The last poll has been closed and my vast readership has loudly asserted its desire for a Young Pups related poll. Too bad.

The current nasty looking poll to the right is the ten finalists from the Gimpysoft Mission Statement contest. Voting will continue until next Friday, at which point the winner will be declared and the prize awarded. Good luck to all.

No, not quite a Tivo, but my cable provider finally dropped their stupid restriction that you have phone service through them to get one of their DVRs. So I went and picked up the Scientific Atlanta Explorer 8000 last night and got it set up.

I think it's going to be pretty sweet. I've only had one night to tinker with it, and so far my biggest complaint has to do with shows that repeat. If I want to record The Daily Show, I can either choose to record a single episode, or "all episodes", which ends up recording the same episode four times a day since Comedy Central shows the hell out of it. I'm still trying to find a way around that.

So when I get home tonight, I should have recordings of two episodes of Kids in the Hall, the HBO documentary Born Rich, and some other stuff I don't remember.

It doesn't have program recommendations, and the show search kind of sucks. I tried to set it up to record Scrubs, but since it isn't on Thursday any more, I had to search by program name. Unfortunately, when you search by program name, you can only search one day at a time. So I had to search Friday, search Monday, then finally found it on Tuesday.

Oh the horrors of modern life.

Remember, you have two more days to enter your mission statements for BIG BIG PRIZES. Enter them in the post below this, enter as many times as you like.

There is nothing going on with me, other than gaining weight and continuing to be single.

Hey, how 'bout them New Hampshire results. I'm sure they mean something.

Missouri's primary is next Tuesday. I wonder if any of the candidates are going to make it out to KC. I'll have to take a look.

Enter the contest. Win some stuff.

This site is floundering. I think what I need is a mission statement. Help me out here.

Entries will be accepted until next Friday, and the winner will receive a Gimpysoft.com T-Shirt, bumper sticker or coffee mug. Enter your mission statements in the comments of this post.

Dennis Miller's show on CNBC starts up today.

He'll try, he said, to blend comedy, news and, no kidding, a chimp like Dave Garroway used to have: "Just when you think it's funny, it gets, hopefully, vaguely intelligent. Just when you think we're trying to be squares about it, it gets funny." And the chimp will be roaming around to make people think, "`Did I just see a monkey?'"

Unfortunately, I have to play racquetball when it starts at 9:00 Eastern. I guess I'll have to stay up until 11:00 to see the repeat.

Then again, maybe his judgment should be called into question...

And while voicing belief in the equanimity of ratings leader Fox News Channel, he said, "I happen to find [Bill] O'Reilly much more fair and balanced than I do [Peter] Jennings."

Though not quite as cool as The Road to Springfield, ESPN.com's new Page 3 is running a single elimination tournament to determine the best show on TV.

The only first round matchup that really hurts me is Simpsons vs. Scrubs. Scrubs deserves much better than a #8 seed in the Sitcom division. It's going to be tough to see it go down so early.

The only notable omission I noticed was South Park. Surely if they have room for Crank Yankers, South Park should have made the cut.

Vote early, vote often.

Damn, the Churchill family denies reports that the parrot is actually Winston's.

The story of Winston Churchill's parrot is the coolest thing I've read in a long time.

Slate ran a nice dialogue last week entitled "Liberal Hawks Reconsider the Iraq War". I got sucked into reading it because Hitchens was one of the debaters, but I found his writing the weakest of the group.

I don't recognize any of the other names because I'm dumb, but it was an interesting debate. I'd definitely suggest giving it a read.

Normally my rule is to ignore anything PETA says or does. It's just not worth getting worked up about, and the attention is all they want. But we just keep giving it to them, thereby rewarding their assery.

But CBS, how could you do this? You have the opportunity to trade 30 seconds of (admittedly mild) PETA adversiting for $2,000,000, and you refuse?

OK, two things here:

1. PETA has $2,000,000? Damn, I always figured PETA was actually just four guys and two girls renting out an office somewhere. I had also always assumed that they live in the office and don't shower.

2. PETA has $2,000,000 and you let them keep it? Damn you, CBS!!! DAMN YOU TO HELL!!!

As apparently the only person in the world who still likes Dennis Miller, I find his new show on CNBC to be very good news.

Even after the horrible, horrible loss to the Eagles last Sunday, I was on some level rooting for McNabb to go all the way.

Eagles fans are making me reconsider.

(via A Small Victory)

I think it's time.

As whack-job conspiracy sites go, this one is actually pretty weak.

Machinery Found at Spirt Landing Site

or

Rise of the Gibbous Moon

This is just ridiculous. It's like they didn't even try. It looks like what they've done is take one of the panoramic views, blown up pictures of random rocks, and claimed that the rocks are machinery. What makes this guy think that any of this is machinery? It all looks like rocks to me.

Come on... If you're going to do this, do it right. Photoshop something into the picture... Do you think the machinery is the wrecked remnants of an ancient lost Martian civilization? Extrapolate from the wreckage and give us an artists rendition of what the machinery used to look like.

I really expected more from the Enterprise Mission. You guys ought to be ashamed of yourselves.

Looking at the teams that made it out of last weekend, I'm afraid I have to admit that I really don't give a damn about any of the teams that are left. Kansas City's out, so I can't root for the home town team. Tennessee's out, so I can't root against the bastards that abandoned Houston. St. Louis is out, so I can't root against those bastards that beat the crap out of the Packers so many times. My sister does live in Boston. Maybe I should be rooting for New England. I suppose if I had to pick a team to get behind it would be the Eagles, just to show Limbaugh. But even that feeling is mild.

Speaking of Limbaugh, did you hear that the ACLU is sticking up for his right to privacy in his medical records? Rush Limbaugh turning to the ACLU for help? Ba-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha...

Fuck.

KC Bloggers looks like a fairly new resource for bloggers in the Kansas City area.

And woah! For some reason I'm bold and in the top nine! Rock On!

Steve Kimock to play one last show at Chester's...

Again...

Congratulations to fellow Young Pups Ed and Michelle who got engaged while in Ireland over the holidays.

See, people really do win!

I've been shopping for a cheap computer for my room specifically so I can listen to Radio Paradise and other streaming radio stations in my room. Well, I may have to put the brakes on that plan... Linksys just announced a DVD player that does just that. It includes an 802.11g wireless network card that can connect to your home network. (You do have a home network, don't you?) You can then play your streaming radio, mp3s and video files from any computer connected.

My God... I want one now!

All three of you poll taking doubters don't know what the heck you're talking about... Green Bay can take the Eagles.

The playoffs have ratcheted my normal between game tension, and all the sports radio stations have started to talk about College Basketball. GOOD LORD! FOOTBALL SEASON ISN'T OVER YET! YOU CAN TALK ABOUT COLLEGE BASKETBALL WHEN IT IS!!!

Umm... Sorry 'bout that. So I've been forced to read every shred of print (html?) I could find about the upcoming Packers/Eagles divisional playoff game. After I exhausted the meager offerings at Sportsline and ESPN, I figured I'd head right to the source, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. One article there really caught my eye...

Cliff Christl was not impressed with the play of Jamal Reynolds, who suited up last week's game against the Seahawks after being inactive for the previous nine games.

I'll be the first to admit that my football knowledge is limited. After watching a game, about the most intelligent comment I can make is something like "the defense played better than last week." Maybe "they're pass rush is certainly improving" if I'm in an advanced feeling mood. (And I do think it has improved for the Packers from the beginning of the season...) I usually don't notice individual players, particularly on the defense.

I still got a kick out of Cliff's article on Jamal Reynolds.

Reynolds, inactive for the previous nine games, dressed instead of 10-year nose tackle Gilbert Brown.

Well, that's one strike against Reynolds in my book. Like I said, I don't really notice individual players, but you can't help but notice Big Gil... Maybe he has slipped a bit, but he's just so cool. But Cliff has more to say about Jamal:

In a typical performance, Reynolds played 12 snaps and failed to get anywhere near the quarterback.

...

In 22 career games, including playoffs, Reynolds has registered three sacks. He has been whitewashed in his four playoff games.

Oh, but that's not what got Cliff upset...

He also spent much of Sunday's game standing in front of the blast heater at the south end of the bench trying to stay warm. Even when the defense was on the field, there were times that Reynolds hung back near the heater rather than standing along the sideline.

YOU GODDAMN SISSY! GET THE HELL OFF MY FOOTBALL TEAM!!!

In between series, when the defensive linemen took their seats on the end of the bench where they gathered around assistant coach Jethro Franklin, Brown, who was in street clothes, appeared to be pay closer attention than Reynolds, who was in uniform.

If Brown also noticed that, he declined comment Wednesday. "I'm staying away from that," he said.

Anyway, I'll be watching the game this Sunday with my new Gilbert Brown jersey on. I don't quite fill it out like Gil does, but I can always hope...

I didn't start watching Curb Your Enthusiasm until the middle of last season, but once I found it I was hooked. I was really looking forward to new episodes starting this week.

Well, I watched it last night. Did anyone else come out of this week's episode with a distinct "Eh..." feeling? I don't know what it was, it just seemed a bit forced to me. The about the show page says that scenes aren't scripted, and I always got that feeling from watching previous episodes, but this one seemed very written. (Particularly the opening scene with Larry and his wife in the restaurant.)

Anyway, Ben Stiller's addition definitely has some potential.

New Poll to the right. Final results of the highly scientific "Which Sports Commentator Should Be Fired Next?" poll can be found here.

Michael Irvin, I'm sorry, but it looks like you've got to go. No hard feelings I hope.

Seven of you voted "Other". Who else needs to go? Honestly, I'm surprised that Madden outpolled Boomer Esiason.

Well, it's New Year's Resolution time, and I again went with the old standby. Lose the weight. The fact that the weight chart stopped being updated had mostly to do with me moving into the house. My morning routine in the old apartment had been to weigh myself in the morning, and update the chart on the computer which at the time was in my bedroom. Now that I'm in Fort Awesome, the computers are in the basement, and by the time I get downstairs to check my email in the morning, I've forgotten about recording my weight.

The lack of updates was not specifically to hide the fact that I have in fact gained quite a bit of weight back since I stopped updating. I don't think the two are completely unrelated, though. The chart was a nice motivator, and I hope it will become one again.

The girlfriend and I are doing the Atkins diet, and I'm hanging out at the bar less. Specifically, I'm hanging out at the bar less so that we can get our regular racquetball schedule going again.

Well, the results over the first four days have been decent, but still quite some way to go to Tattoo Weight. Tattoo Weight has also been lowered to meet the original goal of "Tattoo At 50 lb. Weight Loss". I figured since I'm starting over again, might as well adjust the end goals as well.

Weight chart can, as always, be found here.

Damn, now that was a game.

It's a good thing I'm on a diet... If keep smoking and stay at this weight, I'm going to have one hell of a heart attack watching a game like that one of these days.

Philly next Sunday.