Eric James Stone

If your browser cooperates, you can see a picture of me in the right column that was taken today at work.

You can also click here and here.

BYU’s offense has been just plain bad this year. If Berry hadn’t broken his hand, things might have turned out differently as he got more experience. But the number of turnovers has been ridiculous.

BYU will be lucky to win another game out of their two remaining. Which means a second straight losing season.

…the snowflakes are falling like ash from a wildfire that produces ash that falls like snowflakes.

OK, maybe that wasn’t the best simile in the world.

But it is snowing.

Since Eagle Mountain is so far from civilization that I can’t get regular TV reception, I have Dish Network. My satellite receiver doubles as a digital video recorder, so I have timers set to record all my shows so I can watch them at my leisure.

I discovered today that, while the program guide had adjusted to the lack of Daylight Saving Time, my timers had not, so they were all off by an hour.

That meant I had recorded Smallville instead of Angel.

Fortunately, I get the WB from four time zones, so I was able to catch a later showing.

But I had to go through and reprogram all my timers. So I thought that would make a good excuse for blogging a list of the shows I watch:

• Angel — A spinoff of Buffy the Vampire Slayer
  
• Star Trek: Enterprise — The fifth Star Trek series (sixth, if you count the animated series, which I generally don’t)
  
• Law & Order — The only time I wish I were practicing law
  
• C.S.I. — It’s got crime, scenes, and investigators
  
• The Amazing Race (when it’s on) — My sister Julie got me into this show
  
• Tru Calling — OK, I actually haven’t watched this show yet, except for a few minutes of a bootleg copy off the internet, but it stars Eliza Dushku, who played Faith on Buffy, so I’m going to give it a try. (Although part of me wants it to fail, so she’ll do a Faith TV series.)
  

Wednesday is the big TV night for me, with Angel, Enterprise, and Law & Order.

I’ve really cut down on the TV watching over the years. Five years ago I probably watched more than three hours of TV every night. I guess I’ve just gotten lazy about it, and haven’t made an effort to pick up new shows when old ones finish.

• If you’re ever at the Luxor Hotel and get a chance to see an Imax 3-D movie called The Haunted Castle — don’t. While the computer-generated graphics are well done from a technical standpoint, the 3 D’s stand for Dumb, Dumb, and Dumb.
  
• Hint for ticket scalpers: If a football game is not sold out and has already started, you’re not going to get more than face value for tickets, so don’t even try.
  
• The Palace Station all-you-can-eat brunch buffet is both good and cheap, which means you may have to stand in line for things. And they don’t offer chocolate milk.
  
• The Sahara all-you-can-eat brunch buffet is a little more expensive than Palace Station. The food is about the same quality. And on a Saturday morning, it’s about as deserted as, well, a desert. Basically no waiting. But they don’t offer chocolate milk.
  
• The MGM Grand all-you-can-eat brunch buffet is more expensive than the Sahara’s. If Eggs Benedict isn’t classy enough for you, and you want Salmon Eggs Benedict (No, it is not made with salmon eggs), then this is the place for you. Plus, they have chocolate milk.
  
• Chocolate milk is good, isn’t it?
  
• Let’s say you’re in charge of seating at a busy restaurant at a casino. (“You’re in charge of seating at a busy restaurant at a casino.”) A party of ten arrives, followed by a party of two and several other small parties. Would you force everyone to wait until you can finally seat the party of ten in the smoking section, even though you have tables free in the non-smoking section that can seat the smaller parties? If you answered “Yes” to that question, you’re qualified for a job as hostess at the Caravan Cafe in the Sahara Hotel. I was in the party of two right behind the party of ten, and waited for half an hour to then be seated at a table that had been open for at least ten minutes.
  
• I mean, it’s got that sweet chocolately flavor, and yet it has all that protein and calcium that are good for you.
  
• Speed: The Ride is a great roller-coaster. (It’s at the Sahara.) But it’s probably best to ride it in the morning or at night, because the afternoon sun ended up being almost blinding on parts of the ride.
  
• The Shark Reef exhibit at the Mandalay Bay is very interesting, even if the emphasis on environmental propaganda is a bit much sometimes.
  
• Sharks are cool.
  
• Why do some all-you-can-eat buffets (e.g., MGM Grand, Palace Station) insist on having a waitperson bring you your drinks? If I’m thirsty, I don’t want to wait for drinks to be brought to me. (If I wait for a waiter, does that make me a waiter waiter?)
  
• If you’re a shark in an aquarium stocked with exotic coral-reef fish, the upside is that it must be like an all-you-can-eat buffet. The downside: no chocolate milk.
  
• A guy sitting next to Scott and me at the BYU-UNLV game was cheering for BYU. Not because he went to BYU. Not because he was LDS. Not because he hated UNLV. Because he bet on BYU to beat the spread.
  
• I bet you thought that I was going to mention a certain flavored dairy beverage in this bullet point. Well, you were wrong.
  
• But chocolate milk is good, isn’t it?
  

Dallas Cowboys: Well, it was fun while it lasted.

BYU: Does a win mean they’re back? Three tough games ahead (Boise State, Notre Dame, Utah), and they need to win two out of three just to avoid a second straight losing season. Can they do it? Yes. Will they? Ummmm. Not real confident here.

Klingon Warriors: My fantasy football team remained atop the league with another win and the high score of the week. But next week I face the only other 6-2 team, and I have to do it without my starting running backs, Priest Holmes and Travis Henry, both of whom have byes.

I’m blogging from a pay-per minute internet terminal in the lobby of the Sahara hotel in Las Vegas. Just got back from the BYU-UNLV game. Comeback victory in OT. There were a lot of BYU fans there, and it was great to se BYU pull it off at the end.

With the server problems earlier in the week, I didn’t do my usuall football wrapup.

BYU? Bah!

Dallas Cowboys? Yee-haw! At 5-1, they equal the number of wins each of the last two seasons, and they’ve only played six games, not sixteen.

My fantasy team, the Klingon Warriors? Back to their rightful place at the top of the league.

Well, I took my car to a tire store to see what could be done.

The tire with a slow leak had an inch-and-a-half nail in it. The completely flat tire had a tear about two inches long in it, with no sign of what caused it.

Since both problems were caused by external damage to the tires, I guess I can’t really blame B.F. Goodrich. I’m just surprised that after years of not having this sort of thing happen, it’s happened twice in the last couple of months.

Of course, tire damage like that is not covered under the warranty.

Now, here’s the good part:

I was looking for a tire store that sold B.F. Goodrich tires, so that I could get service under the warranty. I stopped off at a tire shop near work, Champion Tire & Auto (1549 N State St. in Orem.)

The guy behind the counter told me that, if the tires needed to be replaced under the warranty, they could do that. But why not check first to see if they could be repaired?

They then proceeded to fix both the flat tire and the slow leaker — and they did it for free.

That’s a store that’s good at customer relations. When the warranty finally does run out on these tires, where do you think I’ll go to buy new ones?

If you’ve read about my trip to Vegas, it will not surprise you to hear that I had a flat tire this morning.

What will surprise you is that it wasn’t the tire with the slow leak (front driver’s-side). It’s the rear passenger-side tire.

I am really annoyed about this. The whole reason I bought a new car was so I wouldn’t have to deal with car hassles.

I only have 11,000 miles on this car. I should not be having problems with tires. In the five years I owned my Geo Prizm, I had two problems with tires; both of them after the warranty on the tires had expired. I still have 19,000 miles to go before I should have to worry about getting new tires.

Did I mention I was annoyed by this?