it should be noted that the site has undergone a minor change. inspired by the revamped gurs website, now here, which features a comments section, i've used haloscan to initiate one myself. of course, mine is quite rudimentary and, for some reason, has made the site look lower-tech thatn it already was, but hopefully i'll give you something to respond to, or something.

not much of much to report. a frozen car led to some great disturbances on thursday morning, leading to me learning that the lock canal on the passenger side of my automobile was broken when the car was broken into 15 months ago. that led to a $200 bill, but we got through it.

our office is getting some new software, which precipitates some major training sessions that have been conducted via some net meeting-like service. point is, our software wasn't installed completely properly, which leads to incredibly long and maddeningly unproductive four-hour sessions.

this frustration has been compounded by the fact that, prior to the break, i brought my office computer into our provider for a minor repair. when i returned in on tuesday, it wasn't ready. (and, in fact, it apparently hadn't been touched, even though it had been there for 10 days.) so i decided to take it back wednesday morning, rather than wait for the repair. after getting into the frozen car, picking up the un-repaired computer, and returning to the office, it was revealed that the computer wouldn't power up. like, it wasn't minorly broken, it was completely broken. so i returned it to the shop, and they're sending it to the manufacturer, and i'll be waiting probably a month to get it back. furthermore, all extra computers have been moved into the 'training room,' meaning that i'm without one. this is frustrating and unproductive, and i sort of felt like the previous three working days were worthless. but, alas, we must soldier through beginning tomorrow to make this worthwhile.

now, two observations from the vikings-packers game, the only game that i watched the majority of this weekend:

1) i've been highly frustrated by the overpraise of brett favre for years, and the reaction to the idiotic underhanded pass beyond the line of scrimmage late in the first half today is the finest example.

if you didn't see it, what happened:
- minnesota leads 24-10, 26 seconds left, 3rd and six from the minnesota 8. favre drops back, scrambles right, and starts downfield. at about the five-yard line (threeyards past scrimmage), he throws and underhanded pass caught in the end zone by jovan walker. of course, the td is called back, and the penalty shifts the pack back five yards and results in a loss of down. longwell misses the field goal, and the packers remain down a pair of td's at the half.

joe buck and his cronies praise favre for his adventurousness and the fact that he's smiling so much on the field...they should have been criticizing his idiotic decision. the pack had third down. the pack sure could have used a touchdown. the pack had two timeouts left in the half. favre was three yards from the first down marker and five from the end zone. it is reasonable to think that he had a chance for the first down. he should have stayed on his feet, taken a dive for the first down, and called the timeout. worst case scenario: he's short of the first down and the packers are close enough to consider going for fourth-and-short. best case scenario: touchdown. but favre made the decision, so he's allowed to skate on it.

it's time to realize that the guy's recklessness on the field, while fun and exciting, makes him a detriment to his team at times. he's playing with a great offensive line and, when healthy, one of the league's best running backs. walker, driver and franks are a fine trio of receivers. i'd say that most nfl quarterbacks could have won the nfc north this season, and that the packers success has been accomplished, at least this season, as much in spite of favre as because of him.

2) my god...i can't believe the reaction to randy moss' latest silly celebration, the 'pantomime full moon.' with 10 minutes left in the game, moss caught a deep pass down the right sideline, scoring a touchdown to give the vikings a 31-17 lead. he proceeded to the base of the goalposts, and pretended to flip up his towel and drop his pants to the crowd.

cris collinsworth had it right, for once: "it looks like he's going for the full moon!!" he exclaimed (or something similar). but then joe buck interrupted and set the tone for what will inevitably be another week of emphasizing non-news: "and randy moss commits an absolutely classless act and i'm embarrassed that we've even had it on our airwaves," he said.

and on the highlights show, berman says "it would be in poor taste to show it" and then he and tom jackson have a grave, solemn conversation as if moss had committed a violent crime of, say, sexual assault.

i mean, really, it's not that big of a deal.

that's all.

congratulations to scott boras, who's once again squeezed an unsuspecting team for more money than his client is worth, thus ensuring that his client won't win at all in his new location. and also, congratulations to the mets, who entered 2003 with a promising, strong system and a commitment to developing for the future and now find themselves having traded their top prospects and overspent on kris benson. and congratulations to carlos beltran, who's an idiot for ever signing with boras and who's a bigger idiot for listening to his 'take the money and run' advice and hightailing it to shea.