I’m a little nervous about tomorrow’s race. I haven’t trained all that much. The most I have run this year is 10 miles. Plus I’m overweight. I’m sure I’ll lose some weight tomorrow, but it should be gone by now 
But if I have a good day tomorrow, I’ll try to hold on to that momentum.
Not to give any free press to Yahoo, but I was looking over the shows that were canceled this season on their TV page. It came as no surprise that most of these shows only aired a few episodes in the fall and then quickly vanished during sweeps. Some came in as quick “mid-season replacements” in January, and left just as quickly. I guess this year’s writers’ strike had something do to with it.
The longest running series of the cancelled bunch was the CW’s ‘Girlfriends’. OK, I’ll admit, I watched a few of the reruns on the CW while waiting for the remastered Star Trek episodes to come on. Hey, I don’t want to miss the beginning! 
Like a lot of sitcoms, I found this one to be more silly than funny. I will give the show kudos for sticking it out for 8 seasons; they must be doing something right. From what little I’ve seen, the overall tone of the show appeared to be positive, focusing on a group of 20 to 30 something women who live, laugh, love and cry together. Certainly not as crude as other sitcoms in the CW/WB/UPN slums of television, probably because of the female-centric nature of the show. Heck, the even had a character who was conservative! Of course, he was to Girlfriends what Ned Flanders is to the Simpsons, a straw man held up for ridicule as comedy. But I digress.
What has me posting about Girlfriends at this point was that the final episode aired this past Monday, May 19 (I didn’t watch it). Aparently, this show ended its run with a run of the mill episode about one of the women (an author) confronting writer’s block. That’s it. Not a full 1 hour episode filled with clips from years past or the tying up of major loose ends. Just a run of the mill show. This would have been a sad way to end things even if the writers had planned to end it this way.
They didn’t.
Aparently, the CW cancelled the show at the very last minute, and didn’t give any of the writers time to write a proper send off. This is a real smack in the face to the cast and crew, not to mention the fans that have supported the show for 8 years (to put it in perspective, no Star Trek series went past 7 seasons). Rumor has it that the CW thought a proper series finale would be “too expensive” to make.
I’m hoping that some kind of TV movie can be made to give the girlfriends the send off they deserve. Maybe something to include as a bonus on the DVD box set? Don’t get me wrong. I’m not a fan of Girlfriends, but the show deserves respect for not being complete crap. An 8 year run should not have ended so abruptly.
Stay tuned….
Woke up to some great news this morning! On June 10, Rhino is re-releasing Warren Zevon’s ‘Mr. Bad Example’. Woo-hoo! This album has been out of print for years! Actually, for me it’s been out of print forever since I’ve only been a fan these last 4 years.
I’ve only heard the title track off Zevon’s Greatest Hits album, but if that is any indication, then this is a classic that will stand up with other Zevon classics like ‘Exciteable Boy’, ‘Sentimental Hygiene’ and ‘The Wind’.
At press time, this looks like a simple re-release. Nothing about extra tracks, remixing/remastering or deluxe packaging. However, some of the folks who would be “in the know” about these things over on WarrenZevon.com aren’t exactly confirming that there are no extras. Still, Rhino does a great job with reissues (check out the Monkees ‘Music Box’ box set for proof), and there may very well be some extra tracks on there.
In any case, even though my funds are limited, I’m warming up the Visa as we speak!
This will be the last time I run before the half-marathon this Sunday.
On my way back, running up the hill to my place with about 0.2 miles to go, I felt a sharp stabbing pain in my left knee. It only lasted a few seconds, but it was enough to freak me out a little.
At any rate, 4 miles in 41 minutes is not too bad. It will have to do. Say a prayer for me folks. I’m going to need it. I just want to cross that finish line, preferably running, not walking.
It’s been awhile since I wrote about my investing activities, and I thought I’d catch up. I sold the rest of my position in Ford, because it looked like the stock was coming down to earth. I wish I hadn’t sold half my position in USO because the price of oil never went down like I thought it would.
That said, check out DUG, which got a mention on Fast Money on CNBC tonight (before I had a chance to get in ). I was looking at this one over the holiday weekend. This ETF is an ultra short oil fund, so if the price of oil drops 1%, this fund goes up 2%. I’m loving this one. All I need is one nice correction and it’s cha-CHING!!
I know I’ve been lax in posting lately (stay tuned for a bunch of back-filled posts!), but I did not want to let this holiday weekend go by without giving a big thank you to all the men and women, past and present who are part of our armed forces. So many have paid the ultimate price so that we can enjoy the freedom we have. We owe them a debt that we can never repay.
Here’s to those who served.
P.S. Extra special shout out to Angry Jack. Stay angry dude!!
The first of many back posts! 
Well, it was a perfect storm of stupidity for me today. The half marathon is a week from today. I’m trying to save some cash and forgoing my trip to Virginia Beach to participate in the Rock and Roll Half Marathon on Labor Day weekend. Instead, I’m running a half marathon closer to home. A lot closer. As in the starting line is across the street from my front door.
Unfortunately, that puts the half marathon about 3 months earlier than normal.
So with a lot less training, and a lot more weight under my belt, I tried to run a practice half today, 13.1 miles. I barely got 8 before I gave up.
I was up to 4AM the night before working on my %$#@!&* computer. I hate XP. Anyway, I got up at 8 to IM with lovely girlfriend. , then went back to bed and slept to 2. Then I got up, ate some cereal and a short time later, tried to go running.
Between the weird sleep cycle, the eating too soon, and running at the hottest part of the day (oh yeah, we went directly from winter to summer here in New England, again), I just couldn’t pull it out. So now I’m going to have to run 3.1 miles past my max this coming Sunday. I may just take this last week off to rest and ward off injury my ankles aren’t feeling too good.
I still plan to run the race on June 1, even if I have to cross the finish line on my elbows.
As captain Kirk said, “May fortune favor the foolish.”
I’m starting to remember why I love Linux so much. Even though a lot of hardware doesn’t work on it, what does work actually WORKS!! I installed a PCI card to accomodate a 3rd hard drive (did you know motherboards can only support two hard drives? Me neither? ). That’s when all my troubles began. The card works fine, but I am getting BSOD’s every few minutes. The lovely thing is, it seems to be a different error each time. Most of them are IRQ_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL. Looks like some kind of driver issue. Like I said, the IDE controller card works fine. I suspect it may be my Hammerfall HDSP sound card (expensive!). I’ve trolled RME’s message boards, and it looks like a driver rollback may be in order.
I’ve also heard that the physical placement of your PCI cards could cause problems. So now I’ll be looking forward to disconnecting nearly a dozen wires from my box, carrying it out the computer room, opening it up, and removing and replacing 4 PCI cards (2 slots for the Hammerfall, 1 for the IDE controller, 1 for the Hauppage TV card) in some kind of deranged musical chairs.
After I get this fixed, I am leaving Windows XP Pro the heck alone. Forget Vista. I don’t have the hardware for it anyway. I’m not about to replace my motherboard, because I doubt they make them with 4 PCI slots nowadays. Planned obsolescence. Now it’s all PCI express, PCIe, PCIx12 or whatever.
Eh. I’m keeping my box the way it is. If it ain’t broke don’t fix it. I wish I took that to heart, but I like to tinker. My motto appears to be “If it ain’t broke, break it! Then fix it!”
There I said it. Sorry, but I just don’t find it funny. I’ve watched several episodes now, and I don’t find anything funny about it. It seems like writers have mistaken “uncomfortably awkward” for “funny”. Seriously, isn’t that what this show specializes in? Why do people find this entertaining? When I see this stuff, it makes me feel uncomfortable. Am I over-analyzing this? Do people enjoy feeling awkward, or do they just enjoy watching others feel uncomfortable?
Want to write your own episode of The Office? Here’s how:
Step 1: Have the boss, whoever he is (Michael?), say or doing something to make himself look foolish
Step 2: Have someone else deadpan stare into the camera as it closes in on a tight shot of them.
That’s it.
Or for a more advanced “joke”, try this.
Step 1: Have Michael say or doing something to make himself look foolish
Step 2: Have someone else call him on it.
Step 3: Michael smiles desperately into the camera as it closes in on a tight shot of him.
Don’t forget the final step!
Repeat every ten minutes, five if it’s sweeps.
Besides the repetitive and unfunny jokes, I can’t stand the characters. They’re all weirdos. Folks I used to live in East Hartford. I used to take the bus around downtown Hartford. You think I want to come home and watch more weirdos? Pass. Between Michael and Dwight, and every other character whose name I haven’t bothered to learn, there’s very little to like about the people your watching on TV? People like this?
Say what you want about Friends, all 6 of them were pretty likable. Yeah, Ross was annoying at times, but nowhere near the Defcon-1 level of Dwight’s psychosis. I have no hard data on this, but I’d be willing to bet a lot of Office fans are former Seinfeld fans. I never liked that show either, for pretty much the same reasons.
I mean, dang. The whole “mockumentary” thing has been done to death, and more often than not, done badly. If you want mockumentary done right, start with “This Is Spinal Tap” and end with “A Mighty Wind”. Include nothing in between. These two movies are absolutely hilarious.
End Transmission
This was not so good. My Garmin GPS had a weak signal for more than a few seconds a few times during this morning’s run
At a 10 minute mile, this should have taken 1 hour and 20 minutes exactly. Yes, the distance was longer (the most I’ve run all day), but I think it’s the GPS’s fault.
At any rate, the next 2 days are rest days for me, then a Saturday long run of 10 miles.
I’m probably breaking lots of rules here. “Cramming” is best meant for final exams, not half marathons
As Warren Zevon sang, “Keep me in your heart for awhile”
