Blogger type

A site called Typealyzer will tell you what blogging personality you have by analyzing your language, or something.

My personality, the "performer," is a bit disturbing ...

The entertaining and friendly type. They are especially attuned to pleasure and beauty and like to fill their surroundings with soft fabrics, bright colors and sweet smells. ...

Ah well. I checked Dave's at Bottlecaps, and he was rated the same, and let me just say here that we are both confident in our manly manliness. I'm also not into bright colors so much. I'll admit that I like cotton bedsheets, but what does that have to do with anything?

Anyway, if you want to do your own analyzing, the site is here.

Woe! Woe!

Signs that things aren't going well for Tech:

• The announcers begin the fourth quarter with an argument over which Beyonce song is the best.
• Watching Graham Harrell gives you flashbacks of Kermit the Frog singing "Happy Feet."
• You leave Norman thinking, "Wow, Sooner fans are the friendliest people on earth."
• Raider fans are already whining about the officiating by the end of the first quarter.
• That offensive line dude who always wears the face paint goes from looking cool to looking like ... a big fat guy who wears face paint.
• Mike Leach looks exactly the same as he always does.

Had a strange weekend. Ate breakfast Saturday with some friends and then headed to Norman. Buddy Jeremy had randomly called me last week about possibly coming up to watch the game and drink beers, and, as it's been a long time since I've done that, I jumped at the chance.

I wasn't actually at the game. I was just at Jeremy's house, watching Tech's national championship hopes fading ... fading ... exploding like a cream pie thrown in our faces ...

But, all things considered --

• First off, the blowout loss didn't show Tech to be a fraud, unlike some of the announcers were saying. At least in my mind. The score sucked, but Mike Leach decided to keep trying to get back in the game, keep going for it at fourth and three on the 50-yard line, even though his team hadn't shown any indication they would succeed. Sometimes it works, sometimes you end up giving the other guys two easy scores in two minutes. That's the way he plays, and we wouldn't be where we are if Leach didn't play that way.
• Secondly, perspective. This year still ranks as Tech's best season, ever. Barring some screw-up, we still finish in the top 10, still have an outside shot at a BCS game. It's impossible for anyone with a brain to complain about where we are, considering where we've been.

Happy Tuesday.

Just playin'

About half an hour before bed time. Playing with a camera.

We get ...

Sam, Boy Toddler of Action

He's fast enough now that walking no longer does the trick in keeping up with him.

Along with his growing speed, he's also learned how to close doors ...

Mixed feelings. I'm proud of how he's learning things at this incredible, flaming speedball rate. But, once he learns to open doors -- well, I shudder to think.

Good news for me

Bad news for the children of America. Funny how that works.

Schools face growing shortage of male teachers.

But that's a big reason why I'm going into education, job security. And I actually think I'm going to enjoy it. Or at least parts of it.

Canadian police chase

I love winter.

* seen on Ace.

I Eat My Cake

This was from a recipe in the Star-Telegram called, I think, "So-Much-Chocolate-You-Should-Anesthetize-Your-Mouth Cake." I'm calling it my first cake success, as it looks pretty good and there were no major mistakes in the manufacturing process.

UPDATE: Per request, here's a link to the recipe.

Sam's b-day cake was well-recieved, but I thought it was a little dry. I still don't have the texture right on this one, but my wife likes it and I'm fine with that.

After writing this, I feel like I should kill something and grill it just to get my testosterone levels back up.


Kill the beast
So, how long does everyone think the phrase "He's a BEAST" will remain cool? I'm thinking until last Tuesday.

(UPDATE: My wife was confused as to the meaning of the phrase. "He's a BEAST" translates roughly into "He's quite good at what he's doing.")

For a replacement, "Knees the groin of reality" would be a good one. As in:

Michael Crabtree: Knee.
Reality: Groin.

Booyah.

(I miss "booyah" -- we got rid of it way too soon.)

Notes, cause I need to post

Sam began imitating us talking on the phone this week. He does this by picking up a block and holding it to his ear and jabbering. He's gone so far as to gesture. All the child development stuff we've read told us to expect this, but it's fun when you actually see him doing it.

Of course, he refuses to do it on camera, but here are a few pictures of the latest.

Not to complain, but I will ...

I reached a new level of brain death on Monday.

Five hours of sleep after trying to write a short story. Waking up early for some reason. Two math classes. One math test. Attempting to work more on short story. Going to creative writing class, and listening to 13 other people read their unfinished short stories.

At least I slept well last night. Still, as far as a time in my life where I feel like I'm just treading water, it really felt like I was up to my ears.

Yaaay

"I was expecting another celebratory "Yahooo!" post from you," Meredith told me after she got back from work Saturday night.

I said that, while I was supremely satisfied with Tech beating Okie State, it wasn't the same thrill of beating a No. 1 team, and a No. 1 team that happens to be UT, at that. Besides, I'd written too much about football lately, and I know that gets to be a downer for people who could care less.

But I've changed my mind since. Exactly how many times in my life is my favorite team going to be this good and do these things? My knowledge of sports is basic, but the affection I have for Texas Tech goes to my background and my memories. It's the same reason anyone loves a team -- the team is part of your identity.

I'm still not euphoric. I'd thought we'd need two miracles this season, and so far we've had one against the Longhorns. I have no idea how we're supposed to beat OU -- similarly talented offense, but a much higher talent level overall.

I spotted an article in the Star-Telegram on how Tech fans are reacting. I pretty much agree with the guy who said that, no matter what happens now, it'll be impossible to be disappointed with this season.

(The article also quotes "fan" Gary Ashby, which is kind of funny to me because Ashby comes up virtually any time someone does a story on Tech fans. He's a former baseball coach and played for my Dad.)

Most Tech fans are now hoping for a win and secretly praying that we just play decent.

Memories of all those years -- when we just wanted to go to the Cotton Bowl and couldn't get over the hump -- are still fresh in our heads.

Still, I'm just happy with the ride so far.

WaPo: Daylight savings time kills bad people

Something to think about while grousing about having to adjust:

"Back in 1999, terrorists on the daylight-saving West Bank built several time bombs, delivered to co-conspirators in Israel and scheduled to explode at a set time. Problem was, Israel had just switched back to standard time, so the only people injured were the terrorists themselves when the bomb detonated an hour earlier than they expected and killed them all."

Update

YAHHOOOOOOOO!!!!

Update to the update:
Yeehaw! North Texas pulls off upset. (Or something. It's always an upset when North Texas wins.)

Attention, people of Latin America

I don't talk much here about the results I see on this blog's visitor tracking system. Basically, I don't want people to become conscious that someone is looking over their back, even if we both know that someone is.

But I generally check the results every day, and it always either feels good to see old buddies looking me up or gives me a kind of wierd "what's that about?" feeling. (Like the other week, when, for some reason, 20 people from Spain wanted to read an old post about that bikini model/anchorwoman thing that happened in Tyler about two years ago.)

But something's been driving me nuts for more than a year, so I'm going to go ahead and ask: What's the deal with the Outfield and all countries south of the Rio Grande?

At least once a day, sometimes three, four times a day, someone in Mexico, Argentina, Ecuador, etc. decides to Google a variation of the phrase: "I can't believe, the things that happen to me" and wind up at this site.

Variations include: "I can believe the things that happen," "I can't believe the things," "I believe what happens."

I've spent a few hours researching this and can find nothing. If I google the phrase myself, this site doesn't show up on the first 10 pages.

What the hell? Is there some kind of contest that uses the phrase. Is it some comedian's laugh line?

If you're googling that, you must know English. Help me out here.

And enjoy some classic Outfield.

Drama in the classroom

So on Monday, we're reviewing for a trig test this week. Our original professor has been out because of back surgery, so a T.A. has been running the class for about a month.

I don't think I noticed this the first time I was in college, but in every class I've taken so far there's been a student (or two) that has to ask a question every five damn minutes. And usually that question is, "Why don't I understand what you just said?"

Monday's version: The teacher was working through a problem, and the dude who is always pronouncing his stupidity goes freaking ballistic when the teacher wrote: 2*2 = 4.

Seriously. "That looks like 2.2 = 4 to me."

Teacher becomes peeved. "Folks, this is fourth-grade stuff here." That brings other students into the fray, saying they've just been insulted.

Teacher leaves class for 30 seconds. Then she comes back in, angrily slamming papers together and canceling the class, about 10 minutes after it started.

Me and Meredith talked about it. The teacher should have calmed things down, instead of making it worse.

But we also talked about kids today: Asking 80 questions in a class and not caring that you're slowing the whole thing down; Practically begging for someone to insult you so that you can react with righteous indignation. And, most importantly, thinking that being dumber than a box of rocks is something to show with pride along with your school colors.

I'm trying to think of this as good training for what I'm about to face -- although I'm pretty sure the average junior high student is going to be smarter than what I'm seeing now.

Otherwise, all I know is that I've made a low B on a test for the first time since returning to college, when everything else has been an A.

School drama -- not good.