Xmas Dinner was...

Turducken. Or, as the Fish Head's oldest daughter called it, Turdunken. While this may sound like a weird, cajun hillbilly food, its actually quite tasty except for the nasty sausage stuffing!

Annual Book

Once a year, never more nor less, the Fish Head reads a book. Today the Fish Head finished his 2008 selection, "A History of Scotland". And yes, if you saw Braveheart, William Wallace (and his compatriot, Andrew of Moray) merit a few pages during the description of the Wars of Independence.

Overall, this was an excellent book if somewhat dense and turgid. The ancient history of the Picts, the inter-twining of Scotland, Norway, Ireland, and England, all make for fascinating reading.

Why read a book about Scotland? Because scotch is made there!

Dead Soldier Reports

I haven't posted one for awhile, but pictures of the most recent "dead soldier" are a favorite of the Fish Head. In the spirit of equality, my buddy Mike "I have a crazy basement" Carp emailed me a copy of his most recent dead soldier.

Apparently the Carp liked the Balvenie as much as the Fish Head did.

Hello Mr. Bush

Dear Lame Duck President Mr. Bush,

It has come to our attention that it is an absolute certainty that WMDs can be found at the location below. This has been agreed to by the CIA, the NSA, the NIE, the intelligence agencies of all of the G7, and most importantly, Mickey Mouse and Boris Badinov; Condi has the powerpoint.

To help you with some simpleton strategy (we understand you excel at that variety), it is a hop skip and a jump from Whiteman to this location. Could you please vector in a couple B2's with appropriate payload to rid us of this menace?

X marks the spot

Signed,

The Citizens of Illinois

River walking

The Selection Committee met at Tracy's, drank some beer, and decided the Wildcats should go to the Alamo Bowl. Air tickets are bought, game tickets are ordered, and hotel rooms are reserved. All that remains is to get stinking drunk and make Mizzou fans look classy by comparison.

Go Cats!

BCS Bowl Selection Meeting

The BCS Bowl Selection Review Committee will be meeting here at 4PM CST today.

Football snob

I admit it, I am a college football snob. Pro sports? Screw those whiny rich guys. College soccer, golf, lacrosse, baseball? Boredom central.

However, I have come to the conclusion that my life can no longer consist of four months of joy, followed by 8 months of benighted, hidey-hole nothingness.

So I have resolved to follow (as best I can stomach it) another college sport, so I have been keeping at least one cloudy fish eye on basketball. And lo and behold, said cloudy eye watched a gem off the DVR Saturday, as Northwestern annihilated DePaul. The Fish Head felt bad seeing alma mater A cream alma mater B so badly, but then realized the beauty of the situation, as a pasting like that enables the Fish Head to endlessly taunt his DePaul alumni brothers.

Surprisingly, while reading the recap of the game, the Fish Head discovered that Northwestern's perennial patsy bball team is, well, maybe not a total patsy this year. In fact, the Cats roundball team is off to a great start and is highly ranked according to the RPI index.

Bad idea

History presents us with many examples of bad ideas. Sometimes ideas are simply stupid and poorly thought out, others are presented at the wrong time, and some ideas are so certain to enrage and offend the public trust that they are best buried in a deep dark vault and never, ever spoken of.

The latter category most certainly includes the moronic trial balloon floated by Dick Durbin, senior senator from Illinois. The esteemed Mr. Durbin has stated that he is considering asking lame duck President Bush to offer clemency to George Ryan, based on a heartfelt appeal from Ryan's wife.

You may remember George Ryan. Yes, the George Ryan whose corrupt administration of the Illinois Secretary of State office directly resulted in the deaths of six innocent children. Yes, the George Ryan who routinely steered state business to his cronies. Yes, the George Ryan who used his political campaign funds to illegally enrich himself and his family. Yes, the George Ryan who is a convicted felon, liar, and unrepentant criminal.

Don't even think it, Dick. We the people just elected Obama because we are sick of politicians who are stupid, corrupt, and ineffective. If you push to free Ryan, you will convince the public that you are all of those things too.

POTS - R.I.P. 2008

My first real full-time job was in 1978 at Illinois Bell (yes, Fish Head has out-lived the average alewife by a few years). At the time, IBT was one of the largest and best known corporations in Illinois, and made hundreds of millions of dollars each year selling POTS - Plain Old Telephone Service.

Flash forward to 2008. Illinois Bell is a distant memory, divorced from the Bell System, subsumed into Ameritech, which was subsumed into SBC, which subsumed AT&T. Get it, got it, its gone.

And how about POTS? It too is rapidly disappearing. Depending on whose numbers you believe, installed POTS lines are declining 5-10% per year. Why? In the recent past, its been wireless and broadband that have been cannibalizing the POTS business. Younger consumers, especially those who remain single longer, are comfortable relying on their cell phones and see no need for POTS; tech-savvy oldsters who like their stationary phones have been exploiting their broadband connections and using services like Vonage and Skype.

More recently, the economy has been the culprit in the decline. Empty houses require no POTS line, and families with financial pressures will ditch their POTS line before they ditch their mobile phones.

At a rate of decline of 10% per year, POTS service is likely to rapidly become un-economic, as it requires specialty equipment and infrastructure which will be hard to maintain in a rapid down draft, and consumers unwilling or unable to switch are likely to face difficulties as telecom companies react to the financial realities.

The Fish Head recently retired his trusty POTS line that served his home office. After many years of faithfully paying $18 per month to the local phone company, Fish Head has converted to a combination of cell and VOIP. For routine calls, Fish Head uses Skype, an ultra-low-cost VOIP provider which primarily runs on personal computers. Couple your PC with a bluetooth headset, and you have a high-tech if somewhat inconvenient phone system. For cell, Fish Head routes his cell calls thru a femtocell which in essence turns home cell calls into VOIP.

And so AT&T is out $18/month, the Polycom desk phone sits collecting dust on a shelf, and the Fish Head has made his little contribution to the decline of POTS.

Looking back

Its always interesting to watch the results achieved by teams that the Cats recently played. Buried in the back of today's Chicago Tribune was the game wrap-up of the first round FCS (1-AA) match between SIU and UNH.

The UNH Wildcats came to Evanston in 2006 and pummelled the Cats 34-17. Fans were shocked, but UNH has been a traditional powerhouse in 1-AA, and as the last couple of years have shown, a strong 1-AA team can knock off a 1-A team (google on Toledo and Appalachian State for more :-) ).

This year, the Cats played the SIU Salukis in Evanston, and the result was better, with the Cats the victor by a 33-7 margin.

Yesterday, UNH beat SIU 29-20 to advance to the second round of the FCS playoffs (Obama would love 1-AA). Good to see both our past victims, and our past conquerors, doing well.

Quote of The Day

"I liked Harvard, but it just didn't compare to Northwestern".

Bowling

The churn and speculation leading up to December 7 will be intense. Last night's epic battle between the Ducks and the Beavers (lol I am not making that up) should have a positive impact for the Cats as OSU gets another BCS game to embarrass itself at.

Watch for Cats fans to howl, and rightfully so, if Iowa jumps us as predicted.

Cornucopia

Saturday was a cornucopia of fandom, a veritable turducken of sports feasting.

First up was the traditional season-closing rivalry match between Northwestern and Illinois, with the Sweet Sioux Tomahawk trophy going to the winner. We arrived at the infamous West Lot close to an hour before it opened, which forced us to crack a kegger in the street to fortify us to withstand the brisk (20 degree) weather. After entering the lot and tailgating for several hours, we were treated to a frigid but tasty treat (full of creamy goodness, as that idiot on the Big Ten Network always says) as the Wildcats smothered the Illini and closed the regular season at 9-3 with a 27-10 victory. Thus, Cats fans face the pleasant dilemma of figuring out how to transport their grills, tents, coolers, and voluminous containers of assorted booze, to exotic Florida for the upcoming bowl game.

After a brief and even more frigid post-game tailgate beer, we loaded ourselves into the Tank and headed downtown for the UIC-DePaul basketball game, DePaul's first match against UIC at the Pavilion. The Fish Head was rewarded with another victory, as his alma mater by another mother cruised to a thrilling 67-63 victory over UIC. As is the case with all basketball games, the game was a snoozefest of tall guys with funny shorts rushing around, until the last 15 seconds when all the excitement was crammed in. Fortunately, the boredom was of the pleasant variety as we feasted on ale and buffet in the Dragon's Den during the game.

Lastly, after a late arrival home, the Fish Head watched a DVR loop of replays of the Wildcats victory, over and over, into the wee hours of the morning.

Go Cats!

Woeful-rines

The Cats pummelled the Woeful-rines, walking out of the Big House with an impressive 21-14 victory. Why was the victory impressive?

The Cats have suffered greatly from injuries. Arrington, Sutton, Conteh, etc. We started our third string running back against Michigan!

The weather was miserable, and the first half was a goof-fest of fumbles, blocked kicks, and muffed punts. But the Cats hung tough and went to the locker room down 14-7.

Not sure what Fitz told the team in the locker room, but the offense came out firing in the third quarter and Bacher threw two beautiful TD passes to put the Cats up 21-14.

And lastly, Michigan had the ball twice with good field position in the closing minutes, but the defense played tough and shut the Woeful-rines down to ensure the win.

Thus the Cats advance to 8-3 and ensure themselves of a good bowl pick....let the whining begin about the selection process and what's fair and which schools travel well.

Go Cats! Next week is the traditional season-ending game against arch-rival Illinois, in which we will fight for possession of the Sweet Sioux Tomahawk. A win will push the Cats to 9-3 and again improve our bowl position.

Damn those Bucknuts

The Buckeyes laid their annual smackdown on the Cats, routing the Purple 45-10. The defense was unable to catch Pryor in the backfield, and as best I could tell, he is the second coming of Joe Namath except he has good knees and can scramble like a mofo. And he performs best on third and long, on which he seemed to either scramble or throw for huge yards.

'Nuf said. Move on. The Bucknuts can come back here next year and beat the crap out of us. Or we'll go there, and they can beat the crap out of us. Whatever.

Next up for the Cats is the Michigan Woeful-rines. Except, the Woeful-rines showed some signs of life this past weekend, beating Minnesota 29-6. Either Minnesota is falling apart (2 losses in a row) and stinks, or, Michigan is beginning to gel as a team. Either way, this is a huge game for the Cats, as a win will improve their bowl selection immensely. Injuries have depleted the Cats, with the starting QB, RB, one DE, and one LB out; additionally the second-string RB is out or he's in, no-one seems to know. Fitzgerald will need to pull some coaching magic to get a reasonable team on the field against Michigan.

Since the Michigan game is at the Big House, the tail gate will morph to a deck gate to be held at the Skoper's mansion.

R.I.P.

Our pet hamster, Scouty, passed away yesterday in unpleasant fashion, gasping and spitting up blood as he died of old age.

Scouty was the family favorite, and in fact the Fish Head liked Scouty better than his own kids. He was a quiet, pleasant fellow who never caused a fuss and never demanded more than the occassional treat.

May he rest in peace in Hamster Heaven.

Zoiks!

The Cats upset #20 Minnesota 24-17, with safety Brendan Smith returning a twice-tipped interception 48 yards for a touchdown with 12 seconds on the clock.

Mike "Demon Spawn" Kafka, subbing for injured started CJ Bacher, had a big day, rushing for 217 (!) yards and throwing a pair of touchdowns (we'll choose not to discuss the 2 INTs he threw).

With the win, the Cats resurrected their bowl hopes, advancing to 7-2 and assuring a bowl bid. With perennial patsy Michigan coming up on the schedule, the Cats seem gauranteed of an 8-win season and a quality bowl.

AMF good season...

And so the season ends, not with a bang but a mid-season choke. All talk of good bowl versus better bowl, will now morph to anxious talk of any bowl. Yes, I love the potato pancakes at Jacoby's, but I would have preferred we not lose to the worst team in the Big Ten. And I would have preferred that our starting QB and RB not both get hurt. And I would have preferred that Mike "Demon Spawn" Kafka was a capable backup as opposed to a moron who thought "flushing" meant he should throw away the team's last chance.

Magic Number

22

We Boiled 'em

The Cats laid a major smack-down on the Boilermakers, routing them 48-26 to advance to 6-1 on the season. The bowl-eligibility question is now reduced to good bowl or great bowl.

Let's take a second to look both backward and forward.

First, MSU's performance after they tarnished our perfect season. The Spartans were completely demolished by Ohio State, losing 45-7 and losing their starting QB to a concussion. While MSU played well against the Cats, it was amateur hour against the Buckeyes as they gave up 6 TO's and their Heisman candidate did diddly. Net-net, MSU's performance against OSU diminishes the Cats and makes our upcoming date against OSU look scarier.

Second, looking forward to the Cats next game at Indiana. Indiana's season is completely wrecked, with a string of 5 consecutive losses coming into their date against the Cats. Indiana and NU have played two foes in common, Iowa and MSU. Indiana played MSU straight up, but mistakes and wacky plays doomed them, whereas in the Iowa game, Indiana was hopelessly outclassed and badly crushed. Net-net, Indiana should be an easy victory for the Cats, who beat Iowa earlier in the season.

Long time, No post

The Wildcats threw away the MSU game, with poor special teams play and turnovers giving MSU consistently easy field position which they exploited for cheap points.

The results can be seen in the Rivals.com rankings published today, which shows NU at #38 and and MSU at #16. NU's next opponent, Purdue, is at #49. Curtis Painter has had an uncharacteristic poor stretch, and combined with two tough opponents (OSU and PSU), Purdue is reeling.....but the Cats will have to watch out for a Painter rebound.

Dead dogs

The Wildcats stomped the Salukis, 33-7. Well...maybe not a total stomping. The Cats dominated on the defensive line, recording several sacks and TFLs. And special teams, kicking field goals and blocking punts, made a key difference. But time of possession and total yards do not support a stomping...the Salukis played a solid game considering the 1-A to 1-AA differential.

Hard to say how the weather impacted play...both teams played a relatively error-free game, un-like some wet weather games I have seen. But the non-stop rain sure impacted the fans, causing bizarre pruny palms and squishy sneakers.

A W is a W but...

The Wildcats snuck by Duke 24-20, with critical defensive stops in the red zone making the difference in the game. Click here for the HTP recap of the game, which as usual is better than the MSM version.

The offense had a poor day, failing to establish the running game and then struggling with the air game. Duke piled up yards and dominated the time of possession, putting the Cats defense in tough spots; but the D came up with the big stops when needed. Overall, the game was exciting at the end, albeit the WGN radio broadcast is a poor substitute for TV.

Next up is the Salukis....and the Duke results did not inspire confidence going into game #3.

I need mega-hits which yield mega-Adsense $'s

Sarah Palin nude bikini pics Sarah Palin eating naked moose men Sarah Palin sleazy lesbian sex pics

Even I cannot believe how low I have now sunk in the blind pursuit of page hits. May the Gipper have mercy on my soul...

Dukies

Next up for the Cats is the Hated Duke Blue Devils. Yes, that's a capital H. Why? Because Duke destroyed the Cats season last year, and Humiliated us by snapping their record-breaking losing streak at our expense. Thus we are filled with hatred, vitriol, and bile, and we expect the Cats to crush, stomp, and destroy the Blue Devils.

However, despite Duke's hapless reputation in football, there are some vague signs of life. Duke has lured a successful new coach to the program, and opened their season last week with a win over James Madison. Yes, JM is 1-AA (FCS), but was highly ranked in FCS to open the season (remember UNH, anyone?).

The Fish Head's brother will be hosting a deckgate...GPS coordinates will be posted.

Game On!

The Wildcats kicked off the season by smashing the Syracuse Orange(men) 30-10.

Grades and highlights of the day.

Tailgate: A-.

Sunny and about 85, the weather was perfect and we were well-stocked for our party in the West lot.

Punting: A.

Stefan Demos was unbelievable in the first half.

Offense: C+.

The offense looked off-kilter in the first half but picked up the pace in the second half. Despite almost 500 yards of offense, only 30 points (9 by the defense) resulted. The much-ballyhoo'd hurry-up did not show any signs of controlling the tempo of the game. Positive signs were Tyrell Sutton's performance running and catching, and Andrew Brewer's 6 catches.

Defense: B-.

A sack, a safety, and a TD on an interception return were signs that last year's bottom-feeding defense might be improved. On the other hand, this was Syracuse, so the jury's out till next week. Most startling sign: on the TV replay Sunday, I saw one pass play where the defensive back was in front of the receiver. I am confident that situation has not been seen at Dyche Stadium in many years.

Comic relief: C.

We forgot the Knob Creek and thus were not treated to any vomitous extrusions upon Mother Earth by the Fish Head's brother. But we did see some amusing sun burn patterns upon our lily white office worker skins. And, we got to watch my brother double-clutch while smoking a stogie, whereby he burned his nipple and flipped his $20 cuban puro into his beer cup.

Surprise of the Day: A.

We bumped into Shon Morris outside the stadium before the game. I almost fainted when I got to shake his hand.

Anger Management: B+.

I only punched the wall twice on Sunday when I saw Andy, the old guy who tailgated next to us, get featured on ESPN2's pre-game show. ESPN you suck for not showing MY tailgate. Don't ever stiff us again, or else.

Its single malt whisky, not Scotch

Yamazaki is distilled in Japan and thus cannot be called Scotch. But its really pretty good anyway!

Femto what?

Today I installed a femtocell in my house. Yes, my humble abode is now officially a mini-tower on Sprint's cell network, courtesy of a $99 Airave.

Now based on my previous diatribe, you might be wondering why the hell I would do this. And of course I did it for no reason other than its an very odd but interesting gizmo, and I am the only kid on the block who has one, nyeah nyeah nyeah.

The Airave is a small white unit, roughly the size of a standard residential wireless router, but with a vertical orientation, with a single stubby antenna. It has 4 LEDs on the front, to indicate power, system, GPS, and WAN status. Yes, it has an internal GPS which the documentation states is needed to provide 911 services; the blogosphere states the GPS is truly present to prevent usage of the unit outside the USA.

The Airave has an RJ45 jack, and is attached to your broadband router via an ethernet patch cable (supplied). The initial power-up is documented to require up to an hour, but in my case I surrendered after 90 minutes. The GPS indicator had stayed red (blue indicates active), so I powered the unit off and connected the "optional" GPS antenna, which is a standard puck style unit. After connecting the GPS antenna, the subsequent power cycle took about 15 minutes for the unit to fully activate.

After activation, your cell phones connect to the Airave instead of directly to the Sprint network, and the Airave routes the calls thru your broadband connection to....somewhere. My understanding of the network topology is vague, but a decent diagram can be found here.

In the 2 hours (lol) that I have been using the unit, I have found that it dramatically improves cell reception inside my house. My Sprint service has been close to unusable inside the house, whereas now my family's Sprint phones routinely have 4 or 5 bars in all areas of the house, and the voice quality is very good.

I do have some remaining questions. First, the antenna does not seem removable. I wonder if this is hackable to install a larger and more powerful antenna, thus further increasing the reception and range of the unit. Second, there is no built-in security for this unit. Any Sprint phone in range can connect in via the Airave, and thus your neighbors can get a free ride on your Sprint minutes. While the allowed phone numbers can apparently be controlled by calling Sprint's service center, this seems like a poor solution. Lastly, my Blackberry is provided by a corporate program and is not part of my Sprint plan, and I wonder how the minutes usage is counted, exactly.

In summary, the unit seems to perform its function well, and my original diatribe about the financial nonsense-icalness of the unit is balanced by the fact that it actually works.

Good news, bad news

Take a look at the Congrove 120 rankings.

Bad news? Wildcats are ranked 73rd out of 120 teams.

Good news? The Cats first 4 opponents are pitiful. Syracuse is #116, Duke is #114, SIU does not even make the list (FCS) and Ohio is the powerhouse of the 4 at #75.

Here's to the Cats starting strong and running the non-conference table.

Syracuse seems like a fine University. But...Otto the Orange? On August 30 Willy the Wildcat is going to squish this guy and we can use the juice to make a screwdriver at the tailgate!

Gogo a Nogo

American Airlines just announced inflight Internet access for $12.95 per flight. Yes, I'd buy this except for two reasons: One, I already spent all my cash on peanuts, a pillow and blanket, and a coke. Two, for some spastic reason, AA will be blocking Skype calls. WTF?

Everything you need to know about Scotch

Unless you are satisfied with simply pouring it down your throat (which I am doing as I type this), you could click here for the 5-minute lesson on Scotch.

I am outside on my deck because...

Its three A.M. Emergency at work. Need to make a call on my Blackberry. So I have to go out on my deck in the backyard, in the dark, where I could be eaten by a bear. Why am I doing this? Because I have crappy Sprint cell service, and I don't get any damn reception inside my house.

Now you might think that Sprint could I dunno, maybe add a cell tower or two? After all, I am not living in the uninhabited desert (hey no bears there tho), I am surrounded by 7 million inhabitants in the Chicago metro area. Yea, I don't like all 7 million of those people, but still you would think Mr. Sprint could spring for some more towers.

Instead, they are going to coerce me into buying an Airave. As best I can decipher, this $100 gizmo turns your house into a mini-cell tower, intercepts your cell phone signal, and routes it VOIP over your broadband connection.

Huh?

Let's do the math here. At an earlier time in my life, I decided to purchase Sprint phones and service. Maybe I was drunk at the time (see scotch entries on this blog), but I think I made that purchase with the intent to make phone calls. And when I purchase things, I expect them to work, yes I am crazy that way.

And Sprint does work. It just expects you to move yourself to a location where the phone works. Its called a mobile phone, and Sprint figures you should mobilize yourself to a spot where it works. Get it? Got it.

So its my math versus theirs. They could add a couple cell towers, which informed sources tell me might cost roughly $250K per. Or, I pay them $100 to turn my house into a mini-cell tower. Get it? Instead of them spending $500K to make their network do what they already claim it does, they get me to GIVE THEM $100 to make their network work. Are you sensing the sick evil genius at work here? Not yet? Let's keep going.

After I pay them the $100 to make their network work, I get to pay them an additional $30 per month to make calls over the now-working network. That's not $30 for cell service, its $30 per month OVER AND ABOVE the cell service you already pay for.

Still not sensing the evil genius? Let's keep going. The cell calls you make over the mini-tower you paid $100 for along with the $30 per month usage charge, DON'T EVEN TRAVERSE THE CELL NETWORK. Yep, they get routed over your broadband connection! Yes, that broadband connection which you paid Comcast $45 per month for.

So....I am guessing you now see the evil genius at work in Sprint's plan. Their service blows, so you pay them $100 upfront and $30 per month to make it work, and then it works only because you already paid Comcast $45 per month.

Why would anyone purchase this insane solution? Since the calls get routed by VOIP anyway, how about you get a Skype account for $30 per year, buy a cheap Skype phone for $50, and call it a day?

Comcast sucks less....

Now that they are doing this. Let's be honest. Everyone hates the cable company, but its all right to hate them a little less when you are watching your favorite team in hi-def after being deprived of the right for years (it has been years, hasn't it?).

Saved by the Shon!

Typhoon? Hurricane? Tsunami? Krakatoa? Yes, those were all major catastrophes but what the Fish Head is speaking of in this entry was the event that put the cat-astro in catastrophe.

Yes, an administrative snafu caused me to lose my parking pass for the West Lot at Dyche Stadium! Oh, the horror of it all. No more tailgating in the vast sea of tailgates. No more wacky balloon boy with the hot mom. No more brother gulping Knob Creek while he cooks the breakfast sandwiches before he drinks more Knob Creek and hurls. Yes, the Fish Head was going to be relegated to the proverbial dust heap of tailgating, also known as the Fish Center (no relation).

Worst of all, the snafu was actually caused by the gross negligence of...the Fish Head himself. A catastrophe is a catastrophe but its magnified to an insane disaster when you can't even blame it on some faceless bureaucrat!

And now on to the hero of the story. Yes, the Fish Head was rescued by Shon Morris. Yes, that Shon Morris (NU '88), four-year letterman, holder of countless collegiate scoring records, WGN radio star, ESPN TV anchor, and lastly apparently a smarter guy than most Big Ten athletes as he not only graduated but won all sorts of academic awards!

Despite being a life-long republican, the Fish Head confesses to a secret and somewhat embarrassing affection for Obama. But as of today, the Fish Head says Out with Obama and In with Shon. Should the Fish Head get the future opportunity to sperminate some eggs and spawn some fry, they shall all be named Shon.

Scapa

This was quite simply not a good scotch, no matter what any reviewer says. Not to be crass, but it could be re-named to Crapa. Even The Scotch Blog was mildly favorable which is baffling.

Next up for the Fish Head is an oddity, Suntory Yamazaki which cannot technically be called Scotch....

Dogs versus Cats in the national title game?

Go bears!

Go bears!

Time is NOT flying

Boinc me

I have been participating in the World Community Grid for a couple years, and I am currently ranked #4200 out of approximately 400,000 participants. Yes, I have a freakish addiction to my WCG standing, and it is the absolute first thing I check on the computer each morning.

I am constantly amazed by the lack of success of this form of grid computing. With the millions of dual-core PCs floating around, shouldn't all the ills of the world be computationally solved by now? Go download a copy of BOINC and see if you can catch me!

Not in stock

I was traveling on business this past week and myself and several colleagues went out for drinks and dinner after work. We chose a snazzy new restaurant, so new in fact that it was opening night.

When we arrived, I examined the drinks menu and decided on a Tecate, the second-best liquor from Mexico (after Monte Alban). Oops, not in stock yet, its opening night after all. So I settled for something called a Landshark. Cute name, bad beer as it turns out. After forcing down the Landcrap, I decided I should switch to Scotch and a colleague recommended Oban from the list. Oops, not in stock yet, its opening night after all. So I settled for a Macallan.

This horrible selection experience spurred me into action and upon arrival home, I promptly bought both Tecate and Oban. The Tecate is of course already drunk and gone back to nature, but I have not yet cracked the Oban, as three fingers of the BenRiach remain. The BenRiach was an interesting buy, being finished in tawny port hogsheads to add flavor. I did not actually detect the taste of any hogs heads, so that phrase-ology must mean something other than the obvious. It did have a very rich, powerful taste, although my un-educated palate was not able to break it out into the "Butterscotch, herbs, cinnamon, peaches and sultanas, infused with rich port and oak wood notes" which it was purported to exhibit.

The Oban should be a nice drink. Its hard not to be attracted to a scotch whose main draw is the fact that old dead Celts were found beneath the distillery.

In case it seems like all I do is drink....

There is like one tiny swig of the Caol Ila left. No offense to the distiller, but I didn''t like this scotch at all. I've noticed it recently popping up in bars...its like the GM fleet cars of whisky. So the bushes in my backyard might enjoy that last swig.

BenRiach is my next bottle. Supposedly finished in tawny port kegs with an amazing finish. Jury's out till I guzzle it down...

Oh I shed a tear as I sipped down the last of the Longmorn. This was quite simply a fantastic scotch, second (or third) only to JW Blue and Aberlour 18.

On a seperate but related note, Northwestern published an updated schedule for football and times are starting to fill in for the games. The best road trip of the year looks like Minnesota which is a blast of a party town (they have scotch there) and the stadium is walking distance from the downtown district.

I attended the annual Spring Game yesterday in Evanston. I was surprised by the crowd, which might have numbered around 3,000 in total for the scrimmage and pre-game festivities. While that doesn't compare to the 73,000 which Penn State drew, its impressive as we had expectations of being the only fans there. Instead, we found a lively tail gate crowd in the West lot, already partying when we arrived at 8:45 AM. Enthusiasm was somewhat dampened by the cold temperatures and gusty winds, but the Heineken mini-keg (the greatest invention of all-time) kept us warmed and by game time the sun was out and the temperatures reached 60 or so.

The post-game ritual of beer and brats was followed by a pit stop at UBAA, a nice little bar a few miles from the stadium which is known mostly for being next door to the parking lot where the Fish Head's brother lay prone vomiting up Knob Creek after a game last year.

Long morning till Longmorn

The Scotch Blog votes this the most under-rated whisky and adds "Most of the Longmorn produced is destined for blends such as Chivas Regal. Chivas Brothers do very little to promote this gem - which is a real shame, as aficionados consider this to be one of the very best Speyside single malts.
Complex, smooth and elegant - and surprisingly reasonably priced - when you can find it."

Well I found it and its pretty damn good.

Holy mackerel

A good friend from work was nice enough to coordinate a a side trip to Wrigley, including a beautiful box seat which he graciously funded. Good news: Cubs pummelled the Reds. Bad news: I was unable to attend.

The Cubs are off to a good start this year, and there is hope for October as the recent quake opened a hole in the earth and swallowed the curse goat.

Spring game

I always mean to drive up to Evanston to catch the Spring Game, but I have never once made it. This year, I can spare myself the recriminations as this glorified scrimmage-which-serves-no-purpose will be streamed live off BigTenNetwork.com. Yes, that same Big Ten Network which has been battling with Comcast for many months. Yes, that same Big Ten Network which I cannot see on my TV. Yes, that one, the one we love to hate.

old boring dead soldier

I bought this one a couple days ago but it didn't last long. Work has been pretty crappy lately, so I have been closing out my workdays with a couple stiff ones, and since I normally have a couple stiff ones during the workday, I am whizzing thru the bottles faster than normal.

This particular brand, Glen Garioch, had sort of a light, sweet taste, and I did not particularly care for it. I guess that is what Japanese (Suntory) ownership does for a scotch...come to think of it, it had a vaguely sake-like taste to it.

Go Hawks!

My friend Paul organized a little outing to see the Chicago Blackhawks. I used to be a big hockey fan, and myself and brothers and friends used to play ice hockey at the local pond every weekend during the winter. But somewhere along the line, the Hawks became famous for being fan-unfriendly and I lost the taste for the game.

But I was impressed by the energy at the United Center, and the fans were rabid and excited as the Hawks routed the Capitals 5-0. Tony Esposito, world-famous goalie, was the guest of honor and was greeted by his brother Phil, world-famous center. Tony was (and obviously still is) a huge fan favorite.

In addition to a great game, we also had beers and a cheezborger at Billy Goat's which is only a few blocks from the UC. Post-game we hit the Third Rail which was full of young urbanites who seemed primarily focused on sexual relations with members of whatever sex interested them, which baffled me as I concentrated on the giant glass of scotch which I was served.

I ate it

Yes, I ate the Sheep Dip. Despite the name, I found it to be very good, easily better than the usual mass-market Glenlivet or Glenfiddich. Next up is Caol Ila, which i have never had but which is purported to have a light and interesting taste to it.

Spring is sprung, and the long darkenss is over

Each year, an exciting event occurs which heralds the end of the dark cold winter, and signals a renewal of hope and life for all.

Go Cats!

Eponymous

From Wiktionary:

"Of, relating to, or being the person after which something is named"

One might ask what marketing genius came up with this....but let's not go there.

Weather

The weather in Chicago today: Partly sunny, -1 Farenheit, 35 mile-per-hour winds, windchill of -24 Farenheit.

The weather in Mesa today: Partly sunny, +48 Farenheit, windchill of +44 Farenheit.

A bad omen

In his previous position, neophyte head coach Pat Fitzgerald was also the recruiting coordinator for the Wildcats. Maybe he needs to go back to that, as the recruiting rankings issued today show the Cats tied for 72nd (with Troy!). Big Ten teams that did worse? Indiana. Yea, that's it, our recruiting class was second-to-last in the conference. And no, that does not make me feel good about burning a bunch of dough on season tickets. Click a link or two and venture over to Hail to Purple to see if they are more optimistic...but look at it this way. Would you prefer to have a good record or a good recruiting class? We know which Charlie Weis has!

Busted

Detective Pescado Cabeza reports that the Clarendon Hills police have apprehended the notorious two-bit gambling criminal known as The Commish. The booking picture is particularly embarrassing but there it is.

What people do on the Internet

Ever wonder what people spend so many hours doing on the Internet? Of course I can only answer that from my limited perspective. For me, I read the Scotch blog, order cigars, surf for porn, and of course read the sports. My kids do AIM, My Space, and surf for porn. What do other people do? Well....all I can tell you is what I see in my hit counter. Here is what people have recently google'd which caused them to land at Fish Head.

As you can see, my reference to the literary giant Dick, yielded many hits. Now what does this mean? Is Mr. Dick's work (and his freaky android head) really that popular? Or is it more likely that dickbot is code word for some porno stuff? Let's keep going. What might you guess was being searched for by the lonely soul who google'd on "purdue coeds"? Dude, I've been to Purdue games and they are not really very cute. And what freak searched for "toxoplasmosis libido"?

This could go on and on. Darts anyone? Who associates darts with porn? Apparently the British do, as after casually mentioning darts in a post, Fish Head was repeatedly hit from various UK locations with various and sundry hits searching on darts.

Lastly, we have the browser challenged individual who apparently doesn't understand what a bookmark is, and is thus forced to repetitively find my blog by searching on "fishheadonastick". Maybe he could buy a copy of Internet for Dummies and learn how to use a browser.

This was absolutely not mine!

Because of course I would get the one with the long lasting batteries :-)

Yellow submarine ?

I finished the very excellent bottle of Highland Park which I bought a few weeks ago (at least I hope it was at least a few weeks ago!). I was very impressed by its smooth but somewhat biting taste.

My next choice is the somewhat oddly marketed Bruichladdich. No, I can't pronounce that, and no, I am pretty sure I don't completely follow the connection between this Scotch and WMD, nor its connection to submarines. But its supposed to be excellent, and you can read about the weird connections here.

The ultimate IT worker insult

"Your mother was a DBA"

Flame on!

The Fish Head ventured downtown into the big city to see the UIC Flames beat the Detroit Mercy Titans, 75-65. Despite 35 points from "ugly" point guard Jon Goode, the Titans couldn't keep up with the bigger Flames.

The Fish Head's brother, a UIC alum, contributed the tickets and a pass to the Dragon's Den, the VIP room where the Fish Head quaffed Blue Moons and ate roast beef with horse radish. And the Fish Head's daughter, a UIC student, was a first-time attendee. And lastly, the Fish Head ran into a rarely seen co-worker from the past, who happens to have season tickets to the UIC games.

We closed the nite with beers and octupus in Greek Town, which is a short drive from the UIC campus.

Dickbot

No, Dickbot does not refer to either of my brothers. Dickbot refers to the crazy robotic android head of Philip K. Dick. When I was younger, I was a voracious reader of sci fi, and occassionally read a story by the prolific Dick, whose works were later turned into famous sci-fi films such as Blade Runner. Recently, I stumbled across a copy of perhaps his finest work, The Man in the High Castle, and reading it renewed my interest in his work.

While researching other works by Mr. Dick, I stumbled upon internet articles about the Dickbot, an android head of Mr. Dick, which was recently stolen (!) and has not been recovered. Link here for more info, if you don't believe me.

Glasses

I got a set of scotch glasses for Xmas. Now you might ask, what is a scotch glass, exactly? My preference is to drink my scotch from a small, solid glass tumbler. Of which I own two of unknown provenance. The Santa-provided version are a little odd, rounded and a bit large, and apparently the elves figured if they spray-painted "Scotch" on the sides, it was a winner.

Oh, the resulting dilemma. What to put into these new glasses? Certainly not the chintzy Black provided by that two-bit grifter, the Commish. So I splurged today and bought a bottle of Highland Park, which the whiskipedia crowd is high on. I'll post a word or two later (might be later tonite) after I finish the bottle.

633 is the Sign of the Devil

No wait, that's 666. What is 633? Oh yea, that's the record number of yards of offense that USC piled up while routing the Illini in the Rose Bowl. While USC and its fans claimed the game showed USC is playing the best ball in the land, what the game really showed was the Illini are not very good, as they turned the ball over 4 times. Maybe Zook needs to play Cubbie and wait till next year.

Luddites should not use 0000

I have a special friend who I kiddingly refer to as a luddite. She is about as technology-averse as they come, but she recently made a venture into hi-tech land by purchasing a bluetooth headset. Little did she know that freaky Linux weirdos will now be hijacking her calls, injecting porn sounds into her private messages, and perpetrating other similar crazy acts upon her communications. Can you imagine being in the middle of ordering your triple vente carmellacio, and suddenly your Blackberry speakerphone begins propositioning the barista?

This just in...

According to the Clarendon Hills Gazette, local police have issued an arrest warrant for a local small-time con man, who uses the moniker "the Commish". The Commish is accused of operating rigged, illegal betting pools designed to rip off honest sports fans. Detective Pescado Cabeza of the Clarendon Hills Police Department released the attached artist sketch and vowed that the force would track down this sleazy two-bit criminal.