Ah Spring... When a young man's fancy turns to love

Baseball's back as players started reporting for spring training last week. With hockey mired in its current mess, it's nice to have something to look forward to. I started reading the new Stephen King and Stewart O'Nan book Faithful about the Red Sox 2004 season and it's pretty good so far. I'm heading down to spring training in Florida in two weeks and have thought about buying the MLB package from Directv. I blame the NHL for my overexcitment as I have to have somewhere to direct my addiction. As usual, it looks like the Rockies are going to suck, so I should be able to stop caring about them around May 1st.

On a completely different note, I don't understand people that bring their toothbrushes to the office and brush their teeth in the bathroom after lunch. Do your teeth really get that dirty just from eating lunch? All I know is I wouldn't bring my toothbrush anywhere near the bathroom here. Yikes.

Someone posts here?

I should apologize to my ones of readers (here I could make the "Thanks Mom!" joke, but I know that she doesn't read this) for the sparcity of posts. I'd like to blame it all on my busy jetsetting lifestyle, but nobody uses the term jetsetting and I'm just lazy. A couple of things:

You may have noticed (or will now) that I've changed my Last Movie seen to "Shaun of the Dead". For those of you unfamiliar with the movie, it's billed as a "Romantic Comedy with Zombies". Bluntly, I'd call it fantastic. Deanna, however, would tell you not to waste your time, and in fact, she went to bed before it was all over. If you have an irrational fear of zombies or British people, you should probably skip it. Otherwise, add it to your Netflix list.

I started re-reading Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (I can never remember whether you underline or italicize book titles. Way to go public education) in anticipation of the upcoming movie. If you've yet to see the trailer for it, you can check it out here. It's rumored to follow the book more closely than the previous movie did, which is exciting. Perhaps it will instill a fear of squirrels into a whole new generation.

Ole, Ole, Ole, Ole

I know I'm probably the only one who cares, but the US Men's Soccer Team put up a big win in a World Cup qualifying match yesterday against Trinidad & Tobago. Eddie Johnson kept up his torrid scoring pace with his 6th goal in only 4 international games. This was the first game of ten for the team. The top three teams in the pool of 6 automatically qualify while the 4th place team gets a playoff with an Asian team with the winner qualifying. It's a great time for USA Soccer fans when we can expect them to win CONCACAF away games. Stay tuned to the Ptarmigan for more thrilling futbol coverage.
Here are a couple of good takes on the game:
ESPN Soccernet
FoxSports

I'm super, thanks for asking

Since neither one of us was feeling all that well, Deanna and I both laid around all day yesterday waiting for the Super Bowl to start. It seemed like it took forever for them to actually get the game started (thanks to the Ford Pre-game Show brought to you by Chevy... I mean Ford). Is there anywhere except the Super Bowl pregame where you can see the Black Eyed Peas sharing the stage with Charlie Daniels? Surreal. Nice choice going with Alicia Keys performing America the Beautiful (along with the Florida school for the deaf and blind) and the combined military academy choirs for the national anthem. No chance of any boobs popping out there. The game was enjoyable, but the commercials were a bit of a disappointment this year. I liked the ones with the monkeys (everyone like monkeys) in the workplace, but it got kind of old after the second or third one. Also, note to Blockbuster (man driving to mailbox to get DVD) and Ford (guy frozen in Mustang): if you're going to spend a ton of cash showing multiple commercials during the broadcast, it helps if you mix it up a bit. Overall, I give the game a B+ and the commercials a C.

Old Man

Saturday was my 29th birthday, so Deanna invited some family and friends over for a little party. Pictures here. As you can see, the Roasted Lamb and Mint potato chips made an appearance much to the delight of those that tried them. Deanna got me the killer Nintendo shirt and the giant box of Funyuns is from my parents. I think a good time was had by all.