FAN: Steelers Home Crowd and Renegade

I had my camera ready in the 4th quarter and when the scoreboard went blank, I taped the crowd. You have to turn your volume up to actually hear the song as the crowd is pretty much drowning it out.

FAN: Steelers 2009 Playoff Scenarios Week 17

Thanks to Steelers Depot for posting these.

Easiest route is We win, Jets lose to Cincy, Texans lose to Pats. Probably won't happen. Cincy would probably rather lose than allow us to enter playoffs. The other scenarios need the Ravens to lose or tie the Raiders and I don't see that happening. If the Bengals win they could move up to the 3rd seed which would then give them the 6th seed (us) in the first round. I say we don't make it, but today's game was fun nonetheless. I hate to be so negative, but with our play calling and our defense - could we really repeat? At this point it might be better to get a higher draft pick. Anything can happen if you get in, but I'm not sure anything translates to Rod Woodson walking out of the tunnel and playing CB for us next week.

FAN: Bruce Arians Blows

What was Bruce thinking throwing on 3rd down when Baltimore was out of timeouts? With two minutes to go they could have taken at least 45 seconds off the clock. I just don't get it. Once Ben had to scramble he should have went into a fetal position. To throw a pic at that point is crazy stupid. I feel like we won because of the Raven penalty on that play. If there was no flag I really think we lose.
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

FAN: Asshole

Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

FAN: Club Level Rules

Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

FAN: Fan and Cornbread

Hooked up with Genco dudes and headed to Firewaters. Go Stillers!!!
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

FAN: Best Shirt Ever

Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

FAN: Stockings and Grace

Brandy Grace

Well, if you thought the Christmas Eve post about my daughter made our website too mushy, the yearly Christmas post should put us back on track. Much like the Christmas 2008 and Christmas 2007 posts.....these pictures come direct from Google Images first page of returns for searches on Stocking and Grace.

FAN: I Got My Present

Wii. DS. Cellphone. Laptop. iCarly. Friends. Homework. Every year my 10-year-old princess has more things to occupy her free time. More things to occupy free time means less time with Dad. Sure, I'm always close....helping with Math, maybe playing (losing) Wii, sitting at yet another swim practice....but not as much snuggle time on the couch. Or using her as a quickly growing Teddy Bear after she wakes up on Saturday. That quiet, close alone time has been replaced by "Daddy, I'm going downstairs" when she wakes up on weekends. Even if I'm already up it's getting harder to coax her over to help warm me up on the couch a while before we eat breakfast. There's certainly less hand holding in the mall. This list goes on. Face it, she's getting older. 10 year olds today are probably more like 13 year olds when I was young.

Tonight, we got all spiffy and headed off to church - a full hour and twenty minutes before the service started. Yup, you read that right. We have more than 3,000 families and 13,000 people. They had two 4:00 pm services, two 7:00 pm services and a midnight mass. We have been going early ever since we had to sit in the gym for the "overflow" service a few years ago. Yuck. My back was not made for a folding chair for any length of time. That's not important to the story. What's important is that about 20 minutes into the service, I felt a little hand and arm wiggle it's way between my arm and body and hooked us together. Then, she rested her head on my shoulder. It didn't last long enough for me (Catholic church -up/down/kneel), but it was nice while it did. Right there with all her classmates, friends, volleyball and swim teammates as well as some teachers.....my little tweener in her non-kiddy Christmas dress wasn't too cool to show her Daddy some Love.

Pretty dopey, I know, but true nonetheless. Merry Christmas.

FAN: Playoff Scenario

Has anyone done the hard math? I looked and started to, but it's so muddy. At the very least, can they be eliminated this week even with a win? I don't think so. I would love to see it spelled out somewhere from a trusted source. Maybe I will go through the tie breaker rules and see what I can come up with. It just sucks to high heaven that if you give us any one of the wins that we coughed up in the 4th quarter, I believe we'd be controlling our own destiny.

Did anyone see that Warren is out for the rest of the season? Long snappers are hard to come by. All FG and punt attempts could be entertaining this week.

I will actually be at the game this weekend. My homeboy Cornbread and I are going to attend in the club level seats. I've never sat there so I will take a few pics and compare and contrast to where I normall sit in the stadium. I'm glad we won yesterday or going to this game would be depressing. At least I feel like I have a reason to cheer.

FAN: Long Winter Nap

Christmas music is on. Scrabble game was won by Dad. Fire is hot. It's nap time right in front of the fire. G'night.
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

FAN: Vanilla and Chocolate

I went to a work Happy Hour last night and every 5 minutes I had to act like it was the first time I heard that Scott and I were wearing the same sweater. Then we had to start posing for pictures. Sigh. Funny how a few drinks makes everyone think they are funny. Ummmm, not so much.
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

DOG: What Are You Listening To Now? #13

This is the Christmas Edition of WAYLT. Not exclusively a Christmas edition but it's Christmas and I have gone on a mission to rediscover the Christmas music of my youth in digital form. And I am pleased to report that I have got all the Christmas music I will ever need until the day I die.

First off, I'm not a big Christmas music fan. Years and years of listening to everyone from Elvis, Nat King Cole, Bing Crosby, and Mitch Miller, to Britney Spears, Metallica (yes they have a Christmas album), George Strait... well damn near anybody you ever heard of has a Christmas album or two; anyway so much of it's complete record company bullshit that it's turned me completely off to Christmas music.

But then I remembered some of the old albums we used to play when I was little. They were absolutley enchanting. I knew I had the vinyl somewhere and I found it. The Longines watch company put out a 4 disc set in the early '60s called Christmas At the Fireside and sold it through Readers Digest. Later the rights to the music were sold to Shell Oil and they sold the records at gas stations! Anyway, for me this is Christmas music beyond compare. Symphony orchestra + choir. Top notch stuff. So I went out and found it.

That was my mother's influence. On my father's side we have Gene Autry and the original versions of Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer and Here Comes Santy Claus. And yep, I found those digitized too along with a collection of all the Christmas songs Gene Autry ever recorded.

When you add these to the Vince Guaraldi Trio - Charlie Brown's Christmas, that pretty much gets it for me. I have since added Mannheim Steamroller's Christmas which sounds a bit manufactured but I like the synthesizers and oboes and the odd instrumentation. Plus there's no singing on it so that's cool too.

Along the way I had to pick up Manhatten Transfer, Rockapella, and Leann Rimes Christmas albums for Mrs. Dog. I know Fan likes Ho Ho Hoey by Gary Hoey but I don't have that one. So here's what I've been listening to. How 'bout you?

10.(TIE) Kenny Burrell - Midnight Blue, and DC Slater - Follow The Sun. I know, Kenny Burrell is jazz and DC Slater is heavy guitar rock but I love them both.

9. Wynonna Judd - Singin' Chapter 1. Another odd selection for me but wow was I surprised when I first heard this a few days back. It's mostly blues and rock cover songs and actually only a few country numbers. Made me re-evaluate the talent some of these folks have that gets misdirected by record company execs. Sickening.

8. Carey Bell - (2 albums) Tough Luck & Mellow Down Easy. The more I hear him the more I appreciate him. He's way up there among my favorite blues harpists.

7. Ace Moreland - All his albums. He's a now deceased Southern Rock / Blues guitarist who I am just discovering and I like just about everything I hear.

6. The Dirty Dozen Brass Band - Buck Jump. Sophisticated New Orleans-style street jazz. Good stuff!

5. Bernard Allison - The Otherside. Got ahold of a promo copy (album is not scheduled to be released until 1/31/2010) and when it comes out, get it. HOT Blues!

4. Vince Guaraldi Trio - A Charlie Brown Christmas

3. Alien Cowboys - (3 albums) Analogtherapy, Lift, & Zero Gravity. I got an Alien Cowboys album several years ago called Other Space which I really like. So when I saw these, I picked them up. Fast becoming one of my favorite bands.

2. Gene Autry - The Complete Columbia Christmas Recordings

1. Longines Symphonette Society - Christmas At The Fireside

DOG: A Lump of Coal

Well it's Christmas and we are in dire need around here of a real Christmas story. So I'm going to tell you one of my very favorite ones about how naughty children get a lump of coal for Christmas. And that's a fact, Jack. Check it out.

It was around Christmastime 1963 that my father kept reminding me that if I didn't start behaving myself Santa would bring me a lump of coal in my stocking instead of presents.

Now I turned 8 just weeks before Christmas that year and was still solid in my belief of Santa Claus. And I had heard that story of coal in your stocking from my various aunts and uncles, Mr. King the barber, my friends parents and just about every adult I encountered. But I never met one kid, even ones who misbehaved way more than me, who had EVER gotten coal for Christmas... and we lived in the middle of the richest vein of bituminous coal ever discovered!

So needless to say I didn't take my father's threat real seriously. But I did try in vain to behave myself a little better as Christmas drew nearer. 'Cause he did seem to have an "in" with Santa Claus based on the stuff I asked for and the stuff I got the previous year. For instance, my dad told me he bought me the race cars and the figure 8 track they raced on because Santa knew I wanted it but he didn't have room in his sleigh. So he asked my dad to get it for me. Seemed logical and very plausible to me.

Well, 6:00am Christmas morning rolled around and I jumped out of bed to unwrap my presents. I got all kinds of stuff. Almost everything I asked for. And not a lump of coal to be found! Whoo-hoo. My parents were still asleep in bed so I wandered over to my stocking where the "little stuff" was. Usually not much really good stuff in the stocking. Maybe some candy, a piece of fruit, some cheap-ass plastic car or something like that.

And what was in there? Well, I'll be damned... A PIECE OF COAL!! In fact a very LARGE piece of coal. Son of a bitch if that Santa Claus didn't know how bad I was after all. I got so much stuff though. It was like he was saying, "Look you're a pretty good kid so I got you some nice presents. But you're a smart-ass little bastard sometimes and a royal pain in your parents ass. So straighten up or it's all coal next year, buddy."

YIKES!!! What could I do? I felt so bad. I was embarrassed that Santa Claus knew I was bad enough to get coal... when even the bad kids didn't get any. Shit, I couldn't let my parents wake up and find out that Santa brought me coal. Then they wouldn't get me anything either. So, showing signs of the resourceful son-of-a-bitch I grew up to be, I had to think fast. We had a coal furnace, and thus a coal bin downstairs to keep our winter fuel. So I tip-toed down the steps and threw that piece of coal in with the thousands of other pieces of coal in the coal bin. And stealthily tip-toed back up to the living room.

When my dad came out to the living room he asked, "What all did Santa bring you?" So I started showing him this and that and when I got to the last of my long list of presents he said, "You sure he didn't bring you nothin' else?"

And I replied, "Nope, not unless there's something hidden somewhere."

Then he hit me with, "So you didn't get no lump of coal, huh?"

Son of a bitch. Why did he have to ask me that? Well, he was the last person I wanted to know that I got coal for Christmas so I HAD to lie.

"I guess not. I didn't see none. Only coal I know of is down in the coal bin." I lied.

Then a few years later when I finally discovered that the real Santa Claus is indeed your parents, he confronted me about that lump of coal I got back when I was 8. He had played me like Stephane Grappelli played a violin. He had my ass hook, line and sinker. It dawned on me that he knew all along cause he was the one who put the damn coal in my stocking to begin with!

Well, my father is gone now. But the last Christmas he was alive he still was telling folks about the year I got coal in my stocking. How I lied about it and tried to cover it up. And how a few years later he nailed my ass with it when I boldly told him there was no Santa Claus. He had forgotten a lot about his life by the time he was 86 but he never forgot that story. And wherever he is in eternity I'm sure he's still laughing about it. Me too.

FAN: Interesting Tactic To Try If Pulled Over

This lady might be worse than our old Japanese friend at the airport.

I forgot to write about it, but on my way up to NH for Thanksgiving, I was caught by a hiding trooper doing 81 mph in a 65 zone. Whatever. He had his trunk up so you couldn't tell he was PO-lice. Anyway, what would have happened if I reacted like this......

FAN: Best Of Slanted Christmas

A three year old post about favorite Christmas Specials

Marshmallow Baby Jesus

What looks "Christmasy"

Miser Brothers Remake

FAN: Magazines Starting To Suck

Listen you stupid magazines - I'm not happy one single bit with your latest ploys to prolong subscriptions. We get so many magazines I can't even keep track. I'm much more of a magazine reader than a book reader these days. If I get sufficiently pissed off at some of them though, I'll end that in a hurry. A slew of renewal forms just came through the house and I noticed three trends.

One - I almost ripped one up that my wife no longer wants to receive but on closer inspection, it had written on it: "You will be automatically renewed and billed unless you return this card marked DO Not Continue". That's some bullshit right there. It's OK for auto insurance to do that and the like. It's NOT ok for magazines to do it. It's just not. Why? Because for years we've been trained to get a renewal card and decide what we want to do. It's standard operating procedure for subscribing to a magazine for a certain length of time. I'm sure the economy caused this, but big business is slimy so maybe it was coming regardless.

Two - I already paid for another year of one of my favorite magazines. Another mailing came and my wife even said "Oh, I thought you paid that one". I did. It was another offer to add another year on for a reduced rate, but it was made out to look like my normal renewal card. The slimy bastages are looking for people who have so many subscriptions they can't keep track of what they already paid - so when they get this, they just check the box and pay another year ontop of what they're already getting. I swear the text explaining that I was in good standing for the next year and this was for 12 issues ontop of that was very hard to find and very misleading even to someone like me. Imagine the old goats getting this! They might not even live another two years!

Three - I'm 6 months into a 1 year subscription and I'm being told to renew or risk interuption of service. I'm not going to miss my mailed medications. I'm not going to lapse my auto insurance. I might miss a month of a magazine that just jumbles their article names and keeps cranking out the same old shit month after month. Yeah, I'm not going to renew you period, Pilgrim. I'll have to keep my eyes peeled for it though so they don't trick me into sending them money.

Magazine marketers have become carnival barkers. Word!

FAN: Chipotle Needs Process ReEngineering

Take a good look at this picture. I thought I was gonna have to paint a picture with words for this rant but I plugged "Chipotle Mexican Grill" into Google Images and behold - I got more than I expected.

I'm a simple man. A little odd, yes. A little direct, yes, but I work a certain way. A predictable way. Things should make sense to me. Inefficiencies suck. Call me crazy. I only spilled the contents of a bagless vacuum on the freshly vacuumed carpet once. It's woven into my fabric. When things annoy me, I look for and find better ways to do them. It's why I do what I do for a living. There is no better job for me than to find fault with things.

I hate salad bars. Hate them! I love salad. Dilemma! Why don't I like salad bars? How much time do you have? They're basically a mess. We love Ruby Tuesday's salad bar....at certain times of the day. If you get there shortly after they open or before the dinner rush, it's much better. By "much better" I mean "much cleaner". I don't like hard boiled egg pieces in my beets. It must be the presentation thing for me. Yes, I'm going to mix all those things together in my own salad, but I don't want the grape that the snot nosed kid touched and put back. You feel me? I don't like it when the stainless steel parts between the crocks are so full of old stuff it looks like a rather large person sneezed a hurricane. I don't want the oily mess from a pasta salad dripping on the carrots. My wife had to get "kitchen certified" to be the administrator of an assisted living once. She learned all kinds of creepy things about salad bars. TIP: Pass on the spinach and sprouts.

So, that was a little background. On to Chipotle. I love Chipotle Mexican Grill. A quick affordable lunch much better than Taco Bell. I haven't been in a Taco Bell in 10 years - maybe longer. With the advent of "fast casual" places like Chipotle's, Qdoba, Moe's and Baha Fresh - why would you? Of all those mentioned, Chipotle is my absolute favorite. Small menu, refillable Diet Coke, excellent burritos! Software geeks L-O-V-E burritos and caffeine. There's nothing like going back to the cube farm with some good belches lined up. I'll try to make this short. Maybe I'll email Chipotle myself, but as I'm coming through the line every time, and I prolly eat there once a week, I get those old salad bar feelings when I look at the sour cream. Why? There's typically corn salsa and cheese backstroking in it. I'm having the corn salsa and I'm having the cheese, so to get the sour cream is no huge deal to me, but for presentation purposes or if I had an aversion to corn and wanted sour cream, I'd pass.

Now look at the picture again. Imagine the section with the meat and beans is where you first order and then the secion with the salsas and toppings are right beside it. The worker is standing on the side of the sour cream. The corn salsa is closest to the customer as you walk down the board. I want the corn closer to the worker! If the worker doesn't have to navigate corn on a spoon going for a flyover of the sour cream.....no kernel can decide to commit cornicide and jump off said serving spoon. Genius! I just solved the age old problem of corn in the sour cream! I noticed it the second time I ate there. Now when I go, I just laugh at all the corn in the sour cream and wonder A. How did this come about? and B. Why is it still like that? I thought maybe it was just the one store I eat at for lunch but it's not. Our local one is set up the same way and this picture indicates that it's most likely this way at every location.

I know that swapping the corn and sour cream solves little as you'll just have the opposite effect of sour cream in the corn....but why do those buckets have to be that way? Use a thicker sour cream and it won't run off the spoon. Keep the same runny sour cream but put it in a squeezable bottle like ketchup. There are probably 100 different ways to get around this problem, but it's hard for me to understand why a national chain hasn't seen this as an issue yet and changed it. If that store opens at 11 AM, I guarantee you the first piece of corn flies into the white quicksand around 11:07. If Chipotle's was around and I worked there instead of Burger King when I was in high school - I would have solved that bugger on Day 2.

Don't you think one worker..somewhere..anywhere.. at 11:07 AM is saying "Damn! You there, you slippery hot kernel...YOU...will be the last kernel of corn that ever falls in the sour cream on MY watch!"

FAN: Idiot Local News

Ya know, I blame the networks when as a family we're watching a television show at 8 pm and they run a commercial for a rated 'R' horror movie. I can't stand it. Just what a 10 year old girl needs to see before going to bed. Heck, just what a 41-year-old chicken man needs to see before he goes to bed! Safe to say that when I notice it, we are watching something that can appeal to many age groups. Deal Or No Deal used to do it. American Ido used to do it.

Well tonight, at 8:30 pm, right smack dab in the middle of Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer in the Philly area on CBS....they do a 15 second local news teaser after the commercials where the girl says and I quote...ahem...."Tonight at 11, the gruesome story of a 100-year-old woman who was strangled and the surprising suspect...".

It's closing in on Christmas, the girls baked Christmas cookies today, we're sitting on the couch enjoying Bumble and the Elf Boss and Charlie in the Box....and then BAM!...Lucy has some 'splainin' to do. "Yes, honey, there are terrible people in this world who do not respect life one little single bit. What's that? No honey, Daddy doesn't know why anybody would strangle a 100-year-old lady." All the while in the back of my head I'm thinking I can't wait until she's a little older - how much older I'm not sure - but old enough to hear what her old man really thinks about the piece of low life scumbag shitstain animal that did this.

Back to the real topic though...why, WHY did the network have to use that for a teaser while Rudolph was on? Is there not a Producer of some sort that makes these calls or looks to see what's on before running with a teaser? Are we that desensitised that kids aren't supposed to blink when they hear a fragile old woman was strangled? What's wrong with people? I don't want her to hear that one 30-year-old man strangled another 30-year-old man in a bar fight, let alone have her contemplate the senseless killing of some family's matriarch.

Like Dennis Leary says....Have a Merry Effing Christmas.

FAN: Mathletes, Not

Maybe I'm biased because I majored in Math and Computer Science, but I read something so ridiculous (to me) last night I almost laughed out loud. I don't try many new recipes with a lot of ingredients so someone please correct me if I'm wrong. I might even debate you on it as it doesn't seem to make sense to someone who thinks like me. I was in the, um, reading room with no material of my own to read so I picked up one of Mrs. Fan's magazines. There was an article on healthy snacks to make for parties and there was a recipe for fruit and cheese balls that required no cooking. What struck me as totally odd and unnecessary was at the very top of the recipe right under the name. It stated "Recipe Can Be Doubled". Really? No shit, Sherlock! I bet it can also be.....wait for it....tripled or quadrupled! Is it me? Am I wrong? There was no chemical reaction to the process that I saw....maybe I'm just a grumpy old man? Please, school me on this one.