The Blarg

I know it’s been a long time since baby pictures, and these are just a few to tide people over. I need to get the motivation to take stuff off the main camera, but it’s downstairs right now.

You know that stupid Wipeout show that ABC has been advertising for close to 2 months? It was on last night, we recorded it, and it ROCKS! American Gladiators can’t hold a candle to this show. There are 24 contestants competing through the first obstacle course. The 12 fastest move on to the next round where they have to jump over a rotating bar. The first 6 to get knocked off are out, and the final 6 move on. Two more get kicked out in another event, until the final four proceed to the ultimate obstacle course where the winning time gets $50k.

When I started to watch the show I had super low expectations. They had two announcers, which I thought was odd, but as it turns out, they make fun of the contestants the entire show, and it’s hilarious. Unlike American Gladiators they are showing someone running an obstacle course almost the entire show with very little downtime. The funniest part is that most of the obstacles are downright impossible, but it’s awesome watching people try and fail.

It’s on Tuesday at 8pm on ABC, so check it out. We also started to watch the Japanese gameshow one, and it was terrible. Do not waste your time.

To replace the slow DSL we got cable a month ago, and I finally disconnected both the DSL and home phone today. The Verizon bill was $62.44 every month for DSL and home phone, but the cable internet bill is $45 a month. By dropping Verizon we are saving an extra $17 a month and we have faster internet. The home phone alone was $28, and considering we don’t use all of our cell minutes by a long shot, we decided to try being a “cell phone only” family. Worst case if we use up all of our 400 shared minutes ($60/month for 2 phones) then we can bump it up to 700 minutes for only $10 more, which is still a savings of $7 a month.

The best part of all? No more telemarketing calls! Almost 95% of the calls we got on the home phone were from telemarketers, it was ridiculous. My only real concern about dropping the home phone was 911 calling. They shut off our service immediately, so I tried my parents home phone. Didn’t even ring, and went straight to “you can’t call them” blah blah blah. So I decided to try 911. Now before you yell at me, I didn’t even let the call go through. Instead of giving me the error message, it rung! The second it started to ring I hung up, so it shouldn’t have even entered their system. Verizon wouldn’t tell me if this would still work, but it’s not in their best interest to say “oh yes, get rid of us and you can still call 911.”

And not to start a headset debate, but ours came today, and so far I’m impressed. I started to mess around with the voice dialing options on our phone, and it’s actually really cool. On old phones you had to record your voice for EVERY contact, but not on our Motorola W490s. When I say “Stacie” it reads my contacts on it’s own and matches it for me. So theoretically I can press a button on the headset, say “Call Stacie,” and never have to even look down at my phone. Way cool.

The baby just let a big long drool drip from his mouth, and on the way down the dog ate it.

The new “no cell phones to your ear” law takes effect in less than two weeks. Here’s the skinny straight from the DMV website.

We got new phones a few months ago that have bluetooth (a first for us!) and today I ordered these headsets. I’ve read good and bad about every headset, but for the most part these (Plantronics Voyager 510) seem to be nice. They come with three different “ear pieces” so you can find one that fits inside your ear nicely.

I put up a new header just for fun. It doesn’t match the site very well and looks like a big rectangular weird thing, but we had too much fun making it not to use it. I’ll revert to the old school blarg title eventually, but for now enjoy this one.

I haven’t always loved to watch baseball. When I was younger I always loved to play it, but sitting in front of a TV for 2.5 hours was impossible. Now that I’m older and have a little more patience, I love it beyond any other sport. I can watch an entire game and enjoy each pitch.

This appreciation actually stems somewhat from watching a little basketball recently. I’m not trying to hate on basketball, but in some ways it’s absolutely annoying to watch. I remember watching Jordan as a kid, but I never remember the game being so physical. How the refs call the game I have no idea, because it’s almost ridiculous to watch these guys hit and run into each other constantly. It seems like getting away with just enough contact without drawing a foul is a more important skill than shooting a basket. Watch a game from twenty or thirty years ago and the game is completely different, and I think worse.

This brings me to why I love baseball so much. Everything is cut and dry in baseball. If the ball gets to first before your foot, you’re out. If the outfielder catches the ball, you’re out. You hit it over the fence, it’s a home run. Even balls and strikes (which are subjective) are rarely a problem. Strike out on a pitch on the corner? That means you had at least two shots before that one, you should have known borderline pitches need to be defended, and the game never hinges on one pitch because you have 9 innings to get the job done. It’s so cut and dry, and for the most part the game is identical to the way it was played 50+ years ago. Not to mention all the strategy I love about the game and the batter/pitcher battle.

Watching basketball and Kevin Garnett dropping f-bombs on national TV make me proud to be a baseball fan.

It’s not taking very long for the differences between Obama and McCain to become obvious. Here’s a short list thanks to Hugh Hewitt.

Barack Obama wants to hike social security taxes, double the capital gains tax and restore the death tax to its highest levels.

Barack Obama opposes any expansion of exploration for oil even though the price you are paying at the pump is soaring and the only way to halt the rise is increased production.

Barack Obama wants to meet, without preconditions, with Ahmadinejad, Chavez and Kim Jung Il.

Barack Obama wants the U.S. to quit the field in Iraq ,imperiling the victory there that is emerging with unmistakable clarity.

But for this post I’d like to focus on the first point. Obama wants to extend the cap on your income that is subject to the social security tax. If you make a six figure income, you ever hope to, or you ever hope your children do, then you should be against these taxes. This doesn’t just effect the super rich, but a LOT of regular Americans who are already taxed too much. Not to mention the wealthy who pay a TON of social security taxes will not get that money back. It’s downright stealing from the rich to give to the poor, and Obama is perfectly OK with “fairness.”