According to Rolling Stone

172 Music Industry people voted on this.. and voted Bob Dylan's "Like a Rolling Stone" the #1 song of all time.

Ok, well we know what Brian Wilson is smoking ... I'll agree that Aretha Franklin belongs in the top 10. And certainly the Beatles... but the fact that you have to go all the way down to #19 before you get to Elvis (and at that, its Hound Dog, which isn't his best IMO) invalidates this list. ;)

The Beatles made the list with 22 songs... if you add John, Paul and George's solo tracks to that.. those guys got some serious airtime on that list.

I would argue though that there's too much "Beach Boys" and too little "Pink Floyd" but maybe thats because I'm only 29.

So I bought HL2... bought it through steam. I bought the silver package because I never played HL1.

Guess what, Steam worked perfectly for me, I bought the game late at night, went to bed and in the morning the game was completely installed and everything is cool.

Dunno why everyone is so down on Steam... maybe I'm just lucky.

This is fun to play with: Keyhole

You get a 7 day free trial... its fun to zip around to places... I can't see myself actually paying for this... but hey... it'll be entertaining while the trial lasts.

The moron of the week award is already soundly going into the hands of Michael Phelps, who, if you haven't already heard, got caught drunk driving, even though he's only 19, even though he's richer than most third world countries and could afford to buy a fleet of limos with all the money Visa gave him during the olympics to drive him home, even though, if he had asked ANYONE to drive him home people would have been falling over themselves for the priviledge to drive the 6 gold medal winner home.

But no, I have no sympathy for anyone who thinks they can drive around endangering the lives of others, especially when an alternative is extremely easy to get as it was for him. His heartfelt apology that someone wrote for him doesn't rate a golfclap from me. What a waste. How pathetic would it have been if he would have rammed into a tree and ruined his carreer right there? The kid is 19, he could go on to win more olympic medals than anyone in the history of the games. Oh well, maybe this will wake him up before that happens.

Its lucky that Phelps did this though, otherwise the moron of the week award would have gone to Maurice Clarett. What a way to burn your bridges. Its obvious that what this guy wants more than anything is a big fat NFL contract. The only thing he cares about is himself, and thats the only thing he'll ever care about. Great. Well why did he let himself turn into a big fat lazy ass retard then? Oh because he was afraid people would tease him in the gym? This will really help his cause. If this guy EVER makes it to the NFL which IMO is unlikely at this point, he'll be signed to a minimum wage contract and likely injure himself if he ever touches the ball and fade into obscurity. If he had kept his head down and just quietly stayed in shape, he might have gotten an NFL contract somewhere, and been able to prove himself and then made something of himself. But as it is, he's a loudmouth moron.

Oh well. Maybe they do get special favors for being athletes. I don't care. But either way, right or wrong, Mo is a whiney little turd who has lost any bit of respect I may have ever held for him... just like I lost a ton of respect for Phelps.

Morons!

So a guy who lives in Austria wants to buy my domain name for $2k.

Fair enough.

So he asks me for my bank account info so he can send me the money.

Nuh uh, I think, why would I give someone my bank account info? That stuff is sacred! So I try to get him to sign up for a paypal account, even though paypal is going to rape me for the 2% or so fees, oh well. But that takes forever as they need to validate it... 2 months later, still no money and still I'm not transfering my domain name.

So we come down to it, I need the money because of some financial things going on right now. So I decide to go to the bank and ask them what to do.

Here's where things get funny, no, here's where things get COMICALLY funny, at least for me.

See, had I just gone and ASKED the bank honestly in the first place two months ago I would have found out about a cool thing called a ... well I can't remember what its called now but its like an account where they can wire money too thats not mine, but then I get the money, and it only costs me $15 which is WAY less than Paypal charges and is completely safe for me because its not associated with me in any way.

So if you ever have to do something with money that you're not comfortable with, just ASK the bank. Like I should have. and I don't know why I didn't in the first place. like an idiot. like I sometimes am.

oh well.

First look at this:

Clicky

Now I'll ask you not to pass that around to too many people off my server for bandwidth concerns (rehost it please if you want to pass it around).

I took that February 20th, 2004.

Fun eh? Can't believe I forgot I took that picture. hehe.

I'm so happy!

No more crappy ads on TV or Radio!

Man ... living in a battleground state is the pitts, you know I didn't so much mind the ads that said "Vote for me because this is what I would do if I were president." It was all the negative ads that so blatently twisted the truth that insulted my inteligence that annoyed me.

You know the ones, where they take a guys quote completely out of context, twist it around and go "See what he said about this!" and then lambast him on it and make it seem like only an utter moron would support this guy. Both sides do it. I know, a lot of it comes from the "soft money" ads, the ones that "George" or "John" didn't approve, but still, I'm dang tired of hearing about it, so I'm really glad today is finally here and it's over with.

So its raining here in Ohio and I hear thats good for Bush because Democrats are less likely to make the trip to the polls in the rain. If thats the truth, what a sad thing it is when the leadership of a country for four years can be determined by the weather. Then again, if you're too lazy to go out and vote because its raining, maybe you shouldn't be voting anyway. If its because they are old and can't see well enough to drive in the rain, then they can call me up and I'll drive them to the polls and hold the umbrella. I get off work at noon today and the polls don't close till 7:30, I've got plenty of time.

Then again, an old person probably wouldn't want to be around me today. I've got a terrible head cold. I sound like Barry White. Which makes me wonder, what does Barry White sound like when he has a cold?

Kerry or Bush, whatever the outcome, I hope its a fair election. Nothing like the country that tries to portray itself as the model of democracy in the world having elections where lawyers stain everything with litigation making the voter seem pointless.

I think the most humorous thing would be for Mr. Bush to win the popular vote but Senator Kerry to win the Electoral. That would be the cookie...

Now that the curse is over, what will they have to blame for losing?

Whats going to happen to their team?

I want Lowe on the Reds! (I can dream can't I?)

Well... if Carl Lidner is too cheap to turn the damn lights on at the stadium during Monday night football (Was funny watching John Madden circle the giant black pit and go, "this is where the reds play") I doubt he's going to pay what Lowe will be able to bargain for...

Pedro ... I can see him in a Yankees uniform next year.

Varitek ... I bet he stays with the Sox.

If they're smart they'll trade Bellhorn, IMO. He'll fetch way more than he's actually worth after what he did.

Tony LaRussa... I wonder how it feels to get swept in the world series ... twice ...

Tim McCarver ... www.shutuptimmccarver.com

And I swear I heard one of the announcers last night say, "Even though we're in St. Louis, there is a lot of red in the stands tonight." ... LOL!

Oh well, curse reversed under a blood moon, how cool is that? Maybe the Cubs will have their curse reversed under a blue moon... I wonder when the next blue moon in october is ...

... probably the last time it will be 70 degrees and sunny in western Ohio... and my convertible is in the shop. They gave me a Ford Explorer for a loaner car. It smells like stale cigarette smoke despite the "No Smoking" sign clearly pasted on the windshield. I HATE FORD EXPLORERS AND I HATE CIGARATETE SMOKE!!

I think it should be a common courtesy that if you bring a convertible in for service they should give you a convertible as a loaner. :(

Sox up 2 games to zip on the Cards, one of those games due to a great performance last night by Curt Schilling playing on his bad ankle.

This man is a machine. He's going all out, and he will live on in Baseball legend no matter what happens from here on out. Regardless of that... Roger Clemens gave Schilling two games to play, and here's why.

Two years ago of course, we had the debacle of the All-Star game "tie". Then fans said that was stupid, "There's no tying in baseball, thats a soccer thing!" yeah... whatever, its an exhibition game. I got over it. A lot of people got over it. But the commisioner of baseball in his wisdom decided that the outcome of the All-Star game should determine home field advantage for the World Series.

This year, Roger Clemens, for the first time in his life pitched for the National League, and in the first inning absoultely stunk it up. If I remember correctly he gave up either 5 or 6 runs before getting yanked. It was a horrible performance, one from which the National League never recovered. The American League won the Home Field advantage for the World Series.

Fast forward to today, the Red Sox get the home field advantage. How big is that? Well think about this... when you play in a National League stadium , your pitcher bats for himself. Now, me being from Cincinnati, a national league town, I prefer it this way. However, do you think Mr. Schilling would be available for two games in the world series this year if he had to run the bases on that ankle? I don't think so. So the Cards now have to face Martinez twice, and Schilling twice, if it comes to that.

Who am I kidding, this is the Red Sox we are talking about, if this doesn't go to seven games I'll be surprised. If its not down to the wire, I'll be dissappointed. Really, I don't care who wins. I usually root for the National League team to win... but after the way the Red Sox came back to embarass the Yankees, I can't help but like them.

So here's to Roger Clemens, helping out his old teammates the Boston Red Sox by sucking for the National League. Not only that but he helped wear down their opponents by making them play 7 games in the NLCS. Maybe Roger leaving Boston wasn't such a bad thing after all...

If Houston and Boston both win, then Roger Clemens could end up pitching against the Red Sox in the World Series ... how huge would that be?

Of course, the Astros have to be the Cards and the Sox have to beat the Yankees for that to happen, but hey, stranger things have happened.

Name that Game!

I got 12 out of 18 ...

I live in one of the so-called "battleground" states, so I'm barraged with ads for (well, mostly against) both candidates.

So lately there's this really fast ad about how Bush has a 4 year plan to give us everything we've ever dreamed of and more. Solve world hunger, give everyone a ferrari in the garage, etc.

My question is, what plan did he have 4 years ago and did he even try to execute it, and if so, what were the results? Don't get me wrong, I'm not in love with Kerry or anything, I do in fact hate both candidates, but I think it's fairly rediculous to say, "Give us 4 years and we'll show you what we can do!" when you've already HAD 4 years to do something and as far as I can tell, you haven't done much (unless I'm missing the point).

It just reminds me a scene in "O Brother Where Art Thou?" ...

Pappy O'Daniel: "We need a shot in the arm. You hear me boys? In the goddamn arm! Election held tomorrw, that son of bitch Stokes would win it in a walk!"
Junior O'Daniel: "Well' he's the reform candidate, Daddy."
Pappy O"Daniel: "Yeah."
Junior O'Daniel: "A lot of people like that reform. Maybe we should get us some."
Pappy O'Daniel: "I'll reform you, you soft-headed son of a bitch. How we gonna run reform when we're the damn incumbent? Is that the best idea you boys can come up with? Reform?! Weepin' jesus on the cross. Thta's it! You may as well start drafting my concession speach right now."
Pappy's Staff: "Okay, Pappy."

Yesterday, I had to bring my Beetle to the shop. It's has a slight problem where the windows don't "drop" properly sometimes when you open the doors, it's a convertible so it's supposed to lower the windows about an inch when you open the door so it can go under the roof properly. This makes for a tighter seal when the top is up.

While I was in the wait area, they had Fox News playing on one of the televisions. I typically don't watch any news channels, I don't watch much TV at all for that matter, so I have no idea if what I saw was typical.

They were discussing the recent crash of the Genesis probe, and they were putting "viewer e-mail" up on the screen. Several of the e-mails ran along the same disturbing trend. Now I'm going to paraphrase here as I do not remember the exact quote, but the message was this:

"I don't want NASA spending $270 million to tell me the origins of the universe, when all I have to do is look in the book of Genesis."

or ...

"Why is NASA bothering with this? Everyone knows God created the universe in 6 days."

This was absolutely one of the most ignorant statements I had ever read. Don't get me wrong, I have no problem with people being religious, in fact at one time I was a Christian myself. However even in my most "faithful" of days, I never would have made such an asinine statement. Its tantamount to saying, "Lets not study anything that the Bible already has defined."

Ok, so for you Christians out there who think that we shouldn't study the creation of the universe, let me ask you a question: How did God create the sun? I know the Bible says that He went, "Let there be light" and there it was. But when He spoke those words, what happened? Did it suddenly appear where there was no star? Or was there a process involved, a starting point that grew (however rapidly you want to believe) that created the Sun and the Stars, etc.

Unless you bury your head in ignorance, you know that everything has a process. The earth is built from layers, and even if you are one of the sort that believe in "Apparent Age" (which is, in my opinion, a doctrine of ignorance in and of itself) you have to believe that there was a process involved, and in studying that process, knowledge could be gained.

I guess I'm saying, I don't see any point in wanting to remain ignorant about the world around us. Even if you believe that God created it, what harm is there in understanding? What's the point of studying anything? Wouldn't you think that by studying God's creation, it would bring you closer to Him? I could be off, as I say, I'm not a Christian anymore, so maybe I'm missing the point.

NASA can continue to spend billions of dollars to research the universe as far as I'm concerned. For every spectacular failure that was Genesis, there are other missions that are resounding successes. And even though Genesis crashed, do you not think that some of that $270 million was spent on engineering that will be applicable to other missions, perhaps other things in the private sector? You never know, one day you may owe your life to something that borne from NASA's research.

I wonder if any of those people who wrote those e-mails to a News channel brodcast via satellite to the world about how the space program is a big waste of money saw even a bit of the irony in that message.

I love NBC.

Not really, they are killing my enjoyment of this year's Olympics one event after the next. Its wonderful that I don't even have the OPTION of watching these events live.

Though the US Softball team is quite impressive, if you haven't heard they are 7-0 and have yet to give up a single run.

NBC had to add their own little bit of fun to it though, their "Ace" reporting quoted pitcher Lisa Fernandez as saying that she knew she was trying to "keep them off the base pads".

Yeah, she kept them off the base pads alright....

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