I haven't been away that long from the blog, but I had written a nice long post a couple of days ago and when I went to add a picture Blogger dropped me. So the great work of literature that I had so lovingly crafted was lost to the world forever. I could try to recreate it, but I'm too pissed.

A Brush With Greatness

I just want to kick a shout out to Cyberman for his recent dialogue with Cowboys all-time great Drew Bledsoe.

My Idea For Voting Reform

Before I get started on this let me say that I'm not arguing that I think this will ever happen, but I do think it's an interesting idea. It occurs to me that many Americans have a general dissatisfaction with the election process that we currently employ. From the candidates, to the negative campaigning, to the lack of information available about the people that we are voting on. So my idea is that at the beginning of the campaign each candidate that has been selected to be on the ballot is sequestered into a room where they take a 200 question (random number I just picked) profile quiz in regards to where they stand on different policies, current issues, and hypothetical situations. The on election day voters go in and take a similar, but shorter quiz (25 questions) and their vote is then automatically cast to the candidate that is most reflective of their beliefs on the issues. I realize that there would have to be some weighting of different categories and in fact that would probably be part of the quiz. So instead of voting for a candidate or party, people would vote their beliefs on issues and if the best candidate for them happened to be from another party then that person would get their vote. This would also cause a change in campaign ads and funding as it no longer becomes necessary to spout rhetoric and defame opposing candidates, instead candidates would be forced to push issues and ideas. I'm not saying this process doesn't have bugs in it, or would be universally lauded, but no process ever is. I do think though that it takes a lot of the animosity out of politics and elections and really puts the onus back on the American people to think about what they are doing when casting their votes.

Just When You Think You Know Somebody

http://www.cnn.com/2006/LAW/11/07/pot.burgers.ap/index.html

It almost makes me change my stance.

Costumes and Halloween Fun!!!

Just an update to let you know how The House of Dagromm celebrated Halloween this year. First, my wife and I sent our kids out with some neighborhood friends to go Trick or Treating. It was a year for combo costumes as the boy decided to be an "off the shelf" Cyborg/Alien and the girl got her wish to be a Vampire Rock Star. I blame these costume choices on things like Yu-Gi-Oh which has monsters with confusing over explained names like The Blue Eyes White Dragon. My wife and I stayed behind to pass out treats and put up some hastily thrown together decorations. I set out the electric jack-o-lantern (thanks mom), put the glow in the dark skull in the window, and put about 1/5 of the fake cobwebs that we bought up around the door with some plastic spiders. I also put out the electronic talking tombstone that we bought. Unfortunately that purchase wasn't that well thought out, as it's motion activated and almost the entire area around our front door is paved driveway. If I put it in the yard then nobody would ever activate it and if I put it in the driveway then it becomes unfortunately so unconvincing as to be stupid. So instead I stuffed it into the holly bushes so that it wasn't seen much, but was at least activated once in a while. Then my wife and I waited for trick or treaters. She wore our sons grim reaper mask and shroud from last year and I controlled the lights. When people came to our door, I would flick off the porch lights and we live on a very dark street and turn on s strobe light that was inside the house. Then I would slowly open the door and my wife would walk down the front hall towards them as a flickering vision of death. It was pretty fun to see the reaction although it took a few times to get it right. She didn't have her contacts in the first time and I don't think it was too scary as death walked into door frames and stumbled around trying to find the candy that was obviously set right behind her. We got a couple of oohs and aahs as well as a few shrieks, but everybody appeared to appreciate the effort.

After our kids finally made it back home we ate a late dinner and watched Monster House on DVD. It's a cute movie that's appropriately dark and has what I think is the right level of scariness for kids 7 and up. Unfortunately my daughter is 6 and needed to sleep with her big brother last night. Oh well, everybody is groggy today and we all agreed to get to bed early tonight. We'll see if that sticks.

For Interested Cowboy Fans

Gyuss recently contacted me to ask how the recent Tony Romo experience was playing down here. He's gotten a lot of good reviews so far and local sports pundits are already wanting to laude him as the second coming of Roger Staubach. Not everybody is happy about it though as evidenced by Drew Bledsoe's recently established blog. I share for your enjoyment.
http://www.tonyhomo.com/

Interesting Heart Healthy News

I read on CNN this morning that KFC has opted to use a new cooking oil for their chicken and potato wedges that will keep out the trans fats from their food. They still haven't found a way to eliminate it from their biscuits, but they are still looking. It's nice to see that some of these corporations are finding ways to not kill us and maybe keep our business a little longer. Below is a quote from the article that shows that other companies are doing the same.

KFC isn't the only business preparing for a trans-fat-free future.
Wendy's International Inc., the burger restaurant chain company, has already switched to a zero-trans fat oil. Fast-food leader McDonald's Corp. had announced that it intended to do so as well in 2003, but has yet to follow through.

So McDonald's hasnt followed through on this claim, no surprise there. And who else is missing.........?????? Burger King!!! Let this be a reminder to all that the Burger King is the enemy of mankind!

My Favoritest Football Player

I had a converstaion with Q last night and we agreed that Chad Johnson is probably the football player that we would be most likely to enjoy hanging out with. In fact he reminds me of Q quite a lot. From his sense of humor to his willingness to embrace new bad haircuts. In fact he reminds me of Q so much that I know that I wouldn't ever accept an invite to his house without a concealed unregistered handgun locked and loaded. Viva La Ocho Cinco!!!

Hey Gyuss!!
This is a new blog that might interest you.
http://mandorak.blogspot.com/
Love,
Dagromm

If you send this link to 2,500 close and personal friends then you will be blessed by eternal good fortune, by dark and mysterious powers. Otherwise you will die.

Victory!!!!!

We are officially on a role. Our third straight win with one game left to play. Hopefully the girls don't get too lazy from Halloween treats. I am completely stoked and even now six hours later I am full of energy. Even though the girls looked lethargic at times, we completely controlled the game. The final score was 6-2, which marks the fourth straight week that we have held an opponent to 3 or less goals which is strong. My daughter toughed this game out even though she had a cold and wasn't at a hundred percent. She was upset that she didn't score, but she still had a solid game. I am already thinking ahead to next season and hoping that we have a large number return for another season. If we get the majority of our team back then I think we'll have a particularly strong year. One more to go then it's pizza, trophies, and a couple of months off until next season begins.

Victory!!

I wanted to take a minute to relate a conversation I recently had over lunch. It was about a week a go when I went to lunch with two acquaintances of mine at a local bistro that is a favorite of ours due to the outstanding waitstaff. During the course of the meal, one of these acquaintances made a comment that shocked both myself and the other party. This person was of the firm state of mind that pornography was not real. He seemed to think that it was all just special effects and that everything you saw in movies or online was not real. Well the offended other party and myself were aghast at such a notion. We asked several times to clarify his opinion, but he was resolute that it couldn't possibly be real. So for the next several moments we did our best to persuade him that the intercourse was not fabricated and was indeed happening on film (a thought that he could never come to grips with), until we were interrupted by our waitress and one of the parties shouted out "urine" to cover up for our illicit pornography talk.

Victory!!!!!

We are on a roll. My girls soccer team won again last night for our second victory of the year. We have now won our last two games with two to play. This game was almost more satisfying, because we had all of our girls present for the win. Our defense played tough again and I think is becoming the identity of our team. My little girl scored two or three more goals which accomplished her personal goal that she had set for herself at the beginning of the season, which was to score ten this year. At halftime we were up 3-2 and I told the girls that we were in position to win, and that we could beat this team. In response one of the girls pointed out that the main thing was to have fun. So I responded with, "winning is fun" so if they can do both then we would all be happy. Then I benched her for the rest of the game. Just kidding about the benching.

Latest Weird Al News

Since Weird Al has been a topic of discussion on this board I share this link for the edification of all. Weird Al is not dead!
http://www.cnn.com/2006/SHOWBIZ/Music/10/23/music.yankovic.reut/index.html

Victory!!!!

Well it was a long time coming, but the U-7 girls soccer team that I coach finally had our first win. It had been two weeks since our last game and we came in to Saturday 0-6. I had seen improvement each game and I never felt we were really overmatched by our opponents, but still we couldn't get over the hump. I was starting to worry about the girls psyches. Even though they seemed to be having a good time, they realized they hadn't actually won any games. Our fundamentals were getting better. The girls' understanding of the game has gotten better, and our defense has gotten really good, but we hadn't gotten over that last mental hurdle. This last two weeks of practice had been really good and I had seen so much good on Thursday that I told my wife that I really liked our chances this Saturday. Well the game wasn't even close. We dominated from start to finish and the final score was something like 11-3, with us scoring one of their goals for them. My own daughter, who really has a warrior like attitude out there, scored five goals and was darn near unstoppable for us. I saw them use some of the moves that we've been working on and making good passes. It was such a rush to see all that teaching I've been doing actually translate into some learning by the players and result in a victory. We've still got lots to work on as I watch these games with a critical eye, as most coaches do, and unfortunately most of what they did wrong stands out to me more than what they did right. Still it was nice to get to relax a little during the game and hear some of the praise from the parents. I'm shooting for a winning streak now. I'll tell you later this week whether we've managed to achieve it!

Movie Night Smack Down!!!
My wife and I spent Saturday evening exploiting the fact the we had relatives stop by our house. We quickly seized the opportunity to vacate the premises and head down to the local movie house. The wife and I were in a quirky mood and decided to make it a double feature of two different WWE superstars. We started off the evening by taking in The Marine starring the professor of thuganomics, John Cena. Then almost immediately afterwards were able to walk into the theater for Gridiron Gang starring The Rock. I'm pretty sure that both movies are based on true stories and they both had appearances by other big name stars. The Gridiron Gang had Xzibit and The Marine had a cameo from NFL legend Lincoln Kennedy. What more could you ask for in a movie? I'll tell you what...action and big hits. With The Rock and John Cena you know you'll get plenty of both. I have to admit that before I went to see The Marine I thought it was going to be pretty bad, but it really exceeded my expectations. It was like watching one of those Lorenzo Lamas TV shows on USA with more steroids and less rational thought.

Does anyone else suspect that this will be the scene in the Q household one day?

Since I haven't learned yet how to post video I am instead referring you to this link to check out some great international music. Skuter!!!!

http://www.d-videos.com/video/17008

A Strange Thing Happened at Work Today

While realizing that I hadn't blogged in weeks it occurred to me that my faking being busy at work accidentally turned into me really doing work. Now I don't mind doing work. Heck they're paying me for it, but everything in moderation right? The truth is I've been spending time at work getting in better with all my stressed out overworked co-workers. I've been trying to find out what the big deal is and why they are there all those extra hours. It turns out that they spend half of each day bitching about how stressed out and overworked they are to each other, rather than actually working. In fact I think if they would take a moment to notice how much time they spent complaining they would realize that they actually have more than enough time to accomplish the work that they have in front of them. I'm one of those people that like to make things simpler for themselves. When I get a project I ask myself, what's the easiest way to get this done. Then 9 times out of 10 that's what I go with. So then I have free time at work that I have to use looking busy. That's why my monitor will never be visible from the door to my office. In fact my fake work habits have earned me a reputation for having a real attention to detail. My boss even applauded me for it today. Of course he did so as he gave me a new project to be in charge of. No biggie though. Once I figured out how to do what he was asking of me, I decided which work that my coworkers "have to do first", that left me with a project that will take up about 1 full minute of each week. It's Ockham's Razor. The simplest way is the best.

America Sucks

I practically grew up going to Sci-fi and comic book conventions and we never had cute fans like they do in Japan that dress up like their favorite characters. In fact it seems the only place you find people that are willing to dress up in silly costumes here in America are on HBO's "Real Sex". What is wrong with our culture where we have to sexualize anything that is outside the norm. It's not enough to like something, but lets dress up like it and have sex! Oh well, I give up, and I would totally get with this chick.

One more pic that I found on Golf Girl's blog.