NFL Draft Thoughts, NBA Playoff Predictions Revisited, and A Lighter Wallet

No thanks to cousin David, I now have a brand new laptop.

~$700 after taxes for the following (from Dell Small Business):

Dell Inspiron 6400
Intel Pentium Dual Core T2080 (1MB cache, 1.73GHz, 533Mhz FSB)
Windows XP Home <-- I wish they offered XP MCE
15.4" UltraSharp WXGA+ Display (1920x1200) with TrueLife
512MB Shared Single Channel DDR2 SDRAM 533MHz, 1 DIMM
Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 950
80gb 5400RPM SATA HDD
24x CD-RW/8x DVD-ROm
Dell Wireless 1390 802.11b/g (54Mbps) Wireless Card
53 W-Hr 6-cell battery
3 year warranty
$70 Dell Dollars (basically, a gift certificate)

Plus, I'm 99% sure I can get rid of my existing laptop (a Dell Inspiron XPS M140) for $350-400, making this a sub $300 laptop upgrade. Yay for new toys!

- So as we near the end of the first round of the NBA Playoffs, let me revisit my playoff predictions.

Pistons in 5 over Magic. I'll give Orlando one win at home.
Cavs in 4 over Wizards. I don't see the Wiz winning a single game without Arenas and Butler.
Raptors in 6 over Nets. I'm so looking forward to hearing Raptors fans heckle Wince Carter.
Heat in 6 over Bulls. I just can't pick against a motivated Shaq, even with a less than 100% Wade.
Mavs in 6 over Warriors. I wouldn't be surprised if the Warriors pull the upset, though.
Suns in 5 over Lakers. The over/under on Kobe's PPG should be 45, and I'll take the over.
Spurs in 6 over Nuggets. AI and 'Melo should be able to steal a game or two against the Spurs.
Rockets in 7 over Jazz. This series should be the most entertaining one of the first round.

Quick thoughts:

- It looks like I gave Orlando too much credit. I can't wait for the Pistons-Bulls series.
- I wasn't sure about Cleveland sweeping Washington, and I'm glad to see that I was right.
- New Jersey looks real good. Toronto...not so much. No matter; the Nets will get beat by the Cavs in the next round.
- I was smoking something awfully strong when I picked the Heat over the Bulls. The Bulls have a legitimate chance at winning the East (at the very least!)
- The Warriors look awfully strong. I would love to see a Warriors-Suns Western Conference Finals.
- The Suns look awfully good as well...or is it just the Lakers looking awfully bad? This pick looks good for me.
- Looks like the Spurs should finish the Nuggets in five, unless they want to deal with going back to Denver for Game 6. The Suns would love to see that happen.
- The "most entertaining" series sure looks like it. I don't think the home team will lose a game in the series, and I'm rooting for T-Mac to finally get out of the first round.

Super-quick NFL Draft thoughts (as I'm falling asleep and have less than 25 minutes to get this blog entry in!):

- The Browns are the early winners of the draft, getting both OL Joe Thomas AND QB Brady Quinn. How the heck Quinn dropped that low is beyond me! And to think, Cleveland wanted to draft one or the other, and they landed both (even though it cost them a #1 pick next year, which is a high price to pay).
- The Patriots are your 2008 Super Bowl champs, after trading for another pair of receivers (Wes Walker and Randy Moss?!?) and having a typically strong draft. Not to mention, they get the Niners' #1 pick next year, which could conceivably be in the top 10.
- Nice job, Miami, drafting Ted Ginn Jr., when they could have had Brady Quinn. By the way, Ginn's sprained foot might cause him to miss the start of Dolphins' training camp. Enjoy the pick, Fins' fans!

Damn I'm sleepy! Hopefully this blog entry has the required 300 words. It looks like I will get the entry posted with fifteen minutes to spare, thank goodness!

It's a Dry Heat!

According to weather.com, Monterey Park was supposed to be a good 5-10 degrees cooler than Tarzana for the weekend. Well, it sure didn't feel like that yesterday. Also according to weather.com, Monterey Park was supposed to be in high 70s. Well, it sure doesn't feel like that today! Add on to the fact that both my sisters made me help them with washing their cars (at 2pm, a primo time to do it!), and it's a surprise that I'm not in a hospital room right now.

(I should point out that I don't do well with heat. To paraphrase fat man/comic John Pinette, on really hot days, my kidneys start to fail while others don't even break a sweat!)

Here are a couple news stories that piqued my interest, while I was sipping on my morning coffee:

- An Inglewood man allegedly stole 26 different cars in order to visit his girlfriend since the month of January. He had apparently taken cars from Inglewood, abandoned them in Santa Barbara, and taken other cars vice versa. Question: if he stole a car to go from Inglewood to Santa Barbara, why didn't he take the same car back to Inglewood? Why steal a second car? Also, how lucky is this guy to be able to find a car in each city to get to his girlfriend's house and back, as the article suggests (if he had stolen an odd number of cars, that would suggest that he had to take alternate transportation, or perhaps he did wise up and take at least two cars on a round trip)? By the way, not only does the guy not own his own car--as if that wasn't painfully obvious--but the guy doesn't even have a driver's license! My favorite quote from the article:

His girlfriend, who was not arrested, told authorities she had been trying to dump him.

Obviously, she didn't do a good enough job! Maybe the crook can sue the girl, on the basis that she did not completely end the relationship, causing him to act irrationally? In this litigious world we live in, would such a lawsuit really be that far-fetched? And where's Florida nutjob...er...lawyer Jack Thompson to argue that this guy was probably driven to steal (pun intended) by Grand Theft Auto?

- Can a car thief also win a Good Samaritan award? Police in Jacksonville, Florida are looking for a man who allegedly stole a 2002 Nissan Altima, only to return it when he noticed that an 18-month-old boy was sleeping inside the car. Quoted from the article:

According to the police report, the mother had gone into the store to buy some oil, leaving her sleeping son and the keys in her car. She was in the parking lot when the thief returned and yelled at him as he ran away.

According to witnesses, the thief yelled back, "That's what you get for leaving your kid and keys inside of your vehicle."

Another witness heard him say, "You're lucky you had your kid back there. I ain't gonna do that with a kid in the car."

I guess the woman was using her kid as an anti-theft deterrent. Either that, or the guy didn't want to have to deal with changing the kid's diapers. At least the thief had a heart, but I gotta ask: if the woman left a puppy in the car, would the thief have had the same reaction? The "thief" is being charged with kidnapping and grand theft auto, while the woman may be charged with leaving a child unattended and leaving her keys in her car. Leaving your keys in the car is a misdemeanor? What about leaving one's keys on one's front door (something I, admittedly, have done in the past)?

Building a DOS/ROM Box (aka Crap parts + Crap case = New Toy!)

It looks like Hank had a close call on Thursday, nearly getting himself disqualified from the IMBC! Since I'll have a long day ahead of me later today, I might as well get a blog entry in for today right now.

- Quick rant: I cannot believe how much Baskin Robbins has raised their prices. My local store no longer offers two pre-packed quarts for $8 (and this was 2 for $7 not long ago). A regular ice cream shake is now $4.39! A banana split is $4.99 by comparison! Also, my local Baskin Robbins charges for whipped cream! My sister ordered a milkshake, and the girl who helped us asked if she wanted whipped cream. My sister answered affirmatively, and the girl mentioned that there would be an extra charge. My sister quickly decided against the whipped cream, and the girl had a "what a cheapskate!" look on her face.

What's next? Is Subway going to charge extra for salt and pepper? Will Starbucks start charging for cream and sugar? When will El Pollo Loco start charging for salsa? Look, Baskin Robbins, you guys are getting $4.39 for a couple of scoops of ice cream, some milk, and the right to have that mix blended in your cool hand-blender thingy. You can't spare a few cents for some whipped cream?

(Damn, that might have been one of the weakest rants I've ever made!)

So a couple weeks ago, tfinch from the Anandtech forums offered a bunch of spare computer parts--an Athlon T-Bird 1.2GHz, an MSI K7T266 Pro, and 512MB of PC2100 DDR RAM--for the cost of shipping. I couldn't resist, so I PayPal'ed $10 to him, and got the parts. I was thinking about making this computer a Linux box, but I decided to use it as a DOS/ROM box instead (think "older games"). I had most of the other parts for a computer at the ready: an old ATX case, a 300W power supply, an old CD burner, and a NIC, the last of which was necessary because the board didn't have one on board.

(Tangent #1: I really don't have a need for this system. I already have two desktops, and there are a pair of laptops in this house as well. I understand a 5:2 computer:person ratio is unhealthy.)
(Tangent #2: the last time I ever installed a NIC on a computer was back in 2000 :P)

All I needed was a hard drive, and I acquired that in a trade for a leather wallet worth $12. It was some junky wallet I had, and I was pretty happy to get a 20GB Maxtor HDD out of the deal. 20GB isn't much, but I didn't need a really big hard drive; as long as the drive comfortably held Windows XP and the games I was going to install--(S)NES ROMs, mostly--I would be fine with a smallish drive.

For some reason, the board will only detect 384MB of the 512MB of RAM. That's not a big deal, as far as I'm concerned, although I will probably try to figure out the problem eventually. Installation of Windows XP took a while, and once that finished, I began the process of transferring a bunch of stuff from my other desktops onto this box. I used a USB 2.0 external hard drive to get the files I wanted, and that's when I ran into my first problem: the DOSBox had USB 1.1 (read = S L O W) ports. I decided that a network transfer was the best idea, so I put all the files I needed on my desktop hooked up via Ethernet. That made the transfer go about 50 times faster than if I tried the transfer via USB.

Once the transfer was done, I moved the DOSBox into my room, and hooked it up to my Sceptre 32" HDTV. After making all the necessary connections, I fired up Tecmo Super Bowl (NES) and began running amok with Lawrence Taylor and the New York Giants. I have an itch to play some Chrono Trigger (I LOVE that game!)

By the way, for those of you keeping score at home, DOSBox + NES emulation + 32" HDTV = semi-geek. As Krunk pointed out, had I installed some flavor of Linux on the DOSBox, I would have earned tons more geek points.

Gosh it's hot here! I may never fall asleep!

The NFL Off-Season Super Bowl! (aka the NFL Draft)

I've got some ground turkey meat thawing in my fridge right now. Turkey burgers FTW!

Before I get to the topic at hand...

- Finders keepers! Finders...um...felons? It seems a bank in Nebraska errantly deposited $106,000 into the account of Mr. George Costa, and Costa did what 99% of the population would do with that kind of found money: he went on a shopping spree. Apparently, he was able to spend $80,000 of it, before he was "charged with theft of lost or mislaid property. It is a crime to take money that's been 'delivered under a mistake.'"

Krunk and I talked about this story in length, and our thoughts were excellently summarized in his blog entry here.

Cliffs:

• The bank had six months to catch their mistakes. The article suggests that the bank had made multiple, errant transfers, so how did the bank not catch their mistake the first time around? Surely there had to be some sort of error checking protocol used by the bank to avoid making these mistakes.
  
• A felony is way too extreme, especially if the guy had nothing to do with the "theft." Yeah, maybe it was morally wrong for the guy to spend found money, but is this really any different from going to a restaurant, getting the bill, noticing that you weren't charged for a dish, and paying the bill anyway? Sure, the number of dollars is way different, but the principle, IMO, is the same.

Here's one question I gotta ask: what, exactly, is "mislaid property"? Let's say I lost my wallet at a Macy's. If a person picked up my wallet, took the cash out of it, went on a shopping spree, and all of this was captured on Macy's security cameras, could I sue the guy for theft? Worse, would he get charged with a felony? Perhaps it's my idiotic a$$ that should be at fault for losing the wallet in the first place. With regards to this case, I think the people responsible for the mistake need to be fired, and the bank should have to eat (at least) part of the loss. I wonder if the terms and conditions of the account in question had a clause saying that errant funds could be reclaimed at any time.

(warning: the following may contain sports-like substances)

- So the NFL Draft has finally arrived. I've only heard hype for the draft for the last six months (consider that the NFL season ended in early February). A couple quick thoughts on the draft:

• People say the NFL Draft is the most unpredictable of all sports drafts; basically "there is no such thing as a 'sure thing.'" If that's so, then why is everyone saying that the Raiders MUST take LSU QB JaMarcus Russell? Because he's a once-in-a-lifetime player? Last I checked, Daunte Culpepper was that same type of player. Big arm? Sure. Good decision making? Sure. Sure thing? Who knows? Also, maybe the Raiders do need a QB, but they also need tons of help elsewhere.
• Also, why is WR Calvin Johnson labeled "a sure thing"? ESPN analysts have insisted that the Lions will be making a huge mistake passing on Johnson; never mind that the Lions have a history of busting when it comes to drafting first round WRs. As with the Raiders, the Lions need a ton of help too.

I'd like to see analysts use "a sure thing" less and phrases like "the best choice" more often to define draft picks. Unlike the NBA, where you were pretty sure that Lebron James was destined for superstar-dom, you can't say the same for NFL prospects. For every Peyton Manning, there is a Ryan Leaf, after all.

My ground turkey is almost completely thawed. I can't wait!

Food is Good

Quick-hitters:

- Some more Google Analytics keywords fun:

"pocket kings + acquired"
"emarketer williamson april 26 breakfast" <-- WTF???

- Apparently, "beefing" up one's resume is bad, but outright lying on one's resume is perfectly acceptable, says the MIT dean of admissions!!! This is a classic case of "listen to what I say, not what I do" syndrome that is all too common these days.

- I knew nobody was going to be eliminated from American Idol this week (yes, I've become an Idol degenerate). As soon as host Ryan Seacrest began talking about a "shocking result," I was pretty sure about my prediction. It makes perfect sense; why put a damper on a charity show by eliminating one contestant?

So I enjoyed Hank's blog entry yesterday--about pork tenderloins--and I was tempted to try to make that myself (by the way, Hank, thanks for putting a link to my blog on your site; I have returned the favor). I ended up making a baked spaghetti dish, with tomato sauce made from scratch.

(Tangent: I will not lie and suggest that I am an awesome chef, but I do enjoy cooking and can make a reasonably tasty dish every now and then. Most of the meals I cook, though, are simply rice- or spaghetti-based.)

I cannot stand Prego, Ragu, etc., and I only have a jar of Prego in my cupboard for emergencies--any time I don't feel like making sauce from scratch. These prepared pasta sauces are way too sweet for my taste. My sauce consists of a few basic ingredients:

• Canned tomato sauce (not Prego, Ragu, etc.)
• A can of crushed tomatoes, or about two cups of fresh tomatoes, cooked down
• Half a large onion, chopped, and sauteed in olive oil
• Fresh chopped garlic, dried basil leaves, a pinch of black pepper, and other spices to taste.

I had no canned tomatoes, but I did have some cherry tomatoes that were about to go bad, and that worked quite well.

(Tangent: I used some Del Monte canned tomato sauce, which tastes pretty bad by itself. In fact, most canned tomato sauces I've tried are pretty awful. There was one brand that I used once that was damn good; if only I remembered what brand of sauce that was. Del Monte, Hunts, store-branded...they're all quite terrible. However, adding the extra spices, onion, and garlic makes the sauce rather tasty.)

The result is a tomato sauce which I use for spaghetti, lasagna, and sometimes even pizza. I decided to make my version of baked pasta by cooking up some spaghetti that I bought from Costco for a bit less than al dente.

After draining the pasta, I tossed it lightly in some extra virgin olive oil, and then tossed the spaghetti in the tomato sauce. I decided I wanted some meat in my baked pasta dish, so I was going to make turkey meatballs. Unfortunately, I had no thawed ground turkey. Browsing through my fridge, all I found was some Kielbasa sausage. I figured that the sausage wasn't going to taste that bad, so I sliced it up, tossed it in the pot of spaghetti, sprinkled some Parmesan cheese on top, and threw the entire pot in the oven at 325F until the sausage was cooked.

The spaghetti came out just about perfect, though I could have done without the sausage. I had also made myself a salad with iceberg and romaine lettuce, some unidentified greens, and some cherry tomatoes. I topped off the salad with a bit of Italian dressing. Unfortunately I never did get a chance to taste the salad, as I stuffed myself full with the spaghetti.

Ugh...I ate way too much. I feel a food coma kicking in. zzzzz...

JVC RA-P10 Portable Audio System for iPods review

A couple quickies before I get to my review:

- I love helping people in finding hot deals. I really enjoy spending other people's money! Unfortunately, sometimes shopping for other people has its drawbacks. Case in point: my cousin is looking for parts for a new PC, and I'm more than happy to oblige. Unfortunately, shopping for these parts is only tempting me even more to build myself a new PC! Argh!

- Ultimate Bet, a poker site that I used to frequent--before online gambling became illegal--now offers Roshambo, or Rock, Paper, Scissors. As silly as the thought of playing Roshambo for money sounds, the "Remembering Roshambo Rules" section of that page is ten thousand times more ridiculous:

Rock
Beats – Scissors
Loses to – Paper
How to remember – Drop a rock on a pair of scissors, the scissors will break. A piece of paper, on the other hand, has rock covered.

Scissors
Beats – Paper
Loses to – Rock
How to remember – With its sharp blades, a pair of scissors can destroy a piece of paper. But drop a rock on the scissors and there’s a good chance you’ll break the scissors.

Paper
Beats – Rock
Loses to – Scissors
How to remember – A piece of paper can wrap a rock. But a pair of scissors will cut right through it.

LOL!!!

I still think it's stupid that paper beats rock. Throw a rock at a piece of paper, and the rock goes right through it, right? The people at Budweiser sure agree with me.

On to the review:

So I picked up the RA-P10 Portable "BoomBox" a couple weeks ago, because my sister wanted an iPod speaker system with alarm clock functionality. For months, she's been wanting an iHome iPod speaker system, similar to this one, but for less than $99. So when I found the RA-P10, she gave me the OK to purchase one for her.

The RA-P10 comes complete with an iPod dock connector (iPod not included :P), as well as little plastic bases that are fit with whatever flavor of iPod you're using: the regular iPod, the 30GB Video, the 60GB Video, the Nano, or the Mini. The RA-P10 also features a bright LCD display with a built-in clock/alarm, as well as a calendar and thermometer with Celsius and Fahrenheit readings. Also built in to the RA-P10 is an FM tuner; I've not played around with the FM tuner, though, as I hardly listen to FM stations. The RA-P10 comes with a handy little remote control, and when I mean little, I mean little. I find myself misplacing that remote frequently :P.

The RA-P10 itself can be powered by the included AC adapter or 6 AA batteries. Should the main power be cut off to the system, or the master power button not be depressed, the clock/alarm/calendar settings are retained by a single CR2025 "button" battery (included). Note that the only way to charge the iPod while using the system is with the AC adapter plugged in. Songs playing on the iPod can be changed via the remote, the back/forward buttons on the RA-P10 itself, or on the click-wheel of the iPod.

One really neat feature of the RA-P10 is the fact that you can set the alarm to a different volume setting than that of normal playback. That way, you could listen to your music at a low volume (say, before you doze off), and have the music play at a much louder volume to wake yourself up.

(Tangent: I haven't had a new alarm clock in years, and perhaps this is a feature that currently exists in newer alarm clocks.)

The RA-P10 also has a buzzer, if you prefer a buzzer rather than an FM station or music from your iPod.

Sound quality is pretty decent; the two speakers output a cool 4W of power. All in all, the RA-P10 is a pretty nice system, albeit a bit bulky; it's quite wide, and a tad on the heavy side, especially if you have AA batteries installed. Then again, how often will you be moving around your alarm clock?

Google Analytics Analytics

I had an idea for today's blog entry, but I decided to save it for another day.

Quick-hitters (warning: may contain sports-like substances):

- It's a good thing that online wagering is illegal here in the states, or I could have lost a ton of money on Miami +4, Lakers +9.5, and Utah straight-up over Houston in Game 2. Not to mention, there were a few baseball games I would have wagered on that would have lost me money as well. Whew!

- I have the itch (again) to upgrade my computer. It's a good thing I have a wonderful antidote: my empty wallet. I've been told that having kids is also a great way to avoid needlessly spending money, but I don't need that much help.

- I'm having quite a bit of fun with Google Analytics. One of the neat features of Analytics is the Top 5 Keywords section--keywords that web surfers searched for which led them to your site. The most prevalent keyword used to find my site is "MX3200 review" (the Logitech MX3200 keyboard/mouse combination, which I reviewed a couple weeks back). There were also a couple hits from searches related to turkey burgers (mentioned here). Oddly enough, a search for "ungsunghero" was used to find my site once, probably by me :P

Some of the more peculiar keyword hits:

- food-induced coma <-- easily my favorite
- cingular
- Garoid Probation Services (???)
- World record for green bean casserole (WTF?)

By the way, try a Google search for "scroll lock location mx3200."

- Did you see the story about the four-year old kid getting clipped by a football player during a Colorado State intrasquad game? The video was frightening to watch; the poor kid got hit pretty good. I wonder if the parents will let their kid play pop warner football, and if they will, will the kid start injuring the other players? I can picture the kid playing free safety, obliterating any opposing player that dares to come down the middle of the field. Or maybe the parents will be so afraid of contact sports that they'll force him to play a musical instrument. By the way, I love how CSU gave the kid a phone call and a signed football as their apology. Come on! At least spring for season tickets for the family! Or at least a signed jersey! Those go for far more on eBay than a signed football!

In all serious, it's sad that a collision with a helmeted football player likely will be one of the first memories of this kid's childhood. I'm very glad to hear that the kid did not sustain any serious injuries.

Next time, I'll be making a "Diet UngsungBlog" (all the taste of regular, zero sports!) entry, as I review another tech product. I also plan, sometime in the near future, a blog entry about the FX Network's show, The Riches.

Cheese and whine! (aka You Don't Know How It Feels)

(Warning: the following blog entry may contains sports-like substances)

And you dont know how it feels
No, you dont know how it feels to be me

You're right, Tom Petty. I don't know how you feel. I can't say I know how these guys feel either.

- The Bulls beat the Heat in Game One of their first-round playoff series, and The Big Can't-Win-One-Without-A-Sidekick blamed the refs, as usual. I love the photo in this article; someone award the photographer of that picture a medal of some sort! Shaq whined:

"My intention was to come out and be myself, until Eddie Rush derailed me," the big man cried. "I’m used to just outplaying somebody and just playing hard, but I guess that’s what you got to do to stop Shaq."

Sure, perhaps one of the fouls called on The Big Overrated was bogus. Still, Shaq's whine rings hollow, especially when whining about the officials is a huge no-no in the NBA. By the way, Shaq, I think you meant to say "playing rough" rather than "playing hard." I will not deny that Shaq is an athletic freak, and I do agree that he gets beat up a lot in the post. On the other hand, he deals at least as much punishment as he absorbs, and it's no stretch to say that he gets away with quite a lot.

(Off topic, but TNT just showed that new T-Mobile commercial with Charles Barkley and Dwyane Wade. LOL)

By the way, as a former Laker fan, I got to enjoy a bunch of those calls that went in Shaq's favor. Don't get me wrong; he's an awesome player. If only he would shut up sometimes. Then again, perhaps I just don't know how he feels.

Speaking of Dwyane Wade, check this quote out, from this MSNBC.com article:

''Coach [Pat Riley] expects the world out of me,'' Wade told the Herald. "He expects more out of me than anybody probably ever expected.''

Am I reading the quote incorrectly, or does this sound like Wade is whining about having to guard Luol Deng? Oh well, at least Shaq didn't whine that Deng had one lucky game, or something like that.

- Floyd Landis may be a cheater after all, after his second set of urine samples tested positive for synthetic testosterone. Of course, Landis is in full whine mode, insisting that the lab that tested the samples did so with some improprieties. In Landis' defense, his first set of samples (the "A" samples) were cleared months ago, which should go a long way towards preserving Landis' Tour de France championship. I would like someone to explain this quote to me, though:

"This [the leaks of the test results] represents a massive failure on the part of WADA to manage the critical fight against doping," Landis said of the World Anti-Doping Agency.

Huh? What? Quoi? I guess I just really don't know how he feels.

Oh joy! HEROES is back on tonight! I can't wait! And if you think I'm lame because I'm excited about a television show, then you don't know how I feel.

(The "you don't know how it feels" theme sounded like a good idea when I thought of it this morning! :P)

(Food) Coma-tosis

Hot dogs, beef and turkey burgers, the occasional carrot stick, dim sum, a delicious cream puff, birthday cake, potato chips, a can of soda, maybe a piece of celery...that's a not-so-exhaustive list of what I have ingested in the past thirty-six hours. The worst part is, I still have one more large meal left this weekend--my mom's birthday party. I think I'll order milk of magnesia as my drink tonight, and order a dinner salad with TUMS.

Some quick-hitters:

- Damn Dodgers couldn't come back against Pittsburgh today. Even with chances in the eighth and ninth innings, we couldn't pull it off. Oh well, I'm still happy with a 13-6 record.

- I stopped watching the Lakers game for a bit, when they held a big second-quarter lead. Not long after, my dad told me that the Suns had tied up the game. At that point, I figured the Suns were going to win, and of course, they did.

- A man drowned in a moat after trying to flee casino security officials in Missouri. He ran after being questioned about an existing bench warrant. Talk about an overreaction! I figured he tried to attack the dealer because the dealer hit three consecutive blackjacks, or because the dealer put out an ace on the flop against his pocket kings. If any of those happened, then I would understand the guy's reaction, especially if it cost him a big pot.

(I could probably dedicate an entire blog to crummy casino-related jokes about this story, but to avoid sounding overly insensitive, I'll jump to another subject.)

- A South Carolina woman has smoking to thank for saving her life. Apparently, she took a smoking break outside her house when a tree fell through the roof. The woman's daughter, who was also home, managed to avoid injury as well. I wonder if Philip Morris will use this story as a PR campaign entitled "Smoking DOES save lives!" I really love how the article says the house is not inhabitable; yeah, I would imagine a tree crashing through your house would render your house so. On a serious note, thank goodness that the family avoided serious injury.

I had a few other things to blog about, but I have to go get ready for the par-tay. I may have to reserve a room in the hospital before dinner, just in case I continue this stretch of gluttony.

Happy blogging!

Sleep is for losers

So I can't sleep, and because I'll be occupied for most of today, I figured I'd make a blog entry now to keep myself in contention for the title of IMBC champion.

By the way, you'll soon notice that the title of this blog entry may be considered a pun.

- So I was playing some more online poker earlier--play money, of course, because online gambling is illegal. I put $10 onto a $20 no-limit table. An hour later, I was down to my last $2, not because of bad play or bad beats, but because I was completely "card-dead." The best hand I saw for this session was a pair of deuces, until the final hand I played.

I held pocket nines, so I threw in my last $2. I got called by one player, who held A5. Of course, the flop held an ace, with two clubs (my opponent held the five of clubs). The turn, miraculously, came a nine! It was the nine of clubs, but still, I now had the best hand. All I had to do was avoid another club on the river.

Oh well, at least I was up overall for the day, thanks to my profitable session earlier. Of course, the day would have been even better if I made the call with my pocket kings, as mentioned in the last blog entry.

- After that, I played some blackjack switch, which is similar to regular blackjack, but with a couple key differences:

1) You play two hands simultaneously, instead of one. Therefore, you need to make two bets instead of one.
2) The second dealt card in each hand can be switched with one another (hence the name of the game).
3) You can still split and double down. Blackjacks pay 1:1, not the usual 3:2. Blackjacks can be made after a switch, but not after a split (i.e. you have AA, split them, and end up with A-J and A-K; neither hand is considered a blackjack at this point).
4) A dealer 22 pushes all non-blackjack hands <-- the real stinker to this game.

So I was playing a few hands at $2 each ($4 per round), and was losing pretty badly. I then bumped up my betting to $5 a hand ($10 per round), and started making a recovery. I was actually in the black, when I played my last hand.

I was dealt 5-10 and A-6 against a dealer 6. If you remember the rules I mentioned above, you can see that this is an ideal situation to switch.

5-10, A-6 --> 5-6, A-10

Now I have a double down opportunity--made even juicier by the fact that the dealer has a 6 showing--as well as a blackjack. At this point, I'm guaranteed nothing worse than a loss of a single bet, assuming I double down on the 11 and end up losing that hand. Sure enough, when I doubled down, I was dealt a face card to give me 21. On top of that, the dealer's down card was a ten! All I had to do was avoid a 5 or a 6, and I was going to win 3 bets, or $15.

When the 6 came, I was kinda ticked off. I still won a single bet for the blackjack, but I felt like I got robbed. I stopped playing after that hand, only because I felt that my momentum was slipping, and I was pretty happy to finish in the black after my horrible start.

Then again, why should I be so annoyed? I was playing with play money, after all. I would gamble online with real money if it were legal.

Good night...er...morning!

(So...did you figure out the pun?)

Nothing but quickies!

A couple quickies:

- I folded pocket Kings to a huge raise, and not only would I have had the best hand before the flop--the other two guys in the pot had 99 and 55--I would have made a full house. The pot was $60 too! Then again, you try throwing in $20 pre-flop (at a $20NL table) with Kings facing two all-ins.

I should point out that this was play money, as online gambling is illegal, and I would never consider breaking US law to gamble online!

- Quick NBA first round playoff picks:

Pistons in 5 over Magic. I'll give Orlando one win at home.
Cavs in 4 over Wizards. I don't see the Wiz winning a single game without Arenas and Butler.
Raptors in 6 over Nets. I'm so looking forward to hearing Raptors fans heckle Wince Carter.
Heat in 6 over Bulls. I just can't pick against a motivated Shaq, even with a less than 100% Wade.
Mavs in 6 over Warriors. I wouldn't be surprised if the Warriors pull the upset, though.
Suns in 5 over Lakers. The over/under on Kobe's PPG should be 45, and I'll take the over.
Spurs in 6 over Nuggets. AI and 'Melo should be able to steal a game or two against the Spurs.
Rockets in 7 over Jazz. This series should be the most entertaining one of the first round.

- Watching a little kid falling off a piece of furniture should never be funny. Witnessing the tumble and laughing uncontrollably isn't cool, either, and I know that. However, when your two-and-a-half year old nephew stands on your sofa, rolls forward, lands on a sofa cushion wedged in the gap between your sofa and coffee table, falls through the gap (as if the cushion was supposed to hold his weight), smacks something on the table during the fall, and is able to get up and laugh about it, then you should be allowed to laugh hysterically. If only I had a camcorder ready to record the fall.

(me <-- looks out window to see if anyone contacted the authorities)

- Check out the specs of this crazy computer (link ripped directly from Anandtech). Wow! Dual Geforce 6200 video cards? Crazy! The people over at Michael's Computers think this guy is ripping people off.

For those of you unaware, this computer isn't worth close to $1,500, even if a legitimate copy of Windows XP Professional SP2 is included in the install. For all we know, the CPU could be overclocked. "Very fast from experience"? "Will run anything you throw at it with ease"? Look, just because the darn thing loads Internet Exploder in less than five seconds doesn't make your computer fast. Yes, two Geforce 2 6200 video cards is better than one, but that's like saying two pieces of gum you found on the street is better than one. I'd like to see this thing run The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion on the highest settings; it'll probably run 0.3 frames per second. I must say, though, that the case is pretty nice.

Well, this blog was supposed to be about a product I recently acquired, but I think I've said enough for today already. Plus, I'm getting my butt kicked at online poker, so I think it's time to take a break.

Until next time!

All in the family

Before we get started, a bit of seriousness (maybe...):

I am sitting here, broken-hearted, as I am typing up this blog entry. I must spill my guts and talk about an event that happened yesterday that left me dumbstruck and devastated. It hurt me so much that I had to stop what I was doing for a few minutes to let reality set in. I'm in so much pain that it may take me several days, or even weeks, to fully recover. I thought I would have you in my life, but fates intervened, and now you're gone. My heart aches, my body hurts, and I gotta say, it really sucks. When it became official, and I knew that you and I were not to be, I felt like I got punched in the stomach and had my foot run over by a truck. Why, oh why, did you have to tease me like that? I wish you had never come into my life!

It'll take some time, and maybe some beers, but eventually I'll get over the fact that I will not get the Heat-Cavs first round playoff match that I had hoped for!

(All that above was for your Emmy consideration :P)

No thanks to the Bulls' inability to beat the New Jersey Nets, the Heat get to play the Bulls in the first round, while the Cleveland Cavs draw an undermanned--a horrible understatement, by the way--Wizards team. The only way I'll get my dream Heat-Cavs matchup is if they play each other in the Eastern Conference Finals, and I don't want that, only because that means one of the two teams will make it to the NBA Finals. Yeah, I kinda don't like either team.

There, I feel better already.

Some family-related quick-hitters (hence the title of this blog entry!):

- I swear my sister has some sort of karmic powers. If I do or say something negative to her, something will happen to me due to negative karma. Case in point: one time, she hit her elbow on one of our dining room chairs. I laughed hysterically, only to hit my elbow against a wall. Screw the "Jim Rome karma"; that has nothing on my sister's karma.

- I must remind myself to not cook turkey burgers for my mom ever again. I undercooked her burger ever so slightly--we're talking one nano-millimeter of pink in the patty--and she nearly flipped out. She proceeded to throw her patty back on the stove for a few minutes more. As if that wasn't enough, she then filleted the patty (cutting it in half along the edge of the meat), and proceeded to nuke the two smaller patties into oblivion. The two halves were charred, and about as tasty as shoe leather!

Now I understand that most people don't like their burgers undercooked, and ground meat should really be cooked thoroughly, to minimize the risk of illness; I like to slightly under cook my burgers, though, just leaving them barely pink inside the patty (~ medium well, I'd say). It keeps the burger juicy, and the patty gets warm enough to reduce the risk of getting sick. At the same time, I don't have a problem with people ordering their burgers well done. But badly overcooking your hamburger? Beef jerky would think that my mom's hamburger was too dry.

- I've lots to do this weekend with the family. There's a birthday party on Saturday, featuring a BBQ. There's a breakfast brunch on Sunday morning. To top it all off, there is my mom's 60th birthday Sunday night. By Monday morning, I expect to be visiting Tarzana Medical Center, getting my stomach pumped.

Au revoir!

Jack Thompson...WTFBBQ?

I had to make a second blog entry today, just to talk about anti-gaming lawyer Jack Thompson and his latest bout with foot-in-mouth disease.

Check out this story. Apparently Jack Thompson blames Bill Gates for the VaTech shootings, suggesting that Microsoft was the publisher of Counterstrike. As pointed out in the article, although it can be said that Microsoft published Counterstrike on the Xbox, the original developer of the game was Valve Software. Oops!

Maybe Thompson is suggesting that we sue Microsoft for providing an operating system to play Counterstrike on. And you know what? I agree with him. While we're at it, let's sue Best Buy, Circuit City, Amazon.com, etc. for stocking these games on their shelves. Let's sue Dell, HP, Compaq, and other computer manufacturers for providing the hardware to play such games. Why don't we go all the way to oil companies, for selling fuel to allow me to go to the stores, or the car manufacturers themselves? Or why not Goodyear for providing me tires?

(Yeah, I can go on all night).

BTW, I am in pain after laughing uncontrollably at this guy's spiel.

Do you want to fight?

- This story regarding NBA official Joey Crawford and Tim Duncan is just hilarious, and I'm not at all surprised to see Crawford suspended for the rest of the season. For one thing, Duncan is about the least temperamental player in the NBA. Second, so what if he was laughing on the bench? How do we know that he was directly laughing at a call made by Crawford? Refs need to learn that their job is simply to officiate a game, right down the middle, and to not allow their egos to come into play.

Then again, this is the NBA; NBA officials aren't exactly the most unbiased referees in all of sports.

- Brian Urlacher got fined $100,000 for wearing a Vitamin Water cap at a press conference during the week of Super Bowl. For those of you that don't know, the Super Bowl was in early February. Apparently, it is illegal to promote a product that isn't a league-designated sponsor. This article sums up my opinion on the fines levied against Urlacher. Urlacher gets $100,000 for wearing a cap, but Terrible Owens gets only $35,000 for spitting on a guy? I don't care that league rules mandate a $100,000 fine for a violation that occurs during Super Bowl week. IMO, the fine is about $90,000 too much. Never mind the fact that this is Brian Urlacher; how many negative headlines has this guy produced? None?

Ok, the rest of the blog will be sports-free, or double your money back!

- That pic of the VaTech gunman holding both guns might be one of the creepiest things I've ever seen.

- Did anyone catch Chris Matthews--host of MSNBC's Hardball--interviewing anti-video game nutjob Jack Thompson? I can't stand Thompson, so when I saw him appear on Hardball, I muted my TV. According to some discussion on AT, apparently Thompson (not surprisingly) blamed CounterStrike for the shooter's rampage, only to have Matthews rip him a new one by pointing out that Thompson had absolutely no evidence to prove this. To further 0wn Thompson, Matthews interviewed a suitemate of the shooter's, and the guy said that the shooter never played video games. Nice try, Mr. Thompson. Maybe you should try getting Pac-Man banned; that game encourages gluttony AND murder!

(Tangent: the idea of playing Pac-Man has be jonesing for some NES retro-gaming. If only I can find the driver for my Xbox to PC adapter!)

- Today's eBay story: A year or two ago, I sold a copy of Quickbooks 200x (I forgot what version) to a lady in New York. Two weeks went by after the auction closed without hearing from the buyer. I fired off an email to her, saying that I was going to relist the auction. Right before I got around to relisting, the buyer emailed me, saying that she wanted to complete the transaction. She explained that she was vacationing on her houseboat, and that kept her away from her email. She sent me a PayPal payment, but she provided an unconfirmed shipping address.

(Tangent: in order to be "protected" by PayPal against fradulent payments [and yes, the quotes are necessary; anyone familiar with PayPal would understand why], an item must be sent to a "confirmed" address--the billing address of one credit card linked to the buyer's PayPal address)

I refunded the payment and instructed the buyer on how to add a confirmed address to her PayPal account. She said she would do it right away. At this point, I should really have just told her to go find another seller.

A week elapsed, and I again had not heard anything from the buyer (what a surprise!), so I fired another email to her. I explained that I was going to file an Unpaid Item Dispute on this transaction, in an attempt to recoup my listing fees for the auction. I made one huge mistake, though; I filed the dispute as a mutual agreement to cancel the transaction. Had I claimed that the buyer failed to go through with the transaction, she would have been hit with an Unpaid Item strike, and I would have recouped my funds. I only filed the mutual agreement to be nice; it was an attempt to let her out of the transaction without penalty.

Minutes later (notice how quickly the buyer is able to respond to my emails, once I apply pressure to her!), she emailed me back, saying that she still wanted to go through with the transaction. Again, she explained that her time on her houseboat kept her away from a computer. She also cancelled my dispute, claiming that she did not agree to mutually cancel the transaction! That meant that I could not ever recoup my fees from the buyer, in case she did flake out again.

I fired off one last email, saying that I demanded a USPS Money Order, and she had three days to contact me with confirmation that the money order was sent. Of course, I never heard from the buyer again. I guess her houseboat sank or something...

Enjoy!

eBay away

Every day, since the start of the Iron Man Blogging Competition, there has been a "Topic of the Day." For whatever reason, I have not blogged about any of the TotDs, but today's Topic was one that I couldn't resist.

TotD: Strangest thing you bought on eBay? Strangest thing you've sold on eBay?

I'm gonna change up the TotD slightly, and talk about one item that took four attempts to sell on eBay. The story about this cursed cell phone can be read, in its entirely, at these two links:

The Cursed Cell Phone
The Cursed Cell Phone, part 2

(note: I wrote these back in 2003, not caring about grammar, spelling, sentence structure, etc.)

The Cliffs' Notes version of the story goes like this:

- I put my Samsung SGH-N625 cell phone on eBay, after upgrading my contract and getting a new phone. It sold, but the buyer NPBed (Non-Paying Bidder; in other words, he won my auction and never paid me for the item).
- I put my phone back up on eBay, and sold it again...or so I thought. The buyer this time NPBed as well.
- Third time's the charm? Hell no. It turns out I was dealing with a would-be scammer.
- On the fourth attempt, I actually got payment and sent out the phone, Unfortunately, the buyer had trouble getting the phone to work. After my last email, I never did hear back from the guy; hopefully he finally got the phone to work for him.

As if all that wasn't bad enough, the beginning of my contract with Crapular...er...Cingular started like this (Alert! The link contains overly dramatic dialogue between myself and Cingular Customer Service Representatives! You have been warned.)

Cliffs:

- Cingular's system overcharged me like crazy
- CSRs said they were not at fault
- Oh wait, I did get overcharged!
- I got credited $10/mo for three months for the inconvenience.

For some crazy reason, I stuck with Cingular until 2006. Only recently did I kick Cingular to the curb, switching to Sprint, and I have not looked back. Of course, it's hard to beat Sprint's SERO plan: $30/month, 500 minutes, and Vision (internet).

Actually, I do remember one really strange item I sold on eBay. A few years back, a bunch of people won free Cybikos (the classic edition, not the Xtreme one pictured). The toy intrigued me for all of five seconds, before I decided to sell it on eBay. At the time, most people were getting $20-25 for their Cybikos.

I threw it up on eBay, and it was bid up to around $15 with about five minutes to go in the auction. All of a sudden, the eBay snipers came out of the woodwork, and somehow, the auction ended at $41 + shipping!!! Needless to say, I was VERY happy with that result.

(Tangent: great...yet another stupid Mac v PC commercial just aired)

A couple quick sports-related thoughts:

- The Clippers actually beat the Suns! Too bad Dallas played only one starter--Jason Terry--and Golden State beat them. Now the Clips have to win their last game and have GS lose their last one to get into the playoffs.

- The Dodgers won again, but Jason Schmidt was placed on the DL. I would have wagered that Brad Penny would have been the first Dodger starting pitcher to hit the DL. Oh well.

By the way, I realize this blog entry makes seven entries in a row that were NOT sports-dominated! I have no idea what is going on!

Until next time, happy blogging!

Off Target

Before I get started, it dawned upon me last night that "Here's to you, Mrs. Robinson" would have made an awesome title for yesterday's blog entry! Oh well, opportunity lost!

Some quick-hitters:

- There's nothing more bone-chilling than to turn on my radio, expecting to hear Jim Rome rant about something stupid, only to hear him talk about the shooting on the Virginia Tech campus. I can't imagine how frightened the students on campus were, once word spread that the gunman was loose. Prayers go out to the victims and the families.

- Nice job, Clippers! All you had to do was beat the Kings to maintain control of your own destiny. Now, you have to beat the Suns, or pray that Golden State loses to Dallas and Portland (assuming you beat NOK).

- It took a while, but the Denver Nuggets look like a very scary team. I'm not saying that they will beat the Spurs in the playoffs, but the Spurs have to be sweating having to defend this team for 48 minutes per game.

- My Dodgers sit in first place at 9-3, and Brad Penny is 3-0. W00t! Of course, we're still only a couple of weeks into the season.

As for the topic at hand:

So you can go ahead and add Target to the list of evil stores; stores guaranteed to lighten my wallet much more significantly than I expect. I dropped by earlier today, with the intention of buying five items: a pair of sandals, some Doritos, some cereal, dishwashing detergent, and a new pillow. I was thinking that the trip was going to run $25-30 at the most. Of course, I ended up spending closer to $50, but at least I did get everything on my shopping list. Damn Jalapeño Cheddar kettle-cooked potato chips and Raisin Bran Crunch!

It was amusing to push my two-and-a-half year old nephew around the store, though, listening to him mumble about every single item he saw. Now that I think about it, he was the one that picked the cereal for me. He was also the one that brought my attention to the kettle-cooked chips. Dammit, this is all his fault! Anyway, we were there for a good hour, and he was doing a lot of talking. Couple that with the fact that we were constantly on the move, and he quickly got worn out; he ended up falling asleep in the cart when we got to the registers. I guess I can add this to my list of effective strategies to wear out a kid to the point of exhaustion and sleepiness, which I dub my "rope-a-dope" technique :P

(Whew! Once again, twenty-five minutes to spare!)

Let's all go to the market...

let's all go to the market
let's all go to the market
and get my ankles snapped!

(Robert Frost, I am not. I am aware of that. Also, it's a sure that bet, whenever I go to an Asian supermarket--99 Ranch, e.g.--I will get my ankles clipped by at least one shopping cart. It's also 99% likely that that same person will blame me for getting hit, acts as if nothing happened, or laugh at me as s/he carts away).

So I was in Monterey Park for the weekend, and I dropped by 168 Supermarket (where the VONS used to be, near the corner of New and Valley). My mom told me that this place was pretty much like 99 Ranch; when I stepped in, I immediately thought the place was a better-lit, Asian Costco. I do not remember the old VONS being that huge!

So we started off in the produce section, and whoever designed the layout of said section needs to be fired. There are sections less than two cart lengths wide about the place, making navigation very difficult. I can't count the times people stared at me, claiming I was blocking their way (look, if I could move out of the way, don't you think I would?!?). One guy cracked me up, though; he was so completely frustrated with the situation that he started crashing into other people's carts to get them out of his way. And no, I didn't escape from the produce section unscathed.

The meat/dairy section (at the back of the store) was a lot more wide open. Now that I think about it, the guys responsible for the entire layout of the place should have been fired! The back of the store was a freeway, compared to the side streets of the produce section. The visit to that section of the store wasn't nearly as bad as the trip down produce lane, if you don't count the stock boy who leered at me while I was looking for a carton of eggs that didn't have any broken ones in it.

A few other random thoughts about the grocery trip from hell:

1) I swear the guy standing around in the snack aisle smelled of either bad feet or good cheese.

2) I think 168 Supermarket has a rule stating that nobody in the supermarket is allowed to push the cart normally. I don't recall the last time I saw that many people pulling their carts behind them or by their side. And yes, one idiot, who was pulling his cart behind him, nearly ran the left rear wheel of his cart over my foot. No, sir, that was not funny. I wonder what I could have gotten as compensation if he did run my foot over.

3) Maybe it was because I was shopping on a Sunday night, or maybe it was because I was shopping this Sunday night, but the cashiers at 168 Supermarket made the Post Office look efficient. Each register had about six or seven customers, and three entire registers were closed, out of 8-10. On top of that, two of them were express lanes.

Needless to say, the grocery trip was no fun at all. Something did happen after the trip, though, that was hilarious. Unfortunately, I can't share that with you, lest the authorities come knocking on my door...

Some quick sports thoughts:

- That was an awesome ceremony offered to the memory of Jackie Robinson by the Dodgers, and the round of applause the fans gave to Vin Scully was just as cool. So what if we Dodger fans haven't won a playoff series since 1988? As long as have Vin calling Dodger games, the Dodgers could lose 100 games ever year, and I'll be somewhat OK with it. It's a shame that I didn't appreciate the times when all three major LA sports announcers--Vin Scully, Chick Hearn, and LA Kings' announcer Bob Miller--were alive nearly as much as I should have.

It was also great to hear Mrs. Rachel Robinson give the speech during the ceremony, and to hear stories about her and her late husband during the second inning of the game, which aired on ESPN. I can't imagine what they had to go through as Jackie tried crossing the color barrier into baseball. It's thinking of events like this, and people like Jackie, that remind me that my life isn't nearly as rough as I pretend it is.

To avoid getting all sentimental, I'll leave my thoughts of the ceremony at that. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go ice down my injured ankle, courtesy of a cart that did make contact with my ankle.

(Whew! I got this entry in with 25 minutes to spare!)

Hey good neighbor...

(The following is a weak rant. Feel free to skip down to scroll down to the quick-hitters section).

Hey Neighbor,

Nobody, outside of your condo, wants to hear your loud Spanish music blaring through your Bose knock-offs. Trust me, nobody wants to hear that crap, especially not at 9AM on a Saturday morning. Even the neighborhood's dogs agree with me; their barking along with the music is what finally got me out of bed. I don't dare confront the guys, though, not with the crime rate in this complex up ten-fold in the past month or so.

(tangent: I am a chronic exaggerator. Trust me, not long ago, that was hard to admit. However, there have been weeks in this hell-hole/condominium complex where the cops have visited every day for a week. I know this because I have the luxury of residing in the condo right next to the front gate.)

In short, I hate this place, and I can't wait for my lease to expire so that I can move out. Never mind the crap conditions inside my condo; the following events have happened in this complex since I moved in less than two years ago:

- An LCD monitor was left at my front door, and stolen, in a span of twenty-five minutes (the time elapsed between the delivery and the time I got home to find nothing on my doorstep). Granted, PC Connection was dumb enough to ship an LCD monitor--not double-boxed to hide the contents, by the way--without signature confirmation. I got PC Connection to ship me another one via UPS two-day.

- A broken tuba was boxed and left outside one person's condo, to be picked up via Fedex. That was stolen too.

- A couple who were in the process of moving in left their barbecue grill by the stairs below their condo, unattended. According to a letter they posted around the complex, pleading for the return of the grill, they had left the grill by the stairs for a few minutes at the most.

- I've seen car registration stickers removed.

- My favorite one (and by favorite, I mean most ridiculous): someone here stole a wheelchair! How low, on the evolutionary ladder, do you have to be to steal someone's wheelchair? The guy who stole a prosthetic limb a couple years back thinks that's ridiculous.

Other than all of the above, this is a nice place to live.

One quick thought:

- I had mentioned in yesterday's blog entry about how a "no contest" plea was equivalent to "no comment." George Carlin, among others, once stated that "no comment" is, indeed, a comment. That got me thinking, "is it possible to have absolutely no comment?" For instance, let's say you're standing at a podium, getting interviewed by the press. Let's say one interviewer asks you a question, and you choose to not respond. Could your lack of a response be treated as "no comment," which would then be considered a comment? Instead of "no comment," I think I will say "I have a comment, and it is nothing" from now on.

Oh joy! The music, which had been toned down for the last few minutes, is blaring again!

(If I feel up to it, I think I'll make a second blog entry today, talking about the Lakers' potential freefall right out of the playoff picture, as well as thoughts of baseball, nearly two weeks into the season. If not, I'll save it for tomorrow.)

Turkey burgers are divine

(disclaimer: I'm going for a third straight sports-free blog entry. I already feel faint. The worst part is, I have enough material to go another two or three sports-free entries!)

Quick hitters:

- Give me a turkey burger over a (beef) hamburger any day of the week. If ground turkey wasn't so expensive ($2.29/lb at Costco for ~6 lbs of meat), I'd stop buying ground beef altogether and switch to ground turkey. Tacos with turkey meat, spaghetti with turkey meat sauce, turkey meat balls, etc...they all work for me! Plus, I like to believe that ground turkey is healthier for me than ground beef. About the only ground turkey recipe that doesn't work quite well, in my culinary experience, is turkey meat loaf. The turkey meat just leaves the finished loaf too dry for my tastes; that's where fresh, ~10-15% fat ground beef does the trick.

(Believe it or not, I have never tried grilling turkey burgers! If only I had some charcoal, I'd throw a couple turkey burgers on my Weber grill and go on a turkey burger bender.)

- I am impressed with Canon's repair department. My sister's Canon Powershot SD100 camera failed; it was a problem with the CCD, as detailed here. I called Canon's repair center, and immediately got a UPS prepaid label to ship the camera to them. The repair took them only two days, and they shipped the camera back via Fedex 2-day delivery! On top of that, apparently Canon also thoroughly cleaned the camera, inside and out.

Now to the story I wanted to talk about today:

- A woman in Walnut, CA, Sarah Vasquez, and her mother are suing Best Buy, alleging that a Geek Squad technician, Hao Kuo Chi, recorded the woman showering using his cell phone. According to the lawsuit, Chi went to the bathroom and apparently planted his phone in a way such that he could get a shot of Vasquez showering. Eventually, Vasquez found the phone in her sister's room, removed the chip (a microSD card, probably), and went to a Verizon store to view the video. The victim claims that Chi could be seen setting up the camera in the footage.

According to this link, Chi has plead no contest, and was sentenced to 72 hours of jail, three years of probation, as well as community service, "sexual impulse" classes, and he must stay away from the victim at all times. Here are my thoughts on this story:

1) I'm still trying to envision how the guy set up his cell phone to do this. Unless the phone was concealed in, say, a medicine cabinet, or hidden in a hamper, I think I would have noticed if someone left a cell phone in my bathroom (not that that would EVER happen :P).

2) The no contest plea leads me to believe that the claims against him are true. If he didn't do it, the chip would have told the entire story. If Chi never appears on the alleged video, as the victim alleges, wouldn't that provide some reasonable doubt to the story? As far as I'm concerned, if I were wrongfully accused, I would have screamed bloody murder and threatened the accusers with a defamation suit. One of two things must be true here: either the guy did it, or he didn't but was absolutely certain that the evidence against him would lead to a conviction.

(The following paragraph contains an analogy to sports. You have been warned).

The no contest plea, in my eyes, is the equivalent of a baseball player having no comment when asked if he had ever taken steroids. If you didn't cheat, never considered cheating, and don't want to be grouped with people accused of being cheaters, wouldn't you come out and say "hell no, I did NOT take steroids"? Instead, most athletes are going with a heavily-worded "no comment," leaving the general public to believe the guy's hiding something.

One thing is for sure; it'll be interesting to see how much Best Buy offers the plaintiff in a settlement. I'm 99% sure that Best Buy will not want this case to go to trial.

Until next time!

Diet UngsungBlog

(All the taste of the regular UngsungBlog, but with zero sports! Yes, I'm going to attempt a second sports-free blog! This could get ugly...)

- I don't think I got more than an hour of sleep, as I was suffering from a bad sore throat, pains in the stomach, and a bad cramp in my right leg. Worse, it was horribly windy last night--and it still is--with gusts of wind hitting my window all night. It was a rough night, to say the least, and it's all my fault. This is what happens when one insults the Costco gods!!! I shall now say three "Hail Costco"s, and offer a cheese danish, a glass of Dole juice, and some Craisins to them.

(oooh...the winds seem to have died down, my leg no longer hurts, and my throat isn't as irritated as it was a minute ago. I think the offering is working!)

- Oh no! Warren Buffett is now only the third-richest man in the world, after getting passed by Mexican "telecom titan" Carlos Slim Helú, $53.1 billion to $52.4 billion. Still #1 is Bill Gates, at $56.0 billion, but the article suggests that Mr. Helú could eventually pass him. Regarding Mr. Buffett: poor poor guy. What is he going to do, now that he is only the third richest guy in the world?

Speaking of which, my sister joked that Mr. Helú probably was really worth 53.1 billion pesos. Using XE.com's currency converter, that comes out to about $4.8 billion USD; not a bad chunk of change still, wouldn't you agree?

- Newsweek reported that a CBS producer was fired after an article appearing in Katie Couric's "Notebook" was plagiarized from the Wall Street Journal. Couric will not be reprimanded in any way, due to the fact that she does not actually write these pieces herself. Disregarding the plagiarism for now, isn't affixing your name to a piece that you have no real input in providing, at best, journalistic dishonesty? Nice job by CBS to call the plagiarism an "omission," by the way, suggesting that they forgot to mention that the article was blatantly ripped. Whoops!

I wish I could ask the now unemployed producer if he really expected to get away with this. Let's see, you read an article from the Wall Street Journal--a newspaper with slightly more readers than one of those cheesy magazines you can find at the supermarket for free--and you decided to rip the article nearly word-for-word for use on a video segment associated with the CBS Evening News--a news show that has slightly more viewers than a City Council meeting on the Public Access channel? Talk about committing career suicide.

(By the way, did you know that Amazon.com keeps a complete order history of every order you've placed at Amazon.com? My oldest account has order details from orders placed in 2000!)

- Finally, even though more women use the internet than men, men are more likely to watch internet videos than women. I can't say that I'm surprised by either figure, especially the latter. My favorite quote from the article:

"Men are more visual than women, who tend to communicate in writing and or in words," said Debra Aho Williamson, senior analyst with eMarketer and the author of the report.

Right...men watch more videos online than women do, because women prefer writing. I'm sure the availability of online porn, webcam girls on Youtube, and the like, have absolutely no correlation to the figures cited in the article. Never mind sports sites, like ESPN, that offer sports clips for those who don't get enough sports highlights from hours of SportsCenter and ESPNews.

(Crap...does the sentence above count as talking about sports? Did I fail to avoid talking about sports for a second consecutive blog entry? I'd argue that I wasn't talking about a specific sports topic, so that should count!)

That's all for now! Happy blogging!

100% Sports Free!

It seems that, lately, I have been talking way too much about sports, and not nearly enough about non-sports related topics. So, I guarantee this blog entry to be 100% Sports free, or your money back!

(I'm doing this for my fellow IMBCers. Let's hope I make it to the end of this entry without passing out!)

Some quick hitters:

- I hate Costco. I hate it not because of their nice prices for bulk goods. I hate it not because I could spend hours in the store and not be bored. No, I hate Costco because my wallet always ends up much lighter than anticipated. Sure, I can blame myself and my lack of willpower, but it is my right as an American to put the blame on someone else, isn't it? Hey, if that horizontally-challenged guy (I can't call him a "fattie," without risking a libel suit) in New York can sue McDonalds for clogging his arteries, I can blame Costco for tempting me to spend money!

- I'm big on good customer service, and Fergus from the Macy's in Northridge gets two thumbs up. He helped us out for a good hour, looking for stuff to buy on my sister's friend's bridal registry list. I wish I could ship a video of his act to the Best Buys and Circuit Cities in the San Gabriel Valley on customer service training.

- Did you see the act by Larry Birkhead during his press conference, after the courts announced that he was the provider of the sperm that brought baby Dannielynn into the world (video can be seen here)? Tom Cruise bouncing all over Oprah's sofas thought Birkhead needed to calm down. Of course, who can blame the guy for going James Cameron after the court's announcement became official? After all, he could potentially get a cut of the over $500 million estate that Smith's deceased ATM...er...husband owned, which is still in limbo (unless you actually believe he cares about the kid, and only the kid). I'm surprised he didn't scream "I'm king of the world!" instead of "I told you so!"

(wow...this is hard...must...not...talk...about...sports)

- Two planes were held up from landing for 18 minutes, while a third, carrying lung transplants, could not take off, because an airport's air traffic controller was taking a bathroom break. I'll reiterate what the article stated: why was there only one air traffic controller on duty? What if the guy had a serious case of indigestion and had to stay in the bathroom for a longer period of time? Worse yet, what if the guy was somehow incapacitated? Thank goodness nothing serious happened, and it sounded like the controller was responsible enough to wait for a low-traffic period to take his break. Then again, maybe the guy could have gone crazy NASA woman and worn adult diapers until a second air traffic controller came on duty. Eighteen minute bathroom break, eh? It's a good thing he didn't eat at Taco Bell prior to his shift.

After the hour and a half Macy's Death March--a Jon Pinette reference, by the way; if you haven't seen any of his stand up routines, I recommend you do!--and the wallet-lightening trip to Costco, I'm beat. I did it, though; I avoided talking about sports for an entire blog entry!

:P

Off to the (NBA Playoff) races!

A couple quick-hitters:

- Ok, so I'm finally sick and tired of the tiny font I used to use for my blogs. I think I will stick to the normal-sized font from now on.

- Man, I just put $400+ on my credit card, on two items with questionable rebates. One item was from TigerDirect (the horror!!!).

One more thing before I get on to the topic at hand:

- Tennessee Titans' CB Pacman Jones will be suspended for all of the 2007 NFL season; Cincinnati Bengals WR Chris Henry will miss eight games. I recall someone making such a prediction less than a week ago:

As far as the two players mentioned above are concerned, if I were the Commish, I would make examples out of these two guys and suspend Pacman for the 2007 season, and Henry eight games.

Good for the Commish to stand up to these guys and levy these punishments! I'm also happy to hear that Titans owner Bud Adams and Cincy coach Marvin Lewis respect Goddell's decision. Not unexpectedly, Pacman's mom (Ms. Pacman?) wasn't too happy with the verdict, calling it "not fair for him. It's just not fair." What did you expect? Did you expect the league to suspend him for four games, or even eight? He had been involved in TEN separate incidents involving the police in two years! I don't think I served ten instances of detention in my entire life! Ms. Pacman and her son should be happy that the Titans haven't yet waived the cornerback yet; why they haven't is anyone's guess. In all seriousness, though, I do hope that Pacman and Henry can complete their suspensions without getting involved in another situation that involves the police.

Now for the topic of the NBA Playoff races!

Yes, this is the time of year when the NBA finally starts interesting me. With about a week to go in the season, teams in the playoff picture are jockeying for position, and teams out of the race are jockeying for more ping-pong balls. The NBA in April, it's FAN-tastic!

- Here are the latest NBA standings. I'll start with some commentary about the Eastern Conference.

1) I am praying that Chicago holds off Cleveland for the #2 seed, not because I'm a Bulls fan, but because I want to see a Miami-Cleveland first round match up! The two most untouchable players in the league, going at it, one-on-one! How thrilling will that be? By "untouchable," I don't mean there's no way in hell anyone could pry either of these players away from their respective teams (which is true), but I mean it literally; after last year's whistle-fest...er...playoffs, I'm convinced that defenders can't look at Dwyane Wade or Lebron James without being called for a foul. These two guys might average sixty foul shots a game between them!

As fun as watching Wade and Lebron having a FT shooting contest might be, there is the potential for something even more exciting to happen in this series. What if these two players defended each other? Will the refs have the stones to call violations--fouls, walks, carryovers, etc.--on either player? If so, neither guy would last more than twenty minutes of playing time! David Stern must be pissing his pants at the potential of this first-round match up! I wonder if he has the refs for the Bulls' and Cavs' remaining games on full "fix" alert. Of course, that would be assuming the NBA fixes games...

2) Poor Detroit. Assuming every first-round match up goes in favor of the higher-seeded team, Detroit will face Miami in the second round.

3) I don't bandwagon, but if I did, I would reserve a ticket on the Toronto Raptors' bandwagon. No, I don't expect them to win the East, but a 2-3 match up between Toronto and Chicago should be quite intriguing.

Now for some thoughts on the West:

1) I can't help but be intrigued by the 4-5 match up between Utah and Houston. No, this isn't Stockton and Malone's Jazz, and we're not talking about Olajuwon's Rockets, but it would not surprise me if either team gives Dallas a run for its money in a potential second-round match up.

2) The Lakers v Suns, part deux, eh? I just hope a sportsbook has a prop bet on whether or not Raja Bell will go WWE on Kobe again this year. I'll put my money on Yes, and parlay that with the over/under on Kobe's average score in the series (I'll take the over, thank you very much).

3) Are my eyes deceiving me, or do I see the Golden State Warriors as the #8 seed? Wow. Props to them if they hold off the Clippers and make it to the playoffs, where they will serve as cannon fodder for the Dallas Mavericks.

There is an article, written by freelance writer (and MSNBC.com contributor) Michael Ventre, talking about how the Dodgers' pitching this year doesn't remind him, in the least, of the years of Koufax and Drysdale. As much as I enjoy Ventre's articles, this latest article couldn't be more ridiculous. I'll address this article at a later date.

Until next time!

The Disabled List, population many

Some big names in baseball have already been sidelined! If this trend keeps up, every team's roster will resemble Triple A rosters!

- So my Dodgers lost to the Rockies today, but that wasn't the big story of the day. Starting pitcher, and big free agent catch Jason Schmidt left the game with tightness in his right hamstring. Matt Kemp also left the game early, when he crashed his shoulder into the outfield wall, trying to chase down a fly ball. The Schmidt injury doesn't worry me too much, as long as it doesn't linger as the season goes on. Thank goodness the injury is tightness, and not a hamstring pull. Besides, our rotation is deep enough so that Schmidt won't be missed that much, should he miss a start or two. The Kemp injury looked far worse than it really was, and he'll only miss a couple of days as well. At least it wasn't Kent or Nomar that got hurt...

A quick comment about The Masters: I have heard people saying that Tiger Woods "choked" at the end of the tournament. He did not choke! He got beat by a hot golfer who made his shots down the stretch. Tiger, who usually makes his down the stretch, unfortunately did not.

- Also on the injury list: Chris Carpenter of the Cards and Mike Hampton of the Braves. Carpenter was placed on the 15-day disabled list with elbow troubles. It's not like the Cardinals can afford to lose a starting pitcher, much less their ace. With two relievers in their rotation--Wainwright and Looper, though Wainwright's transition to the rotation ought to be easier than Looper's--and a call-up from Triple-A, the Cardinals could be in serious trouble in the NL Central. As for Hampton, he has a torn tendon in his pitching elbow, and he'll miss the entire season for the second straight year. I'm still not sure what the Rockies were thinking when they paid this guy $121 million for eight years. He had one solid season (1999, where he went 22-4), and hasn't really come close to matching that performance. Then again, he did spend the first two years of that deal pitching in Coors Field, a hitter's park, to say the least.

- Alleged racist and radio show host Don Imus admitted that he went "way too far" when he referred to members of Rutgers' women's basketball team as "nappy-headed hos." Appearing on Rev. Al Sharpton's radio show today, he did what just about anybody in his situation has done in the past (aka Repairing your Image 101): he made a long-witted apology, pointed out how good of a person he really is, and wanted to meet those he offended in person and apologize to them. I have no comment about his apology, but I am interested in knowing what Imus was referring to when this happened:

During one exchange, Imus said he can't win with "you people." Sharpton was clearly irritated by that remark.

So let me get this straight. You made a racist comment, went on Al Sharpton's radio program to apologize and insist that you're not racist, and then you make another discriminatory comment?!? Now, I'm not implying that "you people" refers to blacks; in fact, it could mean "radio show hosts," "critics," or something more specific like "NAACP members." Whatever the term refers to, he can't say that without appearing discriminatory again! I love how Imus whines that he won't escape from this incident unscathed and without humiliation, as if I'm supposed to feel sorry for the guy after he made these remarks.

This Lakers-Denver game is pretty entertaining; the loser is pretty much guaranteed to face the Suns in the first round of the playoffs. Perhaps I'll have another blog entry later tonight or early tomorrow morning with some NBA thoughts. Until then, happy blogging!

Spring Cleaning

Ah, I love how nice my room smells after cleaning it! It smells of...nothing, and that's the way it should be. I don't need my room to smell of "paradise cove" or "summer breeze" or "tropical island" :P

I just hope the sock monster that lives in the dryer doesn't eat too many of my socks today (yeah, I'm cleaning my room AND doing laundry, and yet I found a way to squeeze in a blog entry as well! Talk about multi-tasking!)

- So the damn computer upgrade bug, which hasn't bothered me since college, has finally bit me. I can't help but look at the cheap dual-core combos at Fry's. Of course, I'll then need to buy a decent PCI-e card, some DDR2, and probably a more powerful PSU. Hopefully I can stay under my ~$300 budget. Maybe I should buy a real cheap Athlon 64 chip, and find a board that uses DDR.

- With their loss to the Suns today, the Lakers dropped to seventh in the NBA's Western Conference playoff picture. With games left at sixth place Denver, versus the eighth place Clippers, and at Phoenix, the Lakers could conceivably drop into the eighth seed. What do the Lakers win with the eighth seed? A first-round matchup against the Dallas Mavericks. Of course, seventh isn't exactly a walk in the park, either, as a seventh place finish sends the Lakers to Phoenix. The Lakers-Denver tilt tomorrow is practically must-win for the Lakers if they want to have a shot at the sixth seed. By the way, the sixth seed gets the right to face the San Antonio Spurs...

Speaking of the Lakers, somebody should remind Smush Parker that he is Smush Parker, and that his coach has nine more rings than he does. He recently ranted about being benched for the entire fourth quarter of a game against the Clippers. Coach Jackson's response? He wasn't pressuring the ball, which is a very good way to find yourself on the bench. I have a feeling we will not be seeing Smush Parker in a Laker uniform next year; he is a free agent at the end of the season, and the Lakers didn't draft Jordan Farmar for nothing, despite the fact that Farmar isn't the typical big guard that Jackson likes.

- Luis Gonzalez hit two homers today, and Randy Wolf pitched the Dodgers to another victory over the Giants! If Gonzo keeps averaging two homers every six games, I will be one very happy Dodger fan :P. By the way, Giant fan, how does that Barry Zito signing look now? He's now 0-2 and he hasn't looked sharp in either outing he's pitched in so far this season. I realize we're only two games into the season, but the Zito signing is quickly looking to be one of the worst free agent signings ever. Of course, who didn't see this coming? Zito's numbers have been on a downward trend for the past couple of years, and he'll be 35 when his monstrous contract comes to an end. I understand that the Giants really needed to make a big free agent splash this past off-season, to give Barry one last run at a championship, but $120+ million for Barry Zito? The Jason Schmidt signing looks even better, by comparison, than it did when the Zito signing was first announced.

Finally, I should make mention that I am taking part in an Iron Man Blogging Competition. The rules are pretty simple: make a blog entry every day, of at least 300 words, or you're eliminated. The last one standing wins a nice hosting package, along with a domain name registration. Too bad my geek-odometer doesn't have a word count setting!

I had some more thoughts to get to, including a quick thoughts on The Masters, but my laundry beckons. Until next time!

There is nothing special about this blog entry

Really, I swear, there will not be anything special about this entry :P

- A-Fraud hit a game winning grand slam to vault the New York Yankees over the Baltimore Orioles, covering a horrible performance by Yankees' pitcher Kei Igawa. Ok, so A-Fraud got his first clutch hit as a Yankee since...well...ever! Let's see if he can repeat the performance in October, when games matter. Oh yeah, it's not like he was facing Joe Nathan, K-Rod, or even Jonathan Papelbon. Am I supposed to be that impressed by a ninth-inning, walk-off slam against the Baltimore Orioles???

Ok, in A-Rod's defense, he gets way too much flak for his inability to produce in clutch situations, and good for him to get a clutch hit early in the season. Imagine if he had struck out in that AB; the NY papers would have let him have it for the next week or so. With this hit, A-Rod might have bought himself a reprieve for about a day or so.

- A week in to the season, and my Dodgers are 3-2, after beating the hated ones again today. That was a great pitching performance by Derek Lowe today--granted, Barry wasn't playing--and the bullpen looked pretty sharp today. A few observations, of mine, five games into the 2007 season.

- If we're going to get a bunch of HRs this year, it's going to come from a prospect or a trade
- Our starting pitching looks real strong (any time Brad Penny is your #4 starter, you can say that); hopefully we find a suitable #5
- Areas of concern: the bullpen, especially as the season wears on; injuries, especially to Nomar and Kent; outfield defense.

Now it's time for me to elaborate a bit on the rest of my MLB picks for this season.

- The AL Central pick was a tough one. The ChiSox are always a threat, with that rotation and their bats. The Twins are a threat on the two J.M.s (Justin Morneau and Joe Mauer), and that lefty that pitches every fifth day, whatever his name is. The Indians have been underachieving for the past couple of years, and Travis Hafner's nickmane--Pronc--is awesome. The Royals are...um...never mind. I picked the Tigers simply because I love their starting pitching--Bonderman, Verlander, Robertson, and Rogers, when he gets back--and the offense got a nice upgrade with Gary Sheffield, assuming he keeps his head on straight for the entire season.

- My NL East pick, the New York Mets, was not a tough one. Yeah, the question marks in the starting rotation are worrisome. Yes, the Braves are set to rebound this year. Then again, the Mets still have the two Carloses--Beltran and Delgado--as well as Jose Reyes and David Wright. They also have Billy Wagner at the back of the bullpen, which can't hurt. Even with the Braves' upgrades in the bullpen, I don't see Atlanta topping the Mets unless Tim Hudson has a Cy Young-type season.

(tangent #1: I glanced over at the Mets' roster, and it says the Julio Franco has 25 years of big league experience. I thought that was a typo for sure, until I remembered that Franco is nearing 50 years old)

(tangent #2: I discovered that my new Logitech keyboard has a character counter on it; consider it an odometer for geeks :P As of this <-- keystroke, the counter reads 15227. This might be fun; I might have to make daily updates about my geek-odometer!)

- The NL Central pick was simply a "I will not pick the Cubs" pick. So far, the Cards are 1-4, and they're making me look real bad. I should have picked Cincinnati, with that starting rotation of theirs. Let's move on.

- The NL West pick looks like a "homer" pick (a homer because I'm a Dodgers fan). The Rockies and Giants are probably not going to win the division, and I don't think the D-Backs quite have enough to contend for the division crown, either, though the prospects of facing Brandon Webb and The Big Unit is scary. I was thinking about picking the Padres to win the division, but I think the Dodgers' slight advantages with the starting rotation offense (IMO) should push them to the NL West title. Peavy, Maddux, Young, Wells, and Hensley is a very impressive rotation, but I think the Dodgers' rotation--Lowe, Schmidt, Penny, Wolf, and Kuo/Billingsley/?--is a tad better, top to bottom. If the two teams played each other in a playoff series, on the other hand, I might have to lean towards the Padres' pitchers, especially since Peavy is a true ace, and I'm not convinced the Dodgers have one (no, I'm not convinced Jason Schmidt is a true ace; he needs to prove he can stay healthy for the season for me to change my mind).

I never did give my wild-card picks, so here they are: Boston should win the AL Wild Card, and San Diego should win the NL Wild Card. Boston's pick is an easy one, especially if Dice-K continues to pitch well. I can't pick an AL Central team to win, because they will all beat up on each other. I also can't pick Oakland, because I just don't think they have enough starting pitching. As for the NL, I think San Diego will be able to hold off the NL Central, and Atlanta, also due to their starting pitching.

We'll see how bad these predictions look in a few months :P

Logitech Cordless Desktop MX3200 Laser Review

I could give my loyal readers--all none of you--my thoughts on the NL East and West, which I have been promising for a couple of days now. I could give you my thoughts on yet another racist-in-denial in the sports world, and yes, as much as I knock it, women's college basketball is a sport (but don't get me started on the "pro" game :P). I could talk about David Carr moving on to Carolina, a very good decision, IMO. I could talk about Billy Gillispie taking the Kentucky job, a move that I like for a couple of reasons, BTW. Heck, I could even make a comment or two about The Masters, and how Tiger Woods is struggling; then again, just about everyone is at Augusta.

I could talk about any, or all, of the above topics. However, I have a brand new toy, courtesy of Logitech's RMA service + DHL, who delivered the package two business days earlier than the tracking number indicated. I found a Logitech Cordless Desktop MX3200 Laser keyboard + mouse combination sitting on my doorstep. Here's my brief, mini-review, of the combo:

The first thing that I noticed was the LCD on the keyboard. Yes, there's an LCD on the keyboard, with a clock, alarm, and stopwatch function, because it's too difficult to look at the bottom-right corner of my screen to see the Windows clock there. As with most keyboards nowadays, there is a row of "media" keys--reverse, play/pause, forward, record, mute, volume down/up, etc., though I noticed there is no stop button. Previous Logitech keyboards I've owned had a scroll wheel for the volume control; this keyboard has volume down/up buttons instead. I kinda liked the scroll wheel, despite the fact that all turn-y button things lie.

For the most part, the keyboard arrangement is identical to that of my old Logitech keyboard, a Logitech MX3000. The only noticeable difference, of the main keys, at least, is the loss of the context-click (the "right-click") key, which is now the "Fn" (programmable function) key.

(EDITED 5/7/07: The context-click key can be accessed by hitting the Fn key and the Print Screen key at the same time. Also, scroll lock can be accessed by hitting Fn + Pause/Break. I bring up the latter because I get a lot of hits on my site of people, apparently, looking for the location of the scroll lock key.)

That's not a big deal to me, as I hardly ever used the context-click key. I would have preferred the Fn key at the top of the keyboard, rather than with the usual keys, though. On the left side of the MX3200, Logitech got rid of the back button, which also wasn't really useful to me, since I find myself clicking the back button on my mouse most of the time. Logitech also got rid of the manual scroll wheel on the left side of the keyboard, replacing it with a touch-pad-like scroller! Even though I do most of my scrolling with the mouse wheel, I must admit that this is a cool feature.

The USB receiver is the size of a jump drive, which got me thinking, "This thing is too small! I'll probably need to buy a USB extension cable (A-male to A-female) to give the keyboard and mouse a better line of sight to the receiver!" Sifting through the rest of the box, though, I found just what I needed--basically, a USB extension cable, with a cool little stand at one end that sits neatly on your desk (I'd take a picture to better describe what I'm talking about, but I can't find my digital camera)! The size of the receiver made sense to me when I took a closer look at the box, and noticed that the MX3200 was labeled as "notebook ready." After all, a notebook ready keyboard/mouse needs to have a very small receiver, no? I also noticed that the keyboard had "Anti-Microbial Technology." No comment, your honor...

The mouse, an MX600 Laser mouse, is nothing special. It has the typical five-button layout (left, right, mouse wheel, back, and forward, with the mouse wheel able to tilt left and right). It also has three extra buttons: zoom (+ and -), and search, two buttons that I probably will never use. It is a very lightweight mouse, though, despite its size; I remember the mouse that came with the MX Duo was significantly heavier than the MX600.

One thing I really like about the keyboard is the soft, rubberized feel that the keys and the mouse have, as opposed to the plastic feel that my older MX3000 keyboard had. Even the wrist rest has that same softness to it. For me, that isn't really necessary, as I use a gel wrist rest. One major drawback, though, of this combo is the six AA battery requirement (four for the keyboard, two for the mouse). It makes sense that this keyboard will need more than the typical two batteries, of course, because of that darn LCD! A more minor drawback to this keyboard/mouse combo is the absence of a caps/num/scroll lock indicator. Usually these Logitech combos have indicator LEDs on the receiver itself, but this is not the case with the MX3200. This is not a problem if you choose to install the SetPoint software, as the software would flash a message on-screen when you strike any of these -lock keys (I don't have the software installed; the most recent version I used, back when it was called iTouch, seemed to be bloated). It's a shame that Logitech didn't include these indicators on the LCD screen on the keyboard.

All in all, I'm quite happy with the combo, and can easily recommend it to anyone who needs a new keyboard/mouse set, provided you can find a hot deal, of course :)

- Super quick MLB predictions, with analyses to come at a later date:

AL Central: Detroit Tigers
NL East: New York Mets
NL Central: St. Louis Cardinals
NL West: Los Angeles Dodgers

Until next time, happy blogging!