I played a little bit with Matt's Blackberry, a nice color one, I think a 7230, and while I didn't take a look at the email part, the rest of it was pretty damn cool. I'm impressed with it. Thumbboard's really easy to use too. Anyway, Leah wants a Konfabulator like application to get the weather on her desktop, and so I did some research and tried out Samurize. And, it's just about perfect. No Konpose, but still pretty good. I'm impressed. Plans for the weekend? I guess it's apple picking season. There's also the drive in that hasn't been visited yet. Wait and see.

3 days, no update. Busy yesterday. Let's see, to recap the weekend, Friday night not sure what I ended up doing, I think a quiet night at Leah's, I think Meatloaf was made, Saturday, some laundry, finally finished up RoTJ, some more TV, replaced the DC-in board on an iBook to make it charge again, copied some music around, did a full home backup, fixed some sync scripts, general computer home maintenance stuff. Sunday was some hanging out at Becca and Jeff's (Congrats again on passing the bar) and a viewing of Shaun of the Dead with Russell and Bryan. I know there's something else on Saturday, but I forget. No drive-in or apple picking, too cold and too much effort. My new favorite Krispy Kreme is the cinnamon bun. Dinner last night by Alison, Olive Lemon Chicken, Favorite rice, and steamed broccoli, along with a nice brownie sundae from Ben & Jerry's. Ugh. It's only Tuesday. Managed to transfer some music to Leah's laptop finally, simple ethernet connection using the auto crossover nature of the powerbook to make it work super easily. Still don't know where my Varsity Blues DVD is.

Late night at work, probably burning the midnight oil all week at work. Sushi is so good, even from Whole Foods. The Tekka-don is so good and filling. I could have it every day. Got a new HD for the powerbook yesterday, hopefully I'll install it tonight since my warrantee ended yesterday. New Cake, Pressure Chef, is pretty good. Definite country twang to some of the songs. Lost tonight, if I get home in time, and once again I missed Veronica Mars. Oh well. Guess I'll catch it in syndication some day, maybe, or just get the eventual DVD Season releases.

I've got an old 1G 5GB iPod, an original, well, until it got replaced under warranty. But I was thinking, and keep thinking, that the interface is so great, why not try and keep the interface and put it on a huge drive? like a 3.5" desktop 120GB or something. Or even put it into a nice car stereo type unit so I could have an iPod in my car, granted, it would be harder to update the music, but then again, with that much space, why have to? But this is apparently much harder than it looks. It might involve firmware hacking and the like. Dropping in a bigger drive doesn't magically make it work. Oh well, I'll still take a look at things. It would be cool. Missed Lost last night. Ugh. Just working a bit. Gonna try and see Friday Night Lights tomorrow, but that's a little dependent on work. Otherwise, no plans.

2 days on either side of the weekend and no updates. No, the world isn't ending, at least my world isn't ending. Friday night, quiet night at home, relaxing after a long work week. Watched some movies, can't really remember what. Saturday, some more lounging about, replaced the HD in my powerbook, a nice zippy 7200 60GB, and then headed over to Bucktown to try and fix Russell's new Airport Express, failed with that, and then finally saw the Lost episode that I missed over at Bryan's and watched Slider and Cash go at it for a bit. Dinner with the parents, a little catching up with them and their trip to South America. Mass on Sunday after crossing the moat of marathon runners. Breakfast with the 'rents before heading out to Bucktown again to finally fix Russell's AE and watching Friday Night Lights on a Sunday afternoon with Russell and Bryan. Noone told me it was all handycam style, ugh. I liked Varsity Blues and its cartoony send up instead. Picked up Leah from the Airport after dinner at Bryan's, and lots of sleep. Monday, Leah and I jumped out of an airplane. We went skydiving at Skydive Chicago. Wow. I'll post the video of my jump soon, hopefully. 13,000 ft, 60 sec freefall. Then some chilling with the gang of 332 W. Dickens and some Cranium action, which took away from quality sleep time. And that's about it. So maybe a bit more about the whole skydiving bit. Skydive Chicago is a pretty cool place, out in the middle of nowhere, Ottawa, IL, about 1 1/2 hours outside of the city. Leaves were changing, and it's right by the Fox River, and that little valley looked amazing. We pulled up, paid our outstanding balance, ordered the DVD's of our jumps, and pretty much signed our lives away. There were only 7 people jumping that day, including one guy, Mike, who's never even been in a plane before. Well, a short video, 5 minute overview of the ordeal, and then the first group was suiting up. Leah and I were in the second group with another guy who was going for his second time. We tried to pass the time by watching Face/Off. I was hoping for some Drop Zone or some Terminal Velocity, but no luck. The other group gets set up, walks out to the plane, we head out to the landing area 10 minutes later and watch them softly glide to Earth. 5 minutes after that, we're suiting up, Leah in a pink jumpsuit, me in fluorescent green. 5 minutes later, we're getting on the plane. We take off, backs to the nose, sitting, with the door wide open. We, my tandem master, David, and I, go through the jump a couple more times. Pretty easy, head up out the door, arch the body, arms in a W, hands about even with the head. Check altitude, check the release location, smile and wave to the camera, wave off, pull release at 5500 feet. So Leah jumps out, and before I know it, I'm flying through the air at around 130 Mph. I do my stuff, ham it up for the camera, and before I know it, 5500 feet. Wave off, pull the release and floating. Some big nauseating turns later, and we're landing, me on my ass. I greet Leah as she lands, quite gracefully, on her feet, and it's over. We lose the suits, get our certificates, and wait for our DVD's to be mastered. We also lay out on the picnic table near the jump zone to stop the motion sickness that is overpowering at least me. And then we're out of there. Simple, easy, fast. Crazy. Absolutely crazy. And the actual jump was easy, the freefall not so bad, the whatever you call it after the parachute opens, I could do without.

Yeah, I've been busy. In which case I don't have much news, events, or anything to post. I've been fighting headaches all week though, ever since Friday Night Lights pretty much, then aggravated by the SkyDive, which I haven't gotten around to converting to a web friendly format. But trying to get plenty of sleep when I can. Weather seems to be more Chicago-like, cold, gray, and wet. It's Friday, so that's good. Sushi and meeting the final Gesoff sibling I haven't met yet, Robin, up from Indiana University for the weekend, on Saturday. But otherwise? Try and find some documentation on how to plot the moon's path across the sky for a personal widget for Konfabulator. Oh, and finished up Shampoo Planet by Douglas Coupland, which was quite good. I'm back on Tom Clancy with The Bear and the Dragon. Windows for the Condo are coming soon, within the next week or two.

It's amazing how little time there is in a weekend. I swear, since I stopped playing ultimate weekends actually seem shorter. A couple movies and bad Chinese food with Russell Friday night. Some reediting of Leah and my skydiving videos. I have now learned how to rip a DVD using MacTheRipper, convert the resulting VOB files to DV streams using MPEG StreamClip, and then edit as I see fit. It's pretty cool and super easy. Possibilities are endless, especially with the size of my clip library. Saturday did some ironing before getting some sushi at Sai and hanging out with the Gesoffs and gang. Sunday went to Mass with the 'rents and breakfast at the North Coast, which was actually bad diner food, which is disappointing. Then nap time with Leah after her practice, some computer lessons also with Leah, a quick dinner courtesy my mother, and bedtime. Wednesday night heading to the new Soldier Field to watch the Women's US Soccer Celebration something. And that's about it.

In a big way. 2 more days go by, no updates. Probably because there's been no updates. Monday, let's see, don't think I did anything, just was at Leah's trying to fix a battery that wasn't charging (fixed itself) while she was down with the flu. Tuesday? Maybe that's when I fixed the battery, and ended up watching part of the Transporter on HBO. Wednesday I actually did something, went to a KK organized US Women's Soccer Celebration at the new Soldier Field. That was cool. And fun. Interesting to be at what seemed to be a professional sporting even surrounded by little girls cheering on Mia Hamm. And the new Soldier Field is clean and nice. I think the US won. It was 5-1 when we left. Nothing on tap for tonight or Friday, maybe a dinner date with Leah. I've got to start reorganizing for the window installation, since they're currently prepping 701 and others. So I'm 1 floor away.

Leah and I aren't together anymore. There, I've said it. Sort of makes it more official. I guess. I'm still in a little shock about it. Happened kind of quickly. But it was something we both, independently, came to understand. So now what? Try and find things to do with even more idle time I'll have now, without Leah and Ultimate. I'm back to walking to Belmont for the purple line. I'm thinking of just staying on the red line to Addison on the way home. It didn't take me too long yesterday. I think my beer fridge is set too cold, as my Sapporo's have a little too much bite.

I had to do some housecleaning, basically just get stuff away from the windows which start going in tomorrow. So I went whole hog at it. And I realized, wow, I've got a whole lot of crap. While organizing, at least a little bit, I found out I have 7 powerstrips, all to myself, 5 or 6 extension cords, more cat 5 cable, coaxial cable, speaker cable than I know what do to with. Not that I'm gonna throw any of it away, but damn, that's a lot of crap. But I'm definitely gonna change things up some, move some furniture around, try something different, cause it seems like the season. I put my 22" Cinema Display to good use, as my home theater was in shambles, so I watched DVD's with my powerbook. It's a sweet setup. Makes me think and do a little research about watching TV on it. Elgato makes some interesting things, including a firewire HDTV system. Would be pretty cool to use the EyeTV500 to record the episodes of Lost that I keep missing in HD. Only thing is I couldn't watch them on my TV with the EyeHome since that doesn't do HDTV. But it got me thinking. There's also the AlchemyTV PCI Card, which is cheaper, and an option for plain broadcast and analog cable time shifting. But the whole RCN Digital City upgrade roadmap throws a wrench into that idea. Ugh. Wait and see I guess. Just more toys to play with. I've also started to justify my DVD library, by pretty much having one playing anytime I'm home. Speaking of library, I'm pretty excited about Delicious Library. iSight UPC recognition? Awesome. Also, the company is pretty much my ideal of what a software development company should be. It is, in my opinion, the Apple of Apple software houses, if that makes any sense. Other news this week, an Apple-U2 announcement tomorrow, along with the release of Shapeshifter 2, which I have no real reason to be excited about. Wow, long update. 1:18 PM Wednesday, October 27, 2004 (Update)
So, how about the Roku HD1000 as a HD terminal? Here's a possible setup. Desktop with EyeTV 500. Records OTA HD programs to the desktop. I can watch recorded or live HDTV on the desktop with the Cinema Display. Or, I can watch them on my TV with the Roku. What happens with the future? If RCN starts delivering HDTV over digital cable? I guess I'd have to get an additional device, or hopefully, maybe, output the cable box's signal over firewire over to the desktop to record. But does that even work? What about this whole Cable Card thing? So a little research leads to VGA -> Component video adapters and also an ATI HDTV Component Adapter, which I'm not sure is Mac compatible or now. So another option is having a computer next to the TV and outputing video directly. But that brings up sound. Recording gets a dolby digital track, so I'd want to have an optical output, which I don't currently have with my desktop. Ugh, too much to think about.
3:29 PM Wednesday, October 27, 2004 (Update)
But I'm losing track of the goal, which is to use the Cinema Display as a TV to view DVD's or HDTV in another room than my current HDTV. So I'm now thinking the EyeTV 500 and the Roku HD1000 is my best bet for now. If RCN gets HDTV up and running, I'll cross that bridge when I come to it. Now to find the funding.

Oh, I forgot to mention that since there will be construction of sorts at my condo, it's possible my home server might get knocked off line, which would a) kill my mail access and b) kill off all my self hosted procmail based listservs. So if all the kaze, kaze alumni, beach, poker, and other miscellaneous listservs don't respond (not that anyone's actually using them for anything besides spam these days), don't fret. Hell, there's a chance my regular email might bounce when I'm not fetching mail every 5 minutes off the abando mail server. Still want to someday upgrade to a co-located box. I also neglected to give a recap of my weekend, besides the DVD watching and fall cleaning. Saturday went over to Russell's for some steak, chilling, and watching of The Cooler. I need to watch the rest of my vegas related movies before heading out over Christmas. Wow, 2 updates, one day. Don't keep your hopes up.

Yeah, I miss her. I do. Anyway, went to the Golden Olympic for breakfast yesterday. First time in a very long time. Long time. Crazy long time. But I've been waking up hungry, like really hungry, also for the first time in a very long time. Got in 2 DVD's last night, Overnight Delivery and Conspiracy Theory. Justification. The condo's getting prepped for window installation tomorrow. Crazy. Means I won't have blinds for like 7 days or so. Should make sleeping interesting. I definitely enjoy the watching of DVD's on the Cinema display, enough that I'm probably gonna move the desktop into the bedroom permanently. Probably add a wireless card to it, so I can move it around and only have to plug the extension cord in to watch anything. Although I think I saw 3 dead pixels on it, but I couldn't really tell, only if I'm up close and inches away.

So my email went down yesterday for a while, and didn't get it back up reliably until 11pm or so last night. I gotta remember that my home server needs a keyboard and the X10 serial controller plugged in to get all the services up and running. Guess I should just get rid of some of those unnecessary services. Apple announced the iPodPhoto yesterday, color screened version of the 4G iPod with photo display capability. Reason to upgrade for me from my 1G 5GB with poor battery life? Nope. Windows go in today. Steam radiators are funny looking, at least in my building. It'd be nice if the covers were user removable, so maybe I could do something interesting with them. Good luck to all those competing at the UPA Championships starting tomorrow. Safe travels. Watched Contact last night. I'm still interested in HDTV for the mac, and since I was an early adopter, it makes it difficult with my current equipment. No DVI or Firewire on my TV or OTA HDTV receiver. So even if I get HDTV recording on the mac, I can't watch it on my current setup. Stupid.

Even if I'm not playing ultimate, I'm still keeping track, or at least trying to. Currently in 3 tabs, Mixed, Women's, Open, pretty much in order of importance for me. I might try and keep a running commentary going, in honor of the Sports Guy's running diary of things sometimes. So the Boston Red Sox won the World Series. I guess that's a Chill Scene, right? Yeah. Some of the writeup gets a little emotional at times. Besides that, didn't see the lunar eclipse, but the moon did look nice last night. Windows are in, waiting for plaster and painting and putting the treatments back up. I decided to go with the EyeTV 500, which I should get today, I think. Other World Computing, besides being run by a high school classmate of my brother and based in my hometown of Woodstock, rocks because something I ordered yesterday is getting delivered today via free UPS shipping. Now that rocks. It's only Thursday, in what feels like a really really long week. Here's my first day diary write up from reloading the UPA scores page. Not too interesting

Oct 28 10:25:29 CDT 2004 (Thu) Nemesis got killed by Riot. 15-3. First game done. Ouch. Mixed looks like some upsets possible, at least by half. Chad Larson over B+ 8-7 at half, kinda like Kaze over Donner at half last year. Let's hope their captain catches the goal to let them score the first point after half. Also Hot Action over Drive Thru Liquor at half, 8-6. Go Central region! except for Carleton of course, but they lost to Brass Monkey.

Oct 28 10:28:32 CDT 2004 (Thu) Machine lost already too, the Condors. Possible upsets, Pike over Sockeye 8-6, GOAT over DOG 8-6, and Sub-Zero of Johnny Bravo 8-4. Love those upsets. Forgot to mention that Adam Goff, cut by machine earlier this season, is now playing for 6 Trained Monkeys out of Boston in the Mixed division with his brother, Marshall.

Oct 28 10:40:40 CDT 2004 (Thu) Wow. Pike pulled off the upset. 15-12 over sockeye. Crazy. Johnny Bravo pulled it out over Sub-Zero though. But sockeye losing? #1 seed? I'm rooting for them since it's mostly Carleton kids, and I still have that brother connection there somewhere. Just noticed that No upsets at all in Mixed. B+ pulled it out over CLE 17-16. Hot Action fell to DTL 12-15. Boring. Also no upsets in Women's either. Underdogs are great, that's for sure. Wonder what the weather's like?

Oct 28 11:02:25 CDT 2004 (Thu) Okay, no upsets in Mixed and Women's. DOG pulled out over GOAT by 1 to prevent another upset in Open. The closest score in Women's was 15-10, Godiva over BNOGO. Wow. Not a lot of parity in that division. 1 upset, 2 1 point games, a bunch of 15-12 games in Open. A lot of parity in that division. I'd say mixed is inbetween the two. But no one scored less points than Nemesis and Electric Mayhem. (3). Machine scored the least in open at 8.

Oct 28 13:22:34 CDT 2004 (Thu) Ugh. Getting bored. No commentary makes this uninteresting. Also checking roughly every 1-2 hours for updates makes it difficult to hold my interest. No surprises in the women's division, with a bunch of 15-x scores, where x <= 4. Men's side, Chain wins a squeaker over upset specialist Pike 17-16, and Furious and Sub-Zero are locked at 10's. Otherwise, no upsets. Machine did break into double digits against Jam, which I'm thinking reunited Northwestern teammates Chucktown and Mike Zalisk as well as Machine former teammate and ultimate whore Ron Kublanza on Jam. As for mixed, looks like B+ is getting tuckered out, losing half to Puppet Regime 3-8. Otherwise, everything else held seed. Checking weather.com, looks like 80 and sunny, 10mph winds. Not too shabby. Funny to go 60-0 in 12 months. I was awefully excited to be going last year, and this year? not so much.

Oct 28 13:43:50 CDT 2004 (Thu) Wow. Chad Larsen gets a win in, upsetting Bad Larry and Mike Sheil. That's awesome. CLE and Pike are the 2 upsets so far in 96 games? Wow. Good job seeding so far. Furious wins by 1 over Zero. And women's? Ho hum. Looks like Pool B in Mixed is the pool of death, with B+ winning by 1 after coming back after a huge halftime deficit. No other pool looks as close among all 4 teams as that pool. I don't think CLE will be able to keep it up, I mean, the lose one 16-17, win the next one 17-16, and it's only the first day.

Oct 28 14:17:20 CDT 2004 (Thu) Nemesis loses as well, by 2, into the cap to Ozone. ugh. Chicago teams winless. Granted, Kaze went winless first 2 games too, didn't we? We might have one our second game against Persuader though.

Oct 28 14:51:42 CDT 2004 (Thu) More ugh. Nemesis losing to Electric Mayhem 4-8 at half. What's going on over there?

Oct 28 15:06:51 CDT 2004 (Thu) More upsets, finally, in the women's division. Zanzara going up big over Brute Squad, 8-2 at half. Otherwise, nothing interesting. Some close games, but that's to be expected, as it's 1-2 and 3-4 pool play.

Oct 28 15:19:48 CDT 2004 (Thu) Mixed: Goffs and 6 Trained Monkeys up over Shazam by 2 at half. Brass Monkey losing to Holes & Poles by 2 at half. Womens: Riot's already done. 15-4. Most points scored on them today. Rare Air up on Godiva by 1 at half. Open: Sockeye up by 1 at half over Chain. They need to win by more than 5 I think to get win the pool. Odd. Always one of these pools at Nationals.

Oct 28 15:26:53 CDT 2004 (Thu) 6 Trained monkeys still up, 10-7. Brass Monkey takes the lead 10-9. Open, 4 8-7 (A,B34,D12) games, 1 8-6 (D34), 1 8-5 (B12), 2 8-3 (C)

Oct 28 16:18:17 CDT 2004 (Thu) Nemesis didn't win a game. Highest they can finish is 9th, again. Machine didn't either. Sockeye won though, which is good, almost good enough to win the pool, but coming in 2nd. Sends Pike down to the lower pool. Brass Monkey and Holes & Poles knotted up at 14's. I'm pulling for BM because I played with Pat Hard at Poultry Days. I'm pulling for 6 Trained Monkeys because of Adam Goff. I'm pulling for Sockeye because of the aforementioned tenuous connection with Carleton. And Chad Larson because of the central region and I think they play like Kaze did. I'm looking forward to the writeups though. Wow. A quick refresh and we see that Bad Larry pulled off the upset and beat B+ leading to a 3 way tie. If I can read it right, Bad Larry takes 1st, CLE takes 2nd, and B+ drops. Wow. BM pulled off the upset, 17-15, as did 6 Trained Monkeys. Universe (Central Region) pulled off an upset 15-13 over Duff. So Central Winless teams are: Hot Action, Machine, Zero, Nemesis, Clutch, and Collide. Best team out of the Central Region? CLE, 2-1, 2nd in their pool. Wow. Love it. And Pool D in Open? Killer. Everyone held seed, but close games every round. Very much like Pool B in Mixed. Just plain killer.

Oct 28 16:59:10 CDT 2004 (Thu) I thought I was done, but last check, DTL pulls off the upset at the buzzer, 16-15 over Red Fish Blue Fish. So in Mixed, no #1 Pool Seed held. That's just crazy. Women's everyone except Brute Squad and Nemesis held seed, both of those teams going 0'fer. And Open pools B,C and D all held seed and A was all fucked up. Now I really can't wait for the writeups. RSD checking throughout the day yielded only comments about the Pike-Sockeye upset, nothing else.

Put up my running diary from reloading the UPA tourney pages for the Club Championships yesterday. Not quite as funny as the Sports Guy's, but then again, I'm not being paid. Money can make me funnier, I think anyway. Watching TV (via EyeTV 500) on the computer's pretty sweet. However, I don't think my G4 is up to the task anymore. Not sure if it's a hard drive issue, as I haven't tried it with a Firewire drive yet (I've heard it can be an issue). But still, pretty sweet. Integration with titanTV is superb. No complaints. Still need a better antenna, or a way to add channels by hand. Since my Silver Sensor is highly directional, and I suffer from extreme multipath, I get 11 channels one way, 13 the other, and a couple exclusive to either direction. Not very fun. Also, I'm not getting any sound out of the UPN digital station. Not good for Veronica Mars. But we'll see. I might look at the Roku HD 1000 at the Best Buy on Clark on the way home. Maybe. Nothing like spending money to keep my mind off things.

Oct 29 09:56:06 CDT 2004 (Fri) CLX and Brass Monkey must have someone on the sideline calling in scores, cause they were first on the board with scores at 4-1 and up. Impressive. Then they got to tie it up at 7's. Also impressive. Currently, 6 TM down to RFBF by one at half, BM pulling away over CLX, H&P over BL by one, Hot Action and Universe both continuing the Central region trend downward. In women's, Nemesis down to Zanzara (and the Forth twins?) by 2 at half. Safari blows by Collide. Powerpool's have half at 8-4, 8-3. Really, where's the women's parity? On the open side, JB and Pike knotted at 12's, Sockeye over Furious by 1 at half, and BAT over Machine 8-5 at half. Ugh. Chicago, gotta win a game. A game. But all the parity seems to be in the Open div. Oh, and still no writeups, aside a quick one from bil from Shazam on RSD, but otherwise, nada. Disappointing. Too bad score-o-matic is concentrating on the college market. No money there. Granted, no money really in ultimate at all.

Oct 29 10:27:58 CDT 2004 (Fri) FG gets back on top of Sockeye, 15-13. this makes the sockeye road to the finals a whole lot more difficult, doesn't it? They need to win their last game to hopefully escape a play in round, right? Shazam, Brass Monkey continue the NW dominance in mixed. That's 3 teams in the upper pools with a combined record of 9-2 so far. Wow. Colorado and the SW come in 2nd so far with 2 in the top pools with a combined record of 5-2 so far. NW seems like the place to play mixed at a certain level. Must be nice. Over in open, JB takes out Pike by 1. Pike's definitely brought it this year. Props out to JT.

Oct 29 10:41:40 CDT 2004 (Fri) Nemesis still winless. Lost to the Texans. RFBF beat 6 TM. Hot Action and Universe still winless. Sweet. Go Central Region. CLX is the best central team at Nationals. They've got a 2-2 record with a -2 point diff. Best central team. That just rocks.

Oct 29 11:07:09 CDT 2004 (Fri) I think first round is done. Undefeateds left: Brass Monkey, Riot, Fury Godiva and Prime, Jam, Ring of Fire, and Furious George. All 4 top seeds in Women's continue to hold seed. Everyone but sockeye in the open holds. And noone, absolutely noone, holding really in Mixed. Brass Monkey, NW3, is the only undefeated. They've got a point diff of +26. I think the lowest point diff for an undefeated team is Furious, with +9. Women's don't even count. They're boring and expected.

Oct 29 12:14:57 CDT 2004 (Fri) Brass Monkey takes first in this round, with a 15-3 dismantling of Bad Larry. I think they got the easier of the 2 power pools. Hot action is running on away from Uncivil Union, 9-2 past half. Nemesis down again 4-8 against Brute Squad. What's gonna happen if they don't win a game? A complete collapse of the Nemesis? Finally? Furious over Pike at half, Johnny over the falling Sockeye 5-2. Some commentary would be great. Injuries? Maybe? Machine lost to intra region rival BAT last round. Still winless. 3 games to go to squeak out a W.

Oct 29 12:53:26 CDT 2004 (Fri) Hot Action on the board. They win over Uncivil Union 15-3. Sorta like Brass Monkey. Just sorta. Just checked, the Day one writeups are up. So I'm caught up in that.

Oct 29 13:04:06 CDT 2004 (Fri) 6 TM over DTL, making them 2-1 in the power pool. Looks like another 3 way 2-1 setup. Fury down to Godiva, and Riot still on top. George over Pike, Ring of Fire over Jam, and GOAT over Machine. Chicago still winless. Ah, sweet home Chicago.

Oct 29 13:39:24 CDT 2004 (Fri) Wow, CLX beats H&P to get a free ride into the quarters. No play in game for them. Means they meet RFBF tomorrow. When has a Central team played into the top 8 automatically, without playing themselves there? Wow. Chances of them beating Blah's 6th place finish last year? Not too shabby. Chance of them making semis? Can't say I see them beating RFBF. Too hard. That rocks though. Nemesis is officially 0-5. Damn. Not a single game. No parity in the women's div, and central region teams go 0fer against other regions, the only win by Collide against in-region Clutch. That's not good at all. And it's not like they all went to play Mixed, since there's no overlap between team cities. Mixed draws from Iowa and Minnesota. Women's draws from Chicago, Detroit, and Ohio. Ugh, I guess the central region does suck at this game. Except for Iowa. Ha. Pike has a play in game vs. Doublewide or BAT. Condors play Kaos, I think. Pretty damn crazy. Who am I rooting for? CLX. Props to them and their twins, if they're playing. I think Brass Monkey, RFBF, Shazam, and 6 TM. Go NW.

Oct 29 14:00:45 CDT 2004 (Fri) Guess I was reading that wrong. RFBF vs B+ in one pre-quarter. Soul Patrol vs. Bad Larry in the other. CLX vs. DTL. I think CLX's chances to the semis just got a whole lot better. Crazy. Central Region + Electric Mayhem for 13-16th in Women's. That's awesome. Wow, pre-quarters for Open just got posted. Johnny Bravo vs. Doublewide and Condors vs. Chain. I guess I seriously can't read powerpools. Pike and DoG square up and Jam vs. Sockeye. Interesting.

Oct 29 14:06:16 CDT 2004 (Fri) Have I mentioned how impressed I am with Rodney Jacobson's score reporting tool? Aside from the poor display in Safari, it's pretty cool. Wish it would do point diff's automatically. Some interface design help, something prettier to look at would also be nice. But it rocks.

Oct 29 16:23:40 CDT 2004 (Fri) There's been some fluidity in the score reporter. And since games are so close, and point diff seems to always matter, it's been crazy trying to figure out who goes were. Mixed: B+ vs RFBF, with B+ up 11-8. Soul Patrol vs Bad Larry 11-8. Bad Larry seems to be losing something. Women: BNOGO vs Ozone 8-5 and Rare Air vs Zanzara 8-7. Riot hasn't gotten double digits scored on them yet. 9 is the closest by Ozone. Open: Sockeye over Doublewide 15-9 and DoG vs Chain 11-8. Sockeye faces up Ring tomorrow morning. Pike (2-3) faces up against the Condors (3-2). Sockeye (4-2) gets Ring (5-0). Jam (4-1) vs Bravo (3-2). A team with a losing record is in the quarters. That's pretty crazy. I think I'm bored of this.

Oct 29 17:00:28 CDT 2004 (Fri) Stage is set.
Mixed: 6 TM vs. Bad Larry. CLX vs DTL. BM vs B+. Shazam vs. H&P. RFBF out. CLX now, I think, has a great shot at the finals. I say they play 6 TM in the semis. BM plays Shazam in the other. BM goes to the finals. Where they win it all over the upstarts from Iowa. But that's just my guess.
Women: Riot vs Rare Air. Fury vs Backhoe. Godiva vs Ozone. Prime vs Schwa. Let's go with unbeatens and say Riot vs Godiva in the finals beating Fury and Prime to get there.
Open: FG vs DoG. Jam vs. JB. Ring vs. Sockeye. Pike vs. Condors. My picks? FG vs Jam. Sockeye vs Pike. Sockeye vs Jam. Sockeye. It's been interesting, that's for sure.

Went home to Woodstock yesterday. Slightly spur of the moment, but really just a chance to hang out at home and do some laundry. A whole lot of laundry. I need to remember to get an attenuator for my HD antenna reception. That might help some. Stopped by the Woodfield Apple Store on the way out and played with the iPodPhoto. It's a chubby little guy. The photo interface is pretty slick, but I finally read a review someplace that said importing photos in the field using the Belkin card reader interface didn't allow the photos to be put into the interface. Too bad. Also took a look at the iMac G5, a slick looking machine, but small. Odd how that is now. I also drooled over the PowerMac G5's and they had a 30" Cinema Display there as well. That thing is just huge, like get lost on your own desktop huge. The 23" looks might fine though. They also had the old style ADC 23" on sale for $1500. I did not walk out with it, even though I wanted to. I also brought home my HDTV reciever, an old Samsung SIR-151 to try out with my parent's TV. And guess what, it picks up all the Chicago stations except WBBM (notorious low power VHF digital broadcast) with the huge antenna on the mast. It's sweet. I'm also leaving it out in Woodstock, and will use the EyeTV 500 as my sole HD source from now on. Crazy. I watched Monters, Inc. in HD last night, and it looked pretty much incredible. Also, WLS does their news in HD. Very nice. I still have to watch the Frighteners today, since it is Halloween, and maybe the Sixth Sense and Ghostbusters too? I forgot to mention that I had my dad finally look at my ankle. Without additional checks, it looks like I either damaged some ligaments or even worse, some cartilage in my foot. Sweet. Nothing I can do about that. So it was a good thing, health wise, to stop playing ultimate, and now, I've got a pretty good physical excuse to go along with my emotional and psychological reasons for not playing, which I'm not sure I've explained here yet.