Mess With Texas

It's trial time, baby.

Coming to you live from Austin, Texas...or more accurately, the one block radius between the Stephen F. Austin hotel and an office in downtown Austin.

Gotta love trials. All expense paid trips to exotic locales, yet every waking minute is spent in a climate-controlled environment that could be located anywhere.

I suppose it's common practice. A couple years back, I was at a trial in West Palm Beach, Florida during the winter where we stayed at a 5-star resort for 2 months. I'm told that this resort had a beach, but I never managed to come home with sufficient daylight to confirm this. That said, the families on vacation that I saw at the coffee shop every morning seemed to really be enjoying the place.

Austin seems nice enough. If one believes the signs in the Austin-Bergstrom International Airport, however, Austin cares about only two things: Texas football and the Austin City Limits Music Festival. Avoiding the Texas-Ohio State debacle by a week, we managed to time our trip to arrive just before Austin City Limits. Unfortunately we still missed out on all the acts because, well, this is a business trip.

I'm not a big indie music guy. I know what I like and I basically listen one station on my XM Radio (that would be Ethel for the folks keeping score at home). Every now-and-then though, I'll hear a song and I'll have to head over to ITunes to give Steve Jobs more money. One of the recent songs that stuck was by a guy who was playing at Austin City Limits (see, ramblings can come full circle).

For those of you not named Shaffner, you should head over to his blog and read up on Jose Gonzelez. He's behind the music to this sweet Sony Bravia commercial...



In case you're wondering, they didn't use CGI...that's really 250,000 bouncy balls launched down a SanFran street. If you don't believe me, here's the making of video. Impressive.

Unfortunately, I don't have much time to blog these days, so my threat to Shaffner's dominance in the blogsphere isn't too great at this point. In fact, while I'm down here messing with Texas, why don't you just follow along on his "exciting" trip to Buffalo.

Veritas99

Who's In Your Fantasy?

No, not that kind of fantasy you pervert.

I'm talking fantasy football and the glorious games of the gridiron. The season is finally upon us as my beloved Steelers (sans Roethlisberger) take on the Dolphins tonight! I'm a huge football fan and always look forward to the season, but this time I'm even more excited because:

1. I Recently Purchased A 40" Sony HD LCD TV.

2. It's My First Excursion Into The World of Fantasy Football.

In retrospect is seems odd that it's taken me this long to actually join a fantasy football league. That said, my novice drafting skills were on full display Tuesday as I managed to end up with 2 of the top 3 QBs (Palmer & Brady) but a severe lack of depth at RB (S. Jackson, C. Dillon, W. Lundy, and B. Jacobs) and WR (T. Owens, K. Johnson, M. Jones, E. Moulds, and T. Williamson). For those scoring at home, that means I'm sitting a QB that can routinely score as many points as any two guys at RB or WR. It's tough to figure out what kind of trade to make that shores up my team, but doesn't undervalue Palmer or Brady. Whatever...I'm starting Palmer against KC this week and we'll take it from there.

Oh yeah, I'm also taking Seattle this week in my survival pool...I'm not afraid to announce my picks like Shaffner.

Go Steelers!
Veritas99


UPDATE:

Steelers 28 Dolphins 17

Now that's what I'm talking about. As an added bonus, in my only "hometown" fantasy pick, I took Pittsburgh's defense, which managed to shut down the run, force a fumble, intercept 2 passes, and score a defensive touchdown. Icing, baby, icing.

My Blog Will Be Better Than Shaffner's 3 Blogs Put Together

I really wasn't going to do anything with this blog. Honestly. I was fumbling around GMail shortly after creating a new account and somehow found myself on the Blogger page. Seeing yet another mindless distraction from the doldrums of work, I went thru the steps to create the blog with the belief I would never return.

Then Shaffner decided to create not one, not two, but three separate blogs. As if he has that much to say.

To add insult to injury, he proceeded to rip my preferred form of travel to NYC (The DC to NYC Acela is awesome if you want to fit into your seat, avoid the airport security lines, and actually arrive in Manhattan) and then spent an entire post confessing that he now drinks fruity tea by the kettle. This man once downed flaming shots of sambuca with me...how the mighty have fallen.

Anyway, this endeavor may be short-lived as the time demands of work are steadily increasing in anticipation of trial at the end of September (yes, like 90% of DC, I too am a lawyer). As nobody is reading this (except maybe Shaffner), I'm sure no one will mind the irregularity of postings.

Can you handle the truth?
Veritas99