Sick

Well I was lucky enough yesterday to get that stomach bug that Payton had earlier in the week. I guess even washing my hands religiously doesn't prevent every illness. This is the third stomach bug I've had in the past year. Before that, I hadn't had one in over ten years. Blech.

Remembering the 80's

Back in the 80’s I actually watched commercials.  For some reason, today I started recalling a lot of old products from the 80’s that I remember from their commercials.  A lot of them happen to be breakfast cereals.

• Croonchy Stars cereal.  This one didn’t last long, but I thought the commercials were hilarious.  Ryan got me a box of these for my birthday one year and this had to be the most entertaining cereal box ever made.  It’s hard to tell from the pictures in the link above, but I do remember having to find how many times the word “RUTEBEGA” appears on the box.  Then it said that occurrence didn’t count, and then every other time you find it they have some funny reason for why that occurrence doesn’t count either.  I wish all the text in those pictures was readable.
• Nintendo cereal. “Nin-ten-do, it’s a cereal for breakfast!  Nin-ten-do.”
• Crispy Critters cereal.  “Hello my name is Crispy, how do you do?  Crispy Critters cereal is entirely new.  It’s indubitably, indubitably, indubitably, DELICIOUS!”
• Mr. Gameshow.  I remember in the commercial a family playing and Mr. Gameshow saying “Correct-a-mundo J. J….”  Anyone remember how the rest of that went?
• It’s probably sad that I can still recite the whole McDonald’s menu song from memory.  Remember that one with the campaign where they put a square record in the newspaper and if your copy made it all the way through the song you win the grand prize?  “Big Mac, McDLT, a quarter pounder with some cheese, Fillet o’ Fish, a hamburger, a cheeseburger, a Happy Meal, McNuggets, tasty golden french fries, regular and larger sizes…” etc.  It’s not as impressive to type it out and you probably just think I found it somewhere on the web.  Ask me to recite it verbally sometime when you see me.

Quick Thoughts 9/27

• Is it just me, or does anyone else find the Burger King commercials with their “King” mascot rather disturbing?  The football ones were kind of funny, but the rest of them just leave me scratching my head.
• Payton has been battling a stomach bug this week.  It looks like he’s over the hump now, but man those are never fun.  It made me remember the time when my dad took my sister and I to a movie when my mom was out of town.  My sister was acting a little funny, but said she was fine when my dad asked her if she was okay.  Not more than two minutes later, she turned to my dad and ralphed all over him.  It’s pretty funny when you think about it now, right Dad?
• It looks like ABC is going to be broadcasting the ISU/Nebraska game on Saturday. 
• Here are today’s song lyrics: “You know our love was meant to be, the kind of love that lasts forever.”  Should be an easy one.

Bear with me

So after getting my hopes up after last week’s game against the Lions, they came crashing down yesterday when the Bears fell apart against the Bengals.  Yesterday’s game was the first one I’d actually been able to see, and there wasn’t much about it that I liked.  For the most part, I thought the defense did pretty well.  They were put in some tough positions after some turnovers, but for most of the game, they really didn’t do that badly.  They kept the running game in check, but I don’t think they were able to put enough pressure on the QB.  Things fell apart at the end, but they had been on the field for most of the day.  The defense can’t do it all.

The Bears’ offense, well that didn’t look any different from what I’d seen last year.  Something is definitely wrong when I find myself happier when the Bears are on defense because I think they have a better chance of scoring than when on offense.  Orton had a horrible game and threw five interceptions.  At least he is a rookie, and Harrington and Culpepper can’t use that excuse.  It’s now Favre’s turn to throw five picks in a game.  Most of Orton’s interceptions were a result of bad decisions, and only one was really not completely on him.  The first pick of the day probably should have been caught, but it was slightly behind the receiver, and ended up getting tipped up in the air, and dramatically caught by the Bengals.  The good news is that Orton really can’t do much worse, it’s still early in the season, and the rest of the division is struggling just as much.

I guess the Bears are a Jeckyl and Hyde team this year.  One week they play great and rack up 38 points, and the next they fall off a cliff and can’t even get a first down for most of the game.  If they play bad like this in their next game against the Browns, I’m going to have to back off my prediction of at least 9 wins, but for now, I’m going to stick with it. 

Quick Thoughts 9/23

• Iowa State plays Army tonight at 7PM on ESPN2.  I’m not going to say much about this game because it really should be an easy game for the Cyclones.  My prediction is ISU 38 – Army 10.
• The Bears play the Bengals on Sunday.  I’m excited because the local CBS affiliate is airing that game, and it will be the first one of the season I get to see.  I doubt Chicago will put up 38 points again this week, but I’m still predicting them to win.  The Bengals have done well so far this year, but they have not played very good teams yet.  I expect Chicago’s defense to tone the Bengal’s offense down a notch.  I predict Bears 24 – Bengals 17.
• I just added a poll to yesterday’s post.  Be sure to go back and cast a vote.
• Usually, I listen to music when writing my blog entries.  From now on, in my “Quick Thoughts” entries, I will post some lyrics from a song and if you know the song it’s from and the artist, post the answer in the comments.  Please try not to use search engines to figure out the answer though.  So, with that, here is today’s lyric: “Maybe I’m just blind.” 

Wash Your Hands!

Yes, I’m a bit of a germophobe.  I don’t take it to extremes, but I always make a point not to touch the door with my bare hand in a public restroom.  That’s why I  prefer paper towels over those air dryers.  With the air dryers you have to either suck it up and touch the door or wait for someone else to open the door for you.  I hate making that decision.  It just amazes me that some people will come out of the bathroom stalls and proceed directly to the door without washing.  I sure hope that extremely thin toilet paper found in public restrooms did its job.  That is just the absolute worst.  I’m never as surprised when guys don’t wash after using the urinal, but it still disgusts me.  Luckily, I’d say over 95% of the people I see in the restrooms at work, wash their hands.

Anyway, a study was released that found only about 75% of men wash their hands after using public restrooms.   I found a lot of in-depth statistics from this study on the washup.org website.  They said the worst results were at an Atlanta Braves game where only 63% of men washed their hands.  I think that’s a surprisingly high result actually, and would have expected it to be under 50%.  You just don’t see many people washing their hands after using the “trough” at stadiums.  The same goes for bars.  There is no way the percentages would be that high if they had monitored bars and other places that serve alcohol.  I think back to some of the college dive bars in Ames and what they had for facilities.  Most did not have soap, and I can recall one that had some problems with the toilet one night, so people were using the sink instead.  In that case, it was probably best not to wash.  I theorize that number of hand washers at an establishment is inversely proportional to the amount of alcohol being served.  What do you think?

Do you wash your hands after using the bathroom?
	Yes, always
	Sometimes
	Only after a #2
	Never
Free polls from Pollhost.com

 

Pluck

I’m trying out a new RSS feeder today called Pluck.  Does anyone else use this or any other RSS feeder software?  I’d like to hear your thoughts.  So far it seems decent, but it annoys me that some sites update their webpages, but their RSS XML feeds are very stale.  That kind of defeats the purpose of using the RSS feed. 

Quick Thoughts 9/20

• I was flipping through the channels and came across a pretty funny music video tonight.  I couldn’t figure out who it was, since I didn’t catch it from the beginning.  It looked like a home video of an 80’s hair band called Sphynkter.  I was totally shocked to find out that it was the Backstreet Boys and their song “Just Want You to Know.”  The video was hilarious, but both Holly and I both agreed that the song wasn’t very good.   
• I had only watched one previous episode of Rock Star INXS before tonight, but decided to watch the finale.  Who has a name like J.D. Fortune anyway?  I highly doubt that is his given name.  Anyway, I think he sounds an awful lot like Michael Hutchence, so that will help.  I thought Marty had too much of a David Bowie look going on, and I find that disturbing. 
• I caught the last half of a program on the Science Channel about parallel universes.  Apparently there is this M-theory that they think can explain the singularity at the beginning of the big bang and follow time back before that even.  It has something to do with the eleventh dimension.  This was pretty deep stuff and it might have made more sense had I seen the entire program.  That kind of stuff just fascinates me.
• Thanks to everyone for posting comments yesterday.  I’m more inclined to write when I get feedback.  My dad reads my blog about every day, but I can’t get him to post comments.  I don’t know what else to do, since talking about TV couldn’t even get him to post.  He usually has two to three VCRs going taping all the shows he likes that are on at the same time.  So he knows his TV.  Maybe calling him out will get him to post.

TV Talk

I really don’t watch that many prime time network television shows.  There are a handful of shows that I am loyal to, but sometimes it feels like work to make sure I don’t miss any episodes.  About two years ago, I started watching all of the CSI shows.  Well that right there eats up three hours a week.  I am very close to not watching CSI: Miami anymore.  This would be an excellent show if it didn’t star David Caruso.  I don’t know of anyone that likes him, and actually some CSI fans won’t watch this show at all because of him.  Fortunately, I do like the supporting cast, (especially Emily Procter) and they make it tolerable to watch.  Something was different with the directing though in last night’s episode, and it really annoyed me.  There were way too many slow motion scenes and “cutesy” film tricks.  It’s like they were trying too hard to be creative, and it just ended up looking forced.  If they kill off any of the supporting cast, I’m done with that show. 

Survivor started again last week.  I taped it, but when I went to watch it, I found that I had recorded static.  I located the source of the problem, so that shouldn’t happen again, but in the meantime, I missed the first episode.  Luckily, the CBS website has quite a bit of video from that episode and I got a good feel for what happened.  I’d hate to say it, but I think Survivor is starting to get stale.  Not many shows last eleven seasons, but when you pack two seasons into each year, you just end up burning it out due to over-exposure.  I’m just not getting excited to watch Survivor like I did the first few seasons. 

While it seems to be getting cruder with every episode, The Family Guy is still my favorite show on TV.  No other show makes me laugh out loud so much.  All the references to pop culture things I remember from my childhood are priceless.  One of my favorites is when the Kool-Aid Man bursts through the courtroom wall.  OH YEAH!  I’m so happy the Family Guy is back on the air. 

Superfan Kahn's Thoughts 9/18

I predicted the Bears would beat the Lions, but I had no idea they would totally dominate the game like they did.  My prediction was 13–6 Bears, and the final was 38–6.  38 points!  And when I look at the box score, 24 of those were actually scored by the offense.  It looks like they could have had 6 more points as well, but had missed FG’s.  Even though I predicted the Lions’ point total correctly, they actually did get a TD, but missed the PAT.

The Bears have a lot to be optimistic about after today.  Their running game gained almost 200 yards, and Orton didn’t have any interceptions.  The defense had five interceptions, one for a TD, and two sacks.  I have Chicago’s defense in one of my fantasy football leagues, and today’s performance turned in 35 points for me; better than any offensive player on my team.  The Bears played very good today, while the rest of their division really sucked it up. 

Today was the beginning of the end of Joey Harrington, I’m afraid.  It isn’t too often a QB throws five interceptions in a game, but he did exactly that today.  Don’t worry Joey, you have some company in this fine category because the Vikings’ QB Daunte Culpepper also threw five picks today.  I don’t think Jonathan Quinn or Craig Krentzel even have that accomplishment on their resumes. 

Next week will be an interesting match-up against the very hot Cincinnati Bengals.  Hopefully the Bears can keep the Bengals’ offense under control, and can score 20+ points again themselves.  I’ll write more about this game later in the week.  In the meantime, I’m going to enjoy today’s victory.  Bear down!

Quick Thoughts 9/15

• Finally, something that might make listening to Brent Musburger tolerable!  He has to be the most annoying sports broadcaster ever.
• Survivor starts again tonight, and it looks like an ex-NFL quarterback is amongst the cast members.  That QB is Gary Hogeboom, and rumor has it that he’s keeping it a secret that he played in the NFL and isn’t using his real last name. 
• I think I learned in English class that if you are going to have a bulleted list, you have to have at least three bullets.  So, with that, I now have a legal list.

Superfan Kahn's Thoughts 9/14

Well the Bears lost their first game of the season, and that was one of the games I was figuring they could win, but I’m still optimistic.  It’s unfortunate that I don’t get to see many of Chicago’s games living in Minnesota, and the radio isn’t an option either.  I pretty much have to follow them online, or read about the game after it’s over.  The Chicago Sun-Times is my primary source of information, and I prefer it over the Chicago Tribune online edition because they don’t require you to register in order to read the articles.  That really annoys me.

So the Bears play the Lions in Chicago this weekend, and once again, I expect the Bears to win this game.  Detroit was the only team in the division to win last week, and they beat up on the Packers, which is always a nice thing to see.  I think Detroit’s offense will have a lot more problems this week against the Bears.  They only scored 17 points on Green Bay, who are supposed to have one of the worst defenses in the league.  If the Bears can tighten up their run defense for the full game, it will be a long day for the Lions. 

The best way for the defense to improve against the run is to keep the offense on the field more.  It seems like the Bears did pretty well against the run early in the game last week, but got worse as the game wore on.  If the Bears’ offense can produce longer, more time-consuming drives, this should not be as big of a problem. 

It sounds like Orton wasn’t overly impressive in his debut, but he also didn’t totally fall apart either.  I only expect him to improve as he adjusts to the NFL.  He should have a better game this week, as he’ll be facing a defense that is not nearly as good as what he went up against with the Redskins.

Prediction time.  Bears 13 – Lions 6.  Bears don’t give up a touchdown in either of their first two games. 

New blog

Bigshow, the most consistent poster of comments on this blog, now has a blog of his own.  It should be a good read if he maintains it. 

Quick Thoughts 9/11

• So I blew both of my predictions this weekend.  I wasn’t too far off on the Bears’ game though, and it looks like their defense is pretty tough.  I would expect the offense to get better as the season rolls on.
• The Bears will finish ahead of the Packers in the division this year.  I really think these are two programs heading in opposite directions for the long term. 
• Our pastor’s son, Ben Utecht got to start for the Indianapolis Colts tonight.  As I write this, he just caught a TD pass from Peyton Manning.  I guess we can thank Urlacher for laying a lick on Dallas Clark in the pre-season and moving Ben up the depth chart.
• Can you believe what some people dress their kids up in? 

Sweeeet!

The Cyclones beat the Hawkeyes 23–3, and I’ve never been so happy to be wrong about a prediciton in my life.  Unfortunately, I was right about the bad kicking game, as the Clones left four points on the field, but as it turned out, they didn’t factor in to the outcome of the game.  Way to go ISU!

Quick Thoughts 9/9

• The NFL season has officially begun!  I only watched a little bit of the game last night, but didn’t realize that Tim Dwight was playing for the Patriots now.  Somehow, even though I really don’t like him, I like to see him do well, probably because he’s one of the few Iowa natives in the NFL.  It was also nice to see former Cyclone, Ellis Hobbs III have a nice kick return for the Patriots as well. 
• I was reading an article on the Des Moines Register and found this quote a little bit troubling.  “The Cyclones are a nine-point underdog. "And rightly so," McCarney said.“  C’mon Mac, that might be reality, but that’s not a very motivational quote for your team.  You can speak praises about your opponents and be a classy guy, but that really is saying, “Yeah, we expect to lose.” 
• Don’t get me wrong, I hope the Cyclones win, but I am also being realistic.  Here’s my prediction for the game.  Iowa 31 – Iowa St. 17.  Please prove me wrong.  Wait, that 17 assumes that ISU make a FG, so let me change the pick to 31–14.  I’m just being realistic.
• Let me throw out a prediction for Sunday’s Bears/Redskins game as well.  Bears 16 – Redskins 10.  The Bears’ lone TD will be scored by the defense. 
• In middle school, our choir director, Mr. Kap liked to say this classic movie line to me.  Ah that’s good stuff.

Quick Thoughts 9/6

• Well I returned from a weekend back in Clinton and was happy to find my house dry and no surprises when I came home. 
• When I checked the headlines on my.yahoo today, I thought it was rather sad that among the top headlines of hurricane Katrina, Iraq, etc, was the announcement that Lance Armstrong and Sheryl Crow are getting married.  Sorry, but that belongs on the entertainment page, and that’s not news.
• I’m a little concerned about the Iowa/Iowa State game this Saturday.  ISU was not very polished, but Iowa played a frosting-less cupcake, so does their 56–0 win really prove much?  A friend of mine who attended the ISU game was upset with the bland play calling ISU was using.  I just hope this was done so they didn’t expose all of their tricks prior to the Iowa game.  Here’s hoping for an exciting, close, and competitive game this weekend.
• Does anyone outside the state of Florida really give a whoop about the Miami/Florida State game?  I sure don’t.