Gary Schare, my counterpart in Marketing, hosted a little poker party last night at his house. While we waited for people to show up, I shot a little pool with Max Stevens, a program manager on my team, and I shot a little pool. I suck at pool. This is despite having had a pool table for a few years.Max was nice enough not to gloat.

Turns out I suck at poker too. I haven't really played much, so I made a bunch of dumb mistakes including a mind-blower in the last hand. Fortunately, I won few big hands near the end of the night so it wasn't a total disaster, but I'm pretty sure I was the big loser of the evening.

I really do enjoy both pool and poker, so I guess I'll just have to get better at them or continue to enjoy losing. Anyway, fun night.

After having spent time in New Zealand and Disneyland in the last ten days, I am once again reminded that Americans are fat. Not just a little pudgy. Fat. Fat. Fat.

Every population has a distribution, but my God, there are a lot of incredibly huge Americans; what's more criminal is that there are literally tons of fat American kids. To heck with bird flu, AIDS, and lung cancer. Obesity is an American problem of seemingly epidemic proportions, one which we'll all wind up paying for through higher insurance rates and taxes (and airline fuel bills, etc.).

I have some theories about how this is all the government's fault, with all of the subsidies on corn and other agricultural commodities driving the price of calories to nothing, but at the end of the day, people control what they put their pie holes and how much they exercise.

'Nuff said.

Apparently, I've been wrong all these years. I'm evil. I guess all the people who say that I'm evil for working at Microsoft on Internet Explorer were right. The funny thing is, I'm the nice guy on the team. You should meet the others. The exception might be Chris Wilson who has managed to stay neutral, despite having worked on the browser way longer than I have.

Oh well. Guess I'll have to embrace the Dark Side and accept who I am.

(There is a potential bias in this test. The first question they ask is what browser you're running. I'm guessing that using IE didn't give me any nice points.)

How evil are you?

I went with some friends to Ozzie's Roadhouse this weekend for a few drinks a little karaoke. I love karaoke and am happy to get up an belt out a tune or two when the opportunity arises. That said, a little karaoke self-awareness would go a long way toward making the world a better place.

I had a few thoughts on the topic as I suffered through one drunken fool after another take the mike.

• Pitch matters. Enthusiasm doesn't compensate for lack of pitch. Drinking more doesn't either. Neither does having a lot of friends screaming with you.
• Know your limits. Even if you sing well, not all songs are for you.
• Know your role. Not everyone should be on stage. Some people were meant to be in the audience having a good time.

I'm not saying you need to be the next American Idol winner, but at least hit a few notes correctly...

I turned 38 today. This is not so bad, really. (39 will freak me out like 29 did, I suspect.)

What did bum me out was that I learned that despite my increased physical activity and weight-loss, I have a long way to go. First, I got my blood work back from my physical; cholesterol is a bit high. Then, I went and had my body fat hydrostatically tested at a mobile clinic that came by my health club. I knew it would be higher than it should be, but it was much higher than I expected. It was a bad 1-2 punch.

The only solace I can take I guess is that these numbers would have been worse had not already been working out. I've fallen a bit off my workout wagon lately with a busy work and family schedule, but I really need to focus more on my diet and be more diligent about strength training as well.

No chocolate and whisky tonight, I guess.

Last summer, you may recall that my colleagues broke two of my golf clubs accidently within 30 seconds of each other. Well, lightning struck again. While I was in Las Vegas playing golf with my parents (who retired there), I broke the head off my driver, sending it bouncing along the cart path. It's eight years old so I got my money's worth, but it was the one club I could pretty consistently hit so I'm a little sad.

After that, I did manage to hit my Dad's driver about 300 yards (downhill with the wind behind, no doubt), so that felt good (and made him a little angry...) I was actually hitting my irons very well (which never happens). I was hitting about a club longer than normal; I think this may be due to my improved physical condition, although it could just be because it's early in the season, so I haven't messed up my swing yet.

Anyway, time to get a new driver.

I'm back from a great MIX06 in Las Vegas. My liver is OK again, and I'm mostly caught up on sleep. I have a bunch of stuff to blog this weekend. Stay tuned.

I'm working on an average of three hours of sleep a night for the past week as I get ready for the MIX06 conference next week. I'm having a hard time staying focused; every bright shiny object that comes by distracts me. Last night around 2:00am, I started hallucinating. Cool.

The show will be cool, but I can't wait for it to be over.

See you in Las Vegas!

I was sad to see that Kirby Puckett passed away yesterday. Kirby was a great baseball player who played for the Minnesota Twins while I lived in Minnesota. I loved watching him play live and on TV. I especially remember cheering the Twins on through two World Series wins after I left Minnesota. Kirby simply loved the game and played with a ton of heart and even more hustle. The game has lost a great player.

This little gem has been making its way around the office. There's more truth here than I care to admit.

The Pacific Northwest According to Jeff Foxworthy

1. You know the state flower (Mildew)

2. You feel guilty throwing aluminum cans or paper in the trash.

3. Use the statement "sun break" and know what it means.

4. You know more than 10 ways to order coffee.

5 You know more people who own boats than air conditioners.

6. You feel overdressed wearing a suit to a nice restaurant.

7. You stand on a deserted corner in the rain waiting for the "Walk" Signal.

8. You consider that if it has no snow or has not recently erupted, it is not a real mountain.

9. You can taste the difference between Starbucks, Seattle's Best, and Veneto's.

10. You know the difference between Chinook, Coho and Sockeye salmon.

11. You know how to pronounce Sequim, Puyallup, Issaquah, Oregon,
Yakima and Willamette.

12. You consider swimming an indoor sport.

13. You can tell the difference between Japanese, Chinese and Thai food.

14. In winter, you go to work in the dark and come home in the dark
- while only working eight-hour days.

15. You never go camping without waterproof matches and a poncho.

16. You are not fazed by "Today's forecast: showers followed by rain,"
and "Tomorrow's forecast: rain followed by showers."

17. You have no concept of humidity without precipitation

18. You know that Boring is a town in Oregon and not just a state of mind.

19. You can point to at least two volcanoes, even if you cannot see
through the cloud cover.

20. You notice, "The mountain is out" when it is a pretty day and you can actually see it.

21. You put on your shorts when the temperature gets above 50, but
still wear your hiking boots and parka.

22. You switch to your sandals when it gets about 60, but keep the socks on.

23. You have actually used your mountain bike on a mountain.

24. You think people who use umbrellas are either wimps or tourists.

25. You buy new sunglasses every year, because you cannot find the old
ones after such a long time.

26. You measure distance in hours.

27. You often switch from "heat" to "a/c" in the same day.

28. You design your kid's Halloween costume to fit under a
raincoat.

29. You know all the important seasons: Almost Winter, Winter,
Still Raining (Spring), Road Construction (Summer), Deer &Elk season
(Fall).

30. You actually understood these jokes and will probably forward them!

OK, well, I blogged about them instead. Save an email. Use RSS.

(I just showed the list to Michelle. There were some of these that were so true that she didn't even realize why they might be funny until she thought about it for a while.)

Thanks to Jon for sendng this to me.