Do you have what it takes to pay the toll?

Well, its the second interesting Monday in a row. No, nothing really surpasses someone driving into you (my back still hurts... maybe its time to squeeze a few dimes out of Arbella Insurance). This Monday may not have a highlight like last week did, but it does have one long story, the story of Andrew the Juror.
Yep, someone elses fate is in my hands, instead of the other way around this week. But I'm legally obligated not to tell you anything further (come on, you must admit I'm the master of the tease... no, not that kind of tease).

I promise a full recap as soon as I'm allowed to... I promise a few of you may find it interesting.

At any rate, I was racking my brain for the other commercial that always gets me in the football mindframe, and it took about 10 minutes of searching, which I found surprising - in this day and age I figured a video with a major brand and a former football head coach would be easier to find, but it was slightly difficult - anyway, here it is - Bill Parcells asking the question - do you have what it takes to pay the toll?

My Favorite Season...

Its getting to be that time of year again - I first started noticing it when I was longing for tailgating at BC and seeing those Under Armor "click, clack" commercials.


Its not even August yet and I'm already thinking about football.

Let's face it though, summer may be the best time of year, but there is only one best "season" of the year - football season. And really, it encompasses 3 times of year:
1) Training camp is in late July and into August. Hot, hot summer weather. I may love a nice, dark, air conditioned room (from which I am writing right now), but I understand why people enjoy being outside in the sun. I've been known to sit by the pool... once in a while. And while you're not inundated with football (unless you read the Herald or watch NESN), you can't escape it somewhat - the commercials are starting to crop up, and Tom Brady is on the news (and not just for his ability to throw those little footballs with tails...). Isn't knowing that the 90°+ weather will end easier to take when football season is around the corner?
2) The season starts in the still-hot weather of early September, and goes through all of (my favorite season) the Fall.
3) The holidays are intermixed with bowl games and the last few weeks of the NFL season (usually with playoff implications) and then the first few weeks of the cold, bitter winter (that is, if you still live in NE for all you San Diego warm weather wusses) are offset by the playoffs. What can be better?

I have plenty more to write on this subject, but I wanted to get you thinking about football too. And if just reading about it doesn't get you there, I'm pretty sure this visa ad from a couple years ago will:

My Poor Car

A'ight folks, here they are, a few pics of my car. Interesting that the auto body shop decided to take about 12 pictures of things that had NOTHING to do with the accident, and about 2 of the actual damage. Anyway, here's what my driver's door looks like these days:

If you're not already aware, I've taken this accident quite personally. Rear ending somebody, or getting rear ended? That's an accident. But someone t-boning you (ok, yes, i know, that sounds dirty), hitting you right where you are sitting? That's just mean. She didn't hit my car, she hit ME. That makes me mad. The car just happened to be in the way.

Anyway, all personal affrontation aside, here's what i'm assuming is one of my new doors:

I really wish I was WT enough to ask them to keep it yellow... how awesome would that be? I'm afraid Meghan would divorce me though.

And this is my favorite pic. Why did they take my rear bumper off, you may ask? Well, I don't really know. It didn't seem to suffer any damage... maybe the fat man in the little shirt was just having fun. Ah well.

Hopefully when my back doesn't ache so much my wittiness will come back... I bet you can't wait.

Ouch

I had intended to start posting again this week, but as you may have heard, Meghan and I were in a bit of an accident on Monday. So instead you get the ol' Friday Night Post, and admit it, you've missed it.

A couple of questions for you.
1) Are the people in San Francisco crazy? I think they are. Not only do they support Barry Bonds, but that is apparently the only reason they go to the games. I hate to think of what will happen to that team when he is gone (and it can't come to soon). I'm watching on the night when he comes within 1 of Hank Aaron. Bonds comes up in the 8th inning with his team up by 4 runs, and as soon as he walks (again), the fans get up and leave.

Please people. Its a four run game that has gone back and fourth just about each inning, and they get up and leave. The ninth inning of course was close, which makes them all look like idiots. I can't express this enough. You are all big, stupid idiots and I hope that each and every one of you gets a chance to catch 756... I hope it hits you in the face. Really. You're dumb. Stop rooting for the cheater and not the team.

2) Michael Vick? No, really, thats my question. What, exactly, was he thinking?? Was he trying to get his brother Marcus into the Vienna Boys Choir? This has to be it. What an idiot. He needs to go to San Francisco and try and catch 756 with his face.

3) Have you read HP7 yet? I'm thinking about posting about it, but I don't want to ruin any thing, and I won't be nice like Meghan and give you spoiler warnings, I'll just come out and tell you that it ends with Harry finding out that Snape is his father, but he learns this only after Snape cuts his hand off... or was that Empire Strikes Back? Well, more later.

I was going to skip the videos and post pics of the accident instead for your enjoyment, but my insurance company's website seems to be down... we'll save that for another post!

Flight of the iPhoenix

My iPod, as you may know, came to a sad end what is now a couple of months ago. It had been having problems with, well, staying on.
The headphones I have, non-standard around the back of the neck Philips type headphones, are a little, well, "loose" would be the word to use - they seem to disconnect from the iPod with regularity, even when they are plugged in, so as to stop the music. So I became used to this, as they are the headphones I use for working out, ect. (My Sony noise-cancelling ones don't have this issue luckily).
So I was a bit surprised earlier this year when just hitting play didn't immediately fix the problem. I started having to restart the entire iPod just to get it to work again. This was somewhat annoying.
Eventually, probably by May, it was no longer turning back on without the blue screen of... er I mean the Apple iPod Sad Face Guy.
It was on the fritz. And then... it was dead.
I gave it a charge for about 5 days, and it worked for 2 songs, and then died again. For good.

Meghan and I went to the doctors... er the genius bar at the Apple store, where they confirmed the cause of death - faulty hard drive.
Out of warranty.
Time to get a new one. The only thing I can do.

So that's been my problem. Of course, I haven't gotten one yet. But the old one (which is only good for a 10% discount on a new one at an Apple store at this point), has been sitting on my dresser for some time.

Well, today I gave it the old Han Solo try. I turned it on, nothing. Long pause. Sad face. And then I banged it against my hand (kind of like Han bangs the Falcon to jump start the systems in Empire Strikes Back) - really, what is it going to do? Break a broken hard drive? I didn't bang it in anger. But I did strike repeatedly. With force, force enough to...

It was about to go to the Sad Face Guy when the backlight popped on... and it had life.

So that has been my day - My iPod has risen like Dumbledore's phoenix.

Meghan doesn't think it will last. I'm sure that it won't too, but I hope against hope. Because I don't want to pay $250 for a new iPod!!! But I ask you all to take guesses as to how long it will work this time. Leave a message. Measure it in time (not songs), assuming I'll use it regularly between now and the end of its 10th life. The closest will get nothing... except the knowledge that they probably karmically killed my iPod (again). Keep in mind, its taken a full charge, had its hard drive wiped (again), and 1400 songs added back on, and updated again while playing 10-20 songs since coming back to life. But I know... we all know, it can't last long.

But until then I'll go rock out to Fergie... er Fall Out Boy.

Cause Big Girls Don't Cry (Over Their iPod).

Friday Nights: Coming Soon to a Tuesday Night Near You

So you may have noticed that my Friday night ritual (all of two weeks old) didn't happen this week... I sort of got sleepy after seeing Knocked Up last night. Sorry about that, but its just not the same not being down at the Cape. But I hope to give you a special, patriotic Tuesday, July 3rd Fright Night special this week, we'll see. At any rate, I had a bit of a ramble on the B's in my last post (you probably haven't yet/won't ever read it), but I just wanted to apologize for my tardiness -
As mentioned in the previous post this project has been keeping me busy, but ah well. Here's something to get you through:

Always classic - and I think its important to re-watch as we're entering election season early this time around... watch the whole thing if your bored, but whatever you do don't miss the 6-8 minute-ish mark, classic stuff.