Monday, August 01, 2005

Short and Random

Blogging will be briefer than usual this week until the dreaded fall schedule (a.k.a. the Dread Sked) is a little farther along in the process. At the moment, the time period from 10:00-11:00 a.m. has approximately twenty students in it, so there's still a bit of work to do (seeing as how I underestimated yesterday; I would have to add five more weekdays to the school week to give everyone an in-class slot, not the single day I stated yesterday).

At any rate, a few small items:
  • Dave Barry's Blog has a new URL, which I will also change on the sidebar link as soon as I can. The fonts are different, and there are a few ads here and there, but otherwise, it's still the same great daily dose of America's favorite living humor writer that we've been used to for so many years.

  • I've raved in these pages about the imminent opening of Firewheel Town Center in two months and six days (no, I'm not counting at all!), but I did find out one little setback today, courtesy of the new issue of the Garland City Press: the AMC theatre won't be ready by grand opening weekend; we have to wait until December for that. D'oh!

  • And I'm sorry, but there's no way I believe that Raffy did steroids. This has to be one of those "false positives" that you hear about sometimes.
More tomorrow. Kev out.

19 comments:

Kev said...

Gary, that's hilarious...

Anonymous said...

Gary.. again, you win at life.
That's the funniest thing I've heard in a while. Keep up the good work! :P

Kev said...

Jay Leno had a good one last night: "If Palmeiro's on Viagra and steroids, he doesn't even need a bat anymore." ;-)

Anonymous said...

Allan Maki of theglobeandmail.com writes,

"He [Palmeiro] takes part in an anti-drug discussion involving all four major sports leagues -- and he'll take a non-prescription supplement without knowing what's in it? What's that make Palmeiro? The most trusting athlete in spikes or the dumbest?"

i'd have to say i agree with the above statement. How do you stay in the game so many years and suddenly get caught for using steroids. Twins pitcher Juan Rincon got busted earlier this season, he's barely larger than I am, and he's a pitcher, in the american league. what Rincon's motive for intentionally taking steroids was beats me.

Palmeiro, on the other hand, is obviously a phenomenal offensive player. the motive of using steroids to keep hitting power is a little more plausable for him.

this however doesn't mean that either of them "intentionally" took steroids. there have been stories of trainers giving players supplements with banned substances, which still doesn't excuse the player for not knowing what they're putting in their body.

also, the testing process is not a one step process. if something is found in an EMIT (urine) test, the sample needs to be further analyzed using gas-chromatography/mass-spectrometry (GC/MS), which is what specialists use to find illegal drugs, identify chemicals in fire and arson cases, find airborne pollutants and it is used widely in Airport Security to identify harmful materials in luggage.

in short, Palmeiro is either A.)a liar for saying he didn't juice when he did, B.)stupid for not regulating/being ignorant of what he put in his body, or C.)a false positive. i don't know if I can buy C.

Anonymous said...

yeah i actually had a discussion about that with a friend right after i posted my comment, so i concede that point.

Eric Grubbs said...

When I heard a couple of friends of mine (who have young kids) refer to 'Raffy' on Monday, I thought they were referring to the folk singer that sings children's songs.

Kev said...

That's hilarious, Eric. Didja ever see the Simpsons' "Roofi" episode where they spoofed him?

Eric Grubbs said...

That's hilarious, Eric. Didja ever see the Simpsons' "Roofi" episode where they spoofed him?

Yes and I thought of it too. Maggie was a big fan . . .

Anonymous said...

Wow.. just.. wow.. I hope this thread keeps chugging along for a while. I'm enjoying this. Poor Kev.. did it finally hit you that Raffi really did it (I'm very disappointed about it. I was trying to think positive too.)? Have a kleenex from my box of "Modano isn't coming back to Dallas" tissues.

Kev said...

Wow, the thread that won't die! ;-)

Gary, J-Guar: did you know that you guys are fellow trumpeters?

G: Put away the Kleenex; Modano signed tonight!

Anonymous said...

WHOOAA HE CHANGED HIS MIND!!!
*does a happy dance*

Anonymous said...

Boy - they need to list dates of comments for threads this long.

I just wanted to bring my stars fan self in to say - yea Mo!!

(and we kept Zubby to booot!)

Also, I think it is about time that we all start coming to terms with the fact that probably 50% or more of MLB players were taking steroids in the 90's if they knew it or not. Technological advances can sometimes be a “b” when true knowledge catches up.

PS Hey look - I figured out that I do not have to be anonymous anymore! :-P

Anonymous said...

Boy - they need to list dates of comments for threads this long.
I'm pretty sure there is a Blogger code for that somewhere but I'm sure Kev's brain would explode trying to find/impliment it. ;P

Yeah, I think I'm more happy that Zubov is staying. I watched him play with the Pens, before I became a Stars fan.

*ahem* ... This is the thread that doesn't eeeeeend. It just goes on and on my friend!!! *ducks to avoid whatever Kev will throw at me on Tuesday*

Kev said...

I'll do some checking around and see if it's possible to have comments list dates or not. I just always assumed that it wasn't part of the code yet.

Wow, this is the 20th comment on this post...

Anonymous said...

OMGZZ 21st comment!!!11!!oneone!11!!!

There has GOT to be a date/time thing that you can squeeze in there someplace. Back in '01 when I used Blogger, and didn't feel like translating an entire publishing system from French to English, I had it set up to show date/time .. or at least the date.. of the comment.

Anonymous said...

Oh.. umm.. Kev.. you're gonna kick yourself. The comment date/time is so easy to fix. Ready?

Settings > Comments > Comment Timestamp Format

Lots of different combinations of date and time in the dropdown box. Choose wisely. ;)

(22nd!! *sings again* This is the thread that doesn't end....)

Anonymous said...

:D - 23 comments on an entry started with the title "Short and Random"

(also - I had to be number 23 - its my lucky number)

Kev said...

Thanks G, that worked perfectly. I'm curious, though, about the thing in '01 you were mentioning, because Blogger didn't have its own commenting system till May of '04 (unless they had it in a really early version). I used Haloscan up till then; I know you remember them, because you were the one that warned me of porn-spam...

Anonymous said...

Blogger didn't have its own commenting system till May of '04 (unless they had it in a really early version).

Riiight! My bad! It was something involving the Date/Time thing though, and it was a heck of a lot trickier back then than it is now.

I know you remember them, because you were the one that warned me of porn-spam...

AHAHAHA! Oh the memories of porn-spam. Those were the days.