So now California is "too big to fail" according to the government. What a terrible precedent they set when they allowed any institution to classified as such.

There's a reason that one of the definitions of failure is "a condition of being bankrupt by reason of insolvency." Hmm, what's that sound like? Oh, how about a dozen financial companies and a half dozen states.

Make them feel the pain of recovery. They are the ones that screwed themselves up. Let them fix it. When you continue to bail out people who make the same mistakes over and over and over again, they simply don't learn. Why is that? It's because there is no penalty for them.

If I said, "Hey, I want a new car. Let's charge it. Oh sorry, I can't afford that Rolls Royce anymore. I'll tell you what. I'll keep the car, and you can bail me out. How do you like that plan?"

How do you think that would go over. I think the answer couldn't be more obvious.

For the last time: NOTHING IS TOO BIG TO FAIL!

According to this article in Forbes, if you're a married couple with 2 kids, it costs more for you to live in Cleveland than it does in Chicago. Does that strike anyone else as odd?

Other cities that it's cheaper to live in include Orlando, San Antonio, New Orleans, Las Vegas, Austin, and St Louis.

If that's true then it's no wonder that people are leaving Cleveland in droves. Not only does the weather suck, but it's apparently expensive to live here.

Our rental property is becoming one headache after another. I'd say more, but I probably shouldn't.

Who in the world has time to keep updating the world on your boring statuses (stati?) on the myriad of web sites that want to know what you're doing. What with Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, and blogs, I just don't have time to update all the crap in my life while attempting to continue doing crap in my life.

Plus, to be honest, I'm just bored with updating people on the things I'm doing. Especially the blog...

Things have been busy around here. We just got back from traveling on Sunday night.

Monday morning Lindsay took me to work, went to the Lakewood house to wait for the duct work cleaning crew. When she got back home Max had deposited his lunch all of the carpet. About 5 times. It turns out he has the flu.

Add that to his list of ailments...

He has a yeast infection on his skin.
He needs eye drops 3 times a day.
He is taking anti-inflammatory pills.
He is taking anxiety medicine.
He has prescription shampoo.
He eats prescription dog food.

And now he has the flu.

Great.

Ahmadinejad released a largely conciliatory recorded statement on state TV, distancing himself from his past criticism of protesters, whom he compared to "dust" and sore losers after a soccer match.

"I only addressed those who rioted, set fires and attacked people," the statement said. "Every single Iranian is valuable. The government is at everyone's service. We like everyone."

Yeah. Pay no attention to him. He like's everyone. He wants to be your pal. Why don't you take off your green head covering so that he can shoot, err, talk to you face to face?

Pay no heed that he's trying to steal the election. Just go about your business and pretend that he's not rounding up anyone who thinks differently. Pretend that he's not trying to cut off all of your lines of communication.

Sure.

Today was my first day at work. Pretty uneventful for having been out for 3 weeks. That's a good thing.

This weekend was going very well until last night. I did something to tweak my foot and felt a burning in my arch, as if something had stung me there. I took it easy and it happened a few more times, but so far no burning feeling today. It definitely hurts more than it did though. Especially on the heel, where the bruise is. I was back on crutches while at work though and that seemed to help. Now I'll just try to keep it elevated and see how that goes.

Ah, the boring story of an injured foot.

I could sell it for millions. It's gold, Jerry! Gold!

I am so ready to walk again. Hopefully on Friday...

We had an exciting adventure today of the exploding glass shower door. Glass went everywhere. Lindsay has at least a dozen cuts on her arms and legs but is otherwise okay. Not a planned event today.

The offseason for the Cavaliers is a critical one. Not only do they need to fill a lot of spots, but they were exposed badly in the Magic series and need upgrades. The problem is there's not much out there period, let alone upgrades.

The Cavs have the following free agents this year.
Zydrunas Ilgauskas
Joe Smith
Wally Szczerbiak
Anderson Varejao
Lorenzen Wright

Z and Varejao can opt out but Z would be insane to do so and it looks like Varejao wants to test the market so expect him to opt out on July 1st. If he can find a team willing to pay him $10 million per year then he's gone.

Szczerbiak looks close to done. He'll get nowhere near his $13+ million contract ever again. I think he'll be lucky to get $5+. He's a useful one trick offensive guy to have, but his defense is non-existent. He tries, but sometimes it's painful to watch.

Joe Smith is a good guy to have around, especially if you can get him around the $3 mill/year mark. I'd like to see him come back for next season. He was non-existent in the playoffs though.

Wright was no factor whatsoever and was merely a bench spot filler.

On top of those guys, Ben Wallace is talking about retiring. He's not close to the defender he once was. He has never been an offensive option. Now, with injuries, his body is close to giving out as well. In any case, it's a very long shot that he's with the Cavs next year. His expiring contract is too much of a prize, especially if he retires and takes a buyout. His contract give the Cavs the ability to trade for a $16 million guy for what could be a buyout price of around $7 million. That's a big savings in todays market when nearly all teams are looking to cut costs.

So after all those guys leave or potentially leave, the Cavs bigs will consist of Z and two rookies. Great. That means they'll need to really do some work in the offseason to rebuild the roster.

Here are some guys I think they should target. I'm not willing to break the bank for any of them, with the possible exception being the guy sitting at my top spot.

1. David Lee - He's young and can be a double-double machine. He isn't that great defensively, but then again the Knicks weren't exactly playing any defense anyway, so he might be better in a better system.

2. Charlie Villanueva - He can score the ball but is a soft defender. He has the desired height, and his ability to create his own shot is a plus, but as the Cavs bigs were exposed in the Orlando series, the ultimate need is for a big that can shoot AND defend. Those aren't exactly easy to come by. If Villanueva can ramp up his defensive effort, then he'd be a good fit.

3. Jermaine O'Neal - A very good defender. Has the height and size that the Cavs need. Could play the 4 if the Cavs went big with him and Z. No longer a go to guy offensively. Settles for outside shots too often. He's just the type of player that the Cavs need though when they play a bigger team.

4. Shawn Marion - He's an on the ball defensive stopper. He can play the 3 or the 4, but certainly isn't an ideal fit at starting power forward. He'd be a nice off the bench guy that could pair up with LeBron when the Cavs go small. He makes way way too much money though, and in order for the Cavs to get him Marion would need to be willing to cut at least 50% off his salary.

5. Marcin Gortat - A big white guy to back up the other big white guy. Would be a good backup center who could play 15-20 minutes a game. Doesn't have ideal size as he'd benefit for more muscle to put on top of is 240 lb frame. Has the necessary height and energy that the Cavs need from a bench guy though.

6. Shelden Williams - A pure energy guy. If Varejao goes elsewhere, then Williams could replace him. Not a great offensive player, but a pretty good rebounder. Typically a 15 minute/game guy who will give you about 5 and 5 in that time.

Realistically I think they'll get Villanueva and some scraps and that won't be enough. I'd love for them to pull off some miracle and get Chris Bosh, but that's as likely as Kobe Bryant signing with the Clippers.

I'm too immobilized to write about all the changes the Cavs need to make this offseason.

Had a moment of excruciating pain last night in my foot but so far not much today.

There's way too much dribbling. It really screws up the offensive flow. Come on Cavs! Win one for the soon to be gipper.

I need to be at the hospital tomorrow morning at 6 AM. I don't know when my surgery is exactly, but probably around 8 AM or so. I'll be home in the early afternoon I hope.

I don't remember where I heard this but someone said that this is what Cleveland sports are all about. They suck you in, get you to believe, then drop you off a cliff.

What do I want on my birthday for my birthday? I want the Cavs to win. I need the Cavs to win.

They need to win. This might as well be game 7. If they go down 3-1, I give them about a 1% chance of winning the series given the way they're playing now.

Z is the key. He has to hit outside shots right from the beginning of the game. If he is able to do that then Howard will have to shadow him outside the paint which opens it up for drives to the basket.

Is the Cavaliers dream season unravelling before our eyes? It unfortunately seems to be.

I.
CAN.
NOT.
BELIEVE.
IT.

The kitchen is going in to sleep mode for a month. Everything is finished except for the window seat and the ceiling. Once the window seat is completed we'll take out the ceiling, re-drywall it and texture it again. Then we will really and truly be finito!

While I wasn't actively rooting for the Celtics (as that would be ridiculous) I do think they would've been a much better matchup for the Cavaliers. As in, the Cavs would have swept them.

The Magic scare me because of their ability to get hot from the outside and the fact that they have an absolute beast on the inside. He'll slow down the drives to the hoop unless Z can start hitting some outside shots and draw him away.

I still think the Cavs will win the series, but I don't think it will be a sweep. A lot depends on which Magic team they play. Will it be the one with the head in the clouds or will it be the focused team that beat then 2 times during the regular season? If the Cavs can come out and get a nice lead as they have been doing all playoffs I think the Magic will wilt under the pressure. If they let the Magic hang around though, then it will be very difficult indeed.

Today was bonus day at work. Yes, that's right. Bonus day. After we had 6 layoffs in 6 months we still made tons of money and got a bonus. Does that make sense to anyone? I didn't think so.

Don't get me wrong. I'm happy to get a bonus (especially with the ongoing never ending kitchen project) but I think that I'd rather see the company keep people employed and make slightly less profit as opposed to laying off 30% of the workforce in order to maintain a consistent profit margin.

There are times when I think it's appropriate to show a little compassion in business. True, the ultimate goal is to make the shareholders money. There's no doubting that as the sole responsibility of the business. Sometimes there are simply better ways to do that though. In this case we've removed so many people that when business picks back up (which it will) then we'll have to spend more time and money to train new workers than we would have spent to just keep those we already had.

Stupid Facebook. Between imposters posing as me and a terrible search function I can't see how they have 200 million users.

The Nike LeBron\Kobe puppets commercial is absolutely brilliant. From the talc that comes flying from LeBron's hands every time he claps to the dialog talking about $20 Chinese food to the proclamation of "Akron, Ohio baby!" It's fantastic. I've watched it about 20 times.

I can't remember so many good commercials (remember the LeBrons?) featuring one athlete since the Mars Blackmon \ Michael Jordan days.

I think it will be a close game between the Cavs and the Hawks tonight. I think the Cavs will only win by 15.

Chad Pennington was the commencement speaker today. He did a pretty good job, but the whole thing just went on too long, so people were beginning to lose interest near the end of his speech.

The ceremony went for 3 hours and 15 minutes. That's a long time. Twice as long as it should've been.

Here I am outside of Huntington, West Virginia. The wife has not yet arrived. I'm expecting her around 1:30 AM. Then we have to get up at 6 AM so that we can get ready and then get her sister and take her to graduation and grab a good seat for the 9 AM show.

Who graduates at 9 AM? Stupid Marshall, that's who.

At least I'll get to remember my good friend "the afternoon nap" tomorrow. Ah, how I've missed you. What've you been doing lately? Are you on Twitter? How about Facebook? Can I follow your every move and learn that you've been playing a lot of Scrabble lately and are currently eating waffles? Cool... apparently.

Oh wait, that's just like this blog.

Anyway, on to other thoughts. I'm rooting for the Celtics and the Rockets now, as any good Cavaliers fan should be doing as they provide the path of least resistance. The Magic scare me. They've got good outside shooting and great interior defense. Two things that don't bode well for the Cavs. I still think they'd beat the Magic, but I really doubt they'd be blowouts as we've become accustomed to lately.

So I'm watching the Cavs build up a 36 point lead and then, BAM! They show Michael Jordan shooting over Craig Ehlo.

Really? Was that necessary? You suck ESPN!

Then what happens? The Hawks get within 15 points because the bench bunch let them back in the game. Sure, there were only 2 minutes left in the game, but still...

They ended up winning by 20, but it should've been more like 50.

So people (including our neighbor) are selling the free stuff we got from the Cavs game last night. We got the Witness MVP Nike shirt, the Witness MVP Nike poster, and the One Goal towel. They're going on eBay for at least $50.

Crazy.

Just got home from the Cavs blowout win over the Hawks. More later. Maybe.

We had another layoff today. That makes 6 in 6 months. The company laid off 23 and re-assigned 10 more. We're down about 35% across the board now.

I also heard something that there was one employee whose blog they were reading. I guess the employee was talking about specifics and management found out. I don't know if they used that against them or not though. It would seem to me that it'd be illegal for them to do so unless the employee was doing it on company time though... Still, it sets a really bad precedent. I know they're already searching the web for details when they recruit someone, which at best is an invasion of privacy and at worst is illegal, but apparently they're still doing it anyway.

Indians were leading Boston 5 - 0. Next thing I know it's 5 - 5. The Tribe bullpen is just horrible. Of all the people they added this year, the only one working out (for the most part) is Kerry Wood.

Also, on Sports Time Ohio right now, there's a catheter commercial offering free samples. Great.

Good idea dudes.

The kitchen is progressing so slowly it's driving me crazy. In between traveling out of state every other weekend and all of the glitches that are slowing us down, it's looking like it will be another month before it's done.

We're one week away from 2 months with no kitchen. It sucks. A lot.

The Georgia Aquarium was really cool. The King Tut exhibit wasn't as cool, but was amazing. To think of all the things that are thousands of years old...

I'd say that I'll post pictures, but we all know that I won't.

But then again, maybe I will.

Also, it's really hot here right now and I can't sleep. It's supposed to be at least 20 degrees cooler tomorrow though. Then it will most likely snow on Wednesday. Then 100 on Thursday.

Apparently someone named Lash thought it would be funny to impersonate me and create an account on Facebook for me.

It makes it a lot easier for me to maintain, that's for sure.

Now I can continue to not be bothered with stupid social networks.

Thanks Lash!

The only thing is... I said I'd never join Facebook, and that's still true.

We're here in Hotlanta. Going to see King Tut tomorrow along with the aquarium. Should be fun.

Why LeBron will stay in Cleveland:

If he wants to leave, there's nothing that anyone can do to stop him. The key is making him not want to leave. The Cavaliers have done that by consistently upgrading not only the team, but the facilities as well. They've consulted with him about players and styles of play. They've made him comfortable. Normally I'm not one for coddling players and treating certain guys different than the rest of the team, but in this case the way the Cavs have pulled it off makes it seem like none of the other players mind. They're having too much fun to mind. They're as tight-knit and as loose as any team I can remember. They hang together off the court and that comraderie helps them to play better on the court. Because of the atmosphere surrounding this team, I think that LeBron will stay in C-Town regardless of whether he wins a championship or not. Of course, I say that now. A lot can happen in a year.

Will he leave because of money? There's all the rumors about a $100 million increase in his Nike contract if he goes to one of the 3 big markets. Is he going to play for the Clippers? I don't think so. The Lakers have no need for him and can't afford him anyway without gutting their roster of all of its depth. I don't think he'll go to Chicago and work in the shadow of Michael Jordan. That leaves the Knicks and the Nets. If the Nets don't move to Brooklyn (and that's looking less and less likely as time goes on) then there's no draw for him. He could go to the Knicks but that team is reminiscent of his early years with the Cavs. Does he really want to go through that again? I don't think so. Ultimately players are measured by their rings and if he wants those then he'd have to wait at least 5 years to get one in New York. That leaves the Cavaliers. They can pay him the most salary, and with the cap likely dropping, they can pay a lot more than the next nearest team.

I think he'll stay because he's comfortable here. He's from here, and regardless of whether he wears Cowboys and Yankees hats or not, he knows what it's like to be a Clevelander. He knows the ever present sense of dread that exists whenever a sports team is close to anything meaningful. He knows the history. He knows that there have been no champions in this city in over 50 years. Fifty years! He has a chance to end all of that, and if he does and then he leaves he will have thrown all that away. However, if he wins it all and he stays... well, you might as well rename this place Jamestown. LeBronville. Bronburg. Whatever. He will own the city more than he already does and 50 years after he retires he will still be beloved here, in much the same way as Jim Brown. That's a meaningful legacy. That's why he'll stay.

Justin raised a very interesting question. If the Cavs win a championship, does that increase LeBron's likelihood of staying here?

I'll have to answer that tomorrow.

For now I have to finish packing. We're leaving on a jet plane tomorrow afternoon. We're heading to Atlanta for the weekend.

Then we're home for a weekend and then gone again the weekend after that. Then home for the next weekend and gone once again the weekend after that.

Will our kitchen ever get done? I sure as heck hope so.

The Cavs let a 29 point 4th quarter lead dwindle to 7. You simply cannot do that in the playoffs. They're lucky to have won that game.

Apparently I'm old and falling apart. Quickly too, I might add.

I just got back from the foot doctor and will be having the first of two surgeries in June. I'll be off my feet for 2 weeks and then in a walking boot for 2 more. Then I can gradually get back to normal activities, but I might experience pain for up to 8 months after that. Knowing my body, it will be more like 16 months.

We're back in C Town after being in the very ritzy Bloomfield Township area of Detroit. We saw some really ridiculouly ginormous castle-eta up there.

I wore my Cavs gear on Saturday and no one threatened to per on my head (unlike in the Bronx when I was wearing my Indians stuff.). I was slightly disappointed.

We're heading to Detroit tomorrow. Lindsay's brother is in school at the Cranbrook Academy of Art. He is studying sculpture and will get his Masters of Fine Arts in May. This weekend is his thesis presentation essentially. There's an art show with all of the seniors having a piece. There's supposed to be about 1000 people in attendance.

Maybe we'll get to go to Michael Symon's Roast while we're up there...

I stayed home from work today. I tossed and turned and was up every hour during the night, but I was able to get an afternoon nap in from 3 PM - 6 PM. That was nice. Will I be able to go to sleep on time tonight? Time will tell.

I went to urgent care again tonight. I have strep. Again. This is the second time in 14 days.

Suck.

We're weeks behind on our kitchen. Mostly because we won't be home for the next two weekends, but still...

I want my kitchen back!

I'm hopeful that tomorrow all of the following will happen.

1. The remaining drywall will be up.
2. The ceiling will be mudded and textured.
3. Any wall texture that remains will be completed.
4. The last coat of mud will be done.
5. The tile work will be finished.
6. The ledger board will go up for the upper cabinets.
7. The floor will be leveled off for the base cabinets.
8. The upper cabinets will be joined together prior to mounting them.

It's really not all the much work. There's no reason why all of that cannot be finished. Especially now that we're done with the electrical nightmare.

Once all the mud is finally done we just need to wait for it to dry. That means that this week we can sand, prime, and paint.

The electrical in this house sucks. Neutrals are switched. Hots are wired together. Turn off one breaker and it doesn't turn off a switch because it's wired into two breakers. Whoever did it screwed the pooch and we're paying for it. Anything we touch in electrical is taking 4 times longer than it should.

As such we're behind and have no hope of getting cabinets in this weekend. That sucks because we're gone for the rest of the weekends in April, which likely means no working kitchen until May.

Second coat of mud is up on the drywall. Some more electrical was done tonight. I opened up the ceiling so that we can finish up the last bank of light switches that need to be installed.

Thursday we should be able to sand. Friday morning Lindsay doesn't have school, so she's going to do the primer throughout. Then we can paint Friday night if we want to, or just leave it until after the cabinets are installed.

We're getting there. I can almost feel it now.

After a design change today we're finally really and truly done with demo. The drywall has a second coat of mud. We're going to prime on Thursday and paint on Friday. Electrical should be finished (it was finished, but now we changed it again) as well as the tile floor on Wednesday.

So what was the design change? I know you were wanting to know.

We scrapped the pantry idea and instead decided to open up the kitchen \ dining room flow more. I think it was a great idea. It meant taking out a wall that we had just drywalled, mudded, and textured yesterday though. Oh well.

Now I just want it all to be done already.

We've still got a long way to go though.

It's official. I have strep. It's weird though because I have no spots in my throat. My strep test came back in 15 seconds though, so that's a a pretty strong confirmation.

I'm at home today, sick with the flu. This sucks. For the past week or so my quads have been really sore, but now my whole body just aches.

The best part was the inch thick layer of crap in my mouth this morning,

Today is buying everything day. We're buying the drywall, counter tops, cabinets, lighting, hardware, plywood, paint, and any miscellaneous supplies that we need.

Should be interesting.

Well the Purdue game sucked but we still got done some stuff around the house.

Our old cabinets and sink are gone; we donated them to Habitat for Humanity.

We also cleaned up the last bits of wall that we're removing.

Here are some before \ after pics to show what we've done so far. Guess which is which. Also, in the after pic the stove is pulled out into the center of the room, which makes that half wall seem much smaller than it really is.

That's what she said.

I saw this headline this morning : "U.S. bill seeks to rescue faltering newspapers"

Great. That's exactly what is needed. Let's just pour more money down the drain of failing companies.

Breaking news! Mom and pop polish restaurant in Nebraska is losing money. Government to step in with billions!

When will it end? When will they listen to me? LET THEM FAIL! They're freaking failing for a reason. Be it that they made poor bets (as in banks), people are not patronizing them anymore (as in newspapers), or other reasons (they're irrelevant and they suck.)

Nothing in this country is "too big to fail." Absolutely nothing. When the weak fall away, the strong remaining competitors get stronger. That's how it should be.

The last part of the wall we removed came down tonight. We're almost done with the electrical but it's a real rats nest in places. I wired one particular outlet 3 times before it worked. Twice the ground came detached when I put the outlet back in the box.

There's a lot of wonky crap going on in there, that's for sure.

We're going to buy the cabinets this weekend and hopefully get some drywall up.

We finalized our new cabinet layout and picked out the new cabinets tonight. We still need to determine our counter tops, but I think we've got that pretty much figured out also. The last few things we need to do that aren't actually putting the kitchen back together are picking a paint color for the walls, picking out the pendant light fixtures and pendants, and deciding if we want to paint the cabinets or stain them.

We'll most likely start buying the cabinets this week or this weekend at the latest. The last remaining part of the wall we're taking out is coming down tomorrow night. Then we'll hopefully finish the electrical so that we can start the plumbing.

I was able to remove half of the counter tops last night and one of the base cabinets while operating solo. I can't for the life of me figure out how to get the remaining base cabinets (that now have no counter) out. I removed about 45 screws from the things and still they won't budge.

Cleveland State laying the wood on Wake Forest. Way to go Vikes!

Removed some of the counter top but can't get the rest of it. So many screws and all of the hidden. What the crap!?!?

Last night we finished everything that was on our list to be completed by this weekend. We have now taken down all of the upper cabinets and the microwave. We have removed all of the brick and the drywall from the soffit. The tile back splash has been removed. We have removed all of the drywall from the applicable walls in the kitchen.

Tonight I'm going to try to get a jump start on the lower cabinets. I'd really like to get the counter tops off and all the lower cabinets removed tonight, but I don't know if that's likely.

Here's the progress for tonight.

Sealed off the living and family rooms from the impending dust cloud.

Took more cabinets down. Removed some tile backsplash but I'm worried we'll have to re-drywall if I take more down. May have no choice either way.

Demolished the wall between the kitchen and dining room. Removed the brick and drywall from the soffet on two sides.

Took down the baseboards. Removed all but two of the upper cabinets.

Need to take the microwave down before we can remove those cabinets. Want to keep the microwave up for a few more days to use though.

Done for the evening.

Kitchen remodel is in full swing. More than half of the upper cabinets are down. All of the under cabinet lighting is removed. The rest of the upper cabinets and the above range microwave will come down tomorrow most likely. We should start the demo of the wall that we want to take down tomorrow too.

The hard part now is finding places to put all of the stuff that was in the cabinets while making sure that the dog isn't going to get into it.

We're figuring on a 4 week time frame. This weekend we're going to be framing out the pantry area and maybe running electric to where the new bar is going to be. The plumbing for the dishwasher should get done as well, but only if we get all of the counter tops out and at least half of the lower cabinets. The wallpaper will probably come down this weekend too.

As long as we can get the upper cabinets and microwave down tonight and the demo of the wall done before the weekend then we'll be in good shape.

Went out to Melt tonight. So good. Mmm Melt.

Heading to Cinncinati tomorrow for a wedding. We'll be coming home on Sunday.

That is all.

For all the talk about commodity prices dropping, my water and electric bills have doubled this year...

Good news on the work front. Even though there's a wage freeze for the next year, the bonus program is staying intact. That's really good because I have a feeling if it was taken away for a year it would've never come back.

Does it logically make sense to freeze wages but keep giving quarterly bonuses? Nope. It sure doesn't, but I'm glad they're doing it anyway.

Cleveland State, sadly one of my alma maters, defeated the Butler Bulldogs tonight to punch their ticket to the dance. Congrats to them. It's their first trip since 1986 when they went to the Sweet 16.

We officially started our kitchen remodel yesterday. It's slightly concerning because of the economic situation, but it's something we've wanted to do for a while and we're definitely working within a budget.

Is the greatest speaker in the history of the world [note sarcasm], by whom I obviously mean President Obama, really a good speaker?

From this article, it would appear that he's not. When the media starts talking about using a teleprompter as a crutch, it's a problem. Especially THIS media. Obama is a media darling, so to be criticized for your speaking ability by THIS media is really a big deal in my opinion. The article mentions that "Obama’s reliance on the teleprompter is unusual — not only because he is famous for his oratory, but because no other president has used one so consistently and at so many events, large and small. After the teleprompter malfunctioned a few times last summer Obama delivered some less-than-soaring speeches.

In a break from his routine, Obama did not use a teleprompter during his pre-Inauguration speech at a factory in Bedford Heights, Ohio — and his delivery seemed to suffer. He paused too long at parts. He accentuated the wrong words. And overall he sounded hesitant and halting as he spoke from the prepared remarks on the podium.

The problem is, he never looks at you. He’s looking left, right, left, right — not at the camera. It’s almost like he’s not making eye contact with the American people."

That's an interesting take. So the big question is, does Obama write his own speeches? Are the words coming out of his mouth really his, or is he just mouthing someone else's thoughts and beliefs? Based on the evidence presented here, I'm concerned that he's just a puppet for someone else. When he has the teleprompter telling him what to say, he sounds confident and comes across as a good speaker. When he has to rely on only himself, he sounds halting, hesitant, uncomfortable, and unskilled. Hmm.

Ultimately this gets right back to the campaign.

What are you going to do Senator Obama?

"I'm going to bring about change. Change!"

What kind of changes exactly will you make?

"Change!"

He was elected simply because he wasn't George Bush and he wasn't a Republican. He inspired people to believe in him because he never actually told anyone a single thing that he believed. It's easy to imagine someone believing what you believe when that person doesn't actually stand for anything themselves.

I like guns. - Charleton Heston
Change! - Obama
Great! He wants to make guns better! - Heston

I hate guns. - Ghandi
Change! - Obama
Terrific! He wants to ban guns! - Ghandi

52 people were laid off yesterday at my plant. We're down from a high of over 800 employees 4 months ago to just over 500 now. Really sucks. A lot. And it might not be over. Our customers keep cancelling orders left and right. Looks like we lost over 16 million more just this week.

I was able to get up close and personal with Coach Sanctions at the Cavs game tonight. Apparently his sole responsibility (at least as far as I can tell) is to coach Charlie Villanueva. He's the only player that Sanctions was talking to all night long.

I have some pictures from the game, but I don't know if any of them turned out well.

Joe Alexander, of West Virginia fame, didn't play at all. I was surprised by that, but in hindsight I shouldn't be because he sprained his ankle last week (which I didn't even realize until just now.)

The Cavs never seemed to really get it going tonight, with Z and J.J. Hickson shooting especially poorly. Every time I'd look at the scoreboard though, they'd be up by 10 or 14 or even more. No chalupas for us tonight, but they won by 18 and it wasn't even close after the first quarter.

Lastly, they clinched a playoff spot tonight. As LeBron put it though, they don't care about clinching a spot. Their goal is to win the championship. If they hadn't made the playoffs it would've been a catastrophe.

We're going to the Cavs game tomorrow night. We're sitting 6 rows from the floor behind the visitors bench.

You'll know it's me because I'll be the guy raining threes from the stands.

The past two games the Cavs have found a way to win instead of finding ways to lose. That's very encouraging to me as we near playoff time.

Tonight I watched the latest Mummy movie. Something about Revenge of the Emperor of Suck or something close to that anyway. In a single word: craplicious. It's like there's a party in my mouth and everyone is throwing up. Some of the effects were good but everything else was horrendous.

Lindsay has been home sick for the past 2 days with a combo of the flu and strep. Hopefully I can avoid getting sick from this.

The Cavs are playing like a giant piece of poop tonight. Giant feces. Really horrible against the Rockets. They shot under 30% in the first half but were only down by 5. Then they managed to play even worse. Well done.

I was right about the pundits and the Big East. On Pardon the Interruption, Wilbon commented on how the unranked Providence team beating number 1 Pitt spoke to the strength of the Big East. How anyone can beat anyone else.

Give me a break. That same argument is used to disparage the Big Ten but to uplift everyone else.

You suck!

Providence beat Pitt tonight. Let me guess what's going to happen next... All of the talking heads out there are going to say stuff like "This really speaks to the depth of the Big East Conference." "This is why the Big East is the best basketball conference in the nation; anyone can beat anyone." Etc, etc.

However, when a bottom feeder in the Big Ten beats an upper tier team all we hear about is how "The Big Ten is watered down." "The Big Ten is consistently over-rated." Etc, etc.

I really hope that for about 10 years running a Big Ten teams wins basketball and football national championships every year. Maybe, just maybe, that will shut them up for a while.

I'm a forge new and wondrous things upside yo head! - Mr. T.

I watched Burn After Reading last night. Terrible. It was really terrible. It wasn't good. It's the kind of movie where people who think they're smart think they're supposed to like it so they say stupid comments like "A comedic masterpiece" (ahem - Larry King). There's nothing comedic about it. Yeah, it kind of ties itself up at the end, but that's not exactly a ringing endorsement is it? It just wasn't good. It wasn't entertaining. It wasn't highbrow. It was just crappy.

That doesn't stop so-called smart people from raving about how fantastic it is though. Like I said, it's the kind of movie where if you don't get it you're supposed to pretend that you do and that's it's so intellectual that it must be terrific. Well it's not. I understand it and I also understand that it sucked. The end.

Due to reader request, the movie gets a rating of 2. Would definitely return it if I received it as a gift, and I'd smack the person who gave it to me upside the head.

Today was full of sound and fury but ultimately signified nothing for the Cavs. Rumors abounded that they were close to getting Richard Jefferson for Wally "Face" Sczerbiak and the big Shaqtus for Ben Wallace and Sasha Pavlovic. I think in a "normal" year I would've been happy with those trades, but the chemistry on the team this year is so good and they're already playing pretty well, so I'm somewhat happy that they didn't go through.

It's interesting to think about what the team could've looked like though. Would they ever have played Z and Shaq at the same time? I think it's possible because Z doesn't have to camp under the basket like Shaq does. Z is shooting over 45% on threes this year, so he can easily extend the defense. Would LeBron be able to finish around the basket with Shaq tying up the middle though? Would there have been enough balls on the court at one time to keep LeBron, Shaq, Z, Mo Williams, and Richard Jefferson happy? Maybe, maybe not. I think winning goes a long way towards making people happy though.

As it is back in reality though, they're getting Delonte West back soon so he'll help with the defense. Hopefully the team can stay healthy for the rest of the year and has gotten their injuries out of the way now.

For Valentine's Day Lindsay and I went to Lola. The chef \ owner is Michael Symon, one of the Iron Chef's on Food Network. We saw him at the Fabulous Food Show earlier this year and we've wanted to try Lola out for a while.

We sampled a little bit of everything. I really wanted to try the beef cheek pierogie and they didn't disappoint. We also got the charcuterie, which is basically a plate full of different cured and smoked meats. I tried foie gras (duck liver) for the first time. It was inside of a Jagerwurst and was really creamy and super rich. We also got the Lola fries. They're seasoned with rosemary and sea salt and fried in pork fat. They were really good. By the way, in case you haven't noticed, Michael Symon is a big fan of meat and fat.

For the entree I got the braised lamb shank. They supplied a knife, but I didn't need it. It literally fell right off the bone. It was amazingly tender. I gave Lindsay a bite of it and she said "That's the best bite of food I've ever had." And she's not really a red meat eater. She got the wild striped bass. It was ok, but I'm not a big fan of fish.

We (and when I saw we, I mean me) went a little crazy on the desserts. We got 3 of them. The 6 AM Special, which was french toast with maple-bacon (sounds crazy but is crazy good) and maple syrup. It was really really good. We also got the sweet potato smores sundae. That was pretty good too. Lastly we got the peanut pie. It was my least favorite, but was still good. It had super strong lime frozen yogurt on it.

I think if we go back, next time we're going to go for the chefs table in the kitchen. The kitchen is exposed to the restaurant, so you can see everything going on, but it'd be a unique experience to sit there and I think we'd like to try it out.

I've been thinking about a lot of stuff for the past week, but apparently I've not been posting any of it.

Tomorrow I'll try to give a run down of the restaurant that Lindsay and I went to for Valentine's Day.

Today, however, something caught my eye in an article I was reading about towns that went from boom to bust.

"Motown has been on the empty side for decades. An industrial boomtown during the first half of the 20th century, Detroit's population swelled from 285,000 in 1900 to 990,000 in 1920, reaching a peak of 1.8 million in 1950.

But starting in the 1960s, Detroit began a precipitous decline. Detroit's population is now 900,000--half what it was in the middle of the century--and many of its neighborhoods languish in varying states of decay. Most scholars blame rapid suburbanization, outsourcing of manufacturing jobs, and federal programs they say exacerbated the situation by creating a culture of joblessness and dependency.

Yet after more than half a century, countless scholars, politicians, community organizers developers and nonprofit workers have been unable to come up with a solution to fix Detroit."

The most interesting part to me is the "Most scholars blame ... federal programs they say exacerbated the situation by creating a culture of joblessness and dependency." You mean the kind of programs that don't force you to go get a job? The kind that reward you for having more and more children? The kind that give you everything that you need to barely subsist but never enough to actually get out of the rut you're in? I do believe that the government wants it just that way. The government wants to be your provider. Your parent so to speak. The more you depend on the government the more power they have over you.

So how do we break that? A lot of people have tried and failed. They've thrown billions of dollars at the problems only to see them get worse. What they haven't tried yet though is turning off the money spigot. People tend to get motivated when they're told they won't be getting any more handouts. Either that, or they starve. The problem is, in Detroit and other places, they're doing both. They're getting handouts and are still starving. The government is not the answer. Money is not the answer to all of lifes problems. Sometimes things have to get worse before they can get better. Sometimes things have to get a lot worse before they can get better. Well, we think it can't get much worse in Detroit, but I guess we'll see for sure.

Cleveland has been on the decline for 30 years. We've never managed to replace the huge manufacturing base that has been vacating steadily during that time. There's promise and plans out there, but there's too much hand wringing and bureaucracy to actually get anything done. I suspect that's where Cleveland and Detroit have a lot in common. It takes private money to revitalize a city. There's no way that federal, state, or local money alone can get it done. How many billions poured into New Orleans to rebuild it only to see that half of the population simply isn't coming back? You've got to have big plans and keep having big plans until they eventually take root. You can't just take one swing, not hit a home run, and then go home.

Last night I was told I was not allowed to pause the TV every 10 seconds and debate Obama as he spoke.

I disagree.

Lindsay then said that I should have my own State of the Union address. Not such a bad idea. I wonder if I could get on national television?

We watched the Cavs game yesterday. I'm going to try to see the positives of a terribly played game though.

1. They played terrible team defense. They didn't rotate on the pick and roll. They didn't pressure the ball. It was horrible.

2. Where was the rebounding? When I saw that they had the same number of rebounds as the Lakers I couldn't believe it. It seemed as though Lamar Odom was getting every errand shot and the Cavs were standing around dumbfounded.

3. They did not drive to the hoop. They settled for jump shots all day. If you were 6'8" 250 lbs wouldn't you feel like you could attack the basket? Wouldn't you like to try? Maybe you get tired of doing that and like to think of yourself as a three-point specialist.

4. Their exceedingly poor performances in third quarters bit them in the butt in this game. More than half of the time they give up big runs in the 3rd and have no answer. I can't explain it but I certainly get tired of watching it.

Still, after all that, they only lost by ten. If they manage to turn a few of those things around, they win the game. What's the biggest key? Not taking tranquilizers at half time. Seriously. What the crap are they doing in there? Are they getting massages and falling asleep? Valium is for AFTER the game, not during. Remember that.

Lindsay is going away for the night tonight. She'll be back tomorrow night.

You know what that means!

Oh yeah, it's time to get wild and crazy.

Maybe I'll stay up until 11 tonight. More likely... I won't.

I used a valuable tool tonight called leverage. I was helping out neighbors to get huge icebergs out of their gutters. It took about 90 minutes, but the pry bar really was a good tool tonight. The blocks of ice were at least 6 inches thick, but they proved no match for physics.

Yay physics.

Why do the Cavs allow bad teams to stick around in games they should dominate? The Cavs went up 10-0 to start to the game against the Knicks tonight. That should've been the game right there. Instead, they let a poor team hang in there instead of stepping on their faces when they had the chance.

As such, they nearly lost. To the Knicks!

They claim that LeBron had a triple double tonight, but I don't remember him getting 10 rebounds. Last I checked he had 9. Maybe they gave him some phantom rebound or something. I guess it wouldn't surprise me.

I watched a lot of the Purdue - OSU game tonight. Here are a few takes from it.

Keaton Grant likes to take 45 footers and has the range to hit them.
Calasan looks useless in far too many games.
The team defense leaves something to be desired.
J.J. is quickly becoming a very potent offensive player.
Hummel doesn't seem like that's that huge impact player that they're missing, but apparently he is. He extends the defense when he's on offense and is a good rebounder on defense.

Purdue should've won the game, but clearly (at least in my opinion) did not deserve to win the game. When you have the ball in the last possession of a tie game you need a much better look than a wild shot while you're falling down (whether you got fouled or not.)

Tax and spend, tax and spend. In this case, borrow and spend, then borrow some more, and while you're borrowing, do some more spending, and then a lot of borrowing so that you can spend some more. Then when you realize that half of what you borrowed and spent went to outdated 80's unitards you just decide to borrow some more so that you can spend some more... on guess what? More 80's unitards*.

It's freaking ridiculous. When are they going to stop spending our money faster than they can borrow it? When are the sheeple going to wake up and realize that we're being bamboozled and our own wool is being pulled over our eyes?

WAKE UP! Tell YOUR government to STOP! This is all a huge over-reaction to a real problem. THINK for a minute about the best solution instead of just dumping all the funds you can find down a gigantic toilet labeled "change."

Change isn't always for the better you know. Sometimes it's so much worse than what you had that you wish you could just go back to eating Lucky Charms instead of being subjected to Fiber One cereal. Think about that for a minute and you'll realize that it makes sense in exactly the same sense that TARP makes sense. That is, it doesn't.

If Chewbacca lives on Endor, you must acquit!

*Note: in this example 1980's unitards represent money given to banks that has done nothing to help anyone.

There's a big game between the Cavs and the Magic tonight. I'm not sure if Z is playing tonight or not. He said that he wanted to come back tonight, and I saw him in warm-ups. If I were the team I probably would sit him one more night. He's been off nursing a broken ankle for a month and he probably needs more time to get his conditioning back to where it needs to be. Do you really want to have to go against Dwight Howard when you get winded easier than normal? I don't think so. We'll see what happens though.

Hopefully the Cavs can win, and I really think they will IF they decide they want to play defense this game.

I get to fix another computer tonight. Except with a big change this time! I'm actually getting some money to fix this one. Yippee!

I don't have to spend 4-6 hours of my free time fixing a crappy spyware virus laden computer just "for fun."

We're projected to get 11 more inches of snow tonight and into tomorrow afternoon. That will go nice with the remainder of the 18 inches that never melted. Should be a nice and easy commute tomorrow, and most likely Lindsay will have a day off of school.

Bleh. Yeah, yeah, I don't want to hear it. I could've been a teacher too... I don't have the patience to deal with 20 little germ bags running around all day.

We bought all of our supplies for the Super Bowl this weekend. There will be 19 people here (including us.)

My goal this year is to make hamburgers that are so large that they cannot be eaten by just one person. If that means I need to amp them up from last years then so be it. I think the record last year was one hamburger and two hot dogs, by me. It's unlikely that it will be broken this year if I have anything to say about it.

We fully represent with the 1/2 lb all beef kosher hot dogs and the 1/2 lb + hamburgers (post-cooked weight.) Why? Because we can. The burgers end up looking more like giant meatballs than anything else, but that's okay.

LET BANKS FAIL!

We're not freaking socialists (well, we claim not to be anyway.)

Let the broken banks fail and let the good banks prosper.

Make it a requirement that all of the banks write off all of their bad debt immediately. Get it all off of the balance books and let every single freaking bank lose $75 Billion this quarter. Then we're done. All the bad stuff disappears. Then and only then give the surviving banks money to recapitalize. Bing. Done. All remaining banks are on stable footing and are lending again. Problem solved.

Too bad that no one in Washington has the balls to actually fix the problem. They think (like they always do) that throwing money down the tubes is the best answer. Well guess what jackholes? That's my money you're wasting and it's really pissing me off!

Our stock is up about $6 in the past few days, while everything else is in the tank. What does that mean for the future? We'll probably be down $400 while everything else skyrockets...

I got my arcade cabinet working. The hard drive had crashed about 3 months ago and I never bothered to fix it. Now it's fixed though. Just in time for our Super Bowl party too.

Now we can play those crazy Japanese games that no one has ever heard of again.

In the NFL, why does there exist any play that is not reviewable? Every freaking play that happens in a game should be reviewable.

Delonte West broke his wrist tonight. Z broke his foot earlier. Why does it seem like a dream season is unravelling?

This sucks!

Scary times at work right now. We're supposed to have layoffs tomorrow. We make airplane engine parts, and as the economy has tanked, so has air travel. Less travel means less changing of engine parts. Less changing of engine parts means less demand for our products. Less demand for our products mean less people required.

Rumors are rampant, but we'll see what happens tomorrow.

It's 2 outside right now. Earlier I froze my face off as I used our new monster snow blower to clear the remainder of our 14 inches of snow off the driveway. I made sure to get it done earlier when it was still a balmy 13. The snow blower has it's own drive with 7 gears (2 reverse and 5 forward) and is just really awesome. Yes, I said it. A snow blower is awesome. It has 13 inch studded tires and looks like a monster truck compared to our old Honda snow blower.

The Cavs and Celtics face off tonight in the battle of the top two teams in the East. It's a shame that Z won't be able to play. If the Cavs had Z I'd favor them by 6 points. As it is now, it's too close to call. The Celtics have been playing like crap lately (losing 4 of the last 5), but the Cavs haven't played as well as they should be either (and no, a blowout win over Charlotte doesn't really count.)

It'll be all about taking good shots and limiting your turnovers tonight.

I can't wait to see it.

I watched about 20 minutes of the national championship tonight and if Oklahoma loses it better be labeled as a choke job. Twice they were inside the 10 yard line in the first half and twice they failed to score.

That said, I have almost no interest in the game whatsoever. Neither team is all that interesting to me. Good teams, yes, but not really dominant if you ask me.

On the plus side, no matter who wins, the only undefeated team won't be national champs, so it's another nail in the BCS coffin (hopefully.)

The Cavs didn't need Z tonight, but they certainly needed some different uniforms. They played in alternate retro throwbacks tonight. They weren't even real throwbacks. They were alternates that they never ever wore before. That seems stupid to me. If you're going to go retro, then at least wear something that actually existed. Instead they chose to wear retro 80's Golden State jerseys. And for those keeping track at home, that's the FIFTH different jersey they've worn this year. That's ridiculous. I believe they still have one different jersey planned too.

The Cavs are struggling right now without Crazy Uncle Zydrunas in the lineup. He really helps spread the court on offense and he holds down the middle on defense. I'm not sure what that says about the quality of your team when you really depend on a slow lumbering white guy, but the Cavs definitely do.

I'm sick. Shocking, I know. I was sick, I got better for one day, and then got sick again.

I guess I have to look on the bright side of things though. Eventually I will be immune to EVERYTHING! Maybe I can get in to the Guinness Book of World Records as the man with the most diseases or something.

On a side note, we finally got our home theater set up on our new TV stand. Perhaps I'll take a picture of it if I stop being so lazy (i.e. sick.)

We're heading out of town tonight for a little "family time" if you know what I mean. Wink, wink, nudge, nudge. But really, I actually just mean family time. Most of the fam is getting together tonight at my aunt and uncles house about 2 hours away. It's a tradition to head down there after Christmas and play some games, eat too much dinner and then eat too much breakfast.

It will be fun, but I'm really looking forward to next weekend. We've scheduled (yes, sadly it has come to that) relaxing time. That means we're not going anywhere for a whole weekend. It will be great.

It's been a long time since I've posted ANYTHING here, and an even longer time since there was anything interesting...

The holidays are over and a very hectic December is in the rear view. That has finally enabled us to start catching up with stuff. Simple stuff like cleaning the house for example.

Since I last wrote, the Cavs have been awesome, we've had some car repairs, we went on two trips, the Cavs have been sub-par, we saw Trans-Siberian Orchestra in concert, I went to a Cavs game, the Browns fired everyone, the Yankees bought everyone, and heck, a whole year has passed. Okay, lame joke.

I got some very cool stuff as Christmas gifts. Most notably an iPod Touch. It's terrific. It's my newest favorite gadget. I need to figure out how to turn it into a universal remote for my home theater setup. It should be possible, but I'm not positive.

Today we made our very first homemade deep dish pizza. It was pretty good, especially for a first try. A bit too spicy though, so we'll have to work on that.