit.

So, here we are. As we've walked down life's path together, we've seen alot of our friends get pregnant and have kids, and now the pressure is mounting from our parental units, who will love the idea of us having kids until they realize how old it feels to be a grandparent. For Christmas, my mother-in-law started accumulating baby clothes.

We've set up several rules for kids. Well, actually, only two hard-and-fast rules.

First, no Christmas babies. JLowe's birthday is in November, and he resents being even that close to Christmas, as he invariably gets gypped on presents. I think an early November or late January birth is fine, but a December baby is definitely not in the plans that we've made, because you need a one or two paycheck buffer to be able to keep the kid's birthday a separate holiday from Christmas.

Second, we are required to have a daughter in February. This is more a goal than a rule. You see, my wife's side of the family has a tradition of February girls. My wife's grandma was born on Valentine's day. My wifes mom was born on February 20. My wife was born on February 22. So, ideally, a daughter in the first week of February would be ideal for me, because then I can afford her birthday present with the first paycheck of the month, and my wife's with the second.

Why am I discussing all of this? Well, my wife and I have put off babies until certain conditions were met. Job stability, home ownership, relative solvency. We've met all of these conditions, and now I think that we are not necessarily trying to have a kid, but not trying not to either. So, if one of these days, I have some sort of exciting announcement, you'll know that we finally caved into our parents' demands for having someone to spoil.

BLAZERAMA
Got to go see the Blazers on Saturday, courtesy of C-Mac.

C-Mac actually had a shot at going to the Super Bowl. You see, he's a die-hard Eagles fan, and has the lucky distinction of having a brother fairly well-placed in the Nike organization. His brother, through some sort of magic, had managed to score C-Mac two tickets for the Eagles game. C-Mac only knew two things about these tickets: they would cost him $500 a piece, but (more importantly) he would actually be sitting somewhere in the arena. Whether they were seats in the bathroom or whatever was immaterial to C-Mac, who really just wanted the chance to go.

So, C-Mac was offered these tickets on January 28th, which didn't give him much time to prepare. First, he called a friend in Georgia and arranged to fly there, drive to Jacksonville on Sunday for the game, and fly back on Monday. Total cost for airfare would've been $600.

I pointed out to C-Mac that the package his brother had put together included the Nike Super Bowl party on Friday night. This would be C-Mac's chance to meet all sorts of cool people, and I told him he was an idiot to pass it up. He saw my logic, and we started looking for places semi-close to Jacksonville (since it was impossible to find a hotel, or a plane ticket, into Jacksonville at that point.

The best we could do was a flight into Gainesville on Friday afternoon, coupled with a motel about 10 miles north, which C-Mac could drop his things at before driving the next 60 miles to Jacksonville for the party. He'd then have to drive back. His friend could drive into Gainesville and stay with him, and they could do the game together on Sunday. Not a bad plane, huh? Only trouble was that plan would cost $1300 in airfare and motel fees. And there were no better deals to be found.

What was I working so hard on C-Mac's behalf? Because, if I could get him to the Super Bowl, I'd have two Blazer tickets instead of one. Then I'd invite my wife and, knowing she'd refuse, I'd have JLowe on standby.

Despite my efforts, and the efforts of several people around the office who were trying as hard as I was to push C-Mac off the ledge and into abject poverty, he came to his senses and told his brother to let the tickets go.

So, C-Mac and I took in a Blazer's game. We watched the Blazers beat the Kings, 114-108. A couple of thoughts:

• Mike Bibby is incredible. He was knocking down all sorts of shots, including several three-pointers where he was taking a 5' handicap.
• Chris Webber, back from being out with an injury, was obviously having an off-night, and still managed a triple-double before fouling out late in the fourth.
• I love Damon Stoudamire. Despite his trouble in the past, I think he's turned the corner and straightened up. During the game, he showed alot of poise and made it clear that, if he wanted, he could be a real force in the NBA.
• Ruben Patterson is amazing. The energy he brings to the game is infectious. Too bad he's (allegedly) a wife-beater and a nanny-rapist. Makes it hard to get behind him.
• Zach Randolph can put up alot of points, but he looks like crap doing it. The nickname "Black Hole" absolutely applies to this selfish player.

All in all, it was a great game. The Blazers took an 18 point lead early in the game, and never let the lead get below four or five points. If only they played like this all the time, our town might have something exciting to root for. Oh, and by the way, I booed Darius Miles everytime he touched the ball.

SUPERBOWL
On Sunday, the Missus and I joined many of our friends (including C-Dub, Bosco, the Schro-dude family, BD, Travis Vo, the Wanger, and others) at Chez Hozay to enjoy the Super Big Game on his giant 50" high-definition set. I'm losing my inspiration to type anything funny or insightful, so let me just say it was a good game, very suspenseful, and the commercials were fun as well. My personal favorite was the one with the cat and the spaghetti sauce. If you didn't see them all, I understand you can view them at IFilm.com. I was relieved that the Pats won, for no other reason than it would make C-Mac easy fodder for the next week or two of mean-spirited jibes. I was disappointed that I lost the pool that was being held. I was only saved by the gambling alliance I have with JLowe, wherein we have pledged to eachother that whenever we gamble, if we win, the other person gets one third. JLowe won the fourth quarter, which means (after paying him back the $5 I borrowed to get into the pool) I get $7.50. Pay up, JLowe. Or I'll send the bill collectors to break your kneecaps.

Not much more to say. I never give any shout-outs to any of my friends, but wanted to today. Quick shout out to Krime-Dog from the old office, who finally shook her crazy roommate and now just needs to deal with her crazy boyfriend, and also a shout-out to W&J, who are preggers for the second time. BT and Mrs. T as well. If me and The Missus start warming a bun in the oven, we'll all have to get together to arrange some marriages.

Quick note: Delta Cafe has a trivia night every Wednesday, starting at 10-ish. Theoretically, fabulous prizes are involved. I'm planning on being there with the Wanger, C-Mac and others this week, so come on out and try to beat us, if you can. Maximum team size is 7 players.

Catch ya later.

Good link from a friend

This is funny. (caution: PMS-related humor. If you are a humorless female, please go elsewhere).

Happy Groundhogs Day?

Did you know that February 2nd is Groundhog's Day?

C'mon, truth. I didn't. My wife, however did.

This all came up during dinner tonight. The Missus asked me to guess what she'd watched today.

This is a silly, silly game. First, there's no way to guess the answer. Between the Buffy episodes we have saved on our computer, the TV shows we taped on our vacation, and the DVD's we have in the basement, there's no way I'm just going to guess what she watched. And she doesn't have the patience to deal with my questions designed to focus my guess. You know, the ones like "is it bigger than a breadbox?" and "does it involve Smurfs?"

Anyway, she told me what she watched (the lame movie Girls Just Want to Have Fun, starring a barely-pubescent Sarah Jessica Parker and other people doing stupid things that girls find entertaining) and then continued sipping the hot & sour soup.

Then, another equally inane question. "Can you guess what I heard on the radio today?"

"Do you really want to play this game again?"

"C'mon," she poked. "Think about it. What is today?"

"Uh, February 2nd. Wednesday."

She got this look on her face which made me think I was forgetting our anniversary or something. "Let's see, your birthday is later this month, as is mine, our anniversary is next month, so as far as I can tell, I officially can't be in trouble for not being able to guess whatever holiday today may be..."

She cut me off. "It's Groundhog's Day. Everyone knows that."

I told her that wasn't true. She didn't believe me. But we weren't through.

"So, can you guess what song I heard?"

"How am I supposed to do that?"

"Think of the movie. What song is in the movie?"

I flashed back to the scene of Bill Murray playing piano while wooing Andie McDowell, but I knew that couldn't be right. What other song was there?

"What song played on his radio every morning?"

At that point, I was able to guess. "I Got You Babe", I correctly guessed.

My wife accused me of being a moron. Not only was I (supposedly) the only person who didn't know February 2nd was Groundhog's Day, but further, she guessed most people could remember the song from the movie with far less brow-furrowing and gnashing of teeth than me.

I decided to test that. We conducted a poll.

We went through my cell phone and called about 10 friends. Among them, Hozay the gadget-lover, JLowe, C-Mac (who's finally fulfilling his long-promised Blazer game just in time for me to see them implode against the Kings on Saturday), CW, The Little Dutch Boy, Charlie the War Hero, Schro-dude, Steve the bro-in-law, and Mr. Schnacky. Each call was conducted over speaker phone. For each call, we first asked each person to answer the question "What is today?" Most guessed Wednesday, February 2nd. With a little additional prodding, most eventually got to Groundhog's Day (except for CW and the Dutch Boy). C-Mac's first response to "What is today?" was "my birthday," which is entirely true. When asked what else today was, he spouted out "Groundhog's Day." He, by far, outperformed everyone on the first portion of the test.

The next portion of the test was to ask each participant what song played every morning in the movie Groundhog's Day to wake up the slumbering Bill Murray. Again, most people were able to answer the question with some prodding. C-Mac, again, was swiftest in his response.

CW and the Dutch Boy couldn't answer either question. They are, therefore, officially my intellectual inferiors.

C-Mac was by far the greatest intellect of all surveyed, followed closely by JLowe and Schro-dude, then Charlie the War Hero and Mr. Schnacky.

My intellectual matches were Hozay the gadget lover, and Steve the bro-in-law. They each correctly answered half the equation.

Anyway, my wife and I found that random telephone quiz show is a fun game to pass the time, and encourage you all to steal it.

And, lest I forget, Happy Groundhog's Day.

Catch ya later.

It's all Betsy's fault...

I'm up quite late tonight. In fact, I'm typing to help stay awake, because, from the looks of things, I need to stay up for at least another hour (it's 12:40 as I begin this piece).

Why am I complaining, when I've blogged further into the wee hours at least once or twice during my illustrious career, you may be asking?

Because. I'm getting old and grouchy, and have started making genuine efforts to be in bed by 10 or 11 at night instead of being up and about at 1am. Part of this is medical. I've found that I feel much better in the mornings, and throughout the day, if I haven't tired myself out by staying up late the night before. Part of it is habitual. Because I've been making these efforts, I've found that my body starts feeling pretty tired by 11pm, and it takes some work to continue functioning beyond midnight these days.

I must finally admit that my days of college and law school all-nighters are behind me.

Which reminds me:
I studied psychology in college. I found when I was a precocious youngster that I enjoyed analyzing people and telling them what was wrong with them. I also enjoyed the fact that they usually agreed with my opinions. Finally, I enjoyed the whole notion of dream interpretation and would often psycho-analyze my female friends who would describe their dreams to me, convincing them that I was the object of their dreams and hence the object of their affections. Whatever. Anyway, I went to college thinking I'd become a psychologist, and discovered right around the end of freshman year that I was getting in over my head.

Why? Because that's when I took stats.

At one point in my life, I was very good at math. As a 7th grader, I was in the 8th grade class for math (and reading, actually). As an 8th grader, I had to walk over to the high school every morning for math with my old buddy, Aaron. This sort of brilliance continued until my junior year in high school. That year, I took some sort of pre-calc class, and it all fell to pieces. My mind was so warped (I honestly couldn't tell you if the material warped my mind or my teacher's technique did) that, by the end of the year, I could no longer do algebra or multiply and divide fractions. I'm still adept at adding, subtracting, multiplying, and dividing, but that's it folks. Anything more, you might as well stick a fork in me. I'm done.

All this to explain why I hated stats. I had determined, going into college, that I would avoid the hard sciences and the mathematics like the plague. And then, lo and behold, I was forced to do math as part of my major.

Believe me, we are eventually getting to a point that relates to my initial topic. Further, we will soon discover the explanation for the cryptic title to this post. Patience, my friends, is a virtue.

Anyway, I did very, very poorly in stats. I just could not wrap my mind around it at all. I had to work with means, medians, standard deviations -- now, the standard deviation is a concept that still baffles me, even to this day.

So, toward the end of the semester, a giant stats test approached, and I found myself in a study group with some very attractive young girls (which, as a freshman in college, made studying that much more difficult) as we prepped for the test late into the night. Through the night, in fact, and into the wee hours. The wee, wee ones. It was around 4am that, all of a sudden, I discovered that, not only was I nearly falling asleep where I sat, but I also suddenly understood everything I'd ever been taught about statistics. It all made sense, perfect sense. And I was, at the moment, forever prepared for anything the professor threw into that test. I was, at last, a stats genius.

I made the mistake of going to bed. Somehow, sleep shut off that part of my brain which had taken in all that my stats book had to teach, and the next day I was an imbecile again. Have remained so to this day, in fact.

No, I can't pull those all-nighters anymore. And I shouldn't be now.

Here's the problem I'm facing, and the inspiration for my post:

As I've discussed more times than I ought to in the past, I have a nifty MP3 player that my wife bought me for Christmas. The player holds just shy of 20 GB of music, or approximately 3900 songs. It is truly a modern marvel, and has become my constant companion at work, at the gym, or whereever I might go that offers a place where I can just listen to music.

Before I left my vacation, I posted about the MP3 player and all of the fine music I had placed into it. I made the mistake of mentioning that I'd put some Britney Spears on it, and that was when the trouble began.

Betsy, of My Whim is Law fame, wrote me an comment containing the following text: "But...Britney? Say it isn't so...!"

Well, tonight I found myself frustrated that I didn't have certain music on my player, so I started the process of weeding out some stuff I don't listen to much. As I weeded, I would also make a list of music to add. I kept finding I wanted to add more music than I had room for, so I ended up deciding I needed to just yank someone wholesale, even if I liked them. The criteria were simple: it needed to be someone I hadn't bothered listening to yet, who I didn't like as much as the person/people I would be replacing them with. And then I stumbled upon Britney. I remembered Betsy's trite little quote, and I remembered my sheepish embarassment from admitting that I had placed Brit onto my sacred player.

And so, I decided to delete her. I selected everything she performed, and hit delete.

And then IT happened. My computer bogged down. My player was audibly at work, as was my computer, at deleting things. I figured that Britney must've been a bigger cache than I'd thought. I perused a couple of web sites as I waited, and then finally, after many long, tense minutes (I didn't want to shut down the program for fear that I'd lose the list of music I wanted to insert into the player) the computer suddenly came back to life. As I looked, I saw something incredible, amazing, and utterly horrible.

In my attempt to erase Britney, I'd erased everything. My player was now, inexplicably, devoid of music.

So, here I am at 1:06 am, typing away as my player gets re-loaded with music. So far, it has digested about 48% of what I'm placing on it, and it just keeps on gobbling the music up.

But, if it hadn't been for Betsy, I'm quite certain I'd never have had this problem. And so, Betsy, a jinx on your Wednesday.

By the way, what ever happened to stats? Well, I passed it with a D+ or something like that. Then, to graduate, I had to develop and write a thesis where I used statistical analysis to show whether or not my thesis was correct. After writing the thesis, I was required to do an oral defense of it.

I stood there, before three professors, all of whom essentially told me my thesis was only useful for cleansing their backsides should they ever have to poo in the woods. They started asking me stats-related questions. Things like, "if we were to increase this factor, would the median increase or decrease?" I swear, the conversation went as follows:
TP: "Uh, decrease?"
Professor: "Are you sure?"
TP:"Uh, I meant increase."
Professor: "That's right. Can you demonstrate it on that chalkboard?"
TP: "No."
Professor: [Aghast at my insolence] "Why not?"
TP: "Listen, I am not good at math. I am horrible at statistics. If I have a calculator and a statistics book with the formulas in it right in front of me, I can eventually work out the math. But I certainly can't do it for you right now."
Professor: "I see."
TP: "I know my thesis isn't any good."
Professor: "It has problems..."
TP: "But I swear to you, just let me graduate, and I'll go to law school and won't tell anyone that you let me escape this place. That's all I ask."
Professor: "Thank you. Have a nice day. Please invite the next student in."

I ended up getting a C on my thesis. I got a B+ on the thesis defense, and that was the beginning of my trek towards the argument-driven life of a trial lawyer.

Anyway, enough of this. I need to fall asleep; I'm no longer able to watch my computer slowly feed my player. At this very moment, my eyes have stopped focussing, and I think I see a color that hasn't really been invented. And, strangely, stats are starting to make sense again. I must be tired...

And it's all Betsy's fault...

Catch ya later.