Eric Krassinger

1. He does not even like dogs …. he likes cats!
2. Where does the dog go when you go out to da club?
3. The dog is like a child and it makes you one step closer to you know what.
4. Who takes care of the dog when you go on bachelor parties?
5. Don’t you have enough excuses for why you do not go out?
6. Dogs are expensive. Have you ever seen vet cost for a dog? Doggy surgery is not cheap nor is doggy daycare.
7. Dogs are clean. They will rub their ass on nice couches without wiping.
8. Rengel will hang out with you more! so really think about that before you pull the trigger.

These rules apply do not specfically apply to Matt Smith but do apply to everyone else (from the great words of Mike Hoff)

We are putting together a coed touch football game this weekend before the Superbowl. It seems this is going to be a monthly occurrence. We had great turnouts the last two games. It is giving us a good reason to work out since we quit playing hoops. Plus, it has the chances of fulfilling a dream of Matt Smith to get an interception. Below are the details.

Sunday at 12:30 in Tilles Park in South City (by Hampton and Fyler). Here is the link in Mapquest.

The more the merrier so invite whoever you want. There probably will be beer drinking too since it is Superbowl Sunday.

• Whats up with pushing back the digital television transition again? This is just ridiculous.
• The idea of femotcells is very interesting. What is the range for these things? It could be a great move for the phone carriers. They are basically having their customers improve the carriers network coverage at their own expense. Could one AT&T device in my building provide better coverage for the whole building (especially me)?
• I think it is a good idea to cut mail back to 5 days. Why do we need to get mail 6 days a week? You could always send it another way if it is that important. Why not knock it down to 4 days? They could make the mail business more profitable if they cut down the days since other people could compete for those off days (even the USPS).
• Not happy with one of the first Obama decisions. This stimulus plan better not distribute checks again. I would really like to see evidence proving that method helps.
• I having been cutting my food intake by half but my weight has not changed. I have also been doing cardio and weight lifting every day. It seems like I am stuck at my current weight no matter what I do.
• The new Gears of War 2 update seems like it make some differences in online play. The third update to the title is supposed to really address the issue with lag. I like how they finally made each round of Horde count as a game played for the 1999 achievement. I could play a 3 hour Horde match and only get one game played while other could play 20 or 30 games in that time period in non Horde matches.
• I am loving my new laptop setup with a dual screen setup and dock at work. I think it is going to cut my printing down by half. Now I have no need to print something just so I can use it on something else I am working on.
• I despise my new Charter DVR. The firmware has serious problems when it comes to recording. Here is my short list: (1) it records all HBO and Showtime series every time they are on if I have deleted them from my DVR. I had to delete the series recording because it was so frustrating. (2) It sucks at recording two things at the same time. I haven’t had it work right. It is almost like one of my tuners is out. (3) no external HD (4) the search function does not show the HD version of network channels. Makes it really hard to find programs in HD without paging through multiple days. When will Uverse come to my area?
• I never had problems like I did yesterday in the snow. My car almost got stuck leaving my garage and definitely did get stuck trying to get to it on my side street. All the other cars just zipped right through but I would spin in 1st gear and couldn’t keep the car alive in 2nd gear starts. I am so happy I was finally able to get moving.
• I am not very excited about the Superbowl. Why does everyone in St Louis think they have a stake in this one since the Cardinals played in St Louis at one point and so did Warner? The Cardinals were in Chicago for 60 years. Are Chicago fans cheering for the Big Red?
• 107 days till graduation. 35 days till Jamaica.
• I am probably going to get my scuba diving license. I do not think I can get it locally in such a short time plus I don’t want to pay extra to have my open dive in a cold cave. I will probably just do it in Jamaica.
• I think I have been doing my taxes wrong since I started Wash U. It looks like I could have been deducting my entire $25k tuition instead of doing the ~$4k Lifetime Learning credit. The articles I read make it sound like an MBA is some kind of special case when you can do this. Hopefully I will get a big chunk of change back when I refile.
• Last but not least, I forgot to mention something about ratings for Lost. Everyone is wondering why ratings are down. I think you will know this if you are a Lost fan. These past episodes are not made for the new watcher or even the every once in a while watcher. These episodes rely on the fact that you understand what has happened in the past 4 seasons. This is what makes the show so great but what also makes it unappealing to new users.

For the first 50 minutes I was totally disappointed with this episode. We then find out that Widmore was on the island and it instantly makes it an awesome episode for me.  Here are the things I am pondering.

• Why did that little blond firecracker act like she had seen Faraday before but it was never mentioned again?
• Is that same soldier girl the same person Desmond visited that was working with Faraday who was sick (radiation poisoning)?
• An episode without Kate or Jack? Has that happened before?
• The whole thing with the compass, Locke, and Richard has some kind of weird timeline that just doesn’t make sense to me. The only thing I do know is Richard visits Locke 6 or 7 years after Locke gives him the compass to test to see if Locke was telling the truth.
• I know there was talk in episodes a long time ago (Swan hatch era) in which there was a big lead deposit. Is the Swan Hatch the storage place of the H Bomb? Is that why they had to press the numbers in the old PC? Didn’t it look like the bomb was hanging over a hatch?
• The present time of this episode had to be 7 or 8 years (at least) from when they got off the island. Penny said they Desmond was off the island 3 years while pregnant and their kid had to be 4 or 5. This seems to supplement my theory (along with everyone else) that the island and the real world operate on different times. There is no way they could go back to the island 10 years later.
• Shout out to naming the kid Charlie.
• Why was it such a big deal to go back to LA for Penny and Desmond?

Update 1:  The crazy army lady is Faraday’s mom along with the current day Mrs Hawking in LA. All the things were tied together between this episode and the enhanced previous episode (with added text … he named his rat after his mom?). We will find out that Mrs Hawking first name is Ellie.

Update 2: This comment is just crazy but it could be true “I think Charlie (Desmond’s baby) is actually Charles Widmore, and Des & Pen are Adam & Eve (from the cave in Season 1)! Charlie and Ellie are Daniel’s parents, so D&P are his grandparents…” I was wondering why Desmond didn’t tell Widmore that Penny just had a baby. Maybe it would mess up the whole space time continuum ala Back to the Future.

I was working this weekend so this will be my shortest weekend summary ever. Fortunately, I was working in New Orleans in the 75 degree weather so I can not complain. I had not been to the Big Easy since pre Katrina so I did not know what to expect.  I did not notices any difference but we stuck to the convention area. I was told by one of our distributors that the place we ate on Friday was totally under water.

I did go out on Bourbon St Friday and Saturday. Friday was pretty low key where we just wondered in and out of bars. We went to Pat O’Briens and I did have a couple hurricanes. Saturday was more of a crazy night where I ended up drinking Long Island Ice teas, shots of Patron, and doing “body shots” which I do not think have alcohol in them. I had too much to drink. We did round out the night at Krystals. I saw two girls fights at the same bar (always a fun time to see two hot girls wrestling on the dance floor). One of the body shot girls was in both fights. She was worried about losing her job after the first fight but it did not seem to bother her after the second one. I think she drank a little too much which we had a lot to do with. And while I am on the topic of body shot girls, they are really aggressive. They force two test tubes on you down your throat and then demanded $8. You would think we would learn after the first time the first night but they got us again the second night.

I did eat a lot of good food. Basically a combination of a lot of fish, steak, and turtle soup. The one thing I can’t understand is why I never see jumbalya in New Orleans. It is one of my favorite dishes but I have never ate it there. I made it last night because of that.

The NADA show was empty. There were hardly any car dealers which is somewhat expected. I did have very productive meetings with some software and product vendors so the business trip was a success.

Wow! It was not enough that there were first flashbacks, then the Lost writers added flash forwards to their repertoire last season and now we have time actually jumping around. I am not sure what to say. I really do not know what to think about those two episodes. Were they good? Bad? Awesome? Did the show get too crazy for the casual viewer? What I do know is they did answer a lot of questions. I also thought the Lost writers were pretty tricky with some things they led us to believe from the previews and the episode descriptions and what I read in Brian’s thoughts. Below are some of the things that I am thinking about.

• Did they give us too much information this episode?
• Faraday said you could not alter what happens in the past to the effect the future (I liked his string example) but then how could any of the Darhma people survive the purge this time or how does any of the Lostees die while back in time. One thing that came to mind is that Locke will now kill everyone in the Purge instead of Ben.
• What else did Locke say to Richard in the future since we obviously know they met? Is this why he is the chosen one?
• The conversation between Faraday and Desmond was very interesting at the hatch. I can’t wait to see some analysis of it. Why is Desmond not effected? It is because Faraday is his constant? Is that why Faraday doesn’t seem to age.
• What is happening to Charlotte? I would think that she is dying but she made the weird comment that she had not had nose bleeds since she was a kid. Did she come to the island as a kid and get healed? Or is this another constant thing? Or the fact that there might be two versions of her on the island at the same time (i.e. young and old)?
• Does Daniel not age like Albert? Was he time traveling in that opening scene, was it a point when the island was jumping around, or he was actually there all along thus not aging?
• Miles is one weird character. I like how he nonchalantly threw in the fact that Faraday has been on the island before. No one even questioned that but I believe that was the first time that idea was raised. The whole killing the boar scene I think had some deeper meaning.
• I like how the writer made us believe for a couple seconds that Sun blamed Kate for her husband’s death. I guess we will find out another time the other person she blames. Sun is still not on the Oceanic Sixes side otherwise she would have told Kate that Widmore is the one that is trying to find answers with the paternity test.
• Who is this Ms. Hawking? She has shown up in multiple episodes and seems to have many connections with everyone. I think it is pretty obvious that she can track where the island is.
• The biggest question that was not answered was what happened when the island shifts through time? Is it really moving? Faraday made it seem like the island was traveling back and forth through time but that wouldn’t made it disappear like it did. Is it in an alternative universe? That would be too crazy.
• No Abaddon? Is he doing too many other shows?
• What was up with Neil freaking out so much? The writers hopefully had some meaning behind it since they spent so much time on it.

I am sure I will add more to this or make a second post later.

On another subject, did you see one of the ten thousand Comcast commercials where they were playing a Of Montreal song at the end. Pretty neat. In trying to find info on this, I discovered that Of Montreal wrote the song for the Outback Steakhouse commercial. It does sound like them (it is a cover band though).

• The season premiere of Big Love was good. Might be one of my top 2 or 3 shows for the year. The United States of Tara was very interesting. I think it will be a good show but not sure if it will survive.
• It is nice to have my Charter DVR back up and running.
• The Lakers looked really good last night against Lebron. Lebron was almost having a tantrum because the calls were not going his way. Very entertaining. I still think the Lakers are going to win it all based on their depth and combination of Odom, Bynum, and Gasol.
• Can’t wait till Lost!
• Half way through my papers for my International Business class. I have to finish them tonight.
• My fantasy basketball team is at a point of no return. They are too far behind even though they are playing good now.
• Excited to see a Gears of War 2 patch coming out. Hopefully it will fix a lot of the issues in online play.
• I am excited about my trip to the Big Easy this weekend. It doesn’t make up for the fact that I am going to miss Mardi Gras in Soulard but it does come in second.
• I am having an insanely product day at work today. I am finally making my way out from all the rubble of the new position.

I did not really enjoy my weekend at all. Things seemed like they just did not go my way. I was supposed to spend the weekend doing my International Business final but I could not get motivated. I did go out both Friday and Saturday but did little to no drinking both nights. For some reason, I could  not get pumped up about going out which prevented me from having fun. We did go to the new MPOs on Friday to peek in (stayed about 10 minutes). It will be the one and only time I ever go there.

Here is a summary of things that make me unhappy:

1. My Charter new DVR quit working (again). I had this new one for 3 weeks. I wasnt happy getting it in the first place since I liked the Moxi box with option to add an external HD. Because of this failure, I missed all of my HBO and Showtime premiers that I was looking forward to. I am hoping to get a new box today.
2. I bought the wrong Call of Duty 4. I was mentally exhausted but I wanted to use up my gift card Circuit City before it was no good. I called my sibling to ask him if the one I was holding was the latest one. He said yes and of course it wasn’t. I was skeptical still but did not see World at War so it didn’t raise a red flag. What did raise a red flag was when I put it in my xbox and it asked me if I wanted to continue my game. I am stuck with the game since I opened it plus all sales are final at CC.
3. My internet went down late Sunday so I just went to bed.
4. My phone is a piece of crap. I constantly keep getting my calls dropped. I think it has something to do when the phone goes from 3G to Edge. I went to the store and they said I did not have a 3G SIM card so they replaced it. It is still dropping calls so I am going to take it back. Yet another thing that I am going to have to re-setup like my DVR.

On one good note, we booked the trip to Jamaica. We went from going 7 nights to 5 to 9 to 11. Crazy right? 12 days in Jamaica … I can not wait. I also did not realize that Margaritaville orginated in Jamaica so a visit there will be in my itinerary. Let me know if you know any good things to visit or do.

There are a bunch of new shows coming out this month along with several old ones. Below is what I am looking forward to.

Monday Night CBS lineup – I am really looking forward to seeing How I Met Your Mother, Big Bang, and Two and Half Men in HD. All three are shows for great laughs.

Lost – I can not wait for this show. I watched the last two episodes on tv last night. It was a good 3 hours of Lost action. I have been hitting the comment boards about if this is my most favorite show ever. It is a toss up between Lost and Carnivale.

Fringe & Life on Mars – Looking forward to the return of both of these shows. I really got into both of these shows late in their season; especially Fringe.

Lie to Me and Harper’s Island – These are two on the network new 1 hour shows. Have not looked into them too much but I will give them a check later this month.

United States of Tara – New Showtime show about a lady with multiple personalities. The show looks really good.

Big Love / Flight of the Conchords – Both these start new season next Sunday. I am really looking forward to it. I have been watching Big Love alot lately. I can’t believe they have not had new episodes since 2007.

After an extremely long week of International Business at Wash U, I was really looking forward to the weekend. My fellow classmates and I had been planning on going to Kreis Restaurant to celebrate the end of a week long of hell. I had been to the place once for work. It was really the first time I have even gone to a fancy restaurant on my own dollar … normally I rely on my work to cover the bill like I will all this week since we have sales meetings. In case you do not know, this place is known for their humongous prime rib. We had talked about it all week knowing that they had a 64 ouncer. All the guys settled on the “small” 32 ounce one. It was delicious. It definitely is the best prime rib in St Louis. I also learned that you can bring your own wine to a restaurant; never knew you could do that. We needed it since we had a party of 14. We followed it up by predrinking a little at Ann’s then going to Bar Louie. It was fun. Afterwords, we went downtown and ended up at Rue 13. I was driving the whole night so I did not drink that much. On the other hand, my friends did drink and had some interesting stories (ticket for public urination, what?). The night ended with Steve trying to burn down my place (see previous post). My place still sells like smoke; not sure what to do.

I did absolutely nothing on Saturday except watch movies and playoff games. I watched Step Brothers and Burn After Reading. Both were okay. I really have not seen a good movie in a while. I am looking forward to seeing Mall Cop next weekend. I also watched Mizzou’s first conference basketball game. They looked horrible in the first half which basically led to their loss even though they tied it up in the 2nd half. Lyons and Caroll did nothing. There is no way we can win games with zero production from them.

On Sunday, I played more Gears of War 2. I am not happy with the online play continually disconnecting. Not sure if it is my connection or what. It is basically impossible for me to reach a 50 level on Horde if I or another teammate keeps getting disconnected. I also watched more NFL playoffs. I did some homework and did a lot of work stuff to prepare for my meeting this week.

It is crazy to be at work again. It has been 3 long weeks off. I am excited about the upcoming year with a new position plus graduating from grad school. It is going to be an interesting year dealing with the shape of the economy and my new work load.

On one last note, Lost is only 10 days away. One of my main intentions of this blog was to write about Lost so I am excited. Brian has done a great job (like always) of summing up what happened since the last episode plus gave his analysis of the upcoming season. You can read his analysis here.