Happy New Year! Girl Talk Concert was amazing last night. Great time with some great Chicago/Michigan friends while "fighting the beats" a la The Jersey Shore. All in all well worth the trip, so lets bring on 2010 and everything great that comes with it!
My mom makes this for me every Christmas. It is the best dessert ever. I have had it every year ever since I can remember and it's one of the things I look forward to every year at Christmas time. As an added bonus, I can make one for you if I like you enough.
Merry Christmas to all my friends at home and abroad, hopefully 2009 hasn't been too much of a hassle for all of you. Just be thankful you don't have a cousin Eddie emptying his shitter into your neigborhood storm sewer this holiday season.
This was my lunch at Slows and if it wasn't the most amazing thing I have eaten this year I don't know what is. The sandwich I consumed is simply called The Yardbird "Pulled smoked Amish chicken breast drenched in mustard sauce, tossed with sauteed mushrooms and cheddar and topped with applewood bacon." Add some amazing Mac and Cheese on the side and this made for one delicious pre Christmas lunch with some of my coworkers from ZAAZ and Team Detroit. If you live in Michigan or in the Greater Detroit area a trip to Slows should definitely be on the top of your list!
I woke up this morning and happened to catch the movie "War Games" and realized two things. First I must move to Seattle in order to hack into the WOPR to play these war games, second there is no way that hot girl would ever like a nerd like Matthew Broderick, third it's crazy how far technology has come since the dial up Modem, and finally we can't always let data and machines make our decisions for us
I remember watching this movie as a much younger man without any sort of real context of the powers of technology I just knew it was cool that he hacked into the governments crazy large computer. Watching that movie this morning made me realize that this movie was about the resistance of the old guard in implementing new technologies, countered by the arrogance of techies with a misplaced trust in everything machine at the expense of human judgement.
Having grown up in more of a tech heavy enviornment with computers, nintendos and email, it's easy to forget that there is more to making decisions and solving problems than what machines and data may tell us. Many times it's important to listen to the voice of a human along with a pile of data, as the human persepctive may give us a different insight than a large aggregated set of data.
Listening can often offer us the correct persepctive, rather than just a dry data driven one. It worked to avert World War 3 in war games, and got Mathew Broderick the girl..so the same could probably be true in web analytics and web marketing as well. There is always more to the story than just the data. It's important to test, listen, test again, and openly discuss issues and decisions, never relying just on the "WOPR" to drive decision making.
I am yet to brave this bad boy from the mall food court, but by all means it's something that should be eaten in the very near future, and such an artery clogging deal at $5 dollars. This may be the real reason the terrorists hate us..
Having been a Michigan State fan for quite some time it's failry easy to get upset at the consistent failures of the Football team. Performing much better than expectations for the past two seasons had given many a Spartan fan hope that this year the tide was finally about to turn for football in the state of Michigan. With the program down in Ann Arbor heading injto tailspin, this would be the year State would rise back to the prominence once held in the 50's and 60's and reclaim football glory. Sadly this all came crashing down with a defeat to Central Michigan early in the season, ushering in with it the memories of the previous 19 seasons.
When looking back at the previous 19 season MSU has enjoyed only a fleeting success having sustained only two seasons in which the football team posted consecutive +.500 records, those took place in the previous two seasons. More often than not MSU has been a six win football team. In only 7 of the previous 19 seasons has MSU won more than 6 games, and those seasons usually tilted heavily towards upper classmen filled rosters.
<--- Click here to see 20 years of mediocrity
Given the slight setback this year and a roster full of younger offensive players, the team should rebound and return to where they were in the 2007 and 2008 seasons as a 7 or 8 win team, given the relative weakness of the Big Ten Conference, should we as fans expect more than that? Probably not. What is the big take away here then? MSU Football is average so don't let them ruin your weekend like they have so many of mine for the past 12 years.
Had the opportunity to spend a lovely afternoon watching the Lions blow yet another winnable game in lovely Qwest Field out in Seattle a week ago. Far as football atmospheres go, this place had it all. It was loud. Not hey that music is kind of loud would you turn it down, it was hey pass the ear plugs and cotton balls or my ear drums will be permanently damaged kind of loud. Needless to say i was very impressed. With the Lions taking an early 17-0 the place got quiet in a hurry.
Being a Lions fans for my entire existence and having lived thru the past 8 years of ineptitude I was not expecting this to last. Sure enough by the end of the first half Seattle had taken the lead from Detroit and all was well in Seahawks land...and then came all of the colorful language. Having been to Chicago for several sporting events and endured my share of Michigan Wolverine fans over the years colorful language is something you come to expect at these types of events. I was not prepared however for every drunken yahoo sitting within a ten seat radius of me to unload every conceivable remark they could come up with.
I am sure this made the game much more entertaining from their standpoint as the Seahawks pulled away, it only caused to me to want to drink more and want to fight them. As it is i am not how you say big or for that matter strong, so rather than ratchet up this war of words to fists and beer throwing, I simply reminded the oafish fellow sitting down in front of me that Seattle has never won much and been a city of consistent sports failures (Sonics, Pilots, anything else that isnt soccer) at that point he yelled another colorful jab and wasn't heard from for the rest of the game.
So whats the big takeaway here? None really. The Lions lost but i had a great time with some great co-workers from ZAAZ and enjoyed being heckeld and berated by the best Seattle had to offer. Will I return? Absolutely! The atmosphere was fantastic and Qwest is a great place to catch a game. Will I wear the opposing teams jersey the next time out? Probably not, you can only be called d***head so many times before it makes the watching of the game unenjoyable.
;)
