Although I wish I had a bushel of that at 45.00 a share, I was thinking about the business implications and how others are affected by this five-year contract. A handful of good games are going to suffer from this.

Midway Games was mentioned in this article as having a bit of foresight on the EA-NFL deal. (Also mentioned in more detail here.) A non-NFL licensed football game that involves drug use and off-the-field habits sounds like a good alternative to EA's oh-so-clean Madden, so long as you don't mind if you aren't Payton Manning or wearing a certain team's jerseys.

Options are good. Way to go Midway for being ready for the Microsoft-like move that EA and the NFL pulled on everyone.

So besides the stock market's rising and the game company stuff, today's flown by.

It probably helps that I had a holiday luncheon from 11:30 until 1:30. It was at a local crab house, so there were slim picking on the food there that I couldn't eat. I ended up with ceaser salad and some pasta.

And since I'd blown the whole vegan thing for that meal, I went ahead and got a half slice of cheesecake and a half slice of key lime pie. These both were listed in my 101 in 1001 list, so I let the birds meet the stone and crossed them off.

Earlier this evening there was a huge rally around the state building. I'm 38 floors up, and I could hear them yelling below. I ended up staying a little late this evening (which isn't indicated by the timestamp here, as I've taken an hour-long phone call from my dad and am obviously no longer working), so I missed all of the hub-bub.

I've always found protests quite annoying. I understand that you want to show that you have support for your cause, but making the city send police and escorts because you've blocked traffic costs the city money. And being a tax payer, I'm against the actions that cost more than they should have to.

So really. Be organized with your protests, choose a location that can accommodate you and your fellow sign-carriers, and don't cause any trouble. My taxes are already high enough.

It's getting damn late, so I need to get outta here. Have a good night everyone, hug a violent footballer, eat some cake, and stay outta the streets.�