sfaJack

Halloween has come and gone again. Yea, I guess. I haven't been excited about Halloween for at least 15 years. sfaJill, however, is a BIG Halloween fan and really enjoys putting on a costume and greeting all the little monsters that knock on the door. Consequently, I spent half this last weekend helping decorate the front porch in a spider theme (i.e. cobweb, black lights, some glow-in-the-dark wall covering, etc) and standing in the candy section at Wal-Mart waiting for her to decide which is the best kind of candy to buy (my argument: who gives a shit? It's free; if the kids want to bitch about free candy, they don't have to come back next year). Last night, sfaJill handled 95% of the trick-or-treat duty, meaning I bothered to get up out of my chair only two or three times when there was a knock at the door. Of course, after having a few kids walk right past our house without stopping, sfaJill was convinced that they didn't know we were offering candy (because, according to her, the house wasn't all lit up like a Christmas tree so it didn't look inviting and/or because there was nobody sitting outside waiting with a big dish of candy like many of the neighbors were) and decided to setup a camp on the front porch so that nobody would miss our house. Since I had no interest in sitting outside getting bit by bugs, I retreated to my office in the house and popped in Freddy vs. Jason (yeah, I know it's a crappy movie, but I just chose a slasher at random) and waited for the end of the night. It was nearly 9:00 before she declared the night to be over and came in. I'm told Spiderman was the most popular boys' costume and Disney princesses were the most popular for girls. Sounds about right, but I'm disappointed nobody decked their kid out in this. It's weird; every year I always hear a few folks lamenting how trick-or-treating is a dying tradition. I don't buy it. After a slow start, there were so many kids running through our neighborhood that it looked like a locust plague. I don't know. Maybe our neighborhood is the exception to the rule.

Hello, Cincinnati!

That list will crush the hopes of Astro fans here that want to sign Schilling and convince Pettitte to come home again.

...the worst thing you can do to them? sfaJill has a friend who used to work as an apartment manger. The friend still keeps in touch with a couple of people there and recently learned of this story that happened: A Muslim couple came in looking for a place and were told that only one apartment was available at that moment. They wanted to see it, so the leasing agent took them out for a tour of it. Immediately upon arriving at the apartment for a look around, the couple got angry. Why? Because the apartment for rent was #911. They were apparently very insistent that this would not be acceptable because "people here will think we are terrorists" and the other tenants would make their lives "miserable" if two Muslims moved into apartment #911. Oh, how I love our overly sensitive society. --------------------------- In other news, it looks like the latest plan to renovate the Astrodome is dead. Since the Astros left for Minute Maid Park in 2000 and the Houston Rodeo moved to Reliant Stadium in 2003, the Dome has basically been sitting there collecting dust, save for the occasional high school football playoff game. The final scene of that Friday Night Lights movie was filmed there a couple of years ago. And, of course, we all remember the Dome's last bit of infamy back in 2005 when George W. Bush had all those Katrina refugees locked inside, hoping they would all suffocate in a pile of their own waste. There has been much talk about what to do with the Dome. One proposal was to turn it into an indoor track and field arena; that coincided with Houston's ill-fated attempt to land the 2012 Summer Olympics. Another was to turn it into a huge parking garage to alleviate the parking issues at Reliant Stadium, but I think somebody figured out that that would be nothing but a giant cardon monoxide death chamber. Still another would have turned it into a "world class" hotel/casino, the sole purpose of which (as proposed) would be to stop Texas gamblers from driving a few hours to the boats in Louisiana. Thankfully, all of those proposals died. In addition to being idiotic, they would have required tax money to fund and Harris County has already spent over $1 billion on stadiums in the last 10 years; I don't think we need more. Especially for a building that is rapidly turning into ugly, purposeless eyesores in an unattractive part of town. Just tear down the Dome and be done with it, please. Nobody cares about its historical value, and visitors are no longer wowed by it, given the fancier playpens built elsewhere over the years. Please...just let it go so we can stop talking about it. It's for the best.

Brad Ausmus back for one more year with the Astros. $2 mil.

That's another reason why the Cubs should open the checkbook for him. A-Rod would instantly be the top hitter in their lineup and give them an infield of Ramirez, A-Rod, Theriot/DeRosa, and D Lee. If Soto comes along at catcher and Soriano stays productive for a few more years, they should dominate the Central.

They absolutely should trade some of those guys. They've supposedly been trying to trade Alston, but nobody wants him with 3 yrs, $15 mil guaranteed left. I hated the Steve Francis signing, if the sarcasm in my previous post didn't come through. James, Brooks, and Head would have been fine in the backcourt. Francis, in addition to probably being a bad fit for the new offense, just wasn't needed. Ripper, since I don't know anything about the guy: what do you know about Scola? He's got to be better than Juwan Howard, but the Spurs basically gave him away, to a division rival, for nothing. Is there anything to read into that? I'm fine with Battier at SF.

I haven't been paying attention to the NBA preseason at all so this was a mild surprise: apparently, Steve Francis is having trouble learing Adelman's offense in addition to showing up for camp fat and out of shape. Yeah, that signing was a good idea. I'm glad the Rockets made that move...

You know what's bullshit? This is probably the only market in the country (barring a Raiders sellout) that will not get Pats/Colts. Instead, we're forced to see the wonderful Texans/Raiders game. Cowboys win in Philly, but it's closer than it should be. T.O. does not catch a touchdown.

Why would any player continue to perform for a team if he isn't getting paid?

I don't recall stating that Schaub has been great this year. Mediocre quarterback play is one reason the Texans suck again. Your argument is that Sage has been better and will eventually be named the starter over him based on merit. All I'm saying is that that won't happen. Schaub is Kubiak's guy and will continue to be so for at least until the end of next year, and Sage's garbage time numbers are one reason given for that (the other big reasons being the three draft picks and big contract they gave up for him). Witness with David Carr and Tony Banks/Dave Ragone/Sage: the Texans have gone out of their way for 5 1/2 years to avoid anything resembling a QB controversy. That just isn't going to change any time soon.

If Sage keeps having a better rating and more touchdowns than Shaub while giving you the same amount of turnovers that Shaub is giving you, he will eventually get the nod. He is simply outplaying Matt. He isn't outplaying Schaub. Have you actually watched a Texans game outside of the one they played against Atlanta? Sage's TD's have all been garbage-time against soft defenses. The Titan game looks impressive on paper but when you peel back the layers and realize that part of the reason the Texans were so far behind and facing a soft Titan defense in the 4th quarter was because Sage tossed 3 interceptions earlier in the game to directly set up several Titan scores. His TD yesterday against the Chargers was meaningless. The one he had against Jacksonville was also meaningless as they were losing the game 37-9 at the time. Trust me. There is ZERO chance of Sage starting over Schaub, barring an injury. It just isn't going to happen. And QB rating is one of the most useless stats in existence.

Yeah, no shit. Lost in all the fawning over his 4 TD 4th quarter against the Titans (against the soft-ass prevent D the Titans were in by that point) was the fact that, in that same game, 3 of his first 5 passes were intercepted. And they were BAD interceptions, too. But since nobody here actually watches Texans games, they don't realize that. They just see some fancy TD numbers and are instantly impressed.

Sage Rosenfels was a free agent who got zero interest from all 32 teams as a starter for a reason. There is ZERO chance he will take over for Schaub. Hell, Schaub could barely walk going into the game against the Chargers yesterday and he STILL started over Sage.

How do you figure? I won the Jax/TB, NO/SF, and NE/Was picks.

It's much more likely to be at Texas Stadium than in Houston as the Chargers have expressed their desire to not play in Houston. The latest update here though is that the mayor of San Diego is going to be the one to make the final call and that "all signs" point to the game being in San Diego, though possibly on Monday instead of Sunday.

Why not just kill the Pro Bowl entirely? It's not like anybody would miss it.

A semi-humorous bit from this morning. I have to admit, occasionally, the people here can bring some entertainment. There's this older guy here at the office that, according to a couple of my female coworkers, is a dirty old man. About the only things I know about him are, his name, the fact that he's worked here for over 30 years, and that his daughter just squirted out another kid (I know this because they had a cake party here to honor that glorious occassion a few months back). I really only speak to him when we exchange greetings when passing each other in the halls, so I've never seen this dirty side of him, but whatever. So I'm at the copy machine this morning when he walks in. After exchanging our usual greeting, he starts this off: "Man, sometimes I wish I was 25 again." "Really? Why's that?" "Have you seen that new chick in Billing? Lauren?" "Yeah, I've seen her." "She was over here earlier, getting water. Doing something with these people over here. Man...WOW." (NOTE: Lauren is not that hot. There's nothing wrong with her, but she's not even close to being the hottest chick at this place.) I continued: "She always looks angry to me. Like she'd be a total bitch about everything." "Yeah. But don't you think that's kind of hot?" "Depends." "Well, either way, I'd like to get some of that anger out of her. I know that." "Uh huh..." "You know what I mean, right?" *sighing* "Of course." "So yeah...you know." I guess his reputation is well-earned.

Inspired by kkk's latest bout of wedded bliss, here's one that happened yesterday afternoon: (I'm in the kitchen eating one of those "fun size" 3 Musketeers bars when sfaJill walks in) "What are you eating?" "3 Musketeers." (flabbergasted) "Where'd you get that??" "From the bag in the pantry." "What bag in the pantry?" "The bag of 3 Musketeers on the second shelf in there." "I didn't know they where in there. When did we get those?" "Wednesday. I picked them up at Kroger. Remember when I stopped to grab that chicken on the way home from work that day?" "I can't believe you hid them from me." "I didn't hide them from you. They were on the freaking shelf in the pantry." "Well, you didn't tell me they were in there. You know I never look in there!!" "No, but I also didn't tell you that I bought some more milk that day, too." (pause) "Well, you know I love 3 Musketeers and you didn't tell me you bought some. You hid them so you could have them all to yourself." "Uh...yep. That's it." She stomed off to our bedroom and slammed the door. I just went outside for a while and, when I came back in, she apologized and said that she didn't know what was wrong with her or why she was getting pissed off about "stupid stuff." I just told her it's part of that whole "being a chick" thing. Surprisingly, she didn't smack my arm.

Yeah, that should be the end of next week or so. I think. I don't know. I can't ever keep track of it. I just know I do a little mini-fist pump whenever she announces it has arrived. Rag or not though, she shouldn't be flipping out over a 3 Musketeers bar.

Cowboys/Vikings starts at 4:15.

Hmmm...perhaps my skill luck in picking games is running out a little bit this year.

Nope, this entry has nothing to do with the painting going on at my residence right now. Rather, there is controversy in Farmers Branch again. You might remember that Farmers Branch is the little community south of Dallas that recently tried to pass a city ordinance that would ban the rental of apartments to illegal aliens. Story Let me start by stating that I don't like homeowners associations. I understand why they exist and I acknowledge that they can be useful in some instances. But, usually, it's just a bunch of obsessive-compulsive types who nitpick over a lot of stupid, little shit that really has zero effect on property values either because they have nothing better to do or because they enjoy bossing others around a little too much. I especially detest the idea that someone else can dictate to me what I can and cannot do with property that I own, espeically when it's a non-government entity telling me to do so. My neighborhood has a HOA, but I deal with it because it's practically impossible to find a Houston suburb that doesn't have one and I do not wish to move back into the city. This story is a little different because it would be a government dicating what is and what is not acceptable, but the same principle applies: don't tell private property owners what they can and cannot do with their own property. "Some residents." What does that mean? According to the article: So a whole two residents ask the council, who has not said they will act on it, to ban some exterior colors and it's portrayed as some sort of community-wide referendum on the matter? Fine journalistic work, indeed. LOL. Now that's a racist statement. Who paints their house tropical colors? Someone who likes the tropics? Someone who wants to be reminded of their vacation? Someone who just happens to like tropical colors? What exactly is a "tropical color" anyway? What better way to accuse someone of profiling a group than to profile that same group yourself. Besides, there are plenty of white people that have awful decorating taste and would paint their houses ridiculous colors if they were allowed. I don't see a racial angle to this at all. Just another example of someone wanting to be angry about something. This argument is used a lot, but no proof that it's true is ever offered. Besides, anyone who won't buy a house because there is another house nearby painted in an "unsightly" manner is probably someone you don't want in the neighborhood anyway because there's a good chance they'd be the stereotypical nightmare of a neighbor. As with all things in the U.S., the free market will ultimately determine what your property is really worth. All the mowing and beige paint in the world isn't going to save your property value from a downturn in the housing market, nor is it going to suddenly turn a shitty area of town into a property hotbed. If you maintain and clean your own property, your house will sell just fine in any market. I wish someone that lived in these folks' neighborhood would paint their vehicle an outlandish color, park it in front of their house every day, and see how long it takes for their heads explode.

I DVR'd that Caveman show last week out of morbid curiosity. I made it all the way through the episode, but I will NOT be watching again. "Dull" is the nicest way to describe it.

The draft pick, hopefully. Julius Jones isn't that good.