Stupid Fucking Virus: Never, ever, EVER pay to have malware removed

I had planned to squeeze a different post in for the last day of July, but instead spent far too much time this weekend dealing with something called "Antivir Solution Platinum." It is yet another bogus piece of computer security software that not surprisingly ends up high on the Google search results when I typed in those first three words to the title of this post.

My friend once told me how he came to learn a lot about computers simply by fixing any problems on his own, and now that he's got a kid, he can no longer run over to my house to fix our PC after Mom or Dad (but certainly not me, of course) fuck some shit up old-school by clicking on one of the fraudulent security threats. So the past three or four times this has happened, I referred to the video in this post and followed those simple instructions. Until this weekend, the trio of spyware-killing programs did the trick. You can and should download all three—seeing as they're all free:

The Bulls' Fourth Quarter: I don't want to be like Candy

This spoof is the conclusion to the original scene I posted over on my Tumblr, and now that the Bulls went and made the playoffs, the exaggerated death seems like an even more appropriate parable for this season. We could have slunk out of this NBA season quietly just having missed the playoffs, but NO SIR! Why stop there when you could be that very first stone to be absolutely stomped on in what appears to be King James' imminent coronation as an NBA Champion (or at least that appears to be the early majority assumption—my picks will be up tomorrow, honestly).

Truth be told, the Bulls struggled through this final quarter of the season, and things finally seemed to explode in a perfect shitstorm, what with TNT's Craig Sager getting attention for something other than his ridiculous suits and calling attention to the severe lack of good beat reporting we've been missing in this city all season long. I'm sure I'll have further thoughts on the whole Paxon-Del Negro shoving incident and all of its fallout when Bulls season officially concludes in, oh, probably about a week. 

Sweet, Sweet Fantasy, Baby: Falling from 15th to ... Hey—I won a playoff game!

I've actually been signing into my Yahoo account with the most frequency I've had since the NFL season. The NBA and NHL fantasy leagues I was in this year got updated with about a once-a-week frequency when football concluded, maybe once every two weeks at times when I was busy being, you know, employed. But now that I've got a little more time on my hands during this lull on the job front, I guess I'm allowed to dwell on how I'm spending my time online when not sending out the resumes.

The Blackhawks' Third Quarter: Preparing for the Final Push

So yeah, the same thing that was of concern to me when I last talked about the Hawks is still of concern to me now, but nothing much more I can do now I suppose other than keep my fingers crossed and hope that everybody's healthy when I'm guessing that at least three of the guys the team sent over there are recovering from the Olympics final on a cross-country flight to resume the NHL season in Long Island.

But everybody's been saying the Blackhawks need this break—even though they've won their last four (last three all being shootouts). I'm sure most teams are appreciating the rest that their non-Olympians can get during this fortnight break, but you would have to think that our ongoing silly cries for a goaltending move (I thought we were over that!) before the trade deadline will almost certainly be resurrected as both Huet and Niemi adjust to having not played during the off-time. I guess I'll have to keep those fingers crossed for a few days after the Olympics about that as well, seeing as I'm more than content to play the hand the team's got right now and see how far it takes you when the playoffs start.

The move that the team did make in sending Cam Barker to Minnesota for Kim Johnsson and prospect Nick Leddy struck most fans I've talked to as well as most observers I follow as a definite win. As McClure over at Second City Hockey put it, "While Barker may turn out to be 'a thing,' it wasn't going to be here, and in return, the Hawks got real value for both this year's playoff push, and for the future."

Overall, I think the third quarter still went relatively well for Chicago. At 41-15-5, their 87 points is second to the Sharks, but they're 11 points ahead of No. 3 Vancouver in the conference and the closest team to them in the division is Nashville, 16 points back. So it would appear that there would have to be a truly epic collapse not to end up with one of those top two spots.

Looking back on that third quarter of season, the 5-3 performance over the eight-game road trip at the end of January certainly could have gone a lot worse. As big as the win over San Jose was, I actually think that it could be the game the Hawks pissed away to the Wild that they learn the most from heading into the post-season.

However, if one game really had that exciting atmosphere about it from last season's hella-fun playoff run, it had to be that shootout (yes, I know what I've said about those things) with Detroit:


Oh, and let's not forget VERSTEEG! mixing it up in that game, which was awesome too (although he's really been dogging it ever since, but ...).

The bottom line here is that the Blackhawks are only one point behind their total from what they accumulated over the course of an entire season two years ago. And really, in truth, this last leg of the regular season is hopefully one last chance to get the necessary momentum to begin plowing over Western Conference opponents on the way to the Stanley Cup. Here's a breakdown of the team's performance by quarters from the message board:

While the offensive numbers are improvements over that second quarter, the penalty minutes and (dare I say it?) the goals against are concerns—but still small ones, I say. Of my four Bs (Braves, Bulls, Bears, and Blackhawks), it's the hockey team that's the only one I haven't seen win a World Championship in my lifetime. So forgive me for being anxious to get to the point where I can finally say that I've seen all four win it all. As we've been saying all year, "CUP OR BUST!"

The Bulls' Second Quarter: In which trade possibilities and free agency once again precede—possibly supercede—any genuine playoff optimism

I know things are bad when my uncle is joking (hopefully) about "adopting Memphis" as his new favorite NBA team.

My understanding is that the TV ratings for the team are actually better than last year, but I've also heard the topic of "Where's the outrage?" suggested more than once in regards to how Bulls fans are taking their usually sub-.500 team this year. I guess we're ignoring the continuing retardation of Derrick Rose by surrounding him with talent that "doesn't mesh well at all with his skill set." It seems to be OK since Rose is still young and the general consensus is that we're doing what it seems like Bulls fans do every year for as long as it's been since Jordan was called for pushing off made the shot that won us our last World Championship: We're relying on our next big acquisition. You know, that one move that'll put us over the top. I'm sure every city's got a similar franchise.

These days, that means the same Kirk Hinrich some people actually couldn't bring themselves to talk about moving for Kobe-fucking-Bryant a few years back is now back on the table when everybody plays fantasy GM. Tyrus Thomas is sort of the same story, but probably a tougher piece to move. And it's all about moving whomever we can to make cap room and hopefully land one of the many big fish, seeing as seemingly every game-changer becomes available during the much-ballyhooed free agent class of 2010. I think I've seen this story before, and usually all the biggest and best names from said "class" go to other teams and fans in Chicago are supposed to get excited about ... Ron Mercer. I'd try to think of a fine example of the sub-par talent I fear we're going to have end up settling with as what the front office will deem the best product they could offer, but that's ever-lingering thoughts on management that I was bitching about when I summarized my feelings after the first quarter of the season.

And since we last talked about the Bulls here on BMC, the team indeed still employs our man Vinny as the head coach. But just to point to one example that I'm not just another meatball blaming the front office without some real justification, Yahoo's Adrian Wojnarowski wrote up a fairly blistering piece following GM (kind of) Gar Forman's terribly awkward press appearance—amidst the daily speculation regarding Del Negro's job—in which he came out and basically told the media ... well, a couple lies and certainly not anything resembling a vote of confidence in that coach they have.

With a victory over the Spurs in San Antonio this evening, the Bulls have now won three in a row and are only one game under .500 on the year. The fact that this little winning streak (they had a pair of four-game winning streaks in this second quarter of the season) comes in the midst of a seven-game road trip is mildly remarkable, but as was said on the radio the other day, this year's Bulls team never gives you a feeling that they have something figured out that will translate to the consistency needed for, say, an extended playoff run.

And who's talking about a playoff run for these Bulls this season? The Cavs, as expected, will probably have the Central wrapped up by the time I'm done posting this and even if the Bulls do get into the playoffs (remember, it's actually harder to miss the post-season than make it since more teams get in than not in both the NBA and NHL), they'll be a lower seed that—at best—gives us another entertaining first-round series. Besides aforementioned Cleveland, then Boston, Orlando or even the Atlanta team that I had pegged as going out to the Bulls at the beginning of this year all appear to be squads that should have no problems with Chicago.

All of this, of course, assumes no roster changes despite the quiet hope for a move with slightly more news weight than today's shipment of Aaron Gray to New Orleans. The game that sadly leaps out to me the most from these past 20 or so contests since last writing about the Bulls would have to be the historic-in-a-bad-way loss to the Kings in which the team blew a 35-point lead.

But just to end on something of an upshot—and one of the most obvious reasons in regards to the players (besides Joakim, obviously) I keep coming back to the Bulls for this year—that Rose jersey is a lot more popular than I would have guessed. The kid keeps surprising me with what he can do every time I catch a game and at least one guy's already asked if his slam in the Suns game this weekend was the "Dunk of the Year?":

Conference Championship Picks: A Matter Of Trust

So I went back and did the little thing I do with red/green post-result-type-thing-a-madoo-hickey-bobber-ska-rinsky-poo on my NFL predictions (and, hey, "as long as I'm at it," last season's MLB picks too), and just to be clear, let me highlight how I did at predicting these playoffs at the beginning of the season:

The Year in Review (or Why I didn't do one)

Started bad ...



... but ended well (so to speak).

More scenes like this, please ...

The last movie I bought without even having seen it was Sexy Beast.

Purchasing Once now makes me two for two.

One of life's finer (dis)pleasures.

One of the new girls went walking by, looking confused.

"Do we have any 'Greyyyy Poooooo ... ponnn?'" she asked.

I nodded and led her to where we kept the dijon mustard. I had to ask her, of course, if she'd ever seen the commercials. While describing how the commercial went, it suddenly hit me how long ago it had been since I'd actually seen one.



"Didn't you see Wayne's World?" I asked. And again she looked at me as though I was referring to a film that came out before movies had the benefit of sound. All I could think to myself at the time was, "C'mon, that movie's only ... old enough to drive."

Then we got to talking about The Love Guru and how none of us saw it because we all heard it was fucking terrible, me trying to ignore the sinking feeling you get when you realize how much older you really are.

When Chipper can't kill the ball ...

... I guess he'll still be killing something in the off-season:

Surprise

Hours from now, Barack Obama will be accepting the presidential nomination of the Democratic party in Denver. He's going to be giving a speech in front of some 75,000 people and, in case you didn't know, he's going to kick ass. Barring rain or an assination attempt, it's going to be awesome and many will fawn over it.

While helping the lady pack last night for her move out, we had the convention coverage on the other night. I noticed that while the CNN team was preparing for Joe Biden to speak and the pundits pontificated, John Kerry was speaking at the moment.

I noted that it was somewhat sad that the guy who was the party's nominee just four years ago was now a background image with Wolf Blitzer talking over him. But then they cut to Kerry, and if you didn't see his speech, you really oughta' check it out and see if you're wondering the exact same thing as me:



So, where was this guy four years ago?

24 Months Later ...

It's a very exciting day, of course, because this little blog is now officially two years old. Oh sure, when I'd started this thing, the original idea was simply to throw up random numbers and statistics in the news. I hoped to continue doing what I had been doing at the time, which was finding amusing material for a sidebar entitled "Roamin' Numerals" in the commentary section I was editing at the time.

So, this blog began with that idea and, hence, the URL you see there was also the original name.

And while I saw no reason to write about myself, that, of course, inevitably happened. And then came the equally inevitable political rants, predictions about sports & the Academy Awards and just quick links to things I wanted to share but didn't feel like e-mailing people (sometimes).

Today, "Soapbox Central" has been somewhat usurped by the blog I'm keeping over on my MySpace. But now that this little baby is two years old, I'm wondering what I'll plan on doing with it.

We'll get back to that, but when I think back to some of the highlights from the first two years of "Soapbox," these were the posts that sprang to mind and allowed me to pretend I'm posting something new:

- People still doubt the truth of the "Little White Button"

- It took 29 years, but I finally conquered my fear of roller coasters

- You better recognize the importance of choral music, bitches

- Friday the 13th proved to be rather memorable

- I can make a Greek fire me by uttering just two words

- We're going to the Super Bowl! (... and losing ...)

- Halloween is not a "holiday" I'm particularly fond of

- Memo to overly loving couples: We don't think you're cute, just pathetic

- Apparently, even cats can get constipated

- Wait a minute—a member of a boy band is gay?!

- Please don't let me take any more sales jobs

- I may have had a roommate, apparently

- Sweet Lord, don't get me started on abortion

- I finally competed in the town's annual canoe race

- If I shave my chest again, boy, she better make it worth my while

- I finally graduated college ... and then proceeded to spend an entire week celebrating it

- And, of course, where it all began ...

There is a very good chance that I'm going to utilize MySpace for the personal shit, a new site for the commentary shit and "Soapbox" for, well, who knows.

Strap in, folks. If the next two years is half as interesting as the past two, we're in for another pretty fucking good ride.

Sad, Sad, Sad ...

I knew I had a new favorite senator (and maybe just politician, in general) last January. Typically, State of the Union responses kind of, well, blow. But this was a grand slam:



Holy hell, that was awesome.

And Webb's future only looked brighter when you considered that the dude was going to become Virginia's senior senator when John Warner retires in 2008. That, or Webb is also being mentioned as a strong V.P. candidate for the Dems in 2008.

Add to that Webb's current amendment, a piece of legislation that would justifiably give troops as much time at home as they spend deployed. It seemed so logical that even Webb's Republican counterpart, Warner, was going to go along with it.

And then a funny thing happened: Warner said he might change his mind. Once again.

I know, I know. "Derek, stop bitching and whining about Iraq already ..."

Fine. Give Mr. Webb a single minute of your time to remind you of the importance of "a very simple amendment":



Nothing but respect, Jim. Nothing but respect.

UPDATE: Warner did end up changing his mind; and enough others found reasons to kill the legislation.

So much for that whole "Support the Troops" horse shit ...

The Free Market

I worked on the banquet side of the country club tonight, which is work they could basically dress a chimp in a bellhop suit for. It really is that brain-dead. But at least I got to taste a few hors d'oeuvres (beef tenderloin crustini ... delicious).

The event was for a local singing group—one of the best in the nation I'm told. They specialize in choral works and had there not been a girl we all classified as "really hot" seated at the table closest to the podium, I would have remained totally oblivious to what was occurring. Instead, my initial interest in this girl took on a newfound curiosity when I noticed that there was a clear tubing coming from under her dress and attached to the purse she was carrying. "Maybe it's a colostomy bag," I jested. My drooling male co-workers said the lone female working among us had determined it was likely the result of a recent surgery.

For a small gathering (we were set for 56, but probably because of the weather, the crowd was more like 40 at best), the planners really went all out. A three-piece band. A guy doing caricatures for attendees. Open bar. Complimentary CDs and flowers. The works.

Asking "really hot" girl if she cared for wine or if I could take her plate, I forgot that the point of this whole thing was to raise funds. When five members of the choral group came up to sing and the "wacky" speaker for the quintet introduced each song they sang with how "he loved Google" to assorted laughs, I wanted to jab a steak knife in each of my ears. It was that painful.

Then they introduced the "really hot" girl, who'd apparently been awarded a scholarship before being involved in a car accident and going through three subsequent surgeries. So, no, it wasn't a colostomy bag after all. But at least her speech gave me a reason to pay attention while standing there, bored off my ass with a tray in my hand. I poured myself some of the leftover wine before the group's president or whatever took the podium.

He began with a bad joke about somebody with too long of a license plate blocking the exit (everybody laughed, out of pity I assume), and then proceeded to essentially beg attendees for donations. To begin the plea, he tried to be hip by referencing the importance of choral music to future generations and how we must teach our children about it before artists like "Two-pack" (his pronunciation was really that awful), 50 Cent and Kanye West "fill their iPods.

My first thought was, "What the hell's wrong with Kanye West?" But then he jokingly asked the crowd if they were familiar with any of the "bands" he just mentioned, which of course was met with more forced laughter. Or maybe the old people actually found the shit funny, which makes me even sadder.

I was kind of hoping that as long as the man was ridiculing the obvious targets in pop culture (all black, I should note), maybe we would develop something really interesting like a war between hip-hop artists and choral musicians about who gets to, you know, "infiltrate the youth culture."



Alas, his jokes just led to a none-too-subtle reminder to fill out the forms on the table and pledge to help the singing group. And if the guests weren't ready, they were invited to take the accompanying envelope and mail money instead. He introduced a video about the group's history and returned to his seat amidst applause—or at least I assume that's what it finished like, because the guy's speech took so fucking long that I felt compelled to go outside and do something productive while waiting for this grandstanding to end: I smoked a cigarette.

And while seated there on an upside-down crate, I saw a cicada fluttering its wings in a puddle, struggling to escape the hole it was in. I grabbed it by its wings, lifted it out of the murky water and placed it next to the crate. It took a few moments, wings flapping off the excess liquid, but then the buzzing sound I read about so often this summer started to begin. And it was beautiful.

Like "Two-Pack," you could say.

Am I Speaking A Foreign Language?

I thought the overall concept seemed pretty clear to me: You, the employer, posted a job. I, the prospective employee, responded to it. Did we make a "connection" here or not?

Yet, here's how at least two of these conversations went this week when said employer was on the phone:

ME: "... and was that job still open?"

THEM: "Yes. Yes it is."

ME: "OK ... and how soon were you looking to fill that?"

THEM: "Fairly quickly ... you know."

ME: "Cool. And you received my resume, right?"

THEM: "Well, I've got a stack to go through here. But I'm sure I'll be giving you a call back if you're qualified."

Isn't that a remarkable hiring strategy? "I'm just going to let people pile up and then call them back when they're probably off the market." Best of luck to you too ... fuckers.

I've since realized that actually showing up at said office and physically handing paperwork over to the person-in-charge makes lame excuses harder to come by. And on the lighter side, there were the others who did talk to me in greater depth about the position I actually inquired about. But I know what the dangers are of building your hopes up before anything pans out, so let me be skeptical for another week. Until then, I'm convincing myself that this is not just a matter of my words being misunderstood:

More Of The Same, I Suppose

I'm toward the end of dealing with a sprained wrist which—I know, I know—is obviously attributed to all this blog writing I've been doing in recent months.

No, truth be told, it's the result of one simple, stupid slip coming down the stairs to an unlit basement I call home. It's happened before, but I've never had an injury because of it. Luckily, xgF (now "ex-girlfriend") has been willing to offer me medical advice during these trying times. I've had plenty of time to apply and ice pack to the injury when not wearing one of those splints I only thought professional bowlers don.

Of course, I've also had plenty of time to do this because shortly after xgF and I called it quits and all my stuff came back home with me, I also called it quits on my attempt to become a "headhunter." If I haven't written anything for months, it's because that job sucked up all of my time. The seven-in-the-morning until six-at-night hours weren't as bad as coming back to xgF's apartment and still having to fill out my call sheets for the next day, or reviewing my candidate's resumes. Eventually, the whole thing took its toll on me, and by now, I'm sure this whole story has become rehashing the same problem over and over again to anybody I talk to. It reminds me of a Mr. Show sketch, of course:



To end on a positive note, I'll just say that at least this week I've been talking to real-life, actual editors and, at worst, might have to get accustomed to driving to work again. That's fine. I did miss my sports radio, after all.

That, and the "F" part of the xgF is capitalized for obvious reasons. So things could certainly be worse.

And the beat goes on ...

Problem Solved! (Vol. 1)

And so ends my YouTube dilemma ...

I've Got Issues

Back before Blogger went all "beta" (whatever the hell that means), it was quite simple to put up a video from YouTube. There were no problems whatsoever.

But now YouTube and Blogger "beta" are apparently at odds, because despite my repeated attempts to post this video on the blog, YouTube refuses to cooperate and neither service is particularly helpful in their FAQ sections as to how I can resolve the issue.

So humor me by pretending there's an actual video in this space. That, or give me some suggestions (other than e-mailing the services, because, yes, I tried that) in the comment space.

UPDATE: To quote Emily Litella, "Never mind."

Mark Fuhrman: "These people will kill someone and go have chicken at KFC"

I can still recall the day of the infamous O.J. Simpson Ford Bronco chase during the Knicks-Rockets game of the NBA Finals. We all assumed that he had done it at that point. It was just a matter of catching him.

And as his trial dragged on for month after month after relentless month, I remember slowly listening to his defense and realizing how they weren't so much proving his innocence as they were creating a reasonable doubt. An episode of "Seinfeld" spoofed the decision to have the defendant try on the glove, but many would admit that perhaps one of the most explosive bits of testimony to come out of that trial was that of Mr. Mark Fuhrman.

I'm not terribly proud to admit that when we were ushered into the high school library to witness the verdict being read that day at the conclusion of the trial, I was one of those people who cheered when O.J. was found innocent. I could make excuses for it now if I sincerely felt O.J. was actually innocent, but instead, I'll just refer to this recent clip from FOX News' "Hannity & Colmes":



There's a number of discouraging things to be found in this video clip:
1) Alan Colmes shows unprecedented backbone.
2) Mark Fuhrman continues to treat his racist views as though they are beyond question.
3) Sean Hannity—as he always has—supports his good friend Fuhrman through and through.

The judicial branch of America ain't perfect; but watching ass-hats like Hannity and Fuhrman continue to try and deny how much of a role Fuhrman ultimately played in O.J.'s subsequent acquittal makes me appreciate a fair, but flawed justice system even when the jury's decision is not indicative of the conclusions the rest of us in the public had drawn.

Helluva Entertaining Interview