Name Game

Just had a customer say, "Im going to try to contact Brian Bizbee or however you pronounce it"

The B Blog

My machine crashed again. I think the hard drive is somehow semi-hosed. The tech wizards are cloning it now so I dont have to completely re-setup a new machine. Meanwhile im in the server closet answering email using the wiscmail.wisc.edu site. Its nice and cozy in here.

Nut Rules

Nut shots are allowed (encouraged) in the B. Here are the rules:

• While in the B, your balls are fair game
• No ball shots while shooting baskets
• The ball must be thrown from within the B
• Gubber may not be targeted
• The object thrown must be a ball
• You are allowed to shield yourself in any manner

If you do happen to get hit, you should take it like a man.

Introducing Speedy Suite™

Today we are happy to announce the Speedy Suite™ Business Management Package. Everything you need manage your organization quickly, efficiently, and just plain betterly.

Speedy Suite™ began as the brainchild of BIG! after countless slow and ineffective meetings. His frustration with these daily diversions inspired him to create our flagship product, Speedy Meeting.

What is Speedy Meeting?

• No small talk
• Everyone comes prepared
• Quickly decide on action-items
• Get outta there!

Unfortunately, not every meeting is a good candidate for Speedy Meeting. To have an effective speedy meeting, there are some prerequisites:

• No stupid people
• Shut the f*** up

And now we are especially happy to announce the full suite of Speedy products. These include:

• Speedy Corporate Party
• Speedy Hire
• Speedy Fire
• Speedy Budget

We hope you effectively leverage the Speedy Suite™ to minimize interactions with coworkers and maximize your business potential. In the coming days, we plan on including more details on a variety of Speedy techniques.

Scoreboard

Back in the day, the B was known for its rousing games of "around the world", tip horse, straight-up horse, bennis, and dodgeball. The final view of our scoreboard is available below. There are probably two years worth of scores here. I'll try to explain the sections (starting in the upper left corner):

• B vs. W -> Bunny vs World in HORSE. Woooooorrlllld dominated Bunny.
• R B O -> Score of the most recently played HORSE competition between Robbo, Bunny, and Ogden. That's Ogden Kent.
• The drawing with the basket in the center shows how many people had perfect scores from each "around the world" spot in the office.
• J vs R -> Jeffers vs Robbo. The original HORSE competition. That's a lot of games.
• (Next row)
• B vs J vs R (and the one below it). No idea, someone is going to have to remind me.
• B vs J vs R (tip). Bunny vs Jeffers vs Robbo in tip horse.
• All time highs, lows, and off-hand highs in "around the world". Dre came in one day and hit a 12. Pretty awesome for not practicing.
• R vs B vs O. Pretty pathetic. Robbo vs Bunny vs Ogden in horse I assume. A sign of the end of the fun in the B.

If you look closely you'll find other goodies hidden on the board. Enjoy!

In-Law Update

The check has been cashed.

Basketball/Trivia Scoring

To reduce the number of postings for trivia and basketball scores, I propose we create a new thread and post all scores as comments. We might as well begin with this very thread. I will post a permanent link to this post on the right-hand menu so we can always find it.

Mornings Competitions

Gubs won in Music trivia, 15-2-2.

Robbo beat Gubs in H-O-R-S-E (H-O-R-S-E to H-O-R-S)

Multiple Around the world runds occured.

Official Cartoon of the B

I hereby nominate Aqua Teen Hunger Force to be the Official Cartoon of the B. Its just a strange off the wal cartoon on Adult Swim. I find it fascinating and very humorous in all its stupidity.

Badger Time!!

Im a rare convergence of events, the Wisconsin Badger Hockey team and Basketball team played at the same time, 3pm. Even better, both games are on TV. So I have the left half of my 65" Mitsubishi tuned to the Hockey game and the right half tuned to the Basketball game. This is how sports is meant to be watched.

I hate the Olympics

I hate the Olympics. And for the next 2 weeks we're gonna get it jambed down our guttlets. Ya know what the problem is with the Olympics. Well Im gonna tell ya.

1. Theres too many events that masquerade as sports. Any event where the winner is decided by a group of people who are not involved with the event is not a sport. Its more like the Academy Awards. The motto of the Olympics is Citius, Altius, Fortius. Latin for Faster, Higher, Stronger. 8 judges ranking a performance on a 0 to 6 scale has nothing to do with faster, higher, stronger.

Any event that is not decided on the field of play by one of faster, higher, sdtronger should immediatly be eliminated.

2. Too many events in the Olympics do not determine the "best in the world" The winner of an Olymipc event should be the best person/team in the world. The Olympics is not a tournament. The best hockey in the world is played in the NHL. I can understand the desire to fight for nationalistic pride and Im all for that but throwing a team together to play for 2 weeks just doesnt lend itself to top notch hockey.

Any event that doesnt determine the best in the world should be eliminated.

3. Events are chosen more for television appeal than actual competitive interest. Take speed skating. Now here we have a real citius event. People love it. Theres no judging involved. So what do they go and do. They invent Short Track Speed Skating. Have you ever watched this abomination. about 75 percent of the time theres a crash at some point and then the judges get involved and decide who wins. Why cant they just leave a classic event alone.

Any event which is a latter day knock off of a classic event should be eliminated.

Lets look at the sports
1. Alpine Skiing. Good sport. Start here. End here. Fastest one wins.
2. Biathlon. One of those sports that suffers because stupid events get too much coverage. Skiing and shooting. A real test.
3. Bobsled. Another citius sport. But I question whether the participants need to be world class athletes.
4. Curling. This isnt so much a citius, altius, fortius sport, but its a more cerebral game that requires a certain touch. Its becoming more popular. Youll see it on TV this Olympiad
5. Figure Skating. Stupid, stupid, stupid. Not a sport. The event pretty much depends on young girls sacrificing their childhood to spend all their time skating. And really, who cares about skating. I mean if you dont have a stick in your hand going after a piece of vulcanized rubber its a waste of time. I HATE FIGURE SKATING.
6. Ice Hockey. Now heres a sport. But it shouldnt be in the Olympics. Pro hockey is too big to fit in the Olympics.
7. Freestyle skiing. Another stupid sport. I cant believe they took a cool sport like downhill skiing and screwed it up with this dance element. Just stupid.
8. Nordic Combined. This is a little much. They took different types of skiing and jambed them together to make a new event. "People like skiing, but we dont have any new events. Lets combine the events we have and call them a new event"
9. Short track speed skating. An embarrassment.
10. Skeleton. We used to call this "sledding" This is a third generation of event. Bobsled begat luge which begat skeleton.
11. Luge. Sledding when laying on your back. Although the luge crashes can be quite exciting.
12. Ski Jumping. This is the ballsiest sport. Fly down a huge hill and jump as far as you can. There is an element of style points I believe that should be eliminated. But it is cool to watch.
13. Snowboarding. Puh-leese. No events where you can compete while drunk. This is a blanent attempt to draw in the "generation X" dollars.
14. Speed skating. Basically track on ice. Not very interesting to watch.

Ill be watching reruns of The Office for the next 2 weeks.

iTunes Sucks

So I know this guy, who downloads music from iTunes and then removes the encryption using some software.

Well it turns out that one day, this guy wanted to play a purchased song on his roommate's computer because it's connected to the stereo. Usually this guy is diligant and removes the encryption after purchasing his music, but this time he just couldn't wait, so he went ahead and played the song.

Well it turns out that his roommate's computer had iTunes v6 installed. It also turns out, that once you play a song in iTunes v6, you can no longer purchase any music in iTunes v5.

Well it turns out that the software can't decrypt songs purchased with iTunes v6, so now this guy can no longer buy music and remove the encryption. He'll have to burn his music to CD first, and then rip it. Which is total bullshit.

Oh, and one more thing - now this guy has to download and install iTunes on his work and home computer and deal with a 32meg download and a slow-as-shit install just so he can play music he already purchased.

Hoop Updates (LIVE)

New work is being done of the hoop. Here are my live updates:

Lunchtime - McRoberts is walking over to Dorn hardware during his lunch break to pick up some anchors. While he is gone, I tried to unscrew the top toggle-bolt and in in doing so, caused both toggles to deploy. So it looks like the top is secure now.

12:52PM - McRoberts returns with heavy-duty metal anchors. After widening the bottom hole a bit, he epoxies the hole and the anchor and inserts. We will wait several minutes before securing the hoop to allow ample time for the epoxy to harden.

1:20PM - The epoxy has hardened and we have secured all bolts & screws. Never has the hoop been stronger! While we're at it, Robbo and I decided to epoxy the missing hoop-link as well (to get rid of the ugly duck tape). We're currently letting that dry.

1:32PM - Everything's done. This could be the hoop's finest moment. Huge props to McRoberts for making this happen (the man purchased an anchor, brought in epoxy, and he isn't even a B-member). Let's play some basketball!

Razor Technology

Holy buckets!!! I just got a free sample of the latest development in razor technology. The Gillette Fusion. It has a 5 blade shaving surface and one precision trimmer. Man an I psyched to use this baby. The people at Gillette are really on the cutting edge.

The Eyes Have It

Big day tomorrow. Robbo has an eye test. He's going to be up all night studying for it.

Television

Ya know Im not really sure what days TV shows are on any more. Everything is on my TiVo. Watching TV with commercials is for sucks. Except for sports. You HAVE to watch sports live.

America trivia, tres

Gubber 16 (10/6)
Ogmo 9 (7/2)
Ron 4 (3/1)

Basketball Scores

Hoop Is Up.

(Although it's questionable how strong the anchors are...)

We each shot twenty balls from the door in rapid succession. Scores:
Robbo: 1, Ogmo: 5, Gubber: 4

Trivia, 3 man

Movies.
Gubber 15 (10/5)
Robbo 12 (9/3)
Ogmo 11 (9/2)

In Laws

Ok. The back story is that my wife and her mother don't really get along. So when we got married in 2000, the contact between them fell off. We didnt call back and didnt attend family functions. Like that. We just werent interested in have a relationship with them. And we'd thought we made that clear.

So last week a relative passed away. He was well liked by everyone. Just a great guy. So my wifes mother took that time to send an email trying to get her to call her father to get them talking again. Never mind that we've made it clear that we dont want to and that at the time we were mourning the death of this guy we both really liked.

Ok so I wrote the letter to them from my wife's perspective. I describe it as stern but not defaming. I didnt name call or anything like that. I just said that we dont hate them but it would be better if they didnt contact us any more. We are very happy with her life the way it is right now.

If her dad wanted to contact her that would be ok but please dont think the meeting will be a step toward "getting the family back together" That ship has sailed.

Oh I also put in there how she didnt think this was the proper time to bring this all up just when a family member had just passed away.

In the letter I didn't name call or engage in personal attacks.

Allow myself to quote myself:"Please know that I don't hate you and only hope the best for you."

And again:"I hope everything is going well in Florida and you are having a happy and healthy retirement."

I actually thought it was a pretty good letter. It let them know where we stand without resorting to name calling and stuff like that.

So her dad wrote an email back.

Now I will quote him:"Hate was oozing out of that E mail."

And again:"I always knew what you were about and it showed" (I still dont understand what this means)

Once more:SCREW YOU AND THE HORSE YOU RODE IN ON (caps NOT added by me. They were in the original)

And to top it all off, "Since your marriage you have not said two words to me. Remember thats the one I gave you $5.000. How about sending it back 2316 Lockwood loop Villages Fl.32162"

He closed with:"You are a hateful person"

Ladies and Gentlemen, My In-Laws!

I wrote out the check and sent it certified mail to him with a note that said"I trust that this will be the end of communications between us."

So thats the latest on the In-Law saga. Im thinking of scripting it up as Lifetime movie

Yo Mammy

This shit is just too funny to not blog. That is, if you think it's funny when African Americans have to withstand racial profiling and increased suspicion from police. Which I do, at least when they are drunk and say funny shit.

Listen to Yo Mammy

B Objects - Part III, State of the B

In the State of the B post, I made reference to two objects in the B: Brett Favre and the Library. In the third part of this series, I present with photos of these fine items:


They are precious.

In Laws

Let me know if anyone wants me to write up the latest in my In-Laws saga.

Syrup Showdown

A couple of days ago, Robbo, Bunny and I attended a Super Bowl Sunday Brunch. It turned out that there were 4 types of syrup at this waffle-eating event, and we decided to settle the age-old question, what's the best syrup?

The Syrups:
a) IGA (generic artificial syrup)
b) Vermont I (natural Vermont syrup from a store)
c) Roth's (natural Wisconsin syrup)
d) Vermont II (natural Vermont syrup from my parents' neighbor's trees)


We had 8 people testing the syrup (n = 8, single-blind) and each person ranked the syrups from 1 to 4 (1 = lowest, 4 = highest). At the end, the scores were tallied. Here are the results:

1. (d) Vermont II (28 points)
2. (c) Roth's (21 points)
3. (b) Vermont I (20 points)
4. (a) IGA (11 points)

My observations:

Even the most skeptical agreed that there were definitely differences between the syrups. The fake syrup was the clear loser, only receiving 1's and 2's (even from Robbo who supposedly prefers the fake stuff). The Vermont II was the clear winner, receiving only 3's and 4's. The Roth's and Vermont I were so closely matched that I'll call it a tie. I think more investigation is warrented in the Vermont vs. Wisconsin battle.

For those folks looking for the raw scores:

A	B	C	D
2	1	4	3
2	1	4	3
1	3	2	4
1	2	3	4
1	3	2	4
1	4	2	3
1	2	3	4
2	4	1	3
11	20	21	28

This was epic.

Fridge History

Since theres talk that the fridge might be ready to meet its demise I thought Id give a little history. I am the one who brought the fridge into the group. I inheirted it from a former officemate who was coincidentally named "Former" Former had a number of these smallish fridges. He got them from his dad. His dad owned bait shop and used the fridges to store bait. Worms, nightcrawlers etc.

Another week in the B

Another week int he B begins. Lets make is a good one. Highlights are scheduled to include:
Gubber's appearance on Wednesday
Possible hoop hangage
A couple of SpeedyMeetings (tm)
The B Book club will be meeting
A couple special guests are also scheduled

I hunger with anticipation....

The Hoop

The people have been requesting an update on the status of migrating the basketball hoop from the eastern to the western wall of the office. Early last week we had an engineering crew in here (Og) to remove the hoop. A thorough analysis was done of the existing wall mount and the screwage. The hoop was then completely disassembled, in preparation for its 15 foot journey to the other wall.

As of this writing, we are waiting on Og's report of the tools/hardware necessary to complete the transition. The production date for the hoop has been pushed back, yet again, much like uProtal. Zing!!!

Foam Soap

So if you've been at a restaurant or bar lately and visited the facilities you may have noticed a new type of soap they have in the dispenser. When you press the button or level you get a handful of this foamy stuff. Im not exactly sure what prompted the change but Im guessing its somehow cheaper.

My problem is when you foam up, say in your right hand, then you put your hands together in your normal hand cleaning motion, theres a good chance that this will be too fast for the foam and the pressure will result in the foam squirting out of your hands. The squirt usually lands on your pants. And most of the time right in the crotchal area. So now it looks like you didnt make it or didnt shake enough or something. People then assume youre a complete idiot.

But at least your hands are clean.

Headache

Ive been up since 3:30am with a splitting headache. I took 2 tylenol and 2 advil to try to take the edge off. Is it ok to mix those? Not sure how much work ill get done today cause it hurts to look at the screen.

Lunch Choices

There are any number of potential lunch destinations near the B. I will group them

Group 1. Common destinations. Maybe once a week
Gum Seng
Rockys
Taco Johns
Bring lunch from home
Subway

Group 2. Maybe once a month
The noodle place on Regent
Cousins

Group 3. Potentially a couple times a year.
Stadium Bar.
Silver Nickel Pizza
The Kebab Place

Group 4. Never under any circumstance
Union South

More 3 man trivia

Movies
Gubs 16 ( 2 steals)
Ogmo 9 (3)
Ron 8 (3)

America
Ron 12 (3)
Gubs 10 (4)
Ogmo 8 (4)

Thats Ron's first win! BIG! sat in on part of the America matchup and swept up 6.

State of the B

B associates, advocates, and allies:

As we look back over the year, there have been many significant developments in the B. Unfortunately, we lost a member of the B, Bunny, but it is in his memory that we preserve the core values of the B: a life devoted to service and honor, and even more importantly, general rambunctiousness and tomfoolery.

It was also in this past year that we undertook a major office reorganization. While a tumultuous time, every one of us can be proud of the result: more space for stretching, better visibility of the door, and equal window access for all.

In domestic issues, this year more than ever, we have filled the B with more trinkets and distractions. By more than doubling the number of plants in the office, we have made great strides with the environment. A new Brett Favre photo promotes the integrity that can only come from a professional athlete; and of course we cannot forget the new library that is lit up and welcomes all.

Gentlemen, we are happy to report, that the state of the B is strong.

This upcoming year could be characterized as a building year. We will start with an aggressive push to get the hoop up and operational again. With a possible health epidemic arising from the Gum, the B can no longer neglect our physical needs. Also, a happy B is a productive B.

It's also time we invest in ourselves and our future. With raises and reclassifications for the B, we will inspire new discussions on investments and the stock market. While we cannot garauntee any return on the investment, this will add to the long-term value of B members. This initiative is long overdue.

As always, there will be a dedicated effort to update technology in the B. Faster computers, larger monitors are all absolutely necessary for our continued long-term health, and we expect strong support from our primary advocate (BIG!) in this area.

Unfortunately, with the projected departure of Ogmo, there may be some turmoil in the B. But Robbo and Gubber have proven themselves time and again to be resilient in the face of change. We are confident they will either find a new member who is worthy of the B, or remove Ogmo's desk and reinstitute the Bennis court.

We thank you all for your support of the B from the past year and we are fully expecting another prosperous year.

Im in the B...

Im in the B and it feels great! When you're not in the B for a week and then you enter it, you still get that giddy feeling like the first time you come in.

Im a little disappointed about the lack of a properly installed hoop though.