Eric Krassinger

• I heard some “old timers” at McDonald’s in the hood talking about how McCain is blasting Obama in his ads and Obama doesn’t have the money to fight back so it is unfair. I really wanted to ask them if they seriously believed that but I feared for my life in that neck of the woods. I was going to say, did you happen to notice the 30 minute ad he ran last night on every major network.
• I am really struggling with my program at work. It is “killing” IPs of other groups on the network.
• I can’t decide if I am a fan of Halloween or not. It has been pretty awesome the last 3 years in Vegas but I really do not like to dress up. I do like to see other people dress up; especially the ladies. It will be a last minute decision if I go out or not tonight.
• I can’t wait for Vegas next week. SEMA is always one of my favorite shows to go. I am expecting it to have a lower attendance and not as many exhibitors. It looks like two Vegas newbies will be joining me over the weekend so it will be good. It looks like we will be in the high 70’s next weekend in Sin City.
• How can Plaza Motors charge $180 for fuel induction cleaning? I am pretty sure they just put a $7 can of BG in the fuel tank. Ranken Technical instructors have told me this is better than  doing an injection canister style cleaner.
• I really think the Blues should sign Shanahan and then trade Thackuk for some draft picks. They can probably get a lot for Thackuk while he is hot and Shanahan would be a suitable replacement plus he is a fan favorite. It is a win-win.
• Is the MU football game not on TV this weekend? I thought I remember hearing that all their Big 12 games were going to be on TV.
• Is Marcus Denmon going to lead MU basketball to a good season this year? This might be a good turnaround year for Mike Anderson. It seems like we have some talent coming in from JC and freshman.

• Even though I am a big supporter of Microsoft over Apple, I loved the Zune burn on NBC’s Chuck last night. It got a huge laugh out of me because it was so unexpected.
• I really needed that win in fantasy football last week due to a really tough bye schedule the next couple weeks. Its just another case that I need some internet surfing phone so I could have changed my player lineup on the road.
• The start of fantasy basketball season starts today. Let see if I can do this.
• Why is it currently 84 degrees in my section of the office? It sure is nice being in an ancient building that does not have thermostats.
• Are we going to see rumors every year about Pinkel going to another team?
• I have realized that Brooks Brothers portrays an expensive image but their cloths can cost less than Banana Republic if you buy smart. I seem to get 15% to 25% off coupons almost every month from them. BB has 10 times better quality too so it will last a lot longer.

What a great weekend. I had so much fun between Friday and Saturday that it is hard to describe but I will try.

Friday kicked off with going to the Of Montreal show at the Pageant but before that we went to pi for some pizza. I had the South Side Classico. It was amazing. I have heard good and bad reviews of pi; mostly bad, but I am giving it two thumbs up. It is right behind Black Thorn pizza for great deep dish. The thing I liked the most about this pizza was the crust. It was golden delicious nirvana.

The Of Montreal concert at the Pageant was very entertaining. Here is a review by the RFT. It was definitely a spectacle. There was always some onstage activities. It was basically a combination of a musical, concert, and a laser light show. Overall the concert was awesome. I rate Of Montreal right at the top behind The Urge for putting on a great show. Like The Urge, I do not think that you  thought need to like the band or the songs to have a good time at this show. The fact that Of Montreal played most of their new songs and not very many from their last album illustrates my point because I think everyone was so entertained. Going out with Smells Like Teen Spirit was amazing. I thought it was weird to end on a cover song but I loved it. It gave me a glimpse of what it would be like to be at a Nirvana show. I liked the views expressed in the RFT article why this song was chosen but in the end I think it was because it rocks. 

Saturday was the MU game. I woke up with hardly any sleep to drive down to Columbia to debate on where we should tailgate. We were running behind but we came up with the idea of just parking in line for Reactor. It was novel idea which worked but it basically made people drink and drive once Reactor opened up at 2:30. Not a good idea at all Alden. Not only did it provide more dangerous activities but I saw a huge number of people tailgating along Providence at 1:30. Not to safe is it? Here is another good opinion in the maneater. Overall we had a great time. I did see more cops out than normal at Reactor which made more sense. We did make it to the game … some more than others but we ended up leaving at half to get some pizza at Shakespeares. Mizzou dominated if you did not hear. We really can kick the crap out of bad teams. To bad we can’t beat good teams.

I then met up with some friends (Jeff N and J Smith) at Quintons then Tonic. I really enjoyed seeing Jeff. We caught up on old times. It was nice getting in free due to multiple connections at Tonic. I wish I had the same hookups in St Louis. I danced my little heart out at Tonic. I probably danced with 10 girls that night. I am not even sure if I had a drink … I was in the groove. The crazy thing is that Tonic was my least favorite bar in Columbia while in school. I use to despise it since I hated to dance that much … my how times change. 

Sunday was a bad fantasy day for me. I did not manage my team correctly on the football side since I did not have internet Saturday or Sunday. It basically cost me a win since I did not sub out hurt players. I tried to watch the Rams game but ended up going to sleep due to exhaustion. I woke up to participate in my first fantasy basketball league. The little sleep and signing up for the league the same day was not good. I did not realize that it was a keeper league until today plus I did no research. I really would have tried to Beasley if I would have researched and also realized it was a keeper league. I had no clue who the incoming rookie class was.

Wow … Sirius is trading over 45% of what it started the day at. What is even crazier is that it is trading at over almost 100% of what it was at just last Friday at the opening of the Market. 

How can this even be? Nothing has been announced. Actually, there has been more articles written in the past week about the companies’ extremely high debt so shouldn’t it go down more? Is it finally correcting itself? 

Should the company complete a reverse stock split? Everything I read today said yes but all the commenters say no. It will defintely help stop the small speculators (like myself). The ability to buy 4000 or 5000 share for less than a grand is devestating to the company. Thus why the company on most days has almost 50% of the trade volume on the entire DOW. The only problem is that there is nothing set in place to actually stop the stock from sliding even further if they do a reverse. So my official opinion is to wait.

What does everyone else think?

First off, even though I have been listening to Of Montreal for the pasy year I never really looked up any information on them. I did a quick Wikipedia search and was amazed what I found. Kevin Barnes, the lead singer,  is a married white man whose alter ego is a black transsexual named Georgie Fruit. Pretty crazy right? There are commparisons being made to David Bowie’s alter ego Ziggy Stardust. I guess I should not be at all suprised since I went to their concert last year which was very off the wall but great. 

I have not seen a single positive review for this album yet. Everyone stated that this album was an “expressions of art”  so it is “out there.” All Of Montreal albums are like this. It also stated that is was a mix of rock, funk, and porn grooves. What is wrong with that? Is that any different that the last one? So if you have not figured it out, I do like this album. It is no “Hissing Fauna, Are You the Destroyer?” but it is good. The reason I say that is because there is no one song that I immediately thought was awesome but it is defintely some good tunes to listen to on a long drive.

I can’t wait for the concert this Friday at the Pageant.

• The idea that MU is resitricting tailgating hours on Reactor Field is just rediculous. I totally agree with Matt. They keep gradually excluding the general public and students from things but increase the amentities and descrease the restrictions on the donor lots. 
• Is anyone else having issues with Chrome and Hotmail? I can view my mail but I can not write new mail. It will not let me type in the edit box. I can’t find anything online for this specfic problem.
• I do not understand why the Cardinals are not going after Peavy or Sabathia. The pure idea that they are waiting to see the status of Carpenter is ridiculous. For one, isn’t that a while off? If so, and they find out he is done for his career, do you honestly think that good pitchers are going to be left? Are they even playing the odds? Everything I read at the end of the season pointed to Chris maybe having to retire. The Cards just dumped Mulder anyway so they need a big 3 to compete. The idea of having Wainwright, Lohse,  Looper, and/or Wellemeyer as the top 3 in our lineup is scary. 

Harmonix finally announced the 20 free additional songs that will be available to everyone who bought Rock Band 2. I saw a list a couple weeks ago that was all big name bands so I am greatly disappointed with this list since I don’t know a single band. These songs will be available on November 20th.

• The 88 – “Sons and Daughters”
• Authority Zero – “No Regrets”
• Between the Buried and Me – “Prequel To The Sequel”
• The Cab – “Bounce”
• The Chevelles – “Get It On”
• The Cocktail Slippers – “Give It To Me”
• Dealership – “Database Corrupted”
• Endeverafter – “I Wanna Be Your Man”
• The Ghost Hounds – “Ashes To Fire”
• Hollywood Undead – “Young”
• Kutless – “The Feeling”
• The Len Price 3 – “If I Ain’t Got You”
• Lesley Roy – “I’m Gone, I’m Going”
• Opiate for the Masses – “Burn You Down”
• Semi-Precious Weapons – “Magnetic Baby”
• Shaimus – “Like a Fool”
• Thenewno2″ – Crazy Tuesday”
• Tickle Me Pink – “The Time Is Wrong”
• Underoath – “Desperate Times, Desperate Measures”
• X Japan – “I.V.”

• Is anyone watching True Blood on HBO? If so, how does one turn into a vampire? Sookie has been bit along with other characters but does not seem to be a vampire. Sookie along with others have drank vampire blood but again are not vampires. But Sookie’s boyfriend was bit and he turned into a vampire 200 years ago. I am confused.
• Did anyone know that Will Smith was orginally suposed to be Neo on the Matrix? As you may or may not know, Will Smith is one of my favorite actors, but he defintely would not have fit the part. I am glad that Keano got it instead. In this same article I was reading, it also said Sean Connery passed on Gandalf for LOTR which turned out to be a huge mistake. They offered him a cut of the profits so it worked out to be that he would have gotten $400 million … wow, what a mistake. 
• I saw a mention on Engadget that a Harmonix devloped said they would eventually add a country genre to Rock Band. The game is called Rock Band so I would hope they would add it as downloadable content instead of making it as part of the game like Rock Band 3. But I did just read the World Tour has Willie Nelson. I wouldn’t mind some Johhn Cash … his music has become a little mainstream anyway.
• I pulled off a big win against Hoff in fantasy football last night. Casell really stepped up for me and secured a W. I am also glad that I have the #2 waiver priority this week since there are some people that I want. 
• Wash U just released the class schedule for my final semester. I have no clue what I am going to take. I have taken a majority of the classes I like already.

I wanted to briefly discuss the above 512mb thumb drive I often use for work. I received this thumb drive as a freebie gift for attending a Motorola/Freescale seminar in Orlando 3 years ago. It was a pretty good giveaway for the time since 512mb was considered to be fairly large. I have washed and dried this thing at least 3 times, probably more. I have a real hard time taking small things out of my pockets before washing. I have ruined several loads of laundry in my past by washing ink pens in the mix. You wouldn’t think that an electronic device would survive a washer or dryer, but mine has done the combination multiple times. This is pretty good for anything; especially something that was a cheap give away. I just want to give “props” to the unknown manufacturer of this device. They sure made it well.

• I am so glad that to see that Harmonix finally released some of the Nirvana track pack for Rock Band. It was rumored forever that they were going to release the whole Nevermind album a long time ago, but instead they offered only 6 songs. Smells Like Teen Spirit is missing as everyone is noting but I like all of these songs being a big Nirvana song. Territorial Pissing is one of my favorites. Some of these songs are good “sing along” songs too. 
• I am really looking forward to this weekend. Of Montreal on Friday and MU game on Saturday. Sure glad I am done with weekend classes. I am anxious to hear Of Monteal’s rendition of Smells Like Teen Spirit. I guess I got a nirvana thing going. 
• I have officially stopped using Firefox. I was tired of it continually locking up for a couple seconds everyone once in a while. I am now using Chrome which is better anyway. The universal search/navigation input is built for my kind of browsing.
• I desperatelty need some more decoration in my house, but I havent had the time nor money to really do anything. One of the things that I have been considering for a while now is putting up a lot of my photos that I have taken from the various trips and outings I have been on. I would then hang them up on the walls in my hallway. For people that have been to my place, what do you think? I was thinking various 5 x 7 and 8 x10 photos.
• I really had my heart set on building concrete countertops for my kitchen. I thought  it would really good since I have concrete columns and ceiling. After doing some research, I fell into the mistake that many have thinking that it would be cheaper than granite. I was wrong. I still prefer concrete because I would like to do a design in it. I even saw putting optics in your counter which would be amazing. I guess I am going to have to hold off though.