9/01/2007 12:30 PM

It's almost here! Go Ducks!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

A few observaitions from Canada

Canadian beer sucks

Slurpee's taste different in Canada

Budweiser and Coors are in the import section

There's a lot of bad drivers

They don't know how to spell. It's center, not centre!

Why are the police still called the "Royal Canadian Mounted Police" when most police officers are not mounted.

ATM's are called ABM's (Automated Banking Machines) and you can choose between English and French. I wanted Spanish!

My Last Bog as a single man

This is a historic post for Dennis' Daily rant. This will be my final post as a single man. Tomorrow at 2:00 PM PDT Dennis Micheal Cook, the founder, President, CEO and supreme dictator of dennisdailyrant.com will wed the lovely Carrie Marie Lintner. Will anything about my blog change after I get married? NO! You will still find the same blogging excellence that you've come to expect. In honor of my upcoming honeymoon in the nation of Canada, I leave you all with this:

O Canada!
Our home and native land!
True patriot love in all thy sons command.

With glowing hearts we see thee rise,
The True North strong and free!

From far and wide,
O Canada, we stand on guard for thee.

God keep our land glorious and free!
O Canada, we stand on guard for thee.

O Canada, we stand on guard for thee.

http://www.canadianheritage.gc.ca/progs/cpsc-ccsp/sc-cs/MP3/O-Canada-eng.MP3

I really don't know what to say about this one

Back in June I blogged about the $54,000,000,000 lawsuit against a laundry mat owner who lost a clients pants. At the time that was the most ridiculous lawsuit I'd seen. That all changed today when my soon to be wife emailed me a story from foxnews.com. A South Carolina prison inmate has filed a $63,000,000,000 lawsuit against embattled NFL Michael Vick. He alledges that Vick stole two pit bulls from him for his dog fighting operation and then sold them on ebay and used the proceeds to buy missles from the Iranian government. I'm assuming this lawsuit will be thrown out almost immediatley and if it's within the judges power I hope he can tack some more time on this dudes sentance for waisting everyones time. Here's the story from Fox News, please read it along with the pdf of the complaint filed in court.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,293268,00.html

Wednesday Morning Thoughts

First I want to tell everyone that I hate going to the dentist. Problem number one is why do dentist and doctors offices have four month old magazines in the lobby? It's August 8 and I was reading all about the Florida Gators second consecutive National Title in Basketball. Problem number two is the strategically placed "Stages of Gum Disease" chart in the exam room. For forty minutes I had to stare at this chart that showed pictures of everything from healthy gums with nice white teeth all the way to puffy bleeding gums with black and yellow teeth. Problem number three is scraping. Having someone scrape at your teeth for thirty minutes is one of tortuous things there is. The good news is that I had no cavities!


Thought number two, Barry Bonds is now Baseball's all time Home Run leader. I have mixed emotions on this. Being a Giants fan I'll admit that there was part of me that was cheering for him. Did he use performance enhancing drugs? Probably. Is it a tragedy or a Dark moment in Baseball history like some have labeled it? No. It it is what it is, he's got more home runs than anyone who has ever played the game. The last twenty years have been "The Steroid Era" in Baseball and Barry Bonds is the best player of that era. If Baseball wouldn't have ignored the steroid problem in the beginning than we wouldn't have any problem. Bud Selig and friends are just as much to blame as Barry Bonds. Everyone who bitter and and angry about this can take comfort in the fact that Alex Rodriguez will break the record in seven or eight years but who's to say he didn't cheat?

Third thought is that it's almost football season. Three weeks from Saturday my beloved Ducks take on the Houston Cougars at Autzen Stadium. I'll return to my usual seats in section 24 row 24 along with Carrie and Justin when he decides to show up.

Fourth and final thought for the day is days of being a bachelor are numbered. Friday will be my bachelor party. I hear that we'll be playing video games, drinking diet Pepsi and eating carrots so nothing too crazy will happen. A week from Saturday is my wedding so that's pretty cool. Hopefully all the usual people are still in my section including the nice old ladies Harriet and Janet and the old guy that doesn't have a name. Go Ducks!!!

Ouch!!

The most amzing thing about this video is that guy walks away.

Farewell to a Friend

One of the hard parts of getting married is saying goodbye to certain things from my bachelor days. Last night I said goodbye to my favorite chair. The brown recliner has been a part of my life since 2000. It was one of three relics left from the old Chesterfield lane residence (see my post from May 2006). The chair has followed me everywhere I've lived since college and has been good to me. Unfortunatly there will be no room for the chair in my new place so I had to say goodbye. I put an add on Craigslist for $20 and within an hour I had ten email responses. In the end some college kids came by last night handed me $20 and left with the chair. I'll miss the chair and my one hope is that its new owners are as good to it as I was.

"Softball Guy"

Every slow pitch pitch softball league around the country has at least one guy that I would refer to as "Softball Guy". "Softball Guy" is that guy who played baseball in High School 15-30 years ago, and thinks if it weren't for some coach that screwed him over years ago he'd be playing in the big leagues. While most slow pitch softball players show up wearing tennis shoes, shorts and a t-shirt, "Softball Guy" shows up wearing his baseball pants from high school, cleats, wristbands, two batting gloves an official looking uniform or some sort of pullover like the pros wear in batting practice and he's usually carrying a bag with three or four fancy bats. The picture above is a guy that I would refer to as "Softball Guy". While his teammates are probably wearing t-shirts and shorts , this clown has the full get up going. Cleats, socks, pants with the belt, batting gloves, wristband above the elbow and he even threw in the under armor. While I can't tell for sure, I'm assuming that his bat is some fancy $300 bat while everyone else on his team is probably using a $30 bat.

Why do I write about "Softball Guy" ? Tonight, my team faced "Softball Guy". He was probably in his mid to late 30's, he had the pants, pullover, shoes, batting gloves and bat. Before every at bat "Softball Guy" would do some Ichiro like routine, where he would stretch and adjust his jersey several times before he would step into the batters box. Sometimes in between pitches he would do his routine over again. To make things worse "Softball Guy" was also the pitcher and he would try to throw curve balls and change ups and this was coed D-League softball which is the lowest level of Softball in Eugene. Unfortunately we lost to "Softball Guy's" team and as you would expect from "Softball Guy" he was very "humble" in victory.

If any of you out there know "Softball Guy" please have an intervention, it's not too late for them to change. If you're reading this and you are "Softball Guy", please stop! No one is impressed by you, so just give it up.

Socks With Sandals

I posted the following entry on May 14, 2006 but after seeing way too many people wearing socks with sandals I felt compelled to post it again.

As the weather is getting nicer more and more people are wearing shorts, which is perfectly ok. Here in Eugene, I'm seeing a very disturbing trend though. I have seen way too many people wearing socks with sandals. Under no circumstances should anyone wear socks with sandals! If any of my readers are doing this please stop. If you see someone on the street doing this please tell them to stop. If we all work together on this we can stop this!!

More Baseball Trivia

Which active Major League manager has the highest career winning percentage?

That question won me another $30.00 at my "favorite" restaurant. That's the second time this season I've won the trivia contest at Civic Stadium. I can't take all the credit for this one though, I was unsure of the answer so I fired a quick text message to my friend and bastion of useless baseball knowledge Justin, who promptly responded with the correct answer.

Soccer Update

It's been a while since I've provided you with an update on "the beautiful game", so here it is. A washed up player from England named Beckham is set to make his debut for the LA Galaxy this weekend. Apparently this is a big deal but I have yet to encounter a single person who cares. People keep on telling me that Soccer is alive and well in the United States but I have yet to see any evidence of that. Soccer might be the sixth most popular sport after Football, Baseball, Basketball, Nascar and Golf but that's about it. If soccer is so big in the United Sates then why does www.mls.com take me some real estate site intead of the official website of Major League Soccer? The NFL, NBA and MLB don't seem to have that problem, heck even the NHL doesn't have that problem. Face it soccer fan, soccer is not bigtime in the USA and it never will be!

Play Ball!!!!

Friday it was announced that the University of Oregon is reinstating Baseball in 2009 after a twenty six year absence. While I've never been a huge college baseball fan I am excited about this. Oregon was the only school without a program and that's just sad to me. After Football and Basketball it could be argued that Baseball is the number three sport in college athletics (personally I prefer Track and Field but that's because of Oregon's rich track heritage). Adding a baseball program didn't come without some cuts, it was also announced that the U of O would be dropping its wrestling program. While I feel bad for those athletes and coaches, I feel the right decision was made. College wrestling has absolutely no income potential whatsoever. While a Baseball program will probably lose money, the potential to be a revenue producing sport does exist. In a perfect world they'd just have every single sport but with financial concerns and gender equity issues that is not feasible. If the University of Oregon wants to be an elite athletic department then adding baseball was necessary. I commend Athletic Director Pat Kilkenny for having the guts to do what no other Oregon Athletic Director in the last twenty six years would do and that's to say "play ball!!!"

Man arrives at wedding a year early

This story is just one more reason why I don't believe in long engagements. A man flew from Toronto all the way to Wales for a friends wedding only discover he was a year early. For all of you who are attending my wedding I can assure that it is August 18, 2007.

Man arrives at wedding a year early

What does this look like to you?

I laughed when I read this story. The city city of Keizer is receiving complaints over the look of these cement posts meant to protect pedestrians from traffic. Here's the story:

Residents of Oregon town say shape of traffic posts is offensive

My Next 10 Songs

I have been tagged by Aaron to list the next 10 songs that come up on my iPod or iTunes on shuffle. For the record I despise these kind things but I'll go ahead and play along anyways. So here is what came up:

1. Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da - The Beatles
2. Lamu- Michael W Smith
3. My Baby's in Love With Eddie Vedder- Weird Al
4. Anakin Defeats Sebulba- Star Wars Episode One
5. Maybe I'm Amazed- Paul McCartney
6. I Hear Leasha- Michael W Smith
7. Truce- Jars of Clay
8. A Time for Glory- The Music of NFL Films
9. Long, Long, Long- The Beatles
10. Place in this World- Michael W Smith

I can't say that I would pick any of these songs if I was picking ten of my favorites from my Library and I don't believed I've listened to any of them in the past two years but that's what came up. So I guess I will tag Andrew if he's reading.

Do I look like a High School Student?

Saturday I was at local convinience store when I decided to purchase a lottery ticket. I've purchased a few lottery tickets since I turned eighteen twelve years ago and I don't think I've been carded once in about the last ten years. I was absolutely stunned when the clerk asked to see my ID. I'm 30 years old! I realize that I do look a little younger than thirty but is there any possible way that I could be 17 years old? Here's a picture a from a year ago, I'll let you decide.

for yourself.

The worst junk email ever

I've received some pretty bad junk emails lately. Viagra discounts, hot stock tips and discount software are some of the junk emails I get on a regular basis. Today I got quite possibly the worst piece of Junk email that I've ever received. I received an email from the OS ticket office offering me the opportunity to purchase single game football tickets. Why on earth would I buy OS football tickets? I would probably be more likely to buy a bunch of shares on one of those hot stock tips than I would buy any tickets to an OS game that doesn't involve the Ducks.

Trivia Question

The following question won me $30 at my one of my least favorite restaurants tonight at the Eugene Emeralds game:

Which current US Senator managed the Eugene Emeralds in 1973?

Got any guesses? Please post your answer. The first correct answer will win a prize.







please note: There will be no prize awarded for the first correct answer, the statement was a lie.

OS Parade Photo

Thank you to the friend who emailed me this exclusive picture of the OS championship parade.

Congrats Rodents! Just 10 more National titles to go before you catch the Ducks

Congrats to OS on their second consectituve national title in baseball. This national title is just the third National title in any sport. The Univeristy of Oregon on the other hand has thirteen national titles, which still isn't impressive but it is a lot better than three!