One Chicago team down…

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…ugh.

The Thriller will be upset if the White Sox are eliminated today.

RD – so sorry about your Cubs, my man. What’s 100 years between friends, eh? Blah. But, as Jim Hendry said last night, there’s always….nah, don’t say it.

Of course, I could join you in your misery swim, you know. The Dodgers can be added to the ever-lengthening list of championship teams whose rosters have players that the Cleveland Indians didn’t see fit to keep. Heck, Casey Blake just got a big quote on SI.com this morning. He’s out there in LA now, with his good friend Manny Ramirez.

And the Sox are going to need a little help from former Tribe player Jim Thome if they’re going to think about Game 4. As the Thriller is wont to say: “If they can’t hit ’em out of the park, they can’t win the game.” Ok, Jimmy, it’s time to do your thing, or I am going to have to make myself really scarce this evening.

Plans for the day: breakfast with BoomR, then off to the school house for some work, then go shopping to buy birthday presentses.

Fink out. Erm….go White Sox. Blech.

Various & Sundry IV

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  1. Check THIS out. Yikes! Bad lil Badger bandies.
  2. Hey, OJ. Lightning rarely strikes twice.
  3. I had a great time with BoomR last night, with another one to come tomorrow morning. Yay!
  4. I need to get little Sean R. a birthday present.
  5. I missed Bob’s birthday. It was on the 2nd. Crap.
  6. Clutch the friggin’ PEARLS. A pro athlete might actually go to jail.
  7. I froze my rat tail off at the game last night. Our guys fought hard, but got smoked. :-(
  8. I hate doing research outlines. Really.
  9. I wonder what Mavis is up to today. She needs to come over and make me a cup of coffee. (*Poof* There, you’re a cup of coffee.)
  10. TRO – how’s your weekend, luv?
  11. Why I will hang with my old-school Razr for awhile longer. Or at least until iPhone decides to release the choke-hold on AT&T. Or vice-versa.

Ok, back to work. PK’s pictures will appear later.

And here they are. I, um, couldn’t use them all. Family blog & stuff, you know. But these are silly:

Funny #1

Funny #2

Funny #3 (my favorite – it’s just so bizarre)

Fink out(lines are my life)

TGIF II

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Ok, lots of things happening today, my fiends.

It’s Friday. Praise Gad. It’s also homecoming at my school, and the kids have been given the chance to dress up silly in honor of “spirit week.” Yesterday was “Halloween costume day,” and some of them were downright inventive, and frankly seemed to take quite a bit of thought.

Others were funny, like this. (Check out the kid on the far left — remember when basketball shorts looked like that *all* the time, fellow crusties?) The wise guy on the far right is a regular RtB reader, who shall remain anonymous.

:-)

Then there’s later tonight and Sunday morning – getting together with a friend I haven’t seen in almost 20 years! (Boom Boom, where ya wanna meet?)

PK sent me some hi-larious pictures. I will post some of them tomorrow.

It’s going to be a good weekend.

Fink out.

Hace mucho frio

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Dude. I’m sitting here in my lovely little parlor in jeans, sweatshirt, turtle, socks, shoes, and my wool winter coat. And, as will come as no surprise to my family and friends — I’m fuh-reezing.

Fall is coming to Ohio (some, like Mavis, would say, “at long last!”). And that always brings a bit of consternation to the Fink house. The Thriller, who could wear a swimsuit to a snowball fight, likes to turn the furnace to the “off” position when he comes up for the night. Therefore, when I get up at 5:00 on a freezing cold morning, the Rat’s nest is a toasty 51 degrees. Nice.

Urge to strangle.

I mean, I know his reasoning behind it, and I understand. Natural gas, which heats our 92-year-old house, is frightfully expensive, with no relief in sight. I’m just trying to balance misery with necessity here. I guess my misery is a necessity.

Brrr.

FO

PS – Lars comes for dinner tonight – yay!

Zoom zoom indeed

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Isn’t it just all about speed? At least in America, it is. We Americans have more speedy solutions than any other country in the world, it seems. Drive-up banking, express toll lanes, drive-through food joints, self-checkout at the grocery and Home Depot, microwave meals in a minute, movies on demand, zip, zoom, ka-chang….you’re outta there.

Then why, I wonder, are we so slow compared to other countries when it comes to broadband?

Couple nights ago, I took an upload/download speed test at speedtest.net. Here’s how I scored after repeated go-rounds (click the picture):

Now, the Thriller pays more per month to get “business grade” speed, so my zip-chang is a little faster than the average Joe’s. But wait till you see how it stacks up to that of other countries. Check out this chart from a study done by the Communications Workers of America union, which shows where we stand in comparison to other countries:

Look at Japan – Sheefus, Mary & Joseph. Sixty-three MBPS compared to my nine? What’s up with THAT? In fact, the report states that the US – the country that invented the Internet – is “15th behind other industrialized nations in the percentage of the population subscribing to broadband.” Friggin’ Luxembourg has better download speed than we do. That just ain’t right. According to the study, Americans pay more for sub-par internet speed than their neighbors across the sea, too.

Well, turns out the answers aren’t always in the numbers. As I read article after article about it, hidden truths seeped out. The one that struck me was the logistics of upgrading/building the broadband infrastructure in the US as compared to doing so in Japan. I’m talking about sheer size:

Japan = 145,840 square miles

USA = 3,790,000 square miles

Of course it’s going to be easier to set up tighter, faster servers in small places like Japan or South Korea. Unfortunately, despite the movement by the CWA for Congress to step up improvements, I think most American ISPs would just as soon blather on about how good 5 MBPS is, and squeeze us for the $60/month, hoping that we’ll continue to be dumb & happy about it.

But sixty-three MBPS? *scratching head* If that don’t beat all. (Actually, it does.)

Fink out.