Falling Apart

I leave for 2 weeks and EVERYTHING starts falling apart....

• Britney gets her kids taken away from her (although it's probably WAY overdue). Scary to think that K-Fed is actually the better parent. Although the kids would probably be better off (and safer) if they were left at home alone with a dog. A Mastiff could raise those kids and be better protectors. The best part of the news coverage on the "exchange"? (Background: Britney failed to produce a driver's license and missed a drug test) -

  Following the court’s custody ruling on Monday, Access Hollywood reports that video showed Spears taking her boys to a Carl’s Jr. restaurant drive-thru before she handed the boys off to Federline's bodyguard. The handoff was not captured by cameras.Spears then went to a Department of Motor Vehicles office in Van Nuys, Calif.

  So she got in trouble for not having a license but still drove the kids around? And what better place to take a 3 and 1 year old than to the Carl's Jr. Drive Through??? Such is the life of Britney (CALL ME!!!)

• Andruw Jones is told by the Braves to go to another team till he learns to spell his name like every other Andrew out there. Or go by "Druw" but that looks even worse. He wasn't hitting that well this year anyways - time to move on to someone a little more consistent! That and the Braves should get rid of Mike Hampton who has pitched maybe 3 innings in his 3 years with the Braves. What an overpaid piece of crap!! Guy made $28 Million for sitting on the Disabled List. GRRRR!
• LSU is ranked higher than USC in college footbal?!?!!? How'd that happen. And a huge drop in the rankings for the Big 12. Now hopefully the over rated Big 10 is next to fall. My Cyclones are on the "Waiting List" for ESPN's Bottom 10.... hopefully another win one of these weeks changes that. Off week this weekend to focus on the remainder of the season!
  
• An interesting finish to an interesting NASCAR race on Sunday in Kansas. I missed it but reading about it makes my head hurt. First guy across the line didn't win the race. Try explaining that to your 4 year old at home!!
• iPhone owner sues Apple for ONE MILLION DOLLARS!!! All because she was one of the "HAVE TO HAVE" folks who paid full price and then they dropped the price $200. You know what that's called in the business world? Tech-no-lo-gy.... happens on everything hunny - doesn't mean you get an easy million out of it. No brainer to me..... I need to sue someone and try to make money.

If you're still asking "ok, now I know where Armonk, NY is on a map... now WHERE are you?" I'll answer it for you. The IBM Learning Center is here in the middle of nowhere (sometimes referred to as "the bunker". It's actually a really nice 26-acre facility run by Dolce where we have a lot of classrooms, meeting areas, and of course the fancy dining! Plus there are dorm style locations for our rooms to stay in at night (fully equipped with ping pong and pool tables). On Tuesday at the beginning of class we were able to hear Lou Gerstner speak to the 80 or so of us. Pretty inspiring to hear the immediate past CEO and Chairman of IBM, considering he's still held as the savior of IBM in the 1990s. The company was a week (or so rumor has it) from declaring they had no more cash in the bank to pay it's employees. He came in and was able to turn the company around.

Anyway - hope y'all are having a good week! Happy Wednesday!!!

Haiku of the Day -
No more kids for Brit,
She can focus on drinking
and Jail like Paris

Entertainment of the Day - New Kanye song Stronger is pretty good (as is the entire album). Of course it's one of those songs that will get over played around the country to the point that we all get sick of it. I dig it for now.

Weblink of the Day - a kind of fun pirate game. Drive with the arrow keys and fire away with the space bar.... gets harder as the game goes on!

Starting the Next 500

85 today here in Armonk (40 miles from Manhattan in case you're still wondering) and 85 tomorrow:( Where's the fall weather???

Exciting finish to the Baseball regular season last night. If you were lucky enough to stay up and watch all 13 innings with a dramatic (and of course controversial) finish with the Colorado Rockies scoring 3 runs against one of the greatest closers of our generation to win the game! So basically it took 163.5 games to decide who was the wild card champion for the NL. My predictions from here???

• Cleveland over the Yankees in 4
• Boston over the Angels in 5
• Cubs over Diamondbacks in 5
• Philadelphia over Rockies in 3

Some of you may be staying up for other reasons - like "what happened to the 6 kids from Saved by the Bell?". And yes, I think that "my" generation (the currently 27-33 year olds) should be called either the "Saved by the Bell Generation", or the "Beavis and Butthead Generation" or even the "90210 Generation".... any other suggestions? How about "Remembers the funny years of SNL with Chris Farley and Adam Sandler Generation"??? So here's the Saved by the Bell Answer I know you were wondering:

Lark Voorhies (Lisa Turtle) - Did some soap operas in the 90s but quit over a rumored difficulty with doing "sex scenes" which goes against her Jehovah's Witness beliefs. Was engaged to Martin Lawrence at one time, now married to a not-well known actor/producer. Did a guest starring role on Star Trek: DSN, guest starred on The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, and then kind of disappeared. Is doing a movie adaptation currently - we'll see if she "reappears" in Hollywood.

Mario Lopez (AC Slater) - Did some stuff for Animal Planet Channel, Game Show Network, was on USA's Pacific Blue (remember the female bike cops that you just don't see in real life?), and then kind of disappeared for a while. THEN he did the Dancing with the stars finishing 2nd and now is career has been re-established. He has hosted Miss Teen USA, Miss America, Miss Universe all in 2007. Married Ali Landry for 2 weeks (which is 2 weeks more than any of you will get with her) and is now dating his Dancing With The Stars Partner Karina Smirnoff and they are happily drinking lots of Vodka together.

Elizabeth Berkley (Jessie Spano) - After playing the pro-feminist on Saved by the Bell, she did the infamous Showgirls role in the NC-17 flick (seen in Black and White back in the Baker Penthouse days.... you know who you are....). She also "disappeared" to give people a chance to forget Showgirls (can you ever forget??). She's started doing some TV appearances trying to get back on board with Hollywood, but to date has nothing even close to covering her Showgirls fame. Even trying some stints on off-Broadway!

Dustin Diamond (Screech) - Christine's favorite!! He actually stayed on as "Screech" for the 2nd pass of Saved by the Bell: The New Class (ran through 2000). To everyone's surprise, he appeared in celebrity boxing matches and wrestling events. Did a Dustin Diamond Teaches Chess video (not to be confused with his "other" videos), then did some cameo appearances in movies. THEN he joined the 5th season of Celebrity Fit Club where he became the confrontational person on this "reality" show (I actually did watch some of these believe it or not... was funny to see Screech causing so much trouble) fighting with Kimberley Locke (American Idol), Cledus T. Judd and Da Brat on a regular basis. In 2006, he was the "star" of "Saved by the Smell", a sex tape that was one of many released to the public gossip rings at the time. Then there were rumors that he was dead, and now that he's broke as broke can be... I have a feeling we have yet to see the end of Screech!!!

Mark-Paul Gosselaar (Zach Morris) - After the College version (which sucked), he did some NYPD Blue stuff, followed by canceled shows such as Commander in Chief, and John from Cincinnati (HBO). He continues to do some appearances in movies or TV shows, but has yet to find anything close to the role that had him marry the goddess Kelly Kapowski!!! He's been married for 10+ years in real life, and the rumor in the late 90s that he was killed in a drunk driving accident are NOT true.

Finally comes my favorite:

Tiffany Amber Thiessen (now just Tiffany Thiessen), (Kelly Kapowski or even Valerie Malone on 90210) - The girl we all fell in love with through High School! The only one of the cast who actually had a large success afterwards with 90210 (4 years as an evil evil Bi**h). She had roles in Son in Law with Pauly Shore, The Ladies Man (Tim Meadows), guest starred on Just Shoot Me! as a hot blond, and then on the short lived Fastlane which was a TV spinoff of the Fast and the Furious era. She did multiple Maxim/Stuff Magazine shoots. She went off of the market in 2005 getting married.....

There you go, now you know.... AND KNOWING IS HALF THE BATTLE!

Have a nice day.

Haiku of the Day
Kelly Kapowski,
She's "Pop-u-lar" (Nada Surf)
A Cheerleading Chick.....

Nevermind - only one person will get that.... but here's an attempt to explain....

Book of the Day - I finished Lisey's Story by Stephen King (pronounced off the name "Lisa" or rhymes with "CeeCee"). I wouldn't call this a typical horror book that he's known for. 650 pages of a paperback that I thought would be too long to keep my interest, but I was very wrong. It was a wonderful psychological story of a love connection that remains strong even after death. Dives into the mind of an author (common theme with King) and the world one creates to find the inspiration for creativity. Some of it good, some of it outright frightening. But after death, his widow discovers this world and all the good/bad that comes with it. A moving story of how love continues to connect after death when it truly is "the one". Yes, I cried at the end (and at other moments) and yes, I'm not afraid to admit it. Parts of the story remind me of the special relationship that came from The Time Traveler's Wife which was another favorite book of mine. Lisey's Story is extremely exciting to follow, King always giving you something to think about throughout until the end of that story line is finished up. This one does have his usual element of supernatural, but it's not as far fetched as other novels that involve aliens (Cell) or special random abilities (The Shinning). Good stuff I tell you. But now I have no book to read on the flight home this weekend:(

Weblink of the Day - Amazing Grace sung as you've never heard it before. I hope someone sings it this well at my funeral..... and yes, it does get better as you continue to watch!! I PROMISE!!!

#500 from New York

Today is posting #500!!! That's a heck of a lot of these things. Kind of scary for me thinking how much time I've spent typing them, and scary for all of you who have read probably all 500 of my ramblings. I am in the process of converting all of the postings to an Acrobat file so I can print it off and have a hard copy of my "memoirs" to sell at your local Barnes and Noble. So far it's going to be 700 some pages long! I kid you not:)

Enjoyed the wonderful weather here in NY this weekend. I went to the big city on Sunday with a Rochester fellow Manager and enjoyed the sights, smells, and sounds (loud horns of impatient drivers) that are always there with New York City. My first time to Chinatown!! That plus the Apple store was INSANELY packed full of people. Take your average Apple retail store, multiply that space by at least 4, then fill it with people and that's what we saw in NYC (Southeast corner of Central Park next to FAO). They even had a guy selling iPhones with a cart and wireless checkout system. So instead of waiting in line, you could just get one from this guy. Why not? You buy peanuts at a baseball game in the same fashion right? Why not do it for a $400 phone?!?!

And speaking of baseball, the Mets missed the playoffs (as was my hope). Nothing like secretly rooting against the Mets while you're surrounded by 40-50 of their fans this weekend when I was out. But now the postseason begins after 162 long games. Interesting to see how out of 162 games, only one game separates the teams who move on from the ones who move home. It's not like the NBA where there are 3-4 teams with a LOSING record who make the post season.

I'm in Armonk, NY for the week. Trees are starting to change colors even though it'll be in the 70s all week here. I have class starting on Tuesday at the IBM Armonk facility out here which is always a nice change of pace.

I'll leave you with some photos from New York from this weekend. You'll see some photos of downtown, along with some of the famous works of art we saw at the Museum of Modern Art (MOMA)! Hopefully you'll recognize some of them - they have Dali's Persistance of Memory but it's currently traveling:( So one of my favorite painter's works is yet again not there when I go to see it. Won't be back till 2008 sometime, guess I'll just have to come back then.


































Haiku of the Day -
No Dali to see
My "Memory" has faded
Dang them London Thieves!!











Entertainment of the Day - I finally watched Blades of Glory (not to be confused with Blades of Steel - yet another great moment in NES history) this weekend and it was definitely funny. Will Farrell and Napoleon Dynamite (in a funny role, not that stupid one again) playing male figure skaters. Plus it has a decent sized role for Pam from The Office. Pretty funny movie - as funny as Ricky Bobby? I'm not sure but still worth watching!

Weblink of the Day - Did you see Paris Hilton on Letterman last week? I actually did catch the 2nd half of this thing when it was on, but it's still pretty funny. Doubt she'll go back on his show anytime soon. Good for him to point out how amazingly stupid she is. She should have drank more!