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August 30, 2005

Peau de porc

The first of the fantasy drafts has come and gone. Here's what my team looks like this year in the DeadSquid league.

Collins, Kerry QB OAK
Hasselbeck, Matt QB SEA
Leftwich, Byron QB JAC
Arrington, J. J. RB ARI
Jones, Thomas RB CHI
Moore, Mewelde RB MIN
Chambers, Chris WR MIA
Lelie, Ashley WR DEN
Moulds, Eric WR BUF
Rogers, Charles WR DET
Smith, Jimmy WR JAC
Toomer, Amani WR NYG
Gates, Antonio TE SDC
Shockey, Jeremy TE NYG
Nugent, Mike PK NYJ
Buccaneers DEF TBB

An odd cast of characters? Surely. This is a keeper league, where we carry over five players from the previous year into the current year. I carried over Hasselbeck, Gates, Chambers, Moulds, and the Bucs D, which says a lot about how crappy my team was last year.

Wonder if I can trade for a running back...

Next up, the KKL league's draft is tomorrow. Redraft league and I have the 1st overall pick, so I suppose I get to have LaDainian Tomlinson. Might be a third draft kicking in over the weekend, but I don't know if I'll be able to attend. Might have to let the autopicker do the job for me.

Posted by KinCross at 02:50 PM | Comments (0)

August 22, 2005

Car Crash

The one big question is, "How did the car end up this way?

Posted by KinCross at 08:24 PM | Comments (0)

Hello Moto

I could talk about the RAZR (don't think I'll consider one until November, when my current contract runs out), or the Q (no idea when that will be released in North America).

I won't though.

It's much more fun to talk about saucy voicemails.

Courtesy of Pamela.

Posted by KinCross at 08:19 PM | Comments (0)

Spin

The story might take a little time to tell, but last night a DJ saved my life.

Courtesy of Sloth.

Posted by KinCross at 08:15 PM | Comments (0)

August 12, 2005

The Luxor

I'm looking for a scale model of The Luxor hotel in Las Vegas. I want it small enough to sit on a desk. I'd like the capstone to actually be a light. I'd like it to be a desk lamp.

That's what I want.

I'll build it if I have to.

Posted by KinCross at 02:42 PM | Comments (0)

Fixing Things

This site is so way out of date in places. I really need to update my blogroll and the picture indices.

And I so need to update the archive pages so that the format isn't some dorky MT default template and actually matches up with the plushie tiger layout that's on the front page.

Got me a busy 10 days ahead of me, though, so I'm not sure when I'll be able to get to it. I'll try to catch up in snippets here and there.

Posted by KinCross at 10:54 AM | Comments (0)

Withholding

I was talking to April last night and the subject of how we punish our parents came up. (It was a pretty deep conversation.) It basically boiled down to one of two ways: 1) not having a great life, or 2) having a great life and not telling them about it.

I thought about this a little bit, given that I don't call home all that often. I'm totally aware that I'm not in the first bucket, but I squarely sit in the second. I think I've been there since I went off to university. So what am I "punishing" my parents for?

The really twisted and pathetic thing about this is that I'm punishing them for their expectations. They had great dreams for me: be an engineer, be successful, be a responsible dad or something like that. At least that's what I think their dreams for me were. I'm pretty sure about the first two.

Up through high school, I was a pretty good student. I may not have been near the top of the class, but I managed at least 85th percentile. I had extra-curricular activities up the wazoo. I had over 40 credits to my name, where only 30 was required to graduate.

At Cornell, I was never better than a B or B+ student. I had one or two classes that were A's. I was on academic probation for a semester. I had a Pass/Fail class converted to a letter grade because the letter grade I got was too low to Pass, but was high enough to prevent me from graduating on time. I was not a model student.

I was angry. University was a strange time for me. I learned a lot beyond the books. I also didn't learn enough, but that's an assessment I've put on myself. Like it matters. Either way, the result is that I grew tremendously as a person, but at the cost of my studies.

I'm convinced I haven't actually "grown up" yet, nor do I think I ever will. That doesn't seem like a bad thing.

What I was/am, though, is ashamed of what I did or didn't accomplish. I walked away from my degree after graduation and did nothing related to that field--I work as a computer professional now--except to use chemicals as server names from time to time. For awhile, I got regret from my mom that I wasn't doing anything with my degree, but that petered out years ago.

I still feel like I've let my parents down, though, and that's where I feel bad. My existence had been about living up to their expectations for a long time. I'm not like my cousins or my uncles. I'd go so far as to say that my measures for success are not the same as theirs.

So why can't I stand by that?

This is sounding far more angsty than I had intended, and it's not, really. I have my life. There are parts of it that I really love: the friends, the photography, the prospect of writing (even if I'm not actively doing very much right now), and the food. There are parts that I don't like quite so much: being uninspired at work, credit cards, the torrid cellular reception at my house and office.

But I'm having a great life and I'm not telling my parents about it.

Or my friends.

Or you.

This is a start.

Posted by KinCross at 10:27 AM | Comments (0)