Well, I hate to reference a post made by Chuckles [maybe if we ignore himn enough -- like Fulsome -- he'll go away] but today I can finally rest easily in my nerd pedigree.  As I was troubleshooting some systems at work that went down due to the nor’easter this weekend, I had to make sure one of our old analog modems/phone lines was up.

So I dial the modem’s phone number and it picks up (I’m logged into the computer so I can actually see it say ‘ring’ on the screen).  I decide that instead of just calling it a day and hanging up that I’ll start making weird noises into the phone, you know, to try to establish connectivity.

Well, after a good 30 seconds of me making ridiculous sounds, I actually managed to establish a connection with the modem at a blazing fast 1200 baud.  I was then able to make random characters show up in HyperTerminal.  It was freakin’ sweet.

I can now officially laugh knowingly at the “you know you’re a nerd when … ” that involves being able to communicate with a modem. Score!

In addition to certain unnamed projects to which I will only refer cryptically, I am eagerly looking forward to any news about the film production of World War Z. The book was amazing and awesome and so many other words and now that I have heard that the script is being written by Mr. Babylon 5, J. Michael Straczynski, I am in full on pants-checking anticipatory mode.

The Zombie Survival Guide was really damn neat and thoroughly consistent in ways that I enjoy when reading books or watching movies. World War Z kept that consistency and tossed in a heaping helping of emotion and tension. It was sweeter than a pile of ponies ridden by baby pandas, but if sweet meant super rad and not like the kind of sweet that seems to have infected 3 Bulls of late.

Ok, I normally don’t talk about this (or even really think about it) but over the weekend I won my Fantasy Baseball championship for the second year in a row. Now, this isn’t that hardcore of a league and last year’s was even less so, but I have to say that there are certain reasons I am relishing my victory.

First, the only moves I made all season was to pick up Al Leiter after he went to the Yankees and to trade Manny Ramirez away at the beginning of the season for Kerry Wood and Barry Bonds. Neither of those moves really helped me … at all. For the total for the season though, the system shows that I only made 1 move. My opponent in the championship game had made 23.

I wasn’t even present at the draft where the computer ended up automatically picking my players for me. Then, I didn’t really keep track of stats or anything that much and just kind of let my guys play.

Somehow though, I managed to make it into the playoffs (I was in 6th place). From there I slowly beat my way to the championship game (week). After the end of the first week, I was losing 12 -2 in the stats and I was sure I was going to lose (in fact I forgot that the final matchup was for 2 weeks so I really did think I’d lost). The second week though, my boys really pulled it out for me and I managed to come back and win the series 9 - 4.

I guess the lesson here is let the computer do your draft for you and don’t make any moves, that way you’ll be sure to win your fantasy baseball league (unless everyone is using that same strategy, then I don’t know how that works out).