FAN: Pumpkin Spook

Still A Stroke did this one.
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FAN: Pumpkin Carving

Which witch is which?
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DOG: Fan Etiquette

Last week at Heinz Field Fan and I took up one of our favorite pastimes, people-watching. And our focus was what people wear to football games. We silently observed that most folks were wearing football jerseys. An alarming number of them wearing Viking jerseys too. No matter that half of them were Brad Johnson and even Ahmad Rashad jerseys. Too many opponents let through the gates for my liking.

As for the Stiller fans, my observation was that even though Keyaron Fox and LaMarr Woodley made the key plays in that game, very few Woodley jerseys and absolutely no Fox jerseys were seen. Yet we had people in Dan Kreider jerseys, Joey Porter jerseys, Alan Faneca jerseys, even a Jason Gildon jersey. Those dudes don't even play for us anymore!!

Now Fan's got on his authentic Polamalu #43 jersey and I've got on my #76 Big Daddy Lipscomb 75th Anniversary throwback. So by all means, we were cool. But many fans were far far from cool. So we thought about what really is proper attire for attending a Steeler football game?

So here are some guidelines for dressing for a Stiller game:

1. Always wear black and gold. It doesn't matter if you've got a white away jersey or a black home jersey, wear either if you've got it. If you choose not to wear a jersey or don't have one, wear a Pittsburgh Steeler shirt of some sort.
2. If you want to wear some crazy shit, that's OK just don't go overboard. You get too crazy you're just going to look like a Raven fan. So we got to draw the line somewhere. I draw the line just after wearing nacho libre wrestling masks which is OK. Facepainting on the other hand is not. A fair amount of people still do it but even gay people find that, well, gay. Look at it this way, even though today is Halloween, a Steeler game is not a Halloween party. It's a football game. Leave the costumes at home. You ain't gonna scare anybody dressing like a Raider fan. Just ask a Raider fan.
3. A big no-no is that too many people wear the jerseys of players who AREN"T EVEN STEELERS!! Holy shit man, Tommy Maddox served his purpose here and got a Super Bowl ring. But wearing his jersey to the game now is just stupid! Buy a new one. The exception to this is if you're wearing the jersey of a Steeler who is a Hall of Famer or member of the 75th Anniversary team. Terry Bradshaw's #12, Jack Lambert's #58, Joe Greene's #75, Mike Webster's #52, Greg Lloyd's #95, Swann's #88 or Stallworth's #82 etc. are all cool. But don't be coming around with a #14 O'Donnell jersey.
4. Another thing we noticed which is not cool at the game is all these folks who have taken to wearing either a Pro-Bowl jersey, or the college jersey of their favorite player. Dude, the Willie Parker jersey is fine but it's his Pro-Bowl jersey and that ain't black and gold (See rule #1). Take that mother off! You want to look like a wayward Patriot fan on TV?? Same thing with the Big Ben Miami jerseys and the Polamalu USC jerseys. They ain't black and gold and should not be worn to the game! You want to buy these jerseys, fine. You want to wear them when your buddies come over the house to watch the game with you, fine. Don't wear them to the game. Get yourself a nice picture frame and hang them on display in your den.
5. Don't wear a jersey signed by a player to the game. At the point it was signed it became a museum piece and should not be treated the same as game day attire.
6. If you're at an away game, always "rock the colors." Never fear an assault by opposing fans. There are always plenty of Steeler fans who have your back. Trust me on this, I've been to Baltimore!
7. Those pink "girl jerseys" are fine, but wear them in your dorm room not at Heinz Field. Lot's of Hines Ward fans are violators of this rule.
8. Last but not least, always bring your Terrible Towel.
   

At last week's game with the clock winding down and Bret Favre driving the Vikings well into FG range which, at the very least, would have sent the game into overtime, I summoned the power of the Terrible Towel. With Fan as my witness, I shook my Terrible Towel at the sky and I said, "Myron, if you're listening, and I know you are, we need a little help. If there's really any power in this towel we need you to make something happen." On the very next play the ball clanked off Chester Taylor's hands and Keyaron Fox was on his way to an 82 yard interception return for a TD. DO NOT UNDERESTIMATE THE POWER OF THE TERRIBLE TOWEL!!!

DOG: Bye Bye Blues

Bye-Bye

The Bye Bye Blues was a song from back in the 1930s made famous when Les Paul & Mary Ford covered it in the 1940s. Anyway, I first discovered it when I heard the Widespread Depression Orchestra do it in the 1980s. And today I've got the Bye Bye Blues on account of the fact that I'm staring at my first weekend without the Pittsburgh Stillers in several months. The Bye Week. So I thought it might be time to take stock of what we've gotten so far.

Here are the biggest changes/revelations and our slant on what this means:

• Rashard Mendenhall has supplanted Willie Parker as the feature back.
  This means Mendenhall better learn how to hold onto the ball and that Willie Parker can still play a major role as we go into the second half of the season.
• Aaron Smith is out for the season with a shoulder injury. This means that Travis Kirschke needs to stay healthy or Ziggy Hood needs to get better at that position fast. Or both!
• Troy Polamalu's injury proved him to be even more indispensable than I thought. This has shown that we are terribly weak at Safety and Troy cannot suffer a re-injury or the season is doomed. The avoidance of this situation was addressed several years ago with the drafting of Anthony Smith. But Smith was either too stupid or too much of an asshole for Tomlin so he's gone, out of football entirely I believe after the Packers cut him. And now we find ourselves with very little talent behind either Troy or Ryan Clark. It's a concern.
• Mike Wallace was the steal of the draft. Don't look for him to receive much recognition nationally for Rookie of the Year. Since he isn't a starter it's safe to say that Percy Harvin with two KO return TDs already and Johnny Knox lighting it up in Chi-town will grab too much spotlight for him. But opposing defenses better be aware.
• If Lawrence Timmons can avoid the dreaded high ankle sprain syndrome that sent Kendrell Bell off the the Chiefs and shortly thereafter to his "life's work," he may finally justify the #1 pick. Dude can hang with any TE in the NFL in coverage. A Troy Polamalu at linebacker if you will.
• Our next two games are critical. We must beat the Broncos in Denver and the Bengals at home to take over the Division lead. The two Baltimore games loom large yet too but less so if we can win the next two.

So tomorrow I'm going to watch the Baltimore-Denver game (as if I really had a choice in my viewing area) to see how our future opponents fare. I've seen both teams play 3-4 times already but things change constantly in the NFL. Rooting interest in the SBI (Steelers Best Interest) will be on the side of the Broncos. I think in the past 12 seasons any team playing Baltimore and Pittsburgh on back to back weekends has won at most one of those games. Happened just last week when we beat the Vikings after the Vikings had squeaked out a close one the week before against Baltimore. And guess what, it continues the week after next because Baltimore plays the Bengals the week before us too! Long as the Shitbirds keep knocking the crap out of those teams, win or lose it helps the Stillers.

So relax if you can this Sunday and get ready to strap on the ol' leather helmet for the second half of the season next week.

FAN: Swine Clue

I found this amusing... After our volleyball game last night, we lined up to shake hands under the net. Somebody made the decision that due to Swine Flu, we should just say Good Game and keep moving - no hand shakes. Hmmmm, didn't we all just touch the same ball, rotate in and out of the same seats, spend close to an hour together in a closed gym? Do what you normally do and then use Purell when done. If we stop shaking hands......the terrorists WIN!
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FAN: Steelers Weekend

Enjoying a beer at Firewater's before heading over to Heinz

Still A Fan

Stilladog & Still A Fan before the mayhem

The Dog & The Chief

I look like a midget

Still A Fan pops a cap in Steely McBeam

Our view at kickoff. Beautiful.

Gateway Clipper and The Point

Cal U Vulcans represent. Still A Fan is '91 alum.

Dog got a good laugh out of this guy.

FAN: Harrison Sr.

Forgot to mention on the way out we met James Harrison's dad. What a nice guy!
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FAN:Kickoff

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FAN: The Rock

T minus about an hour.
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FAN: Tail Heaven

Fan and Dog Tearing it up!
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FAN: Army Aunts

I don't have time to get into this entire story with all the details. I'm trying to get to bed early tonight as I'm driving back to the Steel Town area early Friday for my annual pilgrimage to Heinz Field with Still A Dog. I'll have a camera on hand and will post many pictures. This isn't about the Steelers, the Dog or Andy Griffith. This is about youth sports and why you have to be crazy to coach. We have 12 practices and 18 games. Including all the time driving to/fro, managing emails and other things, I'd say I have about 60-75 hours into this volleyball season. For free. Free time that I love. My running has suffered. My weight has suffered. The Slant has suffered. I do it because I really enjoy it. My group of girls are bad ass. Still A Stroke might have to change her name to Still A Serve as she was the best server on the floor tonight getting another 5 serve limit and two 3-point trips to the service line. So we're playing well as a team and we're a few games over .500 but on Sunday I had the craziest thing happen to me. When we got there another game was going on. A mom on my team who is a friend of ours from school and also a summer swim team member pointed out her sister-in-law to me. She was coaching the team on the floor. When we went out to play, the same coach took to operating the scoreboard. We played, we won, I rotated the girls in and out like I have all year to this point, we shook hands with the other team and before I could even go address my team and tell them all the positive feedback - this woman was in my face. I don't need to go word-for-word but in a nutshell she told me I wasn't coaching JV right. All the girls didn't get equal playing time. I told her I didn't have to. She said I left some girls in the entire game. I said "I know. That was my plan when I left my house. I have it all written down in my planner right here." She didn't appreciate my humor. She told me I HAVE TO play each girl equally. I told her that I didn't but thank you for making me miss talking to my girls as they had already scattered. I tried very hard to remain calm and polite as I knew it was her family but she didn't know we were good friends of HER sister-in-law. I knew what was up. She was mad that her niece didn't play as much as some of the other girls. She played exactly as much as 3 other girls. I even casually made reference to this during the discussion without singling her out. I said some of my girls come to everything and some have been to 4 out of 12 practices. Suck it, Aunt Bea.

She ruined my night. She ruined my wife's night...lol. I sent emails to my Parish VB Director and to the CYO District VB Director. They both had my back in a huge manner. The District VB Director has ref'd 4 of my matches and told me I was doing a very good job, the girls always seem to be having fun, I never yell and I clap and always say something positive. It made me tear up (lie). In fact, there is no rule. To be more clear, I only have to make an attempt TO PLAY each player although that would be frowned upon in JV. She played 50% of the match. Her and another girl shared a spot on the floor. Two others shared another spot. The other 4 spots are my regulars. I sent her mom an email just in case Crazy Aunty didn't tell her what she did. She did. And mom got beer muscles I guess as her email made it clear she wasn't happy with snowflakes time either. Funny because after game 2 and in another email I said what my policy was and told people to approach me with problems. Attendance counts. My Director sent me the form all parents signed to join VB. Item #2 said Volleyball is a team sport. While the coach will make attempts to get everyone sufficient playing time, poor attendance will result in a loss of playing time. BINGO! Now I was really armed.

If you don't know me, I'm always right. So is Still A Dad. When we're not sure, we're right. When we KNOW we're sure.....poor you. POOOOOR YOU. I emailed mom back armed with my bazooka and asked her to please forward it to Aunt Bea. I also included in the email stats from my attendance sheet that I keep. I love stats. There are lies.....damn lies......and statistics. Out of 12 practices and 13 games to date she came to 4 and 8 for a total of 12. That's the worst attendance on the team yet I still put her in for 50% of the game, the same as some other players with far better attendance. How much better? Well, in 10th place on my team, a girl was at 7 and 9 for 16. Worst is 12. One slot up is 16! The girl with the 2nd worst attendance is still there 33% MORE than snowflake. Sigh. The top 5 girls are at 25, 24, 23, 23, 22. Get over yourself. You play two sports and this is #2 on your priority list. There's no shame in that. You just don't know where to be and what to do, you're clearly a liability on the floor and you shouldn't and won't play as much. Mom got the email and sent back a reply as sweet as one of Aunt Bea's pies. Mom clearly didn't know the stats until I enlightened her. I guess she realized to some girls on my team Volleyball is their #1 priority, like soccer is snowflake's. If Stroke signs up for something, she's going. Not when it's convenient, not when TV isn't good, not when she's bored.....she's going unless she's too ill to go to school. Learn responsibility and committment early kiddies - it will pay off HUGE in future endeavors. We all work and we all know that one guy or gal who just can't be relied upon. Shows up at 9:30, sick all the time, always leaving for this or that, always has car trouble....funny how dark clouds just hover over some people isn't it?

Some problems in life are clearly nails and need to be solved with a big heavy......calculator.

FAN: Healthy Snack

Mmmmm, I loves me some candy corn at this time of year. The picture goes with a little story. I have to at least have a little candy corn every fall. I love it. I prefer the corn to the pumpkins. While out shopping with my daughter she bought a very small bag of candy corn from Gertrude Hawk. A bag that looked to be the size of two Brach's bags off-spring cost more than a big drugstore bag at $1.29. Wow what a difference! The candy corn from a chocolatier is definitely more preppy...lol. It has 3 shallow grooves on each side, there are no broken tips and the colors are actually seperated, not blurred together on the lines. These are cultured corns for sure, not corns from the hood which I'm eating at work. The best part is that they taste way better. Way. It's a party in your mouth. Its hard to describe and to the non corn gourmet it may be subtle, but it is far superior in flavor. I would make green clovers for St Patrick's day, Bean shapes for Easter...Christmas trees....red white and blue for the Fourth.... Why are peeps mostly for Easter and corns only for Halloween?
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FAN: Wilcots = Dumb

Troy makes a pick and walks off gingerly. The Steeler's offense has the ball. While the Steelers are driving, Solomon Wilcots opines that Polamalu could be injured again. He said something like "he left the game after the pick and hasn't returned...". Wow. Really? Does that have anything to do with him playing DEFENSE and the DEFENSE hasn't been on the field since the pick?

FAN: Death Star Conspiracy

Funny original parody.

FAN: Is Korky Back?

Mrs. Fan and Still A Stroke are out of town for the weekend so I went out to eat last night by myself. Sad I know, but I was running errands and had to drive by Outback so I went in and ate at the bar. There is nothing that a rare filet, a slice of Key Lime pie and a couple of beers can't fix. I looked up at one of the TVs at the bar and did a "Jon Lovitz in A League of their Own" doubletakes when he sees the homely girl up close. I swear Kordell 'Korky' Stewart was on ESPN the deuce talking about college football. There was no volume, it was loud in there and it wasn;t on long so maybe I was dreaming. A quick look at Wikipedia shows nothing that he is currently employed by the deuce, although he did do some college stuff for them last January. If he was just hired, I guess too many people aren't scrambling to update his Wikipedia page. Fifty bucks says he updates his own page. I never hated Kordell, I actually liked him. He just got to a certain point as a quarterback and couldn't progress past it. That's not his fault. Too many coaches. Too many OC's. Too many square peg in a round hole guys messing with him. Who knows what he could have been with a team built to feature him at QB. Anyway.....am I nuts or did I see him and that big thing on his neck talking about football?

DOG: Captain Lou Albano Dead at 76

Captain Lou Albano

Some say the man's not wrapped too tight.

But when he's on the scene everything's alright.

With the man of thousand faces I know we'll be going places. HEY!

I'm gonna stick with the Guiding Light.

Captain Lou, Captain Lou Albano!

"Captain Lou Albano. Maker of champions, baby. Twelve Tag Team Champions. I take them. I mold them. I think it's charisma. It's pandemonium. It's psychedelic pandemonium. I... am the Guiding Light. I'm where it's at!" -Captain Lou from NRBQ's Tapdancing Bats album.

I started watching Lou Albano wrestle at the age of 9 on Channel 11 (then WIIC)'s Studio Wrestling show hosted by a young Bill Cardille, before he became "Chilly Billy." He was a "bad guy" and always lost to Bruno Sammartino, but occasionally would beat "Jumpin'" Johnny DeFazio from Pittsburgh's South Side. Along with George "The Animal" Steele and "Gorilla" Monsoon he was the baddest of the bad.

Lou practically revitalized pro wrestling's popularity in the '80s alongside Hulk Hogan and Rowdy Roddy Piper. He became a wrestling manager and did indeed captain more than a dozen WWF tag team champions, most notably the Wild Samoans.

His status rose to that of Pop Culture Icon when he appeared in Cyndi Lauper videos as her father. And he even managed her career, as he did with NRBQ, for a period of time.

He played in and/or hosted the Super Mario Brothers Super Show. I never really watched it but I recall when he was announced as playing Mario I thought it was a perfect fit for him.

And now another piece of my childhood has passed into the next world. Got to find a black rubber band to glue to my face in rememberance of Lou Albano tomorrow. Rest in peace, Lou. I think the video of where you scraped the "foreign object" you got from out of your shorts across Domenic Denucci's eyes has been destroyed.

DOG: "Someday" Has Arrived

Ziggy Hood

Someday we all knew that Aaron Smith wasn't going to be the anchor to our front wall of defense anymore. I knew it and you knew it. The cows knew, the pigs knew, the horses knew. He was getting up in years and has played a lot of downs at a position where each snap is like a mini car crash. Mike Tomlin knew. He saw an aging line. Hampton, Keisel & Smith are all over 31 as are their backups Kirschke and Hoke. Nick Eason is 29+! So we drafted Evander "Ziggy" Hood #1.

As you may know by now, the Steelers placed DE Aaron Smith on Injured Reserve this morning. That means he is out for the remainder of the season. "Someday" has arrived early. Smith is only the best 3-4 DE vs. the run in the NFL. And he is a big reason that, in a season when our defense has taken a step backward, it's run stopping capability has remained at the top of the league. Well, those days are over. We saw how much he means to our defense when in 2007 he was out with a torn bicep. The team went into the crapper faster than a Cleveland Brown (if it's Brown, flush it down). He cannot be replaced. I would argue he is more important to this defense than even Troy Polamalu, and is more important to the overall success of the team than anyone except Ben Roethlisberger.

Yesterday Mike Tomlin said Smith's position would be filled "by committee" meaning a combination of Travis Kirschke, Nick Eason, and Ziggy Hood. He came right out and said that Hood was not ready to assume Smith's role full-time. But I disagree... or I read through the message Tomlin was sending. He is challenging Ziggy Hood to step up and fill the role now. And you can bet Hood will get the best first shot at it. The intent was to let Hood learn this season and part of next before stepping into the starters position. But not now. Emergency lights are flashing and duty calls.

Ziggy Hood, you are the next man up. We all want you to succeed. Many an NFL career has been spawned by an unfortunate injury to an aging veteran. Go out and knock the snot out of them muthas!

FAN: Steelers Scrape By

Well, we survived another week. It looked like we were on automatic today. Nothing special. Is it too hard to get up for the Lions minus their QB and their best wide receiver? We still couldn't even cover. Whatever. I have no comments about their play. I have comments about the announcing. That may have been the worst announcing job by a team of professional analysts that I've ever heard. Is Enberg still alive? He's horrible! Fouts? Fooey. They sucked. Individually and as a team. Enberg kept droning on and on the entire game about Detroit declining a penalty after they kicked a FG that would have been close to a first down. He wouldn't shut up about it. Hasn't he ever heard that you don't take points off the board. Where was Fouts to at least express that point of view? He kept droning on and on like it was a travesty they didn't at least look at the measurement. WHat if they wipe the points and then lose 8 yards on the next play you dolt? What if they fumble or throw a pick six? It's hard in the NFL to take points off the board especially when it puts you ahead of the defending Super Bowl champs. Shut it. What a humdrum game. I almost fell asleep. I had more fun watching Denver come back and beat the Patriots.

FAN: Yogurt Tricks

The answer to this issue is not to try another brand. The shop at my office only carries this brand. At the house Mrs. Fan only buys Activia. What's my issue? A few days a week at work I try to eat as healthy as possible. On those days I get hard boiled egg whites and yogurt. Lots of protein, not a lot of calories. While I was eating my delicious Dannon blueberry yogurt I spun it around to check the ingredients. Ingredient 1 is cultured grade A low fat milk. 2 is blueberries. So far so good. 3 is sugar. 4 is fructose syrup. 5 is high fructose corn syrup. 6 is fructose. Wtf? To me that's four ways of adding something you don't even need to add. 9 percent of the sugar I need all day comes from this. Come on, Dannon, people are eating yogurt instead of a candy bar. Don't blend a candy bar and put it in my yogurt. They prolly make a no sugar added - but they don't sell it here.
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DOG: What Are You Listening To Now? #11

Woofers

Time for another installment of WAYLT Now? As you know by now I am constantly in search of new music and keep my eyes open for some old stuff I have not heard in years (which means I don't own it). And as you probably also know, "new" music only occasionally means music that has been released recently. New Music means anything I've never heard before. And occasionally I dive into the old vault and revisit some great old tunes from my past.

So here's what's blasting out of the Woofers at our house this month:

10. The Allman Brother Band at A&R Studios 8/28/1971. Duane was in rare form for this gig to promote the Live At The Fillmore album for a NYC FM radio station. He died less than 2 months later.

9. Memphis Gold - Gator Gon' Bitechu! This is a new release. I met Memphis Gold's wife one time and she told me some crazy stories about the years that Memphis Gold played guitar in Ike Turner's band. There seem to be no shortage of Ike Turner stories out there if you talk to the right people.

8. Fred Chapellier & Friends - Tribute To Roy Buchanan. Chapellier does 14 Roy Buchanan covers with some help from a bunch of guests. It ain't Roy but it's still good.

7. Blue Mitchell - Blue's Blues. This is one I used to have on vinyl which I bought at a used record store (Jim's?) in the Bloomfield section of Pittsburgh circa 1978. Finally found someone who had digitized it from their vinyl copy. I don't think it's ever been released on CD. It is as good as I remembered.

6. Robbie Kreiger -No Habla. As you might guess from the title, this is an all instrumental album by former Doors guitarist, Robbie Krieger. It's terriffic. I think it's from 1989.

5. Osibisa - The Very Best Of. Had to have my African music fix for the month. My favorite song on here is Ayiko Bia which I first heard in 1974. Somehow I'm relating it to some Ginger Baker stuff from back then but I don't know. It's probably some kind of African classic but I don't know that either.

4. Marcus Miller - Silver Rain. Thankfully there's only a couple tracks on this album with vocals. Everything else is totally captivating.

3. Otis Grand (with Debbie Davies & Anson Funderburgh) - Grand Union. Wow, what a nice three guitar blues album. I don't know how this album evaded me for so long. It is great, from 1998.

2. Dwight Yoakum - Dwight's Used Records. Dwight covers everything from Johnny Cash to ZZ Top and all points in between. I love albums of cover songs anyway and this one is OUT-STAN-DING!

And the #1 album Dog is woofing about this month....

1. Son Seals - Spontaneous Combustion. I just picked this up because I thought it looked interesting and I felt I was a little light on my Son Seals albums in the collection. What a find it was! Don't get me wrong, I saw Son Seals play one time and he did not impress me in the least. But this album is unbelievably good. I guess everybody has a bad day. 'Cause this guy can really play.

FAN: Dear Job Seekers

There's a lot of commotion these days about the state of the economy. Jobs are hard to find and hard to keep. My department is expanding and I'm 50% of the interview process to land one of our jobs. I'm going to give some good practical advice for anyone who is seeking a job and has an interview coming up. I don't care if it's for software engineering or ditch digging. My advice will benefit the masses so allow me to spell it out so you can spread the word. You can read all the books and business websites you want. Go read Monster and Careerbuilder. You won't get these tips there. These are "real". I'm going to start with the three fatal flaws that sunk three out of four candidates for me last week. After that, you'll get a few bonus tips.

1. DO NOT ASK ME ABOUT OVERTIME. Apparently this is the worst job market in a long time. You just told me you were part of a layoff several months ago. Before I even asked if you had any questions for me, you have the balls to ask me about overtime? What's expected hourly? Do you work Saturdays and Sundays? Sigh. Out! Get out! Right now! Ok, I let the interview continue but I was disinterested after this exchange. You're out of work and you're asking about OT! This is software! I can have my day planned out in the car on the way in and by 7:30 AM I have to do a 180 and completely change what I was doing. Don't ask me how many hours I work! We have a minimum and I'm at least an hour over minimum every day. I don't expect that of you. I expect you to get done what I've asked you to. If it takes the minimum, fine. If it takes a little more, fine. If it takes a lot more, we have another problem all together. Do NOT ASK ABOUT OT if interviewing for a
salaried position. Geez!

2. BE EXCITED about the job! I interviewed a recent college graduate who had a job for 3 months and then her entire dept got wiped out. She was a math / comp sci person just like me. You can work in a lot of different positions within IT with that major. She was young and trainable, very bright. Was published for some writing she did on robotics. "So snowflake, tell me why you want to work in software quality assurance."  "Well, where I was at for 3 months I did a lot of BA work, but I also checked the results of some automated QTP scripts and I thought it wasn't bad and I could do it." Sigh. Not a good answer......at ALL. Even if you aren't made for QA by nature, try to act like you are! Convince me you get a hard-on when you break a Rockstar programmer's code. Convince me things have to be right before you can let them go. Don't tell me "it's not bad" cause you'll still be looking for a job. If I hired her, of course she could do the work, but after
I train her for a year she's going to leave when she gets an offer in robotics. Show me some passion for the position.

3. PLEASE DON'T FILABUSTER. We interviewed a very nice foreign guy back in March We liked him and kept him on file but he didn't get the spot. We brought him back for this spot. He still wasn't employed. He's a little older than us. My notes from the last interview said if he doesn't know something he just keeps talking. Well it has now taken over his entire interview process. He wouldn't shut up. Zero silence. He would ramble total nonsense. At some points just saying one word at a time "expectations......performance..........loyal.............3rd Grade........Miss Bonnie". It was so painful. I felt bad for him and I would just ask another question. "So if this, this and this happened, what would be your next move?".  "I am hard worker. I do anything you ask. For example.......if you need lunch, I make you lunch........car wash..........i take and do.....". Obviously I'm exagerating, but not by much. His answers made no sense this time.

That's what sunk three of the four and it seems too easy to me to not know you're doing these things. Isn't it? What's wrong with people? Here are some other minor annoyances. If they bother me, they probably bother others in a position to hire you.

4. Make some small talk with me walking to the interview room. It shouldn't feel like the Bataan death march. After 5 seconds of silence if I say "Did you find us OK?" don't say YES or NO. ELABORATE. This job requires quite a deal of communication between teams and being accepted by everyone is not easy. You have to move well between sharks, grandmas and kids that still need a babysitter. Show me you have some personality right away.

5. Here's how to NOT EVEN GET an interview.......keep your resume at 7 pages. Go ahead. I DARE you. "I have to keep it at 6 pages, I can't take one thing off". BULLSHIT. Edit. Summarize. I don't give a fig that you were a cloud in the school play. Don't make me read paragraphs either. This is IT. Bullets! Use bullets! Summarize. If it takes you 1,000 words to say the 50 important ones to me.....out! Next!

6. ASK ME QUESTIONS. This is huge! "Do you have any questions for me?"  "No, I think we covered everything." Really? In 30 minutes? There's not ONE thing you'd like to ask? "Pepsi or Coke in the vending machine?" would show me you care about something.

7. I'm still a little shocked that I get so few "Thank You" emails. Not important to me, I'm just saying it's appreciated and even better if you mention something that we talked about.

8. Don't be afraid to be honest. If I ask you if there are two positions available and one is back-end and one is front-end, which would you rather have? Unless you truly don't have an opinion, don't be wishey-washy, Charlie Brown! Own that shit. Be confident. "I'd rather do A. because I'm much better at it. However, if only the B position is availble, I'm more than capable of doing that as well."  To me that's better than "It really doesn't matter. I like both equally the same." No you don't, liar!

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FAN: New Reruns

I am so sick of seeing recycled television. I saw the commercials for Modern Family starring Ed O'Neil and decided to give it a try. Al Bundy is one of my top 10 favorite TV characters of all time. What the heck, I'll tape it and give it a try. The show had two plots going on at the same time. The first plot had a dad who didn't trust his son with a new bike. He saw what he thought was his bike up against a parking meter so he decided to take it to scare his son. After some sitcom fun, they had 3 identical bikes at the house. Not funny. Really not funny when your daughter just started watching some old Full House reruns on Nick and you just saw this almost identical plot 2 weeks ago. It was so fresh in my mind it seemed like a blatant ripoff. I wish I could post pictures side by side of the families with 3-4 of the same bikes in the photo. The second plot going on involved a gay couple taking their adopted child to a "Gymboree" type place for some fun. Once there they are asked questions about his development like if he's grabbing for things or stacking blocks. The one guy actually takes a stack of blocks from in front of the kid next to his and slides it in front of his and then draws attention to it. Funny.....unless you're a big Murphy Brown fan. When people talk to me about Murphy Brown, three episodes come to mind. First, the modern art episode where she challenges critics to pick out something her son did against other artists. Second, the actor who plays Andre The Giant's keeper in Princess Bride is a politician who takes money from a white supremacist type group and then gets grilled by Murphy about it on air. Priceless. Third, the episode where Murphy joins a "moms group" only to find out how competitive it is and that other kids are clapping and her son won't clap. Again, 20 years apart it might not seem the same, but I swear if you played them back-to-back, people would cry "Bullshit". It reminds me of the time I saw the girl on ER interviewed (I can't remember her name. I'm too tired to Google but she was Clooney's chick and she was on The Sopranos for a short stint) and she was asked why she left. She said "how many times can one hospital ER blow up?". That summed it up brilliantly. My daughter is amazed while watching Drake and Josh or iCarly that I am able to tell her exactly what's going to happen. "How did you know that?" she'll say. Sigh. Because I saw Ritchie Cunningham do it. Then I saw Alex P. Keaton do it. Then I saw Mike Seaver do it. Then I saw Randy Taylor do it. The names change, a detail changes....it's the same freaking plot. People wonder why reality TV took over. Because all the good writers went to HBO, Showtime, Fx.... Once Two And A Half Men retires, the network sitcom will be completely dead.

FAN: Loss Better Than Most Wins

I know the Steelers won this week, this is about my volleyball team. We lost a game yesterday but I had the girls feeling like they won. In a lot of aspects, they did. Let me explain. Our school has 4 Varsity teams and 4 JV teams. Only 1 team of each is coached by non parents. The other teams are "bonus" teams. If parents don't volunteer to coach, there would be cuts. They take the best 6th graders and put them on the top JV team. The other 3 teams get a mixture of 5th and 6th graders of all skill levels and are "equal" before the first game is played. We havent played our own top team yet, but we've beaten the other two teams from our own school.

On our schedule of 18 games are 3 games against another school (X). One game each against X1, X2 and X3. X2 beat us but we won the first game and we were serving match point in the second game ebfore losing it and the tie-break. We beat X3. I had no idea how their teams were set up or if X1 was better than say X3. We walked into the away gym of X1 yesterday and I saw their girls. Wow. Big. Athletic. I found their coach and asked how their system worked. Their X1 team is a lot like our top team. They are all in 6th grade, all 2nd year players. Ouch. She confided in me that they haven't had any competition yet this year and were looking forward to playing our top team. They hadn't lost a game yet, let alone a match. 

I huddled up my girls who were obviously looking at their height disadvantage. I told them the deal. I told them as long as we returned serves OK, we would stay in the match. I also told them not to worry if we get down early that their girls were bigger, older and had more experience. I only have 3 girls in their 2nd year. I told them to just try as hard as they can and don't get down, stay positive. Then, I bolted up into the stands and told our parents the same thing. I said we'd need a lot of noise and encouragement.

What I found out was that their team could serve like demons but they couldn;t return serves that well. They could return our girls who serve underhand but not our overhand servers. We got up early and stayed on top to pull out a 25-19 win. The second game was crazy with a lot of long points (by JV standards). Every point we won the parents flipped out and got behind them. At one point we were up 3 and then down 3. We were down 20-22 and rotated into our best server. If she could knock out 5, it was over. She already served a limit (5) once in the game. She managed two and on side out it made it 22-23. They served an ace, and then we lost a long point. All tied up 1 game apiece.

I think all the excitement got to them as we kind of ran out of gas in the third game.....mentally. It was called due to time but we were down like 9-3. They only had 7 players and we had 9. I am 99.9% sure that if I could have played them with my best 7, we could have won. Maybe. I also understand that they maybe took us too lightly when they saw our size. Their coach came right over and really congratulated us on our effort. It felt good. It's the best we've played all year and I felt better about this game than winning easily over some other teams. We're now 5-3-1 and that's with losing the first match and two others where we won the first game and just barely lost the second. 

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FAN: Steelers Disinterested

You can't blame them (can you?) for falling off towards the end of this game. What a performance in the first half in front of the home crazies. Some random thoughts:

Collinsworth said before the game that there are those that think Mendenhall has LT type talent. I almost choked on my beverage when he said that. I guess the fact that he prefaced it with just "talent" is OK but we haven't seen any signs of it just yet (not at 7:55 anyway).

Costas is starting to have that "Dick Clark creepy" look to him. Go ahead and age Bob, it's OK.

Mendenhall has some weird looking eyes doesn't he? Really big. Wide, too. And one always looks more open than the other.

Mendenhall absolutely looked like he was shot out of a cannon. I actually sat up mid-run in excitement when he took a handoff and bolted towards a very crowded line, stopped, jumped right and totally accelerated again without missing a beat.

The block Mendenhall put on somebody was ferocious....utterly ferocious.

I'm not sure Wallace got both feet in on that first drive. Can't believe Al didn't question it as he usually does. Wallace is our new Nate Washington only better.

Every single time Ben let go of the ball, I was confident it was going to be completed. Now I know how Colt's fans feel.

There were times we were catching balls and I didn't even see a Charger on my screen! What the heck?

I can't believe they were talking about Harrison's return in the Super Bowl as being a self called audible like we didn't know that or that it was just revealed. Steeler fans have known that since like.....well, forever.

They finally added up the yardage and Roethlisberger threw for like 758 yards last night. he didn't? Sure seems like he did.

Mendenhall keeps running like that and you'll start to see fans wearing his jersey.

FAN: I Am Not Smarter Than A 5th Grader

What a cool afternoon I had. As you know, I'm a little bit of a goofball. I love to have fun. Still A Stroke is in 5th grade this year and on back to school night a few weeks ago, her teacher explained to us that she wanted to play "Are You Smarter Than A 5th Grader?" throughout the year with special guests as the contestants. She wanted to keep the contestants a surprise. My hand shot up and I volunteered to be the first week. If the kids had no idea that parents would be coming, I wanted to go first to get the most surprise bang for the buck.

When I got home last night I had a coach's meeting and then I finally got to relax. Stroke looked at me with squinty eyes and asked me if I was going to her school the next day. I played dumb. Real hard. She tried to get me to laugh. I wasn't biting. She said a special guest was due to her room and it might be a parent to play a game show. Nope. She would know it wasn't me in the morning when she saw I wasn't working from home. She had no idea and never considered I would drive into the city only to leave work at 1:30.

I got to the office, checked in and had to wait. We got the call and I walked over. She announced me and I strolled in to some cheers and minor catcalls. I know a lot of her classmates and one is on my volleyball team. She was surprised, but I also think she had a feeling. The teacher did an outstanding job! The overhead was set up with the same screen as the game and she had the theme music. I had to stand at the podium and then it got worse......the principal strolled in unannounced to see how I would fair. I have a really good rapport with her so it made it even more fun. The game was altered to fit all the students. We all had whiteboards. I would pick my category, see the question, then everyone would write an answer. I would then pick a random number or call on a student to come up front. If I got it correct I got a point and if they got it right they got a point as well. I moved up in money based on the points. Whomever got the most points out of 10 questions got to go for the $1,000,000 question. Cool!

I chose 1st Grade US History to get the ball rolling. Who was the President right before George W. Bush? Simple, right? William Jefferson Clinton. I picked a friend of Hannah's that I've known for at least 5 years. She's on summer swim team and has been to our house several times. I felt bad for her but she didn't know. I'm up 1 and she moved my money up. I don't know the levels. The more I think about it - I don't remember the order of the questions at all...lol.

I'll just try the best I can. I'm pretty sure the other 1st grade question was English and I just had to pick the verb out. The student got it correct as well. I missed a question in 2nd grade (I think. It all happened so fast) about States. I choked on the capital of New York. I know it's Albany, but I was under pressure. I thought Buffalo for a second and then wrote down New York City. My opponent also had NYC. Next was measurements. I needed to know how many inches were in 2 yards. We both got it correct, 72. I missed the 3rd grade Geography question which really pissed me off! The Pacific Ocean is the largest ocean. For whatever reason, I wrote down Arctic. Dork. My opponent got it right. The next question was a bit of a trick question - in what century did Columbus discover America. Yes, the 15th and we both got it right.

We finally got to math in 4th grade and of course I nailed that - it was a simple area problem. My opponent fell short. I called up my daughter for the the 4th grade English question. There was a sentence and I had to tell the structure of the sentence. It was something like "Can you ride the bike?" I struggled mightily with this! I hate this type of question. Since it was a question, I thought it had to be something related to a question. I quickly replayed some Schoolhouse Rock in my head (So if you're happy....Hooray......or sad....awwwwww....Excited.....) but I couldn't get to a question fast enough. I scribbled down "Inquisitive". The teacher told me I was thinking too much. She peeked at my board and laughed. Thanks. The answer was "Simple". I was going for the wrong thing. Structures are simple, compound...etc. My daughter got it right. To add insult to injury she told me I still wouldn't have been right that the word I wanted was "Interrogative". Damn! Yes! Of course! Why couldn't the question have been to name some conjunction junctions?

All tied up. Super. Close game. 5th grade literature...bring it on. I had to name 5 genres of literature. No problem. Fiction, Non Fiction, Poetry, Mythology, Mystery. The little kid had 5 as well but they were nowhere near as good as mine. I shoved him down and did a Cabbage Patch dance. Still tied. Last question was 5th grade science...True or False....Comets are made of mostly rock and metal. I knew this. The answer is False because they are mostly Ice and Dust. Drumroll..........the kid didn't know the answer so I got to go for $1,000,000.

The subject was again 5th grade science. I had a good feeling. The question? What is the formula for the rate of heat exchange? I went too far I think. The student I chose got it "right"...lol. They had it written out in English "The higher temperature minus the lower temperature, divided by time." I introduced surface area and wrote it as a formula. They had what she was looking for, I didn't (not even sure mine was right in any capacity) so the kids celebrated and I lost. I had to get my picture taken for a collage. Sigh. It was a lot of fun. I got 7 out of 10 heading up to $1,000,000 but missed the big chance to totally redeem myself.

DOG: Caption This Picture II

A few weeks ago I said I thought we needed to do a Caption This Picture segment more often. So here is installment 2.

We face this fellow Sunday night. By that time we won't have won an NFL game in over 3 weeks. Better watch out for him, he has "Hungry Eyes!"