Archive for March, 2008
Hey Hey you you I don’t like your girlfriend….
Why did I just say that?
So, what’s new with everyone? Ok, I was just kidding, blog about it, I don’t actually care. (Unless He-Man is reading this, I CARE ADAM!)
I love March only because of basketball. My memories of March as a child are everyone in my St. Lawrence class having a birthday. Anna Monson, Brian Ward, and others. And in 3rd grade for every birthday we got treats and in March once Anna threw up on the floor. Nasty, it came out like milk. I can’t remember what Linds asks me to get at the grocery store but I’ll remember weird things like that forever. Like I remember being around 5 and mom went to the bathroom and I tried to smoke her cigarette really quickly before she came back (thank god she took forever)(that’s gross). And I tried to smoke it by blowing into it rather than sucking the beautiful nicotine into my still developing lungs, thought it was nasty, tried to give it back to mom, and she made me smoke her entire pack in front of all her drunk friends. One of them hit me. They made a dog urinate on me. That isn’t true.
So, Linds is absolutely right, we did do those things the last 2 weekends. This weekend I’d like to go out and rent Super Smash Bros. to see if it’s “tight” or not. Maybe rent a few sports games for the wii just to check them out. I have decided I’m never buying a game again without renting it first.
I’d also like to watch a lot of basketball, right now our very own Lindsey is just 2 points off the lead. She also has Clemson in the final four.
I’m literally still laughing at the dog line.
Happy weekend everyone.
March 28th, 2008
Happy Easter everyone.
Well, we had our second visitors in a row and our second very nice weekend. The House’s and us did all sorts of fun stuff, went to the King of Prussia mall, which has the designed stores like Coach and Louis Vitan (holy snakes I spelled that wrong), but is also very big. Did that, went to Ikea, which Linds and I will definitely have to go to once we move next, lotta nice things there for cheap, plus putting it together makes us both feel like a man. We also watched Juno and Superbad; went to Jim’s Steakhouse, went to the Phlly Zoo, ate at Pinnochio’s a little pizza shop, and then watched a shitake ton of You Tube videos.
So, yesterday after our wonderful meal which Linds made we ended up playing GHIII on the wii and played it so long we beat the game. I happen to be the one who beat the devil at the end and holy moses is that song during the credits hard. The dragon one. I thought my arm was going to fall off.
So, again, we definitely burned in the Wii a bit and had a lot of fun.
So, after the second consecutive short week it’s back to normal work times. Ugh. I am tired today and desperately need some motivation to work. I have found myself daydreaming of college and more importantly summers while at college.
As far as I know, no more visitors are coming to stay with us in Philly, I know uncle Bill will be here in April, but he won’t be staying with us. Other than that, I guess it’s time to move on and start preparing for our next big move.
RIP my calculator. I remember begging mom for this TI-83 plus calculator in HS and I got it. It was a sweet graphing calculator which I couldn’t even use for big tests because of its memory usage. I could and did put games on it, played tetris like a mofo, some people even had GTA on there calculators. The calculator lasted for several years, but I have to say I’m a bit disappointed, I’ve seen calculators last generations, and mine didn’t even last longer than Patches. Anyway, I finally threw it out last night and it was sad watching it go. There were a lot of stored test answers plugged away in there, got me out of HS math. Thanks TI.
And Thank You for reading.
March 24th, 2008
Hey readers, How are you?
Does anyone have any good new standup for me to listen to? I need a laugh and ran across an old Eddie Izzard album yesterday which was a good refresher. Honestly, he’s very british, its kind of funny how americans and then everyone else have different senses of humor. How does that happen? I’m just glad I can appreciate both, more laughs for me.
Last weekend we have Stu and Jenni over. Basically, with us living so close to each other (they are in VA) why not make a weekend of it. So they came up, we used up one of our Sundays, had a ton of wings, showed them the sights in Philly, and then the real fun started. We played Xbox 360 and the Wii for something around 7 hours…and it was a lot of fun. I haven’t gamed like that in a long time and it was definitely nice. I had my first taste of COD4, which sucked with playing just me vs him and it being my first time and also my first time with an xbox. But, in single player it could be fun. Then, we played a much more entertaining game, Rainbow 6 Las Vegas 2. Awesome. This was a lot of fun, for once I played a game where I was on the edge of my seat at times, had to do thinking rather than memorizing (the bad guys around this corner, once we get to this point we have killed everyone, etc) because these bad guys have AI and come after you if you wait too long and you really don’t know where they’re coming from.
Then Rock Band, and then the Wii. We bowled, tennised, boxed, etc. And then we put in Mario and Sonic Olympic Games, like a Wii Sports on steroids. We played that thing for hours.
All in all it was nice having the company and we had a great time, I wouldn’t have guessed we would’ve just gamed all night, but I’m glad we did.
This weekend we are hosting again, this time Sam and Kathleen. Sam is a former Forensixxx and was definitely one of the coolest guys I’ve met over here. Miles, he’s a fan of Wolf parade. He looks like the kind of guy who’s F the establishment hippy kind of guy and then he’ll turn around and watch sports non-stop, the two don’t usually go hand in hand.
I’m definitely looking forward to them visiting cause Kathleen is very cool, too. And they’re from the south so they have that southern drawl.
NCAA tournament starts today. I’m very excited and for the second year am running the company bracket. Illegal, apparently. Fine is like $5k, but I do have a few managers involved, so I hope that will mean I’m out of trouble. So far we have about 30 people in the tournament and I did call Timmy for some upsets. He’s been decent so far, but claims he hasn’t had much time to see many games this year.
I don’t think it’s a surprise to anyone, but I have NC winning it all. Against Duke. Because that’s how I want it to happen.
Happy Easter everyone. Jesus died tomorrow for your sins, especially Holli’s since she’s decided to become Catholic. Just so she’s prepared, we actually have sins in the Catholic church and you need a certified Catholic Priest to make you better. It’s like a Co-Pay to get it figured out, rather than being able to fix yourself. Kind of like an HMO in that respect. But actually not at all like Health Insurance. And we don’t sing as happily as the Methodists, so I hope you’re ready for that. We’re more casual that way, like Johnny Depp. But we do have to go to church a lot. (even New Years day, the one mass besides every Sunday that I go to that I’m hungover for). So, good luck, but the good news is just for trying you go to heaven, which is why Stalin made it (he was nearly a Catholic priest, but kicking mother Russia’s ass instead was more lucrative).
To those that live around BSC, I will tell you one tradition I miss is sitting around on Good Friday night, waiting for midnight to have a steak and depending on my age at the time, a beer. Or a lot of them.
March 20th, 2008
Alright, I have given you the specs. Not 1080, but 700 whatever. It’s sooo much bigger than the TV we had, like double. In fact after plugging it in and watching Linds and I just giggled every so often like, “oh my God, look at that TV”.
I am glad the TV comes in time for March Madness. Ends up my boss has a TV that’s 92″ in his living room. In fact, most the people I work for heard I had a 27″ HDTV LCD and were like, “wow, so you really needed this TV” and I can’t help but think, “what? Need?” I like tv, like, alot. But the need for a big tv in an apartment just isn’t that big of a deal to me. Don’t get me wrong, I think it’s great. The coolest part is that the DVD player and the Cable can be plugged in at the same time! Also, if we ever get a PS3 or anyhting else that requires an HDMI hookup, it has a third as well. Awesome.
Well, work just got a bit more stressful, that program I told you about, rather then getting the 33% of each deal, that we thought we’d get, it was slahsed to 7.5 and then increased to 20%. I hope that’s the end of it. One thing that happens here is if they have a program that is very successful they backtrack to help save the company money, usually not expecting such a return. It’s a bit ridiculous and unfair, I chalk it up to inexperience, as the business model like ours has only existed for a couple years, and every project we work on is groundbreaking.
This weekend we are hosting Stuart and Jenni Stone. They are bringing Rock Bank and COD4 and I’m very excited to host them. PLEDGE.
Chet, I began listening to your top 20, and going into I knew many of the songs would take time to decide if I like them or not, so far, I love your #1 song and of course the songs I had already been familiar with (ben folds and dashboard).
March 13th, 2008
Well, by now you’ve all maybe heard about my luck, but here it is in a post.
We had a raffle. There are about 50 people in our office working in our department. For every $1,000 sold during January and February you got one raffle ticket towards this drawing. There were roughly 1,000 tickets or so, with some people nearly reaching 40 tickets for their cause, I was in the top half, at 12, which wasn’t too shabby I thought.
So, they did the drawing, sure enough my name was picked first and I won…
A 42″ flat screen Samsung Plasma TV. I don’t have any real details except I think it has like 3 HDMI hookups, and its 7__p. We had the TV in its box, at one point to get people interested management had everyone sign the box, which of course I signed it “Future Senator Bryce Rausch”, but that was the most I looked at it. I didn’t ever bother looking up the specs.
Right now it’s locked away in a closet so no one can steal it, also so I couldn’t take it home last night.
“What’s the downside Bryce??!!!”
Well imaginary audience apparently whom is clairvoyant because up until now i never mentioned there was a downside, there is in fact one downside (nice work). I have to pay taxes, and not just sales taxes. So rather then the 6% sales tax I have to pay taxes as if I won the lottery, won a boat on a tv show, or had a free trip. Somewhere around 40 percent action.
So, I don’t know what the tax is exactly, I don’t know where they bought it or anything like that, but I do know it’s a much nicer TV than I had and I really didn’t have to do anything for it besides my job.
5 boroughs:
Queens
Bronx
Staten Island
Manhattan
Brooklyn
Counties in SD?
Um I want to say 60??? That’s a guess and that’s without me taking out my list of SD counties in my wallet. I actually think 60 is too exact. Maybe 57.
Specs of the TV:
Samsung HPT4254
General
Product Type
42 in Plasma TV
Digital Television Certification
HDTV
Video Interface
HDMI, S-Video, Component, Composite
PC Interface
VGA (HD-15)
Resolution
1024 x 768
Display Format
720p
Image Aspect Ratio
16:9
Color Depth
18-bit color
Dynamic Contrast Ratio
15000:1
Input Video Formats
480i, 480p, 720p, 1080i
Supported Computer Resolutions
720 x 400, 1360 x 768, 640 x 480 (VGA), 1024 x 768 (XGA), 800 x 600 (SVGA)
Freeze Memo
Yes
Connector Type
2 x HDMI ( 19 pin HDMI Type A ) - Rear, 1 x HDMI ( 19 pin HDMI Type A ) - Side, 2 x Component video input ( RCA phono x 3 ) - Rear, 1 x S-Video input ( 4 pin mini-DIN ) - Rear, 1 x Composite video/audio input ( RCA phono x 3 ) - Rear, 1 x VGA input ( 15 pin HD D-Sub (HD-15) ) - Rear, 1 x Audio line-in ( Mini-phone stereo 3.5 mm ) - Rear, 1 x S-Video input ( 4 pin mini-DIN ) - Side, 1 x Composite video/audio input ( RCA phono x 3 ) - Side, 1 x Headphones ( Mini-phone stereo 3.5 mm ) - Side, 3 x Audio line-in ( RCA phono x 2 ) - Rear, 1 x Audio line-out ( RCA phono x 2 ) - Rear, 1 x Digital audio input (optical) ( TOSLINK ) - Rear, 1 x USB ( 4 pin USB Type A ) - Side
Service & Support
1 year warranty
Service & Support Details
Limited warranty - Parts and labor - 1 year
March 11th, 2008
Alright. I talked to a buddy at work who adamantly defended you Los(t)ers. To be honest, I don’t even care about Lost, negatively or positively, because I haven’t seen any of it…on purpose. I do intend on watching it, one problem. I have enough shows right now. For TV to apparently be in a slump (the After Friends Slump) I definitely have some shows I’m attached do.
House
American Idol (this week they sing Beatles songs for the first time, so I’m definitely excited for that)
Top Chef (just got into last last season and now I already can’t wait for next season)
Bones (I guess)
The Office
G(r)ey’s Anatomy
Inside the NFL (R.I.P.)
Real Sports
South Park
Family Guy
SNL (finally a decent Digital Short this weekend)
Private Practice
I’m sure some of you have lists even longer than this, but it’s a pretty long list. Not to mention watching movies, trying to work out an hour a day, tuesday trivia nights, and day-to-day living. And I have been promised by my buddy at work that if I watch it, I will be hooked. And right now, I’m addicted to enough shows. I remember when I finally just sat down and watched Arrested Development. I was skipping meals to watch that show. I watched 3 episodes a day to get caught up just in time for the last season.
So Miles is making me famous and taking the credit. First the picture in France and now my borrowing goods for his bachelor party. I’ll let Miles post about the details. But lets just say this, have you ever heard of the Wall Street Journal…in san francisco? Me neither. Wall Street is in NYC (New York City).
Hey did you know that the day time population of NYC is like 10 million. Also, there are 5 boroughs that make up NYC. What are they? This is your trivia question of the day.
March 10th, 2008
March 9th, 2008
The last weekend for college basketball is this weekend and it ended well for some and bad for others.
First the bad. Timmy’s first year as the CSU coach has left him recruiting quite a bit. He better not have recruited anyone out of Philly because if he did, he didn’t call. So, for his own good lets hope he didn’t, K?
But today with another loss concluded their regular season without winning any conference games and having just 6 wins. They do have the conference championship series, but that won’t be easy for them. I just hope he’s got some good recruits that are ready to play next year. Playing several freshmen and having some bad injuries on top of it definitely make it difficult to squeak out any wins.
On to some better news, UNC. I love it when UNC wins, but nothing is as good as a win in Coack K stadium. With those obnoxious fans nothing beats getting to see them cry. After reading “March into Madness” which is a book that follows the ACC for an entire season I found out that apparently UNC’s court is among the quietest in D-I ball. Which is sad, but some of it is due to the architecture of the building. If I were a head coach I would much rather have one of cramped stadiums that barely have room for the full court and the stands. Stadiums like Marshall’s leaves too much empty space for the sound to die. But, places built more like SD State’s court where the stands are all around the court and move up (a better example is the Palestra, which ya’ll prolly haven’t been to) and the sound can be deafening.
Ok, so honestly, I enjoy DUKE wins even more than March Madness wins. That’s right, I would rather sweep Duke then go to the Final Four.
We’ll give it a shot. Hey Timmy, I know you gots 2 tickets to the Final Four, you gonna take me or what?
It’s out there now. Game’s in his corner now. Move, if you got the guts.
Enough about sports, I could literally hear Miles’ forehead hit the keyboard from falling asleep.
It’s been a slow weekend. We have company next weekend and more company the next so we’re just looking to relax here. So far this weekend I’ve worked out twice, watched Ratatouille, the first 2 episodes of House, helped Linds make some homemade chili, played GHIII, watched a documentary on Green Berets, watched a documentary on steroids, stand up routines by Dave Chappelle and George Carlin, and of course, watched the UNC/Doooooke game.
Tomorrow, church and maybe some cleaning.
Who remember Mystery Science Theatre 3000?
In a way, they’re back. Check out RiffTrax. Essentially, Michael Nelson couldnt’ afford the rights to any real movies so they made fun of old movies with Copyright rights that had expired or were very cheap. So, what’s he do? The same type of thing, not sure if with the popcorn and robot, too or not, but just as an MP3 and then you just play the movie at the same time. No copyright problems and can do it with more popular movies. So, if interested, check it out, I’ve acquired one for LOTR’s and Transformers. I intend to check them out tomorrow.
Long post, huh?
Actually, that’s it. I’ll end it there. Good day.
And now a random picture:
March 8th, 2008
Which baseball coach attacked the Philadelphia Mascot during a game?
Tommy Lasorda
Which ACC team is called the Demon Deacons?
Wake Forest
Which team’s first superbowl appearance was made due in part from Dwight Smith (not sure on the last name)’s catch in the end zone in the NFC Championship game which is now simply known as “the catch”?
San Francisco 49′ers
What 1980’s movie took the fad of breakdancing and put it on the big screen?
Flashdance
What country is the Rosetta Stone located?
England
Which European capital can you find the famous “Spanish Steps”?
Rome
How many players are there on each team of the Ryder Cup in golf?
10
So, Linds had a crazy day yesterday. Just check out: http://www.milesrausch.com/lindsey
and I got to be part of it. At the end of that whole post it ends up its the crazy fired guys’ birthday and he wanted the Hatfield ladies to join him. So, Dominic and I tagged along, ate our steaks and sat at a completely different table. It was oddly like we had a date and then everyone else had their own seperate night. Complete with the leaving together and coming back to pick up our womens.
It would be easy to get Nana to post. Instead of using a type-writer or something have her use a word processor. Save it, and mom you can post it. Easy. She’s gonna print that stuff out anyway, all you’d have to do is copy it, paste it, and post it.
I just heard about Nathan and that’s an incredibly difficult thing for anyone, let alone a high schooler, to have to go through. Nathan is definitely one of the coolest kids I know and he’s in our prayers over here in Philly.
I remember when I was young I had a mother try to kill me. With a bike.
So we started talking about speech impediments yesterday. It started with talking about New York accents and ended with me singing Happy Birthday as a 5 year old. I sang it like how I did on the infamous tape back in the BSC and the reaction was basically, “are you sure you had a speech impediment, are you sure you weren’t just retarded?”
Miles and Holli, I will not attend your Lost party.
Sue, I’ll show you some love. Ready for it:
Sue. You are my coolest aunt. I don’t know if it’s because we’re closest in age, if it’s because you have lived in BSC my whole life, or maybe because if all my other aunts had those same qualifications you’d still blow them out of the water. Or maybe it’s because none of my other aunts read my blog…no, it’s not that. I remember times of us hanging out, golfing, movie night, playing games, sleeping on your floor at the apartment by the school, shooting hoops, snake hunting, or just hanging out. You’re one of the coolest people to talk to, to spend time with, and I’m glad that we’ve gotten to be such good friends as well as being family members. Now being an adult I look back at some of the dumb ways I acted and I realize you are the most patient person ever. Dealing with your nieces and nephews just being hyper and giggly and you genuinely seem to love it. How you do it, I don’t know. I beat down a little girl for sticking her tongue out at me in the mall yesterday just cause I wanted to feel good. You would never do that. Anyway, there’s your love.
For the rest of you, no love today.
March 6th, 2008
Here are some random questions from Trivia (answers will be included tomorrow):
Which baseball coach attacked the Philadelphia Mascot during a game?
Which ACC team is called the Demon Deacons?
Which team’s first superbowl appearance was made due in part from Dwight Smith (not sure on the last name)’s catch in the end zone in the NFC Championship game which is now simply known as “the catch”?
What 1980’s movie took the fad of breakdancing and put it on the big screen?
What country is the Rosetta Stone located?
Which European capital can you find the famous “Spanish Steps”?
How many players are there on each team of the Ryder Cup in golf?
There you go, just off of memory, that’s the best I can do.
So, Brett Favre retired, and thank god. I like Brett, I really do. He’s a hard guy to hate, to be honest, even if I hate every receiver or running back to ever play for the damn team, I always liked Brett. But i’m glad he retired cause winning the superbowl is hard, and with his team, I think his best opportunity was last year. He threw a pick instead of a touchdown and they went home. He’s more or less going out on top, and that’s a good thing.
Ok, Holli did her best to defend her husband, but based on what I know or have heard, Brenna does not WANT a blog. She basically said she’d never post and wouldn’t know what to post about. Clearly I am proof that you don’t even know what you’re going to post about as you post. My message wasn’t to Miles, it was to Brenna. Brenna-decide you want to post and just do it, like Nike.
Speaking of Nike, I’ve decided my next shoe is going to be a Nike Air series 6D. I’m waiting for spring/summer and the summer models to come out so the price goes down. I want it white. Just so you know.
It is Joey Karels’ birthday. I haven’t talked to the kid in literally years.
My shoulders are at an all time pain. I can even twist my arm in either direction at some points without it being painful. I think it has finally gotten to the point of medical attention. I think if I can get organized I’ll go to an orthopedic doctor and see what they think. At this point, I want either a shot or surgery. It’s so weird though, in the same day I can feel like I can do anything normal, pull-ups, bench press, run, whatever. And then that same day it’ll hurt so bad I can’t even lift one of my arms without help from the other. Or I can’t sleep unless both arms are above my head. It’s a mess.
I feel like gaming. Maybe John Deere American Farmer. AOM. COD2. Doom3??
We’ll see if I feel like that when I go home and have to look my wife in the eye and say “I want to save the world” and she says, “Nuhhhh UH! Not till you do the dishes, pet the cats, take out the garbage, buy me a new sun dress, defrag my computer, reroute these encryptions, and rub my mothers feet. THEN, if you have time left, you can play your computer games!” She’s tough but she’s fair.
Alright Sue, post a picture of me, I’m sick of looking at the twins. Got a picture of me doing something really cool? Post that.
And who’s thinking we should get Grandma Harriet a blog and while she writes her letters she can just post day by day? Save her some loot on postage. Right? “The Blogging Nana”. Miles, make it happen. Sue, sell the idea to her. Mom, send food to me. Tyler, cheer for UNC on Saturday!
March 5th, 2008
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