Houston, We Have Liftoff

Well, we received our projector yesterday. So, after our soccer game, we made a trip to Wal-Mart to pick up a couple component video cables and an optical audio cable for our home theater system. Finally, we have all the pieces we need.

Last night, once we got home, we set up our projector and fired it up. Absolutely awesome. We watched the second half of The Fellowship of the Ring (we watched the first half the night before with Nate). The screen is about 94" diagonally and the picture quality is excellent. I love it. Some of the motion landscape shots in that movie are just breathtaking on that screen. Of course, the surround sound doesn't hurt at all, either. The drums beating in the background of some of the fight scenes are just intense when you can feel it rumbling the couch. :)

Anyway, now that we've got our system set up, we need to clean up our basement. Needless to say, after entertaining guests all weekend and setting up this whole system, it's a mess. Tack up one more thing to do before we leave on Friday. *sigh*

So, that's about it for me. Peace.

Corey

Happy Birthday, Mom!

Like the title says, Happy Birthday, Mom. This year, I believe my mom is 29...again. Pretty soon, I'll be as old as she is.

This weekend was a lot of fun, albeit quite tiring. Here's the rundown.

Friday night, I had some friends from around here come over to my place. We played Axis & Allies (a World War 2 board game) and ate tacos. Fun was had by all.

Saturday morning, Nate left to come and visit. By about 1 in the afternoon, his trek was complete and he arrived at our place in Rochester. We immediately went out to eat, which was followed with shopping for speakers. We picked up a set that we really liked, although it was a little more expensive than we had hoped. In the end, though, we came out awfully close to our budget.

We got the speakers home and proceeded to turn our basement into a movie theater. There is now a whole lot of wiring running through our basement, but you can't see it (nor do you care) while you're looking at a giant screen playing Lord of the Rings in full surround sound. :)

Our projector hadn't arrived yet so we had been using Nate's for the weekend. I just checked UPS.com, though, and they report that our projector is currently at our house waiting for us. I must admit, though, I do get a little nervous about a package like that just sitting outside. At least it's not raining. Once we get our projector in place, we should be set to go (although I do need to pick up a couple component video cables and an optical audio cable). I imagine we'll probably get that taken care of tonight.

Then, Saturday night, we had a most excellent meal (a birthday celebration, I suppose). Nate brought along some steaks, which I believe consisted of most of the cow, and we grilled those over charcoal. In addition, we had home-made onion rings and grilled pineapple slices. It was a truly spectacular meal. We also had a nice bottle of wine and cheesecake for dessert. I must say that I made a complete pig of myself and ate entirely too much, but it was magically delicious. We stuffed ourselves silly and then sat on the deck for an hour or two just gabbing. Good times.

Sunday was a busy day, as well. We had the fantasy football draft scheduled for our place and we were expecting around 20 people to be there. We ended up holding the draft in our garage and, all in all, it went quite well. We started just after 4 in the afternoon and were done before 9. Not bad for a 16 team league.

Yeah, so that's probably enough rambling for me. Tonight and tomorrow, Liz and I have soccer games (the last of the season). Besides that, we really need to get ready to head off to Ireland. We leave on Friday.

Catch y'all later,
Corey

My Endless Quest to Become Uber-Geek Continues

Well, I'm always trying to become geekier and make myself more well-known within the kingdom that is geekdom. Lately, I've been accomplishing both by publishing articles in the JavaRanch Journal (an online Java publication put together by a bunch of voluntary authors). You can see my latest article here. Granted, it probably looks like gibberish to most folks, but my name is at the top. You'll just have to take my word for the fact that it is English (of a sort). :)

This weekend should be a lot of fun. Tron (that would be Nate) will be coming up to visit tomorrow afternoon. Tomorrow night, we're planning on playing Axis & Allies with some buddies at my place. That should last until the wee hours of the night.

Then, on Saturday, we'er planning on doing a little speaker shopping for our home theater project. Nate is going to bring his projector along (as ours hasn't been delivered yet) so we'll probably hook our speakers to that and do a little "test run."

Finally, on Sunday, we've got the big fantasy football draft party. That should be a good night filled with pizza, beer, and ridiculing comments about the person that just drafted Jamal Lewis (or whatever other NFL thug that might end up in jail prior to the end of the season). Good times.

Well, that's it for me. Catch y'all on the flip side. I'm out.

Corey

I gots nuthin'

Yeah, so I don't really have much to say today. Liz and I have had soccer games the last couple days after work so that hasn't left a whole lot of time for anything else.

Yesterday was my brother-in-law, Dean's, birthday (Happy Birthday, Dean!). So, I gave him a call to wish him a happy birthday and we chatted for a little while. He starts school tomorrow (he's got the new job teaching PE in Clintonville). For anyone that didn't know already, Dean has been working on the floors in their living and dining rooms. They pulled up all the carpet to expose the hardwood underneath, but it needed to be sanded and refinished. He sent me some "before and after" pictures last night so I thought I'd share those here.

Living Room - Before
Living Room - After
Dining Room - Before
Dining Room - After

I'd say that it turned out quite well.

For an update on the home theater system, I bought a projector yesterday. I got a good deal on a refurbished on ebay so I bought that one. I'm hoping it will be shipped to me soon enough to reach me before we leave for vacation. Now, we just need to get out and get some speakers and a receiver.

Well, I suppose that's about it for me. That was more than I was expecting to write, actually. Take it easy, all.

By the way, today is my step-dad, Dave's, birthday, so Happy Birthday, Dave!

Peace. I'm out.
Corey

Who Wants to Go "Out" to the Movies, Anyway?

Well, Liz and I have started researching our next big project. It's probably a little ways off (at least after we get back from Ireland), but we've done some research. We're planning on turning our basement into a home theater. Not just a big TV and cushy chairs, mind you, we're planning on buying a front projection TV, which should give us a screen size of around 90" and a full surround sound speaker system. You can all thank Nate for giving us the idea by "accidentally" purchasing a projector a year or two ago.

We spent some times a Ultimate Electronics this weekend checking out speakers and receivers. They did have some projectors, but the cheapest one they had was about 3 grand. We're hoping to get the whole system for about that amount. We found a better deal on speakers over at Best Buy, but we liked the ones at Ultimate a little better. We might see if they can match the deal at Best Buy before we buy anything.

Anyway, we've got some work on our hands, for sure. The biggest thing right now is getting rid of the monstrous entertainment center in our basement. It came with the house and I think this project is being spurred by our hatred of the beast. We're going to put an ad in the IBM classifieds when we get back from Ireland and see if we can't manage to get rid of the thing. I think the toughest part is going to be getting someone to haul it out of our basement.

So, that's the current plan, anyway. I doubt we'll do much with our plan until after we get back from Ireland, but it's a start.

Yeah, so I got nothin' else. Catch y'all later.

Corey

Fun with Digital Cameras

Hey all,

Well, I have to say, it sure is nice to have a wife again. Liz flew back in to Rochester yesterday around Noon. We've been cruising the town doing some shopping (Liz is going to get me a new suit for my birthday) and relaxing at home.

Anyway, while we were out shopping, I picked up a digital photography book. My plan is to take a lot of pictures while we're over in Ireland and it would be nice if a few of them actually looked good. Anyway, I haven't read any of it yet, but I did decide to play with my camera a bit.

We've got a rosebush that we planted this year and it has just started to bloom again. So, I went outside today and took a bunch of pictures of it. Many of them didn't turn out because I don't have a tripod and it was rather windy so I couldn't get the rose to stay still. I deleted probably two thirds or more of the pictures due to blurriness, but I did have a few good ones.

You can check them out here if you're so inclined.

Well, that's about it for me.

Later, folks.

Corey

It's all politics.

So I'm a bit ashamed to say that I know relatively little about the upcoming presidential race. I consider myself a responsible American so I believe I should be paying more attention to what's been going on. My big problem is that, every time I try to read about the candidates, I run into so much propoganda, mud-slinging, and double-talk, that I get frustrated and give up. Can't one of these guys just say what they think and leave the shots at the other guy out of it?

Here's a blurb I got off of John Kerry's website, referring to his plan for the economy:

Make Washington Live Within A Budget

John Kerry will cut the deficit in half during his first four years in office. He will end corporate welfare as we know it, roll back the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans, and impose a real cap to keep spending in check. And when John Kerry puts forward a new idea, he'll tell you how he's going to pay for it.

I love that final sentence. As if this wasn't prooganda enough, there had to be an allegation in there that while Kerry will tell you everything, Bush is going to hide things from you. Yay Kerry! Boo Bush!

GAH!

And don't get me started on this whole attack on John Kerry's war record. What total garbage that seems to be. This group of people that, as far as I know, didn't even serve with Kerry have started claiming that Kerry's military record is garbage. His medals were fraudulent and he ducked out of the war as soon as he could. (Of course, let's not forget that these people are funded by some rather wealthy Republicans.) Meanwhile, the Bush administration won't endorse the attacks, but they won't put a stop to them, either. Apparently, any way to win is fine.

GAH AGAIN!

So anyway, I've been struggling to learn about the candidates while trying not to go insane from the bias. However, anyone that cares enough to write about politics cares enough to have an opinion about who the better candidate it. Therefore, everything you read seems to be one sided.

Well, I was talking about the election with a friend of mine and she sent me a link to a website:

http://www.presidentmatch.com/Main.jsp2?cp=main

The site takes you through a bunch of pages of questions and asks you how you feel about various issues (everything from abortion to gays in the military to economic policy). It doesn't take long and, in the end, it gives you a percentage that shows you how well your responses stack up against the opinions of the candidates.

That was all good and it really only reinforced what I already thought about the candidates, but I did find one part to be very enlightening. Rather than going through the whole questionnaire, you can simply see how their views compare to one another, side by side. (I'd recommend doing the questionnaire first to keep your responses from being biased.) In an effort to not bias anyone before doing this (in case anyone does), I won't say anything further. I'll just say that it was "eye-opening."

Well, enough about politics. Here's hoping that we make it through this election without Armageddon breaking out. Cheers, all.

Peace. I'm out.
Corey

Gridbag....Dude...

So, I doubt anyone out there will ever find this as funny as I did, but, check this out. If you've ever tried to program a GUI in Java (yeah, like everyone does that), you know just how this feels. Anyway, even if you can't identify exactly, it's still dang funny.

http://madbean.com/blog/2004/17/totallygridbag.html

Wisconsin Be Representin'!

So I managed to catch a bit of the Olympics last night (it seems to be about all I'm doing this week with Liz gone). Apparently, while I wasn't looking, Wisconsin has become an athletic powerhouse.

First, I was watching women's whitewater kayaking (yeah, I didn't realize that was an Olympic sport, either) and I spotted Rebecca Giddens, who hails from the whitewater mecca that is Green Bay. She nabbed the silver in slalom racing.

And late last night, I saw the men's all-around gymnastics competition. Well, the men's team has twin brothers on it, Paul and Morgan Hamm. These two boys hail from Ashland, Wisconsin. Paul even marked as one of his hobbies, playing Sheephead. That's my boy! Last night during the competiton, Paul fell flat on his can during the vault and scored a measly 9.137 (out of 10) and fell to 12th place after 4 of 6 events. Apparently, Wisconsinites don't go down easily. Paul dusted himself off (lots of chalk in gymnastics, you know) and proceeded to nail scores of 9.837 on both parallel bars and high bar to storm back and take the gold. Very cool.

So, now that we've talked about the sporting paradise that is Wisconsin, it's time for me to start rambling about various things that make me mad.

First of all, although this doesn't make me mad as much as I just found it to be quite funny, I have a story to shar staring none other than one of the whitest white guys on the planet, Bob Costas. With the Olympics being in Greece, there's all sorts of talk about the history of the Olympics and how this is a "return to home" for the Olympic games. I caught a late night story they had a reporter do about the venue for some of the track and field events at Olympia. It was very nicely done but, when it was over, they went back to Mr. Costas in the studio of Athens. At that point, from the mouth of Bob, I heard him say, "Props to you on a great piece of work." Props?!? Props!!! Is Bob trying to identify with his peeps in the hood? Next thing we know, he's going to change his name to Mr. C and start wearing some real bling bling. I tell you, this is the beginning of the end of Bob Costas as we know him. Apparently, Puff Daddy has claimed another.

Yeah, so I was going to go on a rant about cell phones (more about the idiots that have no sense on how to use one or when might be an appropriate time to use one), but that story about Bob just put a smile on my face and I now have no ambition to ruin my newfound good mood. Thanks, Bob. I needed that. :)

Atoms and Electrical Adapters

Hey folks,

Well, in case you haven't noticed (and I'm guessing you haven't), I've made a slight change to my blog. My blog is now Atom Enabled (actually, it always was, I just hadn't published the URL). So what does that mean? Well, for most of you, it probably means nothing at all.

Atom technology is just a standard for taking online content, such as my blog, and putting it into a standard format. That way, various applications can grab that content and read it. For example, I was just turned on to a little application called DesktopSidebar. That application can do a lot of things, but, most attractive to me, it can aggregate blogs from around the net into one place for me. When someone posts a new blog entry, I can easily see the new entry and jump to it without having to check half a dozen sites looking for new content. I haven't used it much yet, but it seems decent with a bit of configuration. It does take up a good chunk of desktop space, though. Anyway, in case you're interested, the link on the right side leads to my Atom stream (which sounds really cool - kinda like a proton pack).

So, that bit of geekiness aside, it was wonderful to see Packer football get underway this week. Granted, it was the preaseason and they got killed, but it's still good to see the green and gold back on the field.

I picked up another essential piece of equipment for our trip to Ireland (or I ordered it, at least). I had to order an electrical plug adapter so that I can plug in our battery charger for our digital camera while we're overseas. The current plan is to come back with a lot of pictures. :)

I wish I had more to say, but I don't. Liz has been out of town all week so it's been pretty lonely at home. For the most part, I just chill at home and get a little work done (laundry, wash my car, etc). Fortunately, I've had the Olympics to keep me entertained.

I suppose I'll be going for now. Take it easy, folks.

I'm All Alone...

Hey peeps,

I hope everyone had a good weekend. Liz and I kept busy, but it was nice not to have to travel. Friday night, we took off with a couple of Liz's co-workers toward the cities. Irish Fest was going on and Gaelic Storm was playing so we decided to head up there for the night.

What a sad excuse for a festival. How many hundreds of thousands of people live in the cities? Yet all they could muster for the festival was a few tents of overpriced Irish merchandise (of dubious origin) and a few food stands. There was, of course, one tiny stage on which they had bands playing slightly below average to truly heinous music all night. Fortunately, the band that played before Gaelic Storm was good and, of course, Storm was excellent. In the end, I suppose we got what we expected out of the trip - we went to see Gaelic Storm and they were fantabulous. What more could we ask for?

Saturday was quite low-key. Liz and I stayed in Rochester and visited the farmer's market and a nursery. As usual, Liz couldn't help herself and bought some plants.

And yesterday, my wife left me. :-( We got some yard work done in the morning but Liz flew out, headed for Austin, around 5:30. She'll be gone all week - getting back in on Saturday.

Certainly, I would have drowned my sorrows in plenty of Rum had it not been for Nate and an excellent game of excessively bloody Insta-Gib Capture the Flag in Unreal Tournament. Ah, good times.

So Nate and I were discussing it last night and now I'm bound and determined to get a game of cards going at some point. I brought it up a while back but, due to my extreme laziness, I've done nothing about it. I plan to send out e-mails soon to see if anyone would be interested in playing (most likely Sheephead at www.yahoo.com, but Texas Hold 'Em is a possibility, as well) and when they'd like to play.

Well, like I said before, I got some yard work done this weekend. I mowed the lawn yesterday and decided to put down some fertilizer. I was very careful to check the weather report to make sure we weren't going to get any rain for a few days. What did the weather say? No rain until Wednesday. Perfect. So I spent an hour or so putting fertilizer on the yard yesterday and guess what I woke up to this morning...a nice, cozy thunderstorm. Huzzah! Go weatherman! I want a job where I only need to be right about things about half the time. Go weatherman! You're the fortune-teller voodoo man of the new era!

I suppose I could ramble on forever (my wife usually says that I do), but I'm going to stop now. I need to go check on the state of flooding in the street.

Later, y'all,
Corey

Do You Believe In Miracles?

Well, even though it's been ages since Liz and I have sat down to watch a movie at home, we finally did last night. We pulled Miracle out of the plastic wrap (we've owned it for quite some time now) and watched it last night. Just as I had expected - excellent flick. Sometimes, things that really happened are so much better than anything you could imagine.

Lizzy and I have now finished booking all of our stays in Ireland. I called a couple more places this morning to finish things off. Here are the last additions to the places we'll be staying:

Cork - Lotamore House
Galway - Asgard Guest House

So, I guess, for the most part, we're pretty well set to go. Certainly, we need to take care of some other things (figuring out what we're going to do for money and travel, for one), but we've got the big stuff taken care of.

Personally, I'm really looking forward to getting to Kilkenny and meeting Yvonne. She seemed so nice on the phone. I'm actually quite happy that Kilkenny will be our first stop. We'll know nothing about the place and I'd like to have someone nice around to lend a hand.

Anyway, enough babbling. I'm out.

Top 'O The Mornin' To Ya

Well, this weekend was a bit interesting. Liz's sister, Sarah, came down on Friday night from Mankato and spent the night at our place. Saturday morning, we took off bright and early for Noah's Ark and Liz's grandpa's 80th birthday party.

It was in the mid 50's when we left and it rained just about all the way there. Needless to say, the weather was not conducive to water rides. We braved out a few of them, but there wasn't much action on the water slides. On the good side, though, the lines were short. :-)

The party was fun - it was nice to see a lot of Liz's family again. We spent the night at a hotel in the Dells and, by the next morning, we were back on the road and headed back to Rochester.

We didn't do much on Sunday night - just chilled out at the McGlone household. I think Nate and I played some Unreal Tournament online for a while.

I played some basketball on Monday after work. We didn't have many people show, but there was enough for some 2 on 2 ball, so we still had fun. After that, Liz and I sat around at home looking for places to stay in Ireland. It's hard to believe our trip is less than a month away now. It seems to be coming up fast.

Anyway, we came up with a bunch of places we'd be interested in staying and I sent out a gob of e-mails to these places on Monday night to see if they had rooms available. So, over the last few days, I've been sending and receiving gobs of e-mails from Ireland and, each morning, I get on the phone and make a few phone calls over there to book rooms.

So far, we have 4 places booked (out of 6 cities). We have places to stay in Kilkenny, Ennis, Belfast, and Dublin. We still need to find places to stay in Cork and Galway. Personally, I'm really looking forward to getting to the place we're staying at in Kilkenny. The woman I spoke to (and probably the owner) is a woman named Yvonne (a good Irish name if ever I've heard one) and she seems awfully nice. I think I'm going to enjoy meeting her.

Anyway, if you're interested, here are some of the places we'll be staying:

Kilkenny - Butler Court
Ennis - Newpark House
Belfast - The Old Inn
Dublin - George Frederic Handel Hotel

They look like nice places to stay. Hopefully, they'll turn out well.

Anyway, Liz is going to be awfully busy for the next month or so. She just got word this morning that she needs to fly down to Austin, Texas this weekend. She'll be spending a week down there at the IBM lab. Feel free to send me food. ;-)

When she gets back, we'll have about a week to get ready for our trip to Ireland and then we're off for a couple more weeks.

As soon as we return from Ireland, Liz will be hopping on yet another plane and flying out to New York for work. She needs to give a presentation to a bunch of folks out there about the work she's been doing.

When all is said and done, I'm sure we'll just be happy to be home together again.

I suppose that's about all for me. Take it easy, folks.

Anyone Know any Good Albums?

So, each day, I get up and take Liz to work. We usually get together for lunch and then I pick her up at the end of the day. Then, most nights, we're off to a soccer game or a softball game or some such place. All in all, I usually spend a little over an hour in my car every day. This would really not be such a big deal if the radio stations around here weren't so horrible.

Of all the radio stations in Rochester, there are only 2 that are worth listening to at all. Among those two, I can listen to the classic rock station that has a full track list of about 20 songs and, outside of some Zeppelin, Stones, and the Eagles, they don't play much that's interesting. The other station is the classic rock/new rock fusion station (every city has one). As usual, these channels have as many commercials and audio effects to exclaim what station you're listening to as they have music. The music is usually pretty good but only the chart-topping stuff makes it on air and their "new rock" is generally quite old. And, of course, in the mornings, they have to pipe out the syndicated version of the Bob & Tom show, which I usually find quite boring.

*Sigh*

So, in the end, I usually end up listening to my CD's instead of the radio. For Christmas, I had gotten Audioslave and Good Charlotte albums but I've listened to each one a hundred or more times. I recently picked up The Distillers new album, Coral Fang, as well. That one wasn't bad, but it's nothing to write home about.

Well, to make a very long story short, I need a new CD (or two). Anyone have any ideas? I've caught a bit of Evanescence lately and I have to admit that their lead singer, Amy Lee, has a great voice, but their latest album, Fallen, seems to be getting pretty mixed reviews. A consistent theme is that all of the tracks essentially sound the same. So I'm not entirely certain if I want to grab that album or just get a couple singles off iTunes.

Anyway, anyone know any really good albums to check out? Just let me know if you do.

National Night Out (In the Rain)

Hi all,

Yeah, so it's been a few days since I've written in my blog so let me try to recap a bit.

As you probably all know already, Liz and I were up in the cities this weekend for a nice weekend out on our own. It's was nice - we didn't have to drive a lot (the cities are just over an hour away) and we got to spend some time together.

We crashed at some hotel just south of Minneapolis and were there just long enough to drop our bags, watch part of the Simpsons (the one where Homer and Son start their own grease collecting business), and leave again. Ahh, yes - then we were in for the best part of the trip...driving downtown Minneapolis during rush hour. *Sigh*

Eventually (and I do mean eventually), we made it to the theatre and needed to find a bite to eat. A quick stop at Hard Rock Cafe and we were headed over to the show. Phantom is excellent - it was a great show. The story is very good and the performances were just outstanding. If you haven't seen it already (or even if you have), it would certainly be worth checking out if you ever get the chance. Liz and I also say Les Miserables when we were in Chicago a couple years ago and I seem to remember really liking that, too, but I can't remember much of it now.

Anyway, after the show, Liz and I decided we were a bit hungry so we went driving aimlessly for someplace that would still be open after 11. Well, after driving around blindly for a bit, we saw the light...our Holy Ground....Perkins! Now, the only problem was how to get to it. We could see it, but every time we tried to turn towards it, we ended up on a highway headed in the wrong direction. After about a half an hour of circling it, we made it to the pearly gates of that fine establishment (the gates weren't really pearly...wood, i think, but you get the idea). Of course, all I wanted was a piece of cheesecake and they were all out. Stupid Good-for-nothing Holy Perkins with no cheesecake. *Grumble*

With that aside, Liz and I headed over to the Minnesota Zoo the next morning. The Minnesota Zoo is really quite nice - it's almost more of a nature preserve than a zoo. The animals have a lot of room to roam and there are lots of paths that go right through the woods. As usual, my favorirtes were the giant cats - they're always the best. Of course, the dairy farm part of the zoo was rather entertaining, as well. I never thought I'd see such a thing as that in a zoo, but, sure enough, they had a full working farm (with all of 4 cows including a black and white named Daisy, no less) and even put on milking demonstrations every couple hours in their milking parlor so everyone could see how it was done. I really wanted to get some pictures of that so I could show everyone how a cow is milked, but the timing just didn't work out. Sorry Nate, you're on your own to figure out how to milk a cow.

Well, that was about it for our weekend. Now that I've written a ton and am getting a cramp in my right hand, I'll try to recap the week in a nutshell.

Monday was pretty low-key. I think Liz and I played some games online with Nate for a while.

Tuesday was National Night Out (never heard of it? I hadn't either until we moved to Rochester). Our neighbors, the Finnegans, always host a block party and everyone gets together for a cookout. Unfortunately, Liz and I had soccer practice that night and it rained. Well, the rain let up right about when practice started so we practiced and made it back just in time to catch the end of the party so we stopped over to say hi.

Last night was our soccer game. You'll be happy to know that we finally won a game, 2-0. I think that improves our record to 1-3-1. Huzzah!

Tonight is our final softball game of the season. I'm looking forward to being done and having a little less to do all the time. Especially with our trip to Ireland coming up, we could use a little extra time to make some plans.

Well, there's your recap. This weekend, Liz and I will be heading to Wisconsin Dells to celebrate Liz's grandpas 80th? birthday. I think most of the family will be there and we'll be going to Noah's Ark - Lazy River here I come!

Yeah, so that's enough for me. As you can tell, I've been meaning to post for a while now, but I've been so busy I haven't had time.

Ah, yes! Before I forget, you absolutely must check out Nate's first attempt at video editing. You can get a link to it right on his homepage (www.naterohan.com). I laughed so hard I think I might have strained something.

Later, y'all. I'm out.

Corey

40 million?!? Pashaw! Let's add a couple zeroes, shall we?

Is it just me, or has this NFL season (still in its infancy, I know) produced more money-grubbing babies than I've ever seen in the past? Certainly, we're all used to the free agent veterans "shopping around" (there are less polite terms but, for the sake of the general public, I'll refrain) for the best deals in the league. But what is up this year with all of the rookie holdouts? Eli Manning got a $45-54 million package and it seems that Rivers wants the same thing. The Packers finally got their first round pick into camp this morning and Roy Williams is finally headed to camp, but there are still a number of rookies holdouts around the league.

Granted, the salaries these players are paid are obscene to begin with, but what gets me is the fact that these players are totally untested, unproven commodities. The Giants just paid $45 million for a "chance" at a great quarterback. Ever heard of people like Tony Mandarich? Not all of these guys pan out.

On the flip side, I barely batted an eyelash when Payton Manning inked his $99 million contract that will average over $14 million a year. I just find it hard to swallow that these kids are holding out for this much money when no one even knows if they'll be able to play.