Updates from The World Left Behind

I suck for not posting for the last week. Sorry loyal readers. hope all 3 of you are still around. ...kidding. i have at least 1,000 readers!

The bathroom project (from heaven) continues and the wife and I are really pleased with how its turning out thus far. We hopefully will have the project completed in the next week or ten and I'll post pictures as soon as I can.

We saw Run Fatboy Run (The True Life Story of The Paperboy before he gave up alcohol) with Smelmooo and Tangent Woman this past weekend and I must admit that I really liked it. I thought I was going to hate it and I gave Smelmooo crap for making me see this movie, but in the end, I thought it was great. I did doze off a couple times (only to be awaken by the hard people's elbow of my wife), but I did think it was a great movie.

I also watched TMNT, a computer animated story of those awesome heroes in a half shell and I thought it was phenomenal. That tells you what kind of movie watcher I am I guess. I am enthralled by cool looking movies with little story and hate drab looking movies with a good story.

Do you know what sucks? Yankees Opening Day was postponed this afternoon. I am so damn pissed off about that. Since the Giants Super Bowl XLII victory 57 days ago - they won, did you hear? - it seems like it's been a damn eternity since I've watched sports. Thank God, I've had a wonderful and time devouring bathroom project to work on during that time period ;-)

Do you know what really sucks? I used to love to read. Now, though I have a half read Duma Key (by Stephen King), a half read Next (by Michael Crichton) and an unread The Mist (again by King) lying on my desk and I haven't picked up a book in what seems like 5 months.

...but what really, really sucks is SIRI. I wrote -- lovingly mind you -- about the merger between Sirius and XM the last couple weeks and as soon as the DOJ approval for the deal was announced, I waited for the stock to skyrocket. Well, do you know what happened? It went up 20 damn cents, then came back to levels before the merger. So, I said fuck it and I sold it. And it was a good thing that I did, as he next day it went down 30 cents (which is like a bazillion percent for a $3 stock and it has been down ever since. SIRI sucks.

It Happened!!!

Well, it happened today...

The Department of Justice approved the proposed merger between Sirius and XM Satellite Radio! The announcement occurred near the end of the day, but the stock still was up around 8% on the day - mainly off rumors on Thursday afternoon and Monday morning that the merger announcement was close. It'll be interesting to see what happens tomorrow.

Now, it's up to the FCC to give their final approval on the merger. Let's hope the Bush-appointed bastards - are they appointed by Bush? - let the merger go through. If not, I'm hiring Janet Jackson to flash her boob on national TV again and mortify the FCC - ala 2003....

Disappoint Me with I Am Legend

I Am Legend - I really wanted to see I Am Legend when it was in the movie theater, but for one reason or another I didn't get a chance to see it then. So, I was really excited when it came out on DVD recently and my dad let me borrow it. I must say after watching it last night, I was happy that I didn't waste the gas to drive to the movie theater.

The movie starts out strange and usual as the director choses to show us life in NYC 3 years after everyone dies (except Fresh Prince of Belair) or becomes zombies (like Jazzy Jeff).

From the very start, the movie raises more questions than it answers and its extremely, extremely frustrating. For the first half hour of the movie, my wife and I bounced questions back and forth off each other - with either of us having any answers - because the movie keeps you wondering what the hell is going on - like why is there still electricity and running water in the city, why are there animals still running around and what happened to Will Smith's career after Independence Day. Through various flashbacks in the movie, you are given the answers to some of your questions - sans the ID question - but even in the end, you're left with more questions that you should ever have when you leave a movie theater/turn off your DVD players - like how the hell they get off Manhattan if all of the bridges are supposed to be blown up.

And to top it all off, the ending is simply unbelievable and dumb. And I'm talking about the original release ending; not the weird zombie makeout session ending dreamed up by the retarded director and provided to me in the DVD release.

Just a bad movie all around. And I'm disappointed to say the least.

NCAA Tournament Starts Today

From 1996 to about 2005 or so, I was excited for the start of the NCAA Tournament. Most of the reason for this is because my Terps were in the NCAA Tournament and I was interested in watching them in the tournament. Since assistant coach Billy Hahn left the Terps (Hahn was supposedly the guy who was the team's recruiter) the team has sucked and appeared in the NIT Tournament in a number of the past years (I'm not going to even waste time looking up how many times in the past 4 or 5 years they've been in that subpar tourney.

This year, even though I've lost touch with the NCAA, I reluctantly joined a Tournament Pool and figured that even though I did not follow the NCAA season religiously this year that I have just as good a shot at winning the pool as any buxom blond who knows nothing about basketball (other than the ball is orange)...

Giants Sign David Carr

I have a bad feeling about this....

Sure, David Carr is a servicable backup quarterback to Super Bowl XLII MVP Eli Manning -- I'll never get tired of saying that -- but I just have a bad feeling (with Manning rumored to be on the cover of Madden 09) that something bad is going to happen next season.

Carr was drafted No. 1 in 2002 and since then he's been on the Texans and the Panthers. With both of these teams, Carr wasn't given much chance to succeed as he was sacked 262 times in 79 career games. That's an amazing amount of sacks. One thing that the Giants have gotten much better these past few seasons is protecting the QB. So, who knows what'll happen with Carr on the Giants.

Hopefully, Manning will play out next season without injury and we won't ever have to find out what type of QB, David Carr can be on the Giants -- outside of preseason games and garbage time when the Giants are running the score up on opponents like the 18-1 New England Patriots.

I do know one thing though. After this season, it's unwise to give up on a No. 1 pick too early. He could turn into the Super Bowl MVP or something. There I go again...

Paperboy Becomes Demolition Man

For the past month or so (okay, past 3 months) the wife and I have been working on redesigning our master bathroom. This past week came the hard part as we decided to rip up the bathroom tile, vanity cabinet/top and toilet by ourselves. We spent most of yesterday ripping out the toilet and vanity and all of last week ripping up the tile....

I'm so tired, I can barely type.

You can see by the below "After Pictures" that the paperboy's wife - a.k.a. Demolition Woman - feels the same way.

BEFORE




AFTER

Stay Tuned for pictures when the Bathroom project is completed....in 6 years...when I'll be writing this blog with my mind.

Coughlin Signs 4-Year, $21 Million Extension

On December 25, 2006, I wrote a blog entitled "Fire Tom Coughlin. In the blog, I said: "The players don’t care…the coaches are inept and not respected by the team and the fans are just plain pissed off at how this New York Giants season has gone after the team started off with a 6-2 record in the first half of the season. Since then, the team has hit rock bottom – more than once – losing six out of the last seven games. While the 6th and final NFC Wild Card position is still a possibility, I think it’s clear that the Giants players have given up on their coaching staff, including Tom Coughlin. ... And that’s why Tom Coughlin needs to be fired."

I felt pretty strongly about it at the time. Last season was a disaster for the Giants. So in the offseason, Tom Coughlin looked in the mirror and realized that he had to change or he would probably be fired if his players didn't respond to him the next season. Well, he changed for the better and his players did respond....as you know by now. ...

Today Coach Coughlin re-signed with the Giants for a 4-year, $21 million contract. And he deserved it.

Congrats to Tom for not only signing a big contract today, but realizing that he needed to make a change in his life to make things better for himself and those around him. ...That speaks volumes about the man.

My Morning from Hell

What a fucking morning.

I had to drive up to Jersey City this morning for a client thing so I let the wife take the new car, while I took her car. As I usually do when I have to come up to Jersey City for these regular client meetings, I stop at Wawa for a Red Bull and a Buttered Roll...the breakfast of champions, right?

Well, as I was on line at Wawa this morning, I realized that I didn't have my wallet on me. So I left Wawa - after putting back the goods, mind you - and drove home real slowly so I didn't get pulled over in my wife's car without my license. I had visions that a cop would pull me over and think that I had stolen the car. My fears did not materialize though and I managed to get home safely and without incident. So, I got the wallet, went back to Wawa, picked up the same Red Bull and buttered roll (the same exact ones that I had picked out previously) and went on my merry way.

The morning from hell didn't end there though.

Like I said, I had my wife's car....which also meant that I didn't have my Ezepass tag. Complicating things further was the fact that I also didn't have any cash on me....a sad fact that I realized as I was driving 80 mph on Route 78 about 3 or 4 stops from the NJ Turnpike. So it flashed through my head to either run the Turnpike tolls like Thelma and Louise or just stop somewhere in lovely Newark, NJ. Well cooler minds prevailed. I drove through the ghetto fearing for my life and finally stopped at a fine gas station establishment - it wasn't - to get a $20 bill for a $1 toll.

I got back in the car without incident and am finally at my destination in Jersey City. Can the morning get any worse? I surely hope not...

It Arrived!!

My autographed Eli Manning Super Bowl framed photograph arrived today and it is friggin phenomenal. And in person 16 X 20 inches is a lot bigger than I expected it would be (that's what she said.)

What's really awesome about this photo is that you can see the reflection of Eli holding the trophy actually IN THE TROPHY.

Thanks to my wife for this phenomenal Valentine's Day present!

I'm in Favor of the SIRIUS/XM Merger

First, here's my full disclosure. I own 1 Trillion shares of Sirius Satellite Radio. .... and I'm in favor of the proposed merger between Sirius and XM that has been under review with the DOJ and FCC for the last year.

As you know from my last blog, I just got a new car. Well, the car came with a 3 month trial to XM Satellite Radio. In short, DOJ and FCC have taken such a long time to decide on the merger case because they are worried that if SIRI and XMSR merge that they will create a monopoly and limit the consumers choice. Well, let me just share my opinion on this matter.

In my new car, along with 115 commercial free XM channels, I have two power outlets and an AUX outlet to hook up my iPod nano and 2 additional mp3 players. I also have a ton of AM/FM radio channels. I can listen to one song on XM, then switch over to hear Mike and the Mad Dog on WFAN and then easily switch over to hear a song on my iPod. I think that's a ridiculous amount of choice -- almost too much -- for me. And its for that reason that I think the merger between Sirius and XM should be accepted by the Feds.

I don't believe that the merger will limit my choices.... the only choice that will be limited is where I spend all of the beaucoup bucks that a merger announcement would make my stock worth.....

Oh, and I don't own a trillion, million or even a thousand shares. I was joking about that, if you couldn't tell. Do you hear that DOJ?