Bay City Blues News

moving

Mon, 29 Oct 2007 02:52:30 GMT

hi everyone.

i'm moving my blog. all my entries from now on will be at www.howardkamil.com.

it really isn't going to be about work very much, so if you're just interested in hot calls and hot girls you're probably better off hanging out here. the blog's going to be about me. it links to a new internet radio station i'm trying to set up. i'll talk about beer and cars and sports and books and stamps (and yeah probably girls too) and some geeky computer stuff and it'll link to sites i like and blogs i read.

come visit. i'll leave this up so that the archives are here in case anyone wants to see them. but look for new stuff at my new site.

i'll change the link on the front page and the site map in a week or so (so that people don't just get tossed to the new site without any explanation), but for now, just click the link above!

howard

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damn right

Tue, 23 Oct 2007 23:23:17 GMT

http://www.ca6.uscourts.gov/opinions.pdf/07a0430p-06.pdf

RECOMMENDED FOR FULL-TEXT PUBLICATION

Pursuant to Sixth Circuit Rule 206

File Name: 07a0430p.06

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE SIXTH CIRCUIT

_________________

CONNECTION DISTRIBUTING CO.; RONDEE KAMINS;

JANE DOE; JOHN DOE,

Plaintiffs-Appellants,

v.

PETER D. KEISLER,* Acting Attorney General of the

United States,

Defendant-Appellee.

X----

>,----N

No. 06-3822

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the Northern District of Ohio at Cleveland.

No. 95-01993—John M. Manos, District Judge.

Argued: April 26, 2007

Decided and Filed: October 23, 2007

Before: KENNEDY, MOORE, and McKEAGUE, Circuit Judges.

_________________

COUNSEL

ARGUED: J. Michael Murray, BERKMAN, GORDON, MURRAY & DEVAN, Cleveland, Ohio,

for Appellants. Anne Murphy, UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, Washington,

D.C., for Appellee. ON BRIEF: J. Michael Murray, Lorraine R. Baumgardner, BERKMAN,

GORDON, MURRAY & DEVAN, Cleveland, Ohio, for Appellant. Anne Murphy, Thomas M.

Bondy, UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, Washington, D.C., for Appellee.

KENNEDY, J., delivered the opinion of the court. MOORE, J. (pp. 18-22), delivered a

separate concurring opinion. McKEAGUE, J. (pp. 23-27), delivered a separate opinion concurring

in part and dissenting in part.

_______________

*Pursuant to Federal Rule of Appellate Procedure 43(c)(2), Acting Attorney General Peter D. Keisler is

automatically substituted for former Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales.

1

No. 06-3822 Connection Distributing Co., et al. v. Keisler Page 2

_________________

OPINION

_________________

KENNEDY, Circuit Judge. Connection Distributing, Rondee Kamins, Jane Doe, and John

Doe (“Plaintiffs”) appeal the judgment of the district court granting summary judgment to the

government. Plaintiffs had challenged the recordkeeping requirements 18 U.S.C. § 2257 placed

upon producers of images of “actual sexually explicit conduct” as violative of the First Amendment.

We conclude that the statute is overbroad and therefore violates the First Amendment, and

accordingly we reverse the district court’s judgment and remand with instructions to enter summary

judgment for the plaintiffs.

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pretty good

Mon, 22 Oct 2007 20:44:57 GMT

first off sorry i haven't written more. actually more accurate is sorry i haven't felt like writing more. sometimes i get carried away with myself and i seem to have done it with writing. i decided it's so enjoyable (and it usually is) to write this blog, that i should write "seriously" or some such thing. so i sat and tried to...hell i don't know what...write the great american novel or short story or some crap and i got myself so worked up i didn't want to write anything.

so i stopped writing that and waited for it to go away and now i have a few things to go on about.

i want to go out for a while this afternoon because it's actually like a sunny day with blue skies and it's really nice outside. as far as i can tell this may happen for a week or so and then the sun will come back in april or may. i'm not complaining (not a lot anyway). it's way better than the weather is in new jersey. and the rain isn't quite as annoying somehow.

i'm so relieved that i was able so quickly to come to terms with having made a mistake and able to grok how i feel about our standards. the fact that Tonya agrees only emphasizes how lucky i am. i'm a damn sight happier with work now and i can see that our callers are too. (and i turned off those horrid ads that yahoo marketing wrote for me. i mean, i don't blame them. i DO appreciate their work. and they DO get clicks. more clicks than mine do. but it isn't the kind of traffic that we want and it isn't the type of caller who wants what we offer either). i just refuse to run ads like that anymore. if you didn't see them, good.

yesterday we went to see the Portland Center Stage's production of Cabaret. Tonya hadn't ever seen it, but I've seen the movie and two other productions of it. the one thing i remembered going in was that it's LONG. but i enjoyed this production immensely and really wasn't bothered by the length at all (even though i'm not sure they chose the best chairs possible when the built this theater). someone i didn't really know, though apparently everyone else in Portland does, named Storm Large. she (or maybe more accurately, the people who cast and produced the play), seem to have gotten a whole bunch of crap because she isn't somehow a real enough artist for them. or she was (GASP) a rock singer with an attitude. or maybe because she's good looking and tattooed. i'm not really sure. but i thought she did a hell of a job.

interesting side note was that we saw Woody Harrelson at the play. Tonya told me that he's filming around here somewhere. i felt kind of sad for him in a way. he's trying to avoid getting beset by assholes, which i can certainly understand (dispatch on a friday and saturday night and you'll get it. and those guys at least aren't showing up in person). but the first act is over an hour and a half, and like i said, i wasn't so certain about the chairs, so you want to stretch your legs at the break. but he's a celebrity and people are going to recognize him. so he comes outside with the smokers (proudly exiled to stand directly in front of the door and smoke in everyone's face with no ashtray in sight), even though he doesn't smoke. then he pulls up the collar of his jacket and pulls his hood down over his head. by now, of course, everyone standing outside smoking knows exactly who the hell he is and everyone backs five feet away. he's facing the street and the max train goes past and the people on it stare at him. so he turns around and so does everyone else outside, and he just stands there alone in an empty circle for ten minutes. weird and sad in a way.

Tonya had her first read through and met the other actors in her play and seems real happy with all (well almost all) of them. i think i'm as excited about it as she is. i can't wait until they start rehearsals and put tickets on sale and have links for me to push on all of you. i feel like a stage mom. i keep going "so what do you have to do to get an equity card?" sigh. she didn't just get a stage mom, she got a jewish one.

i don't remember how much i told you about the last batch of beer but it came out good enough that i am going to really have to watch myself now. the ocd part of my personality could show itself here. it was brewed as an attempt to knock off (and here's some hubris) a Rochefort beer, specifically a Rochefort 8. yes i know. and no it doesn't taste quite like theirs. they've only been doing it since 1595. but why not shoot high. i think mine is too sweet. i think there's no way to make that beer anyway, though i guess if you're good enough you can come close. mine is nice and people seem to like it but there's no way it's a Rochefort. it ended up strong at about 9.2% abv. i brewed it as a partial grain brew but that's being generous to myself, as it's a small amount of grain and a non fermentable one (carapils) at that.

i used munton's amber and some light dme. also a pound of candi sugar. Wyeast 1388 (i used two activator packs). i used styrian goldings for 60 and 30 and finished with czech saaz for 10. two weeks primary, two weeks secondary. the best ones spent four weeks warm and at least a week cold for bottle conditioning. they tasted more...blended...than the ones that spent two weeks warm and two weeks cold. that's why you try both ways. so you learn.

we're going to have people over for thanksgiving and i'm very much looking forward to that. our last thanksgiving we made enough food for 12 people even though it was only the two of us. with a lot of people we'll probably end up making three turkeys and a pot roast or something. i wanted to brew a beer for thanksgiving, but i couldn't brew some crazed high gravity beer again. it just wouldn't be ready on time. so i brewed a stout from a recipe in Charlie Papazian's book The Complete Joy of Home Brewing. It's also a (barely) partial grain, using a little bit of roasted barley, but it uses a lot less malt extract and uses dark dme. Wyeast 1084 Irish Ale. Cascade hops in the boil and Saaz (i wanted Willamette but they were out. and i keep thinking maybe i should have gotten Fuggles instead. i'll find out soon enough) to finish. Papazian said it would be ready to drink in 21 days and i think he's right. tomorrow will be a week in the primary, and it looks to me as if visible fermentation is basically done. we'll move it to the secondary for a week, then bottle, and it will have a couple weeks in the bottle before thanksgiving. i'm expecting (aiming? hoping?) for approximately 5% abv (the og was 1.054). i did a much better job of cooling down the wort this time than i had the first couple of brews. i had the sink prepared with ice and water and had plenty of extra ice at hand. but this is where i have to watch.

see, i'd love to get into whole grain brewing. but this means i need a mash tun and a lauter tun and this is either super expensive or hobbyist made for the most part. for example, a lot of people use converted gott or rubbermaid or even igloo coolers for which they build a false bottom and drill holes and make strainers and a whole bunch of other stuff i'm not qualified to do. or you could go completely insane and buy this little beauty, the Brew-Magic System by Sabco. you'll note they hide the price on the next page. that's so your wife or girlfriend won't look over your shoulder and see you ogling something useless that costs $5070. but it's nice, huh? hehe. i think i'm going to set something up with polarware brewpots and a conical fermentor, though i don't think i can justify The Fermenator! it's also nice though isn't it?

i also have been looking at setting up an internet radio station. i'm not really certain if i want to do it as part of Bay City Blues or if i want it to be my own. i've bought my own name as a domain name and have been considering doing the station there as a hobby (at least to start) rather than having it be part of work. i've been considering moving the whole blog in fact. i've also been considering changing it to wordpress (i am SOOOO sorry i didn't start with wordpress), so with any luck i can have myself doing all kinds of crap that won't make any money. hehe. guess i should rethink some of this. i'd probably use www.live365.com, mostly because it looks to me to be by far the easiest way to set a station up. and if i do want it to be part of work (or even if i get into it as a serious hobby), they have some arrangement where your monthly fee to them covers ALL licensing and royalty fees. that's a big deal to me because it takes one huge headache away.

i smell lunch cooking so i'm going to go now. everyone enter the football competition and everyone make a phone sex call!!

later.

howard

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Standings after Week 7

Mon, 22 Oct 2007 18:30:23 GMT

Getting close to halfway through the season now, and while the standings are starting to string out a little bit in the middle of the pack, the top half dozen or so are still extremely close. The standings are:

Red Sox Fan....................60

Joisey...........................59

Tonya...........................59

Pamela's Pal....................58

Me...............................57

Cool Canada....................55

Sydney..........................52

Westchester....................49

Duke of Windsor...............48

Erin..............................45

Kira..............................44

Eve..............................43

Pamela..........................42

Wendy...........................39

Melody...........................37

VIP in the 613...................35

Graphics Whiz..................34

Penelope.........................32

Down East.......................31

Marilyn...........................30

Mr. Vibrator.....................25

Erika.............................21

Heart of Texas...................8

Keep playing and keep entering!!

howard

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week 7 picks

Sun, 21 Oct 2007 16:26:20 GMT

Houston Texans

Detroit Lions

New Orleans Saints

Baltimore Ravens

New York Giants

Washington Redskins

New England Patriots

Oakland Raiders

Cincinnati Bengals

Dallas Cowboys

Philadelphia Eagles

Seattle Seahawks

Pittsburgh Steelers

41 points tiebreaker

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only the best

Sat, 20 Oct 2007 02:56:42 GMT

i don't wanna be schlock i don't wanna sell schlock i only want to be the best.

i brewed the strong belgian ale and while it might not be the best (yet) it's pretty damn good and when i'm done i will make the best.

i made the fondue last night and no you can't have the recipe and it's the best.

i love my honey and she's the best.

and the phone sex we have here is the best. only the best. that's all we have here. i'd put them up against any group anywhere anytime.

i'm damn proud of the people here and i'm keeping it that way. stupid of me to have ever done anything else.

howard

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Standings after Week 6

Mon, 15 Oct 2007 23:08:12 GMT

Football Season Standings after Week 6 are:

Joisey..................50

Red Sox Fan...........50

Tonya...................50

Pamela's Pal...........49

Me......................49

Cool Canada...........48

Westchester...........41

Duke of Windsor......41

Sydney.................41

Kira.....................38

Erin.....................37

Melody..................37

Eve......................36

Pamela..................34

Wendy..................34

Down East..............31

Graphics Whiz..........30

VIP in The 613..........29

Marilyn..................27

Penelope................26

Mr. Vibrator............25

Erika....................21

Heart of Texas..........8

Have fun and keep entering!!

howard

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football picks

Sun, 14 Oct 2007 15:54:42 GMT

cincinnati bengals

houston texans

cleveland browns

green bay packers

baltimore ravens

chicago bears

philadelphia eagles

tennessee titans

arizona cardinals

new england patriots

san diego chargers

seattle seahawks 37 points

and as long as i'm in here i'd like to say that this great bullpen the red sox are supposed to have is one guy who hasn't pitched a full two innings all regular season and a parade of nobodies on either side of him.

and i really wish they would stop calling Ortiz the greatest clutch hitter ever. there's no such thing as a clutch hitter. nobody is going to convince me that there is. no stat shows it. none nothing zip zero nada. and last night CERTAINLY didn't change my mind on that point.

howard

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joe torre

Wed, 10 Oct 2007 16:18:42 GMT

i wouldn't fire joe torre just because the yankees lost (again) in the alds. any short series is subject to a whole lot of statistical noise and small sample size. i'm not sure how much a manager adds to a team anyway. but i might fire him anyway.

i subscribe to www.baseballprospectus.com. if you play fantasy baseball or if you really want to understand the game i recommend it to you as well. real life baseball executives deal with these guys and with good reason. they really do see what's going on.

and if you want to find a reason to fire joe torre just take a look at this snippet from a chat with baseball prospectus founder gary huckabay:

Drew (New Jersey): Should Joe Torre be playing Doug or Giambi at first base? Giambi was in a slump at the end of the season and Doug was hot? Do you go with Doug because he's on a hot streak or because of his glove? If they were about the same defensively, would you go with the bad guy on a hot streak or the good hitter in a slump?

Gary Huckabay: I'm trying to envision the circumstance where I would start Mientkiewicz over Giambi. Perhaps if I were paid by the letter.

later all.

howard

Bay City Blues Phone Sex and TonyaJoneMiller.com

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hi everyone

Tue, 09 Oct 2007 17:00:38 GMT

sorry i haven't written anything in a few days but we've been busy and i have this horrid cold. it's finally getting better but the last two days were just complete ick.

the beer has been in the refrigerator for over a week now. this comes on the heels of two full weeks of warm conditioning. we tasted a couple and it's actually pretty decent though i think that more conditioning is only going to help. it should have more of a head than it did when we first tasted it, and it should be a little less sweet. i THINK that the carbonation is not quite finished and i'm still tasting a little bit of the priming solution. i have to remember that everything seems to take longer with the high gravity beer. but we're pleased with it already and actually let visitors taste it. visitors who liked it too!! yay for buffy brew.

obviously we've been busy as well with the new girls. sadly, it looks like some of them don't have the necessary oomph to be here on a long term basis. Tonya and I have talked a little bit about how to handle this as we go forward, and it looks to me as if we're coming to the same conclusion, which is nice. i think we're going to end up focusing on quality and not worrying too much about anything else. seems to me that quality is the most important consideration we can have. and so...watch this space for more...

and now a recap of the football for week 5.

once again, the competition came down to the final game, and was decided by the tiebreaker. the winner, Pamela's Pal, had 10 points (out of a possible 13), and a prediction of 44 points, which was damn close to the actual 47 scored in the Green Bay/Chicago game. i also had 10, but had picked a low number (34) and got cleanly beat.

four people had 9 points. Tonya, Cool Canada, The Duke of Windsor, and Joisey. However, they had all been eliminated by the time the last game began. Tonya, Cool Canada, and Joisey all picked Green Bay to win the Sunday night game, as did both Pamela's Pal and me. So they couldn't catch us. The Duke had only 8 points going into the last game, so his pick of Chicago brought him up to 9 but didn't allow him to catch up enough to win. still, it was another extremely close week, and it really made the Season Standings close at the top of the board.

Season standings can be seen at 2007 Season Standings in City Hall. next week's games are now posted at The Promos Page.

i have a fair amount of stuff to do today ranging from errands to (ick yuck) bookkeeping so i'm off for now. i'll catch everyone later. enter the football and call a hot girl!!

howard

Bay City Blues Phone Sex and TonyaJoneMiller.com

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playoff time

Wed, 03 Oct 2007 19:40:07 GMT

before i get to the playoffs i want to mention a couple of things. but i'll try and be quick about it.

Tonya and I and she who shall remain nameless have been busting our butts working on the site. it's all set up nicely now and i think you're going to be very pleased.

we've brought in a group of new girls (and more are on their way), and tried to make it easy, simple, and affordable for all of you to meet them. i'm going to take this opportunity to welcome them and introduce them to you as well. i hope they all have fun and enjoy themselves here. i'm sure you'll enjoy meeting them. they include Angelica, Desiree, Kylie Ann, Leslie, Lyndsey, Lia, Melanie, Reagan, Stacey, and Trixie.

we've set it up so that you can call these girls at easy flat rates. 10 minutes for $20, 20 minutes for $40, 30 minutes for $60. one of the things we're proud of is that we sell CALLS and not minutes. we think it's the fairest way to do things, and it lets the caller know what he's going to spend before the call even begins. we applaud those other companies that do the same. we also think that when you compare this to some of the prices out there, we're offering good value.

i want to also invite everyone to our new free gallery section. whether you're a friend of ours already or a friend we haven't met yet, i'm sure you'll enjoy the hot photos. and we have a lot of them up and a lot more to follow. you can see them (as long as you're old enough) at www.baycityblues.com/galleries.html, where there is a list and a link to each and every gallery posted so far.

ok enough with work. i got a small grumble about my new glasses. i wear progressive lenses (no line bifocals), which change strength gradually from the top/distance section to the bottom/reading section. the intermediate part is perfect for me when i'm at the computer. unfortunately, the new ones (which Tonya says make me look like Elvis Costello, and i've yet to determine if that's good or bad) had the intermediate and lower sections set too low, and though i tried to use them, it gave me an almost instant headache at the computer. i went back to the optician and they're actually going to have the lab remake the lenses from scratch. but i want them and now i have to wait another week probably.

waiting sucks. it's all i can do to wait for the beer and not put some in the refrigerator today. but i am going to force myself to wait the full two weeks (day after tomorrow). even though the baseball being on only makes it worse.

i love october baseball. though i will say that living on pacific time now really throws me off with the time games start. the first game is just starting as i type this. a noon start. (even weirder is football starting at 10 am on sundays). we get three games today. the yankees/indians series doesn't start until tomorrow.

the yankees are apparently big favorites in that series. i don't really get it. to me it's probably close to even. the yankees probably have a little better offense, and rivera has been an excellent closer once again (he's not the same as he was but he's still better than almost anyone else). but the indians are probably going to have the best pitcher on the mound at the start of every game. and they'll start Sabathia twice, and i wouldn't argue much if you wanted to say he was the best pitcher in all of baseball this year.

the game that just started and is taking my focus away from writing this is the rockies at the phillies. this series is going to have a ton of scoring and be a lot of fun to watch i think. both teams have excellent hitting, and both ballparks are super friendly to hitters. the scoring may all start in game 2, however. right now i recommend turning the tv on if you like pitching. it's jeff francis against cole hamels, and you'd be hard pressed to find a better matchup of two excellent young left handers. though there's francis giving up a triple just as i type this. this could be a really enjoyable series to watch. i wouldn't want to place a bet on it though. i think they're very close teams. the phillies MIGHT have a little better bullpen. the rockies MIGHT have a little better starting rotation. both teams can hit. Utley and Howard are pretty good players so MAYBE i would give the phillies an edge. but as i said, i wouldn't want to bet on this one.

later we get the angels and the red sox. this one i might be willing to bet on. even with really only three starters, the sox look to me like they just outclass the angels. the sox bullpen is terrific. if the starters get the team to the 6th inning, they should win in three. and i think Beckett is an excellent pitcher, and if they need him later in the series, he'll be ready again. i'm a stat guy but he's also got serious big game experience. the sox bullpen throws strikes. the angels hit ground ball singles. the sox have power scattered through the lineup. i hope the angels enjoy their experience, but i think it's going to be a short one.

the final series and tonight's game is the cubbies at the diamondbacks. i may have made fun of Carlos Zambrano and Ted Lilly, but arizona is going to have Livan Hernandez and Doug Davis in their rotation. that's no choice at all. the only decent starter the d'backs have is Brandon Webb (who'll go against Zambrano tonight). they had better win tonight or i think they're in big trouble in this series. and arizona is full of freeswinging righty batters, which could really help Zambrano. lot of power in both teams lineup, but i think the pitching wins this series for the cubs.

everyone have fun and see if there isn't time to squeeze in a phone sex call between games. or between innings. or make it your seventh inning stretch ritual.

later all!

howard

Bay City Blues Phone Sex and TonyaJoneMiller.com

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football. baseball. phone sex. and much more.

Mon, 01 Oct 2007 17:53:58 GMT

actually i don't know if i'll write MUCH more here today since i have about a thousand things to do today. but let's get started.

first i have to say that you no longer gotta believe in the mets. i've already received my first smart ass email joke about them. a joke i've now heard for years.

what's the difference between a ny yankee hot dog and a ny mets hot dog?

you can eat a ny yankee hot dog in october.

ok time to move on.

football.

this was probably the closest and most suspenseful week so far. going into the final game there were 4 entrants tied at 7 points each. ALL of them picked Philly to win the evening game. since it's tough to win when your quarterback ties the all time NFL record for times being unceremoniously dumped on your ass, that choice didn't work out real well. there were three entrants who had 6 points going into the evening game who had picked the giants. this gave us SEVEN entrants tied with 7 points each at day's end.

the winner was Kira, who chose philly in the evening game but won anyway with a tiebreaker prediction of 37. this was the lowest score chosen by any entrant and made her an easy winner as the final score of the game was 16-3.

updated season standings can be found at Season Standings in City Hall.

for those of you worried about the earth spinning off of its axis, you can relax now. i've returned to my expected score with an extremely impressive total of 3 this week. out of a possible 13. sigh.

i need the beer to be ready. it's been in the bottles for 10 days now undergoing warm conditioning. we'll leave it until friday and then put some in the refrigerator. ideally it should condition cold for another two weeks, but some of it is going to last only as long as it takes to get cold. this beer should actually continue to condition for months, but considering my exceptional lack of patience (in almost every part of my life), there's no possible way i'm waiting that long to try it.

our new arrangement will be set up (crossing fingers here) on the site sometime late tomorrow afternoon or early evening. i'll get the prices and faq rewritten for everyone later today or early tomorrow. i think everyone will be happy with the new setup. we're looking forward to it.

ok i'm going to post the next week's games shortly on The Promos Page. all of you have a great day and call a hot phone sex girl.

later all.

howard

Bay City Blues Phone Sex and TonyaJoneMiller.com

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ya gotta believe

Sat, 29 Sep 2007 21:39:22 GMT

for those of you who know tim mcgraw but aren't old enough to remember his father tug mcgraw, here's a picture. for those of you who ARE old enough to remember, don't give up just yet. the phillies are losing 2 - 0 after five innings as i write this.

tug is the fourth from the left in the second row, number 45, (two over from Willie Mays) and was an excellent relief pitcher for that Mets team which won their division with only 82 wins. they went on to the world series that year and lost in 7 (and probably should have won).

he's the one who coined the phrase in the title of this post. and you Mets fans who are ready to give up should remember it.

ya gotta believe.

<%image(20070929-1973 Mets-2.jpg|500|356|null)%>

he's also known for a response he gave to a reporter who asked him whether he preferred grass or astroturf. he told the reporter, "I don't know. I've never smoked Astroturf."

howard

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the cubs

Sat, 29 Sep 2007 04:47:12 GMT

the cubs clinched the national league central division title today.

the last year they were in a world series was 1945.

the last year they won a world series was 1907.

they have the lowest winning percentage of any team that's going to be in the playoffs this year. their hitting is horrendous for a playoff team. you can keep alfonso soriano and his 130 strikeouts and lousy .334 on base percentage. the only hitter on their team i would even want on my team is maybe derrek lee and considering he's a first baseman his stats don't knock me out either.

their pitching impresses me even less. having a rotation anchored by carlos zambrano (whose best attribute is that he keeps showing up) and ted lilly (jeez) is nothing i'd want to take into the playoffs. and as far as i can tell the bullpen is ryan dempster and whomever they yank out of the stands. but i'm going to root for them anyway.

______________________________________

(talking blues)

By the shores of old Lake Michigan

Where the "hawk wind" blows so cold

An old Cub fan lay dying

In his midnight hour that tolled

'Round his bed, his friends had all gathered

They knew his time was short

And on his head they put this bright blue cap

From his all-time favorite sport

He told them "it's late and it's getting dark in here"

And I know it's time to go

But before I leave the line-up

There's just one thing I'd like to know

(Chorus, sung)

Do they still play the blues in Chicago

When baseball season rolls around?

When the snow melts away,

Do the Cubbies still play

In their ivy covered burial ground?

When I was a boy they were my pride and joy

But now they only bring fatigue

To the home of the brave

The land of the free

And the doormat of the National League.

...

(talking blues)

So if you have your pencils and your score cards ready,

I'll read you my last request

Give me a double header funeral in Wrigley Field

On some sunny weekend day (no lights)

Have the organ play the National Anthem

And then a little "na, na, na, hey hey, hey, Goodbye"

Make six bullpen pitchers carry my coffin

And six ground keepers clear my path

Have the umpires bark me out at every base

In all their holy wrath

Its a beautiful day for a funeral, Hey Ernie lets play two!

Somebody go get Jack Brickhouse to come back,

And conduct just one more interview

Have the Cubbies run right out into the middle of the field,

Have Keith Moreland drop a routine fly

Give everybody two bags of peanuts and a frosty malt

And I'll be ready to die

Build a big fire on home plate out of your Louisville Sluggers baseball bats,

And toss my coffin in

Let my ashes blow in the beautiful snow

From the prevailing 30 mile an hour southwest wind

When my last remains go flying over the left field wall

We'll bid the bleacher bums adieu

I will come to my final resting place, out on Waveland Avenue

From "A Dying Cub Fan's Last Request" by Steve Goodman

howard

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busy busy

Fri, 28 Sep 2007 18:00:29 GMT

hi everyone. sorry i haven't written in a couple of days but i think all our friends will be happy with the results.

we're going to be starting our new system this coming week. if everything continues to go right, it should start on Tuesday evening, October 2. we have a good new group of hotties starting with us and i'm certain you're going to like them. additionally, they'll be more accessible to you...which you should read as more affordable. :-)

if you don't get as much time on IM or if they neglect to answer an email...well, that's because they are MUCH better at phone sex than they are at emails. and Tonya and I are pretty sure that's the way most of you want it.

our girls who are still with us are a special group. they do a lot and they are exceptional in several ways...not to mention the fact that they're the hottest, sexiest group of ladies you're ever going to meet. they deserve to be paid in the fashion they deserve, and so they're going to have their prices raised a little bit.

all the prices will be very clearly laid out on each page. both the new girls and our present group will be available through the same phone number. i'd like to stress the point that we sell CALLS and not MINUTES. we let YOU choose the length of the call. there's no holding you on the phone, using scripts, techniques to keep you holding, or anything like that. we do it that way so that everyone is aware that there's NO incentive for our ladies to do anything but share the best calls available anywhere with you.

to make things simpler and cleaner we're changing the length of calls which can be purchased as well. our new girls will be available for 10, 20, and 30 minute calls. this will give everyone a chance to meet them all and to experiment without destroying your budget. and should you want a longer call...well it's certainly easy enough to call us back. :-)

our present girls will have different call lengths as well. some of you will be thrilled with the fact that we finally have a 45 minute call available. we're making the longest call available an hour. i'm aware that a few of you make longer calls. but we really don't want anyone to get partway through a very long call and feel that they've overspent. this way nobody will get ahead of themselves (and we watch for it BECAUSE we know our girls are so sexy) and nobody will have cause to be uncomfortable. and, again, we're easy enough to call back.

i do have some other things to write about (baseball always catches me this time of year. my brother the Mets fan may disagree right now however. hahaha. man what a dive.) but we think this is important enough to merit its own post. i'll be back later and catch up with you on some nonsense. and send in your football entries!!!

howard

Bay City Blues Phone Sex and TonyaJoneMiller.com

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week 3 football results

Tue, 25 Sep 2007 02:55:27 GMT

well we've gone back to reality. reality being the place where i don't win.

i do however think it's about time some caller actually won. that didn't happen this week either though it was down to the last game (which made it close for about one quarter). sorry chicago people. hope the cubs don't end up the same way. though that could NEVER happen. right? right? helloooooo?

anyway this week's winner is Marilyn with 11 points out of a possible 15. this is her first week entering which puts her a little bit behind in the season standings, but if she keeps this up she can make it up. she just beat out our Graphics Whiz, who ended with 10 points and would have won had the bears been anywhere near as good as everyone kept saying they were BEFORE they actually had to play football. he's also a first time entrant, which should tell all of you to ENTER! there's a free call up for grabs every week and you can win even if you haven't ever entered before.

several other people ended with 10 points also, though all of them got the 10th point in the dallas win and didn't have any chance to catch marilyn going into the game. this group includes Wendy, our Cool Canadian, and Pamela's Pal (who was looking REALLY good after the early games with 7 of 9 (woohoo like Jeri Ryan), but struggled in the later games).

the biggest game here was probably Cleveland against Oakland. the field goal being blocked at the end was gigantic for Marilyn, who wouldn't have won had cleveland won. i'm not really sure who would have won in that case. i think it would have come down to the tiebreaker. the stupid jets actually winning a game made a big difference too i think. several people were close behind at 9 points including me, Tonya, me, Mr. Vibrator, Joisey, Down East, and Jenny. this puts 10 people within 2 points of the weekly win and just goes to show you that you should ENTER.

sorry i'll stop yelling. hehe. right behind, at 8 points, were Pamela and the Red Sox Fan. a larger group was at 7.

i'll try to get the next week's games posted tonight. if i get too lazy i'll post them tomorrow. the season standings are posted here.

later everyone.

howard

Bay City Blues Phone Sex and TonyaJoneMiller.com

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and also about the beer

Sun, 23 Sep 2007 19:53:17 GMT

it just occurred to me that SOMEONE might be interested in just what i'm trying to make with this beer.

then again, you might just think i'm being pedantic. if so, please skip the rest of this entry and go look at porn or something.

there's an outfit called the "beer judge certification program." like just about everything else involved with making and drinking beer, there are people who hate it and sneer at it and people who think it's an excellent plan and organization.

my concern has to do with the fact that, IMO, they have a nice breakdown for different styles of beer. you can see the full list at www.bjcp.org/styles04/.

i'm attempting to make what they call #18E Belgian Strong Ale. and lest anybody get the wrong idea, there's no way i think i can come within a planet of making Rochefort or Westvleteren (which i used to be able to get regularly and it's one of the sad parts of my life that it's not possible to get it here any more). should i ever think i could make them i'm certain the very thought would ensure (in case there's any doubt remaining) that i'm going to hell.

but i will say that so far it's falling within the mathematical guidelines. It had an OG of 1.090, an FG of 1.020. i THINK i'm on the high side of "IBU" or International Bittering Units. that's a factor of how much bitterness you have from hops. but i'm guessing at the "utilization" of the hops so it's not possible to get the formula exactly right. i don't know how the hell you're supposed to figure how much of the hop bitterness is utilized. they have charts but they look like guesses to me. anyway, by their charts i'm probably somewhere between 25 and 30 as far as i can tell. SRM is a measure of how dark the beer is. i would say i'm right around 20. according to the beer judge certification program, "For example, an American light lager would be around 2-4 SRM, a Pilsner between 3-5, an Oktoberfest in the 5-14 range, and a Doppelbock in the 20-30 range." next time i'll use a little spanish moss as a clarifier (or buy a wort chiller and get a real cold break).

anyway just tossing this in to show my obsessive nature.

later.

howard

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my picks and buffy brew

Sun, 23 Sep 2007 16:42:51 GMT

happy sunday everyone.

my picks for this week are:

Green Bay Packers

Minnesota Vikings

Tampa Bay Buccaneers

Philadelphia Eagles

Indianapolis Colts

Miami Dolphins

Baltimore Ravens

New England Patriots

Pittsburgh Steelers

Denver Broncos

Seattle Seahawks

Cleveland Browns

Carolina Panthers

Washington Redskins

Chicago Bears and the tiebreaker total is 47.

Also a report on the Buffy Brew. Tonya and I racked and bottled the batch yesterday. It spent 15 days in the secondary fermenter for a total of about 27 days total fermenting. The final gravity was 1.020 giving us an alcohol by volume of 9.17% (woohoo). The original gravity was 1.090. This also put my mind to rest on a couple of things. There was no crud and absolutely no funny smells coming from the beer. Plus this gives a 77% apparent attenuation (efficiency of fermentation or basically how much of the available sugar was converted to alcohol. 77% is right at the very top of what Wyeast says this yeast...1388 Belgian Strong Ale...should give). So I'm very pleased and have high hopes for this batch.

I'm going to let it sit for two weeks conditioning warm (approx 75 degrees) and then put some in the refrigerator. It would be nice to let it sit for two weeks cold but obviously we're going to taste some before that.

Anyone who's applied to us recently and who might be reading this please note that we are going to start contacting people tomorrow. We have a gorgeous new page for your profiles which we're going to approve and we're very excited about going forward.

everyone enjoy the football and make a phone sex call today!!

howard

Bay City Blues Phone Sex and TonyaJoneMiller.com

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i finally have a couple of minutes

Fri, 21 Sep 2007 16:51:12 GMT

it's been soooo difficult to find time when i can write something. the last week (and next week too) have been are are going to be WAY busy. i float between too busy to write and exhausted.

the web designer is just about done. we have a page for the new girls that would DO what we want it to, but i don't think we're happy with the style and i think we're going to fuss with him a little bit.

this is a good time to let friends and callers know a little bit about what we're implementing. we're going to have a two tiered structure. our operators (and you may have noticed that the number of people here has pared down a bit) who are here now will be one tier and new operators joining us will start on a second tier. those girls who are here will continue to write journals, visit chat, answer IMs, use email, and so on. they will be billed (and paid) at a higher rate than they are now.

and i personally think that's way fair. any of you who call those numbers in the back of the stroke magazines (and those are the businesses that REALLY make money in this industry) know that even though they say stuff like starting at 69c a minute or nonsense like that, if you want to actually speak one on one with a single girl you're being billed at $4.99 or $5.99 a minute. and good luck if you like a girl and actually want to speak with the same girl again. (and don't get me going on hold times and stuff like that).

we are in the business of selling CALLS not minutes. i think it's important for people to be aware of that. it seems somehow fairer to me. it's not open ended and it gives no incentive to operators to do ANYTHING but have a good call with you. and i think that's exactly what those girls who remain here DO attempt. their focus is on a quality experience.

so the girls who are here now and who are staying with us will get paid what they deserve. new girls have had an extremely high turnover rate. those of you who have been friends of ours for any length of time know that. so what we're going to do is give new people a chance without it costing us or you a fortune. they will join us and their calls will be billed at a lower rate. they will NOT be expected to IM with you or go into chat or make personal websites or keep live journals. however, many of you know that such things make for a richer experience. i imagine that those who take to this will end up doing much of that of their own volition. and we're certainly going to make it POSSIBLE for them to do so.

we intend to give new girls a good opportunity to show both you and us how good they are and how seriously they take this. but since they're not going to be expected to invest the same amount of time, we will all meet them at a reduced rate. so we will have a two tiered series of prices. new girls will actually be less expensive to speak with than the girls here now are. but the girls here who are remaining with us are a special group, as anyone who has called them knows, and they will be a little bit more costly to speak with.

we think this is a fair way to treat both callers and our girls. we can give a lot of opportunity both to new girls and to callers who have a smaller budget, while still fairly compensating those girls who are special and different from those you can find at any number of generic places.

and for those of you curious about some of my major concerns (though god only knows why you would be), you might be surprised to hear that my MAJOR BIGGEST MOST SERIOUS concern without any doubt is making the new prices SUPER SUPER NO WAY TO MISS THEM clear on the website. because i personally thought we had done so already, but the absolute most common question on dispatch is "How much does a call cost?" so the designer is going to incorporate it in such a way that there is NO question (i hope).

i've been busy with other stuff too. i finally went for an eye exam. the scrip didn't change much but i MUST get new glasses. i wear progressive lenses and this pair is two years old and kind of...uh...lopsided. and any of you who wear them know what that means. it means you literally can't see straight. hehe. sad but true. so it's time to deal with it.

i got a referral to a new accountant and have an appointment with him next week. i've always had the same accountant and have NO idea how difficult it's going to be to adapt to a new one. but every state is different and i think you really need one that's familiar with the area you live/work in.

i finally have all the 2257 (that's the dirty picture record keeping requirement statute for those of you who aren't familiar with it) stuff in the new program. it will make it much easier for me as we add new pictures, new operators, new websites (with new galleries wooohoo) and such. the record keeping is actually more difficult than having the records required. sigh. it's because you aren't just supposed to HAVE an id but also a date of production, a local copy of every image, a list of each set with name, a list of url's (and i can continue cause there's more) but they all have to be cross referenceable to each other. the new proposed regulations actually say something about having a hard copy of people's ID. the free speech coalition reads that the same way i did, which is to say you're like supposed to take the model's driver's license and keep it or some nonsense like that. but now that the attorney general who proposed them has quit over other stuff, who knows what new regulations they'll look for. i just know i needed to make it easier for me both now and whenever they do come up with new stuff. so it's easier now (now that i lived through days of the world's most tedious data entry work).

the beer!! the beer has been in the secondary fermenter for 14 days now (actually if we bottle it this afternoon it will have been 15 days). this makes about 28 days total it's been in the two fermenters. i finally see just about no more bubbles in the airlock (maybe like one every three minutes as of yesterday. MAYBE that many). so i think it's time to bottle. it's going to get another 10 days or two weeks in the bottle warm and then maybe some time cold as well so conditioning isn't nearly finished anyway. man i hope i didn't screw anything up. this high gravity beer does NOT work the same as the lower gravity one did at ALL. one of the reasons i'm so ready to bottle it is because i want to run a hydrometer reading and see how big a change in gravity there is. what i really want to know how successful the fermentation was. yeah the reading will tell me the percentage of alcohol in the beer but more important to me is what percentage of sugars i've actually converted to alcohol. this is how i'm going to learn for the future.

and i can see i'm aimed for trouble. i've started looking at brewing setups in magazines the way other guys look at girlie pics. i'm looking at pics of tanks welded together and fancy fittings and hoses that run beer through supercoolers and fermenters that have false bottoms where you can catch the trub (settled out yeast residue) and hops if you don't use a bag and take that material out and not have to move the beer into a secondary. it just becomes a clean secondary and you have less sanitation problems and...damn. sorry. but you get the idea. i'm gonna end up turning some room into a brewery i can fuckin' see it. i need a more powerful heater and some better way to aerate the wort and oh i want a cooler bad and if i want to do all grain i need. stop. sorry. but you probably get the idea.

i also want to toss out a pffft to all those people who didn't yell at me when i made this blog and used nucleus instead of wordpress. now that i've done a little work with Tonya's Wordpress Blog i want wordpress instead of nucleus. and it's going to be one giant pain in the ass to do it. especially since i like want to do it NOW and i have to instead get a large new group of people put to work. i'll just toss it on the list.

i'll talk to everyone a little later on. send in your football picks (another thing on my list). have a great weekend and make phone sex calls.

:-)

Bay City Blues Phone Sex and TonyaJoneMiller.com

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what a cool idea

Mon, 17 Sep 2007 23:01:31 GMT

Fashion designer Marc Ecko is the man who bought the baseball hit by Barry Bonds for record setting home run number 756.

He's made a website called www.vote756.com, where you can vote for one of three choices for what should be done with the baseball. You can vote to have it given to the hall of fame, to have it branded with an asterisk and then sent to the hall of fame, or to have it blasted into outer space on a rocket and be banished from earth forever. (similar to throwing it out but with MUCH more style.)

I voted to send it to the hall of fame. You should all vote whatever you like. But damn that's a cool idea.

howard

Bay City Blues Phone Sex and TonyaJoneMiller.com (though nobody should EVER assume i speak for her or anything like that. )

:-)

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some biographical stuff

Mon, 17 Sep 2007 18:06:24 GMT

I grew up in New Jersey very close to New York City and moved to Portland, Oregon, my honey Tonya's home town, in March 2007. I find I like Portland very much and that people are wrong. It doesn't rain EVERY day.

I've been in numerous different businesses. I owned a dyehouse for years and had 7th Avenue garment center types as customers. I'm a non-practicing attorney. I ran a small trucking company. I was an option trader on the floor of the American Stock Exchange for around 8 years (with one year on the Philadelphia Stock Exchange). And yes that means I was one of the guys you see on TV running around screaming and wearing dorky jackets with badges on and carrying hand held computers and scraps of paper (they'll NEVER get rid of ALL the paper).

Now I co-own Bay City Blues, LLC with Tonya. Right now it's a phone sex company. But we're going to make it more than that. Tonya's an actor, and when I see her on stage I KNOW that it's a special and vitally important part of her life. So we're going to find a way to incorporate her performing talent (and yes she's very talented) into our business life as well. We're trying to build a life and lifestyle that's whole and complete and does not compartmentalize and separate business and friends and pleasure and money into all different spaces. So this business is a work in progress.

I am a widower. I met my late wife in late 1979 when I was in law school. I lived with her for seven years and then we got married. We were married for over 10 years, got divorced, and got remarried (took about a year). Lois was not well and our life was extremely difficult by the end. She suffered from Borderline Personality Disorder, and had the attendant problems of substance abuse and alcoholism. She committed suicide in September of 2004, and did it in a way meant to hurt those left and in a way that also showed the pain she was in.

It took me a while to deal with it at all successfully. I had the help of some very special friends and family, but most of all I had Tonya's help. Without the love and caring that is an essential and basic part of her, I don't know if I would have made it. I do know that I am extremely lucky to have her in my life, and that I give thanks to whatever power might be in the cosmos which brought us together.

I intend to grow. I intend to continue to become a better and more knowledgeable, honest, and caring person. I was not always so and I have plenty of situations now where I'm not. But with the life I've been lucky enough to find, and the love I now have, I expect to succeed. Welcome to everyone who finds us.

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football and more

Mon, 17 Sep 2007 17:06:39 GMT

happy monday everybody.

this weekend a miracle occurred. i actually won the football contest again. this makes two wins in either two weeks or four years depending on your perspective.

once again the contest was not decided until the final game. indeed it wasn't decided until the last four minutes of the last game of the day. i like the way having the night game as the tiebreaker has made the last game so important and added some suspense and so i think i may keep it that way for a while.

i ended with 11 points out of 15 and was tied with a guy who still lives in Joisey. he had 46 points as the tiebreaker amount and i had 47, and i'm lucky that belicheck and his team had a stick up their ass after being busted for cheating (against the jets too. is that REALLY necessary??), otherwise they wouldn't have pushed for that last score. without that last touchdown the game ends with 45 total points and i don't win.

immediately behind us was Pamela's pal from Cali, who ended with 10 and would have been in the tiebreaker had the chargers actually played like the super bowl team people keep saying they are. after watching them last night i'm not so sure. and here's a little violin music for those sad souls who have LT on their fantasy teams. our Red Sox fan also had 10 points, and would be in much better shape if he had someone else choose the 1pm Eastern time games for him. he does GREAT in the later games but keeps missing too many early ones.

Three entrants were right behind them at 9. Take note that this shows seven entrants within two points of the lead this week. and all of them are callers. In an odd quirk, all those at nine points this week are from somewhere altogether too far north and cold. They include our Down East guy and two from Canada; the Duke of Windsor and our Cool Canadian. So enter. Don't let me win all the calls. Hehehe.

The season standing are similarly close. I've got 21 points, Joisey and the Red Sox each have 20, Pamela's pal has 19, and Melody has 18 and is the highest ranking operator. The Cool Canadian and the Downeaster (hmm. Downeasterner?) also have 18 and are right in the mix. At 17 points and 9th place we finally find Tonya, and rounding out the top ten is The Duke with 16. (i can't help it. i was like really proud of that Duke of Windsor thing. hehehe but there it is.) I'll get this upcoming week's games posted later today or tomorrow.

By the way, you should take a look at Tonya's web site (it's what I linked to above). it's a blog and she's been working on it and i think it's really neat the way she's taking to it. it's going to be a constant work in progress because...well her life is, so the blog setup works perfectly. i doubt you'll ever see it stay static for any amount of time. if you're interested in her, visit. and don't blame her for the basic template. i kind of chose it based on ease of installation and use, and as she gets better i very much doubt that she's going to stay with the design and layout.

we're probably driving the poor web designer crazy with our changes of mind and wait call this that and let me see this and no work on that first and...but as i told him, we just really DO want to get it right. i think there's going to be some extra attractions for everyone as we get things going. right now, if you look a little bit, you can see some excellent photos and some fascinating pages speculating on fate and destiny. But you have to LOOK for them. :-)

i've got this thing in my head that i better watch too. i really want a microphone setup here so we (we hahaha. oops sorry) can play with making mp3s or podcasts or streaming audio or something. i have no idea what we'd actually have the CONTENT be, mind you. i just like the gadgets involved. and something about the radio grabs me. probably comes from when i was a kid. i was the kid who carried the little transistor radio around. in the late 60's is when i was 10, 11, 12 years old, and i used to listen to WABC (i remember the first time i finally MET Cousin Brucie. it was at the AMEX and he was there for a charity fund raising thing and i was like a stuttering teenager meeting him. and then these 21 year old hot traders came up to me and asked me "Who is that guy anyway?" i told them but i don't think i got the true feeling across) and WMCA ("The Good Guys." that's where Harry Harrison was before he moved to WABC. if you don't know what i'm talking about it's only because i'm old. i even had one of those Good Guy sweatshirts with the early smiley faces). so i'm fascinated by the idea of us having some kind of web radio station even if it's only broadcasting sporadically. i did some research though, and you pretty much can't have music that's controlled by the big stupid record companies. they just make it too expensive and onerous. but they'll end up destroying themselves and the industry will change under their feet. it's what happens when you just ignore what your customers want. the customers find some other way to get it and some guy will find another way to deliver it to them.

ok i'm going to go see if there's other work that needs to be done. OH and the beer is getting close to bottling time. as of today it's been in the secondary fermenter for 10 days. i've been figuring on 14 days, though the fermentation (at a SERIOUSLY reduced rate) is still going on. i can see one or two bubbles a minute still. guess i'll learn about high gravity beers from this experience. and i'll also learn keep stirring and DON"T BURN THE SUGAR because it really sucks to clean it up.

later all.

howard

Bay City Blues Phone Sex and Theater Of Deviance

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week 2 picks

Sun, 16 Sep 2007 18:32:19 GMT

i'm posting them a bit late but i made them on time. though since i won last week i'm probably not scheduled to win for another four years now. in any event, my picks are:

indianapolis

green bay

cleveland

houston

new orleans

pittsburgh

jacksonville

san francisco

minneapolis

seattle

dallas

chicago

baltimore

denver

san diego 47 points total for the tiebreaker

i feel like i picked a lot of road teams and there must be something wrong with that. but there it is.

lot of entries this week too though i don't know what happened to our Bayou guy. oh well.

later.

howard

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lunarpages

Sat, 15 Sep 2007 16:07:29 GMT

we've used lunarpages as a web host since we opened. four years next month. and i've got as fancy and complete a package as you can have without moving to a dedicated server. up until yesterday i would have told you they were terrific. but they managed to piss away 4 years of goodwill in one 30 hour period. i wouldn't have believed it to be possible. but it is. i doubt very much that i'll renew with them. there's a lot of quality web hosts around now and i don't intend to live through the nonsense they handed out over the last day and a half.

the site went down about 2:30/3:00 pm on Thursday. i called support shortly thereafter. i listened to a recording telling me there was a fire in their los angeles facility and then held on for 35 more minutes until i got what at first sounded like a real live person. later on i decided that all the lunarpages phone support people are actually bots and not real people at all. this first bot told me yes there was a fire and they were working on it and it would be back up soon.

the next morning (yesterday/Friday) it still wasn't up. Tonya called them early, waited (only 34 minutes this time hehehe. they appear to have a rule that you're not allowed to speak with support unless you wait at least half an hour), and finally got another support bot. this one gave her a useless story basically saying "oh it'll be back up soon." soon in lunarspeak means we have absolutely no idea and we're completely unconcerned that your business isn't operating properly.

while waiting she called the sales line at lunarbots and got a salesbot. this one was apparently set to "whine" and sympathized immensely and told her a sad story about a fried switch and all these different servers that were down and all the poor administrators who had been their working their poor little bot asses off all night long. He hoped it would be back up "soon" as well.

i came downstairs shortly thereafter and tried calling again. this time it took about 45 minutes to get a support bot. he told me about a migration from our server to another server since our server was "having problems." he told me the migration was "55% done." so i made the silly mistake of asking him when that meant it would be running and our site would be back up. "oh i have no estimated time." "OK. then when did the migration begin? and can't we just double the time and figure when we will be up?" "well my records say it began at 5:30am" "ok it's 10:30 now. that means it will be up in another 5 hours?" "oh no it doesn't work like that." "why not?" "well we have to restore it." "yes i know. and it's half done so if i double the time that means another five hours, right?" "i have no estimated time."

it's my fault for talking to bots. so i called sales. didn't get anyone but a machine that at least admitted to being a machine. i told it that i really wanted the unsales department because clearly being a customer for four years didn't count for anything. after all, lunarpages managed to have their own site going. this achieved precisely what i expected. nothing.

later on i called again. got another bot which claimed its name was Jeff though they don't seem to have programmed him with a last name. he had no information at all. and if he did, he was immediately deleting it from his bot memory. i said you lost all our data didn't you?. "oh no that couldn't happen." "why not?" "well if all the data was gone then the server would be running because it would be easy to restart." oh. "ok when do you expect it to be back up?" "i have no estimated time." sigh. "just take the stupid hard drive and put it in another computer, ok?" "oh it doesn't work that way." "ok let me get this all straight because i want it all for the court case." "what court case?" "the one i'm going to start on monday when i go to the attorney and sue lunarpages. now please get me a supervisor and go ask whoever programmed you to assign you a last name." "no supervisor is available." this is no surprise. why should there be a customer support supervisor around when all sorts of people have their sites down. obviously nobody would want to be at work THEN. silly me.

i hang up and we bitch to each other about these assholes for a while. then she gets a call and i decide to amuse myself and i call back yet again. wait the obligatory half hour, get a new bot. "we have no estimated time." ok well i'm not shocked by this answer at this point. but for some reason i'm in a better mood so i decide to play. "do you expect it to be back this year?" "i have no estimated time." "ok what about 2008?" "i'm sorry i have no estimated time." "well that's alright. what about 2010?" "i have no estimated time." now i don't know what they pay this guy but it isn't enough. he was terrific at his job. his job happens to be that he is supposed to be the world's most unhelpful support guy i guess. and he's great at it. meanwhile i have a web host which isn't prepared to tell me my site will be back in three years.

"ok give me a supervisor please." this brings on a 20 minute wait on hold. i then get a supervisor bot named "Peter." Peter is capable of saying "i have no estimated time" in response to absolutely any question you can come up with. obviously he's an upgraded model. he was programmed so effectively that he actually offered me a made up story. "if you really want an estimate of when your site will be back up i will give you one. however, it will be completely made up." oh. he tells me yet another cause of the problem. he tells me there was a power failure followed by a lack of turning on of the generators and requiring a reboot of all 2100 servers in this facility. however when OUR server was rebooted, it didn't "work correctly" and required a "migration" to a new server. by this point i had pictures in my head of refugee nude pictures trudging to a new computer and was having kind of a hard time keeping it together.

i then get a call from a 562 area code number, which is in the los angeles area (just like lunarbots). "Muhammed" is on the phone. he's calling me because "my supervisor told me to." i don't know if this is because i threatened a lawsuit or i annoyed the sales bot line or because i've now called innumerable times. "can you please submit a support ticket?" "well ok if you want one i will. but i've called lots of times and you're calling me back so obviously you already know the site is down. why do you need a support ticket?" "my supervisor told me to call you and ask you to make one. i could make one myself i guess." "why don't you go ask your supervisor which will get the site up faster." "ok good idea" "he says you should submit one." so i do, while he's on the phone. ok good he can see it. "why do you need one really?" "i don't think the technicians work on anything without it. you should do that instead of calling the support line." "don't they work on things when you call the support line?" "uh well uh no."

i also took the opportunity to point out to him that one of the support bots on the regular phone line had said "well we sent out a notification. didn't you get it?" now the answer is of course i didn't get it. the damn site is down. the server is down. that means THE MAIL IS DOWN TOO. "oh yeah. maybe you should get a yahoo or google mail." "i'll do that in case the next web host can't fix anything either. thanks. excellent idea." "you're welcome." sigh.

later i try support yet again. Muhammed had told me to keep an eye on my support ticket for a response. i did and kept getting neat responses. "Ticket submitted 1 hour 43 minutes ago. Awaiting Tech Reply." i gave up watching it at "Ticket submitted 3 hours and 56 minutes ago. Awaiting Tech Reply." didn't seem to be much point. the phone finally gets picked up. "i'm sorry i have no estimated time." ok fine. i got that already. but i got a call from Muhammed at this 562 number. silence. more silence. as far as i can tell, the mention of a 562 number indicates that the support bots need to contact the mother bot for new programming. not more helpful programming, mind you. merely new programming. after several moments of silence, the new programming showed up. "i don't know a Muhammed." marvelous. excellent work. i point out that Muhammed had mentioned that he wasn't familiar with a Jeff at the support line either. "oh yes there is a Jeff." well at least i got a positive response to SOMETHING. only took 24 hours and was completely useless, but at least it was positive. i asked this bot for its name also, and the programmers were ahead of me this time. this one even had a last name. i actually asked him because he gives me his first name and i say "Jeff didn't have a last name. Do you?" "yes i do." oh good. "ok can you tell it to me?" he does. if i were him i would have made it up.

i finally gave up and we went out to dinner and another fun stop on the way home and then just let it go. i checked and between me and others we have all the pictures so the hell with it. the web designer was working on changes. it's just the cosmos telling me to start over from scratch. we're getting there anyway. we're narrowing down what will be the top high quality girls to those it should be (the eagle eyed among you may notice a couple of operators that aren't here any longer), and we'll open up and give a large group of new girls a chance at a lower rate. btw that's how it's going to work. we'll have the very top level girls still here and set them up at the prices they should be billed at and the pay they deserve. then we'll put on a large amount of new girls who won't be given the same full complement of web tools that we have been giving to all girls previously. they will be billed at a lower rate. as those who are special show it and begin to stand out, we'll all learn which operators are special and act accordingly. i'm very excited about it and real anxious to get it going. but it's way worth waiting for gary to make the pages right. he's the BEST and he's the reason our website stuff rocks.

ok that's enough. i got my lunarpages rant out of my system and now i want to hang out and have coffee with my honey.

talk to you all later. and send in your football picks!!

howard

Bay City Blues Phone Sex and Theater Of Deviance

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sigh

Thu, 13 Sep 2007 18:20:04 GMT

i'm cranky and completely scattered today. the last couple of days were tough days for both of us personally and Tonya thinks it's catching up to us today. she's probably right too. we dealt with it by just working straight through. i bet i spent close to 15 hours at the stupid computer yesterday.

at least i accomplished something. i have all the 2257 stuff completely organized in the new nifty program (i hate these stupid rules). i had everything before, but this will (supposedly) make it easier as we go forward with new content. and we have new content that we'd like to put up as the site redesign moves along. and all our content is now free. so if you're over 18 (or 21 if you live somewhere you need to be 21), visit us at Bay City Blues Phone Sex and peruse our collection of free sexy nude pictures. galleries no longer require passwords.

by the way, if you click on Tonya's name up above, you'll find it takes you to her new website. it's a wordpress blog. if you don't like the theme, blame me and not her. i just chose a theme that had a fair amount of things already built in so that it would be easier (a search function; rss feeds for items and comments; categories and archives showing easily; that type of thing). i expect you'll see plenty of changes happening to it in the near future. we've already placed the web designer on notice that we'll want some help from him. i think she deserves a custom theme. don't you? :-)

the beer has now been in the secondary fermenter for a week. i'm figuring on two weeks, so another week or so before we bottle. then i'm figuring on at least two weeks of warm conditioning followed by putting some beers in the refrigerator. with the high gravity beer i should probably leave them to cold condition for a couple of weeks too but i'm not waiting nearly that long to taste some. i won't plow through it all but i'm damned if i'm just waiting another month and a half before i even taste any. it will be all i can do to wait 3 weeks.

it's both tax time and find a new accountant time. i got a referral to a new accountant here and he's going to be perfect. that's because he's just like the old one and doesn't return calls. but eventually he will. instead i'm getting calls (even though i'm on the National Do Not Call Registry ) from some outfit calling themselves the committee to restore morals and values. i don't know who put them in charge of my morals and values but they can't have that right. only i am in charge of my own morals and values, in spite of the valiant efforts to the contrary by the government and the assholes who think that some deity put them directly in charge of my damn life.

i'm very proud of my honey. she just got her first voice over gig and i expect she'll start to get plenty more of them if she wants to. anyone who's spoken with her knows why she got it and that she'll get more. she's also been going to auditions and i'm sure she's going to be working on a production here soon.

what i personally feel like doing is playing pinball for the next three days and ignoring the entire world. unfortunately i don't think i can get away with it. i have two more girls to talk to directly about the changes (one who i'm starting to think is a fade), plus i'm getting restless about getting started with the website changes and putting new girls to work. hurry up and wait. at least i know gary's work is always worth waiting for.

i keep looking over at her working with wordpress and it's making me wonder if i shouldn't have gone with that instead of nucleus. but i don't feel like changing it now. if nothing else it'll force me to get better at stylesheets. and after looking at a zillion wordpress themes i had to go look up where the hell "lorem ipsum" came from and what it means. i actually found out, and in way more detail than anyone needs to know. i'll save it for a special.

ok at least i grabbed a chance to say hi to everyone. if you didn't join us for our football contest last week, please do so. the details are at www.baycityblues.com/promos.htm.

talk to you all soon. and with any luck i'll be in a better mood.

howard

Bay City Blues Phone Sex and Theater Of Deviance

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