Whatever

Seeing as we have cut the cable cord, the only games I can watch of the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament on TV are the ones broadcast by the local CBS affiliate. But because I have high speed internet, I can watch any game I want on my PC right from the NCAA’s web site. Full screen and in HD too.

Funny thing though, last night I was watching a game that was broadcast on TruTV when I noticed a To Log In: button with “Select TV Provider” written on it. I clicked it and to my surprise there was an Atlantic Broadband selection, unlike when I tried ESPN3, so I picked it and logged in with my email address and password. The video disappeared and was replaced by a “You do not have the proper TV package to view this game” text.

It was correct, as I don’t have any TV package, but once I logged out, I could watch any of the games on TruTV, TBS or TNT. So why log in?

The other day as I was walking out the front entrance of Kroger’s taking my own sweet time, a fellow zipped by in a hurry with a very purposeful stride. I looked over as he blew by me and noticed he was carrying two 6 packs of beer. It was O’Doul’s. I almost blurted out, “In a hurry to tie one on.”, but figured anyone drinking non-alcoholic beer might also be of the non-humorous type.

And if O’Doul’s is non-alcoholic, why do you have to be over 21 to visit their web site?

Last night we went to Kroger to stock up on some more restaurant gift cards. There were two reasons for this, one, no kitchen, so for the next couple of weeks we will be dining out fairly often and two, they were offering 4x fuel points. So the $100 spent equated to 400 points or an additional 40¢ off a gallon of gas above what we normally get from our weekly shopping.

A big disappointment was that they didn’t have any DD cards, because we eat there at least twice a week we burn through those $15 cards pretty quickly. As we were checking out I suggested that take out twenty in cash too as I only had two dollars in my wallet. Donna agreed. As I was going through the motions of checking out, Donna asked the employee manning the area did they have any Dunkin Donut gift cards in the back or somewhere. I paused and waited until the attendant got back, empty-handed, to finish checking out. I gathered up the gift cards and their accompanying bits of paperwork and we left.

This morning when we got to work Donna asked for a dollar so she could go to the machine and get a hot chocolate. When I opened my wallet to give it to her all that was in there was just two dollars. Uh, oh, I instantly knew what happened. I was so caught up in the DD card process that I never grabbed the twenty out of the dispenser. Dumbass!

Donna saved the day by calling the store, and lucky us the cashier noticed the lonely twenty dollar bill and turned it in to the service desk. Retrieving the money after dinner this evening was quite an adventure and if I get around to it, a post in of itself.

The Marines, the few, the proud, America’s premier fighting force, were not afraid on the shores of Tripoli nor the Halls of Montezuma but they cower before the specter of Beyonce.

Earlier today Master Sgt. Kristin duBois,a spokeswoman for the U.S. Marine Band, said the band was notified at the last minute that Beyonce would use a pre-recorded voice track.

Later in the day, Marine Corps spokesman Capt. Gregory Wolf statement included this line, “Regarding Ms. Knowles-Carter’s vocal performance, no one in the Marine Band is in a position to assess whether it was live or pre-recorded.

We’re spending a quiet, well inside at least, New Year’s Eve at home. No parties requiring bean dip for us. Me in front of the PC watching a fuzzy ESPN stream of Clemson vs. LSU from a European server and Donna on the couch reading a Daniel Steele novel with the movie Enchanted on as background.

With the Leaf antenna screwed into the dedicated UHF port on the preamp and the rabbit ears connected to the VHF port over the air free TV was just fine watching the NFL on the 3 channels that it shows on. Including the previously pesky FOX54. The real test will come next time we are in the middle of a rainstorm.

The End Zone Entourage League’s season finished up yesterday. I made the playoffs with my mediocre 7-6 record because unlike last year when only the top 4 teams got in, this year everyone got in. I’m pretty sure that the owners of the top four regular season teams are not happy with me as Commissioner because one of the changes I made was that all 12 teams made the playoffs. Those top 4 did get a bye-week, but three of them promptly lost their first game to the underdogs. And the underdogs had their day in the Championship game as the 4-9 regular season #12 seed beat the 5-8 #10 to take home the coveted Trophy To Be Named Later.