I know I watch a lot of TV - but I never knew it could be so tiring. Today at work (QB1), I worked the Minnesota/Penn St. game at 9am and, while it was pretty good, it was nothing special. It was just a standard game and it went by pretty fast. After that though, I was scheduled to work the Arkansas/Alabama game. Now, if you know how this turned out, you know how long my day was. But if you don't...

It all started with a 12:30pm (Pacific) start time. Arkansas took the field, but Alabama didn't. Why? Because there might have been lightning nearby. Now, I realize that we have to look out for the safety of these guys, but they're playing in a stadium that is, say, 60 feet tall (at least 6 stories) all the way around them - wouldn't common sense dictate that the lightning would be drawn to the higher parts of the stadium - and perhaps, any lightning rods installed (we are playing in Alabama...they should have lightning rods). So, after a 66 minute delay, the game started around 1:40 and was a good game. They were tied at half and then Alabama scored 21 unanswered points. It looked like an upset was imminent. Then, Arkansas came back. They tied up the game with 22 seconds to go and went to overtime. Just my luck. First, the game starts over an hour late, and now, we're going to overtime.

In the first overtime, Arkansas had the ball first and failed to convert on a 4th down play and turned the ball over to Alabama. Unfortunately, Alabama was flagged for excessive celebration after the play and instead of starting on their 25, they were pushed back to their 40. After gaining the 15 yards back, they had a field goal attempt to win the game in the first overtime. Can you guess what happened? Yup. They missed it - here we go into the second overtime. In the second overtime, Alabama started with the ball and promptly threw an interception. There goes the upset. So now, all Arkansas has to do is kick a field goal from 25 yards out. Of course, you're going to try and run a few plays first to get a shorter field goal, so after a first down, Arkansas manages to get down to the 2 yard line (thanks to some penalties) and has a short field goal to win it. And...they did. In all, the game took almost 5 hours.

I was at work from 8:40am to 5:30pm. 10 minutes short of 9 hours. While I don't really mind all that much - I mean, I am getting paid to watch football - it is actually quite tiring to sit in a chair and watch TV for a period that long. But then again, I did come home, turn on the TV to the USC/Cal game, and now it's going into overtime, so I'll be watching even more football. I've really got nothing better to do since we have no DSL.

URL: NCAAsports.com - The Official Site for NCAA Sports

So after being led-on for almost a week now, on hold for hours, and waiting for SBC to call every day, they finally call us up today and tell us, "Sorry, you're too far from our office, so you can't get DSL." EXCUSE ME? You sign us up, take our money for shipping the hardware to us, waste our time waiting on hold, and then tell us, sorry, you can't get DSL? How about just telling us right away that we can't get DSL? What kind of business is this? We'll sign you up, boost our subscriber numbers, and then leave you hanging with dial-up access.

So now, the only other option for high-speed internet access is Road Runner Cable (which I wanted to get in the first place), but we've been thinking about switching to DirecTV since our cable reception isn't all that good here, so, if we now switch to DirecTV, we'll end up paying more for Road Runner because we're not a cable subscriber and, basically, we'll just have to pay it because it's the only options available.

Of course, even though I want to stick with cable, just order Road Runner today, and just forget about trying to set up satellites, boxes, and all that other crap, if we can save $0.01 per month by switching, my roommate will switch. Good thing I'm just here for three months. Bad thing we're stuck with the SBC monopoly...

URL: SBC Communications Inc.

It's been a long time since I've had as much fun at a ballgame as I did tonight. Well, maybe not that long, as every game leading up to the Angels' World Series win last year was amazing, but there's just something about the return of the San Diego Chicken that gets a crowd going. Between every half inning, the chicken came out, made an appearance - lifting a leg to an umpire, beating up a Colorado shortstop, breakdancing with Barney, stealing home plate in slo-mo, it's all great. Oh yeah, the Padres also played a baseball game and won, 5-0.

In their final homestand at Jack Murphy Stadium (a.k.a. Qualcomm Stadium), the Padres put on a show with a great performance by the chicken, seven shutout innings from pitcher Adam Eaton, and a marvelous post-game fireworks show. Between fireworks sets, they showed highlights from the Padres' 30+ years at the Murph, including their National League wins and some great moments in sports history - Rickey Henderson's run record (and 3,000th hit) and just about every great moment from Tony Gwynn, Mr. Padre. It was a great time, saw some great baseball (including one absolutely befuddling play), and laughed during every half inning.

Oh yeah, I got a San Diego Chicken Bobble Head figurine too.

URL: San Diego Padres News

I think I've figured out how SBC DSL help works. It's been really nice to be able to get through to a real person after navigating their menus without any wait, but every time I've called, I've been placed on hold for an insane amount of time with some odd excuses: "My computer isn't working, let me try this on the other end of the office," "Our trouble ticket system is down, let me pass this information on to my supervisor," and, "Let me transfer you to another department." So after getting right through to a person who should be there to help me, I've been put on hold for a long time. I figure, during that time, they just answer the phones and put other people on hold. This way, they can get good feedback because they answered the phones right away - you just were put on hold after giving them your information (phone & name). Yesterday, I was put on hold for over 30 minutes before hanging up because I had to go to class and just before that, I was put on hold to be transferred to a supervisor and I got "disconnected."

Needless to say, I'm still on dial-up, still chugging along with no speed and still waiting 1/2 hour+ to download my e-mail in the morning...after work today, I'll be calling them up again because last night when I called, I just missed SBC's maintenance department - they close at 10:00pm, I called at 10:10. But at least when I called last night, I got someone competent on the phone. I wasn't on hold for more than 2 minutes and she actually seemed to know what to do. One in eight competent workers isn't all that bad - is it?

URL: SBC Yahoo! Help - Home

Not only is it my favorite store, but now, it's my favorite ISP. I'm just barely getting by on dial-up, but I'm making it. It's a pain downloading over 300 e-mails a day - especially with the new worm going around, but while it downloads, it give me a chance to check out my fantasy sports teams, check on my websites, and then, that's about it...hopefully DSL will get working soon, but I'm not optimistic. So I'm going to make the most out of my three free months of dial-up.

URL: Fry's Electronics Home Page

Right now I'm posting from a DSL connection that is running at sub-dial-up numbers. I'm lucky to get 3k/sec and averaging 0.3 - 0.5 k/sec. Gotta love it. I just spent about an hour on the phone with support and after taking about 45 minutes of running through the crap idiot users need to go through, he finally decided to run a diagnostic on our line. And viola! there was the problem. It wasn't the software, it wasn't the OS, but rather our crappy line connection. So after he figured that out, a trouble ticket needed to be submitted so that SBC could fix the problem. The problem was, the trouble ticket system was down, so after about 15 minutes of trying to figure out what was wrong, he just gave up, sent all pertinent information to his manager, and in the morning, the trouble ticket should be entered.

So here I sit, hoping that the next page will load before IE times out on me, waiting 45 minutes to download about 20 e-mail messages, and blogging because, it doesn't take bandwidth. As long as I just keep typing, I'm fine. But if I want to monitor my server, surf the web, or do anything else, I'm just out of luck until SBC can fix this problem. Good thing my roommate doesn't want to pay the extra $5/month for cable, which I have had ZERO problems with over the past 4 years at multiple residences...

URL: SBC Yahoo!® DSL - Welcome Home

I'm not sure if I've mentioned it beyond the fact that I received it for a birthday present, but I love my new computer case. The Lian-Li 6070 is, quite simply, amazing. It has a) reduced the temperature of my computer, b) reduced the sound emitted from the computer and c) looks gorgeous. After taking apart my old computer and quickly piecing together this one (I still have to make some adjustments (such as attaching the USB ports to the motherboard and the status lights as well)), I plugged this one in with anticipation and was amazed. My old computer case - a behemoth - a huge tower that I had grown to love - was great - it had all the room I needed and worked nicely, but it was loud. Really loud. Extremely loud. I thought it was maybe just the fan I was using on my processor, so I upgraded that a few times. Thought it was the fans I was using to cool the case, so I upgraded those. Thought it was the power supply fans, so I upgraded the power supply. But it was still loud. Now, with the same components in this 6070, it is so much more quiet. In fact, my server computer which runs right next to it is now louder (I never thought that would be the case). I haven't even had the chance to see how truly quiet this case is because all I hear is the server now. While I didn't have to spend the cash since it was received as a present, it was the best $160 spend on my main computer to date.

For those who care, click comments for full specs of my computer...

URL: LIAN LI

It was just a matter of time before someone tried to do this (although I would guess it's been tried before, but with less publicity). I really don't see why there should be any problem. If all cultural/racial/ethnic groups are allowed to have a club, why not a Caucasian club? Is it because the clubs should only be for minorities? And if you're going to make that argument, should a "Latinos Unidos" club (or something similar) not be allowed in, say, a Santa Ana, CA high school where Hispanics are by far the majority? This quote just doesn't make sense to me:

``Caucasian is broad, it's not one specific thing,'' the 16-year-old said. ``There's no need for a Caucasian Club because they're not a minority.''

I don't see how Caucasian is broad - the the loosest definition of the term is:

Anthropology. Of or being a major human racial classification traditionally distinguished by physical characteristics such as very light to brown skin pigmentation and straight to wavy or curly hair, and including peoples indigenous to Europe, northern Africa, western Asia, and India. No longer in scientific use.

Seems pretty straight-forward to me - "peoples indigenous to Europe, northern Africa, western Asia, and India." How is "Latinos Unidos" not broad? It would encompass, most likely, all of Central & Southern America while the "Black Student Union" sounds much more broad - anyone with a "black" complexion would be free to join it would seem by the title of the group (though at this high school, any one person can join any other group, regardless of race, gender, ethnicity, etc.). I can see where the controversy might come from, but then I just see hypocrisy as people condemn this club. Anyone is free to join - you do not have to be "white" or "European." And, in many parts of California, if not the state, the "Caucasian" grouping is becoming a minority. Where I live, in Orange County (pay no attention to what you might think Orange County is like by watching The OC on FOX), "whites" are no longer in the majority (in a loose sense - as all the "minority" groupings combined outnumber whites in schools - and in many cities, whites might be in the minority in a strict sense as Hispanics would be the majority).

I guess the basic feeling here is, if you want to start a Caucasian Club, you're a white supremicist, but that's completely incorrect. If you want to start or be in a Caucasian Club, one would hope that it isn't to belittle other ethnicities, but rather to understand your own heritage - isn't that the point of "Latinos Unidos" or the "Black Student Union?" I would certainly hope that the Black Student Union wasn't a group of Blacks (I guess this is politically correct since they used it in the title of their group name) set on tearing down other racial groups, but rather, a union set up to further explore their own heritage and foster community. Ragardless of race, color, or ethnic background, any and all groups should be allowed to exist on any campus.

URL: Mercury News | 09/19/2003 | Caucasian Club on hold until student completes application