Oops...

Not a good day on the job...

You go, Ted.

Terrible Teddy, the Ten Fingers of Doom has spoken. Is it wrong that I kind of agree with him?

Last Sonic game?

So I'm not a big basketball fan. Or, I should say, I'm not a big NBA fan. I mean, I'll watch it if it's on, and I'll go if it's cheap, and I enjoy myself while I'm there, but I'm not a rabid fan by any means. We usually go to one or two games a year, whenever the Cub Scouts or PTA get a group of tickets going. In fact, we went to a great game back in December - possibly the best game of the season, since not only did the Sonics win, they won on a buzzer-beater shot. Doesn't get any better than that.

Now, as the press reports, since Washington State and the City of Seattle aren't willing to build the Sonics a new playpen, the new ownership is very likely going to move the team to Oklahoma City. Soon. They say they'll play next season at the Key, but somehow it feels doubtful.

So when my friend Chico called me this afternoon and said "I have a 1 in 6 chance of winning tickets to tonight's game...might be the last Sonics game in Seattle..." I had to adjust some plans. You know, on the off chance he won 'em.

Well, win them he did, and we went. Well, technically he went and then I went, since I couldn't get out of taking the boy to Cub Scouts and the wife had a meeting until 8, but I did get there for the second half. The second half of the last game of the season. A game that Dallas didn't care about, and that Seattle would be better off losing. As far as I can tell, other than Dirk Nowitski and Rashard Lewis, none of the other players on the floor had ever worn uniforms before. Sure, they were in the program, but I'd never heard of any of them.

And even with all this garbage time action, the Sonics still managed to lose. By 30. But at least the tickets were free, the dance team were pretty, and the $7 beer wasn't overly watered down!

Cool...

Not sure what to make of this, but I like it!

WFT?

No screaming allowed on the `Screamer' - Yahoo! News

Isn't complaining about the noise of the amusement park next to your house akin to bitching about the smell from the landfill down the street? I mean, wasn't the park there before these people bought? Sure, the ride's new, but it's a RIDE! You're supposed to scream on rides. That's part of the fun!

And speaking of rides, I'll post some pictures from our trip to Disneyland and Legoland some time soon...

Mug shot of the week

Haven't mastered embedding photos from Yahoo News, so you'll have to click the link to see the mug shot of the firefighter charged with racy park romp. "Police said Cole was wearing a blond wig, pink flip-flops and a red-black-and-white striped bikini with the top filled out by tan water balloons."

Why water baloons and not tissue or socks? Well, the guy IS a firefighter after all, and what if he came across a fire on his way to the bar?

Is it wrong that this makes me hungry?

Not really hungry, but a little...

RIP, Bob Clark...

Bob Clark, the guy who directed "A Christmas Story" and "Porky's" was killed in a car crash.

Love "Christmas Story". Both for the story, the sound bites, and the fact that Flick is now a Porn star. Barely remember "Porky's", although I'm fairly certain I saw it on a bootlegged VHS back in the day. Judging from Bob's IMDB entry, I'd say he peaked with "Christmas Story".

Yet another product I didn't think of first

The Banana Guard. Genius.

Another reason not to sleep on airplanes

Mostly I don't sleep on planes because I hate sleeping sitting up. But then I read this and now I'm even less inclined to sleep during a flight. Because really, who wants to end up sitting next to a corpse?

#1 reason NOT to become a Matador

You know, I'd never really been drawn to the life of the Matador. Not sure if it was my dislike for big hats and loud jackets or the fact that I can't speak Spanish, but the job just didn't hold much appeal. And that lack of appeal wasn't helped by this story...

I was going to get all cute and come up with the Top 10 reasons not to become a Matador, but I got stuck after the hat, the Spanish, and a general dislike for Picadors. So we'll jump to #1, best summed up by this quote from the article (the emphasis is mine...):

"Fernando Cruz is suffering from two horn wounds of 25 centimeters in length each. One involves the fibers of the abductor muscle and dissects the femoral artery, the other involves the scrotal area and eviscerates both testicles."

Thanks to the series of tubes we can now watch it...not gruesome, if you don't know the outcome... And since I don't speak Spanish I don't have a clue what the commentators are saying!

Hello, Dad? I'm in Jail!

Somehow the headline just reminded me of the old Was (Not Was) song...

Hello, Dad? I'm in Jail! I like it here. It's nice.

Guantanamo detainee calls home - CNN.com

Happy Valentine's Day!

I know, it's a day or so early, but what the heck. If you don't have a special someone in your life, might I suggest you head over to www.hotprisonpals.com? As explained in
this article from Reuters (strangely datelined Bankok, even though the prisoners in question are all from the US), this is your ticket to your own red-hot prisoner pen pal. And not just any prisoner, a HOT one!

And don't think these prisoners are just faking the hotness, oh no...here's a quote to prove it:

"Sometimes the messages get a little racy and we like that," said Rupp. "We pride ourselves on having the hottest prisoners on the Internet."

Another day in the city...

So I work in downtown Seattle. Like pretty much any big city (I'm assuming), we hear a lot of sirens during the day. Lots of fire trucks, cop cars and ambulances driving around. You tend to ignore it, figuring it's just some guy having chest pains in an office building, or a homeless person too drunk to get up. But occasionally it's something interesting. Something that gets a headline like this: Man sets women's hair on fire in downtown Seattle

Now, what makes this REALLY interesting is that:

a) It happened while I was working out at the gym a block away from the incident,
2) I saw the fire truck and cops go by and ignored it, and
iii) I know the un-named witness.

The story from my perspective:

So I'm on the tread mill and I see the cops and fire truck go by and think "Oh, another cop and fire truck driving by." I finish my workout, shower, get dressed and head back to work. As I'm walking down 3rd I see 2 squad cars parked at the corner and a guy with what looks like a TV news camera hanging around. "Huh." I think.

Then I look at the guy getting out of one of the squad cars and it's a guy I used to work with. I'll call him Horace Johnson.

"Huh," I think. "What's Horace doing in the cop car? Well, he's waiving at them and carrying his lunch, and getting out of the front of the car, so he can't be under arrest..."

Horace proceeds to walk down the street with this other guy. I'm just about to say "Hey, Johnson, what gives?" When I see that the other guy has a notebook out and Horace is saying "I don't want my name used..." So I think "OK, I won't say anything..."

I get back to work and start an IM chat with him and get his side of the story:

Scott Chicken says:

OK, I've got to ask...what was all the excitement? I was coming back from the gym and saw you getting out of the cop car, then being interviewed...

Horace Johnson says:

please don't drop my name around, but...a guy attacked 3 people, and set a woman on fire.
a few of us caught the guy until the police came

Scott Chicken says:

Damn! I won't drop any names...I was just about to say "Hey, Johnson...." when I heard you telling the reporter "don't use my last name". I saw the fire truck and cop car go by while I was on the treadmill, but didn't realize it was that exciting.

Horace Johnson says:

it was the craziest thing i've seen in a while

Scott Chicken says:

No shit!

Horace Johnson says:

i thought i was desensitized to weird events

Scott Chicken says:

So how exactly does one go about setting someone on fire? Did he have a gas can or something?

Horace Johnson says:

lighter fluid, he doused all 3 of them. the woman that got lit up REALLY got it bad. 3 foot flames

Scott Chicken says:

Jesus! That is truly insane.

Horace Johnson says:

shocking

Scott Chicken says:

Hoo yeah.

Stupidly addicting game

Thanks to Dave for getting me hooked on this. Nothing like a stupid, addictive, noisy Flash game to seriously waste your time!

And then there was more snow.

In case you haven't been following the weather, it's the winter of ages in the Northwest.

First we had more rain then ever before in November. Then December hit with big winds that blew everything over. And then it started snowing.

Now, usually we get a nice wet snow over night, people stay home from work for a day, then at 2 or 3 in the afternoon it turns to rain and everything melts. Well, not this time.

The first snow storm left a huge mess of ice behind it. That eventually melted, only to be followed by more snow last week. Fortunately that snow was pretty dry, so when the temperature dropped in to the low 20s it didn't make every road in the city a skating rink, just some of them.

This weekend it was supposed to warm back up in to the 40s and start to melt. Well, it didn't. In fact, some time last night it started snowing again. And, since it was the day after a 3-day weekend and the "it might snow Tuesday morning" forecast didn't come in on Friday, I was sorely unprepared to work at home.

So I'll end up burning a vacation day, but I did get to play in some nice wet snow, suitable for snow balls if not for sledding on a saucer, and got to break in the new toy - a slightly used Nikon D50 digital SLR. It's been a while since I played with a "big" camera, and I must say I'm hooked again. Or re-hooked. Which ever it is. The thing's bulky, but it's way faster than my Coolpix and came with a big ol' zoom lens.

And since it's digital it doesn't cost me anything to take, oh, 17 pictures of a branch covered with snow. Or of Santa apparently taking a vacation to come sled down our hill incognito. Or Logan eating snow. Anyhow, here's a link to some samples!

Mid-January Snow

Forward into the 21st century!

Who, you ask? My mother. Yes, the senior Mrs. Chicken, who has been on e-mail for much of this century, has decided to finally leave the dial-up connection behind. My nephew Matt will be thrilled to no longer have to wade through the swamp the Internets become when using Mom's dial-up connection. I think it has something to do with the fact that the phone lines were laid when the community was built back in the 50's, but as far as I know she's never had a connection faster than about 2400 baud. If that. Slow as, um, something really slow.

What pushed her to this? Well, I kind of did. I mentioned what I thought was a new cell tower on the outskirts of the neighborhood and she said "Oh, no, that's for that wireless internet thing."

This led to a discussion of Clearwire and their service and the other high-speed options available to her. After doing some pricing research it turned out that DSL was a better deal because a) the price incentive was longer (6 months @ $19.95 rather than only 3) and she wouldn't have to change her e-mail address since Earthlink can get her the DSL service.

The big advantage, I suppose, is that now when her e-mail system crashes and she calls me for tech support I won't have to say "OK, when you connect next time and see that error try this and then call me back..."!

Who is John Galt?

Is it just me, or is this straight out of "Atlas Shrugged"? First the utilities, then the copper mines, then the next thing you know everyone with a good idea will be holed up in the Colorado Rockies.

Chavez to nationalize U.S.-based utility

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) -- Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez announced plans Monday to nationalize Venezuela's electrical and telecommunications companies, pledging to create a socialist state in a bold move with echoes of Fidel Castro's Cuban revolution.

"We're moving toward a socialist republic of Venezuela, and that requires a deep reform of our national constitution," Chavez said in a televised address after swearing in his Cabinet. "We are in an existential moment of Venezuelan life. We're heading toward socialism, and nothing and no one can prevent it."

Chavez, who will be sworn in Wednesday to a third term that runs through 2013, also said he wanted a constitutional amendment to eliminate the autonomy of the Central Bank and would soon ask the National Assembly, solidly controlled by his allies, to give him greater powers to legislate by presidential decree.

The nationalization appeared likely to affect Electricidad de Caracas, owned by Arlington, Virginia-based AES Corp., and C.A. Nacional Telefonos de Venezuela, known as CANTV, the country's largest publicly traded company.

"All of that which was privatized, let it be nationalized," Chavez said, referring to "all of those sectors in an area so important and strategic for all of us as is electricity."

Happy Birthday, Miss Maya Chicken!

Well, the big day has come and gone, and the girl is now six. And well-fed on cake, too. So here, to commemorate it, is a series of photos covering this and the previous birthdays:

As if ME getting old wasn't bad enough...

Today is the last day I can say I have a 5-year-old. Not that that's necessarily a bad thing, mind you...five is a fun year, but it's a trying year. Maya moved from pre-school to Kindergarten (a wonderous and exciting place where they play with trucks and learn to read and write). She also moved from ear-splitting screaming bouts to screaming bouts that make us worry about the crystal. Not that we have crystal, mind you, but if we did we'd worry about it.

It's hard to believe that 6 years ago instead of sitting in my basement typing on the computer I was loading Paige in the car to head off to the hospital. Yes, I am indeed getting old. er. Older...