Tomorrow Bex and I head off to New York City. She has plans for me including meeting some of her NY friends, attending a wedding, and eating food at various restaurants.

I had to add one item to the list:

Hell. Yeah.

This is the first and probably last bit of baseball commentary you'll hear from me this year.

Remember in 2003 when the Detroit Tigers took a run at the worst season record in modern baseball history? The record is currently held by the 1962 New York Mets, who finished the season at 40-120, for a .250 winning percentage.

As of today, the Royals are 8-24, for a .250 winning percentage.

Is it too early to start wondering if we're watching the worst team in the history of baseball?

Damn, I am glad I no longer work there.

Now my only hope is that layoffs over there don't get bad enough that it starts to affect property values around here.

On some level it upsets me that a new Nine Inch Nails album has been out for a while and I haven't listened to it yet.

On the other hand, this remix (mp3) of "The Hand That Feeds" is good enough that it think it renders the album moot.

You will download it and listen now.

No, the offseason isn't treating Green Bay well. We have players with legal troubles, a contract holdout and worst of all, the Viking fans are getting cocky.

I was kind of hoping that my Man Bag would make it in by lunchtime today, but I guess I won't be able to try it out until this evening. This winter I added some blazers to my wardrobe, and I've been spoiled by all the pockets I had. Now that summer is approaching, I'm not sure that I'm going to want to wear a blazer. I still want the storage for all the crap I lug around with me, though. Enter the Man Bag.

I swear, it's not a purse.

Next week I'll be heading up to New York City for a wedding. Bex will be (mercifully) leaving me alone for the majority of the day on Thursday while she shops and visits some friends, so I have a day solo in NYC. What do I do with myself for a day?

I've only been to NYC once, and that was when I was about six years old, so this is really my first trip. Does anybody who's been out there have any suggestions for things to do during the day?

Well, looks like I won't be drafting Javon Walker early in Fantasy Football this year.

If I'm reading this right, Favre is threatening Javon Walker with seeing fewer balls come his way next year:

“If Javon wants to know what his quarterback thinks, and I would think he might, I’d tell him he’s going about this the wrong way,” Favre said. “When his agent tells him not to worry about what his teammates think and all that stuff, I’d tell him I’ve been around a long time and that stuff will come back to haunt you.”

Yeah Javon, those pretty stats that make you think you should get paid this year instead of next could disappear in a hurry. I'd be careful with these games; I'm sure there are plenty of people still smarting over the McKenzie mess, and we're not hurting for wide receivers this year like we were for cornerbacks last year.

Well, the war has been over for some time, but the official documents of surrender hadn't been presented... Until now that is.

Don't push the button.

Local blog Fire Dennis Moore reports that our Kansas Third District US Representative was spotted at Hy-Vee in Lenexa... Purchasing Miller Lite!

Also, he attends mass but doesn't take communion. (FDM requests that you send in Dennis Moore sightings, but is sure to mention that you should not stalk him.)

Geez. The guys over at Fire Dennis Moore just sometimes try too hard. Moore is one of the few sane representatives I have here in Kansas, so I of course am not sympathetic to the goals of FDM. That said, they're not really doing much to convince me. What do we have on the front page of FDM right now? Besides the stuff about other Johnson County races, which I will exclude, there is:

Moore Does Not Support An Estate Tax Cut

Moore Drinks Miller Lite

Moore Has Raised Campaign Money (but not as much as before)

Moore Went To (Gasp!) Mass

Some Other Democrats Lost In April Elections

I honestly don't have strong feelings one way or the other on Moore. I've just been forced to vote for him when all the Republicans will put up against him are either way too conservative, or are seemingly well meaning moderates who are forced to the right by the whack-jobs who run the Republican party around here. If FDM is doing anything, it's solidifying me as a Moore supporter.

My ancient computer equipment at home is finally starting to give up the ghost. The most recent component to go is my trusty old Microsoft Wheel Mouse. This good friend has served me since 1998, but I think I'm finally going to declare him dead and move on.

So what's up with mice these days? I know I'm going optical, but does anybody have any recommendations as to brands/models? Are there some mice out there that are more precise than others? Are wireless mice pretty good these days? I'd like to go wireless, but even small problems with the wireless connection would about drive me nuts, it has to be 100% bulletproof.

Your input would be greatly appreciated.

I was just driving by this house yesterday and I thought I saw some new ones. Does anybody know how long these have been there?

So beards are in, eh?

Now I only have to work it so that fat is trendy and I'll be well on my way to world domination.

(Thanks to Bex for the article.)

Yup, I've actually had this up for half a decade now. I had planned on redesigning the site for the big day, but on reflection it's more in character to have thought about doing something with the site and not actually done it.

So hooray! My thanks go out to all my readers (all three of you) who make posting the mundane details of my life, Kansas Sunday Liquor Sales news, Kansas City Sports Radio news, and bad Green Bay Packers commentary worth it.

God damn it, does one of our guys have to do this every year? It looks like Green Bay Wide Receiver Javon Walker is going to start a contract holdout. You know, I think I saw this coming when I saw that crappy flash intro on his official website last year.

Please don't do it, Javon. One more year and you get paid. I don't want to hate you too.

The Time Traveller Convention is Saturday, May 7.

Spread the word.

Just out of curiousity, I went to the "Your Account" section in Netflix and asked for my complete rental history. They'll only give that to you in an email, and it took a while for it to make it, but it finally did. Since I signed up on October 24 of last year I've rented 42 DVDs. When I first signed up they were charging $23.64/month, but starting my second month they dropped their price to $19.34/month. (Why it went up to $19.37 this month I couldn't tell you.) So I've paid Netflix a total of $139.71.

So my current cost per movie with Netflix is $3.32. That's maybe a bit below Blockbuster's rental price, but I'm so bad with returning movies that I could just about guarantee that any Blockbuster rental would turn into a $10 expense after I've paid my late fees.

Netflix rules.

Let's just hope it's a choice I'm never forced to make:

Give up your Green Bay Packers season tickets or go to jail.

I must point out that the judge isn't asking her to give up the season tickets forever, just to donate this year's tickets. I also must point out that if she began serving her 90 day sentence now, she'd be out in time for the first preseason game.

And honestly, is there really any better way to make the off-season go by faster than a little jail term?

Update: I guess there are worse choices to make.

Well, the University of Houston Student Video Network has once again redesigned their webpage. They're doing about as good a job keeping the website up to date as I did back when I was in school, so the programming schedule is only good through February 19th. On the plus side, it looks like they're producing original programming again. There are five shows listed on the Programs page (although, Pirate TV is sadly absent).

If you're visiting, be sure to check out the Photo Gallery. From those pictures I can't figure out where they're located now, but it looks like they have some pretty nice digs now. It's good to see that the studio is back on its feet after the flood.

After Hit and Run pointed out to me that Peter Bagge had made a contribution to this month's Mad Magazine I figured I'd have to grab a copy. I was really hoping for one of his Suck/Reason style docu-comics, but instead he only had the last page, a list of "Things You Don't Want To Hear From On A Technical Support Phone Call", and he only supplied the art. The "humor" was by someone else.

OK, maybe I should have thought a bit harder about Mad's target audience before I got my expectations up, but I'll still point out things that upset me about this issue:

Strike 1: $3.50 is not cheap.

Strike 2: They have ads now? What the hell?

Strikes 3-296,234: Mad Magazine is publishing fucking Ted Rall??? That Ted Rall?

On the plus side, they really did take Lost down a notch.

I didn't catch Andrew Bird when he was in Lawrence a while back because he was playing with Ani DiFranco, and I didn't have $40 to drop on a ticket. I'm hoping he might make it back sometime solo... I've heard he puts on an excellent live show.

He's about to head over to Europe for a little tour over there. The Amsterdam show on May 1 will be webcast here, so I'm going to have to remember to watch that. Too bad I'm not in Amsterdam, though. Then I could totally go see the show live.

I still say that we used up all our "Good TV Being Renewed" karma for this year when HBO announced that we're going to get another season of The Wire. Still, it would be nice if they renewed Arrested Development, and it is a good sign that they official page says "Returns This Summer". I assume that Summer reruns are either a good sign for the show being renewed or a sign that Fox just doesn't have anything better to put on. On top of that, I still haven't figured out what's up with GetArrested.com, the official Fox "Save Our Show" web site.

Well, I hear we'll know one way or another early in May. In the meantime, it's cool to hear that the Arrested Development team is apparently going to make a movie. Not an Arrested Development movie per se, but it does star Gob and was written by one of AD's writers.

In "Fort Awesome With No Cable" news, my months of taunting Bex for not being able to live without her CSI will come back to haunt me tomorrow as I scramble for a place to watch the NFL draft. I think I'll plan on trying to make it to the gym around the time Green Bay makes their first round pick. Maybe that'll help keep me on the treadmill for a while.

Mahna Mahna

Of course, I'm over a month wishing you all a happy Pi Day, but I couldn't help but link this, which is perhaps the coolest thing ever.

Wow, they're really going to do it. A Kansas School Board subcommittee will hold hearings in May to discuss the legitimacy of Intelligent Design and Evolution. There will be three days of hearings, May 5-7, in which ID advocates make their case. May 12-14 has been set aside for a rebuttal from real scientists, but they're all boycotting the hearings.

Get yourself ready to hear plenty of quotes from the ID advocates on how the scientific community cannot answer their challenges, on how they have the evolutionists on the run, and for Kansas once again to be the butt of lame Jay Leno jokes. Politicians trying to make decisions on science reminds me of that time that the Alabama Legislature passed a bill defining the value of Pi to 3. Except that that was an urban legend, here in Kansas we really do have politicians trying to decide science for us.

Ugh. Someone remind me again why I live here?