Bucs 48, Raiders 21. Very much a game dominated by the Tampa defense. I only have one question. What was Oakland thinking when they were down by 31 (34-3) and going for the two point conversion after a touchdown? At that juncture they really needed points and ended up getting none instead of 1. Later, after two more touchdowns and failed 2 point conversions, they were down 34-21. This is still a three possession game. Why didn’t they go for the kick and get 1 point each time - then they are down 34-24 and easily a 2 possession game. As it is, they squandered their time outs and basically handed the game to Tampa. It would have been a whole different game down a touchdown and field goal than being down two touchdowns.

The Bucs look to be set for the next few years. They don’t really have an age problem on their team. They should be able to weather the Gruden “trade” and their loss of draft picks rather well. Oakland is the beneficiary of those picks and they will need them - many players at the twilight of their careers and they are WAY over the salary cap.

Watched the game at Corey and Andrea’s place. Had a few Killians’ and some good food. Talked a lot and rated the commercials as well as the coaching performances. What commercial did you like the best?

Oops! Only two days late with the Friday Five:

1. What is one thing you don’t like about your body?
I’m not too happy with my eyes. My contacts have been irritating me a lot and I can’t wear them 12-18 hours like before. Also, the last time I was in the eye doctor said I may need bifocals soon. UGH!

2. What are two things you love about your body?
I really like my size - I’m 6′7″. And also, I like my feet - they are only size 12 so I can get shoes at most shoe stores! No big and tall prices there!

3. What are three things you want to change about your home?
a) Get more closet space - seems we have almost none and are constantly reorganizing it; b) Get an attached 2 car garage - we have an attached 1 car and it is always full of junk because of the lack of closet space; c) Get a flat yard - I HATE mowing the back yard as I have to wear my slow-pitch softball cleats so I do not slip when mowing. The flip side of this is that it is one of the best hills in town for sledding parties!

4. What are four books you want to read this year?
With all the periodicals I have to read to keep up with my job I find little time to read books. I subscribe to half-dozen web newsletters and read some periodicals. By the time computer books come to print they usually are out of date. I don’t really read any other genre.

5. What are five promises you have kept to yourself?
a) To continue to be a faithful and loving husband to my wife. I made the promise in our vows over 24 years ago and I intend to keep it. b) To try to be a good father and friend to my kids - they are both old enough now that they don’t need a lot of maintenance, which doesn’t mean I don’t worry, just that they want to make their own decisions. c) Not to worry about going bald - many men go crazy and do things like hair plugs, comb-overs, etc. Not me. If God wants to take my hair, so be it. d) Accept aging gracefully. I may grow old but I refuse to grow up. I have acquaintances who are younger than me that act “old”. I also have acquaintances who are older that act as teenagers. I’d like to strike a happy medium. e) Not to be happy with the status quo. If I stop trying to make things better, then put me in a box and bury me.

Superbowl here we come! We are going to Andrea and Corey’s place to watch the game. Supposed to be there some time between 4:00 and 4:30. I am bringing my famous chili-cheese dip and two bags of chips. Ought to be a good time. One more thing –

GO BUCS!

Man, work is getting to be a real bear. I work with great people, but we are gearing up for a conference and have to have a lot of stuff ready to go. The real long hours start Monday. I go to pick up about 70 laptops and bring them back. We have to update drivers, install Windows 2000 Service Pack 2, update some programs and install a new dialup and VPN client for all 70… before Wednesday afternoon.

Brett (a co-worker and great guy to work with) and I have been working hard the last few days to get the process as automated as possible. The only non-automated factors are deleting of old icons and individual configuration of the dialup client. Other than that, it will be smooth sailing. Tomorrow morning we show others the results of the work we have been concentrating on.

And then, to our everlasting elation, we have to turn around and do the same thing to about 100 laptops two weeks later. Oh, except we have to install some CRM software as well.

The fun NEVER ENDS!

My Big Fat Greek Wedding. Sounds like a complaint rather than a movie title. There is, however, very little to complain about in this movie. It centers around the life of Toula Portokalos, played by Nia Vardalos, a “nice Greek girl” as her father Gus Portokalos, played by Michael Constantine, calls her. He also says to her many times “You look old, you should get married to a nice Greek boy.” At the beginning of the movie, Toula is a waitress at her family’s restaurant; she is kind of frumpy looking with straight hair, glasses and generally what I call “old-woman” clothes. One fateful day she encounters Ian Miller, played by John Corbett, who meets a friend at Toula’s family restaurant. Ian’s friend keeps trying to set him up with women; in fact, Toula first catches his eye while his friend is going over snapshots of women. Ian’s quote to his friend is that that all the women he sees are boring and predictable. Toula, when she first sees Ian is speechless and overwhelmed that he even looks at her. She has always been the other sister as her sister is the pretty one. Soon she convinces her father that she needs to go to college downtown to take computer classes to help run the family restaurant and also adopts a better haircut, a better wardrobe and contacts. As one might expect from the title, Toula eventually marries Ian, although Gus puts Toula through the guilt-grinder because Ian is not Greek. But her mother Maria Portokalos, played by Lainie Kazan, sets Gus straight. As she says in the movie: “The man may be the head of the family, but we women are the neck… and the neck can make the head turn any way it wants.”

The laughs never stop in this one - whether it is from the aside monologues about every situation, comments about her love-guilt-embarrassment relationship with her family, or the situations she is put into by her family members. Gus believes that ANY malady can be cured by applying Windex - anything from a wart to arthritis to minor burns. Her mother gives her advice on her wedding day “Greek women, we may be lambs in the kitchen, but we are tigers in the bedroom!” Her aunt, played by former Second City comedienne Andrea Martin is absolutely hilarious with quotes like “What do you mean, you don’t eat no meat? … That’s okay. I’ll make lamb.” The latest info says that a follow-up TV series is in the works titled “My Big Fat Greek Life” and they have all the major players in the movie except for John Corbett. All in all I was not expecting it to be such a pleasant experience. I rate it an 8.

Before Disclosure, before Fatal Attraction, there was Play Misty for Me. I first saw this movie when I was in college as a part of the free movie series shown on campus. I just saw it again tonight on Encore Mystery Channel. There were some things about it I remembered and some I had forgotten. The movie stars Clint Eastwood (this was also his directorial debut) as Dave Garver, a jazz station DJ who earlier in his life felt he must demonstrate his sexual prowess with all women. You hear about this as the movie progresses. (Remember this movie was created in 1971, when “free love” abounded and STDs were cured by penicillin.) His femme fatale, a psycho groupie, was Evelyn Draper, played brilliantly by Jessica Walter, who regularly called him on his late night jazz show to request the song “Misty”. She soon allows Garver to pick her up in a bar he frequents. Dave’s true love interest was Tobie Williams, played by a then-little-known Donna Mills, who had just returned to town as the movie begins. Essentially the psychotic Draper attempts suicide and tries to murder Williams before things get so far out of hand that she nearly murders Garver before he knocks her off a balcony overhanging an oceanside cliff.

Even though it was his directorial debut (he later went on to direct many movies, including “Bronco Billy”, “Pale Rider”, Bird”, and “Absolute Power”), Eastwood did a great job with this. He showed a dark side of groupies that doesn’t always get reported. Walter was amazing, proving that not only was she gorgeous but she could really act; but I’ll bet after this she didn’t get asked out on dates for a while! She was so true to life that the some of the scenes were downright bone-chilling. Mills plays a typical good-girl role; she later went on to TV stardom on the shows “Knots Landing” and “Melrose Place”.

This is a great movie if you like the Hitchcock-style suspense on what appears to be normal. The final scene where Draper attacks Garver is particularly shocking - possibly as shocking as the original shower scene in “Psycho”. If all this sounds familiar, Fatal Attraction is little more than a rewrite and not nearly as well acted or directed. If you like the genre it is a must-rent or a must-see. I rate it an 8.

Want to be a Friday Fiver? Go here and check it out. Here are my answers to this week’s Friday Five:

1. Where do you currently work?
I work at HON INDUSTRIES. (Yes, I capitalized it all - it’s a trademark/branding thing.) We make office furniture. I work in computer technical support as a desktop developer.

2. How many other jobs have you had and where?
My college summer jobs were: I laid sod for a construction company in Muscatine, IA. I pumped gas for a trucking company in Muscatine, IA. After graduating from college, I taught middle school and high school at Oxford Junction, IA; Maxwell, IA; Coggon, IA; and Wilton, IA. I was budget-cut, so I went back to school to get a degree in my "hobby" of computers. While in school, I worked as a receiving clerk at a True Value at Muscatine, IA. I worked as a PC tech for a small start-up computer retail store in Muscatine, IA. After finishing school (the second time) I worked as PC tech support for Palmer College of Chiropractic in Davenport, IA.

3. What do you like best about your job?
No two days are the same. There is always something going on and it seems to change every day. I have not been bored any day with this job!

4. What do you like least about your job?
Dealing with people who don’t have the common courtesy to listen to one another. The biggest breakdown in any of the jobs I have held has been communications. When will people learn that when you conduct a conversation you should listen, not just wait for your turn to talk.

5. What is your dream job?
To be a 12th man on any NBA team. Free courtside seats with very little playing time and a six-figure salary. I never did have the talent this takes! My second choice is exactly what I am doing.

I just can’t believe this. I haven’t laughed that hard in a long time. Thanks for the link, TummyMonster! Made my evening!

Let’s hear it for the Gruden Bowl - I mean the Super Bowl. Tampa Bay Bucaneers vs. Oakland Raiders! Two really good defenses. Everyone expected Oakland; Tampa was supposed to lose at Philadelphia today (oops!).

Work was pretty demanding yesterday and today. Yesterday we got a pilot group of field sales folks to bring us their laptops so we could install the new CRM software on it and test it, critique it, try to break it, and generally use it before we launch it at the yearly gathering of all our field sales folks. The software is SalesLogix, and it really is pretty good. We had some problems with the installation due to our inexperience with the package. We are also installing other software on their laptops. I had slightly miscalculated the entire run-time of the installation. I had estimated that it take only about 40 minutes; in fact it took almost 85. UGH! We only had 13 laptops for the pilot group; we will have about 100 at the gathering. Looks like I got my work cut out for me just to try to cut that time down.

Skippy has some great thoughts here. I agree wholeheartedly with this, but frequency is perception. I remember this scene from “Annie Hall” (the only bearable Woody Allen movie):

Diane Keaton to marriage therapist: We have sex constantly. That’s all he ever thinks about is sex. We have it constantly.
Therapist to Diane Keaton: How often do you have sex?
Diane Keaton to therapist: Like I said, constantly. We probably have sex three times a week!

Woody Allen to same marriage therapist: We never have sex. She never wants to. Never, I tell you.
Therapist to Woody Allen: How often do you have sex?
Woody Allen to therapist: Like I said, never. We probably have sex three times a week!

OH the agony! I have a dull ache in my mouth now. The root canal went well; the endodontist (dentist who only does root canals) said I had a classic abcess. Anyway, I have to go back in February to get the last part of the root canal taken care of and then a cap put on the tooth. Maybe I can get an Iowa Hawkeyes cap? Anyway… I have been taking regular doses of ibuprofen to keep the ache at bay. Maybe I should name the ache and tame it; you know - make it sit, roll over, beg, etc. Ahhhhh - I’m tired. Time for bed.