Category Archives: Journal

Default – Self reflection etc.

Diving in to P90X

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The Backstory…
As an attempt at motivation, my wife wagered that if I could lose half of the amount of weight that she gains during pregnancy; then I can pick out and purchase a television of my choosing. So, that started me down the path of getting unbelievably motivated to lose some weight, and eat healthier…

I started a basic calorie cut in February. I ate grain cereals, more fruits/veggies, and overall just cut down on portions. I stopped drinking soda comletely, I started drinking water, and I went from 254.2 pounds down to 242.2 in roughly 1 month. But, my completely sedentary lifestyle seemed to only want to let go of 12 pounds of it’s “backup” – so it was time to find some exercise to keep this going.

The problem with that is: I hate exercise. Plain and simple. I hate running, walking, biking, jogging, etc etc etc etc. Really it boils down to the fact that I enjoy physically moving as little as possible.

With my stubborn and compulsive nature, the P90X program did seem like a perfect fit. I have a coworker who shed 40 pounds with the program, and one of my cousins has seen results very early on as well. I read some reviews and researched online a pretty fair amount; and it all seemed to only confirm that P90X really does work… There’s no BS to it, it’s just freaking hard core working out to get results. And the thing is, I could actually see myself pushing through a hard 90 days to get those fast results. In fact, I’d much rather do that than to go running 3 times a week. I literally hate running so much that I’d rather do 6 hours plus of working out than to go running one time.

The Beginning…
A good friend loaned me their copy of P90X so I could try it out. It gives you a full diet plan, a lot of information, and a set of DVDs containing the workouts. I used the information to do a little prep-work, create a spreadsheet to track my progress, plan my eating habits, and get some groceries.

With the pre-flight check taken care of, I started P90X on 3/14/2010.

I am so out of shape it is really pretty sad. During my first workout, my body responded with creaking, popping, and snapping sounds as I used muscles that rarely even think about flexing. I had to make sure to start slow, pace myself, and ease into P90X because it really is an intense workout. It’s designed to take already fit people that last mile and really change their bodies. So, I have to modify the techniques on many exercises (girl pushups, lower weights, fewer reps) in order to even do them. But, I am doing them…

I honestly haven’t done any exercise like this in probably 10 years. I went through phases of biking, treadmilling, and even trying jump rope – but those were all short lived phases that did little more than elevate my heart rate temporarily and make me angry.

Now 3 days into P90X, my entire body is stiff and sore – so I’m positive that it’s working. I’ve made it into a routine to start my day waking up at 5 am, pound out the P90X workout (1-1.5 hours), and then eat an egg-white omelet with fruit and whole grain toast for breakfast. Oddly enough it has been a very simple routine for me to adopt.

The Story Thus Far
As I’m sure my good friend will want their own set back, I’m definitely going to order my own set of P90X and make sure to stick to this program. With the amount of work it is, I just can’t imagine it not making significant change to my person very quickly.

Even being only 3 days in, I can feel the changes. I can tell my metabolism is jump started working out in the morning, so I use that and capitalize on it by eating better. I also haven’t drank any coffee since starting because I feel more energetic throughout the day. My weight hasn’t gone down at all yet; but it has stayed exactly the same vs a daily up/down fluctuation that I was dealing with. I think that is a good sign that I’m eating steadily vs the feast or famine mentality.

I fully expect that this first week is all about my body adjusting to this new and heavy workload…
I’m definitely keeping it up, tracking my progress, and looking forward to seeing some results.

BRING IT

24: Season 8

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[SPOILERS FROM VARIOUS SEASONS INCLUDING SEASON 8.   IF YOU’VE NOT SEEN EVERY EPISODE OF 24 THEN READ AT YOUR OWN RISK]

…   …

24 has been a staple of my adult life.

From watching season 1 on DVD in pretty much a single sitting, to various fights and “plant activites” with Vanlandw, the awe-inspiring fate of Nina Meyers, and Edgar’s famous “CHLOE?!… AAARHRH” scene – The list of memories goes on and on.

But, for as much amazing and compelling drama as this show has produced; it has produced at least the equal amount of complete BS and sheer annoyance.  This trend seems to be correlated with each new season that has been released; with the exception of perhaps season 5.  With seasons 1 and 2 being near perfection; I think it’s almost a shame what this show has now become.  So begins my hatred and critique of Season 8.

I somehow managed to watch all of season 7.  I SOMEHOW looked past zombie-Tony.  I somehow looked past the over-use of “Oh… Are you going to torture him Jack?”.  I somehow looked past the constantly changing good/bad/good/bad Tony.  And, finally, I would say I was able to look past the annoying women characters.  Read: President Taylor; Renae; Chloe; President Taylor’s bitch daughter.  Really, the show is physically incapable of producing a female character that I do not hate with fiery brimstone furiousness.

I was going to try to reserve judgment on this season to let it get at least half way through – but it’s just not possible.  The list of complete BS that I feel the need to call out has grown past the tipping point and the spillage shall begin.

  • Chloe:  Why this show continues to kill off interesting and relatable characters whilst keeping this permanent annoyance is just beyond me.  I guess it may help female viewers relate to the show, but she adds merely a layer of stupid woman for all the action and real drama to fight through.  I hate Chloe.  In fact, I hate Chloe so much that I have vetoed it as a possible baby name even though it is my wife’s favorite.
  • Dana Walsh:  Apparently the top counter terrorism agency in the country just fails year after year to do standard background checking procedures.  I’m so sick of the mole/badguy/general shady person plot line in 24.  Dana Walsh apparently has some sort of questionable past that she’s running from.  So, she’s apparently used her amazing level of intelligence to create a new identity and get a new job with CTU.  Her hair is always waved over one shoulder.  And, her face just really bothers me.  Her existence enrages me even further since she’s the fiancée of Cole “Freddy Prinze Jr.” Ortiz.
  • Cole “Freddy Prinze Jr.” Ortiz: He is played by Freddy Prinze Junior.
  • Renae Walker:  Imagine this line being spoken in a Swedish Chef type of voice; Cus that’s how I’m saying it.  “Ooooh I’m Renae Walker and I’ve had such a tough couple years that now I’m a female Jack Bauer.”  Poor Renae.  She had it rough and now she’s an outcast who gets by and gets things done via her renegade attitude.  24 Doesn’t need a female Jack Bauer.  She shouldn’t be on this show in this season.  OH…. MAN… THERE IS A RUSSIAN CRIME SYNDICATE INVOLVED AND APPARENTLY THIS FORMER FBI AGENT JUST HAPPENS TO BE THE BEST RUSSIAN UNDER-COVER OPERATIVE ON THE ENTIRE PLANET!>!>!!>!11..1.>.    bs.
  • CTU Itself:  Chloe.  Mole/badguy.  Blue-tool headsets.  “We have our suspect, this is the only possible scenario – even though strong evidence points otherwise”.  Dumb.
  • The Plot:  The assassination plot has been done before.  The nuclear threat has been done before.  Apparently now they are mixed into the same season.  Jack can’t say the work nuclear correctly.  I hate when people say nuke-u-lar.

So far I am really not impressed with 24, and I’m really doubting I’ll be able to watch it through the rest of this season 8.  CTU feels like a high-school in the valley.  Not a high tech counter-terrorism organization.  This is a pretty big fail.  I don’t like any of the new characters.  I don’t like the ones they’re choosing to bring back.  So far I don’t like the plot.  The only thing I’ve enjoyed this season thus far has been Jack’s kill by way of axe to the chest (Vanlandw where is bauercount seriously!).

In my opinion this show has long since run it’s course…  There have been quick glimpses of good television at points over a couple of the most recent seasons – but overall they have become fewer and farther between each other.  I’m growing tired of 24, and that is a very difficult thing to pen.

XboxLive Gamerscore

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This weekend has turned into a massive achievement fest for Vanbergs and myself.

I’m not exactly sure when it happened; but at some point within the last 6-8 months I have become completely OCD about my gamerscore and rep on Xbox Live. I don’t spend countless hours getting every achievement in every game that I own; but I spend plenty of extra time hunting down worthwhile achievements trying to boost up my score as much as possible.  I’ve desperately plunged into the multiplayer arenas of Halo 3 and Modern Warfare 2 in search of 5 star rep.  I’ve begged and pleaded my friends and foes to “prefer me”.  The list of XboxLive addiction shame just goes on.

I’m not enough of an achievement whore to use cheats/godmodes/glitching to blast an easy 1000 points out of my games.  I do maintain a certain level of purism – but, at the same time, I am definitely enough of an achievement whore to seek out and destroy games that give an easy 1000 g. Oddly enough I blame Vanlandw at least partially for starting this: Back on my birthday he purchased me “Avatar – The last Airbender” for my birthday (not to be confused in any way with James Cameron’s Avatar film); this is easily the simplest/easiest achievement booster game known to man. You literally get 1000 gamerscore in less than 2 minutes. (youtube vid)

Fast forward to this weekend. I notice on my XboxLive account that Vanbergs has magically come within just a few points of my 9,000 point gamerscore.   Somehow he magically discovered through a coworker that the entire slew of the “2k6” sports game franchise offer ridiculously easy achievements.   These NBA/NHL/NCAA/MLB 2k6 games I think must have been developed so early in the pre-launch days of the Xbox360 that they just didn’t quite understand how the achievement system was supposed to work.  Instead of having 40-50 achievements that add up to the 1,000 points, they offer FIVE… this results in each achievement being worth hundreds of points compared to 5, 10, 20 points in “normal” Xbox games.

The achievements are for things like:

    • Score 50 points with a player
    • Make 15 three pointers with any team
    • Get 6 blocks with any player
    • Score a goal with a defenseman

    Vanbergs and I teamed up each scouring various Game Stop locations for these used games and were able to come up with a pretty darn complete collection of easy 1,000 point games.  In addition to the 2k6 series, we got Fight Night round 3, Madden 2006, NBA Live 2006, Prey, and King Kong.

    So far I’ve done done the 2k6 sports games only, and am working my way up to the others.  The games are just ridiculously easy.  Playing allstar teams against the worst teams in the league results in an easy 1,000 points in a single exhibition game.  Sliders can be adjusted to basically make the opponent team play like 4th grade girls; even if the difficulty is set to super star level.  Playing Duke vs. Princeton in NCAA 2k6, I seriously won 238 – 0.  The Princeton team did not score one basket.

    Now – there are a couple achievements in here that I did have to work fairly hard at.  It’s no small feat to get 20 rebounds with a single player, especially when the team doesnt hardly shoot the ball.  Or, to get 6 blocks with a single player.  Or, to score a goal while you have 2 players in a penalty box.  But I was able to find tactics that covered each achievement and do it in one single game.  I would just shoot half-courters to get my own rebounds, intentionally hack/slash the other team to get penalty box time, and jump around like a mad man at hopes of blocking shots.  etc etc etc.

    I must admit that I do feel a little bit cheap after this weekend’s activities thus far – but I take solace in the fact that I am not cheating whatsoever.  I haven’t entered cheat codes.  I haven’t entered any god mode codes.  I haven’t glitched any games, even though there are published glitches on a few games I own that COULD result in easy 1,000 points.

    I’m simply reasearching and finding games that have easy, high yield achievements – and I’m playing them legitimately.  In fact, it was a pretty frickin’ impressive amount of work to find and procure all of these games!  It was pretty satisfying though.  I paid $2-$5 per game getting them used.

    Could I make more of a sport out of this by playing the games at my actual skill level and not making it painfully easy?  Sure.  Does it take some of the pride and prestige away from blasting past 10,000 points for my gamerscore?  Yes it does, to be quite honest.  Would I do it exactly this same way if I had it to do over again?

    Absolutely.

    Grand Theft Auto 4 – The Half Million Achievement

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    When I had first played through Grand Theft Auto 4, I did not take any steps to save my money.  I spent freely on clothes, food, weapons, and ammo…

    This REALLY ended up frustrating me because as I defeated the game, I came very far from having enough money to satisfy the “Half Million” achievement.  To get this 55g achievement, the player needs to gain a balance of 500,000 dollars in the game.  And, if you can’t do it with the end-game bonus then your options become very limited.  Many users have guides on youtube for getting it by using cheats; mainly by spawning expensive cars and selling them.  But, that’s very time consuming and many purists don’t like to use cheats to get something like that.

    I had given in and decided that this achievement was not possible short of a complete re-play of the game from scratch.  That was not going to happen.  Mentally I tried to forget this achievement existed but very unsuccessfully.

    Enter GTA4: The Ballad of Gay Tony.

    I was very surprised and extremely overjoyed to find out that the Ballad of Gay Tony expansion still allowed you to unlock achievements for the original GTA4 release.  When I found out, I went on an achievement unlocking spree of sorts:  Flew my helicopter under all the bridges, went on all the helicopter tours, blew up 10 cars in 10 seconds, survived 6 star wanted level for 5 minutes, took a long taxi ride without skipping, etc etc etc.

    Then I had what I considered to be a very smart idea:  I thought of a way to very simply get the Half million achievement.  TBoGT has a cage-fighting minigame where you can fight against people or bet on fights for money.  This location is painfully close to your safe house/save point.  I figured there would be some sort of maximum for the amount you could place on a bet in this fight minigame – but there is no limit!

    Being an expansion, TBoGT left me with somewhere around 40,000 dollars total.  Quite a ways from the half-mil mark.  But, I went to work on a fool proof venture.  I saved my game immediately before visiting the cage fight arena and betting all of my money on one fight.  The first fight I did choose correctly; so I had a cool 80k.  I take the one block drive to re-save my game and then proceed to do the exact same thing and bet every penny I have on one fight.  This 2nd fight I chose wrong 3 different times 🙁   But, through the magic of saved games I very quickly had 160,000 dollars.

    I think you get the idea.  I repeated the above steps until I got bored; which left me just under 2 million dollars…  And, along the way I got the famed “Ka-bloop” sound and the 55g achievement “Half million”.

    I’ve totally been on self fulfilling achievement quests as a whole lately trying to get my numbers up somewhere near Vanlandw’s 10k gamerscore.  I don’t know that I’m catching him to any degree as he has progressed at an astounding rate; but my Gamerscore has surprassed 6,000 as of last night.  That is pretty impressive in my opinion – considering my Gamerscore was 1,000 back in June of this year.

    Overall, I’ve really gotten my money’s worth out of my 360 this year.  The turning point was when I decided to move it upstairs vs being down in our Basement.  I simply just did not go downstairs ever and barely ever played my 360.  A very sad story.  But I’m making up for it now and trying to cram as much video games into my soul as humanly possible before April of 2010 comes around.  🙂

    Hooray for daytime video game posts.

    I’m Quitting Fantasy Football

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    Fantasy football is a game.  It should be a fun way to get into football and a good way for friends to generally share some laughs together.

    This is far from what it is.

    It has become a complete and whole disdain of my existence.  It causes me literally enough frustration to throw and break objects in my home.  Don’t get me wrong here – I’m generally a very easy going person and don’t very often let my temper get the better of me.  But, for some reason, Fantasy football has the power to turn my Sundays into 12 hour marathons of pure, unbridled, non-filterd, blinding sheer brutality.

    I cannot even BEGIN to explain how pissed off I am.

    This “game” shouldn’t matter to me this much.  I shouldn’t give a shit less whether I win or lose or by how much.  But sitting here tonight I am absolutely in-fucking-furiated.

    Here’s why:  I AM GETTING COMPLETELY SCREWED in Fantasy football.

    So many readers might be saying “stop whining” or “suck it up” or something along those lines – but before you pass judgment on my attitude and sour mood, please allow me to explain my frustrations.

    Currently, I am in a matchup with “Vanlandw” – and I must say that I mean no ill will or offense toward his person – but his Fantasy football team was 0 – 4 before playing me.  In those 4 losses, his team scored an average of 90 fantasy points per game.  This is important so I’m going to re-iterate:  His average points per game this year in Fantasy football is ninety (90) points.  He even said to me about our matchup “well it’s an easy win for you”.  One more time:  Vanlandw’s team is WINLESS and averaging NINETY points per game.

    Vanlandw has fully admitted multiple times that he has an awful fantasy team.  Guys that were expected to be awesome for him have been rancid – this is no fault of his own and it’s very unfortunate that he has a bad fantasy football team (LEEEENNNNNNDAAAAAAALLLLLLEEEEE).  I share honor and pride with Vanlandw and am glad that we are gladiating against each other.  However, I should be destroying him in our contest this week.   In my first 4 games, my team is averaging 113.75 points per game.  You will note that this is 23.75 points higher than Vanlandw’s team average points per game.

    Our current score, with each having one more player remaining, is currently 108 – 121.  Vanlandw is destroying me.

    I’m fine losing to Vanlandw – losing to a fellow Van is the least of my frustrations.  I congratulate him on actually getting a victory this fantasy season.  But, for me, this is a trend that has been the case since last season and it has come to the boiling point where I have submitted to my frustrations.

    I have a very competitive fantasy team.  I feel that I drafted very well amongst a sea of auto-picking teams.   My team has scored 563 fantasy points so far this season including my score tonight.  This amount of points is bested by only the #1 and #2 teams in our league who have 598 and and 584 points respectively.  With similar point values; you might think that I’d be somewhere around the top three.  WOULDN’T THAT BE SOMETHING.  But, Vanbergs is currently in 3rd place.   My team has more points than his.   My team is currently in 8th place out of 10 teams.  Let that settle in a bit – 8th place out of 10.  Rancid rancid hideous awful place.

    This is similar to last year, where my fantasy team actually led the regular season in points but I ended up finishing in 8th place and barely making the “consolation” playoff round.

    So, the trend has continued where I have put up enough points every week to beat nearly every other person in our league; but the person I happen to be playing puts up season-high numbers to beat me.  My team’s points-against is 598.  This means my opponents in 5 weeks have scored an average of 119.6 points per game against me.  Compare that to the REST OF THE LEAGUE PLAYING ANYBODY ELSE and the average points per game are:  103.7.   So, any team playing anybody in our league will score an average of 16 points less than the person playing me.  Which, holds true this week looking at my contest with Vanlandw.

    This has resulted in my team having an abysmal 1-4 record even though I have 100 more points than teams in that same ballpark (7th, 9th places, etc).  I’m really the only big outlier in our league.  Most other teams’ point totals are corresponding to the place that they are in and the number of wins/losses that they have.  I don’t feel mine is at all in line.  I’m not sure why this keeps happening – but I’ve had enough of the bullshit.  There’s no other way to put it except that I’m getting screwed.

    I’m done playing fantasy football.

    • Week 1:  Payner’s Eagle defense scores over 40 fantasy points which is simply unheard of by a defense.  I lose 112 – 133 in what I am very confident in calling a “bad beat”.
    • Week 2:  I ACTUALLY WIN.  142 – 101.  But, only because Devin Brown failed to start the 2 highest scorers on his team.  If he had done that, I would have lost – so I’m very surprised that did not occur.
    • Week 3:  Skinny’s entire team puts up double digit numbers across the board just crushing me.  114 – 139.  He was projected to have 111 points and I was projected to have 114.  yeah.
    • Week 4:  My three WRs combine for 13 points TOTAL in a loss to Flo that I did actually deserve.  87 – 104.
    • Week 5:  Vanlandw is killing me.  His 0 – 4 team is led by Roddy White who of course puts up career high, franchise high 200+ yards receiving with god knows how many touchdowns.  Roddy just swings out 32 Fantasy points by himself.   Odd – since Roddy White in the previous 4 games total had 119 receiving yards and 1 TD.  A perfect display of what happens when fantasy owners are playing against me.

    I sit with a 1 – 4 record with almost no chance of doing well this season even though my team puts up consistently high numbers.  Other team’s players continue to put up career high and just absolute record breaking numbers seemingly only when they are playing against my team.  I’m sick of it.  I want my Sundays back.  It’s BS.  It pisses me off.  And, I’m done.

    *****EDIT****
    Just to follow up to this, I’m going to post last season’s final standings.

    1. T.J Whosyourmama  9-5-0     .643     1463
    2. Bun                         9-5-0     .643     1321
    3. Free Kwame             8-6-0     .571     1354
    4. vanlandw                 9-5-0     .643     1452
    5. The Secret Muslims   7-7-0     .500     1291
    6. Jon Kitna’s Bible       7-7-0     .500     1315
    7. The Dark Knights    6-8-0    .429    1464
    8. $5 Footlongs             7-7-0    .500     1235
    9. That’s what she said   5-9-0     .357    1269
    10. The Ninnies             3-11-0   .214    1289

    You will notice the drastic similarity in 2008’s season numbers compared to this season.  my 1464 points is THE HIGHEST of all other teams in the league.  Note that the first place team has 1463 compared to my 1464 points.  Those point totals should put me somewhere at least near the top 3 teams in the league with an overwhelmingly positive record.  But, as you can see, I finished with a .429 winning percentage and a final record of 6 wins, 8 losses.

    I simply cannot let this go and am overwhelmingly infuriated further as I review these statistics.

    The Best Buy $9.99 TV Saga

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    Today has been inexplicably one of the strangest most random days of all time.

    I can think of nothing else to do than to simply run down the course of events in a detailed ordered list fashion as seen below:

    1. I receive a phone call at approximately 5:20 AM, which wakes me up with a “something must be wrong” type of feeling. Not the most pleasant start to my day, but it was my brother Vanbergs on the other end of the call. His tone quickly displaced my worry; he had a sort of giddy excitement about him as he explained to me the deal of a lifetime. Vanbergs continued on, explaining that Best Buy had a ridiculous pricing error on their website for a Samsung-52″ Class / 1080p / 120Hz / LCD for $9.99. Yeah… 10 Dollars. Being half asleep, I stumble around trying to find my wallet and I quickly order one of these televisions at the wildly discounted rate. I then wake up my wife and ask her to verify that I am A:awake and B:not hallucinating. She concurs, and I proceed to order a 2nd television at the same rate for good measure. Happiness ensues as I french press my morning coffee.
    2. Roughly 2 hours later as I’m just getting settled in at work for the day, I check Best Buy’s website and notice my orders have straight up disappeared from the web based order management page. Chatting via IM with my brother, he has seen the same thing and we fear our orders have been quickly deleted and canceled. I researched online a bit to find Best Buy’s heart wrenching and soul crushing terms of service. They had specifically planned for some such error to occur on some day, and their terms of service technically reserved them the right to cancel and refund any order that fell under a pricing error category. With a nearly 2,000 dollar mis-mark; I was pretty damned sure this order was not going through. Therefore, I post the following tweet via Digsby: Looks like Bestbuy already cancelled my order for TWO 52” televisions at 9.99 each. #bestbuy dang you!!!! – And I begin to think I have no chance.
    3. Shortly after that “Tweet” – I receive an email that I was POSITIVE had to be fake… See below:

      Hi Eric,

      I saw you on twitter complaining about the 52 inch HDTV Bestbuy.com offer. I work for CNN and wondered if I could talk to you about what happened? Did your order actually go through and then get cancelled? If so, you got closer than thousands of other people

      I’m at 202.XXX.XXXX if you want to chat.

      Thanks for your help,

      abbi

      —
      Abbi Tatton

      At first I had no idea who this person was. So, I Googled her name to find that she’s a reporter for CNN’s “The Situation Room” program… Then I start thinking about this – and I run it past my brother, Vanlandw, and my Wife to see if this is even remotely possible to be legit. A reporter for CNN happened to find me by searching through posts on Twitter? Seemed a little bit fishy to me; but the general consensus was that as long as I don’t reveal any personal information, what harm could it cause? In the end, I replied to Abbi’s email giving her a brief account of the events and then called her right after hitting send.

      Turns out this whole thing was real…  She was very nice and pleasant over the phone – she asked me how I found out about the deal, if I was able to actually make the order, and if I had actually received any notice officially from Best Buy, and other odds and ends. I gave my honest answers as she took notes, and I forwarded her my order confirmation emails that I had gotten from Best buy. It was a short interview and really I wasn’t thinking too much of it at the time.

      She ended up calling back, once to confirm where I was from and once again to verify my correct name spelling with the capital “B” in VanBergen. At this point, she wasn’t sure if it was going to make airtime or just be an online story.

    4. Chouse, myself, and the rest of our coworkers go eat a free lunch for our employee company picnic. I had a burger, a hotdog, and a lemonade.
    5. Abbi sends me a follow up email to let me know they did decide to do a short airtime segment on their program in the 4pm hour. Conveniently, I had an all-staff I.T. meeting right through this timeframe from 3-5pm. I quick contact my father on my cell phone (which, has a rapidly dying battery) and plead for him to DVR CNN for the 4pm hour – he obliges.
    6. My phone dies, and I have ZERO knowledge or contact with what’s happening with my TV orders or CNN. What a long 2 hours.
    7. I return to the land of internet after our meeting to find an email from Best Buy saying that my order(s) are a mistake and will be canceled shortly. I had figured this would happen, but for some reason I was still holding on to a small shred of hope that my order would slip through the cracks. Finally being faced with the latter was surprisingly disappointing, considering deep down I KNEW it was going to end that way
    8. I get home, call my father, and find out that CNN did air the story about Best Buy’s TV fiasco and they DID actually mention my name and the points my phone interview. Mickeyvb is kind enough to play the segment for me over speakerphone and we share a laugh as father and son.
    9. Now I feel that I must see this video. A desperate search ensued between myself, Vanlandw, and finally Chouse who had also DVRed CNN during that time frame. Chouse saved the day, using his blackberry to record the segment on TV and email it to me. I immediately posted it on youtube, shared it on Google Reader, and also posted it on Facebook.HERE IS THE VID!!!
    10. At this point, it really starts to hit me how strange the day had been. And all I can really do is laugh at the situation. I also found out later that my Wife’s uncle had seen the show live on CNN, and called her to ask “Hey, can your husband get me a TV ??”. What a strange day. I decide to watch “12 rounds” to cap the day off. 3 stars out of 5 just cus it has Tevon in it from the Shield.

    In conclusion, I feel like this day has been utterly crazy. Even re-counting these events now I almost feel like I’m watching a Donnie Darko sequel. My thanks to everyone who helped me out today. Vanbergs for the tip, Chouse for the DVR and vid, Mickeyvb for being my father, Vanlandw for your support and vanhood, and to TWITTER since that is pretty much what started this crazy chain of events.

    Wierd.

    One final note – Abbi sent me a last email commenting on the “wolf man”… 🙂

    thanks for all your help! did you hear Wolf ask “what about Eric?!”

    see, the Wolfman cares

    🙂

    —
    Abbi Tatton